__SERIES__
COLLECTED WORKS
OF V. I. LENIN
[2]
~
[3]
__TITLE__
V. I. LENIN
NEW YORK
INTERNATIONAL PUBLISHERS
CONTENTS Preface
ARTICLES AND SPEECHES FROM JANUARY, 1916 TO JUNE, 1916
Opportunism and the Collapse of the Second International 15
Speech Delivered at an International Meeting in
Berne, February 8, 1916 28
The Tasks of the Opposition in France. 31
Have the O.C. and the Chkheidze Fraction a Policy
of Their Own? 35
Peace Without Annexations and the Independence of
Poland as Slogans of the Day in Russia 41
Wilhelm Kolb and George Plekhanov 45
The Socialist Revolution and the Right of Nations to
Self-Determination (Theses)
47"6°
Imperialism, Socialism and the Liberation of Oppressed Nations 47
The Socialist Revolution and the Struggle for Democracy 48
The Meaning of the Right to Self-Determination and its Relation to Federation 50
6 __RUNNING_HEADER__ CONTENTSThe Proletarian-Revolutionary Presentation of the Question of the Self-Determination of Nations 51
Marxism and Proudhonism on the National Question 53
Three Types of Countries in Relation to Self-- Determination of Nations 54
Social-Chauvinism and Self-Determination of Nations 55
The Concrete Tasks of the Proletariat in the Immediate Future 57
The Attitude of Russian and Polish Social-Democracy and of the Second International to Self-- Determination 58
The "Peace Programme" 61
Proposals Submitted by the Central Committee of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party to the Second Socialist Conference 68
German and Non-German Chauvinism 77
IMPERIALISM, THE HIGHEST STAGE OF CAPITALISM ~
Preface to the Russian Edition 83
Preface to the French and German Editions 85
Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism 91-196
Concentration of Production and Monopolies 92
The Banks and Their New Role 105
Finance Capital and Financial Oligarchy 121
The Export of Capital 135
7The Division of the World Among Capitalist Combines 140
The Division of the World Among the Great Powers 148
Imperialism as a Special Stage of Capitalism 159
The Parasitism and Decay of Capitalism 169
The Critique of Imperialism 178
The Place of Imperialism in History 191
ARTICLES AND SPEECHES FROM AUGUST, 1916 TO DECEMBER, 1916
The Pamphlet by Junius 199
A Caricature of Marxism and "Imperialist
Economism"
214-263
The Marxian Attitude Towards War and "Defence
of the Fatherland"
215 "Our Conception of the New Epoch"
222 What is Economic Analysis?
226 The Example of Norway
234 "Monism and Dualism"
241 Other Political Questions Touched Upon and Distorted by P. Kievsky
250 Conclusion: Alexinsky's Method 262
Letter to N. D. Kiknadze ' 264
The Discussion on Self-Determination Summed Up 267-305
Socialism and the Self-Determination of Nations 268
Is Democracy ``Feasible'' Under Imperialism? 272
What Are Annexations? 274
8For or Against Annexations? 277
Why is Social-Democracy Opposed to Annexations? 281
Can the Colonies Be Contrasted with ``Europe'' in
This Question? 283
Marxism or Proudhonism? 286
The Particular and the General in the Position of the
Dutch and Polish Internationalist Social Democrats 293
Engels' Letter to Kautsky 298
The Irish Rebellion of 1916 299
Conclusion 304
Letter to A. G. Shlyapnikov 306
Speech at the Congress of the Social-Democratic Party
of Switzerland, November 4, 1916 311
On Separate Peace 314
Ten ``Socialist'' Ministers! 322
The Chkheidze Fraction and its Role 325
``The Youth International" (A Review) 329
Efforts to Whitewash Opportunism 333
Imperialism and the Split in the Socialist Movement 337
The ``Disarmament'' Slogan 352
The Military Programme of the Proletarian Revolution 362
The Tasks of the Left Zimmerwaldists in the SocialDemocratic Party of Switzerland 373-3^4
Attitude Towards the War and Towards the Bourgeois Government in General . 373
9The High Cost of Living and the Intolerable Economic Conditions of the Masses 375
The Particularly Urgent Democratic Reforms and Utilisation of the Political Struggle and Parliamentarism 377
The Immediate Tasks of Party Propaganda, Agitation and Organisation 379
The International Tasks of the Swiss Social-- Democrats 382
ARTICLES AND SPEECHES FROM JANUARY, 1917 TO MARCH, 1917
Lecture on the 1905 Revolution 387
Bourgeois Pacifism and Socialist Pacifism 405-422
The Turn in World Politics 405
The Pacifism of Kautsky and Turati 409
The Pacifism of the French Socialists and Syndicalists 414
Zimmerwald at the Crossroads 419
A Turn in World Politics 423
To the Workers Who Support the Struggle Against the War and Against the Socialists Who Have Deserted to the Side of Their Governments 432
An Open Letter to Charles Naine, Member of the International Socialist Committee in Berne 439
A Letter to A. M. Kollontai 448
Explanatory Notes 455
[10] Translated by
MOISSAYE J. OLGIN
Edited by
ALEXANDER TRACHTENBERG
International Publishers undertook in 1927 the translation and publication o£ the Collected Wor^s of V. I. Lenin, considering his writings of great historical value and of interest to students of philosophy, economics, politics, and the labor movement. Only five volumes (rv, xin, xvm, xx, xxi) were published in that series. However, twelve volumes of Selected Worlds, representing approximately one-third of the extent of Lenin's literary heritage, were also issued during the intervening years.
With the issuance of the present volume, International Publishers resumes the publication of the Collected Worlds, thus continuing the original plan of making available in the English language the complete collection of Lenin's writings and speeches, including his correspondence, government decrees prepared by him, as well as drafts and notes of valuable material, hitherto unpublished.
Volume XIX contains the writings covering the full year of 1916 and the first quarter of 1917---the mid-part of the first World War period and the eve of the overthrow of tsarism and of America's entrance into the war. The feature of this volume is Lenin's basic study of imperialism, written during the first half of 1916 and published in book form after Lenin's return to Russia in April, 1917. Articles dealing with the major European countries involved in the war, the national question, problems of the working-class movement, and many other important questions---most of them published for the first time in English---should contribute to a fuller understanding of that eventful period in world history.
The original translation of this volume was made by the talented critic and editor, M. J. Olgin, who also aided in the translation of other volumes in this series before his untimely death in 1940.
January, 1942
[12] ~ [13] __ALPHA_LVL1__ ARTICLES AND SPEECHESHAS the Second International really ceased to exist? Its most authoritative representatives, like Kautsky and Vandervelde, stubbornly deny it. Their point of view is that nothing has happened except the rupture of relations; everything is as it should be.
To get to the truth of the matter, we will turn to the Manifesto of the Basle Congress of igi2,^^2^^ which applies precisely to the present imperialist World War and was accepted by all the Socialist Parties of the world. It should be noted that not a single Socialist dares, in theory, to deny the necessity of making a concrete, historical appraisal .of every war.
Now that war has broken out, neither the avowed opportunists nor the Kautskyists dare repudiate the Basle Manifesto or compare the conduct of the Socialist Parties during the war with the demands contained in it. Why? Because the Manifesto completely exposes both.
There is not a single word in the Basle Manifesto about defence of the fatherland, nor about the difference between a war of aggression and a war of defence, nor a single word about what the opportunists and Kautskyists~^^*^^ of Germany and of the Triple Alliance are shouting to the world at all the crossroads. The Manifesto could not contain anything of this nature, because what it does say absolutely excludes the application of such concepts. The Manifesto very concretely refers to the series of economic and political conflicts which for decades had prepared the ground for the present war, conflicts which became quite apparent in 1912, and which brought about the war in 1914. The Manifesto recalls the _-_-_
^^*^^ This refers not to the personal followers of Kautsky in Germany, but to the international type of pseudo-Marxists who vacillate between opportunism and radicalism, but in reality serve only as a fig-leaf for opportunism.
16 __RUNNING_HEADER__ ARTICLES, SPEECHES---JAN.-JUNE, 1916 Russo-Austrian conflict for "hegemony in the Balkans"; the conflicts between "England, France and Germany" (between all these countries!) over their "policy of conquest in the Near East"; the Austro-Italian conflict over the "striving to dominate" in Albania, etc. In short, the Manifesto defines all these conflicts as conflicts which had arisen on the basis of "capitalist imperialism." Thus, the Manifesto very clearly formulates the predatory, imperialist, reactionary, slave-owner character of the present war, i.e., a character which makes the admissibility of defending the fatherland nonsensical in theory and absurd in practice. A struggle is going on among big sharks who want to gobble up other people's " fatherlands." The Manifesto draws the inevitable conclusions from undisputed historical facts, viz., the war "cannot be justified by the slightest pretext of being in the interest of the people"; that it is being prepared for "in the interests of the profits of the capitalists and the ambitions of dynasties." It would be a ``crime'' if the workers began to "shoot at each other," says the Manifesto.The epoch of capitalist imperialism is the epoch of ripe and overripe capitalism, which is on the eve of collapse, which is sufficiently ripe to make way for socialism. The period between 1789 and 1871 was the epoch of progressive capitalism, when the tasks of overthrowing feudalism and absolutism, and of liberation from the foreign yoke were on the order of the day of history. On these grounds, and on these alone, "defence of the fatherland," i.e., struggle against oppression, was permissible. This term would be applicable even now in a war against imperialist Great Powers; but it would be absurd to apply it in a war among the imperialist Great Powers, to a war to determine who will be able to rob the Balkan countries, Asia Minor, etc., most. It is not surprising, therefore, that the ``Socialists'' who advocate "defence of the fatherland" in the present war shun the Basle Manifesto as a thief shuns the place where he has committed a theft. The Manifesto proves that they are socialchauvinists, i£., Socialists in words, but chauvinists in deeds, who are helping "their own" bourgeoisie to rob other countries, to enslave other nations. The quintessence of the term ``chauvinism'' is precisely defence of "one's own" fatherland even when it is striving to enslave other people's fatherlands.
The recognition of the war as a war for national liberation leads 17 __RUNNING_HEADER__ COLLAPSE OF SECOND INTERNATIONAL to the adoption of one set of tactics; its recognition as an imperialist war leads to the adoption of another set of tactics. The Manifesto clearly points to the latter. The war, it says, "will lead to an economic and political crisis," which must be "utilised," not to mitigate the crisis, not to defend the fatherland, but, on the contrary, to "shake up" the masses, to "accelerate the abolition of capitalist class rule." It is impossible to accelerate something for which the historic conditions have not ripened. The Manifesto declared that the social revolution was possible, that the prerequisites for it had ripened, that it would break out precisely in connection with war. Referring to the examples of the Paris Commune and the Revolution of 10.05 in Russia, i.e., to the examples of mass strikes and of civil war, the Manifesto declares that "the ruling classes" fear "a proletarian revolution following as a result of a world war." To say, as Kautsky does, that the Socialist attitude to the present war was not defined, is a lie. This question was not only discussed, but decided in Basle, where the tactics of revolutionary proletarian mass struggle were adopted.
To ignore the Basle Manifesto in its entirety, or its most essential parts, and instead to quote the speeches of leaders, or the resolutions passed by certain parties, which, in the first place, preceded the Basle Congress, secondly, were not the decisions of the parties of the whole world, and thirdly, referred to various possible wars, but not to the present war, is just sheer hypocrisy. The kernel of the question is the fact that the epoch of national wars of the European Great Powers has been superseded by an epoch of imperialist wars among the Great Powers, and that the Basle Manifesto for the first time had to recognise this fact officially.
It would be a mistake to assume that the Basle Manifesto cannot be interpreted as being merely a solemn declaration or a pompous threat. That is how those whom the Manifesto exposes would like to interpret it. But it is not true. The Manifesto is but the result of the great propaganda work carried on throughout the entire epoch of the Second International; it is but a summary of all that the Socialists have disseminated among the masses in the hundreds of thousands of speeches, articles and manifestoes they have delivered and written in all languages. It merely repeats what Jules Guesde, for example, wrote in 1899, when he castigated Socialist 18 ministerialism in time of war: he wrote of war called forth by the "capitalist pirates" (En Garde!, p. 175) ;^^3^^ it merely repeats what Kauts%y wrote in 1908 in his Road to Power, where he admitted that the ``peaceful'' epoch was coming to an end and that the epoch of wars and revolutions was beginning. To represent the Basle Manifesto as a mere collection of phrases, or as a mistake, is tantamount to regarding the whole of the work that Socialists have carried on for the last twenty-five years as a collection of phrases, or a mistake. The contradiction between the Manifesto and its non-application is so intolerable for the opportunitists and Kautskyists for the very reason that it reveals the profound contradictions in the work of the Second International. The relatively ``peaceful'' character of the period between 1871 and 1914 first of all fostered opportunism as a mood, then as a trend, and finally, as a group or stratum of the labour bureaucracy and petty-bourgeois fellow travellers. These elements were able to subordinate the labour movement to themselves only by recognising, in words, revolutionary aims and revolutionary tactics. They were able to win the confidence of the masses only by solemnly vowing that all this ``peaceful'' work was but preparation for the proletarian revolution. This contradiction was an abscess which had to burst some day, and it has burst. The whole question is: is it necessary to try, as Kautsky and Co. are doing, to reinject the pus into the organism for the sake of ``unity'' (with the pus), or whether, in order to bring about the complete recovery of the organism of the labour movement, to remove the pus as quickly and as thoroughly as possible, notwithstanding the acute pain temporarily caused by the process.
The betrayal of Socialism by those who voted for war credits, entered Cabinets and advocated defence of the fatherland in 1914-15 is obvious. Only hypocrites can deny it. This betrayal must be explained.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ IIIt would be absurd to regard the whole question as one of personalities. What has opportunism to do with it, when men like Plefyanov and Guesde, etc.?---asks Kautsky (Neue Zeit, May 18, 19 1915).^^4^^ What has opportunism to do with it, when Kauts^y? etc.? ---replies Axelrod in the name of the opportunists of the Triple Alliance (Die Krise der Sozialdemo^ratie, Zurich, 1915, p. 21). All this is a farce. To explain the crisis of the whole movement it is necessary, firstly, to examine the economic significance of a given policy; secondly, the ideas underlying it; and thirdly, its connection with the history of the various trends in Socialism.
What is the economic nature of the theory of national defence in the war of 1914-15? The bourgeoisie of all the Great Powers are waging the war for the purpose of partitioning and exploiting the world, for the purpose of oppressing other nations. A few crumbs of the huge profits of the bourgeoisie may fall to the share of a small circle of the labour bureaucracy, the labour aristocracy and the petty-bourgeois fellow travellers. The class basis of socialchauvinism and of opportunism is the same, namely, the alliance between a thin stratum of privileged workers and ``their'' national bourgeoisie against the masses of the working class; the alliance between the lackeys of the bourgeoisie and the bourgeoisie against the class the latter is exploiting.
Opportunism and social-chauvinism have the same political content, namely, class collaboration, repudiation of the dictatorship of the proletariat, repudiation of revolutionary action, unconditional recognition of bourgeois legality, lack of confidence in the proletariat, confidence in the bourgeoisie. Social-chauvinism is the direct continuation and consummation of English liberal-labour policy, of Millerandism and Bernsteinism.
The struggle between the two main trends in the labour movement, between revolutionary Socialism and opportunist Socialism, fills the entire epoch from 1889 to 1914. At the present time also, in every country, there are two main trends which diverge on the question of the attitude to be taken towards the war. Let us not resort to the bourgeois and opportunist mode of referring to personalities. Let us take the trends observed in a number of countries. Let us take ten European countries: Germany, England, Russia, Italy, Holland, Sweden, Bulgaria, Switzerland, Belgium and France. In the first eight countries the division into opportunists and radicals corresponds to the division into social-chauvinists and internationalists. In Germany the Sozialistische Monatshejte and 20 Legien and Co. serve as the strongholds of social-chauvinism; and England it is the Fabians and the Labour Party^^5^^ (the I.L.P.^^6^^ has always been in alliance with the latter, it supported their organ, and in this alliance it was always weaker than the social-chauvinists, whereas in the B.S.P.^^7^^ the internationalists form three-sevenths of the membership); in Russia this trend is represented by Nasha Zarya (now Nashe Dyelo), by the Organisation Committee,^^8^^ and by the Duma fraction~^^*^^ under Chkheidze's leadership; in Italy it is represented by the reformists with Bissolati at their head; in Holland by Troelstra's party; in Sweden by the majority of the Party led by Branting; in Bulgaria by the so-called ``broad'' Socialists; in Switzerland by Greulich and Co. On the other hand, in all these countries we have heard from the opposite, radical camp, a more or less consistent protest against social-chauvinism. Only two countries foim an exception, France and Belgium, where internationalism exists, but is very weak.
Social-chauvinism is consummated opportunism. It is opportunism that has ripened for an open, often vulgar alliance with the bourgeoisie and the General Staffs.
It is this alliance that gives it great power and the monopoly of the legal printed word for deceiving the masses. It is absurd at the present time to regard opportunism as a phenomenon within our Party. It is absurd to think of carrying out the Basle resolution in conjunction with David, Legien, Hyndman, Plekhanov and Webb. Unity with the social-chauvinists means unity with one's ``own'' national bourgeoisie, which exploits other nations; it means splitting the international proletariat. This does not mean that an immediate breach with the opportunists is possible everywhere; it means only that historically this breach has matured; that it is necessary and inevitable for the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat; that history, which has led us from ``peaceful'' capitalism to imperialist capitalism, has prepared the way for this rupture. Volentem ducunt fata, nolentem trahunt.^^**^^ _-_-_
^^*^^ From the German parliamentary term, fraction.---Ed.
^^**^^ The fates lead the willing, drag the unwilling.---Ed.
[21] __ALPHA_LVL3__ IIIThe shrewd representatives of the bourgeoisie understand this perfectly. That is why they are so lavish in their praise of the present Socialist Parties, headed by the "defenders of the fatherland," i.e., defenders of imperialist robbery. That is why the governments reward the social-chauvinist leaders either with ministerial posts (in France and England), or with a monopoly of unhindered legal existence (in Germany and Russia). That is why in Germany, where the Social-Democratic Party was the strongest and where its transformation into a national-liberal counter-revolutionary labour party has been most obvious, things have got to the stage where the state prosecutor regards the struggle between the ``minority'' and the ``majority'' as "incitement to class hatred"! That is why the clever opportunists are concerned most of all with the preservation of the former ``unity'' of the old parties which rendered such great service to the bourgeoisie in 1914-15. The views of these opportunists of all countries of the world were expounded with a frankness worthy of gratitude by a member of German Social-Democracy in an article signed ``Monitor'' which appeared in April 1915, in the reactionary magazine Preussische Jahrbucher. Monitor thinks that it would be very dangerous for the bourgeoisie if Social-Democracy moved still further to the Eight.
``It [Social-Democracy] must preserve its character as a labour party with socialist ideals; for on the very day it gives this up a new party will arise, which will adopt the abandoned programme in a more radical formulation." (Preussische Jahrbucher, 1915, No. 4, p. 51.)
Monitor hits the nail on the head. This is exactly what the English Liberals and the French Radicals have always wanted---- revolutionary-sounding phrases for the purpose of deceiving the masses, for the purpose of inducing them to place their trust in the Lloyd Georges, the Sembats, the Renaudels, the Legiens, and the Kautskys, in the men capable of preaching "defence of the fatherland" in a predatory war.
But Monitor represents only one variety of opportunism: the open, crude, cynical variety. The others act in a stealthy, subtle, ``honest'' manner. Engels once said that ``honest'' opportunists are 22 the most dangerous for the working class... .fl Here is one example: Kautsky, in the Neue Zeit (November 26, 1915), writes:
``The opposition against the majority is growing; the masses are in an opposition mood-----After the war" (only after the war?) "class antagonisms will become so sharp that radicalism will gain the upper hand among the masses-----After the war" (only after the war?) "we will be menaced by the desertion of the radical elements from the Party and their influx into the party of anti-parliamentary" (? ? this should be taken to mean extra-parliamentary) "mass action.... Thus, our Party is splitting up into two extreme camps, having nothing in common with each other.''
For the sake of saving unity Kautsky tries to persuade the majority in the Reichstag to allow the minority to make a few radical parliamentary speeches. That means that Kautsky wishes, with the aid of a few radical parliamentary speeches, to reconcile the revolutionary masses with the opportunists, who have "nothing in common" with revolution, who have long had the leadership of the trade unions, and now, relying on their close alliance with the bourgeoisie and the government, have also captured the leadership of the Party. What material difference is there between this and Monitor's ``programme''? None, except for sugary phrases which prostitute Marxism.
At a meeting of the Reichstag fraction held on March 18, 1915, Wurm, a Kautskyist, ``warned'' the fraction against "pulling the strings too tight. There is growing opposition among the masses of the workers against the majority of the fraction, and it is necessary to keep to the Marxian" (?! probably a misprint; this should read the ``Monitor'') "centre." (Klassenkampf gegen den Krieg. Material zum Fall Uebfaecht^^*^^ Privately printed, p. 67.)^^10^^ We see, therefore, that the revolutionary sentiment of the masses was admitted as a fact on behalf of all the Kautskyists (the so-called ``centre'') as early as March, 1915!! And eight and a half months later, Kautsky again comes forward with the proposal to ``reconcile'' the masses who want to fight the opportunist, counter-revolutionary party---and he wants to do this with the aid of a few revolutionarysounding phrases!!
_-_-_^^*^^ The Class Struggle Against the War. Material! on the Liebkflccht Case.---Ed.
23Frequently war has its uses in that it exposes what is rotten and throws off convention.
Let us compare the English Fabians with the German Kautskyists. This is what a real Marxist, Frederick Engels, wrote about the former on January 18, 1893:
``... an ambitious group who have understanding enough to realise the inevitability of the social revolution, but who could not possibly entrust this gigantic task to the rough proletariat alone-----Fear of revolution is their fundamental principle." (Letters to Sorge, p. 390.)~^^*^^
And on November n, 1893, he wrote:
``... those haughty bourgeois, who graciously condescend to emancipate the proletariat from above if only it would understand that such a raw, uneducated mass cannot liberate itself and cannot achieve anything without the grace of these clever lawyers, writers and sentimental old women." (Ibid., p. 401.)
In theory Kautsky looks down upon the Fabians with the contempt of a pharisee for a poor sinner; for he worships at the shrine of "Marxism." But what difference is there between the two in practice? Both signed the Basle Manifesto, and both treated it in the same way as Wilhelm II treated Belgian neutrality. But Marx all his life castigated those who strove to quench the revolutionary spirit of the workers.
In opposition to the revolutionary Marxists, Kautsky has advanced the new theory of "ultra-imperialism." By this he means that the "struggle of national finance capitalists among themselves" will be eliminated and superseded by the "exploitation of the world by internationally united finance capital" (Neue Zeit, April 30, 1915). But he adds: "We have not yet sufficient data to decide whether this new phase of capitalism is achievable." Thus, on the grounds of a mere assumption about a "new phase," and not even daring to declare definitely that it is "achievable," the inventor of this ``phase'' rejects his own revolutionary declarations, rejects the revolutionary tasks and revolutionary tactics of the proletariat in the present ``phase'' of an already incipient crisis, of war, _-_-_
^^*^^ Russian edition. Cf. Marx and Frederick Engels, Selected Correspondence (New York and London,'1934), p. 5°5----Ed,
24of unprecedentedly sharp class antagonisms! Is this not Fabianism of the most abominable type?
Axelrod, the leader of the Russian Kautskyists, declared that:
``The centre of gravity of the problem of internationalising the proletarian movement for emancipation is the internationalisation of everyday practice"; for example: "labour protection and insurance legislation must become the object of the workers' international actions and organisation." (Axelrod, The Crisis of Social-Democracy, Zurich, 1915, pp. 39-4°-)
It is quite clear that not only Legien, David and the Webbs, but even Lloyd George himself, and Nauman, Briand and Milyukov would fully associate themselves with such "internationalism." As in 1912, Axelrod, for the sake of the very distant future, is prepared to utter the most revolutionary phrases if the future International "comes out" (against the governments in case of war) "and raises a revolutionary storm." Oh how brave we are! But when the question is raised of helping and developing the incipient revolutionary ferment among the masses now, Axelrod replies that these tactics of revolutionary mass actions "would be justified to some extent if we were on the very eve of the social revolution, as was the case in Russia, for example, where the student disorders of 1901 heralded the approaching decisive battles against 'absolutism.' " At the present moment however, all this is "utopia," "Bakuninism," etc. This is quite in the spirit of Kolb, David, Sudekum and Legien.
Dear Axelrod forgets, however, that nobody in Russia in 1901 knew, nor could know, that the first "decisive battles" would take place four years later---don't forget, jour years, and would be " undecisive." Nevertheless, we revolutionary Marxists alone were right at that time; we ridiculed the Krichevskys and Martynovs, who called for an immediate assault. We merely advised the workers to kick out the opportunists everywhere and to exert every effort to sustain, sharpen and widen the demonstrations and other mass revolutionary actions. The present situation in Europe is perfectly analogous. It would be absurd to call for an ``immediate'' assault; but it would be disgraceful to call oneself a Social-Democrat and yet refrain from advising the workers to break with the opportunists, and to exert all efforts to strengthen, deepen, widen and 25 sharpen the incipient revolutionary movement and demonstrations. Revolution never falls ready made from the skies, and at the beginning of a revolutionary ferment nobody can tell whether and when it will lead to a "real," ``genuine'' revolution. Kautsky and Axelrod give the workers old, threadbare, counter-revolutionary advice. Kautsky and Axelrod feed the masses with the hope that the future International will certainly be revolutionary, only in order at present to guard, camouflage and embellish the domination of the counter-revolutionary elements---the Legiens, Davids, Vanderveldes and Hyndmans. Is it not obvious that ``unity'' with Legien and Co. is the best means for preparing the ``future'' revolutionary International?
``To strive to convert the world war into civil war would be madness," declares David, the leader of the German opportunists (Die Sozialdemofyratie und der Welt^rieg, 1915, p. 172), in reply to the manifesto of the Central Committee of our Party, November i, 1914. This manifesto says, inter alia:
``No matter how great the difficulties of such a transformation may seem at any given moment, now that the war has become a fact, the Socialists will never refrain from systematic, persistent, unswerving preparatory work in this direction.''~^^*^^ (This passage is also quoted by David, p. 171.)
A month before David's book appeared our Party published resolutions in which "systematic preparation" was defined as follows: i) refusal to vote credits; 2) breaking the class truce; 3) formation of underground organisations; 4) support of manifestations of solidarity in the trenches; 5) support of all revolutionary mass actions.^^**^^
David is almost as brave as Axelrod. In 1912 he did not think it was ``madness'' to point to the Paris Commune as an example of what would happen in the event of war.
Plekhanov, that typical representative of the Entente socialchauvinists, argues about revolutionary tactics in the same way as _-_-_
^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, The Imperialist War, Collected Works, Vol. XVIII (New York and London, 1930), p. 82.---Ed.
^^**^^ lbid., p. 147.---Erf.
26 David. He calls it a "dream farce." But listen to what Kolb, a frank opportunist, has to say. Kolb wrote:``The tactics of those who group themselves around Liebknecht would result in the struggle within the German nation reaching boiling point." (Die Sozialdemotyatie am Scheidewege, p. 50.)
But what is a struggle which has reached boiling point if not civil war?
If the tactics of our Central Committee, which, in the main, correspond with the tactics of the Zimmerwald Left, were " madness," "dreams," "adventurism," "Bakuninism," as David, Plekhanov, Axelrod, Kautsky and others have asserted, they could never lead to a "struggle within a nation," let alone to the struggle reaching boiling point. Nowhere in the world have anarchist phrases brought about a struggle within a nation. But facts prove that precisely in 1915, as a result of the crisis created by the war, the revolutionary ferment among the masses increased; strikes and political demonstrations in Russia, strikes in Italy and in England, hunger demonstrations and political demonstrations in Germany, have all increased. Are these not the beginnings of revolutionary mass struggles?
To strengthen, develop, widen, sharpen mass revolutionary actions; to create underground organisations---without which it is impossible even in ``free'' countries to tell the truth to the masses of the people---this is the sum and substance of the practical programme of Social-Democracy in this war. Everything else is either lies or phrases, no matter what opportunist or pacifist theories it embellishes itself with.^^*^^
When we are told that these "Russian tactics" (David's expression) are not applicable to Europe, we usually reply by pointing to the facts. On November 30" a delegation of Berlin women _-_-_
^^*^^ At the International Women's Congress held in Berne in March 1915, the representatives of the Central Committee of our Party urged the absolute necessity for creating underground organisations. This was rejected. The English delegates laughed at this proposal and praised English "liberty." But a few months later English papers, like the Labour Leader, reached us with blank spaces, and then news arrived about police raids, confiscation of pamphlets, arrests, and harsh sentences imposed on comrades who spoke in England about peace, only about peace!
27 comrades appeared before the Executive Committee of the Party in Berlin, and stated that:``... at present we have a large organising apparatus, and consequently, it is much easier to distribute illegal pamphlets and leaflets and to organise 'prohibited meetings' than it was under the AntiSocialist Law.... Ways and means are not lacking, but obviously the will is lacking." (Berner Tagwacht, 1915, No. 271.)
Were these bad comrades led astray by the Russian "sectarians," etc.? Are the real masses represented, not by these comrades, but by Legien and Kautsky ? By Legien, who in the lecture he delivered on January 27, 1915, thundered against the ``anarchistic'' idea of forming underground organisations;^^12^^ and by Kautsky, who has become so counter-revolutionary that on November 26, jour days before the demonstration of ten thousand in Berlin, he denounced street demonstrations as ``adventurism''!!^^13^^
Enough of phrases! Enough of prostituted "Marxism," a la Kautsky! After twenty-five years of the Second International, after the Basle Manifesto, the workers will no longer trust in phrases. Opportunism has become over-ripe; it has utterly deserted to the camp of the bourgeoisie and has been transformed into social-chauvinism. It has severed its ties with Social-Democracy, ideologically and politically. It will also break with it organisationally. The workers are already demanding ``illegal'' pamphlets and ``prohibited'' meetings, t£., a secret organisation to support the revolutionary mass movement. Only when "war against war" is conducted on these lines does it become Social-Democratic work, and not a phrase. And in spite of all difficulties, temporary defeats, mistakes, going astray, interruptions, this work will lead humanity to the victorious proletarian revolution.
N. LENIN
Vorbote, No. i, January, 1916.
COMRADES! The European war has been raging for more than eighteen months. And as each month, as each day of the war goes by, it becomes clearer and clearer to the masses of the workers that the Zimmerwald Manifesto expressed the truth when it declared that phrases about "defence of the fatherland" and the like are nothing but capitalist deception. It is becoming more evident every day that this is a war between capitalists, between big robbers, who are quarrelling over die loot, each striving to obtain the largest share, the largest number of countries to plunder, and the largest number of nations to suppress and enslave.
It may sound incredible, especially to Swiss comrades, but it is nevertheless true that in Russia, also, not only bloody tsarism, not only the capitalists, but also a section of the so-called or ex-Socialists say that Russia is fighting a "war of defence," that Russia is only fighting against German invasion. The whole world knows, however, that for decades tsarism has been oppressing more than a hundred million people belonging to other nationalities in Russia; that for decades Russia has been pursuing a predatory policy towards China, Persia, Armenia and Galicia. Neither Russia, nor Germany, nor any other Great Power has the right to claim that it is waging a "war of defence"; all the Great Powers are waging an imperialist, capitalist war, a predatory war, a war for the oppression of small and foreign nations, a war for the sake of die profits of the capitalists, who are coining golden profits amounting to billions out of the appalling sufferings of the masses, out of the blood of the proletariat.
Four years ago, in November 1912, when it had become clear that war was approaching, die representatives of the Socialist Parties of the whole world gathered at the International Socialist Congress in Basle. Even at that time there was no room for doubt that the impending war would be a war between die Great Powers, between 29 __RUNNING_HEADER__ BERNE INTERNATIONAL MEETING the great beasts of prey; that responsibility for the war would rest upon the governments and the capitalist classes of all the Great Powers. The Basle Manifesto, which was adopted unanimously by the Socialist Parties of the whole world, openly stated this truth. The Basle Manifesto does not say a word about a "war of defence," or "defence of the fatherland." It castigates the governments and the bourgeoisie of all the Great Powers without exception. It said openly that war would be the greatest of crimes, that the workers would consider it a crime to shoot at each other, that the horrors of war and the indignation these would rouse among the workers would inevitably lead to a proletarian revolution.
When the war actually broke out it was realised that its character had been correctly defined at Basle. But the Socialist and labour organisations were not unanimous in carrying out the Basle decisions; they split. We see now that in all countries of the world the Socialist and labour organisations are split into two big camps. The smaller section, the leaders, functionaries and officials, have betrayed Socialism and have deserted to the side of the governments. Another section, to which the mass of class conscious workers belong, continues to gather its forces, to fight against the war and for the proletarian revolution.
The views of this latter section also found expression in the Zimmerwald Manifesto.
In Russia, from the very beginning of the war, the workers' deputies in the Duma waged a determined revolutionary struggle against the war and the tsarist monarchy. Five workers' deputies--- Petrovsky, Badayev, Muranov, Shagov and Samoilov---distributed revolutionary manifestoes against the war and energetically carried on revolutionary agitation. Tsarism ordered die arrest of those five deputies, put them on trial, and sentenced diem to lifelong exile in Siberia. For months the leaders of the working class of Russia have been pining in Siberia; but their cause has not gone under; their work is being continued by die class-conscious workers all over Russia.
Comrades! You have heard the speeches of representatives of various countries, who have told you about the workers' revolutionary struggle against the war. I merely want to quote one other example from that great and rich country, the United States of America. 30 The capitalists of that country are now making enormous profits out of the European war. And they, too, are agitating for war. They say that America must also prepare to take part in the war, hundreds of millions of dollars must be squeezed out of the people for new armaments, for armaments without end. And in America, too, a section of the Socialists echoes this false, criminal appeal. But I will read to you what Comrade Eugene Debs, the most popular leader of the American Socialists, the Presidential candidate of the American Socialist Party, writes. In the American paper, The Appeal to Reason™ September n, 1915, he says:
"I am not a capitalist soldier; I am a proletarian revolutionist. 1 do not belong to the regular army of the plutocracy, but to the irregular army of the people. I refuse to obey any command to fight for the ruling class.... I am opposed to every war but one; I am for that war with heart and soul, and that is the world-wide war of the social revolution. In that war I am prepared to fight in any way the ruling class may ma^e it necessary....''~^^*^^
This is what Eugene Debs, the American Bebel, the beloved leader of the American workers, writes to them.
This again shows you, comrades, that in all countries of the world real preparations are being made to rally the forces of the wording class. The horrors of war and the sufferings of the people are incredible. But we must not, arid we have no reason whatever, to view the future with despair.
The millions of victims who will fall in the war, and as a consequence of the war, will not fall in vain. The millions who are starving, the millions who are sacrificing their lives in the trenches, are not only suffering, they are also gathering strength, are pondering over the real cause of the war, are becoming more determined and are acquiring a clearer revolutionary understanding. Rising discontent of the masses, growing ferment, strikes, demonstrations, protests against the war---all this is taking place in all countries of the world. And this is the guarantee that the European War will be followed by the proletarian revolution against capitalism.
Burner Tagtvacht, No. 33, February 9, 1916."
^^*^^ E. V, Debs, Speeches (New York, 1918), p. 65.---Ed.
[31] __ALPHA_LVL2__ THE TASKS OF THE OPPOSITION IN FRANCEFebruary 10, 1916 Dear Comrade,
Your deportation from France---which, incidentally, was noted with a protest even in the chauvinist paper, La Bataille,le which, however, did not care to tell the truth, namely, that you were deported for sympathising with the opposition---has once again recalled to my mind the burning question regarding the situation and the tasks of the opposition in France.
I saw Bourderon and Merrheim in Zimmerwald. I heard their reports and read about their work in the newspapers. I cannot in the least doubt their sincerity and devotion to the cause of the proletariat. Nevertheless, it is obvious that their tactics are mistaken. Both fear a split more than anything else. Not a step, not a word that might lead to a split in the Socialist Party or in the trade unions in France, that might lead to a split in the Second International, to the creation of the Third International---such is the slogan of both Bourderon and Merrheirn.
Nevertheless, the split in the labour and Socialist movements throughout the world is a fact. We have two irreconcilable working class tactics and policies in relation to the war. It is ridiculous to close our eyes to this fact. Any attempt to reconcile the irreconcilable will doom all our work to futility. In Germany, even Deputy Otto Ruhle, a comrade of Liebknecht's, has openly admitted that a split in the Party is inevitable, because its present majority, die official ``leaders'' of the German Party, have gone over to the bourgeoisie. The arguments advanced against Ruhle and against a split by the so-called representatives of the ``centre'' or ``marsh'' (le morals), by Kautsky and the V or warts, are just lies and hypocrisy, however ``well-intentioned'' this hypocrisy may be. Kautsky and die Vorwarts cannot and do not even attempt to deny that the majority of the German Party is in fact carrying out the policy of the 32 bourgeoisie. Unity with such a majority is detrimental to the working class. Such unity means subordinating the working class to the bourgeoisie of "its own" nation; it means a split in the international working class. Actually Ruble is right when he says that there are two parties in Germany. One, the official party, is carrying out the policy of the bourgeoisie. The other, the minority, is publishing illegal manifestoes, organising demonstrations, etc. We see the same thing all over the world, and the impotent diplomats, or the "marsh," such as, Kautsky in Germany, Longuet in France and Martov and Trotsky in Russia, are causing the greatest harm to the labour movement by their insistence upon a fictitious unity, thus hindering the now ripe and imminent unification of the of position in all countries and the creation of the Third International. In England even a moderate paper like the Labour leader " publishes Russell Williams' letters urging the necessity for a split with the trade union ``leaders'' and with the Labour Party, which he says, "sold out" the interests of the working class. A number of members of the Independent Labour Party have declared in the press that they sympathise with Russell Williams. In Russia, even Trotsky, the "conciliator," is flow compelled to admit that a split is inevitable with the "patriots," i,e., the party of the "Organisation Committee," the O.C., who approve of workers participating in the War Industries Committees. It is only false pride that compels Trotsky to continue to defend ``unity'' with Chkheidze's Duma fraction, which is the most faithful friend, protector and defender of the ``patriots'' and the O.C.
Even in the United States of America there is actually a complete split. Some Socialists in that country are for the army, for "preparedness," for war. Others, including the most popular leader of the workers, Eugene Debs, the Socialist Party Presidential candidate, preach civil war against the war of nations.
Look at the actions of Bourderon and Merrheim! In words they are opposed to a split. But read the resolution which Bourderon moved at the Congress of the French Socialist Party. This resolution demands the withdrawal of the Socialists from the Cabinet!! The resolution bluntly "desapprouver" of the C.A.P. and the G.P. 33 __RUNNING_HEADER__ TASKS OF FRENCH OPPOSITION (C.A.P.= Com. Adm. Perm., G.P.= Gr. Parlem.)!!!^^*^^ It is as clear as daylight that the adoption of such a resolution would cause a split in the Socialist Party and in the trade unions, because Messrs. Renaudel, Sembat, Jouhaux and Co. would never reconcile themselves to that.
Bourderon and Merrheim share the error, the weakness and the timidity of the majority of the Zimmerwald Conference. On the one hand, in its Manifesto this majority indirectly calls for revolutionary struggle, but is afraid to do so openly. On the one hand, it declares that the capitalists in all countries are lying when they talk about "defending the fatherland" in the present war. On the other hand, the majority was afraid to add the obvious truth which, in any case, every thinking worker will add for himself, diat not only are the capitalists lying, but so also are Renaudel, Sembat, Longuet, Hyndman, Kautsky, Plekhanov and Co.! The majority of the Zimmerwald Conference wants to become reconciled with Vandervelde, Huysmans, Renaudel and Co. again. This is harmful to the working class, and the "Zimmerwald Left" acted correctly when it openly told the workers the truth.
Look at the hypocrisy of the socialiste-chauvins: in France they praise the German minorife, in Germany they praise the FrenMl
What enormous significance the action of the French opposition would have if it straightforwardly, fearlessly, openly declared to the whole world: We are in agreement only with the German opposition, only with Ruhle and his associates!! Only with those who fearlessly sever all connections with avowed and tacit social-- chauvinism, socialisme chauvine, *'.<?., with all the "defenders of the fatherland" in the present war!! We ourselves are not afraid to sever our connections with the French ``patriots'' who call the defence of colonies "defence of the fatherland," and we call upon Socialists and syndicalists in all countries to do the samell We extend our hand to Otto Ruhle and Liebknecht, only to them, and to those who associate with them; and we denounce the French and the German "majorite" and "le marais." We proclaim the great international unity of all those Socialists in all countries who in this war repudiate the fraudulent phrase, "defence of the fatherland," and who are _-_-_
^^*^^ The French abbreviations for Permanent Administrative Commission and Parliamentary Group.---Ed.
34 engaged in preaching and preparing for the world proletarian revolution!Such an appeal would be of enormous importance. It would scatter the hypocrites, expose and unmask international fraud, and would give a tremendous impetus to the rapprochement of those workers the world over who have really remained loyal to internationalism.
Anarchist phrase-mongering has always been very harmful in France. But now the anarchist-patriots, the anardiist-chauvins, like Kropotkin, Grave, Cornelissen and the other knights of La Bataille Chauvinists ^^*^^ will help to cure very many workers of anarchist phrase-mongering. Down with the social-patriots and socialistchauvinsl This call will find an echo in the hearts of the workers of France. Not anarchist .phrase-mongering about revolution, but sustained, earnest, tenacious, persistent, systematic work of creating everywhere illegal organisations among the workers, of spreading free, i.e., illegal literature, of preparing the movement of the masses against their governments. This is what the working class of all countries needs!
It is untrue to say that "the French are incapable" of carrying on systematic illegal work. Untrue! The French quickly learned to conceal themselves in the trenches; they will quickly learn the new conditions of illegal work and systematically to prepare for a revolutionary mass movement. I believe in the French revolutionary proletariat. It will also stimulate the French opposition.
With best wishes.
Yours,
LENIN
P.S. I suggest that the French comrades publish a translation of this letter (full translation) as a special leaflet,
Published in French as a leaflet in 1916. Praletarskaya Revolutsiya, No. 4 (27), 1924.
^^*^^ The Chauvinist Battle---the satirical title Lenin gives to La Bataille, the organ of the French syndicalists.---Ed.
[35] __ALPHA_LVL2__ HAVE THE O.C. AND THE CHKHEIDZE FRACTIONIN their magazine, and more definitely in their report to the International Socialist Committee (No, 2 of the Bulletin which appeared in German on November 27, I9i5),^^18^^ the adherents of the O.C. attempt to assure the public that the Chkheidze fraction^^19^^ and the O.C. have a policy of their own, which is completely internationalist and differs from the policy of Nashe Dyelo?^^0^^ These assertions are most flagrant untruths. In the first place, ever since the O.C. was formed (August, 1912), we have witnessed for many years the completest political agreement on all fundamentals, and the closest political co-operation, between the Chkheidze fraction and the O.C. and the Nasha Zarya group; and only this group has carried on systematic work among the masses (the liquidators' daily papers). If there are any real differences among such close "friends," they must be proved, not by words but by weighty facts. Not a single fact of this \ind can be brought forward. Secondly, for a number of years, from 1912 to 1914, the Chkheidze fraction and the O.C. have been pawns in the hands of Nasha Zarya and have systematically defended its policy (a fact very well known to the workers of St. Petersburg and other places) and not once did they exercise any influence in the direction of changing the policy of Nasha Zarya, Luch, etc.
In politics concerning the masses---for example, the struggle against the "strike fever," the election of leaders of the biggest trade unions (metal workers and others) and of the most important insurance organisations (the All-Russian Insurance Council)---Nasha Zarya was the only group that acted independently, while the O.C. and the Chkheidze fraction merely assisted it, serving faithfully and well. Thirdly, not a single fact has occurred in the course of the last eighteen months of the war to prove that the long established relations of the Chkheidze fraction and the O.C. with Nasha Zarya have undergone any change. On the contrary, facts prove the 36 opposite, and some may even be made public (the majority of facts of this kind should not be made public). It is a fact that in Russia neither the O.C. nor the Chkheidze fraction has ever, not even once, opposed the policy of Nashe Dyelo; and yet a real change in policy would require, not one protest, but a prolonged and victorious struggle; for Nashe Dyelo is a political quantity fostered by liberal connections, whereas the O.C. and the Chkheidze fraction are merely political stage scenery. It is a fact that Utro and Rabocheye Utro, which wholly and entirely pursue the policy of Nashe Dyelo, even outwardly demonstrate their political proximity to the Chkheidze fraction and speak in the name of the entire August bloc. It is a fact that the Chkheidze fraction is collecting funds for Rabocheye Utro. It is a fact that the whole of the Chkheidze fraction is now writing for the Samara social-chauvinist paper Nash Golos (see No. 17). It is a fact that one of the most prominent members of the Chkheidze fraction, Chkhenkeli, has published in the press, in the ``defencist'' or social-chauvinist magazine Sovremenny Mir, the magazine published by Messrs. Plekhanov and Alexinsky, declarations of principles in line with those of Plekhanov, Nashe Dyelo, Kautsky and Axelrod. We quoted Chkhenkeli's declaration a long time ago, and yet neither the adherents of the O.C., their magazine, nor Trotsky in his Nashe Slovo~^^21^^ have dared to defend this declaration, although they defend and advertise the Chkheidze fraction. Fourthly, direct political statements in the name of the whole of the Chkheidze fraction and of the whole of the O.C. prove our assertion. Take the most important pronouncements, which have been reprinted in the O.C.'s magazine: the declaration of Chkheidze and Co. and the manifesto of the O.C. The point of view of both diese documents is identical, the position they both take is the same. Since the O.C. is the supreme leading body in the "August bloc" against our Party, and since the O.C.'s manifesto was printed secretly, which means that it was able to speak more freely and more openly than Chkheidze is able to speak in the Duma, let us examine the O.C.'s manifesto.
It is interesting to note, by the way, that this manifesto has already been the subject of controversy in the German Social-- Democratic press, in the Berne Social-Democratic paper. A contributor to that newspaper described the manifesto as "patriotic." This 37 __RUNNING_HEADER__ POLICY OF CHKHEIDZE FRACTION roused the indignation of the Foreign Secretariat of the O.C., which published a refutation declaring that "we, too, the Foreign Secretariat, are guilty of such patriotism," and invited the editors of the paper to be the judges, as it were; for this purpose it submitted to them a full German translation of the manifesto. We must add that the editors of this paper are notoriously partial to the O.C. and give it publicity. What did these editors, who are partial to the O.C., say?
``We have read a manifesto issued by the O.C.," said the editors (No. 250), "and we must admit that the text may undoubtedly give rise to misunderstanding and impart to the whole a meaning which was perhaps alien to the authors of the manifesto.''
Why did not the adherents of the O.C. reprint in their magazine this opinion of the editors, whom they themselves had invited to act as judges? Because it is the opinion of the friends of the O.C. who publicly refused to defend the O.C.! The opinion was written with exquisite diplomatic courtesy, which makes it particularly evident that the editors desired to say something ``pleasant'' to Axelrod and Martov. But the pleasantest thing they could say is: ``Perhaps'' (only ``perhaps''!) "the O.C. did not say what it meant to say; but what it did say may undoubtedly give rise to misunderstanding!!''
We strongly urge our readers to read the O.C.'s manifesto, which is reproduced in the Bund's Bulletin (No. 9). Anyone who reads it carefully will note the following clear and simple facts: i) the manifesto does not contain a single statement which in principle repudiates national defence in the present war; 2) there is absolutely nothing in the manifesto which in principle would be inacceptable to the ``defencists'' or social-chauvinists; 3) there are a number of statements in the manifesto which are completely identical with ``defencism'': "The proletariat cannot remain indifferent to the impending defeat" (almost literally what is said in Rabocheye Utro, No. 2, which says: "not indifferent" towards "saving the country from defeat"); "the proletariat is vitally interested in the selfpreservation of the country"; "a popular revolution" must save the country "from external defeat," etc. Instead of using expressions like these, one who is really hostile to social-chauvinism would have 38 said: The landowners, the tsar and the bourgeoisie are lying; by self-preservation of the country they mean the preservation of the oppression of Poland and its retention by force by the Great Russians; by their talk about saving the ``country'' from defeat they try to conceal their striving to ``save'' their Great Power privileges and divert the proletariat from the task of fighting the international bourgeoisie. To admit in one breath the need for the international solidarity of the proletariat in the belligerent countries in this predatory imperialist war and the permissibility of phrases about ``saving'' one of these countries from ``defeat'' is sheer hypocrisy and signifies that one's declarations are nothing more than idle and false declamation. It implies that the tactics of the proletariat must be determined by the military situation of a given country at a given time; if that is the case the French social-chauvinists are right when they help to ``save'' Austria or Turkey from "defeat.''
The Foreign Secretariat of the O.C. expressed in the German Social-Democratic press (the Berne paper) still another sophism which is so shameless, so crude, and so deliberately ``set'' to catch the Germans, that the adherents of the O.C. wisely refrained from repeating it before the Russian public.
``If it is patriotism," they write for the benefit of the Germans in a tone of noble indignation, "to tell the proletariat that revolution is the only means of saving the country from doom," then we, too, are "patriots," and "we Wish the International had many more `patriots' like this in every Socialist Party; we are sure that Liebknecht, Rosa Luxemburg and Merrheim would be very pleased to have lots of `patriots' like these around them to appeal to the German and French workers with manifestoes of this kind.''
This is an open swindle: the five secretaries know perfectly well that neither in France nor in Germany, both of which are heading towards the socialist revolution, is there a hint of anything in the nature of bourgeois revolutionariness, of a bourgeois social movement towards revolution for the sake of victory over the enemy; whereas in Russia, precisely because it is heading towards a bourgeois-democratic revolution, such a movement does exist, as everybody knows. The five secretaries deceive die Germans by an amusing sophism: the O.C. and Chkheidze and Co. cannot be 39 revolutionary chauvinists in Russia, they argue, because in Europe a combination of revolutionism with chauvinism is an absurdity!
Yes, in Europe it is an absurdity. In Russia, however, it is a fact. You may reproach the Pmryv-ists^^22^^ for being bad bourgeois revolutionaries, but you cannot deny that in their own way they combine chauvinism with revolutionism. The July conference of the Narodniks in Russia, Nashe Dyelo and Rabocheye Utro wholly and entirely take the position of the Prizyv-ists in this respect: they, too, combine chauvinism with revolutionism.
The Chkheidze fraction, in its declaration (pp. 141-43 of the O.C.'s magazine) took up the same position. Chkheidze uses the same chauvinist phrases about the "danger of defeat," and if he admits the imperialist character of the war, stands for "peace without annexations," "the general tasks of the entire international proletariat," "the struggle for peace," etc., etc. so does Rabocheye Utro; and so do the petty-bourgeois Russian Narodniks. In this very magazine of the O.C., on page 146, we read that the petty-bourgeois Narodniks have admitted the imperialist character of the war, have adopted the demand for "peace without annexations" and have admitted that Socialists (the Narodniks as well as the Rabocheye Utro wish to be known as Socialists) "must strive for the speedy restoration of the international solidarity of the Socialist organisations in order to stop the war," etc. The petty-bourgeois Narodniks resort to all these phrases to camouflage the slogan of "national defence," which they have openly advanced, whereas Chkheidze, the O.C., and Rabocheye Utro pass off this slogan in the guise of "save the country from defeat.''
The sum and substance of the whole thing is that Chkheidze and the O.C. have poured out a string of revolutionary phrases, which commit them to nothing and which in no way hinder the practical policies of the Prizyv-ists and the Nashe Dyelo-ists, but they have hushed up these policies. In one way or another they support participation in the War Industries Committees.
Fewer phrases about revolution, gentlemen, and more clarity, straightforwardness and honesty in the practical policies of today. You promise to be revolutionaries, but just now you are helping the chauvinists, the bourgeoisie and tsarism, either by openly advocating that the workers be represented in the War Industries 40 Committees, or by tacitly defending those who participate in them by refraining from fighting them.
Martov may wriggle as much as he likes. Trotsky may shout against our factionalism, concealing with these shouts (an old trick of Turgenev's.. .hero!) his own, no doubt non-factional, `` expectations'' that someone in Chkheidze's fraction is "in agreement" with him and swears that he is a Left, an internationalist, etc. But facts remain facts. There is no shadow of serious political difference not only between the O.C. and the Chkheidze fraction, there is none even between these bodies and Rabocheye Utro or Prizyv.
That is why in practice they are together in opposing our party, in supporting the bourgeois policy of workers participating in the War Industries Committees, and are together in siding with the non-party workers and the Narodniks. The verbal reservations and vows of the "foreign secretaries" that they ``disagree'' remain idle phrases, which affect the real policy of the masses as little as the vows of Siidekum, Legien and David that they are "for peace" and "against war" absolve them of chauvinism.
Sotsial-Demofy-at,^^23^^ No. 50, February 18, 1916.
THE Berne resolution of our Party declared:
``One of the means of fooling the working class is pacifism, the preaching of peace in the abstract.... At the present time, peace propaganda unaccompanied by a call for revolutionary mass action can only have the effect of spreading illusions and demoralising the proletariat; for it serves to imbue the proletariat with confidence in the humanitarianism of the bourgeoisie and to convert it into a plaything in the hands of the secret diplomacy of the belligerent countries." (See Sotsial-Demofyat, No. 40, and "Socialism and War.'')~^^*^^
The opponents of our point of view on the question of peace, who are numerous among Russian emigres, but not among the Russian workers, have never taken die trouble to analyse these propositions. Theoretically irrefutable, these propositions are receiving striking and practical confirmation as a result of die turn affairs have taken in our country.
As is well known, from its very first issue, Rabocheye Utro, the organ of the St. Petersburg legalist-Liquidators, which is ideologically supported by the Organisation Committee, adopted a social-chauvinist ``defencist'' position. It published the ``defencist'' manifestoes of the St. Petersburg and Moscow social-chauvinists. Both manifestoes, inter alia, express the idea of "peace without annexations," and No. 2 of Rabocheye Utro, which particularly stresses that slogan, prints it in italics and calls it "a line which provides die country with a way out of the impasse." It is calumny to call us chauvinists, the paper seems to say; we fully accept the most " democratic," even "truly socialist" slogan of "peace without annexations.''
No doubt Nicholas the Bloody finds it to his advantage to have such a slogan advanced by his loyal subjects at the present time. _-_-_
^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. XVIII, op. tit., pp. 215-58.---Ed.
42 Tsarism, basing itself on the landowners and the bourgeoisie, led its armies to rob and enslave Galicia (not to mention the treaty to carve up Turkey, etc.). The armies of the no less predatory German imperialists repulsed the Russian robbers and pushed them, not only out of Galicia, but also out of "Russian Poland" (in this struggle for the interests of both these cliques, hundreds of thousands of Russian and German workers and peasants fell on the battlefield). The slogan "peace without annexations" thus serves as an excellent "plaything in the hands of the secret diplomacy" of tsarism; the latter can now say: Look, we have been outraged; we have been robbed, deprived of Poland; we are opposed to annexations!How well the role of lackeys to tsarism ``suits'' the social-- chauvinists of Rabocheye Utro is particularly evident from an article in the first issue of that paper, entitled "Polish Emigration." "The past months of the war," we read, "have engendered in the minds of broad strata of the Polish people a deep striving towards independence." Of course, before the war there was no such thing!! "In the social consciousness of broad strata of Polish democracy the mass" (evidently this is a misprint; it ought to read "the idea, the thought," etc.) "of the national independence of Poland has triumphed". ... "Before Russian democracy the Polish question looms up importunately in all its magnitude".... "The Russian liberals" refuse to give plain answers to the burning questions "about Poland's independence....''
Nicholas the Bloody, Khvostov, Chelnokov, Milyukov and Co. are, of course, wholly in favour of the independence of Poland--- heart and soul in favour of it now that, in practice, this slogan means victory over Germany, which deprived Russia of Poland. Let us not forget that the creators of "Stolypin's Labour Party" before the war, were wholly and unreservedly opposed to the slogan of self-determination of nations, opposed to Poland's right of secession, and that they put up the opportunist Semkovsky for the noble purpose of defending tsarist oppression in Poland. Now that Poland has been taken from Russia they are in favour of the ``independence'' of Poland (from Germany; but about this they maintain a discreet silence).
You will not deceive the class-conscious workers of Russia, Messrs, social-chauvinists! Your ``October'' 1915 slogans of independence of 43 __RUNNING_HEADER__ PEACE WITHOUT ANNEXATIONS Poland and peace without annexations^^24^^ are in practice servility to tsarism, which precisely at the present time, precisely in February 1916, deems it necessary to camouflage its war with fine words about "peace without annexations" (driving Hindenburg out of Poland) and the independence of Poland (independent of Wilhelm, but dependent upon Nicholas II).
A Russian Social-Democrat who has not forgotten his programme argues differently. Russian democracy, he will say, having Great Russian democracy in mind first of all and most of all, for it alone has always enjoyed liberty of language in Russia---Russian democracy has undoubtedly gained from die fact that at present Russia does not oppress Poland and does not hold it by force. The Russian proletariat has undoubtedly gained from the fact that it does not oppress one of the peoples it helped to oppress yesterday. German democracy has undoubtedly lost, for as long as the German proletariat tolerates the oppression of Poland by Germany it will remain in a position worse than that of a slave, in the position of a servitor helping to keep others enslaved. The only ones who have really gained are the Junkers and the bourgeoisie of Germany.
Hence, Russian Social-Democrats must unmask the deception of the people perpetrated by tsarism now that the slogans of "peace without annexations" and "independence of Poland" are being advanced in Russia; for in the present situation both these slogans express die desire to continue die war and a justification of this desire. We must say: No war for the sake of recapturing Poland! The Russian people does not want to become Poland's oppressor again!
But how can we help liberate Poland from Germany? Is it not our duty to help in this? Of course it is, but not by supporting the imperialist war of tsarist, or of bourgeois, or even of bourgeois republican Russia, but by supporting the revolutionary proletariat of Germany, by supporting those elements in the Social-Democratic Party of Germany who are fighting against the counter-revolution' ary labour party of Siidekum, Kautsky and Co. Kautsky very recently demonstrated his counter-revolutionary nature in a most flagrant manner: on November 26, 1915, he described street demonstrations as an ``adventurism'' (just as Struve before January 9, 1905, declared that there are no revolutionary people in Russia) and 44 yet, on November 30, 1915, ten thousand working women demonstrated in Berlin!
All those who want to stand for the freedom of nations, for the right of nations to self-determination, not hypocritically, not in the Siidekum, Plekhanov, Kautsky fashion, but sincerely, must be opposed to the war because of the oppression of Poland; they must be in favour of the right of secession from Russia for those nations which Russia is now oppressing: the Ukraine, Finland, etc. Those who do not wish to be social-chauvinists in deeds must support only those elements in the Socialist Parties of all countries which are frankly, directly and immediately working for the proletarian revolution in their own countries.
Not "peace without annexations," but peace to the cottages, war on the palaces; peace to the proletariat and the toiling masses, war on the bourgeoisie!
Sotsial-Demofy-at, No. 51, February 29, 1916.
THE pamphlet by the avowed German opportunist, Wilhelm Kolb, entitled Social-Democracy at the Cross-Roads (Karlsruhe, 1915), appeared opportunely after the publication of Plekhanov's symposium, War. The Kautskyist Rudolf Hilferding wrote a very feeble reply to Kolb in the Neue Zeit, in which he evaded the main issues and snivelled over Kolb's correct assertion that the unity of the German Social-Democrats was "purely formal.''
Whoever wishes to ponder seriously over the significance of the collapse of the Second International would do well to compare Kolb's ideological position with Plekhanov's. Like Kautsky, both agree on the fundamental issue: both reject and ridicule die idea of revolutionary action in connection with the present war; both accuse the revolutionary Social-Democrats of "defeatism," using the favourite expression of the Plekhanovists. Plekhanov, who describes the idea of a revolution in connection with the present war as a "dream-farce," rails against "revolutionary phraseology." Kolb at every step curses "revolutionary phrases," the "revolutionary phantasies," the "little radicals" (``Radifolinsfy'') the "hystericals," " sectarianism," etc. Kolb and Plekhanov agree on the main issue: both are opposed to revolution. The fact diat Kolb is generally opposed to revolution, whereas Plekhanov and Kautsky are "generally in favour," is only a difference in shade, in words: in reality, Plekhanov and Kautsky are Kolb's satellites.
Kolb is more honest, not in a personal, but in a political sense, that is, being consistent in his position, he is not a hypocrite. Hence, he is not afraid to admit the truth that, from his point of view, the entire International had been imbued with "the spirit of revolutionary phantasy," that it had uttered ``threats'' (threats of revolution, Messrs. Plekhanov and Kolb!) in connection with the war. Kolb is right when he says that it is ridiculous to ``repudiate'' capitalist society "in principle" after the Social-Democratic Parties of Europe had risen in its defence at the very moment when the 46 capitalist state was cracking from top to bottom, when "its very existence was in question." This admission of the objective revolutionary situation is the truth.
``The consequence" (of the tactics of Liebknecht's followers), writes Kolb, "would be that the internal struggle within the German nation would reach boiling point and this would weaken its military and political power"---to the advantage and victory "of the imperialism of the Triple Entente"!!
Here you have the crux of the opportunist railing against " defeatism.''
This is really the crux of the whole question. "Internal struggle which has reached boiling point" is civil war. Kolb is right when he says that the tactics of the Left lead to this; he is right when he says that they mean the "military weakening" of Germany, i.e., desiring and aiding its defeat, defeatism. Kolb is wrong only--- only!---in that he refuses to see the international character of these tactics of the Left. For "the internal struggle to reach boiling point," the "weakening of the military power" of the imperialist bourgeoisie and (by virtue of this, in connection with it, by means of it) the transformation of the imperialist war into civil war are possible in all the belligerent countries. This is the crux of the whole question. We thank Kolb for his good wishes, admissions and illustrations; since all this comes from an exceedingly consistent, honest and avowed enemy of the revolution; it is particularly valuable as a means of exposing to the workers the hideous hypocrisy and the shameful spinelessness of the Plekhanovs and Kautskys.
Sotsial-Demokrat, No. 51, February 29, 1916.
IMPERIALISM is the highest stage of development of capitalism. Capital in the advanced countries has outgrown the boundaries of national states. It has established monopoly in place of competition, thus creating all the objective prerequisites for the achievement of socialism. Hence, in Western Europe and in the United States of America, the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat for the overthrow of the capitalist governments, for the expropriation of the bourgeoisie, is on the order of the day. Imperialism is forcing the masses into this struggle by sharpening class antagonisms to an immense degree, by worsening the conditions of the masses both economically---trusts and high cost of living, and politically---growth of militarism, frequent wars, increase of reaction, strengthening and extension of national oppression and colonial plunder. Victorious socialism must achieve complete democracy and, consequently, not only bring about the complete equality of nations, but also give effect to the right of oppressed nations to self-determination, i.e., the right to free political secession. Socialist Parties which fail to prove by all their activities now, as well as during the revolution and after its victory, that they will free the enslaved nations and establish relations with them on the basis of a free union---and a free union is a lying phrase without right to secession---such parties would be committing treachery to socialism.
Of course, democracy is also a form of state which must disappear when the state disappears, but this will take place only in the process of transition from completely victorious and consolidated socialism to complete communism.
48 __ALPHA_LVL3__ II. THE SOCIALIST REVOLUTION AND THE STRUGGLE FOR DEMOCRACYThe socialist revolution is not one single act, not one single battle on a single front, but a whole epoch of intensified class conflicts, a long series of battles on all fronts, i.e., battles around all the problems of economics and politics, which can culminate only in the expropriation of the bourgeoisie. It would be a fundamental mistake to suppose that the struggle for democracy can divert the proletariat from the socialist revolution, or obscure, or overshadow it, etc. On the contrary, just as socialism cannot be victorious unless it introduces complete democracy, so the proletariat will be unable to prepare for victory over the bourgeoisie unless it wages a many-sided, consistent and revolutionary struggle for democracy.
It would be no less mistaken to delete any of the points of the democratic programme, for example, the point of self-determination of nations, on the ground that it is "infeasible," or that it is `` illusory'' under imperialism. The assertion that the right of nations to self-determination cannot be achieved within the framework of capitalism may be understood either in its absolute, economic sense, or in the conventional, political sense.
In the first case, the assertion is fundamentally wrong in theory. First, in this sense, it is impossible to achieve such things as labour money, or the abolition of crises, etc., under capitalism. But it is entirely incorrect to argue that the self-determination of nations is likewise infeasible. Secondly, even the one example of the secession of Norway from Sweden in 1905 is sufficient to refute the argument that it is ``infeasible'' in this sense. Thirdly, it would be ridiculous to deny that, with a slight change in political and strategical relationships, for example, between Germany and England, the formation of new states, Polish, Indian, etc., would be quite ``feasible'' very soon. Fourthly, finance capital, in its striving towards expansion, will ``freely'' buy and bribe the freest, most democratic and republican government and the elected officials of any country, however ``independent'' it may be. The domination of finance capital, as of capital in general, cannot be abolished by any kind of reforms in the realm of political democracy, and self-determination belongs wholly and exclusively to this realm. The domination of finance capital, however, does not in the least destroy die significance of 49 __RUNNING_HEADER__ REVOLUTION AND SELF-DETERMINATION political democracy as the freer, wider and more distinct form of class oppression and class struggle. Hence, all arguments about the "impossibility of achieving" economically one of the demands of political democracy under capitalism reduce themselves to a theoretically incorrect definition of the general and fundamental relations of capitalism and of political democracy in general.
In the second case, this assertion is incomplete and inaccurate, for not only the right of nations to self-determination, but all the fundamental demands of political democracy are "possible of achievement" under imperialism, only in an incomplete, in a mutilated form and as a. rare exception (for example, the secession of Norway from Sweden in 1905). The demand for the immediate liberation of the colonies, as advanced by all revolutionary Social-Democrats, is also "impossible of achievement" under capitalism without a series of revolutions. This does not imply, however, that SocialDemocracy must refrain from conducting an immediate and most determined struggle for all these demands---to refrain would merely be to the advantage of the bourgeoisie and reaction. On the contrary, it implies that it is necessary to formulate and put forward all these demands, not in a reformist, but in a revolutionary way; not by keeping within the framework of bourgeois legality, but by breaking through it; not by confining oneself to parliamentary speeches and verbal protests, but by drawing the masses into real action, by widening and fomenting the struggle for every kind of fundamental, democratic demand, right up to and including the direct onslaught of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie, i*., to the socialist revolution, which will expropriate the bourgeoisie. The socialist revolution may break out not only in consequence of a great strike, a street demonstration, a hunger riot, a mutiny in the forces, or a colonial rebellion, but also in consequence of any political crisis, like the Dreyfus affair,^^25^^ the Zabern incident,^^26^^ or in connection with a referendum on the secession of an oppressed nation, etc.
The intensification of national oppression under imperialism makes it necessary for Social-Democracy not to renounce what the bourgeoisie describes as the ``utopian'' struggle for the freedom of nations to secede, but, on the contrary, to take more advantage than ever before of conflicts arising also on this ground for the purpose 50 of rousing mass action and revolutionary attacks upon the bourgeoisie.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ III. THE MEANING OF THE RIGHT TO SELF-DETERMINATIONThe right of nations to self-determination means only the right to independence in a political sense, the right to free, political secession from the oppressing nation. Concretely, this political, democratic demand implies complete freedom to carry on agitation in favour of secession, and freedom to settle the question of secession by means of a referendum of the nation that desires to secede. Consequently, this demand is by no means identical with the demand for secession, for partition, for the formation of small states. It is merely the logical expression of the struggle against national oppression in every form. The more closely the democratic system of state approximates to complete freedom of secession, the rarer and weaker will the striving for secession be in practice; for the advantages of large states, both from the point of view of economic progress and from the point of view of the interests of the masses, are beyond doubt, and these advantages increase with the growth of capitalism. The recognition of self-determination is not the same as making federation a principle. One may be a. determined opponent of this principle and a partisan of democratic centralism and yet prefer federation to national inequality as the only path towards complete democratic centralism. It was precisely from this point of view that Marx, although a centralist, preferred even the federation of Ireland with England to the forcible subjection of Ireland to the English.^^27^^
The aim of socialism is not only to abolish the present division of mankind into small states and all national isolation; not only to bring the nations closer to each other, but also to merge them. And in order to achieve this aim, we must, on the one hand, explain to the masses the reactionary nature of the ideas of Renner and O. Bauer concerning so-called "cultural national autonomy" and, on the other hand, demand the liberation of the oppressed nations, not only in general, nebulous phrases, not in empty declamations, not by ``postponing'' the question until socialism is established, but 51 in a clearly and precisely formulated political programme which shall particularly take into account the hypocrisy and cowardice of the Socialists in the oppressing nations. Just as mankind can achieve the abolition of classes only by passing through the transition period of the dictatorship of the oppressed class, so mankind can achieve the inevitable merging of nations only by passing through the transition period of complete liberation of all the oppressed nations, i.e., their freedom to secede.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ IV. THE PROLETARIAN-REVOLUTIONARY PRESENTATIONNot only the demand for the self-determination of nations but all the items of our democratic minimum programme were advanced before us, as far back as the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, by the petty bourgeoisie. And the petty bourgeoisie, believing in ``peaceful'' capitalism, continues to this day to advance all these demands in a Utopian way, without seeing the class struggle and the fact that it has become intensified under democracy. The idea of a peaceful union of equal nations under imperialism, which deceives the people, and which the Kautskyists advocate, is precisely of this nature. As against this philistine, opportunist Utopia, the programme of Social-Democracy must point out that under imperialism the division of nations into oppressing and oppressed ones is a fundamental, most important and inevitable fact.
The proletariat of the oppressing nations cannot confine itself to the general hackneyed phrases against annexations and for the equal rights of nations in general, that may be repeated by any pacifist bourgeois. The proletariat cannot evade the question that is particularly ``unpleasant'' for the imperialist bourgeoisie, namely, the question of the frontiers of a state that is based on national oppression. The proletariat cannot but fight against the forcible retention of the oppressed nations within the boundaries of a given state, and this is exactly what the struggle for the right of self-- determination means. The proletariat must demand the right of political secession for the colonies and for the nations that "its own" nation oppresses. Unless it does this, proletarian internationalism will remain a meaningless phrase; mutual confidence and class solidarity 52 between the workers of the oppressing and oppressed nations will be impossible; the hypocrisy of the reformist and Kautskyan advocates of self-determination who maintain silence about the nations which are oppressed by ``their'' nation and forcibly retained within ``their'' state will remain unexposed.
The Socialists of the oppressed nations, on the other hand, must particularly fight for and maintain complete, absolute unity (also organisational) between the workers of the oppressed nation and the workers of the oppressing nation. Without such unity it will be impossible to maintain an independent proletarian policy and class solidarity with the proletariat of other countries in the face of all the subterfuge, treachery and trickery of the bourgeoisie; for the bourgeoisie of the oppressed nations always converts the slogan of national liberation into a means for deceiving the workers; in internal politics it utilises these slogans as a means for concluding reactionary agreements with the bourgeoisie of the ruling nation (for instance, the Poles in Austria and Russia, who entered into pacts with reaction in order to oppress the Jews and the Ukrainians) ; in the realm of foreign politics it strives to enter into pacts with one of the rival imperialist powers for the purpose of achieving its own predatory aims (the policies of the small states in the Balkans, etc.).
The fact that the struggle for national liberation against one imperialist power may, under certain circumstances, be utilised by another ``Great'' Power in its equally imperialist interests should have no more weight in inducing Social-Democracy to renounce its recognition of the right of nations to self-determination than the numerous cases of the bourgeoisie utilising republican slogans for the purpose of political deception and financial robbery, for example, in the Latin countries, have had in inducing them to renounce republicanism.^^*^^
_-_-_^^*^^ Needless to say, to repudiate the right of self-determination on the ground that logically it means "defence of the fatherland" would be quite ridiculous. With equal logic, i.e., with equal shallowness, the social-chauvinists of 1914-16 apply this argument to every one of the demands of democracy (for instance, to republicanism), and to every formulation of the struggle against national oppression, in order to justify "defence of the fatherland." Marxism arrives at the recognition of defence of the fatherland, for example, in the wars of the Great French Revolution and the Garibaldi wars^^28^^ in Europe, and at the repudiation of defence __NOTE__ Footnote cont. on page 53. 53 __ALPHA_LVL3__ V. MARXISM AND PROUDHONISM ON THE NATIONAL QUESTION
In contrast to the petty-bourgeois democrats, Marx regarded all democratic demands without exception not as an absolute, but as a historical expression of the struggle of the masses of the people, led by the bourgeoisie, against feudalism. There is not a single democratic demand which could not serve, and has not served, under certain conditions, as an instrument of the bourgeoisie for deceiving the workers. To single out one of the demands of political democracy, namely, the self-determination of nations, and to oppose it to all the rest, is fundamentally wrong in theory. In practice, the proletariat will be able to retain its independence only if it subordinates its struggle for all the democratic demands, not excluding the demand for a republic, to its revolutionary struggle for the overthrow of the bourgeoisie.
On the other hand, in contrast to the Proudhonists, who `` repudiated'' the national problem "in the name of the social revolution," Marx, having in mind mainly the interests of the proletarian class struggle in the advanced countries, put into the forefront the fundamental principle of internationalism and socialism, viz., that no nation can be free if it oppresses other nations. It was precisely from the standpoint of the interests of the revolutionary movement of the German workers that Marx in 1848 demanded that victorious democracy in Germany should proclaim and grant freedom to the nations that the Germans were oppressing. It was precisely from the standpoint of the revolutionary struggle of the English workers that Marx in 1869 demanded the separation of Ireland from England, and added: "although after the separation there may come federation." Only by putting forward this demand did Marx really educate the English workers in the spirit of internationalism. Only in this way was he able to oppose the revolutionary solution of a given historical problem to the opportunists and bourgeois reformism, which even now, half a century later, has failed to achieve the Irish "reform." Only in this way was Marx able---unlike the apologists of capital who shout about the right of small nations to _-_-_ __NOTE__ Footnote cont. from page 52. of the fatherland in the imperialist war of 1014-16, from the analysis of the specific historical circumstances of each separate war, and not from some "general principle," or some separate item of a programme.
54 secession being Utopian and impossible, and about the progressive nature not only of economic but also of political concentration--- to urge the progressive nature of this concentration in a nowimperialist manner, to urge the bringing together of the nations, not by force, but on the basis of a free union of the proletarians of all countries. Only in this way was Marx able, also in the sphere of the solution of national problems, to oppose the revolutionary action of the masses to verbal and often hypocritical recognition of the equality and the self-determination of nations. The imperialist war of 1914-16 and the Augean stables of hypocrisy of the opportunists and Kautskyists it exposed have strikingly confirmed the correctness of Marx's policy, which must serve as the model for all the advanced countries; for all of them now oppress other nations.^^*^^ __ALPHA_LVL3__ VI. THREE TYPES OF COUNTRIES IN RELATIONIn this respect, countries must be divided into three main types: First, the advanced capitalist countries of Western Europe and the United States of America. In these countries the bourgeois, progressive, national movements came to an end long ago. Every one of these ``great'' nations oppresses other nations in the colonies and within its own country. The tasks of the proletariat of these ruling nations are the same as those of the proletariat in England in the nineteenth century in relation to Ireland.^^**^^
_-_-_^^*^^ Reference is often made---recently, for instance, by the German chauvinist Lensch, in Die Gloc\e, No. 8-9---to the fact that Marx's adverse attitude to the national movement of certain peoples, for example, the Czechs in 1848, refutes the necessity of recognising the self-determination of nations from the point of view of Marxism. This is incorrect, for in 1848 there were historical and political grounds for drawing a distinction between ``reactionary'' and revolutionary democratic nations. Marx was right when he condemned the former and defended the latter. The right to self-determination is one of the demands of democracy which must naturally be subordinated to the general interests of democracy. In 1848 and subsequent years, those general interests were concentrated primarily in the struggle against tsarism.
^^**^^ In some small states which have remained out of the war of 1914-1916---for example, Holland and Switzerland---the bourgeoisie strongly urges the slogan "self-determination of nations" to justify participation in the imperialist war. This is one of the motives that induces the Social-Democrats in such countries to repudiate self-determination. In this case the correct proletarian policy, namely, the repudia- __NOTE__ Footnote cont. on page 55. 55
Secondly, Eastern Europe: Austria, the Balkans and particularly Russia. Here it was the twentieth century that particularly developed the bourgeois-democratic national movements and intensified the national struggle. The tasks of the proletariat in these countries ---in regard to the consummation of their bourgeois-democratic reformation, as well as in regard to assisting the socialist revolution in other countries---cannot be achieved unless it champions the right of nations to self-determination. In this connection the most difficult but most important task is to merge the class struggle of the workers in the oppressing nations with the class struggle of the workers in the oppressed nations.
Thirdly, the semi-colonial countries, like China, Persia, Turkey and all the colonies, which have a combined population amounting to a billion. In these countries the bourgeois-democratic movements have either hardly begun, or are far from having been completed. Socialists must not only demand the unconditional and immediate liberation of the colonies without compensation---and this demand in its political expression signifies nothing more nor less than the recognition of the right to self-determination---but must render determined support to the more revolutionary elements in the bourgeois-democratic movements for national liberation in these countries and assist their rebellion---and if need be, their revolutionary war---against the imperialist powers that oppress them.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ VII. SOCIAL-CHAUVINISM AND SELF-DETERMINATION OF NATIONSThe imperialist epoch and the war of 1914-16 have particularly brought to the forefront the task of fighting against chauvinism and nationalism in the advanced countries. On the question of the selfdetermination of nations, there are two main shades of opinion _-_-_ __NOTE__ Footnote cont. from page 54. tion of "defence of the fatherland" in an imperialist war is defended by wrong arguments. What results is a distortion of Marxian theory, while in practice we have a peculiar small-nation narrow-mindedness, which forgets about the hundreds of millions of the population of nations that are enslaved by the "Great Power" nations. Comrade Horter, in his excellent pamphlet Imperialism, the War and SocialDemocracy, wrongly rejects the principle of self-determination of nations, but correctly applies it when he demands the immediate granting of "political and national independence" to the Dutch Indies and exposes the Dutch opportunists who refuse to put forward this demand and to fight for it.
56 among the social-chauvinists, i.e., the opportunists and the Kautskyists, who embellish the reactionary, imperialist war by declaring it to be a war in "defence of the fatherland.''On the one hand, we see the rather avowed servants of the bourgeoisie who defend annexations on the ground that imperialism and political concentration are progressive and who repudiate the right to self-determination on the ground that it is Utopian, illusory, pettybourgeois, etc. Among these may be included Cunow, Parvus and the extreme opportunists in Germany, a. section of the Fabians and the trade union leaders in England, and the opportunists, Semkovsky, Liebman, Yurkevich, etc., in Russia.
On the other hand, we see the Kautskyists, including Vandervelde, Renaudel, and many of the pacifists in England, France, etc. These stand for unity with the first-mentioned group, and in practice their conduct is the same in that they advocate the right to self-determination in a purely verbal and hypocritical way. They regard the demand for the freedom of political secession as being ``excessive'' ("zu viel verlangt"---Kautsky, in the Neue Zeit, May 21, 1915); they do not advocate the need for revolutionary tactics, especially for the Socialists in the oppressing nations, but, on the contrary, they gloss over their revolutionary dudes, they justify their opportunism, they make it easier to deceive the people, they evade precisely the question of the frontiers of a state which forcibly retains subject nations, etc.
Both groups are opportunists who prostitute Marxism and who have lost all capacity to understand the theoretical significance and the practical urgency of Marx's tactics, an example of which he gave in relation to Ireland.
The specific question of annexations has become a particularly urgent one owing to the war. But what is annexation? Clearly, to protest against annexations implies either the recognition of the right of self-determination of nations, or that the protest is based on a pacifist phrase which defends the status quo and opposes all violence including revolutionary violence. Such a phrase is radically wrong, and incompatible with Marxism.
57 __ALPHA_LVL3__ VIII. THE CONCRETE TASKS OF THE PROLETARIATThe socialist revolution may begin in the very near future. In that event the proletariat will be faced with the immediate task of capturing power, of expropriating the banks and of introducing other dictatorial measures. In such a situation, the bourgeoisie, and particularly intellectuals like the Fabians and the Kautskyists, will strive to disrupt and to hinder the revolution, to restrict it to limited democratic aims. While all purely democratic demands may--- at a time when the proletarians have already begun to storm the bulwarks of bourgeois power---serve, in a certain sense, as a hindrance to the revolution, nevertheless, the necessity of proclaiming and granting freedom to all oppressed nations (i*., their right to self-determination) will be as urgent in the socialist revolution as it was urgent for the victory of the bourgeois-democratic revolution, for example, in Germany in 1848, or in Russia in 1905.
However, five, ten and even more years may pass before the socialist revolution begins. In that case, the task will be to educate the masses in a revolutionary spirit so as to make it impossible for Socialist chauvinists and opportunists to belong to the workers' party and to achieve a victory similar to that of 1914-16. It will be the duty of the Socialists to explain to the masses that English Socialists who fail to demand the freedom of secession for the colonies and for Ireland; that German Socialists who fail to demand the freedom of secession for the colonies, for the Alsatians, for the Danes and for the Poles, and who fail to carry direct revolutionary propaganda and revolutionary mass action to the field of struggle against national oppression, who fail to take advantage of cases like the Zabern incident to conduct widespread underground propaganda among the proletariat of the oppressing nation, to organise street demonstrations and revolutionary mass actions; that Russian Socialists who fail to demand freedom of secession for Finland, Poland, the Ukraine, etc., etc.---are behaving like chauvinists, like lackeys of the blood-and-mud-stained imperialist monarchies and the imperialist bourgeoisie.
58 __ALPHA_LVL3__ IX. THE ATTITUDE OF RUSSIAN AND POLISH SOCIAL-DEMOCRACYThe difference between the revolutionary Social-Democrats of Russia and the Polish Social-Democrats on the question of selfdetermination came to the surface as early as 1903 at the congress which adopted the programme of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party, and which, despite the protest of the Polish SocialDemocratic delegation, inserted in that programme point 9, which recognises the right of nations to self-determination. Since then the Polish Social-Democrats have never repeated, in the name of their Party, the proposal to delete point 9 from our programme, or to substitute some other formulation for it.
In Russia---where no less than 57 per cent, i.e., over 100,000,000 of the population, belong to oppressed nations, where those nations mainly inhabit the border provinces, where some of those nations are more cultured than the Great Russians, where the political system is distinguished, by its particularly barbarous and mediaeval character, where the bourgeois-democratic revolution has not yet been completed---the recognition of the right of the nations oppressed by tsarism to free secession from Russia is absolutely obligatory for Social-Democracy in the interests of its democratic and socialist tasks. Our Party, which was re-established in January I9I2,^^29^^ adopted a resolution in 1913~^^*^^ reiterating the right to selfdetermination and explaining it in the concrete sense outlined above. The orgy of Great-Russian chauvinism raging in 1914-16 among the bourgeoisie and the opportunist Socialists (Rubanovich, Plekhanov, Nashe Dyelo, etc.) prompts us to insist on this demand more strongly than ever and to declare that those who reject it serve, in practice, as a bulwark of Great-Russian chauvinism and tsarism. Our Party declares that it emphatically repudiates all responsibility for such opposition to the right of self-determination.
The latest formulation of the position of Polish Social-Democracy on the national question (the declaration made by Polish _-_-_
^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, "The Resolutions of the 'Summer Conference' of the C.C. of the R.S.D.L.P. with Party Functionaries," Collected Worlds, Vol. XVII, (Russian edition), pp. 11-13.---Ed.
59 Social-Democracy at the Zimmerwald Conference) contains the following ideas:This declaration condemns the German and other governments which regard the "Polish provinces" as a hostage in the forthcoming game of compensations and thus "deprive the Polish people of the opportunity to decide its own fate." The declaration says: "Polish Social-Democracy emphatically and solemnly protests against the recurving and partition of a whole country...." It condemns the Socialists who left to the Hohenzollerns "the task of liberating the oppressed nations." It expresses the conviction that only participation in the impending struggle of the revolutionary international proletariat, in the struggle for socialism, "will brea\ the fetters of national oppression and abolish all forms of foreign domination, and secure for the Polish people the possibility of all-sided, free development as an equal member in a League of Nations." The declaration also recognises the present war to be "doubly fratricidal" "for the Poles." (Bulletin of the International Socialist Committee, No. 2, September 27, 1915, p. 15.)
There is no difference in substance between these postulates and the recognition of the right of nations to self-determination except that their political formulation is still more diffuse and vague than the majority of the programmes and resolutions of the Second International. Any attempt to express these ideas in precise political formulae and to determine whether they apply to the capitalist system or only to the socialist system will prove still more strikingly the error committed by the Polish Social-Democrats in repudiating the self-determination of nations.
The decision of the International Socialist Congress held in London in 1896, which recognised the self-determination of nations, must, on the basis of the above-mentioned postulates, be supplemented by references to: i. the particular urgency of this demand under imperialism; 2. the politically conditional nature and the class content of all the demands of political democracy, including this demand; 3. the necessity of drawing a distinction between the concrete tasks of the Social-Democrats in the oppressing nations and those in oppressed nations; 4. the inconsistent, purely verbal, and, therefore, as far as its political significance is concerned, hypocritical recognition of self-determination by the opportunists and 60 Kautskyists; 5. the actual identity of the chauvinists and those Social-Democrats, particularly the Social-Democrats of the Great Powers (Great Russians, Anglo-Americans, Germans, French, Italians, Japanese, etc.), who fail to champion the freedom of secession for the colonies and nations oppressed by "their own" nations; 6. the necessity of subordinating the struggle for this demand, as well as for all die fundamental demands of political democracy, to die immediate revolutionary mass struggle for die overdirow of the bourgeois governments and for die achievement of socialism. To transplant to the International the point of view of some of the small nations---particularly die point of view of the Polish Social-Democrats, who, in dieir struggle against the Polish bourgeoisie which is deceiving the people with nationalist slogans, were misled into repudiating self-determination---would be a theoretical error. It would be die substitution of Proudhonism for Marxism and, in practice, would result in rendering involuntary support to the most dangerous chauvinism and opportunism of the Great Power nations.
Editorial Board of Sotsial-Demofyat, Central Organ of the
R.S.D.L.P.
Postscript. In the latest issue of the Neue Zeit, dated March 3, 1916, Kautsky openly extends a Christian hand of reconciliation to die representative of the fihhiest German chauvinism, Austerlitz. He rejects the freedom of secession for die nations oppressed by die Austria of the Hapsburgs, but accepts it for Russian Poland, thus rendering lackey's service to Hindenburg and Wilhelm II. A better self-exposure of Kautskyism could not be desired!
Written in the beginning of March, 1916. Vorbote, No. 2, April, 1916.
Sotsial-Demokrata, No. i, October, 1916.
ONE of the most important questions on the agenda of the Second International Conference of the ``Zimmerwaldists'' is the question of the Social-Democratic "peace programme." In order to bring home to the reader the essentials of this question we will quote a declaration made by Kautsky, the most authoritative representative of the Second International and most authoritative champion of the social-chauvinists in all countries.
``The International is not a fit instrument in time of war; it is, essentially, an instrument of peace.... The fight for peace, class struggle in peace time." (Neue Zeit, November 27, 1914.)
``All peace programmes formulated by the International; the programmes of the Copenhagen, London and Vienna Congresses, all demand, and quite rightly, the recognition of the independence of nations. This demand must also serve as our compass in the present war." (Ibid., May 21, 1915.)
These few words excellently express the ``programme'' of infrnational social-chauvinist unity and conciliation. Everybody knows that Sudekum's friends and adherents met in Vienna and acted entirely in his spirit, championing the cause of German imperialism under the cloak of "defence of the fatherland." The French, English and Russian Siidekums met in London and championed the cause of ``their'' national imperialism under the same cloak. The real policy of the London and Vienna heroes of social-chauvinism is to justify participation in the imperialist war, to justify the killing of German workers by French workers, and vice versa, for the sake of determining which national bourgeoisie shall have preference in robbing other countries. And to conceal their real policy, to deceive the workers, both the London and the Vienna heroes resort to the phrase: We ``recognise'' the "independence of nations," or in other words, recognise the self-determination of nations, repudiate annexations, etc., etc.
It is as clear as daylight that this ``recognition'' is a flagrant lie, 62 despicable hypocrisy, for it justifies participation in a war which both sides are waging, not to make nations independent, but to enslave them. Instead of exposing, unmasking and condemning this hypocrisy, Kautsky, the great authority, sanctifies it. The unanimous desire of the chauvinist traitors,to Socialism to deceive the workers is, in Kautsky's eyes, proof of the ``unanimity'' and virility of the International on the question of peace!!! Kautsky converts nationalist, crude, obvious, flagrant hypocrisy, which is obvious to the workers, into international, subtle, cloaked hypocrisy, calculated to throw dust in the eyes of the workers. Kautsky's policy is a hundred times more harmful and dangerous to the labour movement than Siidekum's policy; Kautsky's hypocrisy is a hundred times more repulsive.
This does not apply to Kautsky alone. Substantially the same pol« icy is pursued by Axelrod, Martov and Chkheidze in Russia; by Longuet and Pressemane in France, Treves in Italy, etc. Objectively, this policy means fostering bourgeois lies among the working class; it means inculcating bourgeois ideas into the minds of the proletariat. That both Siidekum and Plekhanov merely repeat the bourgeois lies of the capitalists of ``their'' respective nations is obvious; but it is not so obvious that Kautsky sanctifies these lies and elevates them to the sphere of the "highest truth" of a ``unanimous'' International. That the workers should regard the Sudekums and Plekhanovs as authoritative and unanimous ``Socialists'' who have temporarily fallen out is exactly what the bourgeoisie wants. The very thing the bourgeoisie wants is that the workers should be diverted from the revolutionary struggle in war time by means of hypocritical, idle and non-committal phrases about peace; that they should be lulled and soothed by hopes of peace without annexations, a democratic peace, etc., etc.
Huysmans has merely popularised Kautsky's peace programme and has added: courts of arbitration, democratisation of foreign politics, etc. But the first and fundamental point of a Socialist peace programme must be to unmasl^ the hypocrisy of the Kautskyist peace programme, which strengthens bourgeois influence over the proletariat.
Let us recall the fundamental postulates of Socialist doctrine, 63 __RUNNING_HEADER__ THE "PEACE PROGRAMME" which the Kautskyists have distorted. War is the continuation, by forcible means, of the politics pursued by the ruling classes of the belligerent Powers long before the outbreak of war. Peace is a continuation of the very same politics, with a registration of the changes brought about in the relation of forces of the antagonists as a result of military operations. War does not change the direction in which politics developed prior to the war; it only accelerates that development.
The war of 1870-71 was a continuation of the progressive bourgeois policy (which was pursued for decades) of liberating and uniting Germany. The debacle and overthrow of Napoleon III hastened that liberation. The peace programme of the Socialists of that epoch took this progressive bourgeois result into account and advocated support for the democratic bourgeoisie, urging: no plunder of France; an honourable peace with the republic.
How clownish is the attempt slavishly to repeat this example under the conditions prevailing during the imperialist war of 1914-16! This war is the continuation of the politics of an over-ripe reactionary bourgeoisie, which has plundered the world, which has seized colonies, etc. Owing to the objective situation, the present war cannot, on the basis of bourgeois relations, lead to any democratic ``progress'' whatever; no matter what the outcome of the war may be, it can lead only to the intensification and extension of oppression in general, and of national oppression in particular.
That war accelerated development in a democratic bourgeoisprogressive direction: it resulted in the overthrow of Napoleon III and in the unification of Germany. This war is accelerating development only in the direction of the socialist revolution. Then the programme of a democratic (bourgeois) peace had an objective historical basis. Now there is no such basis, and all phrases about a democratic peace is a bourgeois lie, the objective purpose of which is to divert the workers from the revolutionary struggle for socialism! Then the Socialists, by their programme of a democratic peace, supported a deep-going bourgeois-democratic movement of the masses (for the overthrow of Napoleon III and the unification of Germany), which had been manifesting itself for decades. Now, with their programme of a democratic peace on the basis of bourgeois relations the Socialists are helping the deception of the people 64 by the bourgeoisie, whose aim is to divert the proletariat from the socialist revolution.
Just as phrases about "defence of the fatherland" inculcate into the minds of the masses the ideology of a national war of liberation by means of fraud, so phrases about a democratic peace inculcate that very same bourgeois lie in a roundabout way.
``That means that you have no peace programme, that you are opposed to democratic demands," the Kautskyists argue, in the hope that inattentive people will not notice that this objection substitutes non-existent bourgeois-democratic tasks for the existing socialist tasks.
Oh no, gentlemen, we reply to the Kautskyists. We are in favour of democratic demands, we alone fight for them sincerely, for the objective historical situation prevents us from advancing them except in connection with the socialist revolution. Take, for example, the ``compass'' which Kautsky and Co. employ for the bourgeois deception of the workers.
Siidekum and Plekhanov are ``unanimous'' in their "peace programme." Down with annexations! Support the independence of nations! And note this: the Siidekums are right when they say that Russia's attitude towards Poland, Finland, etc., is an annexationist attitude. And so is Plekhanov right when he says that Germany's attitude towards Alsace-Lorraine, Serbia, Belgium, etc., is also annexationist. Both are right, are they not? And in this way Kautsky ``reconciles'' the German Siidekum with the Russian Siidekums!!!
But every sensible worker will see immediately that Kautsky and both the Siidekums are hypocrites. This is obvious. The duty of a Socialist is not to make peace with hypocritical democracy, but to unmas\ it. How can it be unmasked? Very simply. ``Recognition'' of the independence of nations can be regarded as sincere only where the representative of the oppressing nation has demanded, both before and during the war, freedom of secession for the nation which is oppressed by his own "fatherland.''
This demand alone is in accord with Marxism. Marx advanced it in the interests of the English proletariat when he demanded freedom for Ireland, although he admitted at the same time the probability that federation would follow secession. In other words, 65 he demanded the right of secession, not for the purpose of splitting and isolating countries, but for the purpose of creating more durable and democratic ties. In all cases where there are oppressed and oppressing nations, where there are no special circumstances which distinguish revolutionary-democratic nations from reactionary nations (as was the case in the 'forties of the nineteenth century), Marx's policy in relation to Ireland must serve as a model for proletarian policy. But imperialism is precisely the epoch in which the division of nations into oppressors and oppressed is the essential and typical division, and it is utterly impossible to draw a distinction between reactionary and revolutionary nations in Europe.
As early as 1913, our Party, in a resolution on the national question, made it the duty of Social-Democrats to apply the term selfdetermination in the sense here indicated. And the war of 1914-16 has fully shown that we were right.
Take Kautsky's latest article in the Neue Zeit of March 3, 1916. He openly declares himself to be in agreement with Austerlitz, the notorious, extreme German .chauvinist in Austria, die editor of the chauvinist Vienna Arbeiter-Zeitung, when he says that "the independence of a nation must not be confused with its sovereignty." In other words, national autonomy within a "nationality state" is good enough for the oppressed nations, and it is not necessary to demand for them the equal right to political independence. In this very article, however, Kautsky asserts that it is impossible to prove that "it is essential for the Poles to adhere to the Russian state"!!!
What does this mean ? It means tliat to please Hindenburg, Siidekum, Austerlitz and Co., Kautsky recognises Poland's right to secede from Russia, although Russia is a "nationality state," but not a word does he say about freedom for the Poles to secede from Germany!!! In this very article Kautsky declares that the French Socialists had departed from internationalism by wanting to achieve the freedom of Alsace-Lorraine by means of war. But he says nothing about the German Siidekums and Co. deviating from internationalism when they refuse to demand freedom for AlsaceLorraine to secede from Germany!
Kautsky employs the phrase "a nationality state"---a phrase that can be applied to England in relation to Ireland, and to Germany in relation to Poland, Alsace-Lorraine, etc.---obviously for the 66 purpose of defending social-chauvinism. He has converted the slogan "fight against annexations" into a "programme of peace"... with the chauvinists, into glaring hypocrisy. And in this very article, Kautsky repeats the honeyed little Judas speech: "The International has never ceased to demand the consent of the affected populations when state frontiers are to be altered." Is it not clear that Siidekum and Co. demand the ``consent'' of the Alsatians and Belgians to be annexed to Germany and that Austerlitz and Co. demand the ``consent'' of the Poles and Serbs to be annexed to Austria?
And what about the Russian Kautskyist, Martov? He wrote to the Gvozdevist journal Nash Golos (Samara) to prove the indisputable truth that self-determination of nations does not necessarily imply defence of the fatherland in an imperialist war. But Martov says nothing about the fact that a Russian Social-Democrat betrays the principle of self-determination if he does not demand the right of secession for the nations oppressed by the Great Russians; and in this way Martov stretches out the hand of peace to the Alexinskys, the Gvozdevs, the Potresovs, and the Plekhanovs! Martov is silent on this point also in the underground press! He argues against the Dutchman Gorter, although Gorter, while wrongly repudiating the principle of self-determination of nations, correctly applies it by demanding political independence for the Dutch Indies and by unmasking the betrayal of Socialism by the Dutch opportunists who disagree with this demand. Martov, however, does not argue against his secretary, Semkovsky, who in 1912-15 was the only writer in the liquidationist press who repudiated the right of secession and self-determination in general!
Is it not plain that Martov ``advocates'' self-determination just as hypocritically as Kautsky does; that he, too, is covering up his desire to maf(e peace with the chauvinists ?
And what about Trotsky? He is body and soul for self-- determination, but in his case, too, it is an idle phrase, for he does not demand freedom of secession for nations oppressed by the ``fatherland'' of the Socialist of the given nationality; he is silent about the hypocrisy of Kautsky and the Kautskyists!
This kind of "struggle against annexations" serves to deceive the workers and not to explain the programme of the Social-Democrats; it is an evasion of the problem and not a concrete indication of the 67 duty of internationalists; it is a concession to nationalist prejudices and to the selfish interests of nationalism (``we'' all, bourgeois and social-chauvinists alike, derive ``benefits'' from ``our'' fatherland's oppression of other nations!) but not a struggle against nationalism.
The "peace programme" of Social-Democracy must, in the first place, unmask the hypocrisy of the bourgeois, social-chauvinist and Kautskyist phrases about peace. This is the first and fundamental thing. Unless we do that we shall be willingly or unwillingly helping to deceive the masses. Our "peace programme" demands that the principal democratic point on this question---the repudiation of annexations---should be applied in practice and not in words, that it should serve to promote the propaganda of internationalism, not of national hypocrisy. In order that this may do so, we must explain to the masses that the repudiation of annexations, i.e., the recognition of self-determination, is sincere only when the Socialists of every nation demand the right of secession for the nations that are oppressed by their nations. As a positive slogan, one capable of drawing the masses into the revolutionary struggle and explaining the necessity for adopting revolutionary measures to attain a " democratic peace," we must advance the slogan: Repudiation of the National Debt.
Finally, our "peace programme" must explain that the imperialist Powers and the imperialist bourgeoisie cannot grant a democratic peace. Such a peace must be sought and fought for, not in the past, not in a reactionary Utopia of a wow-imperialist capitalism, nor in a league of equal nations under capitalism, but in the future, in the socialist revolution of the proletariat. Not a single fundamental democratic demand can be achieved to any considerable extent, or any degree of permanency, in the advanced imperialist states, except by revolutionary battles under the banner of socialism.
Whoever promises the nations a ``democratic'' peace without at the same time preaching the socialist revolution, or while repudiating the struggle for it---the struggle which must be carried on now, during the war---is deceiving the proletariat.
Sotsial-Demokrat, No. 52, March 25, 1916.
THE International Socialist Committee, in its notice convening the Second Conference, invited the affiliated organisations to discuss the questions enumerated above, and to send in their proposals. In reply to this invitation our Party submits the following theses.
1. Just as all war is but the continuation by forcible means of the politics which the belligerent states and the classes that rule them have been conducting for many years, sometimes for decades before the outbreak of war, so the peace that succeeds any war can be nothing but the accounting and registration of the actual changes in the relation of forces brought about in the course of and in consequence of the war.
2. As long as the foundations of present, *".<?., bourgeois, social relations remain intact, an imperialist war can lead only to an imperialist peace, i.e., to the consolidation, expansion and intensification of the oppression of weak nations and countries by finance capital, which has grown enormously, not only in the period preceding the present war, but also, and particularly, during the course of the war. The objective content of the policies pursued by the bourgeoisie and the governments of both groups of Great Powers before and during the war leads to the intensification of economic oppression, national enslavement and political reaction. Consequently, if the bourgeois social system is preserved, the peace that \vill emerge from the present war, no matter what its outcome may 69 __RUNNING_HEADER__ PROPOSALS TO SOCIALIST CONFERENCE be, cannot but serve to perpetuate this worsening of the economic and political conditions of the masses.
To assume that it is possible for a democratic peace to emerge from an imperialist war means, in theory, to substitute vulgar phrases for an historic study of the politics that were conducted before and during the present war. In practice, it means deceiving the masses of the people by beclouding their political consciousness, by covering up and embellishing the actual policies pursued by the ruling classes, which are preparing the ground for the coming peace by concealing from the masses the main thing, namely, that a democratic peace is impossible without a whole series of revolutions.
3. Socialists do not repudiate the struggle for reforms. For example, even now they must vote in Parliament for improvements, even slight ones, in the conditions of the masses, for increased relief to the inhabitants of the devastated regions, for the lessening of national oppression, etc. But it is sheer bourgeois deception to preach reforms as a solution for problems for which history and the actual political situation demand revolutionary solutions. It is precisely problems of this kind that the present war has brought to the front. These are the fundamental questions of imperialism, i.e., the very existence of capitalist society, the question of postponing the collapse of capitalism by a new partition of the world to correspond to the new relation of forces among the ``Great'' Powers, which in the last few decades have developed, not only extremely rapidly, but--- and this is particularly important---also extremely unevenly. Real political activity that will change the relation of forces in society, and not merely deceive the masses of the people with words, is now possible only in one of two forms: either by helping "one's own" national bourgeoisie to rob other countries (and calling this "defence of the fatherland" or "saving the country"), or by assisting the proletarian socialist revolution, fostering and developing the ferment which is beginning among the masses in all the belligerent countries, by aiding the incipient strikes and demonstrations, etc., by extending and sharpening these as yet feeble expressions of revolutionary mass struggle into a general assault of the proletariat for the overthrow of the bourgeoisie.
Just as all the social-chauvinists are at present deceiving the people by glossing over the real, t£., the imperialist policy of the 70 capitalists, which is being continued in the present war with hypocritical phrases about the ``dishonest'' attack and ``honest'' defence on the part of this or that group of predatory capitalists, so phrases about a "democratic peace" serve only to deceive the people, as if the coming peace, which is already being prepared by the capitalists and diplomats, could ``simply'' abolish ``dishonest'' attacks and restore ``honest'' relations, and as if it will not be a continuation, a development, and a perpetuation of this very imperialist policy, i£., a policy of financial looting, colonial robbery, national oppression, political reaction and intensification of capitalist exploitation in all its forms. The very things the capitalists and their diplomats need at the present time are ``Socialist'' servants of the bourgeoisie to deafen, befool and drug the people with phrases about a "democratic peace" and in this way to hide the real policy of the bourgeoisie, thus making it difficult for the masses to realise the real nature of this policy and diverting them from the revolutionary struggle.
4. The ``democratic'' peace programme, on the drafting of which the prominent representatives of the Second International are now engaged, is precisely such a piece of bourgeois deception and hypocrisy. For example, Huysmans at the Arnheem Congress,^^31^^ and Kautsky, one of the most authoritative, official, and ``theoretical'' representatives of this International, in the Neue Zeit, formulated this programme as follows: suspension of the revolutionary struggle until the imperialist governments have concluded peace; in the meantime, verbal repudiation of annexations and indemnities, verbal recognition of self-determination of nations, democratisation of foreign politics, courts of arbitration to examine international conflicts between states, disarmament, United States of Europe, etc., etc. The real political significance of this "peace programme" was revealed witii particular force by Kautsky, when, to prove the "unanimity of the International" on this question, he cited the fact that the London Conference (February 1915)^^32^^ and the Vienna Conference (April 1915)3S had unanimously adopted the main point of this programme, namely, the "independence of nations." Kautsky thus openly, before the whole world, gave his sanction to an obvious deception of the people perpetrated by the social-chauvinists, who combine verbal, hypocritical recognition of ``independence'' or selfdetermination of nations, recognition that binds no one and leads 71 __RUNNING_HEADER__ PROPOSALS TO SOCIALIST CONFERENCE nowhere, with support for "their own" governments in an imperialist war, notwithstanding the fact that on both sides the war is accompanied by the systematic violation of the ``independence'' of weak nations and is being waged for the purpose of consolidating and extending their oppression.
The objective purpose of this cheap "peace programme" is to reinforce the subjection of the working class to the bourgeoisie by ``reconciling'' the workers, who are beginning to develop a revolutionary struggle, with their chauvinist leaders, by glossing over the gravity of the crisis now prevailing in the Socialist movement with the view to a return to the very state of affairs in the Socialist Parties before the war which gave rise to the desertion of the majority of the leaders to the side of the bourgeoisie. The fact that this ``Kautskyist'' policy is clothed in plausible phrases and that it is being pursued, not in Germany alone, but in all countries, makes it all the more dangerous for the proletariat. For instance, in England, this policy is being pursued by the majority of the leaders; in France, by Longuet, Pressemane and others; in Russia, by Axelrod, Martov, Chkheidze and others; Chkheidze is screening the chauvinist idea of "defence of the country" in the present war with the phrase "save the country," and on the one hand approves of Zimmerwald in words, and on the other, in an official declaration of his fraction, praises Huysman's notorious Arnheem speech. In fact, however, neither from the Duma tribune nor in the press does he oppose the participation of the workers in the War Industries Committees, and he remains on the staff of newspapers which advocate such participation. In Italy, a similar policy is being pursued by Treves: see the threat made by the central organ of the Italian Socialist Party, Avanti, of March 5, 1916, to expose Treves and other "reformist-possibilists," to expose those "who resorted to every means to prevent the Party executive and Oddino Morgan from taking action to secure unity at Zimmerwald and to create a new International," etc., etc.
5. The main "peace question" at the present time is the question of annexations. And it is just this question that most strikingly reveals the now prevailing Socialist hypocrisy and the tasks of real Socialist propaganda and agitation.
72It is necessary to explain the meaning of annexations, and why and how Socialists must fight against them. Not every appropriation of ``foreign'' territory may be described as annexation, for, generally speaking, Socialists are in favour of abolishing frontiers between nations and of forming larger states; nor may every disturbance of the status quo be described as annexation, for this would be extremely reactionary and a mockery of the fundamental concepts of the science of history; nor may every military appropriation of territory be called annexation, for Socialists cannot repudiate violence and wars in the interests of the majority of the population. The term annexation must be applied only to the appropriation of territory against the will of the population of that territory: in other words, the concept of annexation is inseparably bound up with the concept of self-determination of nations.
The present war, however---precisely because it is an imperialist war on the part of both groups of belligerent Powers---inevitably had to and did give rise to the phenomenon of the bourgeoisie and the social-chauvinists ``fighting'' valiantly against annexations when the enemy state is annexing, or has annexed, foreign territory. It is plain that such a "struggle against annexations" and such `` unanimity'' on the question of annexation is sheer hypocrisy. Obviously, the French Socialists who defend the war for the sake of Alsace-- Lorraine, and the German Socialists who refrain from demanding freedom for Alsace-Lorraine, for German Poland, etc., to separate from Germany, and the Russian Socialists who describe the war which is being waged for the purpose of enslaving Poland once again to the tsar as a war for "saving the country," and who demand the annexation of Polish territory to Russia in the name of "peace without annexations," etc., etc., are in jact annexationists.
In order that the struggle against annexations may not be mere hypocrisy, or an empty phrase, in order that it may really educate the masses in the spirit of internationalism, the question must be presented in a manner that will really open the eyes of the masses to the deception now prevailing around the question of annexations and not help to screen this deception. It is not sufficient for the Socialists of every country to give lip-service to equality of nations or to declaim, vow and solemnly declare that they are opposed to annexations. The Socialists of every country must demand 73 immediate and unconditional freedom of secession for the colonies and nations that are oppressed by their own "fatherland.''
Without this condition, even in the Zimmerwald Manifesto, the recognition of self-determination of nations and of the principles of internationalism would, at best, remain a dead letter.
6. The "peace programme" of the Socialists, as well as their programme of "struggle for the termination of the war," must proceed from the exposure of the lie about a "democratic peace," about the pacific intentions of the belligerents, etc., which the demagogic Ministers, the pacifist bourgeois, the social-chauvinists, and the Kautskyists of all countries are now propagating among the people. Every "peace programme" is deception of the people and a piece of hypocrisy unless its principal object is to explain to the masses the need for a revolution and to support, aid, and develop the revolutionary struggle of the masses that is commencing everywhere (ferment among the masses, protests, fraternisation in the trenches, strikes, demonstrations, letters from the front to relatives---for example, in France---urging them not to subscribe to war loans, etc., etc.).
It is the duty of the Socialists to support, extend and intensify every popular movement to end the war. But this duty is really being fulfilled only by those Socialists who, like Liebknecht, from the parliamentary tribune call upon the soldiers to lay down their arms, who preach revolution and transformation of the imperialist war into a civil war for socialism.
As a positive slogan to draw the masses into revolutionary struggle and to explain the necessity for revolutionary measures for making a ``democratic'' peace possible, we must advance the slogan of repudiation of the National Debt.
The fact that the Zimmerwald Manifesto hints at revolution when it says that the workers must make sacrifices for their own and not for somebody else's cause is not enough. It is necessary clearly and definitely to indicate to the masses the road they must take. The masses must know where to go and why they should go there. It is obvious that mass revolutionary actions during the war, if successfully developed, can lead only to the imperialist war being transformed into civil war for socialism, and it is harmful to conceal this from the masses. On the contrary, this aim must be indicated clearly, 74 no matter how difficult its attainment may appear now, when we are still at the beginning of the road. It is not sufficient to say, as the Zimmerwald Manifesto does, that "the capitalists lie when they speak about defence of the fatherland" in the present war, and that the workers in their revolutionary struggle must not take into account the military situation of their country; it is necessary to say clearly what is here merely hinted at, namely, that not only the capitalists, but also the social-chauvinists and the Kautskyists lie when they allow the term "defence of the fatherland" to be applied in the present imperialist war; that revolutionary action during the war is impossible without creating the risk of defeat for "one's own" government; and that every defeat of the government in a reactionary war facilitates revolution, which alone is capable of bringing about a lasting and democratic peace. Finally, the masses must be told that unless they themselves create underground organisations and a press that is free from military censorship, i.e., an underground press, it will be utterly impossible to render serious support to the revolutionary struggle which is now beginning to develop, to criticise each step it takes, to correct its errors and systematically to broaden and sharpen it.
7. On the question of Socialists' parliamentary action, it must be borne in mind that the Zimmerwald resolution not only expresses sympathy for the five Social-Democratic deputies in the State Duma,. who belong to our party, and who have been sentenced to exile to Siberia, but also expresses its solidarity with their tactics. It is impossible to recognise the revolutionary struggle of the masses and at the same time rest content with exclusively legal activity of Socialists in Parliament. This can only arouse legitimate dissatisfaction among the workers, cause them to desert Social-Democracy and go over to anti-parliamentary anarchism, or syndicalism. It is necessary to say clearly and publicly that Social-Democratic members of Parliament must use their position not only to make speeches in Parliament, but also to render all possible aid outside of Parliament to the underground organisation and to the revolutionary struggle of the workers, and that the masses themselves, through their illegal organisation, must supervise these activities of their leaders.
8, The question of the convocation of the International Socialist 75 Bureau reduces itself to the fundamental question of principle, viz., whether the unity of the old parties and of the Second International is possible. Every step forward taken by the international labour movement on the road mapped out by Zimmerwald shows more and more clearly the inconsistency of the position adopted by the Zimmerwald majority; for, on the one hand, it identifies the policy of the old parties and of the Second International with bourgeois- policy in the labour movement, with a policy which pursues the interests not of the proletariat, but of the bourgeoisie (for example, the statement in the Zimmerwald Manifesto that the ``capitalists'' lie when they speak of "defence of the fadierland" in the present war; also the still more definite declarations contained in the circular of the International Socialist Committee of February 10, 1916S4); on the other hand, the International Socialist Committee is afraid to break away from the International Socialist Bureau and promises officially that it will dissolve when the Bureau convenes again.
We declare that not only was such a promise never voted on, but it was never even discussed in Zimmerwald.^^85^^
The six mondis that have elapsed since Zimmerwald have proved diat actual work in the spirit of Zimmerwald---we do not speak of empty phrases, but of work---is bound up throughout the world with a split that is becoming deeper and wider. In Germany, illegal manifestoes against the war are being published in spite of the decisions of the Party, i.e., schismatically. When Deputy Otto Ruble, Karl Liebknecht's closest comrade, openly declared that actually there are already two parties in existence, one that helps the bourgeoisie, and the other that fights against it, many, including the Kautskyists, reviled him, but no one refuted him. In France, Bourderon, a member of the Socialist Party, is a determined opponent of a split; but at the same time he submits a resolution to his Party disapproving of the Central Committee of the Party and of the parliamentary group (desapprouver Comm. Adm. Perm. et. Gr. Parl.), which, if adopted, would certainly have caused an immediate split. In England, T. Russell Williams, a member of the I.L.P., in the pages of the moderate Labour Leader, openly admits that a split is inevitable and finds support in letters written by local workers. The example of America is perhaps still more instructive, 76 because even there, in a neutral country, two irreconcilably hostile trends in the Socialist Party have become revealed: on the one hand, the adherents of so-called "preparedness," i.e., of war, militarism, and navalism, and on the other, Socialists like Eugene Debs, former Presidential candidate of the Socialist Party, who openly preaches civil war for socialism, precisely in connection with the coming war.
Actually, a split exists already throughout the whole world; two entirely irreconcilable working class policies in relation to the war have already revealed themselves. We must not close our eyes to this fact; to do so would only result in confusing the masses of the workers, in obscuring their minds, in hindering that revolutionary mass struggle with which all Zimmerwaldists officially sympathise, and in strengthening the influence over the masses of those leaders whom the International Socialist Committee, in its circular of February 10, 1916, openly accuses of ``misleading'' the masses and of hatching a ``plot'' (Pakf) against socialism.
It is the social-chauvinists and Kautskyists of all countries who will undertake the task of restoring the bankrupt International Socialist Bureau. The task of the Socialists is to explain to the masses that a split from those who pursue a bourgeois policy under the flag of socialism is inevitable.
Written in the beginning of April, 1916.
Internationale Sozialistische Commission su Bern, Bulletin No. 4, April 22, 1916.
Sotsial-Demokrat, No. 54-55, June 10, 1916.
THE German chauvinists, as we know, have succeeded in imposing their influence upon the overwhelming majority of the leaders and officials of the so-called Social-Democratic---now, in fact, become a National-Liberal Labour Party. How far this applies also to the non-German chauvinists like Messrs. Potresov, Levitsky and Co., we shall see presently. At the moment we must deal with the German chauvinists, among whom, in fairness, Kautsky must also be included notwithstanding the fact that P. B. Axelrod, in his German pamphlet, for example, very assiduously and very incorrectly defends Kautsky and calls him an "internationalist.''
One of the characteristics of German chauvinism is that `` Socialists''---Socialists in quotation marks---speak of the independence of nations other than those which are oppressed by their own nation. Whether this is said directly, or whether they defend, justify and shield those who say it, does not make very much difference.
The German chauvinists (among whom we must also include Parvus, the publisher of the little magazine entitled Die Gloc\e, to which Lensch, Honisch, Griinwald and all the rest of the fraternity of ``Socialist'' lackeys of the German imperialist bourgeoisie contribute) eagerly talk a lot, for example, about independence for the nations that are oppressed by England. Not only the socialchauvinists of Germany, i£., Socialists in words, but chauvinists in deeds, but the whole bourgeois press of Germany is trumpeting with all its might about the shameful, brutal and reactionary, etc., manner in which England rules her colonies. The German newspapers are writing about the movement for liberation in India with relish, malicious glee, enthusiasm and rapture.
It is not difficult to understand the reasons for the malicious glee of the German bourgeoisie: it hopes to improve its military position by fanning the discontent and the anti-British movement in India. These hopes are silly, of course, because it is simply 78 impossible seriously to influence the life of a people numbering many millions, and a very peculiar people at that, from outside, from afar, in a foreign language, particularly when the influence is not systematic, but casual, only for the duration of the war. The efforts of the German imperialist bourgeoisie are merely an attempt at self-consolation; they are prompted more by the desire to fool the German people, to divert their attention from the internal to the foreign situation, rather than the desire to influence India.
But the general, theoretical question automatically arises: What is at the root of the falsehood of arguments of this kind; what are the certain and infallible means of exposing the hypocrisy of the German imperialists? For the correct theoretical answer to the question of where the root of falsehood is hidden always serves as a means of exposing the hypocrites who, for reasons all too obvious, are inclined to conceal falsehood, to obscure it, to clothe it in a sumptuous cloak of phrases, all sorts of phrases, phrases about everything in the world, even about internationalism. Even the Lensches, Siidekums and Scheidemanns, all these agents of the German bourgeoisie, who, unfortunately, belong to the so-called ``Social-Democratic'' Party of Germany, declare in words that they are internationalists. But people must be judged not by their words, but by dieir deeds. This is not new. Who in Russia would judge Messrs. Potresov, Levitsky, Bulkin and Co. by their words? Nobody, of course.
The root of the falsehood of the German chauvinists lies in the fact that while they shout about their sympathy for the independence of the nations that are oppressed by England, their enemy in the war, they modestly, sometimes even too modestly, keep silent about the independence of the nations diat are oppressed by their own nation.
Take the Danes, for example. In annexing Schleswig, Prussia, like all "Great Powers," seized also a part populated by Danes. The violation of the rights of this population was so evident that when by the Peace of Prague, August 23-30, 1866, Austria ceded to Prussia her "rights" to Schleswig, the peace treaty stipulated that the population of the northern part of Schleswig should be asked by means of a free plebiscite whether they wished to join Denmark, and in the event of a reply in the affirmative, they 79 __RUNNING_HEADER__ GERMAN AND NON-GERMAN CHAUVINISM were to join Denmark. Prussia, however, did not carry out that stipulation, and in 1878 succeeded in securing the annulment of this, to her, ``distasteful'' condition.
Frederick Engels, who was never indifferent to the chauvinism of Great Power nations, specifically pointed to this violation of the rights of a small nation by Prussia. But the present-day German social-chauvinists, while recognising the right of self-determination of nations in words, as Kautsky also does, have never carried on, nor do they now carry on consistently democratic and resolutely democratic agitation in favour of liberating an oppressed nation when that oppression is exercised by "their own" nation. This is where the trouble lies: here is the clue to the question of chauvinism and of its exposure.
In Russia, it has often been said in jest that Russfoye Znamya has frequently behaved like Prussfoye Znamya.^^*^^ S6 But this jest does not apply to Russfoye Znamya alone; for Messrs. Potresov, Levitsky and Co. argue in Russia in the very same way as Lensch, Kautsky and Co. argue in Germany. Open the Liquidationist Rabocheye Utro, for example, and you will find these very " Prussian," or rather, international-chauvinist arguments and methods of reasoning. Chauvinism remains chauvinism, no matter what its national brand may be, no matter what pacifist phrases it uses as cover,
Voprosy Stratyouttniya, No. 5 (54), May 31, 1916
^^*^^ A play on the words: Russkpyc Znamya---Russian Banner; Prusskoye Znamya--- Prussian Banner.---Ed.
[80] ~ [81]IMPERIALISM, THE HIGHEST STAGE OF CAPITALISM
[82] ~ [83] __ALPHA_LVL1__ IMPERIALISM,THE pamphlet here presented to the reader was written in Zurich in the spring of 1916. In the conditions in which I was obliged to work there I naturally suffered somewhat from a shortage of French and English literature and from a serious dearth of -Russian literature. However, I made use of the principal English work, Imperialism, J. A. Hobson's book, with all the care that, in my opinion, that work deserves.
This pamphlet was written with an eye to the tsarist censorship. Hence, I was not only forced to confine myself strictly to an exclusively theoretical, mainly economic analysis of facts, but to formulate the few necessary observations on politics with extreme caution, by hints, in that jEsopian language---in that cursed ^Esopian language---to which tsarism compelled all revolutionaries to have recourse whenever they took up their pens to write a ``legal'' work.^^*^^
It is very painful, in these days of liberty, to read these cramped passages of the pamphlet, crushed, as they seem, in an iron vise, distorted on account of the censor. Of how imperialism is the eve of the socialist revolution; of how social-chauvinism (socialism in words, chauvinism in deeds) is the utter betrayal of socialism, complete desertion to the side of the bourgeoisie; of how the split in the labour movement is bound up with the objective conditions of imperialism, etc., I had to speak in a ``slavish'' tongue, and I must refer the reader who is interested in the question to the volume, which is soon to appear, in which are reproduced the articles I wrote abroad in the years 1914-17. Special attention must _-_-_
^^*^^ "yEsopian," after the Greek fable writer JEsop, was the term applied to the allusive and roundabout style adopted in ``legal'' publications by revolutionaries in order to evade the censorship.---Ed.
84 __RUNNING_HEADER__ IMPERIALISM be drawn, however, to a passage on pages 119--20.^^*^^ In order to show, in a guise acceptable to the censors, how shamefully the capitalists and the social-chauvinist deserters (whom Kautsky opposes with so much inconsistency) lie on the question of annexations; in order to show with what cynicism they screen the annexations of their capitalists, I was forced to quote as an example ---Japan! The careful reader will easily substitute Russia for Japan, and Finland, Poland, Courland, the Ukraine, Khiva, Bokhara, Estonia or other regions peopled by non-Great Russians, for Korea.I trust that this pamphlet will help the reader to understand the fundamental economic question, viz., the question of the economic essence of imperialism, for unless this is studied, it will be impossible to understand and appraise modern war and modern politics.
Petrograd, April 26, 1917
^^*^^ Cf. pp. 190-91 in this volume.---Ed.
[85] __ALPHA_LVL2__ PREFACE TO THE FRENCH AND GERMAN EDITIONSAs was indicated in the preface to the Russian edition, this pamphlet was written in 1916, with an eye to the tsarist censorship. I am unable to revise the whole text at the present time, nor, perhaps, is this advisable, since the main purpose of the book was and remains: to present, on the basis of the summarised returns of irrefutable bourgeois statistics, and the admissions of bourgeois scholars of all countries, a general picture of the world capitalist system in its international relationships at the beginning of the twentieth century---on the eve of the first world imperialist war.
To a certain extent it will be useful for many Communists in advanced capitalist countries to convince themselves by the example of this pamphlet, legal, from the standpoint of the tsarist censor, of the possibility---and necessity---of making use of even the slight remnants of legality which still remain at the disposal of the Communists, say, in contemporary America or France, after the recent wholesale arrests of Communists, in order to explain the utter falsity of social-pacifist views and hopes for "world democracy." The most essential of what should be added to this censored pamphlet I shall try to present in this preface.
In the pamphlet I proved that the war of 1914-18 was imperialistic (that is, an annexationist, predatory, plunderous war) on the part of both sides; it was a war for the division of the world, for the partition and repartition of colonies, "spheres of influence" of finance capital, etc.
Proof of what was the true social, or rather, the true class character of the war is naturally to be found, not in the diplomatic 86 history of the war, but in an analysis of the objective position of the ruling classes in all belligerent countries. In order to depict this objective position one must not take examples or isolated data (in view of the extreme complexity of social life it is always quite easy to select any number of examples or separate data to prove any point one desires), but the whole of the data concerning the basis of economic life in all the belligerent countries and the whole world.
It is precisely irrefutable summarised data of this kind that I quoted in describing the partition of the world in the period of 1876 to 1914 (in chapter VI) and the distribution of the railways all over the world in the period of 1890 to 1913 (in chapter VII). Railways combine within themselves the basic capitalist industries: coal, iron and steel; and they are the most striking index of the development of international trade and bourgeois-democratic civilisation. In the preceding chapters of the book I showed how the railways are linked up with large-scale industry, with monopolies, syndicates, cartels, trusts, banks and the financial oligarchy. The uneven distribution of the railways, their uneven development--- sums up, as it were, modern world monopolist capitalism. And this summing up proves that imperialist wars are absolutely inevitable under such an economic system, as long as private property in the means of production exists.
The building of railways seems to be a simple, natural, democratic, cultural and civilising enterprise; that is what it is in the opinion of bourgeois professors, who are paid to depict capitalist slavery in bright colours, and in the opinion of petty-bourgeois philistines. But as a matter of fact the capitalist threads, which in thousands of different intercrossings bind these enterprises with private property in the means of production in general, have converted this work of construction into an instrument for oppressing a thousand million people (in the colonies and semi-colonies), that is, more than half the population of the globe, which inhabits the subject countries, as well as the wage slaves of capitalism in the lands of "civilisation.''
Private property based on the labour of the small proprietor, free competition, democracy, *'.<?., all the catchwords with which the capitalists and their press deceive the workers and the peasants--- 87 __RUNNING_HEADER__ IMPERIALISM are things of the past. Capitalism has grown into a world system of colonial oppression and of the financial strangulation of the overwhelming majority of the people of the world by a handful of ``advanced'' countries. And this ``booty'' is shared between two or three powerful world marauders armed to the teeth (America, Great Britain, Japan), who involve the whole world in their war over the sharing of their booty.
The Brest-Litovsk Peace Treaty S7 dictated by monarchist Germany, and later on, the much more brutal and despicable Versailles Treaty dictated by the ``democratic'' republics of America and France and also by ``free'' England, have rendered very good service to humanity by exposing both the hired coolies of the pen of imperialism and the petty-bourgeois reactionaries, although they call themselves pacifists and socialists, who sang praises to " Wilsonism," and who insisted that peace and reform were possible under imperialism.
The tens of millions of dead and maimed left by the war---a war for the purpose of deciding whether the British or German group of financial marauders is to receive the lion's share---and the two "peace treaties," mentioned above, open the eyes of the millions and tens of millions of people who are downtrodden, oppressed, deceived and duped by the bourgeoisie with unprecedented rapidity. Thus, out of the universal ruin caused by the war a worldwide revolutionary crisis is arising which, in spite of the protracted and difficult stages it may have to pass, cannot end in any other way than in a proletarian revolution and in its victory.
The Basle Manifesto of the Second International which in 1912 gave an appraisal of the war that ultimately broke out in 1914, and not of war in general (there are all kinds of wars, including revolutionary wars), this Manifesto is now a monument exposing the shameful bankruptcy and treachery of the heroes of the Second International.
That is why I reproduce this Manifesto as a supplement to the present edition~^^*^^ and again I call upon the reader to note that the _-_-_
^^*^^ V, I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. XVIII, pp. 468-72.---Erf,
88 heroes of the Second International are just as assiduously avoiding the passages of this Manifesto which speak precisely, clearly and definitely of the connection between that impending war and the proletarian revolution, as a thief avoids the place where he has committed a theft.Special attention has been devoted in this pamphlet to a criticism of "Kautskyism," the international ideological trend represented in all countries of the world by the "prominent theoreticians" and leaders of the Second International (Otto Bauer and Co. in Austria, Ramsay MacDonald and others in England, Albert Thomas in France, etc., etc.) and multitudes of socialists, reformists, pacifists, bourgeois-democrats and parsons.
This ideological trend is, on the one hand, a product of the disintegration and decay of the Second International, and, on the other hand, it is the inevitable fruit of the ideology of the petty bourgeoisie, who, by the whole of their conditions of life, are held captive to bourgeois and democratic prejudices.
The views held by Kautsky and his like are a complete renunciation of the very revolutionary principles of Marxism which he championed for decades, especially in his struggle against socialist opportunism (Bernstein, Millerand, Hyndman, Gompers, etc.). It is not a mere accident, therefore, that the ``Kautskyans'' all over the world have now united in practical politics with the extreme opportunists (through the Second, or the Yellow, International) and with the bourgeois governments (through bourgeois coalition governments in which Socialists take part).
The growing world proletarian revolutionary movement in general, and the Communist movement in particular, demands that the theoretical errors of ``Kautskyism'' be analysed and exposed. The more so since pacifism and ``democracy'' in general, which have no claim to Marxism whatever, but which, like Kautsky and Co., are obscuring the profundity of the contradictions of imperialism and the inevitable revolutionary crisis to which it gives rise, are. still very widespread all over the world. It is the bounden duty of the party of the proletariat to combat these tendencies and to 89 win away from the bourgeoisie the small proprietors who are duped by them, and the millions of toilers who live in more or less petty-bourgeois conditions of life.
A few words must be said about chapter VIII entitled: "The Parasitism and Decay of Capitalism." As already pointed out in the text, Hilferding, ex-Marxist, and now a comrade-in-arms of Kautsky, one of the chief exponents of bourgeois reformist policy in the Independent Social-Democratic Party of Germany, has taken a step backward compared with the frankly pacifist and reformist Englishman, Hobson, on this question. The international split of the whole labour movement is now quite evident (Second and Third Internationals). Armed struggle and civil war between the two trends is now a recognised fact: the support given to Kolchak and Denikin in Russia by the Mensheviks and Socialist-- Revolutionaries against the Bolsheviks; the fight the Scheidemanns, Noskes and Co. have conducted in conjunction with the bourgeoisie against the Spartacists~^^38^^ in Germany; the same thing in Finland, Poland, Hungary, etc. What is the economic basis of this historically important world phenomenon?
Precisely the parasitism and decay of capitalism which are the characteristic features of its highest historical stage of development, i.e., imperialism. As has been shown in this pamphlet, capitalism has now brought to the front a handful (less than one-tenth of the inhabitants of the globe; less than one-fifth, if the most `` generous'' and liberal calculations were made) of very rich and very powerful states which plunder the whole world simply by "clipping coupons." Capital exports produce an income of from eight to ten billion francs per annum, according to pre-war prices and pre-war bourgeois statistics. Now, of course, they produce much more than that.
Obviously, out of such enormous super-profits (since they are obtained over and above the profits which capitalists squeeze out of the workers of their ``home'' country) it is quite possible to bribe the labour leaders and the upper stratum of the labour aristocracy. And the capitalists of the ``advanced'' countries are bribing them; 90 they bribe them in a thousand different ways, direct and indirect, overt and covert.
This stratum of bourgeoisified workers, or the "labour aristocracy," who are quite philistine in their mode of life, in the size of their earnings and in their outlook, serves as the principal prop of the Second International, and, in our days, the principal social (not military) prop of the bourgeoisie. They are the real agents of the bourgeoisie in the labour movement, the labour lieutenants of the capitalist class, real channels of reformism and chauvinism. In the civil war between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie they inevitably, and in no small numbers, stand side by side with the bourgeoisie, with the ``Versaillese''~^^39^^ against the "Communards.''
Not the slightest progress can be made toward the solution of the practical problems of the Communist movement and of the impending social revolution unless the economic roots of this phenomenon are understood and unless its political and sociological significance is appreciated.
Imperialism is the eve of the proletarian social revolution. This has been confirmed since 1917 on a world-wide scale.
N. LENIN
July 6, 1920
[91] __ALPHA_LVL2__ IMPERIALISM,DURING the last fifteen or twenty years, especially since the Spanish-American War~^^41^^ (1898), and the Anglo-Boer War~^^41^^ (1899- 1902), the economic and also the political literature of the two hemispheres has more and more often adopted the term `` imperialism'' in order to define the present era. In 1902, a book by the English economist, J. A. Hobson, Imperialism, was published in London and New York. This author, who adopts the point of view of bourgeois social reformism and pacifism which, in essence, is identical with the present point of view of the ex-Marxist, K. Kautsky, gives an excellent and comprehensive description of the principal economic and political characteristics of imperialism. In 1910, there appeared in Vienna the work of the Austrian Marxist, Rudolf Hilferding, Finance Capital. In spite of the mistake the author commits on the theory of money, and in spite of a certain inclination on his part to reconcile Marxism with opportunism, this work gives a very valuable theoretical analysis, as its sub-title tells us, of "the latest phase of capitalist development." Indeed, what has been said of imperialism during the last few years, especially in a great many magazine and newspaper articles, and also in the resolutions, for example, of the Chemnitz and Basle Congresses which took place in the autumn of 1912, has scarcely gone beyond the ideas put forward, or, more exactly, summed up by the two writers mentioned above.
Later on we shall try to show briefly, and as simply as possible, the connection and relationships between the principal economic features of imperialism. We shall not be able to deal with noneconomic aspects of the question, however much they deserve to be dealt with.^^*^^ We have put references to literature and other _-_-_
^^*^^ By ``non-economic'' Lenin meant political; the pamphlet was intended for legal publication and so these aspects were left out in order to enable it to pass the tsarist censorship.---Ed.
92 notes which, perhaps, would not interest all readers, at the end of this pamphlet.^^*^^ __ALPHA_LVL2__ I. CONCENTRATION OF PRODUCTION AND MONOPOLIESThe enormous growth of industry and the remarkably rapid process of concentration of production in ever-larger enterprises represent one of the most characteristic features of capitalism. Modern censuses of production give very complete and exact data on this process.
In Germany, for example, for every 1,000 industrial enterprises, large enterprises, i.e., those employing more than 50 workers, numbered three in 1882, six in 1895 and nine in 1907; and out of every 100 workers employed, this group of enterprises employed 22, 30 and 37 respectively. Concentration of production, however, is much more intense than the concentration of workers, since labour in the large enterprises is much more productive. This is shown by the figures available on steam engines and electric motors. If we take what in Germany is called industry in the broad sense of the term, that is, including commerce, transport, etc., we get the following picture: Large-scale enterprises: 30,588 out of a total of 3,265,623, that is to say, 0.9 per cent. These large-scale enterprises employ 5,700,000 workers out of a total of 14,400,000, that is, 39.4 per cent; they use 6,660,000 steam horse power out of a total of 8,800,000, that is, 75.3 per cent and 1,200,000 kilowatts of electricity out of a total of 1,500,000, that is, 77.2 per cent.
Less than one-hundredth of the total enterprises utilise more than three-fourths of the steam and electric power! Two million nine hundred and seventy thousand small enterprises (employing up to five workers), representing 91 per cent of the total, utilise only 7 per cent of the steam and electric power. Tens of thousands of largescale enterprises are everything; millions of small ones are nothing.
In 1907, there were in Germany 586 establishments employing one thousand and more workers. They employed nearly one-tenth (1,380,000) of the total number of workers employed in industry and utilised almost one-third (32 per cent) of the total steam and _-_-_
^^*^^ These references are not given in this edition.---Ed.
93 electric power employed.^^*^^ As we shall see, money capital and the banks make this superiority of a handful of the largest enterprises still more overwhelming, in the most literal sense of the word, since millions of small, medium, and even some big ``masters'' are in fact in complete subjection to some hundreds of millionaire financiers.In another advanced country of modern capitalism, the United States, the growth of the concentration of production is still greater. Here statistics single out industry in the narrow sense of the word and group enterprises according to the value of their annual output. In 1904 large-scale enterprises with an annual output of one million dollars and over numbered 1,900 (out of 216,180, i£., 0.9 per cent). These employed 1,400,000 workers (out of 5,500,000, i£., 25.6 per cent) and their combined annual output was valued at $5,600,000,000 (out of $14,800,000,000, *'.<?., 38 per cent). Five years later, in 1909, the corresponding figures were: large-scale enterprises: 3,060 out of 268,491, z.<?., i.i per cent; employing: 2,000,000 workers out of 6,600,000, i.e., 30.5 per cent; output: $9,000,000,000 out of $20,700,000,000, t£., 43.8 per cent.^^**^^
Almost half the total production of all the enterprises of the country was carried on by a hundredth part of those enterprises! These 3,000 giant enterprises embrace 268 branches of industry. From this it can be seen that, at a certain stage of its development, concentration itself, as it were, leads right to monopoly; for a score or so of giant enterprises can easily arrive at an agreement, while on the other hand, the difficulty of competition and the tendency towards monopoly arise from the very dimensions of the enterprises. This transformation of competition into monopoly is one of the most important---if not the most important---phenomena of modern capitalist economy, and we must deal with it in greater detail. But first we must clear up one possible misunderstanding.
American statistics say: 3,000 giant enterprises in 250 branches of industry, as if there were only a dozen large-scale enterprises for each branch of industry.
But this is not the case. Not in every branch of industry are _-_-_
^^*^^ Annakn des Deutschen Reichs (Annals of the German Empire), 191!) pp. 165-169.
^^**^^ Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1912, p. 202.
94 there large-scale enterprises; and, moreover, a very important feature of capitalism in its highest stage of development is so-called "combined production," that is to say, the grouping in a single enterprise of different branches of industry, which either represent the consecutive stages in the working up of raw materials (for example, the smelting of iron ore into pig iron, the conversion of pig iron into steel, and then, perhaps, the manufacture of steel goods)---or are auxiliary to one another (for example, the utilisation of waste or of by-products, the manufacture of packing materials, etc.).``Combination," writes Hilferding, "levels out the fluctuations of trade and therefore assures to the combined enterprises a more stable rate of profit. Secondly, combination has the effect of eliminating trading. Thirdly, it has the effect of rendering possible technical improvements, and, consequently, the acquisition of superprofits over and above those obtained by the `pure' (i.e., non-combined) enterprises. Fourthly, it strengthens the position of the combined enterprises compared with that of `pure' enterprises in the competitive struggle in periods of serious depression, when the fall in prices of raw materials does not keep pace with the fall in prices of manufactured articles.''~^^*^^
The German bourgeois economist, Heymann, who has written a book especially on "mixed," that is, combined, enterprises in the German iron industry, says: "Pure enterprises perish, crushed between the high price of raw material and the low price of the finished product." Thus we get the following picture:
``There remain, on the one hand, the great coal companies, producing millions of tons yearly, strongly organized in their coal syndicate, and on the other, the great steel works, closely allied to the coal mines, having their own steel syndicate. These giant enterprises, producing 400,000 tons of steel per annum, with correspondingly extensive coal, ore and blast furnace plants, as well as the manufacturing of finished goods, employing 10,000 workers quartered in company houses, sometimes owning their own ports and railroads, are today the standard type of German iron and steel plant. And concentration still continues. Individual enterprises are becoming larger and larger. An ever increasing number of enterprises in one given industry, or in several different industries, join together in giant combines, backed up and controlled _-_-_
^^*^^ Rudolf Hilferding, Das Finanz\ctpital (Finance Capital), Vienna, 1910, p. 239.
95 by half a dozen Berlin banks. In the German mining industry, the truth of the teachings of Karl Marx on concentration is definitely proved, at any rate in a country like ours where it is protected by tariffs and freight rates. The German mining industry is ripe for expropriation.''~^^*^^
Such is the conclusion which a conscientious bourgeois economist, and such are exceptional, had to arrive at. It must be noted that he seems to place Germany in a special category because her industries are protected by high tariffs. But the concentration of industry and the formation of monopolist manufacturers' combines, cartels, syndicates, etc., could only be accelerated by these circumstances. It is extremely important to note that in free-trade England, concentration also leads to monopoly, although somewhat later and perhaps in another form. Professor Hermann Levy, in his special work of research entitled Monopolies, Cartels and Trusts, based on data on British economic development, writes as follows:
``In Great Britain it is the size of the enterprise and its capacity which harbour a monopolist tendency. This, for one thing, is due to the fact that the great investment of capital per enterprise, once the concentration movement has commenced, gives rise to increasing demands for new capital for the new enterprises and thereby renders their launching more difficult. Moreover (and this seems to us to be the more important point) every new enterprise that wants to keep pace with the gigantic enterprises that have arisen on the basis of the process of concentration would produce such an enormous quantity of surplus goods that it could only dispose of them either by being able to sell them profitably as a result of an enormous increase in demand or by immediately forcing down prices to a level that would be unprofitable both for itself and for the monopoly combines.''
In England, unlike other countries where protective tariffs facilitate the formation of cartels, monopolist alliances of entrepreneurs, cartels and trusts arise in the majority of cases only when the number of competing enterprises is reduced to "a couple of dozen or so." "Here the influence of the concentration movement on the _-_-_
^^*^^Hans Gideon Heymann, Die gemischten Wer\e im deutschen Grosseisengeiverbe (Combined Plants in the German Big Iron Industry), Stuttgart, 1904, pp. 256 and 278.
96 formation of large industrial monopolies in a whole sphere of industry stands out with crystal clarity.''~^^*^^Fifty years ago, when Marx was writing Capital, free competition appeared to most economists to be a "natural law." Official science tried, by a conspiracy of silence, to kill the works of Marx, which by a theoretical and historical analysis of capitalism showed that free competition gives rise to the concentration of production, which, in turn, at a certain stage of development, leads to monopoly. Today, monopoly has become a fact. The economists are writing mountains of books in which they describe the diverse manifestations of monopoly, and continue to declare in chorus that "Marxism is refuted." But facts are stubborn things, as the English proverb says, and they have to be reckoned with, whether we like it or not. The facts show that differences between capitalist countries, e.g., in the matter of protection or free trade, only give rise to insignificant variations in the form of monopolies or in the moment of their appearance; and that the rise of monopolies, as the result of the concentration of production, is a general and fundamental law of the present stage of development of capitalism.
For Europe, the time when the new capitalism definitely superseded the old can be established with fair precision: it was the beginning of the twentieth century. In one of the latest compilations on the history of the "formation of monopolies," we read:
``A few isolated examples of capitalist monopoly could be cited from the period preceding 1860; in these could be discerned the embryo of the forms that are common today; but all this undoubtedly represents pre-history. The real beginning of modern monopoly goes back, at the earliest, to the 'sixties. The first important period of development of monopoly commenced with the international industrial depression of the 'seventies and lasted until the beginning of the "nineties.... If we examine the question on a European scale, we will find that the development of free competition reached its apex in the 'sixties and 'seventies. Then it was that England completed the construction of its old style capitalist organisation. In Germany, this organisation had entered into a fierce struggle with handicraft and domestic industry, and had begun to create for itself its own forms of existence.... _-_-_
^^*^^ Hermann Levy, Monopole, Kartelle und Trusts (Monopolies, Cartels and Trusts), Jena, 1909, pp. 286, 290.1 298.
97``The great revolutionisation commenced with the crash of 1873, or rather, the depression which followed it and which, with hardly discernible interruptions in the early 'eighties, and the unusually violent, but short-lived boom about 1889, marks twenty-two years of European economic history----During the short boom of 1889-90, the system of cartels was widely resorted to in order to take advantage of the favourable business conditions. An ill-considered policy drove prices still higher than would have been the case otherwise and nearly all these cartels perished ingloriously in the smash. Another five-year period of bad trade and low prices followed, but a new spirit reigned in industry; the depression was no longer regarded as something to be taken for granted: it was regarded as nothing more than a pause before another boom.
``The cartel movement entered its second epoch: instead of being a transitory phenomenon, the cartels became one of the foundations of economic life. They are winning one field after another, primarily, the raw materials industry. At the beginning of the "nineties the cartel system had already acquired'---in the organisation of the coke syndicate on the model of which the coal syndicate was later formed---a cartel technique which could hardly be improved. For the first time the great boom at the close of the nineteenth century and the crisis of 1900-03 occurred entirely---in the mining and iron industries at least---under the cegis of the cartels. And while at that time it appeared to be something novel, now the general public takes it for granted that large spheres of economic life have been, as a general rule, systematically removed from the realm of free competition.''~^^*^^
Thus, the principal stages in the history of monopolies are the following: i) 1860-70, the highest stage, the apex of development of free competition; monopoly is in the barely discernible, embryonic stage. 2) After the crisis of 1873, a wide zone of development of cartels; but they are still the exception. They are not yet durable. They are still a transitory phenomenon. 3) The boom at the end of the nineteenth century and the crisis of 1900-03. _-_-_
^^*^^Th. Vogelstein: Die fnanzielle Organisation der l^apitalistischen Industrie und die Monopolbildungen (Financial Organisation of Capitalist Industry and the Formation of Monopolies) in Grundriss der Sozialdkpnomi\ (Outline of Social Economics), 1914, Tiib., Sec. VI, pp. 222 et seq. See also by the same author: Organisationsformen des Eisenindustrie und der Textilindustrie in England und America, Bd. I., Lpz. 1910 (The Organisational Forms of the Iron and Textile Industries of England and America, Vol. I, Leipzig, 1910).
98 Cartels become one of the foundations of the whole of economic life. Capitalism has been transformed into imperialism.Cartels come to an agreement on the conditions of sale, terms of payment, etc. They divide the markets among themselves. They fix the quantity of goods to be produced. They fix prices. They divide the profits among the various enterprises, etc.
The number of cartels in Germany was estimated at about 250 in 1896 and at 385 in 1905, with about 12,000 firms participating.^^*^^ But it is generally recognised that these figures are underestimations. From the statistics of German industry for 1907 we quoted above, it is evident that even 12,000 large enterprises control certainly more than half the steam and electric power used in the country. In the United States, the number of trusts in 1900 was 185, and in 1907, 250.
American statistics divide all industrial enterprises into three categories, according to whether they belong to individuals, to private firms or to corporations. These latter in 1904 comprised 23.6 per cent, and in 1909, 25.9 per cent (i.e., more than one-fourth of the total industrial enterprises in the country). These employed in 1904, 70.6 per cent, and in 1909, 75.6 per cent (i.e., more than three-fourths) of the total wage earners. Their output amounted at these two dates to $10,900,000,000 and to $16,300,000,000, i.e, to
73.7 per cent and 79 per cent of the total respectively.
Not infrequently cartels and trusts concentrate in their hands seven or eight-tenths of the total output of a given branch of industry. The Rhine-Westphalian Coal Syndicate, at its foundation in 1893, controlled 86.7 per cent of the total coal output of the area. In 1910, it controlled 95.4 per cent.^^**^^ The monopoly so created assures enormous profits, and leads to the formation of _-_-_
^^*^^ Dr. Riesser, Die deutschen Grossba.nk.en tind ihre Konzentration im Zusammenhang mit der Entwicklung der Gesamtwirtschajt in Deutschland (The German Big Barnes and their Concentration in Connection with the Development of the General Economy in Germany), fourth ed., 1912, p. 149; cf. also Robert Liefmann, Kartelle und Trusts und die Weiterbildung der volkswirtschajtlichen Organisation {Cartels and Trusts and the Further Development of Economic Organisation), second ed., 1910, p. 25.
^^**^^ Dr. Fritz Kestner, Der Organisationszwang. Eine Untersuchung iiber die Kampfe zwischen Kartellen und Aussenseitern (The Compulsion to Organise. An Investigation of the Struggles between Cartels and Outsiders'), Berlin, 1912, p. n.
99 technical productive units of formidable magnitude. The famous Standard Oil Company in the United States was founded in 1900:^^*^^``It has an authorised capital of $150,000,000. It issued $100,000,000 common and $106,000,000 preferred stock. From 1900 to 1907 the following dividends were paid on this stock: 48, 48, 45, 44, 36, 40, 40, 40 per cent, in the respective years, i.e., in all, $367,000,000. From 1882 to 1907, out of a total net profits to the amount of $889,000,000, $606,000,000 were distributed in dividends, and the rest went to reserve capital----In 1907 the various works of the United States Steel Corporation employed no less than 210,180 workers and other employees. The largest enterprise in the German mining industry, the Gelsenkirchen Mining Company (Gehenfyrchner Bergu>er%sgesellschaft) employed in 1908 46,048 persons.''~^^**^^
__NOTE__ Footnote markers in original are: * [cross] [double-cross] **
In 1902, the United States Steel Corporation had already produced 9,000,000 tons of steel.^^***^^ Its output constituted in 1901, 66.3 per cent, and in 1908, 56.1 per cent of the total output of steel in the United States.^^****^^ The output of mineral ore was 43.9 per cent and 46.3 per cent respectively.
The report of the American Government Commission on Trusts states:
``The superiority of the trust over competitors is due to the magnitude of its enterprises and their excellent technical equipment. Since its inception, the Tobacco Trust has devoted all its efforts to the substitution of mechanical for manual labour on an extensive scale. With this end in view, it bought up all patents that had anything to do with the manufacture of tobacco and spent enormous sums for this purpose. Many of these patents at first proved to be of no use, and had to be modified by the engineers employed by the trust. At the end of 1906, two subsidiary companies were formed solely to acquire patents. With the same object in view, the trust built its own foundries, machine shops and repair shops. One of these establishments, that in Brooklyn, _-_-_
^^*^^ Holding company was formed in 1899 to replace trust agreement of 1882.---Ed
^^**^^ Robert Liefmann, Beteiligungs- und Finanzierungsgesellschaften. Eine Studio uber den modernen Kapitalismus und das Effekfenwesen (Holding and finance Companies---A Study in Modern Capitalism and Securities), first ed., Jena, 1909, pp. 212 and 218.
^^***^^ Dr. S. Tschierschky, Kartells und Trusts, Gottingen, 1903, p. 13.
^^****^^ Vogelstein, Organisationsformen (Forms of Organisation), p. 275.
100 Emacs-File-stamp: "/home/ysverdlov/leninist.biz/en/1942/LCW19IP/20100313/199.tx" __EMAIL__ webmaster@leninist.biz __OCR__ ABBYY 6 Professional (2010.03.13) __WHERE_PAGE_NUMBERS__ top __FOOTNOTE_MARKER_STYLE__ [*]+ __ENDNOTE_MARKER_STYLE__ [0-9]+ employs on the average 300 workers; here experiments are carried out on inventions concerning the manufacture of cigarettes, cheroots, snuff, tinfoil for packing, boxes, etc. Here, also, inventions are perfected.^^*^^``Other trusts also employ so-called developing engineers whose business it is to devise new methods of production and to test technical improvements. The United States Steel Corporation grants big bonuses to its workers and engineers for all inventions suitable for raising technical efficiency, or for reducing cost of production.''~^^**^^
In German large-scale industry, e.g., in the chemical industry, which has developed so enormously during these last few decades, the promotion of technical improvement is organised in the same way. By 1908, the process of concentration production had already given rise to two main groups which, in their way, were in the nature of monopolies. First these groups represented "dual alliances" of two pairs of big factories, each having a capital of from twenty to twenty-one million marks: on the one hand, the former Meister Factory at Hochst and the Cassella Factory at Frankfort-On-Main; and on the other hand, the aniline and soda factory at Ludwigshafen and the former Bayer Factory at Elberfeld. In 1905, one of these groups, and in 1908 the other group, each concluded a separate agreement with yet another big factory. The result was the formation of two "triple alliances," each with a capital of from forty to fifty million marks. And these ``alliances'' began to come ``close'' to one another, to reach "an understanding" about prices, etc.~^^***^^
Competition becomes transformed into monopoly. The result is immense progress in the socialisation of production. In particular, the process of technical invention and improvement becomes socialised.
This is no longer the old type of free competition between manufacturers, scattered and out of touch with one another, and _-_-_
^^*^^ Report of the Commission of Corporations on the Tobacco Industry, Washington, 1909, p. 266, cited according to Dr. Paul Tafel, Die nordamerikanischen Trusts und ihre Wirl^ungen auf den Fortschritt der Technik (North American Trusts and their Effect on Technical Progress), Stuttgart, 1913, p. 48.
^^**^^ Dr. P. Tafel, ibid., pp. 48-49.
^^***^^ Riesser, op. cii., third ed., pp. 547-48. The newspapers (June 1916) report the formation of a new gigantic trust which is to combine the chemical industry of Germany.
101 __RUNNING_HEADER__ IMPERIALISM producing for an unknown market. Concentration has reached the point at which it is possible to make an approximate estimate of all sources of raw materials (for example, the iron ore deposits) of a country and even, as we shall see, of several countries, or of the whole world. Not only are such estimates made, but these sources are captured by gigantic monopolist combines. An approximate estimate of the capacity of markets is also made, and the combines divide them up amongst themselves by agreement. Skilled labour is monopolised, the best engineers are engaged; the means of transport are captured: railways in America, shipping companies in Europe and America. Capitalism in its imperialist stage arrives at the threshold of the most complete socialisation of production. In spite of themselves, the capitalists are dragged, as it were, into a new social order, a transitional social order from complete free competition to complete socialisation.Production becomes social, but appropriation remains private. The social means of production remain the private property of a few. The general framework of formally recognised free competition remains, but the yoke of a few monopolists on the rest of the population becomes a hundred times heavier, more burdensome and intolerable.
The German economist, Kestner, has written a book especially on the subject of "the struggle between the cartels and outsiders," i.e., enterprises outside the cartels. He entitled his work Compulsory Organisation, although, in order to present capitalism in its true light, he should have given it the title: "Compulsory Submission to Monopolist Combines." This book is edifying if only for the list it gives of the modern and civilised methods that monopolist combines resort to in their striving towards " organisation.''
They are as follows: i) Stopping supplies of raw materials ("one of the most important methods of compelling adherence to the cartel"); 2) Stopping the supply of labour by means of `` alliances'' (i£., of agreements between employers and the trade unions by which the latter permit their members to work only in cartelised enterprises); 3) Cutting off deliveries; 4) Closing of trade outlets; 5) Agreements with the buyers, by which the latter undertake to trade only with the cartels; 6) Systematic price cutting (to 102 ruin ``outside'' firms, i.e., those which refuse to submit to the monopolists. Millions are spent in order to sell goods for a certain time below their cost price; there were instances when the price of benzine was thus lowered from 40 to 22 marks, i.e., reduced almost by half!); 7) Stopping credits; 8) Boycott.
This is no longer competition between small and large-scale industry, or between technically developed and backward enterprises. We see here the monopolies throttling those which do not submit to them, to their yoke, to their dictation. This is how this process is reflected in the mind of a bourgeois economist:
``Even in the purely economic sphere," writes Kestner, "a certain change is taking place from commercial activity in the old sense of the word towards organisational-speculative activity. The greatest success no longer goes to the merchant whose technical and commercial experience enables him best of all to understand the needs of the buyer, and who is able to discover and effectively awake a latent demand; it goes to the speculative genius [?!] who knows how to estimate, or even only to sense in advance the organisational development and the possibilities of connections between individual enterprises and the banks.''~^^*^^
Translated into ordinary human language this means that the development of capitalism has arrived at a stage when, although commodity production still ``reigns'' and continues to be regarded as the basis of economic life, it has in reality been undermined and the big profits go to the ``geniuses'' of financial manipulation. At the basis of these swindles and manipulations lies socialised production; but the immense progress of humanity, which achieved this socialisation, goes to benefit the speculators. We shall see later how "on these grounds" reactionary, petty-bourgeois critics of capitalist imperialism dream of going bac\ to "free," ``peaceful'' and ``honest'' competition.
``The prolonged raising of prices which results from the formation of cartels," says Kestner, "has hitherto been observed only in relation to the most important means of production, particularly coal, iron and potassium, but has never been observed for any length of time in relation to manufactured goods. Similarly, the increase in profits _-_-_
^^*^^ Kestner, of. cit,, p. 241.---Ed.
103 resulting from that has been limited only to the industries which produce means of production. To this observation we must add that the raw materials industry not only has secured advantages from the cartel formation in regard to the growth of income and profitableness, to the detriment of the finished goods industry, but that it has secured also a dominating position over the latter, which did not exist under free competition.''~^^*^^
The words which we have italicised reveal the essence of the case which the bourgeois economists admit so rarely and so unwillingly, and which the modern defenders of opportunism, led by K. Kautsky, so zealously try to evade and brush aside. Domination, and violence that is associated with it, such are the relationships that are most typical of the "latest phase of capitalist development"; this is what must inevitably result, and has resulted, from the formation of all-powerful economic monopolies.
We will give one more example of the methods employed by the cartels. It is particularly easy for cartels and monopolies to arise when it is possible to capture all the sources of raw materials, or at least, the most important of them. It would be wrong, however, to assume that monopolies do not arise in other industries in which it is impossible to corner the sources of raw materials. The cement industry, for instance, can find its raw materials everywhere. Yet in Germany it is strongly cartelised. The cement manufacturers have formed regional syndicates: South German, Rhine-Westphalian, etc. The prices fixed are monopoly prices: 230 to 280 marks a carload (at a cost price of 180 marks!). The enterprises pay a dividend of from 12 per cent to 16 per cent--- and let us not forget that the ``geniuses'' of modern speculation know how to pocket big profits besides those they draw by way of dividends. Now, in order to prevent competition in such a profitable industry, the monopolists resort to sundry stratagems. For example, they spread disquieting rumours about the situation in their industry. Anonymous warnings are published in the newspapers, like the following: "Investors, don't place your capital in the cement industry!" They buy up ``outsiders'' (those outside the syndicates) and pay them ``indemnities'' of 60,000, 80,000 and even _-_-_
^^*^^Kestner, op. cit., p. 254.
104 150,000 marks.^^*^^ Monopoly everywhere hews a path for itself without scruple as to the means, from ``modestly'' buying off competitors to the American device of ``employing'' dynamite against them.The statement that cartels can abolish crises is a fable spread by bourgeois economists who at all costs desire to place capitalism in a favourable light. On the contrary, when monopoly appears in certain branches of industry, it increases and intensifies the anarchy inherent in capitalist production as a whole. The disparity between the development of agriculture and that of industry, which is characteristic of capitalism, is increased. The privileged position of the most highly cartelised industry, so-called heavy industry, especially coal and iron, causes "a still greater lack of concerted organisation" in other branches of production---as Jeidels, the author of one of the best works on the relationship of the German big banks to industry, puts it.^^**^^
``The more developed an economic system is," writes Liefmann, one of the most unblushing apologists of capitalism, "the more it resorts to risky enterprises, or enterprises abroad, to those which need a great deal of time- to develop, or finally, to those which are only of local importance.''~^^***^^
The increased risk is connected in the long run with the prodigious increase of capital, which overflows the brim, as it were, flows abroad, etc. At the same time the extremely rapid rate of technical progress gives rise more and more to disturbances in the co-ordination between the various spheres of national economy, to anarchy and crisis. Liefmann is obliged to admit that:
_-_-_``In all probability mankind will see further important technical revolutions in the near future which will also affect the organisation of the economic system...." (For example, electricity and aviation.) "As a general rule, in such periods of radical economic change, speculation develops on a large scale.''^^****^^
^^*^^Ludwig Eschwege, Zement, in Die Ban\, 1909, Vol. I, p. 115 et seq.
^^**^^ Otto Jeidels, Das Verhahnis der deutschen Grossban\en zur Industrie, rait beionderer Berucksichtigung der Eisenindustrie (The Relationship of the German Big Banks to Industry, with Special Reference to the Iron Industry), Leipzig, 1905, p. 271.
^^***^^ Robert Liefmann, Beteiligungs- und Finanzierungsgesellschajten (Holding and Finance Companies), p. 434.
^^****^^ Ibid., pp. 465-66,
105 __RUNNING_HEADER__ IMPERIALISMCrises of every kind---economic crises more frequently, but not only these---in their turn increase very considerably the tendency towards concentration and monopoly. In this connection, the following reflections of Jeidels on the significance of the crisis of 1900, which, as we have already seen, marked the turning point in the history of modern monopoly, are exceedingly instructive.
``Side by side with the giant plants in the basic industries, the crisis of 1900 found many plants organised on lines that today would be considered obsolete, the `pure' [non-combined] plants, which had arisen on the crest of the industrial boom. The fall in prices and the falling off in demand put these `pure' enterprises into a precarious position, which did not affect the big combined enterprises at all, or only affected them for a very short time. As a consequence of this the crisis of 1900 resulted in a far greater concentration of industry than former crises, like that of 1873. The latter crisis also produced a sort of selection of the best equipped enterprises, but owing to the level of technical development at that time, this selection could not place the firms which successfully emerged from the crisis in a position of monopoly. Such a durable monopoly exists to a high degree in the gigantic enterprises in the modern iron and steel and electrical industries, and to a lesser degree, in the engineering industry and certain metal, transport and other branches in consequence of their complicated technique, their extensive organisation and the magnitude of their capital.''~^^*^^
Monopoly! This is the last word in the "latest phase of capitalist development." But we shall only have a very insufficient, incomplete, and poor notion of the real power and the significance of modern monopolies if we do not take into consideration the part played by the banks.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ II. THE BANKS AND THEIR NEW ROLEThe principal and primary function of banks is to serve as an intermediary in die making of payments. In doing so they transform inactive money capital into active capital, that is, into capital producing a profit; they collect all kinds of money revenues and place them at the disposal of the capitalist class.
As banking develops and becomes concentrated in a small _-_-_
^^*^^ Jeidels, op. cit., p. 108.
106 numher of establishments the banks become transformed, and instead of being modest intermediaries they become powerful monopolies having at their command almost the whole of the money capital of all the capitalists and small business men and also a large part of the means of production and of the sources of raw materials of the given country and in a number of countries. The transformation of numerous modest intermediaries into a handful of monopolists represents one of the fundamental processes in the transformation of capitalism into capitalist imperialism. For this reason we must first of all deal with the concentration of banking.In 1907-08, the combined deposits of the German joint stock banks, each having a capital of more than a million marks, amounted to 7,000,000,000 marks, while in 1912-13, they amounted to 9,800,000,000 marks. Thus, in five years their deposits increased by 40 per cent. Of the 2,800,000,000 increase, 2,750,000,000 was divided amongst 57 banks, each having a capital of more than 10,000,000 marks. The distribution of the deposits between big and small banks was as follows:~^^*^^
PERCENTAGE OF TOTAL DEPOSITS
IN THE OTHER
IN THE SMALL
fear
IN 9 BIG
BERLIN
48 BANKS WITH
A CAPITAL OF
IN 115 BANKS
WITH A CAPITAL
BANKS WITH
A CAPITAL OF
BANKS
MORE THAN IO
OF I TO 10
LESS THAN I
MILLION MARKS
MILLION MARKS
MILLION MARKS
1907-08
1912-13
47
49
32.5
36
l6.5
12.
4
3
The small banks are being pushed aside by the big banks, of which nine concentrate in their hands almost half the total deposits. But we have left out of account many important details, for instance, the transformation of numerous small banks practically into branches of big banks, etc. Of this we shall speak later on.
At the end of 1913, Schulze-Gaevernitz estimated the deposits in the nine big Berlin banks at 5,100,000,000 marks, out of a total of about 10,000,000,000 marks. Taking into account not only the deposits, but the total resources of these banks, this author wrote:
_-_-_^^*^^ Alfred Lansburgh, Fiinj Jafire deutsches Ban^tvesen (Five Years of German Banking), in Die Ban\, No. 8, 1913, S. 728.,
107 __RUNNING_HEADER__ IMPERIALISM``At the end of 1909, the nine big Berlin banks, together with their affiliated ban\s controlled 11,276,000,000 marks... that is, about 83 per cent o£ the total German bank capital. The Deutsche Bank, which together with its affiliated bant(s controls nearly 3,000,000,000 marks, represents, parallel with the Prussian State Railway Administration, the biggest and also the most decentralised accumulation of capital in the old world.''~^^*^^
We have emphasised the reference to the ``affiliated'' banks because this is one of the most important features of modern capitalist concentration. Large-scale enterprises, especially the banks, not only completely absorb small ones, but also ``join'' them to themselves, subordinate them, bring them into their ``own'' group or concern (to use the technical term) by having ``holdings'' in their capital, by purchasing or exchanging shares, by controlling them through a system of credits, etc., etc. Professor Liefmann has written a voluminous ``work'' of about 500 pages describing modern " holding and finance companies,''~^^**^^ unfortunately adding ``theoretical'' reflections of a very poor quality to what is frequently partly digested raw material. To what results this ``holding'' system leads in regard to concentration is best illustrated in the book written on the big German banks by the banker Riesser. But before examining his data, we will quote an example of the ``holding'' system.
The Deutsche Bank group is one of the "biggest, if not the biggest banking group. In order to trace the main threads which connect all the banks in this group, it is necessary to distinguish between holdings of the first, second and third degree, or what amounts to the same thing, between dependence (of the lesser establishments on the Deutsche Bank) in the first, second and third degree. We then obtain the following picture:~^^***^^
_-_-_^^*^^ Schulze-Gaevernitz. Die deutsche Kreditbank,, Grundnss der Sozialokpnomik. (The German Credit Bank, in Outline of Social Economics), Sec. V, Part II, Tubingen, 1915, pp. 12 and 137.
^^**^^ Robert Liefmann, Beteiligungs- und Finanzierungsgesellschajten. Eine Studie iiber den modernen Kapitalismus und das Effefyentvesen (Holding and Finance Companies---A Study in Modern Capitalism and Securities), first ed., Jena, 1909, p. 212.
^^***^^ A. Lansburgh, Das Beteiligungssystem im deutschen Bankwesen (The Holding System in German Banking), in Die Bank., 1910, I, p. 500 et seq.
108 IMPERIALISM
THE DEUTSCHE BANK PARTICIPATES:
PERMANENTLY
FOR AN
INDEFINITE
OCCASIONALLY
ist degree
in 17 banks
in 5 banks in 8 banks
in 30 banks
2nd degree
of which 9
participate
in 34 others
of which 5
participate
in 14 others
of which 14
participate
in 48 others
3rd degree
of which 4
participate
in 7 others
of which 2
participate
in 2 others
of which 6
participate
in 9 others ~
Included in the eight banks dependent on the Deutsche Bank in the "first degree," "occasionally," there are three foreign banks: one Austrian, the Wiener Bankverein, and two Russian, the Siberian Commercial Bank and the Russian Bank for Foreign Trade. Altogether, the Deutsche Bank group comprises, directly and indirectly, partially and totally, no less than 87 banks; and the capital---its own and others which it controls---is estimated at between two and three billion marks.
It is obvious that a bank which stands at the head of such a group, and which enters into agreement with a half dozen other banks only slightly smaller than itself for the purpose of conducting big and profitable operations like floating state loans, is no longer a mere ``intermediary'' but a combine of a handful of monopolists.
The rapidity with which the concentration of banking proceeded in Germany at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries is shown by the following data which we quote in an abbreviated form from Riesser:
SIX BIG BERLIN BANKS
•year
1895
1900
1911
BRANCHES
IN GERMANY
DEPOSIT BANKS
AND EXCHANGE
OFFICES
CONSTANT
HOLDINGS IN GERMAN
JOINT STOCK
BANKS
TOTAL
ESTABLISHMENTS
I
42 80
63 450 1621 104
40 276 109 __RUNNING_HEADER__ IMPERIALISMWe see the rapid extension of a close network of canals which cover the whole country, centralising all capital and all revenues, transforming thousands and thousands of scattered economic enterprises into a single national, capitalist, and then into an international, capitalist, economic unit. The ``decentralisation'' that Schulze-Gaevernitz, as an exponent of modern bourgeois political economy, speaks of in the passage previously quoted, really means the subordination of an increasing number of formerly relatively "independent," or rather, strictly local economic units, to a single centre. In reality it is centralisation, the increase in the role, the importance and the power of monopolist giants.
In the older capitalist countries this "banking network" is still more close. In Great Britain (including Ireland) in 1910, there were in all 7,151 branches of banks. Four big banks had more than 400 branches each (from 447 to 689); four had more than 200 branches each, and eleven more than 100 each.
In France, three big banks (Credit Lyonnais, the Comptoir National d'Escompte and the Societe Generale) extended their operations and their network of branches in the following manner:~^^*^^
Number of branches and offices
. .„. ,
'
"
in million francs
Year
IN ™E
IN PARIS
TOTAL
CWN
BORROWED
PROVINCES
ivi<u,
CAPITAL
CAPITAL
1870 47
17 64
200 427
1890 192
66 258
265
t-t^^2^^^
1909
1,033
J96
1,229
%
4>3^^6^^3
In order to show the ``connections'' of a big modern bank, Riesser gives the following figures of the number of letters dispatched and received by the Disconto-Gesellschaft, one of the biggest banks in Germany and in the world, the capital of which amounted to 300,000,000 marks in 1914:
y
LETTERS
LETTERS
RECEIVED
DISPATCHED
1852
6,135
6,292
1870
85,800
87,513
1900
533jiQ2
626,043
^^*^^Eugen Kaufmann, Das jranzosische Bankwescn (French Banking), Tubingen, 1911, pp. 356 and 362.
110In 1875, the big Paris bank, the Credit Lyonnais, had 28,535 accounts. In 1912 it had 633,539.^^*^^
These simple figures show perhaps better than long explanations how the concentration of capital and the growth of their turnover is radically changing the significance of the banks. Scattered capitalists are transformed into a single collective capitalist. When carrying the current accounts of a few capitalists, the banks, as it were, transact a purely technical and exclusively auxiliary operation. When, however, these operations grow to enormous dimensions we find that a handful of monopolists control all the operations, both commercial and industrial, of the whole of capitalist society. They can, by means of their banking connections, by running current accounts and transacting other financial operations, first ascertain exactly the position of the various capitalists, then control them, influence them by restricting or enlarging, facilitating or hindering their credits, and finally they can entirely determine their fate, determine their income, deprive them of capital, or, on the other hand, permit them to increase their capital rapidly and to enormous dimensions, etc.
We have just mentioned the 300,000,000 marks' capital of the Disconto-Gesellschaft of Berlin. The increase of the capital of this bank was one of the incidents in the struggle for hegemony between two of the biggest Berlin banks---the Deutsche Bank and the Disconto.
In 1870, the Deutsche Bank, a new enterprise, had a capital of only 15,000,000 marks, while that of the Disconto was 30,000,000 marks. In 1908, the first had a capital of 200,000,000, while the second had 170,000,000. In 1914, the Deutsche Bank increased its capital to 250,000,000 and the Disconto, by merging with a very important bank, the Schaffhausenscher Bankverein, increased its capital to 300,000,000. And, of course, while this struggle for hegemony goes on the two banks more and more frequently conclude ``agreements'' of an increasingly durable character with each other. This development of banking compels specialists in the study of banking questions---who regard economic questions from a standpoint which does not in the least exceed the bounds of the _-_-_
^^*^^ Jean Lescure, L'epargne en France (Savings in France), Paris, 1914, p. 52.
111 most moderate and cautious bourgeois reformism---to arrive at the following conclusions:The German review, Die Ban^, commenting on the increase of the capital of the Disconto-Gesellschaft to 300,000,000 marks, writes:
``Other banks will follow this same path and in time the three hundred men, who today govern Germany economically, will gradually be reduced to fifty, twenty-five or still fewer. It cannot be expected that this new move towards concentration will be confined to banking. The close relations that exist between certain banks naturally involve the bringing together of the manufacturing concerns which they favour___
One fine morning we shall wake up in surprise to see nothing but trusts before our eyes, and to find ourselves faced with the necessity of substituting state monopolies for private monopolies. However, we have nothing to reproach ourselves with, except with us having allowed things to follow their own course, slightly accelerated by the manipulation of stocks.''~^^*^^
This is an example of the impotence o£ bourgeois journalism which differs from bourgeois science only in that the latter is less sincere and strives to obscure essential things, to conceal the wood by trees. To be ``surprised'' at the results of concentration, to ``reproach'' the government of capitalist Germany, or capitalist ``society'' (``us''), to fear that the introduction of stocks and shares might ``accelerate'' concentration in the same way as the German "cartel specialist" Tschierschky fears the American trusts and `` prefers'' the German cartels on the grounds that they may not, like the trusts, "accelerate technical and economic progress to an excessive degree"~^^**^^---is not this impotence ?
But facts remain facts. There are no trusts in Germany; there are ``only'' cartels---but Germany is governed by not more than three hundred magnates of capital, and the number of these is constantly diminishing. At all events, banks in all capitalist countries, no matter what the law in regard to them may be, greatly intensify and accelerate the process of concentration of capital and the formation of monopolies.
The banking system, Marx wrote half a century ago in Capital, "presents indeed the form of common bookkeeping and _-_-_
^^*^^ A. Lansburgh, Die Bank, mit den 300 Millionen (The 300 Million Bank), in Die Bank., 19141 I. p. 426.
^^**^^ Tschierschky, op. cit., p. 128.
112 distribution of means of production on a social scale, but only the form.''~^^*^^ The figures we have quoted on the growth of bank capital, on the increase in the number of the branches and offices of the biggest banks, the increase in the number of their accounts, etc., present a concrete picture of this "common bookkeeping" of the whole capitalist class; and not only of the capitalists, for the banks collect, even though temporarily, all kinds of financial revenues of small business men, office clerks, and of a small upper stratum of the working class. It is "common distribution of means of production" that, from the formal point of view, grows out of the development of modern banks, the most important of which, numbering from three to six in France, and from six to eight in Germany, control billions and billions. In point of fact, however, the distribution of means of production is by no means "common," but private, i.e., it conforms to the interests of big capital, and primarily, of very big monopoly capital, which operates in conditions in which the masses of the population live in want, in which the whole development of agriculture hopelessly lags behind the development of industry, and within industry itself the "heavy industries" exact tribute from all other branches of industry.The savings banks and post offices are beginning to compete with the banks in the matter of socialising capitalist economy; they are more "decentralised," i£., their influence extends to a greater number of localities, to more remote places, to wider sections of the population. An American commission has collected the following data on the comparative growth of deposits in banks and savings banks:~^^**^^
DEPOSITS (in billions of marfe)
ENGLAND
TRANCE
GERMANY
Year
1880
1888
1908
SAVINGS
SAVINGS
CREDIT
SAVINGS
BANKS
BANKS
BANKS
BANKS
BANKS
SOCIETIES
BANKS
8.4
1.6
?
0.9
0.5
0-4
2.6
12.4
2.O
i-5
2.1
I.I
0.4
4-5
23.2
4.2
3-7
4.2
7-i
2.2
13-9
^^*^^Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. HI, p. 712, C. H. Kerr edition. In this edition the phrase "Verteilung der Produ&ionsmittel" is wrongly translated as "distribution of products," instead of "distribution of means of production."---Ed.
^^**^^ Cf. Statistics of the National Monetary Commission, quoted in Die Ban^, 1910, I, p. 1200.
113 __RUNNING_HEADER__ IMPERIALISMAs they pay interest at the rate of 4 per cent and 4% per cent on deposits, the savings banks must seek ``profitable'' investments for their capital, they must deal in bills, mortgages, etc. The boundaries between the banks and the savings banks "become more and more obliterated." The Chambers of Commerce at Bochum and Erfurt, for example, demand that savings banks be prohibited from engaging in ``purely'' banking business, such as discounting bills. They demand the limitation of the ``banking'' operations of the post office.^^*^^ The banking magnates seem to be afraid that state monopoly will steal upon them from an unexpected quarter. It goes without saying, however, that this fear is no more than the expression, as it were, of the rivalry between two department managers in the same office; for, on the one hand, the billions entrusted to the savings banks are in the final analysis actually controlled by these very same bank magnates, while, on the other hand, state monopoly in capitalist society is nothing more than a means of increasing and guaranteeing the income of millionaires on the verge of bankruptcy in one branch of industry or another.
The change from the old type of capitalism, in which free competition predominated, to the new capitalism, in which monopoly reigns, is expressed, among other things, by a decrease in the importance of the Stock Exchange. The German review, Die Ban\, wrote:
``For a long time now, the Stock Exchange has ceased to be the indispensable intermediary of circulation that it was formerly when the banks were not yet able to place the bulk of new issues with their clients.''~^^**^^
``Every bank is a Stock Exchange, and the bigger the bank, and the more successful die concentration of banking, the truer does this proverb become.''~^^***^^
``While formerly, in the 'seventies, the Stock Exchange, flushed with the exuberance of youth" (a ``subtle'' allusion to the crash of 1873, and to the company promotion scandals), "opened the era of the industrialisation of Germany, nowadays the banks and _-_-_
^^*^^ Die Bank., 1913, I. 811, 1022; 1914, p. 743.
^^**^^ Die Bank,~^^1^^9I4> I» P- 3l(>'
^^***^^ Oskar Stillich, Geld und Ban^ivesen (Money and Banking), Berlin, 1907, p. 169.
114 industry are able to 'do it alone.' The domination of our big banks over the Stock Exchange ... is nothing else than the expression of the completely organised German industrial state. If the domain of the automatically functioning economic laws is thus restricted, and if the domain consciously regulated by the banks is considerably increased,, the national economic responsibility of a very small number of guiding heads is infinitely increased,''~^^*^^ so wrote Professor Schulze-Gaevernitz, an apologist of German imperialism, who is regarded as an authority by the imperialists of all countries, and who tries to gloss over a "detail," viz., that the "conscious regulation" of economic life by the banks consists in the fleecing of the public by a handful of "completely organised" monopolists. For the task of a bourgeois professor is not to lay bare the mechanism of the financial system, or to divulge all the machinations of the finance monopolists, but, rather, to present them in a favourable light.In the same way, Riesser, a still more authoritative economist and himself a bank man, makes shift with meaningless phrases in order to explain away undeniable facts. He writes:
``. . . The Stock Exchange is steadily losing the feature which is absolutely essential for national economy as a whole and for the circulation of securities in particular---that of being an exact measuring-rod and an almost automatic regulator of the economic movements which converge on it.''~^^**^^
In other words, the old capitalism, the capitalism of free competition, and its indispensable regulator, the Stock Exchange, are passing away. A new capitalism has come to take its place, which bears obvious features of something transitory, which is a mixture of free competition and monopoly. The question naturally arises: to what is this new, ``transitory'' capitalism leading? But the bourgeois scholars are afraid to raise this question.
``Thirty years ago, employers, freely competing against one another, performed nine-tenths of the work connected with their businesses other than manual labour. At the present time, nine-tenths of this business _-_-_
^^*^^ Schulze-Gaevernitz, Die deutsche Kreditbank., Grundriss der (German Credit Ban\ in Outline of Social Economics), Tubingen, 1915. SchulzeGaevernitz, ibid., p. 151.
^^**^^ Riesser, op. cit., fourth ed., p. 629.
115 __RUNNING_HEADER__ IMPERIALISM 'brain work' is performed by officials, Banking is in the forefront of this evolution.''~^^*^^
This admission by Schulze-Gaevernitz brings us once again to the question as to what this new capitalism, capitalism in its imperialist stage, is leading to.
Among the few banks which remain at the head of all capitalist economy as a result of the process of concentration, there is naturally to be observed an increasingly marked tendency towards monopolist agreements, towards a ban\ trust. In America, there are not nine, but two big banks, those of the billionaires Rockefeller and Morgan, which control a capital of eleven billion marks.^^**^^ In Germany, the absorption of the Schaffhausenscher Bankverein by the Disconto-Gesellschaft, to which we referred above, was commented on in the following terms by the Frankfurter Zeitung, one of the organs of the Stock Exchange interests:
``The concentration movement of the banks is narrowing the circle of establishments from which it is possible to obtain large credits, and is consequently increasing the dependence of big industry upon a small number of banking groups. In view of the internal links between industry and finance, the freedom of movement of manufacturing companies in need of bank capital is restricted. For this reason, big industry is watching the growing trustification of the banks with mixed feelings. Indeed we have repeatedly seen the beginnings of certain agreements between the individual big banking concerns, which aim at limiting competition.''~^^***^^
Again, the final word in the development of the banks is monopoly.
The close ties that exist between the banks and industry are the very things that bring out most strikingly the new role of the banks. When a bank discounts a bill for an industrial firm, opens a current account for it, etc., these operations, taken separately, do not in the least diminish the independence of the industrial firm, and the bank plays no other part than that of a modest intermediary. But when such operations are multiplied and become _-_-_
^^*^^ Die Bank., 1912, p. 435.
^^**^^ Die Banl(, 1912, p. 435.
^^***^^ Quoted by Schulze-Gaevernitz, ibid., p. 155.
116 an established practice, when the bank ``collects'' in its own hands enormous amounts of capital, when the running of a current account for the firm in question enables the bank---and this is what happens---to become better informed of the economic position of the client, then the result is that the industrial capitalist becomes more completely dependent on the bank.At the same time a very close personal union is established between the banks and the biggest industrial and commercial enterprises, the merging of one with another through the acquisition of shares, through the appointment of bank directors to the Supervisory Boards (or Boards of Directors) of industrial and commercial enterprises, and vice versa. The German economist, Jeidels, has compiled very complete data on this form of concentration of capital and of enterprises. Six of the biggest Berlin banks were represented by their directors in 344 industrial companies; and by their board members in 407 other companies. Altogether, they supervised a total of 751 companies. In 289 of these companies they either had two of their representatives on each of the respective Supervisory Boards, or held the posts of chairmen. These industrial and commercial companies are engaged in the most varied branches of industry: in insurance, transport, restaurants, theatres, art industry, etc. On the other hand, there were on the Supervisory Boards of these six banks (in 1910) fifty-one of the biggest manufacturers, among whom were directors of Krupp, of the powerful ``Hapag'' (Hamburg-American Line), etc. From 1895 to 1910, each of these six banks participated in the share and bond issues of several hundreds of industrial companies (the number ranging from 281 to 419).^^*^^
The "personal union" between the banks and industry is completed by the "personal union" between both and the state.
``Seats on the Supervisory Board," writes Jeidels, "are freely offered to persons of title, also to ex-civil servants, who are able to do a great deal to facilitate [!!] relations with the authorities___Usually on the Supervisory Board of a big bank there is a member of parliament or a Berlin city councillor.''~^^**^^
_-_-_^^*^^ Jewels, op. ctt.; Riesser, op. ctl.---Ed
^^**^^ Jeidels, op. cit., pp. 149, 152.---Ed.
117 __RUNNING_HEADER__ IMPERIALISMThe building, so to speak, of the great capitalist monopolies is therefore going on full steam ahead in all ``natural'' and `` supernatural'' ways. A sort of division of labour amongst some hundreds of kings of finance who reign over modern capitalist society is being systematically developed.
_-_-_``Simultaneously with this widening of the sphere of activity of certain big industrialists" (sharing in the management of banks, etc.) "and together with the allocation of provincial bank managers to definite industrial regions, there is a growth of specialisation among the managers of the big banks.... Generally speaking, this specialisation is only conceivable when banking is conducted on a large scale, and particularly when it has widespread connections with industry. This division of labour proceeds along two lines: on the one hand, the relations with industry as a whole are entrusted to one manager, as his special function; on the other, each manager assumes the supervision of several isolated enterprises, or enterprises with allied interests, or in the same branch of industry, sitting on their Boards of Directors" (capitalism has reached the stage of organised control of individual enterprises). "One specialises in German industry, sometimes even in West German industry alone" (the West is the most industrialised part of Germany). "Others specialise in relations with foreign states and foreign industry, in information about manufacturers, in Stock Exchange questions, etc. Besides, each bank manager is often assigned a special industry or locality, where he has a say as a member of the Board of Directors; one works mainly on the Board of Directors of electric companies, another in the chemical, brewing or sugar beet industry; a third in a few isolated industrial enterprises but at the same time in non-- industrial, i.e., insurance companies----It is certain that, as the extent and diversification of the big banks' operations increase, the division of labour among their directors also spreads, with the object and. result of lifting them somewhat out of pure banking and making them better experts, better judges of the general problems of industry and the special problems of each branch of industry, thus making them more capable of action within the respective bank's industrial sphere of influence. This system is supplemented by the bank's endeavours to have elected to their own Board of Directors, or to those of their subsidiary banks, men who are experts in industrial affairs, such as manufacturers, former officials, especially those formerly in the railway service or in mining," etc.^^*^^
^^*^^ Jeidcls, op. cit., pp. 156-57.
118We find the same system, with only slight difference, in French banking. For instance, one of the three biggest French banks, the Credit Lyonnais, has organised a financial research service (Service des etudes financieres), which permanently employs over fifty engineers, statisticians, economists, lawyers, etc., at a cost of six or seven hundred thousand francs annually. The service is in turn divided into eight sections, of which one deals with industrial establishments, another with general statistics, a third with railway and steamship companies, a fourth with securities, a fifth with financial reports, etc.^^*^^
The result is twofold: on the one hand the merging, to an ever greater extent, or, as N. Bukharin aptly calls it, the coalescence of bank and industrial capital; and, on the other hand, a transformation of the banks into institutions of a truly "universal character." On this question we think it necessary to quote the exact terms used by Jeidels, who has best studied the subject:
``An examination of the sum total of industrial relationships reveals the universal character of the financial establishments working on behalf of industry. Unlike other kinds of banks and contrary to the requirements often laid down in literature---according to which banks ought to specialise in one kind of business or in one branch of industry in order to maintain a firm footing---the big banks are striving to make their industrial connections as varied and far-reaching as possible, according to locality and branch of business, and are striving to do away with the inequalities in the distribution among localities and branches of business resulting from the historical development of individual banking houses-----One tendency is to make the ties with industry general; another tendency is to make these ties durable and close. In the six big banks both these tendencies are realised, not in full, but to a considerable extent and to an equal degree.''~^^**^^
Quite often industrial and commercial circles complain of the ``terrorism'' of the banks. And it is not surprising that such complaints are heard, for the big banks "command," as will be seen _-_-_
^^*^^Eugcn Kaufmann, Die Organisation der jranzosischen Depositen-Grossbanken (Organisation of the Big French Deposit Banl(s), in Die Ban\, 1909, II, pp. 851 et seq.
^^**^^ Jeidels, op. tit., p. 180.
119 __RUNNING_HEADER__ IMPERIALISM from the following example: on November 19, 1901, one of the big Berlin ``D'' banks (such is the name given to the four biggest banks whose names begin with the letter D~^^*^^) wrote to the Board of Directors of the German Central Northwest Cement Syndicate in the following terms:``As we learn from the notice you published in the Reichsanzeiger of the 18th instant, we must reckon with the possibility that the next general meeting of your company, fixed for the 30th of this month, may decide on measures which are likely to effect changes in your undertakings which are unacceptable to us. We deeply regret that, for these reasons, we are obliged henceforth to withdraw the credit which has been hitherto allowed you----But if the said next general meeting does not decide upon measures which are unacceptable to us and if we receive suitable guarantees on this matter for the future, we shall be quite willing to open negotiations with you on the grant of a new credit.''~^^**^^
As a matter of fact, this is small capital's old complaint about being oppressed by big capital, but in this case it was a whole syndicate that fell into the category of ``small'' capital! The old struggle between big and small capital is being resumed on a new and higher stage of development. It stands to reason that undertakings, financed by big banks handling billions, can accelerate technical progress in a way that cannot possibly be compared with the past. The banks, for example, set up special technical research institutes, and only ``friendly'' industrial enterprises benefit from their work. To this category belong the Electric Railway Research Association and the Central Bureau of Scientific and Technical Research.
The directors of the big banks themselves cannot fail to see that new conditions of national economy are being created. But they are powerless in the face of these phenomena.
``Anyone who has watched, in recent years, the changes of incumbents of directorships and seats on the Supervisory Boards of the big banks, cannot fail to have noticed that power is gradually passing into the _-_-_
^^*^^ l.e., Deutsche Bank, Disconto-Gesellschaft, Dresdner Bank and Darmstadter Bank.---Ed.
^^**^^ Oskar Stillich, Geld und Banfyvesen, Berlin, 1907, p. 147.
120 __RUNNING_HEADER__ IMPERIALISM hands of men who consider the active intervention of the big banks in the general development of industry to be indispensable and of increasing importance. Between these new men and the old bank directors, disagreements of a business and often of a personal nature are growing on this subject. The question that is in dispute is whether or not the banks, as credit institutions, will suffer from this intervention in industry, whether they are sacrificing tried principles and an assured profit to engage in a field of activity which has nothing in common with their role as intermediaries in providing credit, and which is leading the banks into a field where they are more than ever before exposed to the blind forces of trade fluctuations. This is the opinion of many of the older bank directors, while most of the young men consider active intervention in industry to be a necessity as great as that which gave rise, simultaneously with big modern industry, to the big banks and modern industrial banking. The two parties to this discussion are agreed only on one point: and that is, that as yet there are neither firm principles nor a concrete aim in the new activities of the big banks.''~^^*^^
The old capitalism has had its day. The new capitalism represents a transition towards something. It is hopeless, of course, to seek for "firm principles and a concrete aim" for the purpose of ``reconciling'' monopoly with free competition. The admission of the practical men has quite a different ring from the official praises of the charms of ``organised'' capitalism sung by its apologists, Schulze-Gaevernitz, Liefmann and similar "theoreticians.''
At precisely what period were the "new activities" of the big banks finally established? Jeidels gives us a fairly exact answer to this important question:
``The ties between the banks and industrial enterprises, with their new content, their new forms and their new organs, namely, the big banks which are organised on both a centralised and a decentralised basis, were scarcely a characteristic economic phenomenon before the 'nineties; in one sense, indeed, this initial date may be advanced to the year 1897, when the important `mergers' took place and when, for the first time, the new form of decentralised organisation was introduced to suit the industrial policy of the banks. This starting point could perhaps be placed at an even later date, for it was the crisis [of 1900] that enormously accelerated and intensified the process of concentration of industry and banking, consolidated that process, for the first _-_-_
^^*^^ Jeidels, op. cit,, pp. 183-84.
121 __RUNNING_HEADER__ IMPERIALISM time transformed the connection with industry into the monopoly of the big banks, and made this connection much closer and more active.''~^^*^^
Thus, the beginning of the twentieth century marks the turning point from the old capitalism to the new, from the domination of capital in general to the domination of finance capital.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ III. FINANCE CAPITAL AND FINANCIAL OLIGARCHY``A steadily increasing proportion of capital in industry," Hilferding writes, "does not belong to the industrialists who employ it. They obtain the use of it only through the medium of the banks, which, in relation to them, represent the owners of the capital. On the other hand, the bank is forced to keep an increasing share of its funds engaged in industry. Thus, to an increasing degree the bank is being transformed into an industrial capitalist. This bank capital, i.e., capital in money form which is thus really transformed into industrial capital, I call 'finance capital.'... Finance capital is capital controlled by banks and employed by industrialists.''~^^**^^
This definition is incomplete in so far as it is silent on one extremely important fact: the increase of concentration of production and of capital to such an extent that it leads, and has led, to monopoly. But throughout the whole of his work, and particularly in the two chapters which precede the one from which this definition is taken, Hilferding stresses the part played by capitalist monopolies,
The concentration of production; the monopoly arising therefrom; the merging or coalescence of banking with industry---this is the history of the rise of finance capital and what gives the term "finance capital" its content.
We now have to describe how, under the general conditions of commodity production and private property, the ``domination'' of capitalist monopolies inevitably becomes the domination of a financial oligarchy. It should be noted that the representatives of German bourgeois science---and not only of German science---like Riesser, Schulze-Gaevernitz, Liefmann and others are all apologists of _-_-_
^^*^^ Ibid., p. 181.
^^**^^ R. Hilferding, Das Finanzf(apital, 1912, p. 283.
122 imperialism and of finance capital. Instead of revealing the `` mechanics'' of the formation of an oligarchy, its methods, its revenues "innocent and sinful," its connections with parliaments, etc., they conceal, obscure and embellish them. They evade these "vexed questions" by a few vague and pompous phrases: appeals to the "sense of responsibility" of bank directors, praising "the sense of duty" of Prussian officials; by giving serious study to petty details, to ridiculous bills of parliament---for the ``supervision'' and `` regulation'' of monopolies; by playing with theories, like, for example, the following ``scientific'' definition, arrived at by Professor Liefmann: "Commerce is an occupation having for its object: collecting goods, storing them and making them available." (The Professor's boldface italics.) From this it would follow that commerce existed in the time of primitive man, who knew nothing about exchange, and that it will exist under socialism!But the monstrous facts concerning the monstrous rule of the financial oligarchy are so striking that in all capitalist countries, in America, France and Germany, a whole literature has sprung up, written from the bourgeois point of view, but which, nevertheless, gives a fairly accurate picture and criticism---petty-bourgeois, naturally---of this oligarchy.
The "holding system," to which we have already briefly referred above, should be placed at the corner-stone. The German economist, Heymann, probably the first to call attention to this matter, describes it in this way:
_-_-_``The head of the concern controls the parent company; the latter reigns over the subsidiary companies which in their turn control still other subsidiaries. Thus, it is possible with a comparatively small capital to dominate immense spheres of production. As a matter of fact, if holding 50 per cent of the capital is always sufficient to control a company, the head of the concern needs only one million to control eight millions in the second subsidiaries. And if this ``interlocking'' is extended, it is possible with one million to control sixteen, thirty-two or more millions.''~^^*^^
^^*^^ Heymann, Die gemischten Wer\e im deutschen Grosseisengctverbc, Stuttgart 1904, pp. 268-69.
123 __RUNNING_HEADER__ IMPERIALISMExperience shows that it is sufficient to own 40 per cent of the shares of a company in order to direct its affairs,^^*^^ since a certain number of small, scattered shareholders find it impossible, in practice, to attend general meetings, etc. The ``democratisation'' of the ownership of shares, from which the bourgeois sophists and opportunist ``would-be'' Social-Democrats expect (or declare that they expect) the "democratisation of capital," the strengthening of the role and significance of small-scale production, etc., is, in fact, one of the ways of increasing the power of financial oligarchy. Incidentally, this is why, in the more advanced, or in the older and more ``experienced'' capitalist countries, the law allows the issue of shares of very small denomination. In Germany, it is not permitted by law to issue shares of less Value than one thousand marks, and the magnates of German finance look with an envious eye at England, where the issue of one-pound shares is permitted. Siemens, one of the biggest industrialists and "financial kings" in Germany, told the Reichstag on June 7, 1900, that "the one-pound share is the basis of British imperialism.''~^^**^^ This merchant has a much deeper and more ``Marxian'' understanding of imperialism than a certain disreputable writer, generally held to be one of the founders of Russian Marxism, who believes that imperialism is a bad habit of a certain nation....
But the "holding system" not only serves to increase enormously the power of the monopolists; it also enables them to resort with impunity to all sorts of shady tricks to cheat the public, for the directors of the parent company are not legally responsible for the subsidiary companies, which are supposed to be "independent," and through the medium of which they can "pull off" anything. Here is an example taken from the German review, Die Ban\, for May 1914:
``The Spring Steel Company of Kassel was regarded some years ago as being one of the most profitable enterprises in Germany. Through bad management its dividends fell within the space of a few years from 15 per cent to nil. It appears that the Board, without consulting the shareholders, had loaned six million mar\s to one of the subsidiary companies, the Hassia, Ltd., which had a nominal capital of only some _-_-_
^^*^^ R. Liefmann, Bcteiligungsgesellschaften, p. 258.
^^**^^ Schulze-Gaevernitz in "Grdr. d. S.-Oekj" V. 2, p. no.
124 hundreds of thousands of marks. This commitment, amounting to nearly treble the capital of the parent company, was never mentioned in its balance sheets. This omission was quite legal, and could be kept up for two whole years because it did not violate any provision of company law. The chairman of the Supervisory Board, who as the responsible head had signed the false balance sheets, was, and still is, the president of the Kassel Chamber of Commerce. The shareholders only heard of the loan to the Hassia, Ltd., long afterwards, when it had long been proved to have been a mistake" (this word the writer should have put in quotation marks), "and when Spring Steel shares had dropped nearly 100 points, because those in the know had got rid of them...."This typical example of balance-sheet jugglery, quite common in joint stoc\ companies, explains why their Boards of Directors are more willing to undertake risky transactions than individual dealers. Modern methods of drawing up balance sheets not only make it possible to conceal doubtful undertakings from the average shareholder, but also allow the people most concerned to escape the consequence of unsuccessful speculation by selling their shares in time while the individual dealer risks his own skin in everything he does.
``The balance sheets of many joint stock companies put us in mind of the palimpsests of the Middle Ages from which the visible inscription had first to be erased in order to discover beneath it another inscription giving the real meaning of the document." (Palimpsests are parchment documents from which the original inscription has been obliterated and another inscription imposed.)
``The simplest and, therefore, most common procedure for making balance sheets indecipherable is to divide a single business into several parts by setting up subsidiary companies---or by annexing such. The advantages of this system for various objects---legal and illegal---are so evident that it is now quite unusual to find an important company in which it is not actually in use.''~^^*^^
As an example of an important monopolist company widely employing this system, the author quotes the famous General Electric Company (Allgemeine Elektrizitats Gesellschaft---A.E.G.) to which we shall refer below. In 1912, it was calculated that this company _-_-_
^^*^^ Ludwig Eschwege, Tochtergesellschaften (Subsidiary Companies), in Die 'Bank., I9M. I. PP- 544-46.
125 held shares in from 775 to zoo other companies, controlling them, of course, and thus having control of a total capital of 7,500,000,000 metres! ^^*^^All rules of control, the publication of balance sheets, the drawing up of balance sheets according to a definite form, the public auditing of accounts, etc., the things about which well-intentioned professors and officials---that is, those imbued with the good intention of defending and embellishing capitalism---discourse to the public, are of no avail. For private property is sacred, and no one can be prohibited from buying, selling, exchanging or mortgaging shares, etc.
The extent to which this "holding system" has developed in the big Russian banks may be judged by the figures given by E. Agahd, who was for fifteen years an official of the Russo-Chinese Bank and who, in May 1914, published a book, not altogether correctly entitled Big Banfo and the World Market^^**^^ The author divides the big Russian banks into two main categories: a) banks that come under a "holding system," and b) ``independent'' banks---" independence," however, being arbitrarily taken to mean independence of foreign banks. The author divides the first group into three sub-groups: i) German participation, 2) British participation, and 3) French participation, having in view the ``participation'' and domination of the big foreign banks of the particular country mentioned. The author divides the capital of the banks into "pro^ ductively" invested capital (in industrial and commercial undertakings), and ``speculatively'' invested capital (in Stock Exchange and financial operations), assuming, from his petty-bourgeois reformist point of view, that it is possible, under capitalism, to separate the first form of investment from the second and to abolish the second form.
_-_-_^^*^^Kurt Heinig, Der Weg des Elekfrotrusts (The Path of the Electric Trust), in Die Neue Zeit, 1911-1912, Vol. II, p. 484.
^^**^^ E. Agahd, Grossbankfn und Weltmarkf. Die arirtschaftliche und politische Bedeutung der Grossbcmkfn im Weltmarkt unter Beruc^acfitung ihres Einftusses auj Rusflands Volfytvirtschajt und die deutsch-russischen Beziehungen. Berl. ("Big Banks and the World Market. The economic and political significance of the big banks on the world market, with reference to their influence on Russia's national economy and German-Russian relations.") Berlin, 1914, pp. 11-17.
126Here are the figures he supplies:
BANK ASSETS
(According to reports for October-November, 1913, in millions of rubles)
CAPITAL INVESTED
CROUPS OF RUSSIAN BANKS
PRODUCTIVE SPECULATIVE TOTAL
A. i) Four banks: Siberian Commercial
Bank, Russian Bank, International
Bank, and Discount Bank
413.7 859.1 1,272.8
2) Two banks: Commercial and
Industrial and Russo-British~^^2^^39-3 169.1 408.4
3) Five banks: Russian-Asiatic, St.
Petersburg Private, Azov-Don,
Union Moscow, Russo-French
Commercial
711.8 661.2 i>373-o
Total: (u banks)
1,364.8 1,689.4 3.054.2
B. Eight banks: Moscow Merchants,
Volga-Kama, Junker and Co., St.
Petersburg Commercial (formerly
Wawelberg), Bank of Moscow (
formerly Riabushinsky), Moscow
Discount, Moscow Commercial, Private
Bank of Moscow
504.2 391.1 895.3
Total: (19 banks)
1,869.0 2,080.5 3>949-5
According to these figures, of the approximately four billion rubles making up the ``working'' capital of the big banks, more than three-fourths, more than three billions, belonged to banks which in reality were only "subsidiary companies" of foreign banks, and chiefly of the Paris banks (the famous trior Union Parisien, Paris et Pays-Bas and Societe Generate), and of the Berlin banks (particularly the Deutsche Bank and Disconto-Gesellschaft). Two of the most important Russian banks, the Russian Bank for Foreign Trade and the St. Petersburg International Commercial, between 1906 and 1912 increased their capital from 44,000,000 to 98,000,000 rubles, and their reserve from 15,000,000 to 39,000,000 "employing three-fourths German capital." The first belongs to the Deutsche Bank group and the second to the Disconto-- Gesellschaft. The worthy Agahd is indignant at the fact that the 127 majority of the shares are held by the Berlin banks, and that, therefore, the Russian shareholders are powerless. Naturally, the country which exports capital skims the cream: for example, the Deutsche Bank, while introducing the shares of the Siberian Commercial Bank on the Berlin market, kept them in its portfolio for a whole year, and then sold them at the rate of 193 for 100, that is, at nearly twice their nominal value, ``earning'' a profit of nearly 6,000,000 rubles, which Hilferding calls ``promoters' profits.''
Our author puts the total ``resources'' of the principal St. Petersburg banks at 8,235,000,000 rubles, about 8J4 billions and the "holdings," or rather, the extent to which foreign banks dominated them, he estimates as follows: French banks, 55 per cent; English, 10 per cent; German, 35 per cent. The author calculates that of the total of 8,235,000,000 rubles of functioning capital, 3,687,000,000 rubles, or over 40 per cent, fall to the share of the syndicates, Produgol and Prodamet~^^*^^---and the syndicates in the oil, metallurgical and cement industries. Thus, the merging of bank and industrial capital has also made great strides in Russia owing to the formation of capitalist monopolies.
Finance capital, concentrated in a few hands and exercising a virtual monopoly, exacts enormous and ever-increasing profits from the floating of companies, issue of stock, state loans, etc., tightens the grip of financial oligarchies and levies tribute upon the whole of society for the benefit of monopolists. Here is an example, taken from a multitude of others, of the methods of ``business'' of the American trusts, quoted by Hilferding: in 1887, Havemeyer founded the Sugar Trust by amalgamating fifteen small firms, whose total capital amounted to $6,500,000. Suitably " watered," as the Americans say, the capital of the trust was increased to $50,000,000. This ``over-capitalisation'' anticipated the monopoly profits, in the same way as the United States Steel Corporation anticipated its profits by buying up as many iron fields as possible. In fact, the Sugar Trust set up monopoly prices on the market, which secured it such profits that it could pay 10 per _-_-_
^^*^^ Abbreviated names of the syndicates, "Russian Society for Trade in the Mineral Fuels of the Donetz Basin," and "Society for the Sale of the Products of Russian Metallurgical Works," organized in 1906 and 1901 respectively.---Ed.
128 cent dividend on capital ``watered'' sevenfold, or about 70 per cent on the capital actually invested at the time of the creation of the trust! In 1909, the capital of the Sugar Trust was increased to $90,000,000. In twenty-two years, it had increased its capital more than tenfold.In France the role of the "financial oligarchy" (Against the Financial Oligarchy in France, the title of the well-known book by Lysis, die fifth edition of which was published in 1908) assumed a form that was only slightly different. Four of the most powerful banks enjoy, not a relative, but an "absolute monopoly" in the issue of bonds. In reality, this is a "trust of the big banks." And their monopoly ensures the monopolist profits from bond issues. Usually a country borrowing from France does not get more than 90 per cent of the total of the loan, the remaining 10 per cent goes to the banks and other middlemen. The profit made by the banks out of the Russo-Chinese loans of 400,000,000 francs amounted to 8 per cent; out of the Russian (1904) loan of 800,000,000 francs the profit amounted to 10 per cent; and out of the Moroccan (1904) loan of 62,500,000 francs, to 18.75 per cent. Capitalism, which began its development with petty usury capital, ends its development with gigantic usury capital. "The French," says Lysis, "are the usurers of Europe." All the conditions of economic life are being profoundly modified by this transformation of capitalism. Widi a stationary population, and stagnant industry, commerce and shipping, the ``country'' can grow rich by usury. "Fifty persons, representing a capital of 8,000,000 francs, can control 2,000,000,000 francs deposited in four banks." The "holding system," with which we are already familiar, leads to the same result. One of the biggest banks, the Societe Generale, for instance, issues 64,000 bonds for one of its subsidiary companies, the Egyptian Sugar Refineries. The bonds are issued at 150 per cent, *.<?., the bank gaining 50 centimes on the franc. The dividends of the new company are then found to be fictitious. The ``public'' lost from 90 to 100 million francs. One of the directors of the Societe Generale was a member of the board of directors of the Egyptian Sugar Refineries. Hence it is not surprising that the author is driven to the conclusion that "the French Republic is a financial 129 monarchy"; "it is the complete domination of the financial oligarchy; the latter controls the press and the government.''~^^*^^
The extraordinarily high rate of profit obtained from the issue of securities, which is one of the principal functions of finance capital, plays a large part in the development and consolidation of the financial oligarchy.
``There is not within the country a single business of this type that brings in profits even approximately equal to those obtained from the flotation of foreign loans,''~^^**^^ says the German magazine, Die
``No banking operation brings in profits comparable with those obtained from the issue of securities!"~^^***^^
According to the German Economist, the average annual profits made on the issue of industrial securities were as follows:
PER CENT
PER CENT
1895 38.6
1898
67.7
1896 36.1
1899
66.9
1897 66.7
1900
55.2
``In the ten years from 1891 to 1900, more than a billion marks of profits were `earned' by issuing German industrial securities.''~^^****^^
While, during periods of industrial boom, the profits of finance capital are disproportionately large, during periods of depression, small and unsound businesses go out of existence, while the big banks take ``holdings'' in their shares, which are bought up cheaply or in profitable schemes for their ``reconstruction'' and "reorganisation." In the ``reconstruction'' of undertakings which have been running at a loss,
``the share capital is written down, that is, profits are distributed on a smaller capital and subsequently are calculated on this smaller basis. If the income has fallen to zero, new capital is called in, which, combined with the old and less remunerative capital, will bring in an adequate return.''
_-_-_^^*^^ Lysis, Contre I'oligarchic financiere en France (Against the Financial Oligarchy in France) fifth cd., Paris, 1908, pp. II, 12, 26, 39, 40, 47-48.
^^**^^ Die Bank, 1913, II, p. 630.
^^***^^ Stillich, op. cit., p. 143.---Ed.
^^****^^ Stillich, ibid.; also Werner Sombart, Die deutsche Volfctvirtschaft im 19. Jahrhundert (German National Economy in the Nineteenth Century), second ed., Berlin, 1909, p. 526, Appendix.
130``Incidentally," adds Hilferding, "these reorganisations and recon-: structions have a twofold significance for the banks: first, as profitable transactions; and, secondly, as opportunities for securing control of the companies in difficulties.''~^^*^^
Here is an instance. The Union Mining Company of Dortmund, founded in 1872, with a share capital of nearly 40,000,000 marks, saw the market price of shares rise to 170 after it had paid a 12 per cent dividend in its first year. Finance capital skimmed the cream and earned a ``trifle'' of something like 28,000,000 marks. The principal sponsor of this company was that very big German Disconto-Gesellschaft which so successfully attained a capital of 300,000,000 marks. Later, the dividends of the Union declined to nil: the shareholders had to consent to a "writing down" of capital, that is, to losing some of it in order not to lose it all. By a series of "reconstructions," more than 73,000,000 marks were written off the books of the Union in the course of thirty years.
``At the present time, the original shareholders of this company possess only 5 per cent of the nominal value of their shares.''~^^**^^
But the bank "made a profit" out of every "reconstruction." Speculation in land situated in the suburbs of rapidly growing towns, is a particularly profitable operation for finance capital. The monopoly of the banks merges here with the monopoly of ground rent and with monopoly in the means of communication, since the increase in the value of the land and the possibility of selling it profitably in allotments, etc., is mainly dependent on good means of communication with the centre of the town; and these means of communication are in the hands of large companies which are connected by means of the holding system and by the distribution of positions on the directorates, with the interested banks. As a result we get what the German writer, L. Eschwege, a contributor to Die Ban\, who has made a special study of real estate business and mortgages, etc., calls the formation of a "bog." Frantic speculation in suburban building lots: collapse of building enterprises (like that of the Berlin firm of Boswau and Knauer, which grabbed 100,000,000 marks with the help of the "sound and solid" _-_-_
^^*^^ Hilferding, op. cit., pp. 142-143.
^^**^^ Stillich, op. cit., p. 138, and Liefmann, p. 51.
131 __RUNNING_HEADER__ IMPERIALISM Deutsche Bank---the latter acting, of course, discreetly behind the scenes through the holding system and getting out of it by losing ``only'' 12,000,000 marks), then the ruin of small proprietors and of workers who get nothing from the fraudulent building firms, underhand agreements with the ``honest'' Berlin police and the Berlin administration for the purpose of getting control of the issue of building sites, tenders, building licenses, etc.^^*^^``American ethics," which the European professors and wellmeaning bourgeois so hypocritically deplore, have, in the age of finance capital, become the ethics of literally every large city, no matter what country it is in.
At the beginning of 1914, there was talk in Berlin of the proposed formation of a "transport trust," i.e., of establishing " community of interests" between the three Berlin passenger transport undertakings: the Metropolitan electric railway, the tramway company and the omnibus company.
``We know," wrote Die Ean\, "that this plan has been contemplated since it became known that the majority of the shares in the bus company has been acquired by the other two transport companies.... We may believe those who are pursuing this aim when they say that by uniting the transport services, they will secure economies part of which will in time benefit the public. But the question is complicated by the fact that behind the transport trust that is being formed are the banks, which, if they desire, can subordinate the means of transportation, which they have monopolised, to the interests of their real estate business. To be convinced of the reasonableness of such a conjecture, we need only recall that at the very formation of the Elevated Railway Company the traffic interests became interlocked with the real estate interests of the big bank which financed it, and this interlocking even created the prerequisites for the formation of the transport enterprise. Its eastern line, in fact, was to run through land which, when it became certain the line was to be laid down, this bank sold to a real estate firm at an enormous profit for itself and for several partners in the transactions.''~^^**^^
A monopoly, once it is formed and controls thousands of millions, inevitably penetrates into every sphere of public life, _-_-_
^^*^^Ludwig Eschwege, Der Sumpf (The Bog), in Die Ban\, 1913, II, p. 952, et seq.; ibid,, 1912, I, p. 223 et seq.
^^**^^ Verbfhrftrust (Transport Trust), in Die BanT(, 1914, I, pp. 89-90.
132 regardless of the form of government and all other "details." In the economic literature of Germany one usually comes across the servile praise of the integrity of the Prussian, bureaucracy, and allusions to the French Panama scandal^^42^^ and to political corruption in America. But the fact is that even the bourgeois literature devoted to German banking matters constantly has to go far beyond the field of purely banking operations and to speak, for instance, of "the attraction of the banks" in reference to the increasing frequency with which public officials take employment with the banks.``How about the integrity of a state official who in his inmost heart is aspiring to a soft job in the Behrenstrasse?''~^^*^^ (the street in Berlin in which the head office of the Deutsche Bank is situated).
In 1909, the publisher of Die BanT^, Alfred Lansburgh, wrote an article entitled "The Economic Significance of Byzantinism," in which he incidentally referred to Wilhelm II's tour of Palestine, and to "the immediate result of this journey," the construction of the Bagdad railway, that fatal "standard product of German enterprise, which is more responsible for the `encirclement' than all our political blunders put together.''^^**^^ (By encirclement is meant the policy of Edward VII to isolate Germany by surrounding her with an imperialist anti-German alliance.) In 1912, another contributor to this magazine, Eschwege, to whom we have already referred, wrote an article entitled "Plutocracy and Bureaucracy," in which he exposes the case of a German official named Volker, who was a zealous member of the Cartel Committee and who, some time later, obtained a lucrative post in the biggest cartel, i.e., the Steel Syndicate.^^***^^ Similar cases, by no means casual, forced this bourgeois author to admit that "the economic liberty guaranteed by the German Constitution has become in many departments of economic life a meaningless phrase" and that under the existing rule of the plutocracy, "even the widest political liberty cannot save us from being converted into a nation of unfree people.''~^^****^^
_-_-_^^*^^ Der Zug xur Bank (The Attraction of the Banks), in Die Bank, 1909,1, p. 79.
^^**^^ Ibid., p. 307.
^^***^^ Die Bank, 1912. H, p. 825,^-!$,
^^****^^ Ibid,, 1913, II, p. 963,
133 __RUNNING_HEADER__ IMPERIALISMAs for Russia, we will content ourselves by quoting one example. Some years ago, all the newspapers announced that Davidov, the director of the Credit Department of the Treasury, had resigned his post to take employment with a certain big bank at a salary which, according to the contract, was to amount to over one million rubles in the course of several years. The function of the Credit Department is to "co-ordinate the activities of all the credit institutions of the country"; it also grants subsidies to banks in St. Petersburg and Moscow amounting to between 800 and 1,000 million rubles.^^*^^
It is characteristic of capitalism in general that the ownership of capital is separated from the application of capital to production, that money capital is separated from industrial or productive capital, and that the rentier, who lives entirely on income obtained from money capital, is separated from the entrepreneur and from all who are directly concerned in the management of capital. Imperialism, or the domination of finance capital, is that highest stage of capitalism in which this separation reaches vast proportions. The supremacy of finance capital over all other forms of capital means the predominance of the rentier and of the financial oligarchy; it means the crystallisation of a small number of financially ``powerful'' states from among all the rest. The extent to which this process is going on may be judged from the statistics on emissions, if., the issue of all kinds of securities.
In the Bulletin of the International Statistical Institute, A. Neymarck^^**^^ has published very comprehensive and complete comparative figures covering the issue of securities all over the world, which have been repeatedly quoted in economic literature. The following are the totals he gives for four decades:
TOTAL ISSUES IN BILLIONS OF FRANCS (Decades)
1871-1880
76.1
1881-1890
64.5
1891-1900
100.4
1901-1910
197.8
^^*^^E. Agahd, op. cit., p. 202.
^^**^^ A. Neymarck, Bulletin de I'institut international de statistique (Bulletin of the International Statistical Institute), Vol. XIX, Book II, The Hague, 1912. Data concerning small states, second column, are approximately calculated by adding 20 per cent to the 1902 figures.
134 __RUNNING_HEADER__ IMPERIALISMIn the 1870's, the total amount of issues for the whole world was high, owing particularly to the loans floated in connection with the Franco-Prussian War, and the company-promoting boom which set in in Germany after the war. In general, the increase is not very rapid during the three last decades of the nineteenth century, and only in the first ten years of the twentieth century is an enormous increase observed of almost 100 per cent. Thus the beginning of the twentieth century marks the turning point, not only in regard to the growth of monopolies (cartels, syndicates, trusts), of which we have already spoken, but also in regard to the development of finance capital.
Neymarck estimates the total amount of issued securities current in the world in 1910 at about 815,000,000,000 francs. Deducting from this amounts which might have been duplicated, he reduces the total to 575-600,000,000,000, which is distributed among the various countries as follows (we will take 600,000,000,000):
FINANCIAL SECURITIES CURRENT IN 1910
(In billions of francs)
Great Britain 1421
Japan 12
United States
132 I
Holland
12.5
France
no |™' Belgium
7.5
Germany
95 j
Spain
7.5
Russia 31
Switzerland
6.25
Austria-Hungary 24
Denmark
3.75
Italy 14
Sweden, Norway, Rumania, etc. 2.5
Total 600.00
From these figures we at once see standing out in sharp relief four of the richest capitalist countries, each of which controls securities to amounts ranging from 100 to 150 billion francs. Two of these countries, England and France, are the oldest capitalist countries, and, as we shall see, possess the most colonies; the other two, the United States and Germany, are in the front rank as regards rapidity of development and the degree of extension of capitalist monopolies in industry. Together, these four countries 135 own 479,000,000,000 francs, that is, nearly 80 per cent of the world's finance capital. Thus, in one way or another, nearly the whole world is more or less the debtor to and tributary of these four international banker countries, the four ``pillars'' of world finance capital.
It is particularly important to examine the part which export of capital plays in creating the international network of dependence and ties of finance capital.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ IV. THE EXPORT OF CAPITALUnder the old capitalism, when free competition prevailed, the export of goods was the most typical feature. Under modern capitalism, when monopolies prevail, the export of capital has become the typical feature.
Capitalism is commodity production at the highest stage of development, when labour power itself becomes a commodity. The growth of internal exchange, and particularly of international exchange, is the characteristic distinguishing feature of capitalism. The uneven and spasmodic character of the development of individual enterprises, of individual branches of industry and individual countries, is inevitable under the capitalist system. England became a capitalist country before any other, and in the middle of the nineteenth century, having adopted free trade, claimed to be the "workshop of the world," the great purveyor of manufactured goods to all countries, which in exchange were to keep her supplied with raw materials. But in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, this monopoly was already undermined. Other countries, protecting themselves by tariff walls, had developed into independent capitalist states. On the threshold of the twentieth century, we see a new type of monopoly coming into existence. Firstly, there are monopolist capitalist combines in all advanced capitalist countries; secondly, a few rich countries, in which the accumulation of capital reaches gigantic proportions, occupy a monopolist position. An enormous "superabundance of capital" has accumulated in the advanced countries.
It goes without saying that if capitalism could develop 136 agriculture, which today lags far behind industry everywhere, if it could raise the standard of living of the masses, who are everywhere still poverty-stricken and underfed, in spite of the amazing advance in technical knowledge, there could be no talk of a superabundance of capital. This ``argument'' the petty-bourgeois critics of capitalism advance on every occasion. But if capitalism did these things it would not be capitalism; for uneven development and wretched conditions of the masses are fundamental and inevitable conditions and premises of this mode of production. As long as capitalism remains what it is, surplus capital will never be utilised for the purpose of raising the standard of living of the masses in a given country, for this would mean a decline in profits for the capitalists; it will be used for the purpose of increasing those profits by exporting capital abroad to the backward countries. In these backward countries profits are usually high, for capital is scarce, the price of land is relatively low, wages are low, raw materials are cheap. The possibility of exporting capital is created by the fact that numerous backward countries have been drawn into international capitalist intercourse; main railways have either been built or are being built there; the elementary conditions for industrial development have been created, etc. The necessity for exporting capital arises from the fact that in a few countries capitalism has become ``over-ripe'' and (owing to the backward state of agriculture and the impoverished state of the masses) capital cannot find ``profitable'' investment.
Here are approximate figures showing the amount of capital invested abroad by the three principal countries:~^^*^^
_-_-_^^*^^ Hobson, Imperialism, London, 1902, p. 58; Riesser, op. at., pp. 395 and 404; P. Arndt in Welttvirtschaftliches Archiv (World Economic Archive), Vol. VII, 1916, p. 35; Neymarck in Bulletin de I'institM international de statistique; Hilferding, Finanzkapitd, p. 437; Lloyd George, Speech in the House of Commons, May 4, 1915, reported in Daily Telegraph, May 5, 1915; B. Harms, Problems der Weltivinschaft (Problems of World Economy), Jena, 1912, p. 235 et seq.; Dr. Sigmund Schilder, Entwicklungstendensen der Welttvirtschaft (Trends of Development of World Economy), Berlin, 1912, Vol. I, p. 150; George Paish, Great Britain's Capital Investments, etc., in Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Vol. LXXIV, 1910-11, p. 167; Georges Diouritch, L'expansion des banques allemandes a I'etranger, ses rapports avec le developpement economique de I'Allemagne (Expansion of German Banks Abroad, in Connection with the Economic Development of Germany), Paris, 1909, p. 84.
137 __RUNNING_HEADER__ IMPERIALISM CAPITAL INVESTED ABROAD
(In billions of francs)
Year
1862
1872
1882
1893
1902
1914
GREAT BRITAIN
FRANCE
GERMAN
3-6
-----
-----
15.0
10 (1869)
---
22.0
15 (1880)
p
42.O
20 (1890)
?
62.0
27-37
I2.5
75-100
60
44.0
This table shows that the export of capital reached formidable dimensions only in the beginning of the twentieth century. Before the war the capital invested abroad by the three principal countries amounted to between 175,000,000,000 and 200,000,000,000 francs. At the modest rate of 5 per cent, this sum should have brought in from 8 to 10 billions a year. This provided a solid basis for imperialist oppression and the exploitation of most of the countries and nations of the world; a solid basis for the capitalist parasitism of a handful of wealthy states!
How is this capital invested abroad distributed among the various countries? Where does it go? Only an approximate answer can be given to this question, but sufficient to throw light on certain general relations and ties of modern imperialism.
APPROXIMATE DISTRIBUTION OF FOREIGN CAPITAL
(ABOUT 1910)
(In billions of mar\s)
CONTINENT
GT. BRITAIN FRANCE
GERMANY
TOTAL
Europe 4
23 18
45
America 37
4 10
51
Asia, Africa and Australia 29
8 7
44
Total 70
35 35
140
The principal spheres of investment of British capital are the British colonies, which are very large also in America (for example, Canada) not to mention Asia, etc. In this case, enormous exports of capital are bound up with the possession of enormous colonies, 138 of the importance of which for imperialism we shall speak later. In regard to France, the situation is quite different. French capital exports are invested mainly in Europe, particularly in Russia (at least ten billion francs). This is mainly loan capital, in the form of government loans and not investments in industrial undertakings. Unlike British colonial imperialism, French imperialism might be termed usury imperialism. In regard to Germany, we have a third type; the German colonies are inconsiderable, and German capital invested abroad is divided fairly evenly between Europe and America.
The export of capital greatly affects and accelerates the development of capitalism in those countries to which it is exported. While, therefore, the export of capital may tend to a certain extent to arrest development in the countries exporting capital, it can only do so by expanding and deepening the further development of capitalism throughout the world.
The countries which export capital are nearly always able to . obtain "advantages," the character of which throws light on the peculiarities of the epoch of finance capital and monopoly. The following passage, for instance, occurred in the Berlin review, Die ^, for October 1913:
``A comedy worthy of the pen of Aristophanes is being played just now on the international capital market. Numerous foreign countries, from Spain to the Balkan states, from Russia to the Argentine, Brazil and China, are openly or secretly approaching the big money markets demanding loans, some of which are very urgent. The money market is not at the moment very bright and the political outlook is not yet promising. But not a single money market dares to refuse a foreign loan for fear that its neighbour might first anticipate it and so secure some small reciprocal service. In these international transactions the creditor nearly always manages to get some special advantages: an advantage of a commercial-political nature, a coaling station, a contract to construct a harbour, a fat concession, or an order for guns.''~^^*^^
Finance capital has created the epoch of monopolies, and monopolies introduce everywhere monopolist methods: the utilisation of ``connections'' for profitable transactions takes the place of _-_-_
^^*^^ Die B(tn\, 1913, pp. 1024-25.
139 competition on the open market. The most usual thing is to stipulate that part of the loan that is granted shall be spent on purchases in the country of issue, particularly on orders for war materials, or for ships, etc. In the course of the last two decades (1890-1910), France often resorted to this method. The export of capital abroad thus becomes a means for encouraging the export of commodities. In these circumstances transactions between particularly big firms assume a form "bordering on corruption," as Schilder~^^*^^ ``delicately'' puts it. Krupp in Germany, Schneider in France, Armstrong in England are instances, of firms which have close connections with powerful banks and governments and cannot be ``ignored'' when arranging a loan.France granted loans to Russia in 1905 and by the commercial treaty of September 16, 1905, she ``squeezed'' concessions out of her to run till 1917. She did the same thing when the Franco-Japanese commercial treaty was concluded on August 19, 1911. The tariff war between Austria and Serbia, which lasted with a seven months' interval, from 1906 to 1911, was partly caused by competition between Austria and France for supplying Serbia with war materials. In January 1912, Paul Deschanel stated in the Chamber of Deputies that from 1908 to 1911 French firms had supplied war materials to Serbia to the value of 45,000,000 francs.
A report from the Austro-Hungarian Consul at Sao-Paulo (Brazil) states:
``The construction of the Brazilian railways is being carried out chiefly by French, Belgian, British and German capital. In the financial operations connected with the construction of these railways the countries involved also stipulate for orders for the necessary railway materials.''
Thus, finance capital, almost literally, one might say, spreads its net over all countries of the world. Banks founded in the colonies, or their branches, play an important part in these operations. German imperialists look with envy on the ``old'' colonising nations which are "well established" in this respect. In 1904, Great Britain had 50 colonial banks with 2,279 branches (in 1910 there were 72 banks with 5,449 branches); France had 20 with 136 branches; _-_-_
^^*^^ Schilder, op. cit., Vol. I, pp. 346, 350 and 371.
140 Holland 16 with 68 branches; and Germany had a ``mere'' 13 with 70 branches.^^*^^ The American capitalists, in their turn, are jealous of the English and German: "In South America," they complained in 1915, "five German banks have forty branches and five English banks have seventy branches___England and Germany have invested in Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay in the last twenty-five years approximately four thousand million dollars, and as a result enjoy together 46 per cent of the total trade of these three countries.''~^^**^^The capital exporting countries have divided the world among themselves in the figurative sense of the term. But finance capital has also led to the actual division of the world.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ V. THE DIVISION OF THE WORLDMonopolist capitalist combines---cartels, syndicates, trusts---divide among themselves, first of all, the whole internal market of a country, and impose their control, more or less completely, upon the industry of that country. But under capitalism the home market is inevitably bound up with the foreign market. Capitalism long ago created a world market. As the export of capital increased, and as the foreign and colonial relations and the "spheres of influence" of die big monopolist combines expanded, things `` naturally'' gravitated towards an international agreement among these combines, and towards the formation of international cartels.
This is a new stage of world concentration of capital and production, incomparably higher than the preceding stages. Let us see how this super-monopoly develops.
The electrical industry is the most typical of the modern technical achievements of capitalism of the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries. This industry has developed most in the two most advanced of the new capitalist countries, the _-_-_
^^*^^Riesser, op. cit., fourth edition, pp. 374-75; Diouritch, p. 283.
^^**^^ The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. LIX, May 1915, p. 301. In the same volume on p. 331, we read that the wellknown statistician Paish, in the last annual issue of the financial magazine Statist, estimated the amount of capital exported by England, Germany, France, Belgium and Holland at 40,000,000,000 dollars, i.e., 200,000,000,000 francs.
141 __RUNNING_HEADER__ IMPERIALISM United States and Germany. In Germany, the crisis of 1900 gave a particularly strong impetus to its concentration. During the crisis, the banks, which by this time had become fairly well merged with industry, greatly accelerated and deepened the collapse of relatively small firms and their absorption by the large ones.``The banks," writes Jeidels, "in refusing a helping hand to the very companies which are in greatest need of capital bring on first a frenzied boom and then the hopeless failure of the companies which have not been attached to them closely long enough.''~^^*^^
As a result, after 1900, concentration in Germany proceeded by leaps and bounds. Up to 1900 there had been seven or eight ``groups'' in the electrical industry. Each was formed of several companies (altogether there were twenty-eight) and each was supported by from two to eleven banks. Between 1908 and 1912 all the groups were merged into two, or possibly one. The diagram below shows the process:
GROUPS IN THE GERMAN ELECTRICAL INDUSTRY
Prior to
igoo:
By 1912:
FELTEN & LAH- UNION
GUILLAUME MEYER A.E.G.
SIEMENS SCHUCKERT
BERG& HALSKE & CO. MANN
KUMMER
j
Failed
in igoo
FELTEN & A.E.G.
LAHMEYER
i i
SIEMENS & HALSKE-
BERGSCHUCK.ERT MANN
i i
A.E.G.
(GENERAL ELECTRIC co.)
SIEMENS &
HALSKESCHUCKERT
(In close ``co-operation'' since 1908)
The famous A.E.G. (General Electric Company), which grew up in this way, controls 175 to 200 companies (through shareholdings), and a total capital of approximately 1,500,000,000 marks. Abroad, it has thirty-four direct agencies, of which twelve are joint stock companies, in more than ten countries. As early as 1904 the amount of capital invested abroad by the German electrical industry was estimated at 233,000,000 marks. Of this sum, 62,000,000 were invested in Russia. Needless to say, the A.E.G. is a huge combine. Its manufacturing companies alone number no less than sixteen, and their factories make the most varied articles, from cables and insulators to motor cars and aeroplanes.
_-_-_^^*^^ Jeidels, op. dt., p. 232.
142 __RUNNING_HEADER__ IMPERIALISMBut concentration in Europe was a part of the process of concentration in America, which developed in the following way:
GENERAL ELECTRIC COMPANY
United States: Thomson-Houston Co.
Edison Co. establishes
establishes a firm in
in Europe the French
Europe
Edison Co. which
transfers its patents to the
German firm
Germany:
Gen'l Electric Co.
Union Electric Co.
(A.E.G.)
j
GENERAL ELECTRIC CO. (A.E.G.)
Thus, two "Great Powers" in the electrical industry were formed. "There are no other electric companies in the world completely independent of them," wrote Heinig in his article "The Path of the Electric Trust." An idea, although far from complete, of the turnover and the size of the enterprises of the two ``trusts'' can be obtained from the following figures:
TURNOVER
NO. OF
NET PROFITS
(mill, marks) EMPLOYEES (mill, marfe)
AMERICA:
General Electric Co.
28,000
35-4
32,000
45.6
30,700
14.5
60,800
21.7
GERMANY: A.E.G.
In 1907, the German and American trusts concluded an agreement by which they divided the world between themselves. Competition between them ceased. The American General Electric Company ``got'' the United States and Canada. The A.E.G. ``got'' Germany, Austria, Russia, Holland, Denmark, Switzerland, Turkey and the Balkans. Special agreements, naturally secret, were concluded regarding the penetration of ``subsidiary'' companies into new branches of industry, into ``new'' countries formally not yet allotted. The two trusts were to exchange inventions and experiments.^^*^^
It is easy to understand how difficult competition has become _-_-_
^^*^^ Riesser, of. cit,; Dioutitch, op. fit., p. 239; Kurt Heinig, op. cit.
143 against this trust, which is practically world-wide, which controls a capital of several billion, and has its "branches," agencies, representatives, connections, etc., in every corner of-the world. But the division of the world between two powerful trusts does not remove the possibility of redivision, if the relation of forces changes as a result of uneven development, war, bankruptcy, etc.The oil industry provides an instructive example of attempts at such a redivision, or rather of a struggle for redivision.
``The world oil market," wrote Jeidels in 1905, "is even today divided in the main between two great financial groups---Rockefeller's American Standard Oil Co., and the controlling interests of the Russian oil-fields in Baku, Rothschild and Nobel. The two groups are in close alliance. But for several years, five enemies have been threatening their monopoly.''~^^*^^
I) The exhaustion of the American oil wells;~^^**^^ 2) the competition of the firm of Mantashev of Baku; 3) the Austrian wells; 4) the Rumanian wells; 5) the overseas oilfields, particularly in the Dutch colonies (the extremely rich firms, Samuel and Shell, also connected with British capital). The three last groups are connected with the great German banks, principally, the Deutsche Bank. These banks independently and systematically developed the oil industry in Rumania, in order to have a foothold of their "own." In 1907, 185,000,000 francs of foreign capital were invested in the Rumanian oil industry, of which 74,000,000 came from Germany.^^***^^
A struggle began, which in economic literature is fittingly called "the struggle for the division of the world." On one side, the Rockefeller trust, wishing to conquer everything, formed a subsidiary company right in Holland, and bought up oil wells in the Dutch Indies, in order to strike at its principal enemy, the Anglo-Dutch Shell trust. On the other side, the Deutsche Bank and the other German banks aimed at ``retaining'' Rumania "for themselves" and at uniting it with Russia against Rockefeller. The latter controlled far more capital and an excellent system of oil transport and distribution. The struggle had to end, and did end in 1907, with the utter defeat of the Deutsche Bank, which was confronted with the _-_-_
^^*^^ Jeidels, op. cit., pp. 192-93.
^^**^^ In Pennsylvania, chief oil region in U. S. at time of Jeidels' study.---Ed.
^^***^^ Diouritch, op. cit., p. 245.
144 alternative: either to liquidate its oil business and lose millions, or to submit. It chose to submit, and concluded a very disadvantageous agreement with the American trust. The Deutsche Bank agreed "not to attempt anything which might injure American interests." Provision was made, however, for the annulment of the agreement in the event of Germany establishing a state oil monopoly.Then the "comedy of oil" began. One of the German finance kings, von Gwinner, a director of the Deutsche Bank, began through his private secretary, Strauss, a campaign for a state oil monopoly. The gigantic machine of the big German bank and all its wide ``connections'' were set in motion. The press bubbled over with ``patriotic'' indignation against the ``yoke'' of the American trust, and, on March 15, 1911, the Reichstag, by an almost unanimous vote, adopted a motion asking the government to introduce a bill for the establishment of an oil monopoly. The government seized upon this ``popular'' idea, and the game of the Deutsche Bank, which hoped to cheat its American partner and improve its business by a state monopoly, appeared to have been won. The German oil magnates saw visions of wonderful profits, which would not be less than those of the Russian sugar refiners. ... But, firstly, the big German banks quarrelled among themselves over the division of the spoils. The Disconto-Gesellschaft exposed the covetous aims of the Deutsche Bank; secondly, the government took fright at the prospect of a struggle with Rockefeller; it was doubtful whether Germany could be sure of obtaining oil from other sources. (The Rumanian output was small.) Thirdly, just at that time the 1913 credits of a billion marks were voted for Germany's war preparations. The project of the oil monopoly was postponed. The Rockefeller trust came out of the struggle, for the time being, victorious.
The Berlin review, Die BanT^, said in this connection that Germany could only fight the oil trust by establishing an electricity monopoly and by converting water power into cheap electricity.
``But," the author added, "the electricity monopoly will come when the producers need it, that is to say, on the eve of the next great crash in the electrical industry, and when the powerful, expensive electric stations which are now being put up at great cost everywhere by private electrical concerns, which obtain partial monopolies from the state, 145 from towns, etc., can no longer work at a profit. Water power will then have to be used. But it will be impossible to convert it into cheap electricity at state expense; it will have to be handed over to a 'private monopoly controlled by the state,' because of the immense compensation and damages that would have to be paid to private industry___
So it was with the nitrate monopoly, so it is with the oil monopoly; so it will be with the electric power monopoly. It is time for our state socialists, who allow themselves to be blinded by beautiful principles, to understand once and for all that in Germany monopolies have never pursued the aim, nor have they had the result, of benefiting the consumer, or of handing over to the state part of the entrepreneurs' profits; they have served only to facilitate, at the expense of the state, the recovery of private industries which were on the verge of bankruptcy.''~^^*^^
Such are the valuable admissions which the German bourgeois economists are forced to make. We see plainly here how private monopolies and state monopolies are bound up together in the age of finance capital; how both are but separate links in the imperialist struggle between the big monopolists for the division of the world.
In mercantile shipping, the tremendous development of concentration has ended also in the division of the world. In Germany two powerful companies have raised themselves to first rank, the Hamburg-Amerika and the Norddeutscher Lloyd, each having a capital of 200,000,000 marks (in stocks and bonds) and possessing from 185 to 189 million marks worth of shipping tonnage. On the other side, in America, on January i, 1903, the Morgan trust, the International Mercantile Marine Co., was formed which united nine British and American steamship companies, and which controlled a capital of 120,000,000 dollars (480,000,000 marks). As early as 1903, the German giants and the Anglo-American trust concluded an agreement and divided the world in accordance with the division of profits. The German companies undertook not to compete in the Anglo-American traffic. The ports were carefully ``allotted'' to each; a joint committee of control was set up, etc. This contract was concluded for twenty years, with the prudent provision for its annulment in the event of war.^^**^^
Extremely instructive also is the story of the creation of the _-_-_
^^*^^ Die Bank, I9I2> P- 1036; cf. also ibid., p. 629 et seq.; 1913, I, p. 388.
^^**^^ Riesser, op. cit., p. 125.
146 International Rail Cartel. The first attempt of the British, Belgian and German rail manufacturers to create such a cartel was made as early as 1884, at die time of a severe industrial depression. The manufacturers agreed not to compete with one another for the home markets of the countries involved, and they divided the foreign markets in the following quotas: Great Britain 66 per cent; Germany 27 per cent; Belgium 7 per cent. India was reserved entirely for Great Britain. Joint war was declared against a British firm which remained outside the cartel. The cost of this economic war was met by a percentage levy on all sales. But in 1886 the cartel collapsed when two British firms retired from it. It is characteristic that agreement could not be achieved in the period of industrial prosperity which followed.At the beginning of 1904, the German steel syndicate was formed. In November 1904, the International Rail Cartel was revived, with the following quotas for foreign trade: England 53.5 per cent; Germany 28.83 per cent; Belgium 17.67 per cent. France came in later with 4.8 per cent, 5.8 per cent and 6.4 per cent in the first, second and third years respectively, in excess of the 100 per cent limit, i.e., when the total was 104.8 per cent, etc. In 1905, the United States Steel Corporation entered the cartel; then Austria; then Spain.
``At the present time," wrote Vogelstein in 1910, "the division of the world is completed, and the big consumers, primarily the state railways---since the world has been parcelled out without consideration for their interests---can now dwell like the poet in the heaven of Jupiter.''~^^*^^
We will mention also the International Zinc Syndicate, established in 1909, which carefully apportioned output among three groups of factories: German, Belgian, French, Spanish and British. Then there is die International Dynamite Trust, of which Liefmann says that it is
``quite a modern, close alliance of all the manufacturers of explosives who, with the French and American dynamite manufacturers who have organised in a similar manner, have divided the whole world among themselves, so to speak.''~^^**^^
_-_-_^^*^^Th. Vogelstein, Organisationsformen (Forms of Organisation), p. 100.
^^**^^ R. Liefmann, Handle und Trusts, second ed., p. 161.
147 __RUNNING_HEADER__ IMPERIALISMLiefmann calculated that in 1897 there were altogether about forty international cartels in which Germany had a share, while in 1910 there were about a hundred.
Certain bourgeois writers (with whom K. Kautsky, who has completely abandoned the Marxist position he held, for example, in 1909, has now associated himself) express the opinion that international cartels are the most striking expressions of the internationalisation of capital, and, therefore, give the hope of peace among nations under capitalism. Theoretically, this opinion is absurd, while in practice it is sophistry and a dishonest defence of the worst opportunism. International cartels show to what point capitalist monopolies have developed, and they reveal the object of the struggle between the various capitalist groups. This last circumstance is the most important; it alone shows us the historicoeconomic significance of events; for the forms of the struggle may and do constantly change in accordance with varying, relatively particular, and temporary causes, but the essence of the struggle, its class content, cannot change while classes exist. It is easy to understand, for example, that it is in the interests of the German bourgeoisie, whose theoretical arguments have now been adopted by Kautsky (we will deal with this later), to obscure the content of the present economic struggle (the division of the world) and to emphasise this or that form of the struggle. Kautsky makes the same mistake. Of course, we have in mind not only the German bourgeoisie, but the bourgeoisie all over the world. The capitalists divide the world, not out of any particular malice, but because the degree of concentration which has been reached forces them to adopt this method in order to get profits. And they divide it in proportion to "capital," in proportion to "strength," because there cannot be any other system of division under commodity production and capitalism. But strength varies with the degree of economic and political development. In order to understand what takes place, it is necessary to know what questions are settled by this change of forces. The question as to whether these changes are ``purely'' economic or wow-economic (e.g., military) is a secondary one, which does not in the least affect the fundamental view on the latest epoch of capitalism. To substitute for the question of the content of the struggle and agreements between 148 capitalist combines the question of the form of these struggles and agreements (today peaceful, tomorrow war-like, the next day warlike again) is to sink to the role of a sophist.
The epoch of modern capitalism shows us that certain relations are established between capitalist alliances, based on the economic division of the world; while parallel with this fact and in connection with it, certain relations are established between political alliances, between states, on the basis of the territorial division of the world, of the struggle for colonies, of the "struggle for economic territory.''
__ALPHA_LVL2__ VI. THE DIVISION OF THE WORLDIn his book, The Territorial Development of the European Colonies, A. Supan,^^*^^ the geographer, gives the following brief summary of this development at the end of the nineteenth century:
PERCENTAGE OF TERRITORIES BELONGING TO THE
EUROPEAN COLONIAL POWERS (Including United States)
INCREASE OR
1876
igOO
DECREASE
Africa
10.8
90.4
-j- 79.6
Polynesia
56.8
98.9
+ 42.1
Asia
51.5
56.6
+ 5.1
Australia
100.0
100.0
---
America
27.5
27.2
---0.3
``The characteristic feature of this period," he concludes, "is therefore, the division of Africa and Polynesia.''
As there are no unoccupied territories---that is, territories that do not belong to any state---in Asia and America, Mr. Supan's conclusion must be carried further, and we must say that the characteristic feature of this period is the final partition of the globe--- not in the sense that a new partition is impossible---on the contrary, new partitions are possible and inevitable---but in the sense that the colonial policy of the capitalist countries has completed the _-_-_
^^*^^A. Supan, Die territoride Entwicklung der europaischen Kolonien, Gotha, 1906, p. 254.
149 seizure of the unoccupied territories on our planet. For the first time the world is completely divided up, so that in the future only redivision is possible; territories can only pass from one ``owner'' to another, instead of passing as unowned territory to an "owner.''Hence, we are passing through a peculiar period of world colonial policy, which is closely associated with the "latest stage in the development of capitalism," with finance capital. For this reason, it is essential first of all to deal in detail with the facts, in order to ascertain exactly what distinguishes this period from those preceding it, and what the present situation is. In the first place, two questions of fact arise here. Is an intensification of colonial policy, an intensification of the struggle for colonies, observed precisely in this period of finance capital? And how, in this respect, is the world divided at the present time?
The American writer, Morris, in his book on the history of colonisation,^^*^^ has made an attempt to compile data on the colonial possessions of Great Britain, France and Germany during different periods of the nineteenth century. The following is a brief summary of the results he has obtained:
COLONIAL POSSESSIONS
(Million square miles and million inhabitants)
GREAT BRITAIN
AREA
POP.
1815-30 ? 126.4 °-^^02^^ °-5------
i860
2.5 145.1 O.2 3.4 -- --
1880
7.7 267.9 °-7 7-5------
1899
9.3 309.0 3.7 56.4 i.o 14.7
For Great Britain, the period of the enormous expansion of colonial conquests is that between 1860 and 1880, and it was also very considerable in the last twenty years of the nineteenth century. For France and Germany this period falls precisely in these last twenty years. We saw above that the apex of pre-monopoly capitalist development, of capitalism in which free competition was predominant, was reached in the 'sixties and 'seventies of the last _-_-_
^^*^^ Henry C. Morris, The History of Colonisation, New York, 1900, II, p. 88; I, pp. 304, 419.
150 century. We now see that it is precisely after that period that the ``boom'' in colonial annexations begins, and that the struggle for the territorial division of the world becomes extraordinarily keen. It is beyond doubt, therefore, that capitalism's transition to the stage of monopoly capitalism, to finance capital, is bound up with the intensification of the struggle for the partition of the world.Hobson, in his work on imperialism, marks the years 1884-1900 as the period of the intensification of the colonial ``expansion'' of the chief European states. According to his estimate, Great Britain during these years acquired 3,700,000 square miles of territory with a population of 57,000,000; France acquired 3,600,000 square miles with a population of 36,500,000; Germany 1,000,000 square miles with a population of 16,700,000; Belgium 900,000 square miles with 30,000,000 inhabitants; Portugal 800,000 square miles with 9,000,000 inhabitants. The quest for colonies by all the capitalist states at the end of the nineteenth century and particularly since the i88o's is a commonly known fact in the history of diplomacy and of foreign affairs.
When free competition in Great Britain was at its zenith, if., between 1840 and 1860, the leading British bourgeois politicians were opposed to colonial policy and were of the opinion that the liberation of the colonies and their complete separation from Britain was inevitable and desirable. M. Beer, in an article, " Modern British Imperialism,''~^^*^^ published in 1898, shows that in 1852, Disraeli, a statesman generally inclined towards imperialism, declared: "The colonies are millstones round our necks." But at the end of the nineteenth century the heroes of the hour in England were Cecil Rhodes and Joseph Chamberlain, open advocates of imperialism, who applied the imperialist policy in the most cynical manner.
It is not without interest to observe that even at that time these leading British bourgeois politicians fully appreciated the connection between what might be called the purely economic and the politico-social roots of modern imperialism. Chamberlain advocated imperialism by calling it a "true, wise and economical policy," and he pointed particularly to the German, American and Belgian competition which Great Britain was encountering in the world _-_-_
^^*^^ Die Neue Zeit, XVI, I, 1898, p. 302.
151 market. Salvation lies in monopolies, said the capitalists as they formed cartels, syndicates and trusts. Salvation lies in monopolies, echoed the political leaders of the bourgeoisie, hastening to appropriate the parts of the world not yet shared out. The journalist, Stead, relates the following remarks uttered by his close friend Cecil Rhodes, in 1895, regarding his imperialist ideas:``I was in the East End of London yesterday and attended a meeting of the unemployed. I listened to the wild speeches, which were just a cry for 'bread,' 'bread,' 'bread,' and on my way home I pondered over the scene and I became more than ever convinced of the importance of imperialism----My cherished idea is a solution for the social problem, i.e., in order to save the 40,000,000 inhabitants of the United Kingdom from a bloody civil war, we colonial statesmen must acquire new lands to settle the surplus population, to provide new markets for the goods produced by them in the factories and mines. The Empire, as I have always said, is a bread and butter question. If you want to avoid civil war, you must become imperialists.''~^^*^^
This is what Cecil Rhodes, millionaire, king of finance, the man who was mainly responsible for the Boer War, said in 1895. His defence of imperialism is just crude and cynical, but in substance it does not differ from the ``theory'' advocated by Messrs. Maslov, Siidekum, Potresov, David, and the founder of Russian Marxism and others. Cecil Rhodes was a somewhat more honest socialchauvinist.
To tabulate as exactly as possible the territorial division of the world, and the changes which have occurred during the last decades, we will take the data furnished by Supan in the work already quoted on the colonial possessions of all the powers of the world. Supan examines the years 1876 and 1900; we will take the year 1876---a year aptly selected, for it is precisely at that time that the pre-monopolist stage of development of West European capitalism can be said to have been completed, in the main, and we will take the year 1914, and in place of Supan's figures we will quote the more recent statistics of Hiibner's Geographical and Statistical Tables. Supan gives figures only for colonies: we think it useful in order to present a complete picture of the division of _-_-_
^^*^^ lttd., p. 304.
152 the world to add brief figures on non-colonial and semi-colonial countries like Persia, China and Turkey. Persia is already almost completely a colony; China and Turkey are on the way to becoming colonies. We thus get the following summary: COLONIAL POSSESSIONS OF THE GREAT POWERS
(Million square \ilometres and million inhabitants)
COLONIES
HOME COUNTRIES
1914 1914
TOTAL
1914
AREA
POP.
AREA
POP.
AREA
POP.
AREA
POP.
Great Britain
22.5
251.9
33-5
393-5
0-3
46.5
33-8
440.0
Russia
17.0
15.9
17.4
33-2
5-4
136.2
22.8
169.4
France
0.9
6.0
10.6
55-5
0.5
39-6
ii. i
95-1
Germany
---
---
2.9
12.3
0.5
64.9
3-4
77.2
U.S.A.
---
---
o-3
9-7
97.0
9-7
106.7
Japan
---
---
0.3
19.2
0.4
53-o
0.7
72.2
Total
40.4
273.8
65.0
523.4
16.5
437-2
81.5
960.6
Colonies of other powers (Belgium, Holland, etc.)
9-9
45-3
Semi-colonial
countries
(Persia,
China,
Turkey)
14.5
361.2
Other countries
28.0
289.9
Total area and population of the world
133-9
We see from these figures how ``complete'' was the partition of the world at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries. After 1876 colonial possessions increased to an enormous degree, more than one and a half times, from 40,000,000 to 65,000,000 square kilometres in area for the six biggest powers, an increase of 25,000,000 square kilometres, that is, one and a half times greater than the area of the ``home'' countries, which have a total of 16,500,000 square kilometres. In 1876 three powers had no colonies, and a fourth, France, had scarcely any. In 1914 these four powers had 14,100,000 square kilometres of colonies, or an area one and a half times greater than that of Europe, with a population of nearly 100,000,000. The unevenness in the rate of expansion of colonial possessions is very marked. If, for instance, we compare France, Germany and Japan, which do not differ very much in area and population, we will see that the first has annexed almost three times as much colonial territory as the other two combined. In regard to finance capital, also, France, at the beginning 153 of the period we are considering, was perhaps several times richer than Germany and Japan put together. In addition to, and on the basis of, purely economic causes, geographical conditions and other factors also affect the dimensions of colonial possessions. However strong the process of levelling the world, of levelling the economic and living conditions in different countries, may have been in the past decades as a result 6f the pressure of large-scale industry, exchange and finance capital, great differences still remain; and among the six powers, we see, firstly, young capitalist powers (America, Germany, Japan) which progressed very rapidly; secondly, countries with an old capitalist development (France and Great Britain), which, of late, have made much slower progress than the previously mentioned countries, and, thirdly, a country (Russia) which is economically most backward, in which modern capitalist imperialism is enmeshed, so to speak, in a particularly close network of pre-capitalist relations.
Alongside the colonial possessions of these great powers, we have placed the small colonies of the small states, which are, so to speak, the next possible and probable objects of a new colonial " shareout." Most of these little states are able to retain their colonies only because of the conflicting interests, frictions, etc., among the big powers, which prevent them from coming to an agreement in regard to the division of the spoils. The "semi-colonial states" provide an example of the transitional forms which are to be found in all spheres of nature and society. Finance capital is such a great, it may be said, such a decisive force in all economic and international relations, that it is capable of subordinating to itself, and actually does subordinate to itself, even states enjoying complete political independence. We shall shortly see examples of this. Naturally, however, finance capital finds it most "convenient," and is able to extract the greatest profit from a subordination which involves the loss of the political independence of the subjected countries and peoples. In this connection, the semi-colonial countries provide a typical example of the "middle stage." It is natural that the struggle for these semi-dependent countries should have become particularly bitter during the period of finance capital, when the rest of the world had already been divided up.
Colonial policy and imperialism existed before this latest stage 154 of capitalism, and even before capitalism. Rome, founded on slavery, pursued a colonial policy and achieved imperialism. But `` general'' arguments about imperialism, which ignore, or put into the background the fundamental difference of social-economic systems, inevitably degenerate into absolutely empty banalities, or into grandiloquent comparisons like "Greater Rome and Greater Britain.''~^^*^^ Even the colonial policy of capitalism in its previous stages is essentially different from the colonial policy of finance capital.
The principal feature of modern capitalism is the domination of monopolist combines of the big capitalists. These monopolies are most firmly established when all the sources of raw materials are controlled by the one group. And we have seen with what zeal the international capitalist combines exert every effort to make it impossible for their rivals to compete with them; for example, by buying up mineral lands, oil fields, etc. Colonial possession alone gives complete guarantee of success to the monopolies against all the risks of the struggle with competitors, including the risk that the latter will defend themselves by means of a law establishing a state monopoly. The more capitalism is developed, the more the need for raw materials is felt, the more bitter competition becomes, and the more feverishly the hunt for raw materials proceeds throughout the whole world, the more desperate becomes the struggle for the acquisition of colonies.
Schilder writes:
``It may even be asserted, although it may sound paradoxical to some, that in the more or less discernible future the growth of the urban industrial population is more likely to be hindered by a shortage of raw materials for industry than by a shortage of food.''
For example, there is a growing shortage of timber---the price of which is steadily rising---of leather, and raw materials for the textile industry.
``As instances of the efforts of associations of manufacturers to create an equilibrium between industry and agriculture in world economy as _-_-_
^^*^^ A reference to the book by C. P. Lucas, Greater Rome and Greater Britain, Oxford 1912, or the Earl of Cromer's 4neient and Modern Imperialism, London, 1910,
155 a whole, we might mention the International Federation of Cotton Spinners' Associations in the most important industrial countries, founded in 1904, and the European Federation of Flax Spinners' Associations, founded on the same model in 1910.''~^^*^^
The bourgeois reformists, and among them particularly the present-day adherents of Kautsky, of course, try to belittle the importance of facts of this kind by arguing that it "would be possible" to obtain raw materials in the open market without a "costly and dangerous" colonial policy; and that it would be ``possible'' to increase the supply of raw materials to an enormous extent ``simply'' by improving agriculture. But these arguments are merely an apology for imperialism, an attempt to embellish it, because they ignore the principal feature of modern capitalism: monopoly. Free markets are becoming more and more a thing of the past; monopolist syndicates and trusts are restricting them more and more every day, and ``simply'' improving agriculture reduces itself to improving the conditions of the masses, to raising wages and reducing profits. Where, except in the imagination of the sentimental reformists, are there any trusts capable of interesting themselves in the condition of the masses instead of the conquest of colonies?
Finance capital is not only interested in the already known sources of raw materials; it is also interested in potential sources of raw materials, because present-day technical development is extremely rapid, and because land which is useless today may be made fertile tomorrow if new methods are applied (to devise these new methods a big bank can equip a whole expedition of engineers, agricultural experts, etc.), and large amounts of capital are invested. This also applies to prospecting for minerals, to new methods of working up and utilising raw materials, etc., etc. Hence, the inevitable striving of finance capital to extend its economic territory and even its territory in general. In the same way that the trusts capitalise their property by estimating it at two or three times its value, taking into account its ``potential'' (and not present) returns, and the further results of monopoly, so finance capital strives to seize the largest possible amount of land of all kinds and in any place it can, and by any means, counting _-_-_
^^*^^ Schildcr, op. cit., pp. 38 and 42.
156 on the possibilities of finding raw materials there, and fearing to be left behind in the insensate struggle for the last available scraps of undivided territory, or for the repartition of that which has been already divided.The British capitalists are exerting every effort to develop cotton growing in their colony, Egypt (in 1904, out of 2,300,000 hectares of land under cultivation, 600,000, or more than one-fourth, were devoted to cotton growing); the Russians are doing the same in their colony, Turkestan; and they are doing so because in this way they will be in a better position to defeat their foreign competitors, to monopolise the sources of raw materials and form a more economical and profitable textile trust in which all the processes of cotton production and manufacturing will be `` combined'' and concentrated in the hands of a single owner.
The necessity of exporting capital also gives an impetus to the conquest of colonies, for in the colonial market it is easier to eliminate competition, to make sure of orders, to strengthen the necessary "connections," etc., by monopolist methods (and sometimes it is the only possible way).
The non-economic superstructure which grows up on the basis of finance capital, its politics and its ideology, stimulates the striving for colonial conquest. "Finance capital does not want liberty, it wants domination," as Hilferding very truly says. And a French bourgeois writer, developing and supplementing, as it were, the ideas of Cecil Rhodes, which we quoted above, writes that social causes should be added to the economic causes of modern colonial policy.
_-_-_``Owing to the growing difficulties of life which weigh not only on the masses of the workers, but also on the middle classes, impatience, irritation and hatred are accumulating in all the countries of the old civilisation and are becoming a menace to public order; employment must be found for the energy which is being hurled out of the definite class channel; it must be given an outlet abroad in order to avert an explosion at home.''~^^*^^
^^*^^ Wahl, La France aux colonies (France in the Colonies), quoted by Henri Bussier, Le partage de I'Oceanie (The Partition of Oceania), Paris, 1905, pp. 165-66.
157 __RUNNING_HEADER__ IMPERIALISMSince we are speaking of colonial policy in the period of capitalist imperialism, it must be observed that finance capital and its corresponding foreign policy, which reduces itself to the struggle of the Great Powers for the economic and political division of the world, give rise to a number of transitional forms of national dependence. The division of the world into two main groups---of colony-owning countries on the one hand and colonies on the other---is not the only typical feature of this period; there is also a variety of forms of dependent countries; countries which, officially, are politically independent, but which are, in fact, enmeshed in the net of financial and diplomatic dependence. We have already referred to one form of dependence---the semi-colony. Another example is provided by Argentina.
``South America, and especially Argentina," writes SchulzeGaevernitz in his work on British imperialism, "is so dependent financially on London that it ought to be described as almost a British commercial colony.''~^^*^^
Basing himself on the report of the Austro-Hungarian consul at Buenos Aires for 1909, Schilder estimates the amount of British capital invested in Argentina at 8,750,000,000 francs. It is not difficult to imagine the solid bonds that are thus created between British finance capital (and its faithful "friend," diplomacy) and the Argentine bourgeoisie, with the leading businessmen and politicians of that country.
A somewhat different form of financial and diplomatic dependence, accompanied by political independence, is presented by Portugal. Portugal is an independent sovereign state. In actual fact, however, for more than two hundred years, since the war of the Spanish Succession (1700-14), it has been a British protectorate. Great Britain has protected Portugal and her colonies in order to fortify her own positions in the fight against her rivals, Spain and France. In return she has received commercial advantages, preferential import of goods, and, above all, of capital into Portugal and _-_-_
^^*^^ Schulze-Gaevernitz, Britischer Imperialisms und englischer Freihandel zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts (British Imperialism and English Free Trade at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century), Leipzig, 1906, p. 318. Sartorius von Waltershausen says the same in Das volksarirtschaiftliche System der Kapitalanlage im Auslande (The National Economic System of Capital Investments Abroad), Berlin, 1907, p. 46.
158 the Portuguese colonies, the right to use the ports and islands of Portugal, her telegraph cables, etc.^^*^^ Relations of this kind have always existed between big and little states. But during the period of capitalist imperialism they become a general system, they form part of the process of "dividing the world"; they become a link in the chain of operations of world finance capital.In order to complete our examination of the question of the division of the world, we must make the following observation. This question was raised quite openly and definitely not only in American literature after the Spanish-American War, and in English literature after the Boer War, at the very end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth; not only has German literature, which always ``jealously'' watches "British imperialism," systematically given its appraisal of this fact, but it has also been raised in French bourgeois literature in terms as wide and clear as they can be made from the bourgeois point of view. We will quote Driault, the historian, who, in his book, Political and Social Problems at the End of the Nineteenth Century, in the chapter "The Great Powers and the Division of the World," wrote the following:
``During recent years, all the free territory of the globe, with the exception of China, has been occupied by the powers of Europe and North America. Several conflicts and displacements of influence have already occurred over this matter, which foreshadow more terrible outbreaks in the near future. For it is necessary to make haste. The nations which have not yet made provisions for themselves run the risk of never receiving their share and never participating in the tremendous exploitation of the globe which will be one of the essential features of the next century" (i.e., the twentieth). "That is why all Europe and America has lately been afflicted with the fever of colonial expansion, of 'imperialism,' that most characteristic feature of the end of the nineteenth century.''
And the author added:
__ALPHA_LVL2__ VII. IMPERIALISM AS A SPECIAL STAGE OF CAPITALISM``In this partition of the world, in this furious pursuit of the treasures and of the big markets of the globe, the relative power of the empires founded in this nineteenth century is totally out of proportion to _-_-_
^^*^^ Schilder, op. clt., Vol. I, pp. 159-61.
159 the place occupied in Europe by the nations which founded them. The dominant powers in Europe, those which decide the destinies of the Continent, are not equally preponderant in the whole world. And, as colonial power, the hope of controlling hitherto unknown wealth, will obviously react to influence the relative strength of the European powers, the colonial question---'imperialism,' if you will---which has already modified the political conditions of Europe, will modify them more and more.''~^^*^^
We must now try to sum up and put together what has been said above on the subject o£ imperialism. Imperialism emerged as the development and direct continuation of the fundamental attributes of capitalism in general. But capitalism only became capitalist imperialism at a definite and very high stage of its development, when certain of its fundamental attributes began to be transformed into their opposites, when the features of a period of transition from capitalism to a higher social and economic system began to take shape and reveal themselves all along the line. Economically, the main thing in this process is the substitution of capitalist monopolies for capitalist free competition. Free competition is the fundamental attribute of capitalism, and of commodity production generally. Monopoly is exactly the opposite of free competition; but we have seen the latter being transformed into monopoly before our very eyes, creating large-scale industry and eliminating small industry, replacing large-scale industry by still larger-scale industry, finally leading to such a concentration of production and capital that monopoly has been and is the result: cartels, syndicates and trusts, and, merging with them, the capital of a dozen or so banks manipulating thousands of millions. At the same time monopoly, which has grown out of free competition, does not abolish the latter, but exists over it and alongside of it, and thereby gives rise to a number of very acute, intense antagonisms, friction and conflicts. Monopoly is the transition from capitalism to a higher system.
If it were necessary to give the briefest possible definition of _-_-_
^^*^^Ed. Driault, Probtemes politiques et sociaux, Paris, 1907, p. 289.
160 imperialism we should have to say that imperialism is the monopoly stage of capitalism. Such a definition would include what is most important, for, on the one hand, finance capital is the bank capital of a few big monopolist banks, merged with the capital of the monopolist combines of manufacturers; and, on the other hand, the division of the world is the transition from a colonial policy which has extended without hindrance to territories unoccupied by any capitalist power, to a colonial policy of monopolistic possession of the territory of the world which has been completely divided up.But very brief definitions, although convenient, for they sum up the main points, are nevertheless inadequate, because very important features of the phenomenon that has to be defined have to be especially deduced. And so, without forgetting the conditional and relative value of all definitions, which can never include all the concatenations of a phenomenon in its complete development, we must give a definition of imperialism that will embrace the following five essential features:
1) The concentration of production and capital developed to such a high stage that it created monopolies which play a decisive role in economic life.
2) The merging of bank capital with industrial capital, and the creation, on the basis of this "finance capital," of a "financial oligarchy.
3) The export of capital, which has become extremely important, as distinguished from the export of commodities.
4) The formation of international capitalist monopolies which share the world among themselves.
5) The territorial division of the whole world among the greatest capitalist powers is completed.
Imperialism is capitalism in that stage of development in which the dominance of monopolies and finance capital has established itself; in which the export of capital has acquired pronounced importance; in which the division of the world among the international trusts has begun; in which the division of all territories of the globe among the great capitalist powers has been completed.
We shall see later that imperialism can and must be defined differently if consideration is to be given, not only to the basic, 161 purely economic factors---to which the above definition is limited--- but also to the historical place of this stage of capitalism in relation to capitalism in general, or to the relations between imperialism and the two main trends in the working class movement. The point to be noted just now is that imperialism, as interpreted above, undoubtedly represents a special stage in the development of capitalism. In order to enable the reader to obtain as well grounded an idea of imperialism as possible, we deliberately quoted largely from bourgeois economists who are obliged to admit the particularly incontrovertible facts regarding modern capitalist economy. With the same object in view, we have produced detailed statistics which reveal the extent to which bank capital, etc., has developed, showing how the transformation of quantity into quality, of developed capitalism into imperialism, has expressed itself. Needless to say, all boundaries in nature and in society are conditional and changeable, and, consequently, it would be absurd to discuss the exact year or the decade in which imperialism ``definitely'' became established.
In this matter of defining imperialism, however, we have to enter into controversy, primarily, with K. Kautsky, the principal Marxian theoretician of the epoch of the so-called Second International--- that is, of the twenty-five years between 1889 and 1914.
Kautsky, in 1915 and even in November 1914, very emphatically attacked the fundamental ideas expressed in our definition of imperialism. Kautsky said that imperialism must not be regarded as a ``phase'' or stage of economy, but as a policy; a definite policy ``preferred'' by finance capital; that imperialism cannot be `` identified'' with "contemporary capitalism"; that if imperialism is to be understood to mean "all the phenomena of contemporary capitalism"---cartels, protection, the domination of the financiers and colonial policy---then the question as to whether imperialism is necessary to capitalism becomes reduced to the "flattest tautology"; because, in that case, "imperialism is naturally a vital necessity for capitalism," and so on. The best way to present Kautsky's ideas is to quote his own definition of imperialism, which is diametrically opposed to the substance of the ideas which we have set forth (for the objections coming from the camp of the German Marxists, who have been advocating such ideas for many years already, have 162 been long known to Kautsky as the objections of a definite trend in Marxism).
Kautsky's definition is as follows:
``Imperialism is a product of highly developed industrial capitalism. It consists in the striving of every industrial capitalist nation to bring under its control and to annex increasingly big agrarian" (Kautsky's italics) "regions irrespective of what nations inhabit those regions.''~^^*^^
This definition is utterly worthless because it one-sidedly, i.e.t arbitrarily, brings out the national question alone (although this is extremely important in itself as'well as in its relation to imperialism), it arbitrarily and inaccurately relates this question only to industrial capital in the countries which annex other nations, and in an equally arbitrary and inaccurate manner brings out the annexation of agrarian regions.
Imperialism is a striving for annexations---this is what the political part of Kautsky's definition amounts to. It is correct, but very incomplete, for politically, imperialism is, in general, a striving towards violence and reaction. For the moment, however, we are interested in the economic aspect of the question, which Kautsky himself introduced into his definition. The inaccuracy of Kautsky's definition is strikingly obvious. The characteristic feature of imperialism is not industrial capital, but finance capital. It is not an accident that in France it was precisely the extraordinarily rapid development of finance capital, and the weakening of industrial capital, that, from 1880 onwards, gave rise to the extreme extension of annexationist (colonial) policy. The characteristic feature of imperialism is precisely that it strives to annex not only agricultural regions, but even highly industrialised regions ( German appetite for Belgium; French appetite for Lorraine), because i) the fact that the world is already divided up obliges those contemplating a new division to reach out for any fynd of territory, and 2) because an essential feature of imperialism is the rivalry between a number of great powers in the striving for hegemony, i.e., for the conquest of territory, not so much directly for themselves as to weaken the adversary and undermine his _-_-_
^^*^^ Die Neue Zeit, sand year (1913-14), II, p. 909; cf. also 34th year (1915-16), II, p. 107 et seq.
163 hegemony. (Belgium is chiefly necessary to Germany as a base for operations against England; England needs Bagdad as a base for operations against Germany, etc.)Kautsky refers especially---and repeatedly---to English writers who, he alleges, have given a purely political meaning to the word ``imperialism'' in the sense that Kautsky understands it. We take up the work by the Englishman Hobson, Imperialism, which appeared in 1902, and therein we read:
``The new imperialism differs from the older, first, in substituting for the ambition of a single growing empire the theory and the practice of competing empires, each motivated by similar lusts of political aggrandisement and commercial gain; secondly, in the dominance of financial or investing over mercantile interests.''~^^*^^
We see, therefore, that Kautsky is absolutely wrong in referring to English writers generally (unless he meant the vulgar English imperialist writers, or the avowed apologists for imperialism). We see that Kautsky, while claiming that he continues to defend Marxism, as a matter of fact takes a step backward compared with the social-liberal Hobson, who more correctly takes into account two "historically concrete" (Kautsky's definition is a mockery of historical concreteness) features of modern imperialism: i) the competition between several imperialisms, and 2) the predominance of the financier over the merchant. If it were chiefly a question of the annexation of agrarian countries by industrial countries, the role of the merchant would be predominant.
Kautsky's definition is not only wrong and un-Marxian. It serves as a basis for a whole system of views which run counter to Marxian theory and Marxian practice all along the line. We shall refer to this again later. The argument about words which Kautsky raises as to whether the modern stage of capitalism should be called ``imperialism'' or "the stage of finance capital" is of no importance. Call it what you will, it matters little. The fact of the matter is that Kautsky detaches the politics of imperialism from its economics, speaks of annexations, as being a policy ``preferred'' by finance capital, and opposes to it another bourgeois policy which, he alleges, is possible on this very basis of finance capital. _-_-_
^^*^^J. A. Hobson, Imperialism---a Study, London, 1902, p. 324.
164 According to his argument, monopolies in economics are compatible with non-monopolistic, non-violent, non-annexationist methods in politics. According to his argument, the territorial division of the world, which was completed precisely during the period of finance capital, and which constitutes the basis of the present peculiar forms of rivalry between the biggest capitalist states, is compatible with a non-imperialist policy. The result is a slurring-over and a blunting of the most profound contradictions of the latest stage of capitalism, instead of an exposure of their depth; the result is bourgeois reformism instead of Marxism.Kautsky enters into controversy with the German apologist of imperialism and annexations, Cunow, who clumsily and cynically argues that: imperialism is modern capitalism, the development of capitalism is inevitable and progressive; therefore imperialism is progressive; therefore, we should cringe before and eulogise it. This is something like the caricature of Russian Marxism which the Narodniki drew in 1894-95. They used to argue as follows: if the Marxists believe that capitalism is inevitable in Russia, that it is progressive, then they ought to open a public-house and begin to implant capitalism! Kautsky's reply to Cunow is as follows: imperialism is not modern capitalism. It is only one of the forms of the policy of modern capitalism. This policy we can and should fight; we can and should fight against imperialism, annexations, etc.
The reply seems quite plausible, but in effect it is a more subtle and more disguised (and therefore more dangerous) propaganda of conciliation with imperialism; for unless it strikes at the economic basis of the trusts and banks, the ``struggle'' against the policy of the trusts and banks reduces itself to bourgeois reformism and pacifism, to an innocent and benevolent expression of pious hopes. Kautsky's theory means refraining from mentioning existing contradictions, forgetting the most important of them, instead of revealing them in their full depth; it is a theory that has nothing in common with Marxism. Naturally, such a ``theory'' can only serve the purpose of advocating unity with the Cunows.
Kautsky writes: "from the purely economic point of view it is not impossible that capitalism will yet go through a new phase, that of the extension of the policy of the cartels to foreign policy, 165 the phase of ultra-imperialism,''~^^*^^ i.e., of a super-imperialism, a union of world imperialisms and not struggles among imperialisms; a phase when wars shall cease under capitalism, a phase of "the joint exploitation of the world by internationally combined finance capital.''~^^**^^
We shall have to deal with this "theory of ultra-imperialism" later on in order to show in detail how definitely and utterly it departs from Marxism. In keeping with the plan of the present work, we shall examine the exact economic data on this question. Is ``ultra-imperialism'' possible "from the purely economic point of view" or is it ultra-nonsense?
If, by purely economic point of view a ``pure'' abstraction is meant, then all that can be said reduces itself to the following proposition: evolution is proceeding towards monopoly; therefore the trend is towards a single world monopoly, to a universal trust. This is indisputable, but it is also as completely meaningless as is the statement that "evolution is proceeding" towards the manufacture of foodstuffs in laboratories. In this sense the ``theory'' of ultraimperialism is no less absurd than a "theory of ultra-agriculture" would be.
If, on the other hand, we are discussing the "purely economic"
conditions of the epoch of finance capital as an historically concrete
epoch which opened at the beginning of the twentieth century,
then the best reply that one can make to the lifeless abstractions of
``ultra-imperialism'' (which serve an exclusively reactionary aim:
that of diverting attention from the depth of existing antagonisms)
is to contrast them with the concrete economic realities of
presentday world economy. Kautsky's utterly meaningless talk about
ultra-imperialism encourages, among other things, that profoundly
mistaken idea which only brings grist to the mill of the apologists
of imperialism, viz., that the rule of finance capital lessens the
unevenness and contradictions inherent in world economy, whereas
in reality it increases them.
R. Calwer, in his little book, An Introduction to World
_-_-_
^^*^^ Die Neue Zeit, 32nd year (1913-14), H, Sept. n, 1914, p. 909; cf. also 34th
year (1915-16), II, p. 107 et seq. ^^**^^ Die Neue Zeit, 33rd year, II (April 30, 1915), p. 144-
Here is a brief summary of die economic data he quotes on these regions:
Area Pop.
Transport Trade
Industry
PRINCIPAL
ECONOMIC
AREAS
S ty
I Si hi III! Hi
s s c a
° 3 0 £
gll §1.
I)
Central
European
27.6
388 204 8 41 251 15 26 (23-6) t
d46)
2)
British
28.9
398 140 II
25 249 9 51 (28.6) t
(355)
3)
Russian
22 131 63 I
3 16 3 7 4)
East Asian
12 389 8 I
2 8 O.02
2 5)
American
3°
148 379 6 14 245 14 19 fThe figures in parentheses
show the
area and
population
of the
colonies.
We notice three areas of highly developed capitalism with a high development of means of transport, of trade and of industry, the Central European, the British and the American areas. Among these are three states which dominate the world: Germany, Great Britain, the United States. Imperialist rivalry and the struggle between these countries have become very keen because Germany has only a restricted area and few colonies (the creation of "Central Europe" is still a matter for the future; it is being born in the midst of desperate struggles). For the moment the distinctive feature of Europe is political disintegration. In the British and American _-_-_
^^*^^ R. Calwer, Einjiihrung in die Welttvirtschajt, Berlin, 1906.
167 areas, on the other hand, political concentration is very highly developed, but there is a tremendous disparity between the immense colonies of the one and the insignificant colonies of the other. In the colonies, capitalism is only beginning to develop. The struggle for South America is becoming more and more acute.There are two areas where capitalism is not strongly developed: Russia and Eastern Asia. In the former, the density of population is very low, in the latter it is very high; in the former political concentration is very high, in the latter it does not exist. The partition of China is only beginning, and the struggle between Japan, U.S.A., etc., in connection therewith is continually gaining in intensity.
Compare this reality, the vast diversity of economic and political conditions, the extreme disparity in die rate of development of the various countries, etc., and the violent struggles of the imperialist states, with Kautsky's silly little fable about ``peaceful'' ultraimperialism. Is this not the reactionary attempt of a frightened philistine to hide from stern reality? Are not the international cartels which Kautsky imagines are the embryos of "ultra-- imperialism" (with as much reason as one would have for describing the manufacture of tabloids in a laboratory as ultra-agriculture in embryo) an example of the division and the redivision of the world, the transition from peaceful division to non-peaceful division and vice versa? Is not American and other finance capital, which divided the whole world peacefully, with Germany's participation, for example, in the international rail syndicate, or in the international mercantile shipping trust, now engaged in redividing the world on the basis of a new relation of forces, which has been changed by methods by no means peaceful?
Finance capital and the trusts are increasing instead of diminishing die differences in the rate of development of the various parts of world economy. When the relation of forces is changed, how else, under capitalism, can the solution of contradictions be found, except by resorting to violence? Railway statistics~^^*^^ provide remarkably exact data on the different rates of development of _-_-_
^^*^^ Statistisches Jahrbuch jiir das Deutsche Reich (Statistical Yearbook for the German Empire), 1915, Appendix pp. 46, 47, Archiv jiir Eisenbahnwesen ( Railroad Archive), 1892. Minor detailed figures for the distribution of railways among the colonies of the various countries in 1890 had to be estimated approximately.
168 capitalism and finance capital in world economy. In the last decades of imperialist development, the total length of railways has changed as follows: RAILWAYS (thousand kilometres)
. 1890
1913
INCREASE
Europe 224
346 122
U.S.A. 268
411 143
Colonies (total)
82!
210!
128!
Independent and semi- 1347
I
dependent states of
[I25
f
[222
Asia and America 43
137 94
Total 617
1,104
Thus, the development of railways has been more rapid in the colonies and in the independent (and semi-dependent) states of Asia and America. Here, as we know, the finance capital of the four or five biggest capitalist states reigns undisputed. Two hundred thousand kilometres of new railways in die colonies and in the other countries of Asia and America represent more than 40,000,000,000 marks in capital, newly invested on particularly advantageous terms, widi special guarantees of a good return and with profitable orders for steel works, etc., etc.
Capitalism is growing with die greatest rapidity in the colonies and in overseas countries. Among the latter, new imperialist powers are emerging (e.g., Japan). The struggle of world imperialism is becoming more acute. The tribute levied by finance capital on die most profitable colonial and overseas enterprises is increasing. In sharing out this "booty," an exceptionally large part goes to countries which, as far as die development of productive forces is concerned, do not always stand at the top of the list. In the case of the biggest countries, considered with their colonies, the total lengdi of railways was as follows (in thousands of kilometres):
1890
1913
INCREASE
U.S.A. 268
413 145
British Empire 107
208 101
Russia 32
78 46
Germany 43
68 25
France 41
63 22
Total 491
830 339
Thus, about 80 per cent of the total existing railways are concentrated in the hands of the five Great Powers. But the concentration of the ownership of these railways, of finance capital, is much greater still: French and English millionaires, for example, own an enormous amount of stocks and bonds in American, Russian and other railways.
Thanks to her colonies, Great Britain has increased the length of ``her'' railways by 100,000 kilometres, four times as much as Germany. And yet, it is well known that the development of productive forces in Germany, and especially the development of the coal and iron industries, has been much more rapid during this period than in England---not to mention France and Russia. In 1892, Germany produced 4,900,000 tons of pig iron and Great Britain produced 6,800,000 tons; in 1912, Germany produced 17,600,000 tons and Great Britain 9,000,000 tons. Germany, therefore, had an overwhelming superiority over England in this respect.^^*^^ We ask, is there under capitalism any means of removing the disparity between the development of productive forces and the accumulation of capital on the one side, and the division of colonies and "spheres of influence" for finance capital on the other side---other than by resorting to war ?
__ALPHA_LVL2__ VIII. THE PARASITISM AND DECAY OF CAPITALISMWe have to examine yet another very important aspect of imperialism to which, usually, too little importance is attached in most of the arguments on this subject. One of the shortcomings of the Marxist Hilferding is that he takes a step backward compared with the non-Marxist Hobson. We refer to parasitism, which is a feature of imperialism.
As we have seen, the most deep-rooted economic foundation of imperialism is monopoly. This is capitalist monopoly, ije., monopoly which has grown out of capitalism and exists in the general environment of capitalism, commodity production and competition, and remains in permanent and insoluble contradiction to this _-_-_
^^*^^ Cf. also Edgar Crummond, "The Economic Relation of the British and German Empires," in Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, July 1914, p. 777, et seq.
170 general environment. Nevertheless, like all monopoly, this capitalist monopoly inevitably gives rise to a tendency to stagnation and decay. As monopoly prices become fixed, even temporarily, so the stimulus to technical and, consequently, to all progress, disappears to a certain extent, and to that extent, also, the economic possibility arises of deliberately retarding technical progress. For instance, in America, a certain Mr. Owens invented a machine which revolutionised the manufacture of bottles. The German bottle manufacturing cartel purchased Owens' patent, but pigeonholed it, refrained from utilising it. Certainly, monopoly under capitalism can never completely, and for a long period of time, eliminate competition in the world market (and this, by the by, is one of the reasons why the theory of ultra-imperialism is so absurd). Certainly the possibility of reducing cost of production and increasing profits by introducing technical improvements operates in the direction of change. Nevertheless, the tendency to stagnation and decay, which is the feature of monopoly, continues, and in certain branches of industry, in certain countries, for certain periods of time, it becomes predominant.The monopoly of ownership of very extensive, rich or wellsituated colonies operates in the same direction.
Further, imperialism is an immense accumulation of money capital in a few countries, which, as we have seen, amounts to 100-150 billion francs in various securities. Hence the extraordinary growth of a class, or rather of a category, of bondholders (rentiers), i.e,, people who live by "clipping coupons," who take no part whatever in production, whose profession is idleness. The export of capital, one of the most essential economic bases of imperialism, still more completely isolates the rentiers from production and sets the seal of parasitism on the whole country that lives by the exploitation of the labour of several overseas countries and colonies.
``In 1893," writes Hobson, "the British capital invested abroad represented about 15 per cent of the total wealth of the United Kingdom.''~^^*^^
Let us remember that by 1915 this capital had increased about two and a half times.
_-_-_^^*^^ op. dt., p. 59.---Ed,
171 __RUNNING_HEADER__ IMPERIALISM``Aggressive imperialism," says Hobson further on, "which costs the taxpayer so dear, which is of so little value to the manufacturer and trader... is a source of great gain to the investor___The annual income Great Britain derives from commissions in her whole foreign and colonial trade, import and export, is estimated by Sir R. Giffen at ^18,000,000 for 1899, taken at 2% per cent, upon a turnover of ^800,000,000.''~^^*^^
Great as this sum is, it does not explain the aggressive imperialism of Great Britain. This is explained by the 90 to 100 million pounds sterling income from ``invested'' capital, the income of the rentiers.
The income of the bondholders is five times greater than the income obtained from the foreign trade of the greatest ``trading'' country in the world. This is the essence of imperialism and imperialist parasitism.
For that reason the term, "rentier state" (Rentnerstaat), or usurer state, is passing into current use in the economic literature that deals with imperialism. The world has become divided into a handful of usurer states on the one side, and a vast majority of debtor states on the other.
``The premier place among foreign investments," says Schulze-- Gaevernitz, "is held by those placed in politically dependent or closely allied countries. Great Britain grants loans to Egypt, Japan, China and South America. Her navy plays here the part of bailiff in case of necessity. Great Britain's political power protects her from the indignation of her debtors.''~^^**^^
Sartorius von Waltershausen in his book, The National Economic System of Foreign Investments, cites Holland as the model "rentier state" and points out that Great Britain and France have taken the same road.^^***^^ Schilder believes that five industrial nations have become "pronounced creditor nations": Great Britain, France, Germany, Belgium and Switzerland. Holland does not appear on this list simply because she is "industrially less developed.''~^^****^^ The United States is creditor only of the other American countries.
_-_-_^^*^^ Op. cit., pp. 62-3.---Ed.
^^**^^ Schulze-Gaevernjtz, Britischer Imperialisms, p. 320 et seq.
^^***^^ Sartorius von Waltershausen, Das vol\$wirtschaftliche System, etc. (The National Economic System, etc.), Book IV, B. 1907.
^^****^^ Schilder, op. cit., pp. 392-93.
172 __RUNNING_HEADER__ IMPERIALISM``Great Britain," says Schulze-Gaevernitz, "is gradually becoming transformed from an industrial state into a creditor state. Notwithstanding the absolute increase in industrial output and the export of manufactured goods, the relative importance of income from interest and dividends, issues of securities, commissions and speculation is on the increase in the whole of the national economy. In my opinion it is precisely this that forms the economic basis of imperialist ascendancy. Tlie creditor is more permanently attached to the debtor than the seller is to the buyer.''~^^*^^
In regard to Germany, A. Lansburgh, the editor of Die Banf(, in 1911, in an article entitled "Germany---a Render State," wrote the following:
``People in Germany are ready to sneer at the yearning to become rentiers that is observed among the people in France. But they forget that as far as the middle class is concerned the situation in Germany is becoming more and more like that in France.''~^^**^^
The rentier state is a state of parasitic, decaying capitalism, and this circumstance cannot fail to influence all the social-political conditions of the countries affected generally, and the two fundamental trends in the working class movement, in particular. To demonstrate this in the clearest possible manner we will quote Hobson, who will be regarded as a more ``reliable'' witness, since he cannot be suspected of leanings towards "orthodox Marxism"; moreover, he is an Englishman who is very well acquainted with the situation in the country which is richest in colonies, in finance capital, and in imperialist experience.
With the Boer War fresh in his mind, Hobson describes the connection between imperialism and the interests of the "financiers," the growing profits from contracts, etc., and writes:
_-_-_``While the directors of this definitely parasitic policy are capitalists, the same motives appeal to special classes of the workers. In many towns, most important trades are dependent upon government employment or contracts; the imperialism of the metal and shipbuilding centres is attributable in no small degree to this fact.''^^***^^
^^*^^ Schulze-Gaevernitz, op. cit., p. 122.---Ed.
^^**^^ Die Bank, i9n» I> PP- 10-11.
^^***^^ Op. cit., p. 103.---Ed.
173 __RUNNING_HEADER__ IMPERIALISMIn this writer's opinion there are two causes which weakened the older empires: i) "economic parasitism," and 2) the formation of armies composed of subject races.
``There is first the habit of economic parasitism, by which the ruling state has used its provinces, colonies, and dependencies in order to enrich its ruling class and to bribe its lower classes into acquiescence.''~^^*^^
And we would add that the economic possibility of such corruption, whatever its form may be, requires high monopolist profits.
As for die second cause, Hobson writes:
``One of the strangest symptoms of the blindness of imperialism is the reckless indifference with which Great Britain, France and other imperial nations are embarking on this perilous dependence. Great Britain has gone farthest. Most of the fighting by which we have won our Indian Empire has been done by natives; in India, as more recently in Egypt, great standing armies are placed under British commanders; almost all the fighting associated with our African dominions, except in the southern part, has been done for us by natives.''~^^**^^
Hobson gives the following economic appraisal of the prospect of die partition of China:
``The greater part of Western Europe might then assume the appearance and character already exhibited by tracts of country in the South of England, in the Riviera, and in the tourist-ridden or residential parts of Italy and Switzerland, little clusters of wealthy aristocrats drawing dividends and pensions from the Far East, with a somewhat larger group of professional retainers and tradesmen and a large body of personal servants and workers in the transport trade and in the final stages of production of the more perishable goods; all the main arterial industries would have disappeared, the staple foods and manufactures flowing in as tribute from Asia and Africa.''~^^***^^
``We have foreshadowed the possibility of even a larger alliance of Western States, a European federation of great powers which, so far from forwarding the cause of world civilisation, might introduce the gigantic peril of a Western parasitism, a group of advanced industrial nations, whose upper classes drew vast tribute from Asia and Africa,
_-_-_^^*^^ Op. tit., p. 205.
^^**^^ Op. cit., p. 144.
^^***^^ Op. cit., p. 335.
174 __RUNNING_HEADER__ IMPERIALISMwith which they supported great, tame masses of retainers, no longer engaged in the staple industries of agriculture and manufacture, but kept in the performance of personal or minor industrial services under the control of a new financial aristocracy. Let those who would scout such a theory as undeserving of consideration examine the economic and social condition of districts in Southern England today which are already reduced to this condition, and reflect upon the vast extension of such a system which might be rendered feasible by the subjection of China to the economic control of similar groups of financiers, investors, and political and business officials, draining the greatest potential reservoir of profit the world has ever known, in order to consume it in Europe. The situation is far too complex, the play of world forces far too incalculable, to render this or any other single interpretation of the future very probable: but the influences which govern the imperialism of Western Europe today are moving in this direction, and, unless counteracted or diverted, make towards some such consummation.''~^^*^^
Hobson is quite right. Unless the forces of imperialism are counteracted they will lead precisely to what he has described. He correctly appraises the significance of a "United States of Europe" in the present conditions of imperialism. He should have added, however, that, even within the working class movement, the opportunists, who are for the moment predominant in most countries, are ``working'' systematically and undeviatingly in this very direction. Imperialism, which means the partition of the world, and the exploitation of other countries besides China, which means high monopoly profits for a handful of very rich countries, creates the economic possibility of corrupting the upper strata of the proletariat, and thereby fosters, gives form to, and strengthens opportunism. However, we must not lose sight of the forces which counteract imperialism in general, and opportunism in particular, which, naturally, the social-liberal Hobson is unable to perceive.
The German opportunist, Gerhard Hildebrand, who was expelled from the Party for defending imperialism, and who would today make a leader of the so-called ``Social-Democratic'' Party of Germany, serves as a good supplement to Hobson by his advocacy of a "United States of Western Europe" (without Russia) for the purpose of ``joint'' action ... against the African Negroes, against _-_-_
^^*^^ op. dt., pp. 385-86.
175 __RUNNING_HEADER__ IMPERIALISM the "great Islamic movement," for the upkeep of a "powerful army and navy," against a "Sino-Japanese coalition," etc.^^*^^The description of "British imperialism" in Schulze-Gaevernitz's book reveals the same parasitical traits. The national income of Great Britain approximately doubled from 1865 to ^pS, while the income "from abroad" increased ninefold in the same period. While the ``merit'' of imperialism is that it "trains the Negro to habits of industry" (not without coercion of course ...), the `` danger'' of imperialism is that:
``Europe... will shift the burden of physical toil---first agricultural and mining, then the more arduous toil in industry---on to the coloured races, and itself be content with the role of rentier, and in this way, perhaps, pave the way for the economic, and later, the political emancipation of the coloured races.''
An increasing proportion of land in Great Britain is being taken out of cultivation and used for sport, for the diversion of the rich.
``Scotland," says Schulze-Gaevernitz, "is the most aristocratic playground in the world---it lives... on its past and on Mr. Carnegie.''
On horse-racing and fox-hunting alone Britain annually spends £14,000,000. The number of rentiers in England is about one million. The percentage of the productively employed population to the total population is becoming smaller.
NO. OF WORK-
PER CENT OF
ERS IN BASIC
TOTAL
Year
POPULATION
INDUSTRIES
POPULATION
(millions)
1851
17.9
4.1
23
I9OI
32.5
4.9
15
And in speaking of the British working class the bourgeois student of "British imperialism at the beginning of the twentieth century" is obliged to distinguish systematically between the "upper stratum" of the workers and the "lower stratum of the proletariat proper." The upper stratum furnishes the main body of members of co-operatives, of trade unions, of sporting clubs and of _-_-_
^^*^^ Gerhard Hildebrand, Die Erschiitterung der Jndustrieherrschajt und des Industriesozialismus, Jena, 1910, p. 229 et seq.
176 numerous religious sects. The electoral system, which in Great Britain is still "sufficiently restricted to exclude the lower stratum of the proletariat proper," is adapted to their level!! In order to present the condition of the British working class in the best possible light, only this upper stratum---which constitutes only a. minority of the proletariat---is generally spoken of. For instance, "the problem of unemployment is mainly a London problem and that of the lower proletarian stratum, which is of little political moment for politicians.''~^^*^^ It would be better to say: which is of little political moment for the bourgeois politicians and the ``socialist'' opportunists.Another special feature of imperialism, which is connected with the facts we are describing, is the decline in emigration from imperialist countries, and the increase in immigration into these countries from the backward countries where lower wages are paid. As Hobson observes, emigration from Great Britain has been declining since 1884. In that year the number of emigrants was 242,000, while in 19x10, the number was only 169,000. German emigration reached the highest point between 1880 and 1890, with a total of 1,453,000 emigrants. In the course of the fallowing two decades, it fell to 544,000 and even to 341,000. On the other hand, there was an increase in the number of workers entering Germany from Austria, Italy, Russia and other countries. According to the 1907 census, there were 1,342,294 foreigners in Germany, of whom 440,800 were industrial workers and 257,329 were agricultural workers.^^**^^ In France, the workers employed in the mining industry are, "in great part," foreigners: Polish, Italian and Spanish.^^***^^ In the United States, immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe are engaged in the most poorly paid occupations, while American workers provide the highest percentage of overseers or of the better paid workers.^^****^^ Imperialism has the tendency to create privileged sections even among the workers, and to detach them from the main proletarian masses.
It must be observed that in Great Britain the tendency of _-_-_
^^*^^ Schulze-Gaevemitz, Britischer Imperialismus, pp. 246, 301, 317, 323, 324, 361.
^^**^^ Statisti^ dei Deutschen Reic/ts (Statistics of the German Empire), Vol. 211.
^^***^^ Henger, Die Kapitalsanlage der Franzosen (French Investments), Stuttgart, 1913.
^^****^^Hourwich, Immigration and Labour, New York, 1913.
177 imperialism to divide die workers, to encourage opportunism among them and to cause temporary decay in the working class movement, revealed itself much earlier than the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries; for two important distinguishing features of imperialism were observed in Great Britain in the middle of the nineteenth century, viz., vast colonial possessions and a monopolist position in the world market. Marx and Engels systematically traced this relation between opportunism in the labour movement and the imperialist features of British capitalism for several decades. For example, on October 7, 1858, Engels wrote to Marx:``The English proletariat is becoming more and more bourgeois, so that this most bourgeois of all nations is apparently aiming ultimately at the possession of a bourgeois aristocracy, and a bourgeois proletariat as well as a bourgeoisie. For a nation which exploits the whole world this is, of course, to a certain extent justifiable.''
Almost a quarter of a century later, in a letter dated August n,
1881, Engels speaks of "... the worst type of English trade unions which allow themselves to be led by men sold to, or at least, paid by die bourgeoisie.''~^^*^^ In a letter to Kautsky, dated September 12, 1882, Engels wrote:
``You ask me what the English workers think about colonial policy? Well, exactly the same as they think about politics in general. There is no workers' party here, there are only Conservatives and LiberalRadicals, and the workers merrily share the feast of England's monopoly of the colonies and the world market....''~^^**^^ (Engels expressed similar ideas in his preface to the second edition of The Condition of the Wording Class in England, which appeared in 1892.)
We thus see clearly the causes and effects. The causes are: i) Exploitation of the whole world by this country. 2) Its monopolistic position in the world market. 3) Its colonial monopoly. The effects are: i) A section of the British proletariat becomes bourgeois. 2) A section of the proletariat permits itself to be led by men _-_-_
^^*^^ Marx-Engels, Briejwechsel, Gesamtausgabe, 3. Abteilung, B. 2, S. 340; B. 4, S. 511.---Ed.
^^**^^ Cf. Karl Kautsky, Sozialismus und Kolonialpoliti^, Berlin, 1907, p. 79; this pamphlet was written by Kautsky in those infinitely distant days when he was still a Marxist.
178 sold to, or at least, paid by the bourgeoisie. The imperialism of the beginning of the twentieth century completed the division of the world among a handful of states, each of which today exploits (i£., draws super-profits from) a part of the world only a little smaller than that which England exploited in 1858. Each of them, by means of trusts, cartels, finance capital, and debtor and creditor relations, occupies a monopoly position in the world market. Each of diem enjoys to some degree a colonial monopoly. (We have seen that out of the total of 75,000,000 sq. km. which comprise the whole colonial world, 65,000,000 sq. km., or 86 per cent, belong to six great powers; 6/,ooo,ooo sq. km., or 81 per cent, belong to three powers.)The distinctive feature of the present situation is the prevalence of economic and political conditions which could not but increase the irreconcilability between opportunism and the general and vital interests of the working class movement. Embryonic imperialism has grown into a dominant system; capitalist monopolies occupy first place in economics and politics; the division of the world has been completed. On the other hand, instead of an undisputed monopoly by Great Britain, we see a few imperialist powers contending for the right to share in this monopoly, and this struggle is characteristic of the whole period of the beginning of the twentieth century. Opportunism, therefore, cannot now triumph in the working class movement of any country for decades as it did in England in the second half of the nineteenth century. But, in a number of countries it has grown ripe, over-ripe, and rotten, and has become completely merged with bourgeois policy in the form of "social-chauvinism.''~^^*^^
__ALPHA_LVL2__ IX. THE CRITIQUE OF IMPERIALISMBy the critique of imperialism, in the broad sense of the term, we mean the attitude towards imperialist policy of the different classes of society as part of their general ideology.
_-_-_^^*^^ Russian social-chauvinism represented by Messrs. Potresov, Chkhenkeli, Maslov, etc., in its avowed form as well as in its tacit form, as represented by Messrs. Chkheidze, Skobelev, Axelrod, Martov, etc., also emerged from the Russian variety of opportunism, namely liquidationism.
179 __RUNNING_HEADER__ IMPERIALISMThe enormous dimensions of finance capital concentrated in a few hands and creating an extremely extensive and close network of ties and relationships which subordinate not only the small and medium, but also even the very small capitalists and small masters, on the one hand, and the intense struggle waged against other national state groups of financiers for the division of the world and domination over other countries, on the other hand, cause the wholesale transition of the possessing classes to the side of imperialism. The signs of the times are a ``general'' enthusiasm regarding its prospects, a passionate defence of imperialism, and every possible embellishment of its real nature. The imperialist ideology also penetrates the working class. There is no Chinese Wall between it and the other classes. The leaders of the so-called ``Social-Democratic'' Party of Germany are today justly called "social-imperialists," that is, socialists in words and imperialists in deeds; but as early as 1902, Hobson noted the existence of "Fabian imperialists" who belonged to the opportunist Fabian Society in England.
Bourgeois scholars and publicists usually come out in defence of imperialism in a somewhat veiled form, and obscure its complete domination and its profound roots; they strive to concentrate attention on partial and secondary details and do their very best to distract attention from the main issue by means of ridiculous schemes for "reform," such as police supervision of the trusts and banks, etc. Less frequently, cynical and frank imperialists speak out and are bold enough to admit the absurdity of the idea of reforming the fundamental features of imperialism.
We will give an example. The German imperialists attempt, in the magazine Archives of World Economy, to follow die movements for national emancipation in the colonies, particularly, of course, in colonies odier than those belonging to Germany. They note the ferment and protest movements in India, the movement in Natal (South Africa), the movement in the Dutch East Indies, etc. One of them, commenting on an English report of the speeches delivered at a conference of subject peoples and races, held on June 28-30, 1910, at which representatives of various peoples subject to foreign domination in Africa, Asia and Europe were present, writes as follows in appraising the speeches delivered at this conference:
180 __RUNNING_HEADER__ IMPERIALISM``We are told that we must fight against imperialism; that the dominant states should recognise the right of subject peoples to home rule; that an international tribunal should supervise the fulfilment of treaties concluded between the great powers and weak peoples. One does not get any further than the expression of these pious wishes. We see no trace of understanding of the fact that imperialism is indissolubly bound up with capitalism in its present form [(!!)] and therefore also no trace of the realisation that an open struggle against imperialism would be hopeless, unless, perhaps, the fight is confined to protests against certain of its especially abhorrent excesses.''~^^*^^
Since the reform of the basis of imperialism is a deception, a "pious wish," since the bourgeois representatives of the oppressed nations go no ``further'' forward, the bourgeois representatives of the oppressing nation go ``further'' backward, to servility, towards imperialism, concealed by the cloak of "science." "Logic," indeed!
The question as to whether it is possible to reform the basis of imperialism, whether to go forward to the accentuation and deepening of the antagonisms which it engenders, or backwards, towards allaying these antagonisms, is a fundamental question in the critique of imperialism. As a consequence of the fact that the political features of imperialism are reaction all along the line, and increased national oppression, resulting from the oppression of the financial oligarchy and the elimination of free competition, a petty-bourgeois-democratic opposition has been rising against imperialism in almost all imperialist countries since the beginning of the twentieth century. And the desertion of Kautsky and of the broad international Kautskyan trend from Marxism is displayed in the very fact that Kautsky not only did not trouble to oppose, not only was unable to oppose this petty-bourgeois reformist opposition, which is really reactionary in its economic basis, but in practice actually became merged with it.
In the United States, the imperialist war waged against Spain in 1898 stirred up the opposition of the "anti-imperialists," the last of the Mohicans of bourgeois democracy. They declared this war to be ``criminal''; they denounced the annexation of foreign territories as being a violation of the Constitution, and denounced the "Jingo treachery" by means of which Aguinaldo, leader of the _-_-_
^^*^^ Weltunrtschajtliches Archiv (Archives of World Economy), Vol. II, pp. 194-95,
181 native Filipinos, was deceived (the Americans promised him the independence of his country, but later they landed troops and annexed it). They quoted the words of Lincoln:``When the white man governs himself, that is self-government; but when he governs himself and also governs another man, that is no longer self-government---that is despotism.''~^^*^^
But while all this criticism shrank from recognising the indissoluble bond between imperialism and the trusts, and, therefore, between imperialism and the very foundations of capitalism; while it shrank from joining up with the forces engendered by largescale capitalism and its development---it remained a "pious wish.''
This is also, in the main, the attitude of Hobson in his criticism of imperialism. Hobson anticipated Kautsky in protesting against the "inevitability of imperialism" argument, and in urging the need to raise the consuming capacity of the ``people'' (under capitalism!). The petty-bourgeois point of view in the critique of imperialism, the domination of the banks, the financial oligarchy, etc., is that adopted by the authors we have often quoted, such as Agahd, A. Lansburgh, L. Eschwege; and among French writers, Victor Berard, author of a superficial book entitled England and Imperialism which appeared in 1900. All these authors, who make no claim to be Marxists, contrast imperialism with free competition and democracy; they condemn the Bagdad railway scheme as leading to disputes and war, utter "pious wishes" for peace, etc. This applies also to the compiler of international stock and share issue statistics, A. Neymarck, who, after calculating the hundreds of billions of francs representing ``international'' securities, exclaimed in 1912: "Is it possible to believe that peace may be disturbed... that, in the face of these enormous figures, anyone would risk starting a war?''^^**^^
Such simplicity of mind on the part of the bourgeois economists is not surprising. Besides, it is in their interest to pretend to be so naive and to talk ``seriously'' about peace under imperialism. But what remains of Kautsky's Marxism, when, in 1914-15-16, he takes _-_-_
^^*^^ Quoted by Patouillct, L'imperialisme americain, Dijon, 1904, p. 272. (From speech "On the Repeal of the Missouri Compromise," at Pcoria, Illinois, October 16, 1854.---Ed.)
^^**^^ Bulletin de I'lnstitut International de Statistique, Vol. XIX, Book II, p. 225.
182 up the same attitude as the bourgeois reformists and affirms that "everybody is agreed" (imperialists, pseudo-socialists and socialpacifists) as regards peace? Instead of an analysis of imperialism and an exposure of the depths of its contradictions, we have nothing but a reformist "pious wish" to wave it aside, to evade it.Here is an example of Kautsky's economic criticism of imperialism. He takes the statistics of the British export and import trade with Egypt for 1872 and 1912. These statistics show that this export and import trade has developed more slowly than British foreign trade as a whole. From this Kautsky concludes that:
``We have no reason to suppose that British trade with Egypt would have been less developed simply as a result of the mere operation of economic factors, without military occupation----The urge of the present-day states to expand... can be best promoted, not by the violent methods of imperialism, but by peaceful democracy.''~^^*^^
This argument, which is repeated in every key by Kautsky's Russian armour-bearer (and Russian protector of the social-- chauvinists), Mr. Spectator, represents the basis of Kautskyan criticism of imperialism and diat is why we must deal with it in greater detail. We will begin with a quotation from Hilferding, whose conclusions, as Kautsky on many occasions, and notably in April 1915, declared, have been "unanimously adopted by all socialist theoreticians.''
``It is not the business of the proletariat," writes Hilferding, "to contrast the more progressive capitalist policy with that of the now by-gone era of free trade and of hostility towards the state. The reply of the proletariat to the economic policy of finance capital, to imperialism, cannot be free trade, but socialism. The aim of proletarian policy cannot now be the ideal of restoring free competition---which has now become a reactionary ideal---but the complete abolition of competition by the vanquishment of capitalism.''^^**^^
Kautsky departed from Marxism by advocating what is, in the period of finance capital, a "reactionary ideal," "peaceful democracy," "the mere operation of economic factors," for objectively this _-_-_
^^*^^ Karl Kautsky, Nationalstaat, imperialistischer Stoat und Stacttenbund (National State, Imperialist State and Union of States), Nuremberg, 1915, pp. 72, 70.
^^**^^ Hilferding, of. cit., pp. 471-72.
183 ideal drags us back from monopoly capitalism to the non-- monopolist stage, and is a reformist swindle.Trade with Egypt (or with any other colony or semi-colony) "would have grown more" without military occupation, without imperialism, and without finance capital. What does this mean? That capitalism would develop more rapidly if free competition were not restricted by monopolies in general, by the ``connections'' or the yoke (t£., also the monopoly) of finance capital, or by the monopolist possession of colonies by certain countries?
Kautsky's argument can have no other meaning; and this `` meaning'' is meaningless. But suppose, for the sake of argument, free competition, without any sort of monopoly, would develop capitalism and trade more rapidly. Is it not a fact that the more rapidly trade and capitalism develop, the greater is the concentration of production and capital which gives rise to monopoly? And monopolies have already come into being---precisely out of free competition! Even if monopolies have now begun to retard progress, it is not an argument in favour of free competition, which has become impossible since it gave rise to monopoly.
Whichever way one turns Kautsky's argument, one will find nothing in it except reaction and bourgeois reformism.
Even if we modify this argument and say, as Spectator says, that the trade of the British colonies with the mother country is now developing more slowly than their trade with other countries, it does not save Kautsky; for it is also monopoly and imperialism that is beating Great Britain, only it is the monopoly and imperialism of another country (America, Germany). It is known that the cartels have given rise to a new and peculiar form of protective tariffs, i.e., goods suitable for export are protected (Engels noted this in Vol. Ill of Capital).*^^3^^ It is known, too, that the cartels and finance capital have a system peculiar to diemselves, that of "exporting goods at cut-rate prices," or "dumping," as the English call it: within a given country the cartel sells its goods at a high price fixed by monopoly; abroad it sells them at a much lower price to undercut the competitor, to enlarge its own production to the utmost, etc. If Germany's trade with the British colonies is developing more rapidly than that of Great Britain with the same colonies, it only proves diat German imperialism is 184 younger, stronger and better organised than British imperialism, is superior to it. But this by no means proves the ``superiority'' of free trade, for it is not free trade fighting against protection and colonial dependence, but two rival imperialisms, two monopolies, two groups of finance capital that are fighting. The superiority of German imperialism over British imperialism is stronger than the wall of colonial frontiers or of protective tariffs. To use this as an argument in favour of free trade and "peaceful democracy" is banal, is to forget the essential features and qualities of imperialism, to substitute petty-bourgeois reformism for Marxism.
It is interesting to note that even the bourgeois economist, A. Lansburgh, whose criticism of imperialism is as petty-bourgeois as Kautsky's, nevertheless got closer to a more scientific study of trade statistics. He did not compare merely one country, chosen at random, and a colony, with the other countries; he examined the export trade of an imperialist country: i) with countries which are financially dependent upon it, which borrow money from it; and 2) with countries which are financially independent. He obtained the following results:
EXPORT TRADE OF GERMANY (million marks')
COUNTIUES FINANCIALLY
PER CENT
DEPENDENT ON GERMANY 1889
igo8
INCREASE
Rumania
48.2
70.8 47
Portugal
19.0
32.8 73
Argentina
60.7
I47-°
*43
Brazil
48.7
84.5 73
Chile
28.3
52.4 85
Turkey
29.9
64.0 114
Total
234.8
451.5 92
COUNTRIES FINANCIALLY
INDEPENDENT OF GERMANY
Great Britain
651.8
997.4 53
France
210.2
437-9 108
Belgium
I37-^^2^^
322.8 135
Switzerland
J77-4
401.1 127
Australia
21.2
64.5 205
Dutch East Indies
8.8
40.7 363
Total
1,206.6
2,264.4 87
Lansburgh did not draw conclusions and therefore, strangely enough, failed to observe that if the figures prove anything at all. they prove that he is wrong, for the exports to countries financially dependent on Germany have grown more rapidly, if only slightly, than those to the countries which are financially independent. (We emphasise the "if," for Lansburgh's figures are far from complete.)
Tracing the connection between export trade and loans, Lansburgh writes:
``In 1890-91, a Rumanian loan was floated through the German banks, which had already in previous years made advances on this loan. The loan was used chiefly for purchases of railway materials in Germany. In 1891 German exports to Rumania amounted to 55,000,000 marks. The following year they fell to 39,400,000 marks; then with fluctuations, to 25,400,000 in 1900. Only in very recent years have they regained the level of 1891, thanks to several new loans.
``German exports to Portugal rose, following the loans of 1888-89, to 21,100,000 (1890); then fell, in the two following years, to 16,200,000 and 7,400,000; and only regained their former level in 1903.
``German trade with the Argentine is still more striking. Following the loans floated in 1888 and 1890, German exports to the Argentine reached, in 1889, 60,700,000 marks. Two years later they only reached 18,600,000 marks, that is to say, less than one-third of the previous figure. It was not until 1901 that they regained and surpassed the level of 1889, and then only as a result of new loans floated by the state and by municipalities, with advances to build power stations, and with other credit operations.
``Exports to Chile rose to 45,200,000 marks in 1892, after the loan negotiated in 1889. The following year they fell to 22,500,000 marks. A new Chilean loan floated by the German banks in 1906 was followed by a rise of exports in 1907 to 84,700,000 marks, only to fall again to 52,400,000 marks in 1908.''~^^*^^
From all these facts Lansburgh draws the amusing pettybourgeois moral of how unstable and irregular export trade is when it is bound up with loans, how bad it is to invest capital abroad instead of ``naturally'' and ``harmoniously'' developing home industry, how ``costly'' is the bac^sheesh that Krupp has to pay in floating foreign loans, etc.! But the facts are clear. The increase _-_-_
^^*^^ Die £a«/t 1909, Vol. II, pp. 826-27.
186 in exports is closely connected with the swindling tricks of finance capital, which is not concerned with bourgeois morality, but with skinning the ox twice---first, it pockets the profits from the loan; then it pockets other profits from the same loan which the borrower uses to make purchases from Krupp, or to purchase railway material from the Steel Syndicate, etc.We repeat that we do not by any means consider Lansburgh's figures to be perfect. But we had to quote them because they are more scientific than Kautsky's and Spectator's, and because Lansburgh showed the correct way of approaching the question. In discussing the significance of finance capital in regard to exports, etc., one must be able to single out the connection of exports especially and solely with the tricks of the financiers, especially and solely with the sale of goods by cartels, etc. Simply to compare colonies with non-colonies, one imperialism with another imperialism, one semi-colony or colony (Egypt) with all other countries, is to evade and to tone down the very essence of the question.
Kautsky's theoretical critique of imperialism has nothing in common with Marxism and serves no other purpose than as a preamble to propaganda for peace and unity with the opportunists and the social-chauvinists, precisely for the reason that it evades and obscures the very profound and radical contradictions of imperialism: the contradictions between monopoly and free competition that exists side by side with it, between the gigantic ``operations'' (and gigantic profits) of finance capital and ``honest'' trade in the free market, the contradictions between cartels and trusts, on the one hand, and non-cartelised industry, on the other, etc.
The notorious theory of "ultra-imperialism," invented by Kautsky, is equally reactionary. Compare his arguments on this subject in 1915, with Hobson's arguments in 1902.
Kautsky:
_-_-_``Cannot the present imperialist policy be supplanted by a new, ultraimperialist policy, which will introduce the common exploitation of the world by internationally united finance capital in place of the mutual rivalries of national finance capital? Such a new phase of capitalism is at any rate conceivable. Can it be achieved? Sufficient premises are still lacking to enable us to answer this question.''~^^*^^
^^*^^ Die Neue Zeit, April 30, 1915, p. 144.
187 __RUNNING_HEADER__ IMPERIALISMHobson:
``Christendom thus laid out in a few great federal empires, each with a retinue of uncivilised dependencies, seems to many the most legitimate development of present tendencies, and one which would ofifer the best hope of permanent peace on an assured basis of inter-imperialism.''~^^*^^
Kautsky called ultra-imperialism or super-imperialism what Hobson, thirteen years earlier, described as inter-imperialism. Except for coining a new and clever word, by replacing one Latin prefix by another, the only progress Kautsky has made in the sphere of ``scientific'' thought is that he has labelled as Marxism what Hobson, in effect, described as the cant of English parsons. After the Anglo-Boer War it was quite natural for this worthy caste to exert every effort to console the British middle class and the workers who had lost many of their relatives on the battlefields of South Africa and who were obliged to pay higher taxes in order to guarantee still higher profits for the British financiers. And what better consolation could there be than the theory that imperialism is not so bad; that it stands close to inter- (or ultra-) imperialism, which can ensure permanent peace? No matter what the good intentions of the English parsons, or of sentimental Kautsky, may have been, the only objective, i.e., real, social significance Kautsky's ``theory'' can have, is that of a most reactionary method of consoling the masses with hopes of permanent peace being possible under capitalism, distracting their attention from the sharp antagonisms and acute problems of the present era, and directing it towards illusory prospects of an imaginary `` ultraimperialism'' of the future. Deception of the masses---there is nothing but this in Kautsky's ``Marxian'' theory.
Indeed, it is enough to compare well-known and indisputable facts to become convinced of the utter falsity of the prospects which Kautsky tries to conjure up before the German workers (and the workers of all lands). Let us consider India, Indo-China and China. It is known that these three colonial and semi-colonial countries, inhabited by six to seven hundred million human beings, are subjected to the exploitation of the finance capital of several imperialist states: Great Britain, France, Japan, the U.S.A., etc. We _-_-_
^^*^^ Hobson, op. tit., p. 351.
188 will asume that these imperialist countries form alliances against one another in order to protect and extend their possessions, their interests and their "spheres of influence" in these Asiatic states; these alliances will be "inter-imperialist," or ``ultra-imperialist'' alliances. We will assume that all the imperialist countries conclude an alliance for the ``peaceful'' division of these parts of Asia; this alliance would be an alliance of "internationally united finance capital." As a matter of fact, alliances of this kind have been made in the twentieth century, notably with regard to China. We ask, is it "conceivable," assuming that the capitalist system remains intact---and this is precisely die assumption that Kautsky does make---that such alliances would be more than temporary, that they would eliminate friction, conflicts and struggle in all and every possible form?This question need only be stated clearly enough to make it impossible for any other reply to be given than that in the negative; for there can be no other conceivable basis under capitalism for the division of spheres of influence, of interests, of colonies, etc., than a calculation of the strength of the participants in the division, their general economic, financial, military strength, etc. And the strength of these participants in the division does not change to an equal degree, for under capitalism the development of different undertakings, trusts, branches of industry, or countries cannot be even. Half a century ago, Germany was a miserable, insignificant country, as far as its capitalist strength was concerned, compared with die strength of England at that time. Japan was similarly insignificant compared with Russia. Is it ``conceivable'' that in ten or twenty years' time the relative strength of the imperialist powers will have remained ««changed? Absolutely inconceivable.
Therefore, in the realities of the capitalist system, and not in the banal philistine fantasies of English parsons, or of the German "Marxist," Kautsky, ``inter-imperialist'' or ``ultra-imperialist'' alliances, no matter what form they may assume, whether of one imperialist coalition against another, or of a general alliance embracing all the imperialist powers, are inevitably nothing more dian a ``truce'' in periods between wars. Peaceful alliances prepare the ground for wars, and in their turn grow out of wars; tie one 189 is the condition for the other, giving rise to alternating forms of peaceful and non-peaceful struggle out of one and the same basis of imperialist connections and the relations between world economics and world politics. But in order to pacify the workers and to reconcile them with the social-chauvinists who have deserted to the side of the bourgeoisie, wise Kautsky separates one link of a single chain from the other, separates the present peaceful (and ultra-imperialist, nay, ultra-ultra-imperialist) alliance of all the powers for the ``pacification'' of China (remember the suppression of the Boxer Rebellion)^^44^^ from the non-peaceful conflict of tomorrow, which will prepare the ground for another ``peaceful'' general alliance for the partition, say, of Turkey, on the day after tomorrow, etc., etc. Instead of showing the vital connection between periods of imperialist peace and periods of imperialist war, Kautsky puts before the workers a lifeless abstraction solely in order to reconcile them to their lifeless leaders.
An American writer, Hill, in his History of Diplomacy in the International Development of Europe^^*^^ points out in his preface the following periods of contemporary diplomatic history: i) The era of revolution; 2) The constitutional movement; 3) The present era of "commercial imperialism." Another writer divides the history of Great Britain's foreign policy since 1870 into four periods: i) The first Asiatic period (that of the struggle against Russia's advance in Central Asia towards India); 2) The African period (approximately 1885-1902): that of struggles against France for the partition of Africa (the Fashoda incident of 1898 which brought France within a hair's breadrn of war widi Great Britain); 3) The second Asiatic period (alliance with Japan against Russia), and 4) The European period, chiefly anti-German.^^**^^ "The political skirmishes of outposts take place on the financial field," wrote Riesser, die banker, in 1905, in showing how French finance capital operating in Italy was preparing the way for a political alliance of these countries, and how a conflict was developing between Great Britain and Germany over Persia, between all the European capitalists over Chinese loans, etc. Behold, the living reality of _-_-_
^^*^^ David Jayne Hill, A History of Diplomacy in the International Development of Europe, Vol. I, p. x.
^^**^^ Schilder, op. cit., Vol. I, p. 178.
190 peaceful ``ultra-imperialist'' alliances in their indissoluble connection with ordinary imperialist conflicts!Kautsky's toning down of the deepest contradictions of imperialism, which inevitably becomes the embellishment of imperialism, leaves its traces in this writer's criticism of the political features of imperialism. Imperialism is the epoch of finance capital and of monopolies, which introduce everywhere the striving for domination, not for freedom. The result of these tendencies is reaction all along the line, whatever the political system, and an extreme intensification of existing antagonisms in this domain also. Particularly acute becomes the yoke of national oppression and the striving for annexations, i.e., the violation of national independence (for annexation is nothing but the violation of the right of nations to self-determination). Hilferding justly draws attention to the connection between imperialism and the growth of national oppression.
``In the newly opened up countries themselves," he writes, "the capitalism imported into them intensifies contradictions and excites the constantly growing resistance against the intruders of the peoples who are awakening to national consciousness. This resistance can easily become transformed into dangerous measures directed against foreign capital. The old social relations become completely revolutionised. The age-long agrarian incrustation of 'nations without a history' is blasted away, and they are drawn into the capitalist whirlpool. Capitalism itself gradually procures for the vanquished the means and resources for their emancipation and they set out to achieve the same goal which once seemed highest to the European nations: the creation of a united national state as a means to economic and cultural freedom. This movement for national independence threatens European capital just in its most valuable and most promising fields of exploitation, and European capital can maintain its domination only by continually increasing its means of exerting violence.''~^^*^^
To this must be added that it is not only in newly opened up countries, but also in the old, that imperialism is leading to annexation, to increased national oppression, and, consequently, also to increasing resistance. While opposing the intensification of political reaction caused by imperialism, Kautsky obscures the question, _-_-_
^^*^^ Hilferding, op. cit., p. 406,
191 which has become very serious, of the impossibility of unity with the opportunists in the epoch of imperialism. While objecting to annexations, he presents his objections in a form that will be most acceptable and least offensive to the opportunists. He addresses himself to a German audience, yet he obscures the most topical and important point, for instance, the annexation by Germany of AlsaceLorraine. In order to appraise this "lapse of mind" of Kautsky's we will take the following example. Let us suppose that a Japanese is condemning the annexation of the Philippine Islands by the Americans. Will many believe that he is doing so because he has a horror of annexations as such, and not because he himself has a desire to annex the Philippines? And shall we not be constrained to admit that the ``fight'' the Japanese are waging against annexations can be regarded as being sincere and politically honest only if he fights against the annexation of Korea by Japan, and urges freedom for Korea to secede from Japan?Kautsky's theoretical analysis of imperialism, as well as his economic and political criticism of imperialism, are permeated through and through with a spirit, absolutely irreconcilable with Marxism, of obscuring and glossing over the most profound contradictions of imperialism and with a striving to preserve the crumbling unity with opportunism in the European labour movement at all costs.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ X. THE PLACE OF IMPERIALISM IN HISTORYWe have seen that the economic quintessence of imperialism is monopoly capitalism. This very fact determines its place in history, for monopoly that grew up on the basis of free competition, and precisely out of free competition, is the transition from the capitalist system to a higher social-economic order. We must take special note of the four principal forms of monopoly, or the four principal manifestations of monopoly capitalism, which are characteristic of the epoch under review.
Firstly, monopoly arose out of the concentration of production at a very advanced stage of development. This refers to the monopolist capitalist combines, cartels, syndicates and trusts. We have seen the important part that these play in modern economic life. At the beginning of the twentieth century, monopolies acquired complete 192 supremacy in the advanced countries. And although the first steps towards the formation of the cartels were first taken by countries enjoying the protection of high tariffs (Germany, America), Great Britain, with her system of free trade, was not far behind in revealing the same basic phenomenon, namely, the birth of monopoly out of the concentration of production.
Secondly, monopolies have accelerated the capture of the most important sources of raw materials, especially for the coal and iron industries, which are the basic and most highly cartelised industries in capitalist society. The monopoly of the most important sources of raw materials has enormously increased the power of big capital, and has sharpened the antagonism between cartelised and noncartelised industry.
Thirdly, monopoly has sprung from the banks. The banks have developed from modest intermediary enterprises into the monopolists of finance capital. Some three or five of the biggest banks in each of the foremost capitalist countries have achieved the "personal union" of industrial and bank capital, and have concentrated in their hands the disposal of thousands upon thousands of millions which form the greater part of the capital and income of entire countries. A financial oligarchy, which throws a close net of relations of dependence over all the economic and political institutions of contemporary bourgeois society without exception--- such is the most striking manifestation of this monopoly.
Fourthly, monopoly has grown out of colonial policy. To the numerous ``old'' motives of colonial policy, finance capital has added the struggle for the sources of raw materials, for the export of capital, for "spheres, of influence," i.e., for spheres for profitable deals, concessions, monopolist profits and so on; in fine, for economic territory in general. When the colonies of the European powers in Africa, for instance, comprised only one-tenth of that territory (as was the case in 1876), colonial policy was able to develop by methods other than those of monopoly---by the "free grabbing" of territories, so to speak. But when nine-tenths of Africa had been seized (approximately by 1900), when the whole world had been divided up, there was inevitably ushered in a period of colonial monopoly and, consequently, a period of particularly intense struggle for the division and the redivision of the world.
193 __RUNNING_HEADER__ IMPERIALISMThe extent to which monopolist capital has intensified all the contradictions of capitalism is generally known. It is sufficient to mention the high cost of living and the oppression of the cartels. This intensification of contradictions constitutes the most powerful driving force of the transitional period of history, which began from the time of the definite victory of world finance capital.
Monopolies, oligarchy, the striving for domination instead of the striving for liberty, the exploitation of an increasing number of small or weak nations by an extremely small group of the richest or most powerful nations---all these have given birth to those distinctive characteristics pf imperialism which compel us to define it as parasitic or decaying capitalism. More and more prominently there emerges, as one of the tendencies of imperialism, the creation of the ``bondholding'' (rentier) state, the usurer state, in which the bourgeoisie lives on the proceeds of capital exports and by "clipping coupons." It would be a mistake to believe that this tendency to decay precludes the possibility of the rapid growth of capitalism. It does not. In the epoch of imperialism, certain branches of industry, certain strata of the bourgeoisie and certain countries betray, to a more or less degree, one or another of these tendencies. On the whole, capitalism is growing far more rapidly than before. But this growth is not only becoming more and more uneven in general; its unevenness also manifests itself, in particular, in the decay of the countries which are richest in capital (such as England).
In regard to the rapidity of Germany's economic development, Riesser, the author of the book on the big German banks, states:
``The progress of the preceding period (1848-70), which had not been exactly slow, stood in about the same ratio to the rapidity with which the whole of Germany's national economy, and with it German banking, progressed during this period (1870-1905) as the mail coach of the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation stood to the speed of the present-day automobile... which in whizzing past, it must be said, often endangers not only innocent pedestrians in its path, but also the occupants of the car.''~^^*^^
In its turn, this finance capital which has grown so rapidly is not unwilling (precisely because it has grown so quickly) to pass on to a more ``tranquil'' possession of colonies which have to be _-_-_
^^*^^ Riesser, op. cit., third ed., p. 354.---Ed.
194 seized---and not only by peaceful methods---from richer nations. In the United States, economic development in the last decades has been even more rapid than in Germany, and for this very reason the parasitic character of modern American capitalism has stood out with particular prominence. On the other hand, a comparison of, say, the republican American bourgeoisie with the monarchist Japanese or German bourgeoisie shows that the most pronounced political distinctions diminish to an extreme degree in the epoch of imperialism---not because they are unimportant in general, but because in all these cases we are discussing a bourgeoisie which has definite features of parasitism.The receipt of high monopoly profits by the capitalists in one of the numerous branches of industry, in one of numerous countries, etc., makes it economically possible for them to corrupt certain sections of the working class, and for a time a fairly considerable minority, and win them to the side of the bourgeoisie of a given industry or nation against all the others. The intensification of antagonisms between imperialist nations for the division of the world increases this striving. And so there is created that bond between imperialism and opportunism, which revealed itself first and most clearly in England, owing to the fact that certain features of imperialist development were observable there much earlier than in other countries.
Some writers, L. Martov, for example, try to evade the fact that there is a connection between imperialism and opportunism in the labour movement---which is particularly striking at the present time---by resorting to "official optimistic" arguments (cl la Kautsky and Huysmans) like the following: the cause of the opponents of capitalism would be hopeless if it were precisely progressive capitalism diat led to the increase of opportunism, or, if it were precisely the best paid workers who were inclined towards opportunism, etc. We must have no illusion regarding ``optimism'' of this kind. It is optimism in regard to opportunism; it is optimism which serves to conceal opportunism. As a matter of fact the extraordinary rapidity and the particularly revolting character of the development of opportunism is by no means a guarantee that its victory will be durable: the rapid growth of a malignant abscess on a healthy body only causes it to burst more quickly and thus 195 to relieve the body of it. The most dangerous people of all in this respect are those who do not wish to understand that the fight against imperialism is a sham and humbug unless it is inseparably bound up with the fight against opportunism.
From all that has been said in this book on the economic nature of imperialism, it follows that we must define it as capitalism in transition, or, more precisely, as moribund capitalism. It is very instructive in this respect to note that the bourgeois economists, in describing modern capitalism, frequently employ terms like " interlocking," "absence of isolation," etc.; "in conformity with their functions and course of development," banks are "not purely private business enterprises; they are more and more outgrowing the sphere of purely private business regulation." And this very Riesser, who uttered the words just quoted, declares with all seriousness that the ``prophecy'' of the Marxists concerning `` socialisation'' has "not come true''!
What then does this word ``interlocking'' express? It merely expresses the most striking feature of the process going on before our eyes. It shows that the observer counts the separate trees, but cannot see the wood. It slavishly copies the superficial, the fortuitous, the chaotic. It reveals the observer as one who is overwhelmed by the mass of raw material and is utterly incapable of appreciating its meaning and importance. Ownership of shares and relations between owners of private property "interlock in a haphazard way." But the underlying factor of this interlocking, its very base, is the changing social relations of production. When a big enterprise assumes gigantic proportions, and, on the basis of exact computation of mass data, organises according to plan the supply of primary raw materials to the extent of two-thirds, or three-fourths of all that is necessary for tens of millions of people; when the raw materials are transported to the most suitable place of production, sometimes hundreds or thousands of miles away, in a systematic and organised manner; when a single centre directs all the successive stages of work right up to the manufacture of numerous varieties of finished articles; when these products are distributed according to a single plan among tens and hundreds of millions of consumers (as in the case of the distribution of oil in America and Germany by the American "oil trust")---then it 196 becomes evident that we have socialisation of production, and not mere ``interlocking''; that private economic relations and private property relations constitute a shell which is no longer suitable for its contents, a shell which must inevitably begin to decay if its destruction be delayed by artificial means; a shell which may continue in a state of decay for a fairly long period (particularly if the cure of the opportunist abscess is protracted), but which will inevitably be removed.
The enthusiastic admirer of German imperialism, SchulzeGaevernitz, exclaims:
``Once the supreme management of the German banks has been entrusted to the hands of a dozen persons, their activity is even today more significant for the public good than that of the majority of the Ministers of State." (The ``interlocking'' of bankers,, ministers, magnates of industry and rentiers is here conveniently forgotten.).. ."If we conceive of the tendencies of development which we have noted as realised to the utmost: the money capital of the nation united in the banks; the banks themselves combined into cartels; the investment capital of the nation cast in the shape of securities, then the brilliant forecast of Saint-Simon will be fulfilled: 'The present anarchy of production caused by the fact that economic relations are developing without uniform regulation must make way for organisation in production. Production will no longer be shaped by isolated manufacturers, independent of each other and ignorant of man's economic needs, but by a social institution. A central body of management, being able to survey the large fields of social economy from a more elevated point of view, will regulate it for the benefit of the whole of society, will be able to put the means of production into suitable hands, and above all will take care that there be constant harmony between production and consumption. Institutions already exist which have assumed as part of their task a certain organisation of economic labour: the banks." The fulfilment of the forecasts of Saint-Simon still lies in the future, but we are on the way to its fulfilment---Marxism, different from what Marx imagined, but different only in form.''~^^*^^
A crushing ``refutation'' of Marx, indeed! It is a retreat from Marx's precise, scientific analysis to Saint-Simon's guesswork, the guesswork of a genius, but guesswork all the same.
January-July, 1916.
_-_-_^^*^^ Schulze-Gacvcraitz, in Gntttdriss der Socidd\onomi1(., pp. 145-46.
__ALPHA_LVL0__ The End. [END] [197] __ALPHA_LVL1__ ARTICLES AND SPEECHESTHE PAMPHLET BY JUNIUS
AT last there has appeared in Germany, illegally, without any adaptation to the despicable Junker censorship, a Social-Democratic pamphlet dealing widi questions of the war! The author, who evidently belongs to the ``Left-radical'' wing of the Party, signs himself Junius~^^*^^ (which in Latin means junior) and gave his pamphlet the title: The Crisis of Social-Democracy. Appended are the "Theses on the Tasks of International Social-Democracy," which have already been submitted to the Berne I.S.C. (International Socialist Committee) and published in No. 3 of its Bulletin; the theses were drafted by the ``International'' group, which in the spring of 1915 published one issue of a magazine under that title (with articles by Zetkin, Mehring, R. Luxemburg, Thalheimer, Duncker, Strobel and others), and which in the winter of 1915-16 convened a conference of Social-Democrats from all parts of Germany at which these theses were adopted.
The pamphlet, the author says in the introduction dated January 2, 1916, was written in April, 1915, and published "without any alteration." "Outside circumstances" prevented it from being published earlier. The pamphlet is devoted not so much to the "crisis of Social-Democracy" as to an analysis of the war, to refuting the legend of its being a war for national liberation, to proving that it is an imperialist war on the part of Germany as well as on the part of the other Great Powers, and to a revolutionary criticism of the behaviour of the official party. Written in a very lively style, Junius' pamphlet has undoubtedly played and will play an important role in the struggle against the ex-Social-Democratic Party of Germany, which has deserted to the side of the bourgeoisie and the Junkers, and we heartily greet the author.
To the Russian reader who is familiar with the Social-Democratic literature published abroad in Russian in 1914-16, Junius' pamphlet _-_-_
^^*^^ The pen name Rosa Luxemburg used for this pamphlet.---Ed.
199 200 Emacs-File-stamp: "/home/ysverdlov/leninist.biz/en/1942/LCW19IP/20100313/299.tx" __EMAIL__ webmaster@leninist.biz __OCR__ ABBYY 6 Professional (2010.03.13) __WHERE_PAGE_NUMBERS__ top __FOOTNOTE_MARKER_STYLE__ [*]+ __ENDNOTE_MARKER_STYLE__ [0-9]+ __RUNNING_HEADER_LEFT__ ARTICLES, SPEECHES---AUG.-DEC., 1916offers nothing new in principle. But in reading this pamphlet and comparing the arguments of this German revolutionary Marxist with what has been stated, for example, in the manifesto of the Central Committee of our Party (September-November, 1914)* in the Berne resolutions (March, 1915)1 and in the numerous commentaries on them, it becomes clear that Junius' arguments are very incomplete and that he commits two errors. Proceeding to criticise Junius' faults and errors we must strongly emphasise that we do so for the sake o£ self-criticism, which is so necessary for Marxists, and of submitting to an all-round test the views which must serve as the ideological basis of the Third International. On the whole, Junius' pamphlet is a splendid Marxian work, and in all probability its defects are, to a certain extent, accidental.
The chief defect in Junius' pamphlet, and what marks a definite step backward compared with the legal (although immediately suppressed) magazine, International, is its silence regarding the connection between social-chauvinism (the author uses neither this nor the less precise term social-patriotism) and opportunism. The author rightly speaks of the ``capitulation'' and collapse of the German Social-Democratic Party and of the ``treachery'' of its "official leaders," but he goes no further than this. The International, however, did criticise the "Centre," /'.<?., Kautskyism, and quite properly poured ridicule on it for its spinelessness, its prostitution of Marxism and its servility to the opportunists. This magazine also began to expose the role the opportunists are really playing by making known, for example, the very important fact that on August 4, 1914, the opportunists came forth with an ultimatum, with their minds made up to vote for the war credits under any circumstances. Neither in Junius' pamphlet nor in the theses is anything said about opportunism or about Kautskyism! This is wrong from the standpoint of theory, for it is impossible to explain the ``betrayal'' without linking it up with opportunism as a trend with a long history, the history of the whole Second International. It is a mistake from the practical-political standpoint, for it is impossible to understand the "crisis of Social-Democracy" or overcome it without making clear the meaning and the role of two
* V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. XVIII, pp. 76-83.---Erf. bid., pp. 145-150.---Ed.
THE PAMPHLET BY JUNIUS 201
trends: the avowedly opportunist trend (Legien, David, etc.) and the masked opportunist trend (Kautsky and Co.). This is a step backward compared with the historic article by Otto Riihle in Vorwarts of January 12, 1916, in which he directly and openly pointed out that a split in the Social-Democratic Party of Germany was inevitable (the editors of the Vorwarts answered him by repeating honeyed and hypocritical Kautskyist phrases, for they were unable to advance a single material argument to disprove the assertion that there were already two parties in existence, and that these two parties could not be reconciled). It is astonishingly inconsistent, because the International's thesis No. 12 directly states that it is necessary to create a ``new'' International, owing to the ``treachery'' of the "official representatives of the Socialist Parties of the leading countries" and their "adoption of the principles of bourgeois imperialist politics." Clearly, to suggest that the old Social-Democratic Party of Germany, or parties which tolerate Legien, David and Co., would participate in a ``new'' International is simply ridiculous.
Why the International group took this step backward, we do not know. A very great defect in revolutionary Marxism in Germany as a whole is its lack of a compact illegal organisation that would systematically pursue its line and educate the masses in the spirit of the new tasks; such an organisation would also have to take a definite stand towards opportunism and Kautskyism. This is all the more necessary now, since the German revolutionary SocialDemocrats have been deprived of their last two daily papers: the one in Bremen (Bremen Burgerzeitung), and the one in Brunswick (Vol\sjreund), both of which have gone over to the Kautskyists. That the "International Socialists of Germany" (I.S.D.) *^^5^^ group alone remains at its post is definitely clear to everybody.
Some members of the International group have evidently slipped once again into the morass of unprincipled Kautskyism. Strobel, for instance, went so far as to make obeisance, in the Neue Zeit, to Bernstein and Kautsky! And only the other day, on August 15, 1916, he had an article in the papers entitled "Pacifism and SocialDemocracy," in which he defends the most vulgar type of Kautskyian pacifism. Junius, however, strongly opposes Kautsky's fantastic schemes for "disarmament," "abolition of secret diplomacy,"
202
ARTICLES, SPEECHES---AUG.-DEC., 1916
etc. Perhaps there are two trends in the International group: a revolutionary trend and a trend wavering in the direction of Kautskyism.
Of Junius' erroneous postulates, the first is contained in the International group's thesis No. 5:... "In the epoch (era) of this unbridled imperialism, there can be no more national wars. National interests serve only as an instrument of deception, to deliver the masses of the toiling people into the service of their mortal enemy, imperialism...." This postulate is the end of thesis No. 5, the first part of which is devoted to the description of the present war as an imperialist war. The repudiation of national wars in general may either be an oversight or a fortuitous over-emphasis of the perfectly correct idea that the present war is an imperialist war and not a national war. But as the opposite may be true, as various Social-Democrats mistakenly repudiate all national wars because the present war is falsely represented to be a national war, we are obliged to deal with this mistake.
Junius is quite right in emphasising the decisive influence of the "imperialist background" of the present war, when he says that behind Serbia there is Russia, "behind Serbian nationalism there is Russian imperialism"; that even if a country like Holland took part in the present war, she too would be waging an imperialist war, because, firstly, Holland would be defending her colonies, and, secondly, she would be an ally of one of the imperialist coalitions. This is indisputable in relation to the present war. And when Junius lays particular emphasis on what to him is the most important point: the struggle against the "phantom of national war, which at present dominates Social-Democratic policy" (p. 81, Junius' pamphlet), we cannot but agree that his reasoning is correct and quite appropriate.
But it would be a mistake to exaggerate this truth; to depart from the Marxian rule to be concrete; to apply the appraisal of the present war to all wars that are possible under imperialism; to lose sight of the national movements against imperialism. The only argument that can be used in defence of the thesis: "there can be no more national wars" is that the world has been divided up among a handful of ``Great'' imperialist powers, and, therefore, every war, even if it starts as a national war, is transformed into
THE PAMPHLET BY JUNIUS 203
an imperialist war and affects the interests of one of the imperialist Powers or coalitions (p. 81 of Junius' pamphlet).
The fallacy of this argument is obvious. Of course, the fundamental proposition of Marxian dialectics is that all boundaries in nature and society are conventional and mobile, that there is not a single phenomenon which cannot under certain conditions be transformed into its opposite. A national war can be transformed into'an imperialist war, and vice versa. For example, the wars of the Great French Revolution started as national wars and were such. They were revolutionary wars because they were waged in defence of the Great Revolution against a coalition of counterrevolutionary monarchies. But after Napoleon had created the French Empire by subjugating a number of large, virile, long established national states of Europe, the French national wars became imperialist wars, which in their turn engendered wars for national liberation against Napoleon's imperialism.
Only a sophist would deny that there is a difference between imperialist war and national war on the grounds that one can be transformed into the other. More than once, even in the history of Greek philosophy, dialectics have served as a bridge to sophistry. We, however, remain dialecticians and combat sophistry, not by a sweeping denial of the possibility of transformation in general, but by concretely analysing a given phenomenon in the circumstances that surround it and in its development.
It is highly improbable that this imperialist war of 1914-16 will be transformed into a national war, because the class that represents progress is the proletariat, which, objectively, is striving to transform this war into civil war against the bourgeoisie; and also because the strength of both coalitions is almost equally balanced, while international finance capital has everywhere created a reactionary bourgeoisie. Nevertheless, it cannot be said that such a transformation is impossible: if the European proletariat were to remain impotent for another twenty years; if the present war were to end in victories similar to those achieved by Napoleon, in the subjugation of a number of virile national states; if imperialism outside of Europe (primarily American and Japanese) were to remain in power for another twenty years without a transition to socialism, say, as a result of a Japanese-American war, then a great
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national war in Europe would be possible. This means that Europe would be thrown bac\ for several decades. This is improbable. But it is not impossible, for to picture world history as advancing smoothly and steadily without sometimes taking gigantic strides backward is undialectical, unscientific and theoretically wrong.
Further. National wars waged by colonial and semi-colonial countries are not only possible but inevitable in the epoch of imperialism. The colonies and semi-colonies (China, Turkey, Persia) have a population of nearly one billion, *'.<?., more than half the population of the earth. In these countries the movements for national liberation are either very strong already or are growing and maturing. Every war is a continuation of politics by other means. The national liberation politics of the colonies will inevitably be continued by national wars of the colonies against imperialism. Such wars may lead to an imperialist war between the present ``Great'' imperialist Powers or they may not; that depends on many circumstances.
For example: England and France were engaged in a seven years' war for colonies, i.e., they waged an imperialist war (which is as possible on the basis of slavery, or of primitive capitalism, as on the basis of highly developed modern capitalism). France was defeated and lost part of her colonies. Several years later the North American States started a war for national liberation against England alone. Out of enmity towards England, i.e., in conformity with their own imperialist interests, France and Spain, which still held parts of what are now the United States, concluded friendly treaties with the states that had risen against England. The French forces together with the American defeated the English. Here we have a war for national liberation in which imperialist rivalry is a contributory element of no great importance, which is the opposite of what we have in the war of 1914-16 (in which the national element in the Austro-Serbian war is of no great importance compared with the all-determining imperialist rivalry). This shows how absurd it would be to employ the term imperialism in a stereotyped fashion by deducing from it that national wars are "impossible." A war for national liberation waged, for example, by an alliance of Persia, India and China against certain imperialist Powers is quite possible and probable, for it follows logically from the national
THE PAMPHLET BY JUNIUS 205
liberation movements now going on in those countries. Whether such a war will be transformed into an imperialist war among the present imperialist Powers will depend on a great many concrete circumstances, and it would be ridiculous to guarantee that these circumstances will arise.
Thirdly, national wars must not be regarded as impossible in the epoch of imperialism even in Europe. The "epoch of imperialism" made the present war an imperialist war; it inevitably engenders (until the advent of socialism) new imperialist war; it transformed the policies of the present Great Powers into thoroughly imperialist policies. But this ``epoch'' by no means precludes the possibility of national wars, waged, for example, by small (let us assume, annexed or nationally oppressed) states against the imperialist Powers, any more than it precludes the possibility of big national movements in Eastern Europe. With regard to Austria, for example, Junius shows sound judgment in taking into account not only the " economic," but also the peculiar political situation, in noting Austria's "inherent lack of vitality" and admitting that "the Hapsburg monarchy is not a political organisation of a bourgeois state, but only a loosely knit syndicate of several cliques of social parasites," that "historically, the liquidation of Austria-Hungary is merely the continuation of the disintegration of Turkey and at the same time a demand of the historical process of development." The situation is no better in certain Balkan states and in Russia. And in the event of the "Great Powers" becoming extremely exhausted in the present war, or in the event of a victorious revolution in Russia, national wars, even victorious ones, are quite possible. On the one hand, intervention by the imperialist powers is not possible under all circumstances. On the other hand, when people argue haphazardly that a war waged by a small state against a giant state is hopeless, we must say that a hopeless war is war nevertheless, and, moreover, certain events within the ``giant'' states---for example, the beginning of a revolution---may transform a ``hopeless'' war into a very ``hopeful'' one.
The fact that the postulate that "there can be no more national wars" is obviously fallacious in theory is not the only reason why we have dealt with this fallacy at length. It would be a very deplorable thing, of course, if the ``Lefts'' began to be careless in
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their treatment of Marxian theory, considering that the Third International can be established only on the basis of Marxism, unvulgarised Marxism. But this fallacy is also very harmful in a practical political sense; it gives rise to the stupid propaganda for "disarmament," as if no other war but reactionary wars are possible; it is the cause of the still more stupid and downright reactionary indifference towards national movements. Such indifference becomes chauvinism when members of ``Great'' European nations, i.e., nations which oppress a mass of small and colonial peoples, declare with a learned air that "there can be no more national wars!" National wars against the imperialist Powers are not only possible and probable, they are inevitable, they are progressive and revolutionary, although, of course, what is needed for their success is either the combined efforts of an enormous number of the inhabitants of the oppressed countries (hundreds of millions in the example we have taken of India and China), or a particularly favourable combination of circumstances in the international situation (for example, when the intervention of the imperialist Powers is paralysed by exhaustion, by war, by their mutual antagonisms, etc.), or a simultaneous uprising of the proletariat of one of the Great Powers against the bourgeoisie (this latter case stands first in order from the standpoint of what is desirable and advantageous for the victory of the proletariat).
We must state, however, that it would be unfair to accuse Junius of being indifferent to national movements. When enumerating the sins of the Social-Democratic Parliamentary group, he does at least mention their silence in the matter of the execution of a native leader in the Cameroons for ``treason'' (evidently for an attempt at insurrection in connection with the war); and in another place he emphasises (for the special benefit of Messrs. Legien, Lensch and similar scoundrels who call themselves ``Social-Democrats'') that colonial nations are also nations. He declares very definitely:
``Socialism recognises for every people the right to independence and
freedom, the right to be masters of their own destiny-----International
socialism recognises the right of free, independent, equal nations, but only socialism can create such nations, only socialism can establish the right of nations to self-determination. This slogan of socialism," justly observes the author, "like all its other slogans, serves, not to justify the
THE PAMPHLET BY JUNIUS 207
existing order of things, but as a guide post, as a stimulus to the revolutionary, reconstructive, active policy of the proletariat." (Pp. 77-78.)
Consequently, it would be a profound mistake to suppose that all the Left German Social-Democrats have stooped to the narrowmindedness and distortion of Marxism advocated by certain Dutch and Polish Social-Democrats, who repudiate self-determination of nations even under socialism. However, we shall deal with the special Dutch and Polish sources of this mistake elsewhere.
Another fallacious argument advanced by Junius is in connection with the question of defence of the fatherland. This is a cardinal political question during an imperialist war. Junius has strengthened us in our conviction that our Party has indicated the only correct approach to this question: the proletariat is opposed to defence of the fatherland in this imperialist war because of its predatory, slave-owning, reactionary character, because it is possible and necessary to oppose to it (and to strive to convert it into) civil war for socialism. Junius, however, while brilliantly exposing the imperialist character of the present war as distinct from a national war, falls into the very strange error of trying to drag a national programme into the present non-national war. It sounds almost incredible, but it is true.
The official Social-Democrats, both of the Legien and of the Kautsky shade, in their servility to the bourgeoisie, who have been making the most noise about foreign ``invasion'' in order to deceive the masses of the people as to the imperialist character of the war, have been particularly assiduous in repeating this ``invasion'' argument. Kautsky, who now assures naive and credulous people ( incidentally, through the mouth of "Spectator," a member of the Russian Organization Committee) that he joined the opposition at the end of 1914, continues to use this ``argument''! To refute it, Junius quotes extremely instructive examples from history, which prove that "invasion and class struggle are not contradictory in bourgeois history, as the official legend has it, but that one is the means and the expression of the other." For example, the Bourbons in France invoked foreign invaders against the Jacobins; the bourgeoisie in 1871 invoked foreign invaders against the Commune. In his Civil War in France, Marx wrote:
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``The highest heroic effort of which old society is still capable is national war; and this is now proved to be a mere governmental humbug, intended to defer the struggle of the classes, and to be thrown aside as soon as that class struggle bursts out in civil war." *
``The classical example for all times," says Junius, referring to *793) "is the Great French Revolution." From all this, he draws the following conclusion:
``Century-old experience thus proves that it is not a state of siege, but heroic class struggle, which rouses the self-respect, the heroism and the moral strength of the masses of the people, and serves as the country's best protection and defence against the foreign enemy.''
Junius' practical conclusion is this:
``Yes, it is the duty of the Social-Democrats to defend their country during a great historical crisis. But the grave guilt that rests upon the Social-Democratic Reichstag group lies precisely in that, in solemnly declaring, on August 4, 1914, that 'In the hour of danger we will not leave our fatherland unprotected,' they at the same time belied those words. They did leave the fatherland unprotected in the hour of greatest peril. For their first duty to the fatherland in that hour was to show the fatherland what was really behind the present imperialist war; to tear down the web of patriotic and diplomatic lies with which this encroachment on the fatherland was enmeshed; to proclaim loudly and clearly that both victory and defeat in the present war are equally fatal for the German people; to resist to the last the throttling of the fatherland by declaring a state of siege; to proclaim the necessity of immediately arming the people and of allowing the people to decide the question of war and peace; resolutely to demand a permanent session of the people's representatives for the whole duration of the war in order to guarantee vigilant control over the government by the people's representatives, and the control over the people's representatives by the people; to demand the immediate abolition of all restrictions on political rights, for only a free people can successfully defend its country; and, finally, to oppose the imperialist war programme, which is to preserve Austria and Turkey, i.e., perpetuate reaction in Europe and in Germany, with the old, truly national programme of the patriots and democrats of 1848, the programme of Marx, Engels and Lassalle: the
* Karl Marx, The Civil War in France (New York and London, 1933), p. 62.--- Ed.
THE PAMPHLET BY JUNIUS 209
slogan of a united, Great German republic. This is the banner that should have been unfurled before the country, which would have been a truly national banner of liberation, which would have been in accord with the best traditions of Germany and with the international class policy of the proletariat---.
``Hence, the grave dilemma---the interests of the fatherland or the international solidarity of the ploletariat---the tragic conflict which prompted our parliamentarians 'with a heavy heart' to side with the imperialist war, is purely imaginary, it is bourgeois nationalist fiction. On the contrary, there is complete harmony between the interests of the country and the class interests of the proletarian International, both in time of war and in time of peace; both war and peace demand the most energetic development of the class struggle, the most determined fight for the Social-Democratic programme.''
This is how Junius argues. The fallacy of his argument is strikingly evident, and since the masked and avowed lackeys of tsarism, Messrs. Plekhanov and Chkhenkeli, and perhaps even Messrs. Martov and Chkheidze may gloatingly seize upon Junius' words, not for the purpose of establishing theoretical truth, but for the purpose of wriggling, of covering up their tracks and of throwing dust in the eyes of the workers, we must in greater detail elucidate the theoretical source of Junius' error.
He proposes to ``oppose'' the imperialist war with a national programme. He urges the advanced class to turn its face to the past and not to the future! In France, in Germany, and in the whole of Europe it was a bourgeozV-democratic revolution that, objectively, was on the order of the day in 1793 and 1848. Corresponding to this objective historical situation was the "truly national," i.e., the national bourgeois programme of the then existing democracy; in 1793 this programme was carried out by die most revolutionary elements of die bourgeoisie and the plebeians, and in 1848 it was proclaimed by Marx in the name of die whole of progressive democracy. Objectively, the feudal and dynastic wars were dien opposed with revolutionary democratic wars, widi wars for national liberation. This was the content of the historical tasks of that epoch.
At die present time the objective situation in die biggest advanced states of Europe is different. Progress, if we leave out die possibility
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of temporary steps backward, is possible only towards socialist society, only towards the socialist revolution. Objectively, the imperialist bourgeois war, the war of highly developed capitalism, can, from the standpoint of progress, from the standpoint of the progressive class, be opposed only with a war against the bourgeoisie, if., primarily civil war between tlje proletariat and the bourgeoisie for power; for unless such a war is waged serious progress is impossible; and after that---only under certain special conditions---a war to defend the socialist state against bourgeois states is possible. That is why those Bolsheviks (fortunately, very few, and we quickly handed them over to the Prizyv-isls) who were ready to adopt the point of view of conditional defence, i.e., of defending the fatherland on the condition that there was a victorious revolution and the victory of a republic in Russia, were true to the letter of Bolshevism, but betrayed its spirit; *e for being drawn into the imperialist war of the advanced European Powers, Russia, even under a republican form of government, would also be waging an imperialist war!
In saying that class struggle is the best means of defence against invasion, Junius applied Marxian dialectics only halfway, taking one step on the right road and immediately deviating from it. Marxian dialectics call for a concrete analysis of each specific historical situation. That class struggle is the best means of defence against invasion is true both with regard to the bourgeoisie, which is overthrowing feudalism, and with regard to the proletariat, which is overthrowing the bourgeoisie. Precisely because it is true with regard to every form of class oppression, it is too general, and therefore, inadequate in the present specific case. Civil war against the bourgeoisie is also a form of class struggle, and only this form of class struggle would have saved Europe (the whole of Europe, not only one country) from the peril of invasion. The "Great German Republic" had it existed in 1914-16, would also have waged an imperialist war.
Junius came very close to the correct solution of the problem and to the correct slogan: civil war against the bourgeoisie for socialism; but, as if afraid to speak the whole truth, he turned bacT^ to the phantasy of a "national war" in 1914, 1915 and 1916. Even if we examine the question from the purely practical and not theoretical angle, Junius: error remains no less clear. The whole
THE PAMPHLET BY JUNIUS 211
of bourgeois society, all classes in Germany, including the peasantry, were in favour of war (in all probability the same was the case in Russia---at least a majority of the well-to-do and middle peasantry and a very considerable portion of the poor peasants were evidently under the spell of bourgeois imperialism). The bourgeoisie was armed to the teeth. Under such circumstances to ``proclaim'' the programme of a republic, a permanent parliament, election of officers by the people (the "armed nation"), etc., would have meant, in practice, "proclaiming" a revolution (with a wrong revolutionary programme!).
In the same breath Junius quite rightly says that a revolution cannot be "made." Revolution was on the order of the day in 1914-16, it was hidden in the depths of the war, was emerging out of the war. This should have been "proclaimed" in the name of the revolutionary class, and its programme should have been fearlessly and fully announced: socialism is impossible in time of war without civil war against the arch-reactionary, criminal bourgeoisie, which condemned the people to untold disaster. Systematic, consistent, practical measures should have been thought out, which could be carried out no matter what the rate of development of the revolutionary crisis might have been, and which would be in line with the maturing revolution. These measures are indicated in the resolution of our Party: i) voting against war credits; 2) violation of "civil peace"; 3) creation of an illegal organisation; 4) fraternisation among the soldiers; 5) support to all the revolutionary actions of the masses.* The success of all these steps inevitably leads to civil war.
The promulgation of a great historical programme was undoubtedly of tremendous significance; not the old national German programme, which became obsolete in 1914-16, but the proletarian international and socialist programme. "You, the bourgeoisie, are fighting for plunder; we, the workers of all the belligerent countries, declare war upon you for socialism"---this is the sort of speech that should have been delivered in the Parliaments on August 4, 1914, by Socialists who had not betrayed the proletariat, as the Legiens, Davids, Kautskys, Plekhanovs, Guesdes, Sembats, etc. betrayed it.
Evidently Junius' error is due to two mistakes in reasoning.
* V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. XVIII, p. 147.---Erf.
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There is no doubt that Junius is decidedly opposed to the imperialist war and is decidedly in favour of revolutionary tactics; and all Messrs. Plekhanovs' gloating over Junius' ``defencism'' cannot wipe out this fact. Possible and probable calumnies of this kind must be answered promptly and bluntly.
But, firstly, Junius has not completely rid himself of the `` environment'' of the German Social-Democrats, even the Lefts, who are afraid of a split, who are afraid to follow revolutionary slogans to their logical conclusions.* This is a mistaken fear, and the Left Social-Democrats of Germany must and will rid themselves of it. They will do so in the course of the struggle against the socialchauvinists. The fact is that they are fighting against their own social-chauvinists resolutely, firmly and sincerely, and this is the tremendous, the fundamental difference in principle between them and Messrs. Martovs and Chkheidzes, who, with one hand (a la Skobelev) unfurl a banner bearing the greeting, "To the Liebknechts of All Countries," and with the other hand tenderly embrace Chkhenkeli and Potresov!
Secondly, Junius apparently wanted to achieve something in the nature of the Menshevik "theory of stages," of sad memory; he wanted to begin to carry out the revolutionary programme from the end that is "more suitable," "more popular" and more acceptable to the petty-bourgeoisie. It is something like the plan "to outwit history," to outwit the philistines. He seems to say: surely, nobody would oppose a better way of defending the real fatherland; that real fatherland is the Great German Republic, and the best defence is a militia, a permanent parliament, etc. Once it was accepted, that programme would automatically lead to the next stage---to the socialist revolution.
*We find the same error in Junius' arguments about which is better, victory or defeat? His conclusion is that both are equally bad (ruin, growth of armaments, etc.). This is the point of view not of the revolutionary proletariat, but of the pacifist petty bourgeois. If we speak about the "revolutionary intervention" of the proletariat---of this both Junius and the theses of the International group speak, although unfortunately in too general terms---then we must raise the question from another point of view, namely: i) Is "revolutionary intervention" possible without the risk of defeat? 2) Is it possible to scourge the bourgeoisie and the government of one's own country without taking that risk? 3) Have we not always asserted, and does not the historical experience of reactionary wars prove, that defeats help the cause of the revolutionary class?
THE PAMPHLET BY JUNIUS 213
Probably, it was reasoning of this kind that consciously or semiconsciously determined Junius' tactics. Needless to say, such reasoning is fallacious. Junius' pamphlet conjures up in our mind the picture of a lone man who has no comrades in an illegal organisation accustomed to thinking out revolutionary slogans to their conclusion and systematically educating the masses in their spirit. But this shortcoming---it would be a grave error to forget this---is not Junius' personal failing, but the result of the weakness of all the German Lefts, who have become entangled in the vile net of Kautskyist hypocrisy, pedantry and ``friendliness'' towards the opportunists. Junius' adherents have managed in spite of their isolation to begin the publication of illegal leaflets and to start the war against Kautskyism. They will succeed in going further along the right road.
N. LENIN.
Written in August, 1916.
Sbornik. Sotsial-Demokrata, No. i, October, 1916.
[214] __ALPHA_LVL2__ A CARICATURE OF MARXISM AND "IMPERIALIST``NO one will compromise revolutionary Social-Democracy if it does not compromise itself." This aphorism should always be recalled and borne in mind when some important theoretical or tactical proposition of Marxism is gaining ascendancy, or at least is coming to the forefront and is being ``attacked'' not only by avowed and serious enemies, but also by ostensible friends who hopelessly compromise it, who, in plain language, disgrace it and make a caricature of it. This has happened more than once in the history of Russian Social-Democracy. The victory of Marxism in the revolutionary movement in the early 'nineties of the last century was accompanied by the appearance of a caricature of Marxism in the shape of the ``Economism'' or ``Strike-ism'' of those days, and had not the Isfya-ists waged a long struggle against this they would have been unable to save the principles of proletarian theory and policy from petty-bourgeois Narodism * and bourgeois liberalism. It was the same way with Bolshevism, which gained ascendancy in the mass labour movement in 1905 owing, among other reasons, to the proper application of the slogan "boycott the tsarist Duma" in the autumn of 1905, when the most important battles of the Russian revolution were being fought; and which in 1908-10 had to withstand---and overcome by struggle---the caricature of Bolshevism that appeared at that time, when Alexinsky and others raised a great rumpus against going into the Third Duma.
The same thing is happening today. The recognition of the present war as an imperialist war, and the reference to its intimate connection widi the imperialist epoch of capitalism encounter the opposition not only of serious opponents, but also of friends who are not serious, for whom the word imperialism has become "the fashion" and who, having learned diis word by rote, introduce the
*From narod (people), fxeely translated as "populism."---Ed.
214A CARICATURE OF MARXISM
215
most hopeless theoretical confusion among the workers and resuscitate a number of the old errors of the old "Economists." Capitalism is victorious, therefore there is no use in pondering over political problems, reasoned the old ``Economists'' in 1894-1901, who went so far as to repudiate the political struggle in Russia. Imperialism is victorious, therefore there is no use in pondering over problems of political democracy, reason the present-day "Imperialist Economists." As an example of such sentiments, of such a caricature of Marxism, the article by P. Kievsky,^^47^^ printed above, acquires significance, for it represents the first attempt to give a more or less complete exposition in writing of the ideological vacillations which have been observed in certain circles in our Party abroad since the beginning of 1915.
The spread of "imperialist economism" in the ranks of the Marxists who have taken a decided stand against social-chauvinism and for revolutionary internationalism in the present great crisis of Socialism would be a serious blow to our trend, and to our Party, for it would compromise the Party from within, within its own ranks, it would convert it into a representative of the caricature of Marxism. It is necessary, therefore, to subject to a thorough discussion at least the principal ones of the countless errors in P. Kievsky's article, however ``uninteresting'' this may be in itself, and even if it entails the extremely elementary repetition of extremely elementary truths long known and understood by the attentive and thoughtful reader of our literature of 1914 and 1915.
In order to introduce the reader at once to the ``substance'' of this new departure of "Imperialist Economism," we will start our examination with the ``central'' point of P. Kievsky's arguments.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ I. THE MARXIAN ATTITUDE TOWARDS WAR ANDP. Kievsky is convinced, and wishes to convince his readers, that he "disagrees only with self-determination of nations," with § 9 of our Party programme. Very angrily he strives to refute the accusation that he radically departs from Marxism in general on the question of democracy, that he is a ``traitor'' (the venomous quotation marks are P, Kievsky's) to Marxism in anything funda-
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mental. But the truth of the matter is that the moment our author begins to argue about his alleged partial and special disagreements, as soon as he begins to marshal his arguments, reasons, etc., it becomes obvious that he has departed from Marxism all along the line. Take § 6 (section 2) in P. Kievsky's article. "This demand" (/'.(?., self-determination of nations) "leads directly" (!!) "to socialpatriotism," declares our author, and he goes on to explain that the ``treacherous'' slogan of defence of the fatherland is a conclusion "that follows with completely" (!) ``logical'' (!) "correctness from the right of nations to self-determination." . . . Self-determination, in his opinion, means "sanctioning the treachery of the French and Belgian social-patriots who are defending this independence" (the national independence of the French and Belgian states) "by force of arms---who are doing what the adherents of `self-determination' only talk about." . . . "Defence of the fatherland is a weapon in the arsenal of our bitterest enemies."... "We absolutely fail to understand how it is possible to oppose defence of the fatherland and at the same time to be in favour of self-determination; to be against the fatherland and at the same time for it.''
Thus writes P. Kievsky. Obviously he has failed to understand our resolutions in opposition to the defence of the fatherland slogan in the present war. Consequently, we must refer to what is written in black and white in those resolutions and once again explain the meaning of what has been said in plain Russian.
The resolution adopted by our Party at the Berne Conference in March, 1915, bearing the heading: "The Defence of the Fatherland Slogan," begins with the words, "The real nature of the present war is" so and so.
The resolution speaks of the present war. It cannot be said more plainly in Russian. The words "real nature" indicate that we must distinguish between the apparent and the real, between exterior and inherent nature, between phrases and deeds. Phrases about defence of the fatherland in the present war falsely suggest that the imperialist war of 1914-16, which is a war for the distribution of colonies, for the looting of foreign lands, etc., is a national war. In order not to leave the slightest loophole for misinterpretation of our views, the resolution contains a special paragraph on the "truly national wars" which "occurred particularly" (note: par-
A CARICATURE OF MARXISM 217
ticularly does not mean exclusively!) "in the epoch between 1789 and 1871.''
The resolution explains that "the basis" of these ``truly'' national wars "was the long process of mass national movements, the struggle against absolutism and feudalism, the overthrow of national oppression...." *
Clear, one would think. In the present imperialist war, which was engendered by all the conditions of the imperialist epoch, i£., did not come about by chance, not as an exception, a deviation from what is general and typical, phrases about defence of the fatherland are deception of the people, for this war is not a national war. In a truly national war the words "defence of the fatherland" are not deception, and we are not opposed to such a war. Such (truly national) wars occurred ``particularly'' in the period between 1789 and 1871, and the resolution, not by a single word denying that such wars are also possible now, explains how a truly national war must be distinguished from an imperialist war camouflaged by pseudo-national slogans. To be able to distinguish between the two we must see whether the war in question is ``based'' on a "long process of mass national movements," on "the overthrow of national oppression." The resolution on ``pacifism'' says definitely that, "Social-Democrats cannot deny the positive significance of revolutionary wars, i£., not imperialist wars, but such as were waged, for instance" (note that: "for instance") "in the period between 1789 and 1871, for the purpose of overthrowing national oppression___" t Could a resolution adopted by our Party in 1915 speak
of national wars like those which occurred between 1789 and 1871 and state diat we do not deny the positive significance of such wars, if we did not regard such wars as being possible at the present time? Obviously not.
The pamphlet, Socialism and War, by Lenin and Zinoviev, is a commentary on the resolutions of our Party, i.e., a popular explanation. On page 5 of this pamphlet we read in black and white that "Socialists have recognized and still recognise that national defence, or wars of defence, are legitimate, progressive and just" only in the sense that these wars are waged for the purpose of "overthrowing
*V. I. Lenin, Collected Wor\s, Vol. XVIII, p. 146.---Erf, •\lbid., p. 149.---Ed,
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foreign oppression." The example of Persia against Russia, "etc.," is quoted and then it goes on to say: "such wars would be just wars of defence no matter who attacked first, and every Socialist would sympathise with the victory of the oppressed, dependent, unequal states against the oppressing, slave-owning, looting `Great' Powers." *
The pamphlet was published in August 1915, in German and French. P. Kievsky knows this pamphlet perfectly well. Never has P. Kievsky, or any one else, raised any objection to the resolution on the defence of the fatherland slogan, or to the resolution on pacifism, or the interpretation of these resolutions in the pamphlet! We ask: do we slander P. Kievsky when we say that he totally fails to understand Marxism, considering that this writer, who since March 1915 has not raised a single objection to the views of our Party on the war, now, in August 1916, in an article on selfdetermination, i.e., in an article which is supposed to be devoted to a specific question, betrays astonishing lack of comprehension of the general question?
P. Kievsky describes the slogan of defence of the fatherland as "treacherous." We may calmly assure him that every slogan is and always will be a ``treacherous'' slogan for those who mechanically repeat it without understanding its meaning, without pondering over the subject, and who simply memorise words without analysing their meaning.
Speaking generally, what is "defence of the fatherland"? Is it a scientific term employed in economics, politics or the like? No. It is simply a very popular, hackneyed and sometimes a mere philistine expression, denoting justification of the war. Nothing, absolutely nothing more! The only thing that can be ``treacherous'' about it is that philistines are capable of justifying any war by saying, "We are defending our fatherland," whereas Marxism, which does not stoop to philistinism, demands an historical analysis of every given war in order to decide whether that war can be regarded as progressive, as serving the interests of democracy or the proletariat, and whether it is in this sense a legitimate war, a just war, etc.
The defence of the fatherland slogan is very often a philistine, unconscious justification of the war, because people are unable to
*lbid., p. 220.---Ef,
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analyse historically the significance and meaning of each separate war.
Marxism makes such an analysis and says: // the "real nature" of. the war lies for example in that it is being waged for the purpose of overthrowing a foreign yoke (which was particularly typical of the wars in Europe between 1789 and 1871), then the war waged by the oppressed state or nation is a progressive war. //, however, the "real nature" of the war lies in that it is being waged for the purpose of redistributing the colonies, for sharing loot, for robbing foreign countries (as is the war of 1914-16), then the phrase, defence bf the fatherland is a "wholesale deception of the people.''
How, then, can the "real nature" of a war be ascertained; how can it be determined? War is the continuation of politics. We must study the politics that preceded the war, the politics that led to and brought about the war. If the politics were imperialist politics, i£., politics in the interests of finance capital, of the robbery and oppression of colonies and foreign countries, then the war that emerged from these politics is an imperialistic war. If the politics were national-liberation politics, i^., the expression of a mass movement against national oppression, then the war that emerged from these politics is a war for national liberation.
The philistine does not understand that war is a "continuation of politics," and therefore limits himself to saying, "the enemy is attacking," "the enemy is invading my country," without trying to understand why, by which class, and for what political object the war is being conducted. P. Kievsky sinks to this philistine level when he argues: The Germans have occupied Belgium; therefore, from the standpoint of self-determination, "the Belgian socialpatriots are right"; or: The Germans have occupied part of France, therefore, "Guesde may be satisfied," because "the territory in question is populated by the indigenous nation" (and not by a foreign nation).
The important thing for the philistine is: Where are the armies standing? Who is winning at the particular moment? For the Marxists the important thing is what is the object of the particular war, in the course of which first one and then the other army may gain victories?
What is the object of the present war? This is indicated in our
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resolution (which is based on the politics pursued by the belligerent Powers for decades prior to the war). England, France and Russia are fighting to retain possession of the colonies diey have grabbed and to rob Turkey, etc. Germany is fighting to gain possession of these colonies and to rob Turkey, etc., herself. Let us assume that the Germans even take Paris and St. Petersburg. Will this change the nature of the present war? Not in the least. The object of the Germans---and, what is more important, the politics they can pursue if they are victorious---will then be to take possession of the colonies, to dominate Turkey, and to seize alien territory, for example Poland, etc.; but it will not be to impose an alien yoke on the French or the Russians. The real nature of the present war is not national, but imperialist. In other words, the war is not being fought because one side is overthrowing the yoke of national oppression while the other side is striving to retain it. It is being waged between two groups of oppressors, between two sets of robbers to decide how the loot is to be divided, to decide which of them is to rob Turkey and the colonies.
In short, a war between imperialist Great Powers (i.e., Powers which oppress a number of foreign nations, entangling them in the web of dependence on finance capital, etc.), or war in alliance with them, is an imperialist war. Such is the war of 1914-16; the plea of "defence of the fatherland" in this war is deception, it is used to justify the war.
A war against the imperialist Powers, i.e., Powers which oppress other nations, conducted by oppressed nations (for example, a war conducted by colonial people) is a genuine national war. Such wars are possible even at the present time. "Defence of the fatherland" in a war waged by a nationally oppressed country against the national oppressor is no deception, and Socialists are not opposed to "defence of the fatherland" in such a war.
Self-determination of nations is the same thing as the struggle for complete national liberation, for complete independence, against annexations; and Socialists cannot repudiate such a struggle, no matter what form it takes, even rebellion, or war, without ceasing to be Socialists.
P. Kievsky thinks that he is fighting Plekhanov, because, he says, it was Plekhanov who showed the connection between self-
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determination of nations and defence of the fatherland! P. Kievsky believed Plekhanov; he believed that this connection is really such as Plekhanov described it. Believing Plekhanov, P. Kievsky took fright and decides that it was necessary to repudiate self-- determination in order to escape Plekhanov's conclusions-----Great confidence
in Plekhanov, great fright, but not a trace of reflection on the nature of Plekhanov's error.
In order to palm off the present war as a national war, the socialchauvinists advance the plea of self-determination of nations. There is only one correct way of fighting them, and that is to show that this is not a struggle for the liberation of nations, but a struggle for the purpose of deciding which of the great robbers shall oppress more nations. To go so far as to repudiate a war which is really being fought for the liberation of nations is the worst caricature of Marxism. Plekhanov and the French social-chauvinists talk about republican France to justify ``defending'' it against monarchist Germany. If we adopted P. Kievsky's line of argument'we would have to oppose republics, or wars which are really being waged in defence of republics! ! The German social-chauvinists refer to universal suffrage and compulsory education in Germany to justify the ``defence'' of Germany against tsarism. If we were to adopt P. Kievsky's line of argument we would have opposed either universal suffrage and compulsory education, or wars which are really being waged against encroachments on political liberty!
Before the war of 1914-16 K. Kautsky was a Marxist, and a number of his extremely important works and declarations will forever remain models of Marxism. On August 26, 1910, Kautsky, writing in the Neue Zeit on the impending and threatening war said:
``In a war between Germany and England, the issue will be not democracy, but world domination, i.e., the exploitation of the world. This is not an issue on which Social-Democrats should take the side of the exploiters of their respective nations." (Neue Zeit, Vol. 28, No. 2, p. 776.)
Here is a splendid Marxist formula which fully coincides with ours, which completely exposes the present-day Kautsky who has turned from Marxism to the defence of social-chauvinism, and
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which very clearly explains the principles of the Marxian attitude towards war (we shall return to this formula in future articles). War is the continuation of politics; therefore, since struggles for democracy occur, wars for democracy are also possible; selfdetermination of nations is merely a democratic demand which, in principle, differs in no way from other democratic demands. Speaking briefly, the content of imperialist politics is "world domination" and the continuation of these politics is imperialist war. The repudiation of "defence of the fatherland," t£., participation in a democratic war, is nonsense, and has nothing in common with Marxism. To embellish the imperialist war by applying to it the concept "defence of the fatherland," i.e., palming-it off as a democratic war, means deceiving the workers, taking the side of the reactionary bourgeoisie.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ II. OUR CONCEPTION OF THE NEW EPOCHP. Kievsky, the author of the phrase quoted above, always speaks of the "new epoch." Unfortunately, here, too, his arguments are fallacious.
Our Party's resolutions speak of the present war as having been engendered by the general conditions of the imperialist epoch. The relation between the ``epoch'' and the "present war" is correctly put from the Marxist point of view; to be a Marxist, one must appraise each war separately and concretely. In order to understand why an imperialist war, i.e., a. war which from the political aspect is a most reactionary, anti-democratic war, could and had to break out between the Great Powers, many of which were at the head of the struggle for democracy between 1789 and 1871, one must understand the general conditions of the imperialist epoch, i.e.--- the transformation of capitalism in the advanced countries into imperialism.
P. Kievsky has entirely distorted this relation between the "epoch" and "the present war." According to him, to speak concretely is to speak about the ``epoch''! This is exactly where he is wrong.
The epoch between 1789 and 1871 is a special epoch for Europe. This is beyond dispute. It is impossible to understand any of the
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wars for national liberation that were so typical of that time unless one understands the general conditions of that epoch. Does this mean that all the wars of that epoch were wars for national liberation? Certainly not. It would be ridiculous to assert this; it would mean substituting an absurd stereotyped phrase for the concrete study of each separate war. In the period between 1789 and 1871 we also had colonial wars and wars between reactionary empires, which oppressed a number of foreign nations.
The question arises: Does it follow that, because advanced European (and American) capitalism has entered the new epoch of imperialism, only imperialist wars are possible at the present time? This would be an absurd assertion, revealing inability to distinguish a given concrete phenomenon from the sum total of different phenomena in a given epoch. An epoch is called an epoch precisely because it embraces the sum of different phenomena and wars, typical and non-typical, great and small, characteristic of the advanced countries, and also characteristic of backward countries. Brushing these concrete questions aside by advancing general phrases about the "epoch," as P. Kievsky does, is an abuse of the term "epoch." We shall quote in a moment one of many examples to prove this. But first we must mention that one of the Left groups, namely, the German International group, in § 5 of its theses published in No. 3 of the Bulletin of the Berne Executive Committee (February 29, 1916), is responsible for an obviously incorrect assertion. It says: "In this era of unbridled imperialism there can be no more national wars." We have examined this assertion in the Sborni\ Sotsial-DemoJ^rata.* Here we wish only to observe that although everyone interested in the internationalist movement has long known of this theoretical postulate (we opposed it even at the Enlarged Session of the Berne Executive Committee in the spring of 1916), not a single group has repeated it, nor has any of them adopted it to this day. Nor did P. Kievsky say anything like it when he wrote his article in August, 1916.
This must be noted for the following reason: If this, or a similar theoretical assertion had been made, we could say that a difference of opinion exists on a question of theory. Since, however, no such assertion has been advanced, we are compelled to say that we are
* Cj. p. 202 of this volume.---Ed.
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confronted not with a different conception of the "epoch," not with a disagreement on a question of theory, but merely with a carelessly dropped phrase, an abuse of the word "epoch." For example:
``Does it" (self-determination) "not resemble the right to receive gratis ten thousand desyatinas* of land on Mars?" writes Kievsky at the very beginning of his article. "The only reply that can be made to this question is an absolutely concrete one, which takes into account the nature of the present epoch. The right of nations to self-- determination in the epoch when national states were arising as the best form for the development of productive forces at the level prevailing at that time is one thing; but this right is another thing when these forms, national state forms, have become fetters on development. There is an enormous difference between the epoch of the self-establishment of capitalism and the national state and the epoch of the collapse of the national state and the eve of the collapse of capitalism itself. To speak 'generally,' outside of time and space, is not the business of a Marxist.''
This argument is an example of how the concept "imperialist epoch" may be transformed into a caricature. Precisely because this concept is new and important we must fight against this caricature! To what do we refer when we say that the national state forms have become fetters, etc. ? We refer to the advanced capitalist countries, primarily Germany, France and England, whose participation in the present war has given it the character, first and foremost, of an imperialist war. These countries, which hitherto, especially between 1789 and 1871, led humanity forward, have completed the process of becoming national states; the national movement in these countries is a thing of the irrevocable past, and it would be senseless, reactionary Utopia to attempt to revive it. The national movements of die French, the English and the Germans were consummated long ago; something else now occupies the historical arena; the nations which fought for liberation have now become oppressing nations, imperialist robber nations, and are on the "eve of the collapse of capitalism.''
But what about the other nations?
P. Kievsky keeps on repeating, like a rule learned by rote, that Marxists must argue ``concretely''; but he does not apply this pre-
* A desyafina = 2.7 acres.---Ed.
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cept. In our theses we deliberately provided an example of a concrete answer; but P. Kievsky did not care to point to our mistake, if he saw one there.
In our theses (§ 6) we said that to be concrete one must distinguish no less than three different types of countries in relation to the question of self-determination. (It was obviously impossible in general theses to speak of each country separately.) The first type: the advanced countries of Western Europe (and America), where the national movement is a thing of the past. The second type: Eastern Europe, where the national movement is a thing of the present. The third type: the semi-colonial and colonial countries, where the national movement is to a large extent a matter of the future.*
Is this true or not? This is the point on which P. Kievsky should have concentrated his criticism; but he does not even realise what theoretical questions are raised. He does not see that until he has refuted the above proposition (in § 6) of our theses---which cannot be refuted, because it is correct---his argument about the ``epoch'' is like beating the air.
``Contrary to the opinion of V. Ilyin," he writes at the end of his article, "we think that for the majority [!] of the Western [!] countries the national problem has not been solved....''
Perhaps the national movements of the French, the Spaniards, the English, the Dutch, the Germans and the Italians were not consummated in the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, or earlier? At the beginning of the article the concept "epoch of imperialism" is so distorted as to make it appear that the national movement has been consummated not only in the advanced Western countries, but generally. At the end of the same article the "national problem" is declared to be ``unsolved'' precisely in the Western countries!! Is that not confusion?
In the Western countries the national movement is a thing of the remote past. The ``fatherland'' in England, France, Germany, etc., has already had its day, it has already played its historical role, i.e., the national movement in those countries cannot produce anything progressive, anything capable of rousing new masses of people to new economic and political life. In these countries it is not the
* Cf. p. 55 of this volume.---Ed.
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transition from feudalism, or from patriarchal barbarism, to national progress, to a cultured and politically free fatherland that is on the historical order of the day, but the transition from the obsolete, capitalistically over-ripe ``fatherland'' to socialism.
In Eastern Europe the situation is different. Only a man who is dreaming that he is living on Mars can deny that as far as, for example, the Ukrainians or White Russians are concerned, the national movement has not yet been consummated, that the awakening of a desire among the masses to possess their native tongue and native literature (and this is a necessary condition for and concomitant of the full development of capitalism, of the thorough penetration of the exchange system into every peasant family) is still in progress there. The ``fatherland'' has not yet completely had its historical day. In these countries "defence of the fatherland" may still be defence of democracy, of the native tongue, of political freedom against oppressing nations, against medievalism; whereas the English, the French, the Germans and the Italians are now lying when they speak of defence of their fatherlands in the present war, for in reality they are defending not their native tongue, not their freedom of national development, but their rights as slaveowners, their colonies, their "spheres of influence," their finance capital in foreign countries, etc.
In the semi-colonial and colonial countries the national movement is even younger, historically, than it is in Eastern Europe.
What the words "highly developed countries" and the imperialist epoch refer to; what the ``specific'' situation of Russia (the subheading of § d in the second chapter of P. Kievsky's article) and not only of Russia are; where the movement for national liberation is a false phrase and where it is a living and progressive reality, P. Kievsky has absolutely failed to understand.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ III. WHAT IS ECONOMIC ANALYSIS ?The crux of the argument of the opponents of self-determination is that the latter is ``unachievable'' under capitalism, or under imperialism. The catchword "impossible of achievement" is often used in various and not precisely defined meanings. This is why
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we insisted in our theses on something which is essential in every theoretical discussion, namely, clarity as to the sense in which the catchword "impossible of achievement" is used. We did not confine ourselves to asking in what sense this word was meant, we made an attempt to explain it. In the sense that they are politically difficult or impossible to achieve without a series of revolutions, all democratic demands are "impossible of achievement" under imperialism.
To speak of self-determination being economically impossible is radically wrong.
This was our position. This is the crux of the theoretical controversy; and in a discussion that has any claim to being serious, this is a question our opponents should have concentrated their attention on.
But see how P. Kievsky argues on this question.
He definitely rejects the interpretation of ``unachievable'' in the sense that something is "difficult to achieve" for political reasons. He answers the question in the strict sense of economic impossibility.
``Does that mean," he writes, "that self-determination is as unachievable under imperialism as labour money is under the commodity system of production?" And he replies: "Yes, it does! For we are speaking about the logical contradiction between two social categories---' imperialism' and 'self-determination of nations'---a logical contradiction similar to that which exists between two other categories; 'labour money' and 'commodity production.' Imperialism is the negation of self-- determination; and no conjuror in the world can make self-determination and imperialism compatible.''
Formidable as the angry word ``conjuror'' which P. Kievsky hurls at us may be, we must nevertheless tell him that he simply does not understand what is meant by economic analysis. Of course, there must be no "logical contradiction" either in an economic or in a political analysis, providing, of course, that the reasoning is logical. Therefore, it is out of place to refer to "logical contradictions" in general when the point is that we must make an economic and not a political analysis. "Social categories" include both the economic and political. Consequently, although P. Kievsky at first definitely and bluntly said: "Yes, it does!" (i>., that self-determination is just as unachievable as labour money is under the commodity system of
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production), actually, he beats about the bush and fails to give an economic analysis.
How can the argument that labour money is unachievable under the commodity system of production be proved? By an economic analysis. This analysis, which, like every analysis, permits of no "logical contradictions," examines the economic, and only the economic categories (not "social" categories in general), and deduces from them that labour money is impossible. The first chapter of Capital says nothing at all about politics, or about political forms, or about "social categories" in general; the analysis examines only economic categories; the exchange of commodities, the development of the exchange of commodities. The economic analysis shows---by ``logical'' reasoning, of course---that labour money is unachievable under the commodity system of production.
P. Kievsky does not even attempt to make an economic analysis! He confuses the economic essence of imperialism with its political tendencies, as is evident from the very first passage of the first paragraph of his article. Here is the passage:
``Industrial capital was a synthesis of pre-capitalist production and merchant and loan capital. Usurers' capital found itself in the service of industrial capital. Today, capitalism is abolishing the different forms of capital; a higher, unified type is emerging, namely, finance capital, and, therefore, the whole epoch may be described as the epoch of finance capital, the corresponding system of foreign politics of which is imperialism.''
From the standpoint of economics this whole definition is worthless: instead of precise economic categories, we get mere phrases. But we cannot dwell on this at present. What is important is that P. Kievsky declares imperialism to be a "system of foreign politics.''
Firstly, this is an incorrect repetition of an incorrect idea of Kautsky's.
Secondly, it is purely a political, and only a political, definition of imperialism. By defining imperialism as a "system of politics," P. Kievsky wants to wriggle out of the economic analysis which he promised to give when he declared that self-determination is "just as" unachievable, i.e., economically unachievable, under imperialism as labour money is under commodity production!
In his controversy with the Lefts, Kautsky declared that imperial-
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ism is "only a system of foreign politics" (namely, annexations); that imperialism cannot be described as a certain economic stage, a stage of development of capitalism.
Kautsky is wrong. Of course, it is silly to argue about words. It is impossible to prohibit the use of the ``word'' imperialism in any one way or another. But terms must be precisely defined if one wants to carry on a discussion.
Economically, imperialism (or the ``epoch'' of finance capital---we will not argue about words) is the highest stage of development of capitalism, namely, the stage when production is carried on so large, so huge a scale that free competition is superseded by monopoly. This is the economic essence of imperialism. Monopoly manifests itself in trusts, syndicates, etc., in the omnipotence of gigantic banks, in the cornering of the sources of raw materials, etc., in the concentration of bank capital, etc. The whole point lies in economic monopoly.
The political superstructure of the new economy, of monopoly capitalism (imperialism is monopoly capitalism), is the turn from democracy to political reaction. Democracy corresponds to free competition. Political reaction corresponds to monopoly: "Finance capital strives for domination, not for freedom," as R. Hilferding correctly says in his Finance Capital.
To separate "foreign politics" from politics in general, or, still worse, to contrast foreign politics to home politics, is fundamentally wrong, un-Marxian and unscientific. Imperialism strives to violate democracy, strives towards reaction both in foreign politics and in home politics. In this sense, imperialism is, undoubtedly, the `` negation'' of democracy in general, democracy as a whole, and not of only one of the demands of democracy, namely, self-determination of nations.
Being the ``negation'' of democracy, imperialism is also the ``negation'' of democracy in the national question (i.e., selfdetermination of nations); "also," »>., it strives to violate it; its achievement under imperialism is more difficult to the same degree and in the same sense that the achievement of a republic, a militia, the election of public officials by the people, etc., are more difficult under imperialism (compared with pre-monopoly capitalism). ``Economic'' impossibility is out of the question.
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Probably, P. Kievsky was also misled here (apart from his general failure to understand the requirements of an economic analysis) by the fact that from the philistine point of view, annexations (i.e., the appropriation of alien territory against the will of its population, /'.<?., the violation of self-determination of nations), is equivalent to the ``expansion'' of finance capital to a wider economic territory.
But theoretical questions cannot be discussed from the Philistine point of view.
Economically, imperialism is monopoly capitalism. In order that monopoly may be complete, competitors must be eliminated, not only from the home market (the market of a given country), but also from the foreign market, from the whole world. Is it economically possible "in the area of finance capital" to eliminate competition even in a foreign country? Of course it is; the means to this end are---financial dependence, the cornering of sources of raw materials and the buying out of all the competitors' enterprises.
The American trusts are the highest expression of the economics of imperialism, or monopoly capitalism. The trusts do not confine themselves to economic means to eliminate competitors; they constantly resort to political and even criminal means. It would be a profound mistake to believe, however, that it is economically infeasible for a trust to secure a monopoly by purely economic methods of struggle. On the contrary, reality at every step proves that it is ``feasible''; the trusts undermine the credit of their competitors through the medium of the banks (the heads of the trusts are also the heads of the banks: buying up shares); the trusts hinder the transportation of materials to their competitors (the heads of the trusts are also the heads of the railroads: buying up shares); the trusts temporarily force down prices below cost of production and spend millions for this purpose in order to ruin their competitors and to buy up their enterprises and sources of raw material (mines, land, etc.).
This is the purely economic analysis of the power of the trusts and their expansion. This is the purely economic road towards expansion: buying up enterprises, business establishments and sources of raw materials.
Big finance capital in one country can always buy up competitors in another, politically independent, country, and always does so.
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Economically this is quite feasible. Economic ``annexation'' is quite ``feasible'' without political annexation, and constantly occurs. In the literature on imperialism one meets at every step with information such as, for example, that Argentina is really England's "trade colony," that Portugal is really England's "vassal," etc. This is true: economic dependence upon the English banks, indebtedness to England, England's buying up of the railroads, mines, lands, etc., in other countries, all this makes these countries England's `` annexations'' in the economic sense, although their political independence is not violated.
By self-determination of nations we mean the political independence of nations. Imperialism strives to destroy this, for with political annexation economic annexation is often more convenient, cheaper (it is easier to bribe public officials, to obtain concessions, to get a useful law passed, etc.), easier and less troublesome---just as imperialism strives to substitute oligarchy for democracy. But to talk about self-determination being economically ``infeasible'' under imperialism is sheer nonsense.
P. Kievsky evades theoretical difficulties by a very simple and very facile trick, which in German is called using "burschi\os" expressions, i.e., foolish and coarse expressions usually (and naturally) used at students' drinking bouts. Here is an example: "Universal suffrage," he writes, "the eight-hour day, and even a republic, are logically compatible with imperialism, although they are far from being alluring" (!!) "to imperialism, and their achievement is therefore made extremely difficult.''
We have no objection at all to the burschikps expression that a republic is not ``alluring'' to imperialism---a jolly catchword sometimes helps to brighten scientific matters!---if, however, in an argument on a serious question, an economic and political analysis of terms is also given. In P. Kievsky's article, burschi\os-ness is substituted for analysis, it covers up its absence.
What is the meaning of: "A republic is not alluring to imperialism"? And why is this so?
A republic is one of the possible forms of the political superstructure of capitalist society, and under present conditions, it is the most democratic form. To say that a republic is "not alluring" to imperialism, is to say that there is a contradiction between imperialism
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and democracy. It may very well be that our deduction is "not alluring" and even "far from alluring" to P. Kievsky, but it is indisputable, nevertheless.
Further! What kind of contradiction is there between imperialism and democracy? Is it a logical contradiction, or something else? P. Kievsky uses the word ``logical'' without thinking and therefore fails to notice that in this instance the word serves him as a means for concealing (from the eyes and the mind of the reader, as well as from the eyes and the mind of the writer himself) the very question which he set out to discuss! This is a question of the relation between economics and politics, the relation of the economic conditions and the economic content of imperialism to a certain political form. Every ``contradiction'' observed in human reasoning is a logical ``contradiction'': this is mere tautology. By means of such tautology, P. Kievsky evades the essence of the question: Is it a ``logical'' contradiction between two economic phenomena or propositions (i) ? Or between two political phenomena or propositions (2) ? Or between an economic and a political phenomenon or proposition (3)?
This is the essence of the question if we are discussing the economic infeasibility or feasibility under this or that political form!
If P. Kievsky had not evaded the essence of the question, he would probably have realised that the contradiction between imperialism and a republic is generally a contradiction between the economics of the latest form of capitalism (viz., monopoly capitalism) and political democracy. For P. Kievsky will never be able to prove that any important and fundamental democratic measure (election of public officials, or army officers, by the people, complete freedom of association and assembly, etc.) is less contradictory to imperialism (more ``alluring'' to it, if you like) than a republic.
What results is the very proposition we insisted upon in the theses, namely, that imperialism contradicts, "logically," contradicts, all political democracy in general. This proposition of ours is not ``alluring'' to P. Kievsky, for it destroys his illogical arguments, but what can we do? Should we remain silent when somebody alleges that he wants to refute certain propositions, but actually stealthily introduces these very propositions by declaring that "a republic is not alluring to imperialism''?
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Further. Why is a republic not alluring to imperialism? How does imperialism make its economics ``compatible'' with a republic ?
P. Kievsky did not think about this. We shall remind him of the following words of Engels. The subject under discussion was the democratic republic. The question put was: Can wealth rule under such a form of government? i.e., precisely the question of the `` contradiction'' between economics and politics.
Engels replies:
``... a democratic republic officially takes no cognisance of differences" (between citizens) "in wealth. . . . Under a republic wealth exercises power indirecdy, but all the more surely. On the one hand, in the form of direct bribery of public officials (a classic example of which is America), and on the other, in the form of an alliance between the government and the Stock Exchange___" *
This is an excellent example of an economic analysis of the question of the ``feasibility'' of democracy under capitalism, of which the question of the ``feasibility'' of self-determination under imperialism is only a small part!
``Logically," a democratic republic contradicts capitalism, because ``officially'' it places the poor and the rich on an equal footing. This is a contradiction between the economic system and the political superstructure. The same contradiction exists between imperialism and a republic, only it is intensified, or aggravated, because the substitution of monopoly for free competition makes the achievement of all political liberties more "difficult.''
Why, then, is capitalism compatible with democracy? Because the power of capital is exercised indirectly. There are two economic means by which this can be done: i) direct bribery; 2) an alliance between the government and the Stock Exchange. (In our theses we expressed this by saying that under the bourgeois system finance capital "freely buys and bribes any government and its officials.")
Since commodity production, the bourgeoisie and the power of money rule, bribery (direct, or through the Stock Exchange) is ``practicable'' under any form of government, no matter how democratic.
* Frederick Engels, The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (Chicago, 1902), pp. 209-10; (New York), p. 142.---Ed,
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What, then, is changed in this relation if imperialism is substituted for capitalism, i.e., monopoly capitalism for pre-monopoly capitalism?
Only that the power of the Stock Exchange becomes stronger! For finance capital is large-scale industrial capital, which has grown into monopoly and has merged with bank capital. The big banks merge with the Stock Exchange, they absorb it. (In the literature on imperialism we read about the diminishing role of the Stock Exchange, but only in the sense that every gigantic bank is a Stock Exchange in itself.)
Further. If it is quite practicable for ``wealth'' in general to rule over any democratic republic by means of bribery and the Stock Exchange, how can P. Kievsky assert, without falling into an amusing "logical contradiction," that it is impossible for the enormous wealth of trusts and banks which manipulate billions to ``exercise'' the rule of finance capital over a foreign, i.e., politically independent republic?
Is the bribery of public officials ``impracticable'' in a foreign country? Or is "alliance of the government with the Stock Exchange" an alliance only with the home government?
This is enough to enable the reader to see that to disentangle and explain the subject in a popular manner about ten printed pages would be needed for every ten lines of confusion. We cannot in such detail disentangle every one of P. Kievsky's arguments--- literally, not a single one of his arguments is free from confusion--- nor is this necessary, since the main argument has been analysed. We shall deal with the rest in brief.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ IV. THE EXAMPLE OF NORWAYNorway achieved the allegedly impossible right to self-- determination in 1905, in the era of the most unbridled imperialism. To argue about its being ``impossible'' is therefore not only theoretically absurd, but also ridiculous.
P. Kievsky wants to refute this by angrily calling us "rationalists." (What has this to do with it? A rationalist is one who confines himself to reasoning, and abstract reasoning, at that? whereas we
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have pointed to a very concrete fact! Is not P. Kievsky using the foreign word ``rationalists'' as---to put it as mildly as possible--- ``aptly'' as he used the word ``extractive'' at the beginning of his article, in presenting his arguments "in an extractive form"?)
P. Kievsky reproaches us with attaching "importance to the appearance of things rather than to their real substance." Well, let us examine the real substance.
The refutation begins with an example: the fact that an antitrust law has been passed does not prove that it is possible to prohibit .trusts. This is true; but the example is not well chosen, for it speaks against P. Kievsky. A law is a political measure, it is politics. No political measure can prohibit economics. The political form that Poland may assume, whether she is a part of tsarist Russia or of Germany, or an autonomous province, or an independent political state, will not prevent nor abolish her dependence upon the finance capital of the imperialist Powers and the buying out of Polish enterprises by this finance capital.
The independence of Norway ``achieved'' in 1905 was only political independence. She did not intend to, nor could she, alter her economic dependence. This is exactly what our theses say. We pointed out that self-determination only concerns politics and that it was therefore wrong even to broach the question of economic infeasibility. But P. Kievsky ``refutes'' us by citing an example showing that political prohibitions are powerless against economics! A fine "refutation," indeed!
Further. "One, or even many examples of small enterprises outcompeting large enterprises are insufficient to refute Marx's correct thesis that the general process of capitalist development is accompanied by the concentration and the centralisation of production.''
This argument also consists of an ill-chosen example cited for the purpose of diverting attention (of both the reader and the writer himself) from the real point at issue.
Our thesis states that it is wrong to speak of self-determination being economically infeasible in the same sense in which labour money is infeasible under capitalism. Not a single ``example'' of a possibility of this kind can be quoted. P. Kievsky tacitly admits that we are right on this point, for he proceeds to give a different interpretation of "infeasibility.''
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Why does he not do this openly? Why does he not formulate his own thesis openly and definitely: "Self-determination, while feasible, in the sense of being economically possible under capitalism, is in contradiction to development and, therefore, is eidier reactionary, or is possible only in exceptional cases''?
Because an open formulation of this counter-thesis would immediately expose the writer; therefore, he is obliged to conceal himself.
The law of economic concentration, of the victory of large-scale production over small production, is recognised in our programme and in the Erfurt Programme. P. Kievsky conceals the fact that nowhere has a law of political or state concentration received recognition. If this is a similar law, or a law at all, why does not P. Kievsky formulate it and propose that it be added to our programme? Is it fair for him to leave us with a bad, incomplete programme when he has discovered this new law of state concentration, a law that has practical significance, for it would rid our programme of mistaken conclusions?
P. Kievsky gives us no formulation of this law; he does not propose that it be added to our programme, because he vaguely feels that this would make him ridiculous. Everybody would laugh at this curious "imperialist economism" if such an opinion were publicly expressed, if this "law" of big states squeezing out small states were advanced (in conjunction with, or on a par with) the law of large-scale production squeezing out small production.
To make this clear, we shall put just one question to P. Kievsky: Why is it that economists (without quotation marks) do not write about the ``break-up'' of modern trusts or big banks, about the possibility of such a break-up, or about its feasibility ? Why is even the "imperialist economist" (in quotation marks) compelled to admit the possibility and feasibility of die break-up of large states; not only the break-up of large states in general, but, for example, the secession of the "small nationalities" (please note!) from Russia (§ d, chapter 2, of P. Kievsky's article) ?
Finally, in order to explain more clearly what our author's argument leads to, and in order to warn him, we note the following: We all openly advance the law of large-scale production squeezing out small production, and nobody is afraid to describe individual
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``examples" of "small enterprises out-competing big enterprises" as a reactionary phenomenon. But none of the opponents of selfdetermination has as yet dared to describe the separation of Norway from Sweden as reactionary, although we raised this question in our literature as early as 1914.*
Large-scale production is infeasible when, for example, hand lathes are kept in use; the idea of a large mechanised factory " breaking up" into small workshops where hand work prevails is absolutely absurd. The imperialist tendency towards the formation of large empires is quite possible, and is often actually achieved in the form of an imperialist alliance of politically sovereign and independent states. Such an alliance is possible and is observed, not only in the form of the economic merging of the finance capital of two countries, but also in the form of military ``collaboration'' in an imperialist war. National struggle, national revolt, national secession are quite ``feasible'' and may actually be observed under imperialism; they even increase in intensity, for imperialism does not check the development of capitalism and the growth of democratic tendencies among the masses of population, but causes the antagonism between these democratic tendencies and the antidemocratic tendency of the trusts to become more acute.
Only from the point of view of "imperialist economism," i.e., of the caricature of Marxism, is it possible to ignore, for example, the following peculiar phenomenon in imperialistic politics: On the one hand, the present imperialist war provides examples of how, by virtue of financial connections and economic interests, it is possible to draw a small, politically independent state into a struggle between Great Powers (England and Portugal). On the other hand, the violation of democracy in respect to small nations that are more powerless (both economically and politically) against their imperialist ``protectors'' gives rise either to rebellion (Ireland) or to the desertion of whole regiments to the enemy (Czechs). Under such circumstances, it is not only "feasible," from the point of view of finance capital, but sometimes is even to the direct advantage of the trusts, of their imperialist politics and of their imperialist war, to grant to certain small nations the largest possible amount of
•V. I. Lenin, "The Right of Nations to Self-Determination," Collected Worlds, Volume XVII, Russian edition.---Ed.
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democratic freedom, and even complete political independence so as to relieve ``their'' military operations of all risk. To forget the peculiarities of political and strategic interrelations and to repeat at every opportune and inopportune occasion the stereotyped word ``imperialism'' is not Marxian at all.
About Norway, P. Kievsky informs us, first, that it "was always an independent state." This is not true, and this untrue assertion can only be ascribed to the author's burschit(os carelessness and inattention to political questions. Up to 1905, Norway was not an independent state; it merely enjoyed exceedingly wide autonomy. Norway's political independence was recognised by Sweden only after Norway had seceded from it. If Norway had "always been an independent state," there would have been no need for the Swedish government, on October 26, 1905, to have informed the foreign Powers that it had recognised Norway as an independent country.
Secondly, P. Kievsky quotes a number of excerpts from various sources to show that Norway looked to the West, while Sweden looked to the East; that it was mainly British finance capital that was ``active'' in one country and German finance capital in the other, etc., and then he solemnly declares: "This example" (of Norway) "completely fits into our scheme.''
What a fine example of the logic of "imperialist economism"! Our theses state that finance capital may rule in ``any'' country, "even in an independent country," and that, therefore, all arguments about self-determination being ``infeasible'' from the point of view of finance capital merely reveal confusion of mind. We are presented with facts confirming our thesis on the role of foreign finance capital in Norway before and after secession---and this is done with an air as if they refuted us!
To mention finance capital and on these grounds to forget political questions---can this be called discussing politics?
No, the logical errors of ``economism'' have not caused the political questions to disappear. British finance capital was ``active'' in Norway before and after her secession. German finance capital was ``active'' in Poland before her secession from Russia and will continue to be ``active'' there no matter what the political status of Poland may be. This is so elementary that one is almost ashamed to repeat it, but what can one do when people forget their ABC?
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But does this dismiss the political question of Norway's status, of her adherence to Sweden, or of the attitude of the workers when the question of secession arose?
P. Kievsky evades these questions because they hit the `` economists'' very hard. But in real life these questions arise and they confront us now. The question actually arose as to whether a Swedish worker who did not recognise the right of Norway to separate could be regarded as a Social-Democrat. He could not be so regarded.
The Swedish aristocrats were in favour of war against Norway; so were the clergy. This fact does not disappear because P. Kievsky ``forgot'' to read about this in histories of the Norwegian people. A Swedish worker could advise the Norwegians to vote against secession and remain a Social-Democrat (the plebiscite in Norway on the question of secession was held on August 13, 1905, and the vote was 368,200 votes for secession and 184 against, about 80 per cent of those entitled to vote participating). But a Swedish worker, who, like the Swedish aristocracy and bourgeoisie denied the right of the Norwegians to decide this question for themselves, independently of the Swedes, and irrespective of their wishes, would be a social-chauvinist and a scoundrel, not to be tolerated in the Social-Democratic Party.
This is how § 9 of our Party programme, which our "imperialist economist" tried to sl^ip, should be applied. Gentlemen, you cannot skip it without falling into the arms of chauvinism.
But what about the Norwegian worker? Was he, from the point of view of internationalism, obliged to vote for secession? Not at all. He could have voted against it and remained a Social-- Democrat. He would have violated his duty as a member of the SocialDemocratic Party only if he had extended the hand of friendship to a Black Hundred Swedish worker who opposed Norway's right to secede.
Some people refuse to see this elementary difference between the position of the Norwegian workers and that of the Swedish workers. They expose themselves, however, when they evade this most concrete of all the very concrete political problems, which we squarely put to them. They are silent, they wriggle, and thus surrender their position.
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To prove that the ``Norwegian'' question may arise also in Russia, we deliberately advanced the following thesis: under certain purely military and strategic conditions, we said, a separate Polish state is quite feasible even now. P. Kievsky wants to ``discuss''--- but remains silent!!
We will add: On purely military and strategic grounds, and with a given outcome of the present imperialist war (for example, if Sweden joined the Germans and they gained a semi-victory), it would be quite possible for Finland, too, to become a separate state, without thereby diminishing the ``feasibility'' of a single operation of finance capital, and without making ``infeasible'' the buying up of stock in the Finnish railroads and other enterprises.*
P. Kievsky seeks refuge from unpleasant political questions in the shade of a magnificent phrase, which is remarkably characteristic of all his ``arguments'': "Any minute" (this is literally what is written at the end of § c, chapter i) "the sword of Damocles may drop and put an end to die existence of the `independent' workshop." (A ``hint'' at little Sweden and Norway.)
This, if you please, is real Marxism: Norway has existed as a separate state for a matter of ten years, her secession from Sweden was described by the Swedish government as a "revolutionary measure." But is it worth while analysing the political questions arising from this; considering that we have read Hilferding's Finance Capital and have ``understood'' it to mean that "any minute"---if you are going to strike, strike hard---the small state may disappear? Is it worth while worrying about die fact that we have perverted Marxism into "economism," and our politics into a repetition of the speeches of the real Russian chauvinists?
* If with a given outcome of the present war, the formation of new states in Europe: Poland, Finland, etc., is quite ``feasible'' without in the least disturbing the conditions of development of imperialism or its power---but, on the contrary, may even strengthen the influence, the connections and the pressure of finance capital---then, with a different outcome the formation of a new Hungarian, Czech or other state is equally "feasible." The British imperialists are already mapping out this latter outcome in anticipation of their victory. The imperialist epoch destroys neither the striving of nations towards political independence nor the ``possibility'' of achieving its ends within the framework of world imperialist relations. Outside of this framework, neither a republic in Russia, nor any extensive democratic reforms anywhere in the world, are ``feasible'' without a series of revolutions; nor can they be permanent without socialism. P. Kievsky has utterly failed to understand the relation between imperialism and democracy.
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How mistaken the Russian workers must have been in 1905 when they fought for a republic! Finance capital had already been mobilised against it in France, England, etc., and the "sword of Damocles" was ready to drop down upon it "any minute" if it came into existence!
``The demand for national self-determination is not... Utopian in a minimum programme; it does not contradict social development, inasmuch as its achievement would not stop that development." P. Kievsky challenges this quotation from Martov in the paragraph of his article in which he ``quotes'' the passages about Norway which prove over and over again the well-known fact that neither development in general, nor the growth of the operations of finance capital in particular, nor the buying up of Norway by the British, staffed Norway's ``self-determination'' and secession!
More than once we have had Bolsheviks who, like Alexinsky in 1908-10, argued against Martov •just when Martov was right! God save us from such ``allies''!
__ALPHA_LVL3__ V. ``MONISM AND DUALISM''Reproaching us for "interpreting the demand dualistically," P. Kievsky says:
``Dualistic propaganda is substituted for the monistic action of the International.''
This sounds quite Marxian, materialistic: action which is monistic is contrasted with propaganda which is "dualistic." Unfortunately, after examining this more closely we are compelled to say that this sort of ``monism'' is just as verbal as was the ``monism'' of Diihring. "If I include a shoe brush in the unity of mammals," Engels wrote in opposing Diihring's ``monism'' "this does not help it to get lacteal glands." *
This means that we can declare only such things, qualities, phenomena and actions to be a ``unity'' which are a unity in objective reality. It was just this "detail" that our author forgot! He thinks we are "dualists," first, because primarily we call upon the workers
•Frederick Engels, Heir Eugen DuAring's Revolution in Science (New York, 1939). P- 49----Ed.
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in the oppressing nations to do something different---in relation only to the national problem---from what we call upon the workers in the oppressed nations to do.
In order to determine whether or not P. Kievsky's ``monism'' is the same as Duhring's "monism," we must see what the objective situation is.
Is the actual condition of the workers in the oppressing nations the same as that of the workers in the oppressed nations from the standpoint of the national problem?
No, they are not the same.
1. Economically, the difference is that sections of the working class in the oppressing nations receive crumbs of the super-profits which the bourgeoisie of the oppressing nations obtain by the extra exploitation of the workers of the oppressed nations. Moreover, economic data show that a larger percentage of the workers of the oppressing nations become ``foremen'' than the workers of the oppressed nations, i.e., a larger percentage rise to the position of the labour aristocrasy.* This is a fact. To a certain degree the workers of the oppressing nation share with their bourgeoisie in the plunder of the workers (and the masses of the population) of the oppressed nations.
2. Politically, the difference is that the workers of the oppressing nations occupy a privileged position in many spheres of political life compared with the workers of the oppressed nation.
3. Intellectually, or spiritually, the difference is that the workers of the oppressing nations are taught, at school and in everyday life, to regard the workers of the oppressed nations with disdain and contempt. Every Great Russian, for example, who has been brought up or who has lived among Great Russians, has experienced this.
Thus, all along the line, we see differences in the objective situation, Le., there is ``dualism'' in the objective world, which is independent of the will and consciousness of individual persons.
That being the case, what is to be said about P. Kievsky's phrase: the ``monistic'' action of the International?
It is an empty, sonorous phrase, and nothing more.
In order that the action of the International, which in real life
* See, for instance, Hourwich's book, in English, on immigration and the condition of the working class in America. [I. A. Hourwich, Immigration and Labour.}
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consists of workers who are divided into those belonging to oppressing nations and those belonging to oppressed nations, may be monistic action, propaganda must be carried on differently in each case. This is how we must argue from the point of view of real (not Diihring) monism, from the point of view of Marxian materialism!
An example? We have (in the legal press over two years ago!) given the example of Norway, and nobody has attempted to refute us. In this concrete case taken from life, the action of the Norwegian and Swedish workers was "monistic," unified, internationalist, only because and in so far as the Swedish workers unconditionally championed the right of Norway to secede, while the Norwegian workers raised the question of secession only conditionally. If the Swedish workers had not been unconditionally in favour of the right of the Norwegians to secede they would have been chauvinists, brothers-- inarms of the chauvinist Swedish landlords, who wished to ``retain'' Norway by force, by war. If the Norwegian workers had not raised the question of secession conditionally, i£., so that even members of the Social-Democratic Party could conduct propaganda and vote against secession, the Norwegian workers would have failed in their duty as internationalists and would have sunk to narrow, bourgeois, Norwegian nationalism. Why? Because the separation was effected by the bourgeoisie, and not by the proletariat! Because the Norwegian bourgeoisie, like any other bourgeoisie, always strives to drive a wedge between the workers of its own country and the workers of ``foreign'' countries! Because every democratic demand (including self-determination) is, for the class conscious workers, subordinated to the higher interests of socialism. If, for example, the secession of Norway from Sweden had created the certainty or probability of war between England and Germany, the Norwegian workers, for this very reason, would have had to oppose secession, while the Swedish workers would have had the right and the opportunity, without ceasing to be Socialists, to carry on agitation against secession, provided they conducted a systematic, consistent and constant struggle against the Swedish government for the right of Norway to secede. Otherwise, the Norwegian workers and the Norwegian people would not and could not have believed in the sincerity of the advice offered by the Swedish workers.
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The trouble with the opponents of self-determination is that they make shift with dead abstractions, and are afraid to analyse to the end even a single concrete case taken from real life. The concrete statement in our theses, that the establishment of a new Polish state is quite ``feasible'' at the present time, given a certain combination of purely military, strategic conditions,* was never objected to either by the Poles, or by P. Kievsky. But no one cared to draw the logical deduction from this tacit admission that we were right. The logical deduction is obviously that the propaganda conducted by internationalists cannot be the same for the Russians and the Poles if it is to train both for "monistic action." It is the duty of the Great-Russian (and the German) worker to stand unconditionally for Poland's right to secession; if he does not do that he will in fact be serving as the lackey of Nicholas II or of Hindenburg. The Polish worker could stand for separation only conditionally, because to gamble (as does the "Frafyi" f) on the victory of one or the other imperialist bourgeoisie is equivalent to becoming its lackey. To fail to understand this difference, which is a prerequisite for the "monistic action" of the International, is on a par with failing to understand why "monistic action" against the tsarist army, say near Moscow, demands that the revolutionary forces marching from Nizhni should proceed westward, while those from Smolensk should proceed eastward.
Secondly, our new advocate of Diihring monism reproaches us for not troubling about "the closest organisational unity of the various national sections of the International," in the event of a social revolution.
Under socialism, writes P. Kievsky, self-determination falls away, since the state itself falls away. This is supposed to be an argument against us! But in our theses we state clearly and definitely in three lines, in.the three last lines of the first section, that "democracy is also a form of state which must disappear when the state disappears." J It is precisely this truth that P. Kievsky repeats---to ``refute'' us, of course!---over several pages of his section c (chapter
* Cf. p. 48 of this volume.----Erf.
t The Right-wing faction of the Polish Socialist Party.---Ed.
t Cf. pp. 54-55 of this volume,---Ed.
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i), while at the same time distorting it. "We picture to ourselves," he writes, "and have always pictured the socialist system as a strictly democratic" (!!?), "centralised, economic system under which the state, as the apparatus for the domination of one part of the population over the other, disappears.''
This is confusion, because democracy also represents the domination "of one part of the population over the other," it is also a form of state. Our author obviously does not understand what is meant by the state withering away after the victory of socialism, nor does he understand what the conditions of this process are.
The main point, however, is his ``objections'' regarding the epoch of the social revolution. Hurling the frightfully abusive epithet, "Talmudists of self-determination" at us, the author says: "We picture this process" (the social revolution) "as the united action of the proletarians of all [!!] countries, who break down the frontiers of the bourgeois [!! ] state, who remove the frontier posts" (in addition to "breaking down the frontiers"?), "who blow up [!!] national unity and establish class unity.''
At the risk of incurring the wrath of the stern judge of the "Talmudists," we must say: There is much phrasemongering here, but no "sense.''
The social revolution cannot be the united action of the proletarians of all countries, for the simple reason that the majority of the countries and the majority of the inhabitants of the globe have not even reached die capitalist stage of development, or are only at the beginning of that stage. We stated this in § 6 of our dieses,* but P. Kievsky, either because he is inattentive, or because he is unable to think, "failed to observe" that diis section was deliberately inserted for the purpose of refuting caricaturist distortions of Marxism. The advanced countries of Western Europe and of North America alone are ripe for socialism, and in Engels' letter to Kautsky (Sborni\ Sotsial-Demofy-ata) ,^^48^^ P. Kievsky may find a concrete illustration of the real and not merely promised "idea" that to dream of the "united action of the proletarians of all countries" means postponing socialism to the Greek Calends, i.e., forever.
Socialism will be achieved by the united action of the proletarians, not of all countries, but of a minority of countries, namely, of the
* Cf. pp. 54-55 of this volume.---Ed.
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countries that have reached the stage of development of advanced capitalism. P. Kievsky's failure to understand this point is the cause of his error. In those advanced countries (England, France, Germany, etc.), the national problem was solved long ago; national unity has long outlived its purpose; objectively, there are no " national tasks" to be fulfilled. Hence, only in those countries is it possible now to "blow up" national unity, and establish class unity.
In the undeveloped countries, which we singled out (in § 6 of our theses) in paragraphs 2 and 3, namely, in the whole of Eastern Europe and all the colonial and semi-colonial countries, the situation is entirely different. In those countries as a general rule, we still have oppressed and capitalistically undeveloped nations. Objectively, these nations still have national tasks to fulfil, namely, democratic tasks, the tasks of throwing off foreign oppression.
As an example of precisely such nations, Engels quoted India, and said that she may make a revolution against victorious socialism, for Engels was remote from that ridiculous "Imperialist economism" which imagines that the proletariat, having achieved victory in the advanced countries, will ``automatically'' without definite democratic measures, abolish national oppression everywhere. The victorious proletariat will reorganise the countries in which it has achieved victory. This cannot be done all at once; nor indeed is it possible to ``vanquish'' the bourgeoisie all at once. We deliberately emphasised this in our theses, and P. Kievsky has again failed to stop and think why we stressed this point in connection with the national problem.
The undeveloped and oppressed nations are not waiting, they are not ceasing to live, they are not disappearing, while the proletariat of the advanced countries is overthrowing the bourgeoisie and repelling its attempts at counter-revolution. If, to rise in rebellion, they (the colonies, Ireland), take advantage of an imperialist bourgeois crisis like the war of 1915-16, which is only a minor crisis compared with social revolution, we can be quite sure that they, all the more so, will take advantage of the great crises of civil war in the advanced countries.
The social revolution cannot come about except in the form of an epoch of proletarian civil war against the bourgeoisie in the advanced countries combined with a whole series of democratic and
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revolutionary movements, including movements for national liberation, in the undeveloped, backward and oppressed nations.
Why? Because capitalism develops unevenly, and objective reality gives us highly developed capitalist nations side by side with a number of nations only slightly developed economically, or totally undeveloped. P. Kievsky has absolutely failed to study the objective conditions of the social revolution from the point of view of the economic maturity of the various countries. Hence, the reproach he hurls at us for ``inventing'' cases for applying self-determination falls not on our head, but on his own.
With a zeal worthy of a better cause, P. Kievsky repeatedly quotes Marx and Engels to the effect that "we must not invent things out of our own head, but, by using our head, we must discover in existing material conditions" the means to free humanity from social evils. When I read these oft-repeated quotations I cannot help recalling the ``Economists'' of sad memory who, like P. Kievsky, tiresomely chewed the cud over their "new discovery" about the victory of capitalism in Russia. P. Kievsky wants to ``shock'' us with these quotations, because, he claims, we invent, out of our own head, the conditions for applying national self-determination in the epoch of imperialism! But in P. Kievsky's own article we find the following "unguarded admission":
``The very fact that we are opposed" (author's italics) "to defence of the fatherland is clear enough evidence that we will actively resist the suppression of a national uprising, for in doing so we will be fighting against our mortal enemy, imperialism." (Chapter 2, § c of P. Kievsky's article.)
One cannot criticise an author, one cannot reply to him, unless one quotes in full at least the main postulates he propounds. But as soon as we quote in full even one of P. Kievsky's propositions, we immediately find that every sentence contains two or three errors, or unfinished thoughts, which distort Marxism!
i. P. Kievsky failed to observe that a national uprising is also "defence of the fatherland." A little reflection, however, would convince any one that this is so, since every "nation in revolt" `` defends'' itself, its language, its country, its fatherland, against the oppressing nation.
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All national oppression calls forth the resistance of the broad masses of the people; and the resistance of a nationally oppressed population always tends towards national revolt. Frequently ( particularly in Austria and Russia), the bourgeoisie of the oppressed nations merely tal^s about national revolt, while in actual practice it enters into reactionary agreements with the bourgeoisie of the oppressing nations behind the backs of, and against, its own people. In such cases the criticism of revolutionary Marxists must be directed, not against the national movement, but against its being degraded, vulgarised and reduced to a petty squabble. By the way, many Austrian and Russian Social-Democrats forget this and in their legitimate hatred of the petty, vulgar and sordid national squabbles, as for example, the arguments and squabbles over the question as to which language shall have precedence on street signs,* they refuse to support the national struggle. We shall not ``support'' the farcical playing at republics in, say, the principality of Monaco, or the ``republican'' adventures of ``generals'' in the small states of South America, or on any of the Pacific Islands, but this does not mean that we must forget the slogan of a republic for the serious democratic and socialist movements. We do and must ridicule the sordid national squabbles and haggling of nations in Russia and Austria, but this does not mean that we can withhold support from a national uprising or from any serious popular struggle against national oppression.
2. If national uprisings are impossible in the "imperialist epoch," P. Kievsky is wrong in speaking about them. If they are possible, all his endless phrases about "monism," about our ``inventing'' examples of self-determination under imperialism, etc., etc., simply evaporate into thin air. P. Kievsky defeats himself.
If ``we'' "actively resist the suppression" "of a national uprising" ---which P. Kievsky himself regards as possible---what follows?
It follows that we get a twofold---or, if we may be permitted to employ a philosophical term as inappropriately as our author does ---``dualistic'' action: a) in the first place, it is the ``action'' of a
*In certain dual language countries the demand is made for the names of streets to be written in both languages, and disputes arise as to which language shall be written on the top line of the name plate and which shall be written on the lower line.---Ed.
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nationally oppressed proletariat and peasantry jointly with the nationally oppressed bourgeoisie against the oppressing nation; b) secondly, it is the ``action'' of the proletariat, or of the class conscious section of it, in the oppressing nation, against the bourgeoisie and all the elements that follow it, in the oppressing nation.
The innumerable phrases against a "national bloc," national " illusions," the ``poison'' of nationalism, against "fanning national hatred" and the like, that P. Kievsky piles up, prove to be nonsense because, when he advises the proletariat of the oppressing countries (let us not forget that the author regards this proletariat as a serious force) to "actively resist the suppression of a national uprising," he thereby fans national hatred, he supports the establishment of a "bloc" between the workers and the bourgeoisie in the oppressed nations.
3. If national uprisings are possible under imperialism, so are national wars. Politically, there is no important difference between them. The military historians are perfectly right when they put rebellions in the same category as wars. Without thinking, P. Kievsky has defeated not only himself, but also Junius * and the International group who deny that national wars are possible under imperialism. And this denial is the only conceivable theoretical ground for the view which repudiates self-determination of nations under imperialism.
4. What is a ``national'' uprising? It is an uprising that has for its object the political independence of the oppressed nation, ie., the establishment of a separate national state.
If the proletariat of the oppressing nation is a serious force (as our author assumes, and must assume, in the epoch of imperialism), does not the determination of that proletariat to "actively resist the suppression of a national uprising" imply assistance in creating a separate national state? Of course it does!
Our brave repudiator of the ``feasibility'' of self-determination went so far as to say that the class conscious proletariat of the advanced countries must help to achieve this "unachievable measure.''
5. Why must ``we'' "actively resist" the suppression of a national uprising? P. Kievsky advances only one reason; he says: "... because we will be fighting against our mortal enemy, imperialism.''
* Rosa Luxemburg.---Ed.
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All the strength of this argument lies in the strong word "mortal," which is in keeping with the author's general practice of employing strong and sonorous words like "driving a stake into the quivering flesh of the bourgeoisie" and similar stylistic embellishments in the spirit of Alexinsky, instead of employing strong arguments.
But P. Kievsky's argument is wrong. Imperialism is as much our ``mortal'' enemy as is capitalism. That is so. No Marxist will forget, however, that capitalism is progressive compared with feudalism and that imperialism is progressive compared with pre-monopoly capitalism. Hence, it is not our duty to support every struggle against imperialism. We will not support the struggle of the reactionary classes against imperialism; we will not support an uprising of the reactionary classes against imperialism and capitalism.
Consequently, if the author admits that we must support an uprising of oppressed nations (to "actively resist" the suppression means supporting the uprising), he also admits that a national uprising is progressive, he admits that the establishment of a new, separate state, of new frontiers, etc., in the event of the uprising being successful, is progressive.
The author fails to draw the logical conclusion from a single one of his political arguments.
The Irish Rebellion of 1916, which took place after our theses were published in Vorbote, No. 2, proved, by the way, that it was not idle to speak of national uprisings even in Europe!
__ALPHA_LVL3__ VI. OTHER POLITICAL QUESTIONS TOUCHED UPON ANDWe declared in our theses that the liberation of the colonies is nothing but the self-determination of nations. Europeans often forget that colonial peoples are also nations, but to tolerate such ``forgetfulness'' is to tolerate chauvinism.
P. Kievsky ``objects'':
(In the pure type of colony) "there is no proletariat in the proper sense of the word" (end of § c, chapter 2). "For whom, then, shall we demand `self-determination'? For the colonial bourgeoisie? For the fellaheen? For the peasants? Of course not. It is absurd for Socialist/' (P. Kievsky's italics) "to advance the slogan of self-determination for
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colonies, because, generally, it is absurd to advance workers' party slogans for countries where there are no workers.''
Terrible as is the wrath of P. Kievsky, who declares that our point of view is "absurd," we take the liberty of respectfully telling him that his arguments are mistaken. Only the ``economists'' of sad memory believed that ``workers' party slogans" are advanced only for workers.* These slogans are advanced for the whole working population, for the whole people. The democratic section of our programme, to the significance of which P. Kievsky has never given a thought, is specially addressed to the people as a whole, and that is why, in that section, we say, the "people." f
We have classed as colonial and semi-colonial peoples a population of a thousand million, and P. Kievsky has never taken the trouble to refute this very concrete statement. Of this thousand million, over seven hundred million (the population of China, India, Persia and Egypt) live in countries where there are workers. But even for those colonial countries where there are no workers, where there are only slave-owners and slaves, etc., it is not only not absurd but obligatory for every Marxist to advance the slogan of "self-determination." When P. Kievsky thinks the matter over a little, he will probably understand this, as he will also understand that ``self-determination'' is always advanced ``for'' two nations, for the oppressed nation and the oppressing nation.
Another ``objection'' by P. Kievsky:
``Consequently, with regard to the colonies, we confine ourselves to a negative slogan, i.e., to a demand which the Socialists must put to their governments: 'Get out of the colonies!' This demand, which cannot be realised within the framework of capitalism, intensifies the struggle against imperialism, but does not run counter to development, for socialist society will not own colonies.''
The author's inability, or unwillingness, to give at least a little thought to the theoretical content of political slogans is simply
* We advise P. Kievsky to re-read the writings of A. Martynov and Co. of the period 1889-1901. There he will find many of "his own" arguments.
t Some funny opponents of "self-determination of nations" advance against us the argument that ``nations'' are divided into classes! We usually reply to these caricature Marxists that in the democratic section of our programme we speak of "sovereignty of the people.''
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amazing! Does the fact that we employ an agitational phrase instead of a theoretically precise political term make any difference whatever to the argument? To say, "Get out of the colonies," means precisely to evade a theoretical analysis by hiding in the shade of an agitational phrase! Every agitator in our Party, in speaking of the Ukraine, Poland, Finland, etc., has the right to say to tsarism ("to his government") "Get out of Finland," etc.; but an intelligent agitator will understand that neither positive nor negative slogans can be advanced merely for the purpose of ``intensifying'' the struggle. Only men of the type of Alexinsky could insist that the `` negative'' slogan, "Get out of the Black Duma," could be justified by the striving to ``intensify'' the struggle against a certain evil.
Intensifying the struggle is an empty phrase of subjectivists who forget that for the justification of every slogan Marxism demands a precise analysis of economic reality, of the political background and of the political meaning of the slogan. It is unpleasant to repeat this over and over again, but what can we do, if we are compelled to do so?
We are quite familiar with this Alexinsky method of abruptly interrupting a theoretical discussion of a theoretical problem by agitational exclamations, but it is a bad method. Both the political and the economic content of the slogan, "Get out of the colonies," amounts to one thing, and one thing only: freedom of secession for the colonial nations; freedom to establish a separate state! If, as P. Kievsky thinks, the general laws of imperialism hinder the self-determination of nations, if they make it a Utopia, an illusion, etc., etc., then how can one thoughtlessly exempt from these general laws the majority of the nations of the world? Obviously, P. Kievsky's ``theory'' is a caricature of a theory.
Commodity production and capitalism, the ties of finance capital, exist in the overwhelming majority of the colonial countries. How, then, can one call upon the states, the governments of the imperialist countries to "get out of the colonies," if, from the point of view of commodity production, of capitalism and imperialism, this is an "unscientific," ``utopian'' demand, rejected even by Lensch, Cunow, etc.?
There is not a shadow of an idea in the author's arguments!
It never occurred to the author that the liberation of the colonies
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is ``unrealisable'' only in the sense that it "cannot be realised without a series of revolutions." Nor did it occur to him that it can be realised in connection with the socialist revolution in Europe. It did not occur to him that "socialist society will not own" not only colonies, but any oppressed nations whatever. Nor did it occur to him that there is no economic or political difference between Russia's ``owning'' Poland or Turkestan, as far as the question under discussion is concerned. It did not occur to him that "socialist society" will want to "get out of the colonies" only in the sense that it will grant them the right to free secession, but not in the sense that it will recommend secession to them.
For drawing a distinction between recognising the right to secede and recommending secession P. Kievsky calls us "jugglers." In order to "scientifically justify" this epithet before the workers, he writes:
``What will a worker think, when, on asking a propagandist what attitude a proletarian must take towards the question of independence" (i.e., the political independence of the Ukraine) "he is told that Socialists fight for the right to secede, but carry on propaganda against secession?''
I think I can give a very fairly precise answer to this question. I believe that every intelligent worker will thin\ that P. Kievsky cannot thinly.
Every intelligent worker "will think": P. Kievsky himself teaches us workers to shout, "Get out of the colonies." That means that we Great-Russian workers must demand that our government should get out of Mongolia, Turkestan and Persia, and that the British workers must demand that their government get out of Egypt, India, Persia, etc. But does that mean that we proletarians want to be separated from the Egyptian workers and fellaheens, from the Mongolian, or Turkestan or Indian workers and peasants ? Does it mean that we advise the masses of the toilers of the colonies to ``separate'' from the class-conscious European proletariat? Nothing of the kind. We have always stood, we stand now, and will stand in the future for the closest friendship between and amalgamation of the class-conscious workers of the advanced countries with the workers, peasants and slaves of all oppressed nations. We have al-
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ways advised and always will advise all the oppressed classes of all the oppressed countries, including the colonies, not to separate from us, but to come closer to us, to amalgamate with us.
We demand that our governments should get out of the colonies ---/'.<?., employing, not a propagandist cry, but a definite political term---that they should grant the colonies complete freedom of secession, the real right to self-determination; and we pledge ourselves to grant this right and this freedom the moment we gain power; but we put this demand to the present government, and we shall grant it when we ourselves are in power, not because we ``recommend'' secession, but, on the contrary, because we desire to facilitate and hasten the democratic rapprochement and amalgamation of nations. We shall exert every effort to become friendly and to amalgamate with the Mongolians, the Persians, the Indians and Egyptians; we deem it our duty and in our interest to do so, for otherwise socialism in Europe will not be durable. We shall strive to give these nations, which are more backward and more oppressed than we are, "unselfish cultural aid," to use the happy expression of the Polish Social-Democrats, «'.<?., we shall help them to introduce machinery in order to ease their toil; we shall help them on towards democracy and socialism.
When we demand freedom of secession for the Mongolians, Persians, Egyptians and all oppressed and disfranchised nations without exceptions, we do so, not because we want them to secede, but only because we are in favour of a free, voluntary and not a forcible coming together and amalgamation of nations. It is for this reason and this reason alone!
And in this respect the only difference we see between the Mongolian and Egyptian peasants and workers and the Polish and Finnish peasants and workers is that the latter are highly developed, politically more experienced and economically better equipped than the Great Russians, etc., and therefore they probably will very soon convince their people, who now justly hate the Great Russians for the executioner's role they are playing, that it is not wise to extend this hatred to the socialist workers and to a socialist Russia, that economic interests as well as the instinct and the consciousness of internationalism and democracy demand the speediest establishment of intimacy among and amalgamation of all na-
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tions in a socialist society. Since the Poles and the Finns are highly cultured, they, in all probability, will very soon realise that this argument is correct, and the secession of Poland and Finland after the victory of socialism can only be of very short duration. The fellaheens, the Mongolians and the Persians, who are infinitely less cultured, may secede for a longer period; but we shall try to shorten this period, as we have said, by unselfish cultural aid.
There is no other difference between our attitude towards the Poles and that towards Mongolians, nor can there be any other. There is no ``contradiction'' and there can be none between propaganda in favour of the freedom of secession of nations, between the firm determination to grant this freedom as soon as we are in power, and the propaganda in favour of the intimacy among and amalgamation of nations.
This is what we are convinced every intelligent worker, every real Socialist, every real internationalist "will think" about our controversy with P. Kievsky.*
But what about Russia ? The peculiar feature of Russia is that the difference between "our" colonies and ``our'' oppressed nations is not clear, not concrete and not vital!
While it may be excusable for a Marxist, writing, say, in Germany, to forget this peculiar feature of Russia, it is not excusable for P. Kievsky. A Russian Socialist who does not merely repeat what others say, but who things for himself, must realise that as far as Russia is concerned, it is particularly absurd to attempt to draw a serious distinction between oppressed nations and colonies.
Throughout P. Kievsky's article there runs like a red thread the following query: Why should we advocate and, when we get into power, grant freedom of secession to nations, when the whole trend of development is towards the amalgamation of nations? To this we reply: For the same reason that we advocate and, when in
•Apparently, P. Kievsky has merely repeated the slogan, "Get out of the colonies," after certain German and Dutch Marxists, without giving a thought either to the theoretical content and meaning of this slogan, or to the concrete, peculiar conditions of Russia. The Dutch or German Marxists can be excused---to a certain extent---for limiting themselves to the slogan, "Get out of the colonies," firstly, because for the majority of the West-European countries the typical form of national oppression is colonial oppression, and, secondly, because the term ``colonies'' is a particularly clear, obvious and vital one in Western European countries.
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power, will establish, the dictatorship of the proletariat, although the whole trend of development is towards the abolition of the violent rule of one section of society over the other. Dictatorship is the rule of one section of society over the whole of society, rule directly based on violence. The dictatorship of the proletariat, of the only class that is thoroughly revolutionary, is essential for the overthrow of the bourgeoisie and for frustrating its counterrevolutionary efforts. The dictatorship of the proletariat is so important that anyone who repudiates it, or who merely renders lip service to it, cannot be a member of the Social-Democratic Party. It cannot be denied, however, that in certain cases, as exceptions to the rule---for example, in a small state adjacent to a big state in which the social revolution has been accomplished---the bourgeoisie, having become convinced that resistance is useless, and preferring to save their heads, may surrender power peacefully. It is much more probable, of course, that even in small states, socialism will not be achieved without civil war, and therefore, the only programme international Social-Democracy can advance is the recognition of such a war, notwithstanding the fact that violence against the person is not part of our ideal. Mutatis mutandis (with corresponding changes), the same is also true with regard to nations. We are in favour of the amalgamation of nations, but today there can be no transition from forcible amalgamation, from annexations, to voluntary amalgamation unless there is freedom of secession. We recognise, and rightly recognise, the preeminence of the economic factor, but to interpret it a la P. Kievsky means to stoop to a caricature of Marxism. Under modern imperialism, even trusts, even banks, while equally inevitable under developed capitalism, do not bear the same concrete form in all countries. Still less similar, notwithstanding dieir general homogeneity, are the political forms of the advanced imperialist countries: America, England, France and Germany. A similar diversity will manifest itself on the road which humanity is travelling from the imperialism of today to the socialist revolution of tomorrow. All nations will reach socialism; this is inevitable. But not all nations will reach socialism in the same way; each will introduce a special feature in the form of democracy it adopts, in the form of the proletarian dictatorship, and in the rate at which it carries out the reconstruction of the various phases of
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social life. In this respect there can be nothing more ignorant theoretically, and more absurd in practice, than "in the name of historical materialism" to paint the future in a uniform, drab colour: that would be a mere Suzdal daub.* Even if facts were to prove that only one-five-hundredth of the now oppressed nations will become free and secede before the first victory of the socialist proletariat, that only one-five-hundredth of the oppressed nations will secede for a very short period before the last victory of the socialist proletariat has been achieved in the world («.?., during the vicissitudes of the incipient socialist revolution), we would still be correct theoretically, practically, and politically in advising the workers today to ban from the Social-Democratic Parties those socialists of the oppressing nations who do not recognise and do not advocate the freedom of secession for all oppressed nations. For, actually, we do not and cannot know what number of oppressed nations will have to secede in order to make their contribution to the diversity of forms of democracy and forms of transition to socialism. But we do know, see, and appreciate every day that repudiation of freedom of secession today is utterly false in theory, and in practice renders service to the chauvinists in the oppressing nations.
``We emphasise," says P. Kievsky in a footnote to the passage we have quoted, "that we fully support the demand 'against forcible annexations.'"
To our very definite declaration that such a ``demand'' is tantamount to this recognition of self-determination, that it is impossible to give a correct definition of the term ``annexations'' without reducing it to self-determination, our author makes no reply whatever. He must think that in a controversy it is good enough to advance postulates and demands widiout proving that they are correct!
``Generally speaking," he continues, "we fully accept in their negative formulation a number of demands, which sharpen the consciousness of the proletariat against imperialism; for it is utterly impossible, on the basis of the present system, to select adequate positive formulations. Against the war, but not for a democratic peace....''
This is untrue from the first word to the last. The author read our resolution on "Pacifism and the Peace Slogan" (pp. 44-45 of die
•Referring to the handicraft workers of the town of Suzdal, in the former Vladimir Province, noted for their cheap paintings of icons.---Ed.
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pamphlet Socialism and War* and, I believe, approved of it; but obviously, he did not understand it. We are in favour of a democratic peace, but we warn the workers against the deception that such a peace is possible under the present bourgeois governments, "without a series of revolutions," as we put it in our resolution. We have declared, that the propaganda of peace in the "abstract," if., peace propaganda that does not take into account the actual class, nature, or, to be more exact, the imperialist nature of the •present governments of the belligerent countries, is a means of fooling the workers. We definitely declared in the theses of the Sotsial-Demof(rat (No. 47), that if our Party were placed in power by the revolution during the present war, it would immediately propose a democratic peace to all the belligerent countries.f
Assuring himself and others that he is opposed ``only'' to selfdetermination and not to democracy in general, P. Kievsky finally comes to the conclusion that we "are not in favour of a democratic peace." Now isn't this a curiosity?
There is no need to dwell at length on all the other examples that P. Kievsky cites, for it would be simply wasting space to refute the logical errors they reveal, as naive as those quoted above, and would only make every reader smile. Social-Democracy does not and cannot advance a single ``negative'' slogan that would merely serve "to sharpen the consciousness of the proletariat against imperialism," without at the same time giving a positive answer to the question as to how Social-Democracy would solve the same problem if it were in power. A ``negative'' slogan that is not connected with a definite positive decision does not ``sharpen'' the mind, but blunts it, for such a slogan is an empty sound, an idle shout, meaningless declamation.
P. Kievsky has failed to understand the difference between slogans that ``deny'' or condemn political evils, and those that condemn economic evils. The difference is that certain economic evils are inherent in capitalism, no matter what the political superstructure may be; that it is economically impossible to abolish these evils without abolishing capitalism; and that not a single instance of such evils having been abolished can be cited. On the other hand, political
«V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. XVIII, p. 149.---Ed. t Ibid., p. 358.---Erf.
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evils are departures from democracy, which economically is quite possible "on the basis of the present system," i£., under capitalism, and which, in exceptional cases, is carried out under capitalism in parts, as it were, one part in one state and one part in another. The author has again failed to understand the general conditions under which democracy in general is feasible!
The same holds true with regard to the question of divorce. We would remind the reader that this problem was first raised by Rosa Luxemburg in the discussion on the national question. Rosa Luxemburg rightly expressed the view that while advocating autonomy within a state (for a province, or a region, etc.) we Social-Democrats, as centralists, must insist that the most important questions of state, among which she included divorce legislation, be decided by the central state authority, the central parliament. This question of divorce is a striking illustration of the fact that one cannot be a democrat and a Socialist without immediately demanding full freedom of divorce, for the absence of such freedom is an additional burden on the oppressed sex, woman---although it is not at all difficult to understand that the recognition of the right of women to leave their husbands is not an invitation to all wives to do so!
To this P. Kievsky ``replies'':
``What would be the use of this right" (divorce) "if in these cases" (when the wife wants to leave her husband) "the wife could not exercise it, or if the exercise of this right depended on the will of third persons, or, worse still, if it depended on the will of the pretenders to the `hand' of that wife? Would we insist on the promulgation of such a right? Of course not!''
This argument reveals a complete failure to understand the relation between democracy in general and capitalism. Under capitalism it is usually the case, and not the exception, that the oppressed classes cannot ``exercise'' their democratic rights. In most cases the right to divorce is not exercised under capitalism, because the oppressed sex is crushed economically; because, no matter how democratic die state may be, the woman remains a "domestic slave" under capitalism, a slave of the bedroom, nursery and kitchen. The right to elect ``our'' judges, public officials, teachers, jurors, etc., cannot be exercised under capitalism, in the majority
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of cases, because the workers and peasants are economically downtrodden. The same is true of a democratic republic. Our programme ``proclaims'' the republic as "the sovereignty of the people," although every Social-Democrat knows perfectly well that under capitalism the most democratic republic leads merely to the bribery of the officials by the bourgeoisie and to an alliance between the Stock Exchange and the government.
Only those who are totally incapable of thinking, or those who are entirely unfamiliar with Marxism, will conclude that, therefore, a republic is of no use, that freedom of divorce is of no use, that democracy is of no use, that self-determination of nations is of no use! Marxists know that democracy does not abolish class oppression, but only makes the class struggle clearer, broader, more open and sharper; and this is what we want. The more complete freedom of divorce is, the clearer will it be to the woman that the source of her "domestic slavery" is not the lack of rights, but capitalism. The more democratic the system of government is, the clearer it will be to the workers that the root of the evil is not the lack of rights, but capitalism. The more complete national equality is (and it is not complete without freedom of secession), the clearer will it be to the workers of die oppressed nation that it is not a question of lack of rights, but of capitalism. And so on.
We say once again: it is unpleasant to repeat the ABC of Marxism over and over again, but what can we do if P. Kievsky does not know it?
P. Kievsky argues about divorce in the same way as, I recollect, Semkovsky, one of the foreign secretaries of the Organization Committee, argued about it in the Paris Golos. It is true, he argued, that freedom of divorce is not an invitation to all wives to leave their husbands, but if we try to persuade a wife that all other husbands are better than her own, it amounts to the same thing!!
In arguing in this way Semkovsky forgot that being a crank is not in itself a breach of socialist and democratic duty. If Semkovsky tried to persuade a wife that all other husbands were better than her own, nobody would regard this as a breach of democratic duty; the most that would be said would be that there are cranks in every big party! But if Semkovsky took it into his head to defend, and to describe as a democrat, a man who repudiates die right to divorce,
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who, for example, would go to court, or to the police, or to the church to prevent his wife from leaving him, we are sure that even the majority of Semkovsky's colleagues in the foreign secretariat would repudiate him, even though they are rather poor socialists.
Both Semkovsky and P. Kievsky ``talked'' about divorce, revealed a lack of understanding, and evaded the essential point of the question, viz., that the right to divorce, like all democratic rights under capitalism without exception, is difficult to exercise, is conventional, restricted, formal and narrow. Nevertheless, no respectable SocialDemocrat would consider any one who repudiated this right a democrat, let alone a socialist. This is the whole point. ``Democracy'' is nothing but the proclaiming and exercising of ``rights'' that are very little and very conventionally exercised under capitalism. But unless these rights are proclaimed, unless a struggle for immediate rights is waged, unless the masses are educated in the spirit of such a struggle, socialism is impossible.
Having failed to understand this, P. Kievsky, in his article, also evades the main question pertaining to his special subject, namely, the question of how we Social-Democrats will abolish national oppression. P. Kievsky evades the question with phrases about how the world will be "drenched in blood," etc. (which has nothing to do with the case). The whole of his arguments can be boiled down to this one point: the socialist revolution will solve everything. Or, as those who share P. Kievsky's views sometimes say, selfdetermination under capitalism is impossible, under socialism it is superfluous.
This view is theoretically absurd; practically and politically it is chauvinism. It reveals a lack of understanding of the meaning of democracy. Socialism without democracy is impossible in a double sense: i) The proletariat cannot achieve the socialist revolution unless it is prepared for this task by the struggle for democracy; 2) Victorious socialism cannot retain its victory and lead humanity to the stage when the state withers away unless it establishes complete democracy. Therefore, when it is argued that self-determination is superfluous under socialism, it is as absurd and hopelessly confused as saying that democracy is superfluous under socialism.
Self-determination is just as impossible under capitalism and just as superfluous under socialism, as democracy in general.
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The economic revolution is creating the necessary condition for the abolition of all forms of political oppression. That is why it is illogical and wrong to evade the question with reference to the economic revolution in discussing the question of how to abolish national oppression. It cannot be abolished without an economic revolution. This is beyond dispute. But to confine oneself to this alone means to sink into ridiculous and miserable imperialist "economism.''
We must introduce national equality; we must proclaim, formulate, and put into practice equal ``rights'' for all nations. All are agreed on this, except, perhaps, P. Kievsky. But here again arises the question which is evaded: Is not the repudiation of the right to form a separate national state the repudiation of equality?
Of course it is. This is why consistent, i.e., socialist democracy, proclaims, formulates and puts this right into practice; for there are no other means of bringing about a rapprochement and amalgamation of nations.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ VII. CONCLUSION. ALEXINSKY'S METHODSWe have not analysed all of P. Kievsky's arguments, by far. To analyse all would have meant writing an article five times the length of this one, for Kievsky does not advance a single correct argument. The only thing that is correct in his article, that is, if there are no mistakes in the figures, is a footnote in which he quotes some statistics about banks. All the rest is a hopeless tangle of confusion, spiced with phrases like "driving a stake in the quivering flesh," "we will not only try the conquering heroes, but condemn them to death and extermination," "in the most horrible convulsions a new world will be born," "and then it will not be a matter of charters and rights, not of promulgating freedom of nations, but of establishing really free relations, of destroying age-long slavery, abolishing social oppression in general, and national oppression in particular," etc., etc.
These phrases cover up and express two ``things'': firstly, the fact that they are based on the ``idea'' of imperialist "economism," which is as monstrous a caricature of Marxism, as complete a failure to
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understand the relation between socialism and democracy as was the ``economism'' of 1894-1902, of sad memory.
Secondly, we see in these phrases a repetition of the methods employed by Alexinsky, and this is worthy of special attention, for P. Kievsky composed a whole paragraph in his article (chapter 2, §e, "The Special Position of the Jews") exclusively by these methods.
Even at the London Congress in 1907, the Bolsheviks turned away from Alexinsky when, in reply to theoretical arguments, he assumed the pose of an agitator declaiming high-sounding phrases against some form or other of exploitation or oppression, totally irrelevant to the subject. "The squealing has started," our delegates used to say, when he held forth. And this ``squealing'' did Alexinsky no good.
We hear exactly the same ``squealing'' from P. Kievsky. Not knowing how to meet the series of theoretical questions and arguments advanced in the theses, he assumes the pose of an agitator and begins to declaim phrases about the oppression of the Jews; though it is perfectly clear to anybody capable of thinking at all that neither the Jewish question nor P. Kievsky's ``exclamations'' have anything whatever to do with the subject.
Alexinsky's methods lead to no good.
Written in the beginning of October, 1916. First published in Zvezda, Nos. i and 2, 1924.
[264] __ALPHA_LVL2__ LETTER TO N. D. KIKNADZED'ear Comrade!
You dispute my remarks about the possibility of transforming also the present imperialist war into a national war.
Your argument? "We shall have to defend an imperialist fatherland....''
Is this logical? If the fatherland remains "imperialist" how can the war be a national war?
This talk about ``possibilities'' was in my opinion incorrectly, from the theoretical point of view, introduced by Radek and by § 5 of the Theses of the International.
Marxism rests on the basis of facts and not on possibilities.
Marxism must base its policies only on precise and indisputably proven facts.
This is exactly what is done in our (Party) resolution.* If, instead of this, we are presented with "impossibility," I reply: it is wrong, non-Marxian, hackneyed. All sorts of transformations are possible.
I quote an historical fact (the wars of 1792-1815). I take as an illustration the possibility of a similar thing happening even at the present time (if things develop backward).
In my opinion, you mix up the possible (the talk about which was not begun by me!) with the real, when you think that if we admit the possibility, we may change our tactics. This is illogical in the extreme.
I admit the possibility of a Social-Democrat becoming transformed into a bourgeois and vice versa.
This is an indisputable fact. But does it follow that I would admit that a certain bourgeois, say Plekhanov, is now a SocialDemocrat? No, it does not follow. What about the possibility? Let us wait until it becomes a reality.
*V. I. Lenin, Collected War\s, Volume XVHI, p. 145.---Ed.
264LETTER TO N. D. KIKNADZE 265
This is all there is to it. It is precisely in the ``methodology'' (to which you refer) that we have to distinguish between the possible and the real.
All sorts of transformations are possible, even that a fool may be transformed into a clever man... but in reality such transformations are rare. And I shall not cease to regard such a fool as a fool merely for the sake of the ``possibility'' of transformation.
Your doubts about ``dual'' education are not clear to me. Both in Prosveshcheniye* and in an article against Kievsky, f I quoted a concrete example (Norway).
To this you do not reply!! You quote the extremely vague example of Poland.
This is not ``dual'' education; this is reducing different things to a common denominator; it is like the roads from Nizhni-Novgorod and from Smolensk leading to the one city of Moscow.
A Swedish Social-Democrat who does not stand for the freedom of separation for Norway is a scoundrel. This you do not dispute. A Norwegian may be either for or against separation. Is unity in this question a requisite for all Social-Democrats of all countries? No. This is mechanical, ridiculously mechanical, a ridiculous pretence.
We never condemned Polish Social-Democrats (I wrote that in Prosveshcheniye) because they were against the independence of Poland.
Instead of a simple, clear and theoretically indisputable argument: one cannot be now for this tynd of a democratic demand (an independent Poland), which in practice will fully subjugate us to one of the imperialist powers or coalitions (this is indisputable, and enough of it; it is necessary and sufficient)---instead of that they talked till they reached the absurdity: "unrealisable.''
We ridiculed this in 1903 and again in April 1916.
The good old Polish Social-Democrats almost, almost proved that the creation of a new Polish state was unrealisable, only... only the imperialist Hindenburg intervened: he went ahead and did it.
What ridiculous doctrinairianism is reached by people, who want
*V. I. Lenin, "The Right of Nations to Self-Determination," Collected Worlds, Vol. XVII, Russian Edition, pp. 450-55.---Erf. t Cf. pp. 214-263 of this volume,---E4,
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(from a Cracow viewpoint *^^9^^) to deepen (or to make stupid?) * the "economic phase"!!
In their writings the P.S.-D. reached the negation of `` Staatenbau''\ \ But isn't democracy as a whole ``Staatenbau''? And the independence of the Dutch Indies, which Gorter demands, is that not Staatenbau?
We are for the freedom of separation of the Dutch Indies. But is a Social-Democrat of the Dutch Indies required to be in favour of separation? There you have another example of an allegedly ``dual'' education.
War is the continuation of politics. Belgium is a colonial country. This is your argument. But are we not able to determine which policy is being continued by the present war, whether a policy of Belgian slave-ownership or of Belgian liberation?
I think we are.
If a mistake is made, it will be about the facts.
National wars must not be ``prohibited'' (as Radek wants to do) for fear that fools or scoundrels will once again palm off an imperialist war as a national war!! It is ridiculous, but it is what Radek's argument amounts to.
We are not opposed to national rebellion, but in favour of it. This is clear. We cannot go any further. We shall examine each concrete case separately, and then, perhaps, we shall not regard the rebellion of the Southern states of America in 1863 as a "national rebellion....''
I had Engels' article from Griinberg's Archives, but I sent it to Gregory. When he returns it, / will send it to you. With a firm handshake,
Yours,
LENIN. N.K.f wishes me very much to send also her regards.
Written in October, 1916.
First published in the Lenin Miscellany, Vol. HI, 1925.
*A play on words in the Russian.---Ed.
tNad«?hda Konstantinovna Krupskaya, Lenin's wife,---E4,
[267] __ALPHA_LVL2__ THE DISCUSSION ON SELF-DETERMINATIONIN No. 2 of the Marxist magazine of the Zimmerwald Left, the Predvestni}^ (Vorbote, No. 2, April 1916) there appeared theses for and against self-determination of nations, signed by the editors of our central organ, the Sotsial-Demo\rat, and by the editors of the organ of the Polish Social-Democratic opposition, Gazeta Robotnicza. The reader will find above* a reproduction of the former and a translation of the latter theses. This, perhaps, is the first time that this question has been raised so broadly in the international arena; the discussion which was conducted in the German Marxist magazine, Neue Zeit, twenty years ago, 1895-96, before the London International Socialist Congress of 1896, by Rosa Luxemburg, K. Kautsky and the Polish "Nepodleglostsevtsi"^^50^^ (advocates of Polish independence, the P.P.S.), representing three different points of view, revolved only around Poland. As far as we know, the question of self-determination has up to now been discussed more or less systematically only by the Dutch and the Poles. Let us hope that the Vorbote will stimulate a discussion of this now very urgent question among the English, Americans, French, Germans and Italians. Official Socialism, represented by open partisans of ``their'' respective governments, the Plekhanov, David and Co., as well as by the covert defenders of opportunism, the Kautskyanists ( including Axelrod, Martov, Chkheidze, etc.), has spun such a web of lies around this question that for a long time there will inevitably be, on the one hand, efforts to wriggle and avoid discussion, and on the other hand, demands from the workers for "direct answers" to "vexed questions." We shall endeavour to keep our readers informed about the conflict of opinion among foreign Socialists.
For us, Russian Social-Democrats, however, the question is of particular importance. This discussion is a continuation of the one
* Cf. pp. 47-60 of this volume.---Ed.
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of 1903 and 1913; since the war this question has caused some wavering of opinion among members of our Party; it has been made acute by the cunning attempts of eminent leaders of the Gvozdevist, or chauvinist labour party, such as Martov and Chkheidze, to evade the main issue. It is therefore necessary to give at least a preliminary summation of the discussion which has already begun in the international arena.
As is evident from the theses, our Polish comrades give us a direct answer to some of our arguments, for instance, on Marxism and Proudhonism. For the most part, however, they reply to us, not directly, but indirectly, by advancing their own statements. Let us examine their direct and indirect answers.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ I. SOCIALISM AND THE SELF-DETERMINATION OF NATIONSWe maintained that it would be a betrayal of socialism to refuse to grant the right of self-determination of nations under socialism. To this the reply is made: "The right of self-determination is not applicable to socialist society." The disagreement is fundamental. What is its source?
``We know," our opponents contend, "that socialism will eliminate all national oppression because it will eliminate all class interests that lead to it...." But why introduce arguments about the economic premises of the abolition of national oppression, which we heard long ago and do not dispute, into a discussion on one of the forms of political oppression, namely, the forcible retention of one nation within the state boundaries of another nation? This is simply an attempt to evade political questions! The arguments that follow still further strengthen us in this opinion:
``We have no reason to assume that the nation in socialist society will represent an economic-political unit. In all probability it will merely represent a cultural and language unit, since the territorial division of the socialist cultural circle, in so far as it will exist at all, can take place only in accordance with the requirements of production, and the question of this division must naturally be decided, not by separate nations, each having complete independent power (as is demanded by 'the right to self-determination') but jointly by all the citizens interested. ...''
DISCUSSION ON SELF-DETERMINATION 269
This last argument, about joint determination instead o£ selfdetermination, pleases the Polish comrades so much that they repeat it three times in their theses! But frequent repetition does not change this Octobrist and reactionary argument into a SocialDemocratic one, for all reactionaries and the bourgeois grant the nations forcibly retained within the boundaries of a given state the right "jointly to decide" their fate in a common parliament. Wilhelm II also grants the Belgians the right "jointly to decide" in a common German parliament the fate of die German Empire.
The very point that is in dispute, the very question that is the exclusive subject of discussion, namely, the right of secession, our opponents attempt to evade. It would be comical were it not so sad!
In our very first thesis it is stated that the liberation of oppressed nationalities presupposes a twofold change in the sphere of politics:
1) Complete equality of all nationalities. There is no dispute about this, and it applies only to what takes place within the state;
2) Freedom of political secession.* This concerns the determination of the boundaries of the state. This alone is in dispute. And this is the very point our opponents ignore. They refuse to consider the question of state boundaries, or even of the state in general. This is a sort of "Imperialist Economism" similar to the old ``Economism'' of 1894-1902, which argued in this way: Capital is victorious, therefore it is no use raising political questions. Imperialism is victorious, therefore it is no use raising political questions! Such a political theory is essentially hostile to Marxism.
In his Critique of the Gotha Programme Marx wrote:
``Between capitalist and communist society lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. There corresponds to this also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat." f
Up to now this axiom has never been disputed by Socialists, and yet it implies the recognition of the existence of the state right up to the time when victorious socialism has grown into complete
* Cf. p. 48 of this volume.---Ed.
fKarl Marx, Critique of the Gotha Programme (New York, 1938), p. 18.---Ed.
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communism. Engels' dictum about the withering away of the state is well known. In our very first thesis we purposely emphasised that democracy is a form of state that will also wither away when the state withers away.
And until our opponents have substituted for Marxism some new ``non-state'' point of view, we must say that their argument is thoroughly mistaken.
Instead of speaking about the state (and consequently, about defining its boundaries^), they speak of a "socialist cultural circle," i£., they deliberately select a vague expression which obliterates all questions concerning the state. What results is ridiculous tautology: of course, if there is no state, there can be no question of its boundaries. That being the case, the whole democratic political programme is superfluous. Nor will there be a republic when the state "withers away.''
The German chauvinist, Lensch, in articles to which we refer in thesis No. 5 (note),* quoted an interesting passage from Engels' The Po and the Rhine. In this work Engels says, inter alia, that the boundaries of "great and virile European nations," which in the course of historical development have absorbed a number of small and devitalized nations, have been determined more and more "by the language and sympathies" of the population. Those boundaries Engels calls ``natural'' boundaries. This is what occurred in the epoch of progressive capitalism in Europe, approximately between 1848 and 1871. At the present time reactionary imperialist capitalism is more and more often breaking down these democratically determined boundaries. All symptoms show that imperialism will leave to its successor, socialism, a heritage of less democratic boundaries, a number of annexations in Europe and in other parts of the globe. Well, will victorious socialism, in restoring democracy and applying it logically all along the line, reject democratic means of determining the boundaries of a state? Will it refuse to take the ``sympathies'' of the population into consideration ? One has only to put these questions to see plainly that our Polish colleagues are slipping from Marxism into "imperialist economism.''
The old "economists," distorting Marxism into a caricature, taught the workers that ``only'' ``economics'' is important for
* Cf. p. 54 of this volume.---Ed.
DISCUSSION ON SELF-DETERMINATION 271
Marxists. The new ``Economists'' either assume that the democratic state of victorious socialism will exist without boundaries (like a "complex of sensations" without matter), or that the boundaries will be drawn ``only'' in accordance with the requirements of production. As a matter of fact, those boundaries will be drawn democratically, i.e., in accordance with the wishes and the ``sympathies'' of the population. Capitalism violates these sympathies and thus creates fresh obstacles to the establishment of intimacy between nations. Socialism, by organizing production without class oppression and by ensuring the well-being of all members of the state, gives full scope to the ``sympathies'' of the population, and precisely by virtue of this facilitates and enormously accelerates the establishment of intimacy among and amalgamation of nations.
In order to relieve the reader somewhat of this tiresome and clumsy "Economism," we shall quote the arguments of a Socialist writer who is not involved in our controversy. This writer is Otto Bauer, who has a ``kink'' of his own, namely, "cultural-national autonomy," but who reasons very correctly on a number of very important questions. For instance, in § 29 of his book, The National Question and Social-Democracy, he rightly points out that nationalist ideology may serve as a screen for imperialist policy. In § 30, "Socialism and the Principle of Nationalism," he says:
``A socialist community will never be able forcibly to retain whole nations within its boundaries. Picture to yourselves whole masses of people possessing all the advantages of national culture, fully and actively participating in legislation and administration and equipped with arms---would it be possible forcibly to subject such nations to the rule of an alien social organism? Every state power rests on the force of arms. The people's army of today, thanks to cunning machinations, is still a weapon in the hands of a definite person, family or class, just as the armies of knights and mercenaries were in the past. The army of the democratic community in socialist society would be nothing more nor less than the armed nation, for it would consist of highly cultured people, working voluntarily in public workshops and fully participating in all fields of the life of the state. Under such conditions, all possibility of alien national rule disappears.''
This is true. It is impossible, under capitalism, to abolish national (or any political) oppression. To do this it is necessary to abolish
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classes, i.e., introduce socialism. However, although based on economics, socialism is by no means exclusively economics. To abolish national oppression a foundation is necessary, namely, socialist production; but on this foundation a democratically organised state, a democratic army, etc., must also be built. By transforming capitalism into socialism, the proletariat creates the possibility for the complete abolition of national oppression; this possibility will become reality ``only''---``only''---when complete democracy is introduced in all spheres, including the fixing of state boundaries in accordance with the ``sympathies'' of the population, and including complete freedom of secession. This, in turn, will, in practice, lead to the complete elimination of all national friction, of all national suspicion, to the speedy establishment of intimacy between and amalgamation of nations, culminating in the " withering away" of the state. This is the theory of Marxism from which our Polish colleagues have mistakenly departed.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ II. IS DEMOCRACY FEASIBLE UNDER IMPERIALISM ?All the old polemics of the Polish Social-Democrats against selfdetermination of nations are based on the argument that it is ``infeasible'' under capitalism. As far back as 1903, we Isfoa-ists ridiculed that argument, in the debates that took place in the Programme Committee of the Second Congress of the R.S.D.L.P., and declared that it was a repetition of the caricature of Marxism for which the ``Economists'' (of sad memory) were responsible. In our theses we dealt with this error in particular detail; but on this point, around which the whole of our theoretical controversy is centered, the Polish comrades have not (or could not?) replied to a single one of our arguments.
The economic impossibility of self-determination ought to have been proved by an economic analysis, just as we proved the impracticability of prohibiting machinery, or of introducing labour money, etc. No one has even attempted to make such an analysis. No one will assert that any capitalist country, even as an "exception," has succeeded in introducing "labour money" in the way a certain small country, by way of exception, has succeeded, in the era of most un-
DISCUSSION ON SELF-DETERMINATION 273
bridled imperialism, in achieving the unachievable self-determination, even without a war or a revolution (Norway, 1905).
Generally speaking, political democracy is only one of the possible forms (although, theoretically, the normal form of ``pure''' capitalism) of the superstructure that rises over capitalism. Facts have proved that both capitalism and imperialism develop under all political forms, and subordinate all of them to their rule. It is therefore a fundamental theoretical mistake to speak of one of the forms and of one of the demands of democracy as being "infeasible.''
As our Polish colleagues have not replied to these arguments we must consider the discussion on this point closed. In order to bring the point out in greater relief, as it were, we made the definite assertion that it would be ``ridiculous'' to deny the ``feasibility'' of restoring Poland at the present time because of strategic and other considerations in the present war. But no reply was forthcoming!
The Polish comrades simply repeated an obviously inaccurate assertion (§ II, i) when they said:
``In the matter of annexing foreign territory the forms of political
democracy are eliminated; open violence decides-----Capital will never
allow the people to decide the question of their state boundaries-----"
As if ``capital'' could "allow the people" to select its public officials, whose business it is to serve imperialism! Or as if, in general, the settlement of any important question of democracy, such as a republic instead of a monarchy, a militia instead of a standing army, is conceivable without "open violence"! Subjectively, the Polish comrades want to make Marxism "more profound," but they do it very awkwardly. Objectively, their phrases about infeasibility are an expression of opportunism, for it is tacitly assumed: ``infeasible'' without a series of revolutions, just as complete democracy, all the demands of democracy in general, are infeasible under imperialism.
Only once, at the very end of § II, i, in their argument on Alsace, did our Polish colleagues relinquish the position of "Imperialist Economism" and give a definite answer to the question of one of the forms of democracy, instead of a general reference to " economics." And on this one occasion they were wrong! It would be "particularist," "undemocratic," they write, if the Alsatians alone, without asking the French, were to insist on the annexation of
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Alsace by France, in spite of the fact that part of Alsace gravitated towards the Germans, and that this might give rise to war!!! This is a most amusing tangle: self-determination presupposes (this is self-evident, and we especially emphasized this in our theses) the freedom of secession from the oppressing state. In politics it is no more the ``custom'' to speak about a country consenting to annex another than it is the custom in economics to speak about the capitalist ``consenting'' to receive profits, or of the workers ``consenting'' to receive wages! It is ridiculous to speak about this.
To be a Marxian political thinker one must, in discussing Alsace, attack the scoundrels of German Socialism for not fighting for freedom of secession for Alsace, attack the scoundrels of French Socialism for reconciling themselves with the French bourgeoisie, which desires forcibly to annex the whole of Alsace, and attack both for serving the imperialism of ``their'' respective countries, fearing a separate state, even a small one; one must show how the Socialists, by recognising self-determination, could solve the problem in a few weeks without running counter to the wishes of the Alsatians. To argue instead about the terrible danger of the French Alsatians "thrusting themselves" on France is a perfect gem.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ III. WHAT ARE ANNEXATIONS?We put this question very definitely in our theses (§ 7) .* The Polish comrades have not answered the question, they have evaded it, declaring very strongly: i) that they are opposed to annexations, and 2) explaining why they are opposed to them. True, these are very important questions; but they are not the questions we are discussing. If we are at all concerned about our principles being theoretically thought out and clearly and precisely formulated, we cannot evade the question of what annexations are once we employ this term in our political propaganda and agitation. The evasion of this question in a discussion among colleagues cannot be interpreted otherwise than as a surrender of one's position.
Why did we raise this question? We explained why when we raised it. Because "a protest against annexations is nothing more
* Cf. pp. 55-56 of this volume.---Ed.
DISCUSSION ON SELF-DETERMINATION 275
nor less than recognition of the right to self-determination." The term annexations ordinarily includes: i) the concept of force ( forcible incorporation); 2) the concept of alien oppression ( incorporation of an "alien" territory, etc.), and sometimes 3) the concept of violating the status quo. This we pointed out in our theses and it met with no criticism.
The question arises: Can Social-Democrats be opposed to violence in general? Obviously not. Hence, we are opposed to annexations, not because they are based on violence, but for some other reason. Similarly, Social-Democrats cannot be in favour of the status quo. Try as you will, you cannot avoid this conclusion: Annexations violate self-determination of nations; they establish state boundaries against the wishes of the population.
Being opposed to annexations means being in favour of the right to self-determination. Being "opposed to the forcible retention of any nation within the boundaries of a given state" (we deliberately employed this slightly modified formulation of the very same idea in § 4 of our theses,* and our Polish comrades quite definitely replied to it in § i, 4 of their theses, at the beginning, by saying that they were "opposed to the forcible retention of oppressed nations within the boundaries of the annexing state") is exactly the same as being in favour of self-determination of nations.
We do not want to argue about words. If there is a Party which states in its programme (or in a resolution binding on all, the form is immaterial) that it is opposed to annexations,! opposed to the forcible retention of oppressed nations within the boundaries of its state, then we declare that in principle we are in complete agreement with that Party. It would be absurd to cling to the word " selfdetermination." And if any one were found in our Party who desired to change the wording of § 9 of our Party programme in this sense, we would not regard our disagreement with that comrade as being one on principle.
All we are concerned about is that our slogans shall be politically clear and theoretically well thought out. In the oral discussions on this question, the importance of which nobody denies, especially
* Cf. pp. 51-52 of this volume.---Ed.
t In one of his articles in the Berner Tagtvacht, K. Radek formulated this as "opposed to old and new annexations.''
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now in connection with the war, we met with the following argument (which we have not found in the press); to protest against a certain evil does not necessarily imply the recognition of the positive concept which eliminates that evil. This argument is obviously unsound, and evidently for this reason has not been expressed in the press. If a Socialist Party declares itself to be "opposed to the forcible retention of an oppressed nation within the boundaries of an annexing state," the party thereby undertakes to abandon forcible retention when it comes into power.
We do not doubt for one moment that if Hindenburg were to achieve a semi-victory over Russia tomorrow, and if the semivictory found expression (in view of the desire of England and France to weaken tsarism somewhat) in the establishment of a new Polish state, which is quite ``feasible'' from the standpoint of the economic laws of capitalism and imperialism, and if the socialist revolution were victorious in St. Petersburg, Berlin and Warsaw the day after tomorrow, the Polish Socialist government, like the Russian and the German governments, would abandon the "forcible retention" of the Ukrainians, say, "within the boundaries of the Polish state." If the members of the editorial board of Gazeta Robotnicza are members of this government, they will undoubtedly sacrifice their ``theses'' and thereby refute the ``theory'' that "the right to self-determination is inapplicable to socialist society." If we thought otherwise, we would not engage in a comradely discussion with the Social-Democrats of Poland, but would fight them ruthlessly as chauvinists.
Suppose I were to go out in the street of any European city and publicly "protest," and then repeat the ``protest'' in the newspapers, against being prevented from buying a slave. Undoubtedly, people would be right in regarding me as a slave-owner, an adherent of the principle, or system, if you will, of slavery. The fact that my sympathies in favour of slavery are clothed in the negative form of a protest and not in a positive form ("I am in favour of slavery") will deceive nobody. A political ``protest'' is fully equivalent to a political programme; this is so obvious that one almost feels ashamed to have to explain it. At any rate, we are firmly convinced that the Zimmerwald Lefts at least (we do not speak of all the Zimmerwaldists, for among them are Martov and other Kaut-
DISCUSSION ON SELF-DETERMINATION 277
skyanists), will not ``protest'' when we say that there will be no place in the Third International for those who draw a distinction between a political protest and a political programme, who oppose one to the other, etc.
Not wishing to argue about words, we express the firm hope that the Polish Social-Democrats will soon make an effort to formulate officially their proposal that § 9 be deleted from our (and also their) party programme and from the programme of the International (resolution of the London Congress of 1896), as well as their own definition of the respective political concepts of "old and new annexations" and of "forcible retention of an oppressed nation within the boundaries of the annexing state." We will pass to the next question.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ IV. FOR OR AGAINST ANNEXATIONS?In § 3 of the first section of their theses, the Polish comrades very definitely declare that they are opposed to all annexations. Unfortunately, § 4 of the same section contains statements which we must regard as annexationist. This paragraph begins with the following---shall we say strange, to put it mildly?---sentence:
``The starting point of Social-Democracy's struggle against annexations, against the forcible retention of oppressed nations within the boundaries of an annexing state,|is repudiation of defence of the fatherland in every form" (authors' italics), "wfiich in the era of imperialism is defence of the right of the bourgeoisie of one's own country to oppress and rob other nations....''
What is this? Why?
``The starting point of the struggle against annexations is repudiation of defence of the fatherland in every form___" But the term
``defence of the fatherland" may be applied, and hitherto has been commonly applied, to every national war and every national rebellion! We are opposed to, annexations, but... we understand this to mean that we are opposed to war waged by annexed countries for their liberation from those who have annexed them; we are opposed to the annexed countries rising in rebellion in order to liberate themselves from those who have annexed them! Is this not an annexationist assertion?
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The argument the authors of this strange assertion advanced in support of it is that "in the era of imperialism" defence of the fatherland is defence of the right of the bourgeoisie of one's country to oppress foreign nations. But this is true only in respect of an imperialist war, i.e., a war between imperialist Powers or groups of Powers, when each belligerent is not only oppressing "foreign nations" but is waging the war in order to impose its yoke on more foreign nations!
Evidently the authors present the question of "defence of the fatherland" quite differently from the way our Party presents it. We repudiate "defence of the fatherland" in an imperialist war. This is stated as clearly as it can be in the manifesto of the Central Committee of our Party and in the Berne resolutions,* both of which were reproduced in the pamphlet, Socialism and War, published in German and French. Twice we emphasised this in our theses (notes to § 4 and § 6).f The authors of the Polish theses evidently reject defence of the fatherland in general, i£., also in a national war, assuming, probably, that national wars are impossible "in the era of imperialism." We say ``probably'' because the Polish comrades have not expressed such views in their theses.
This view, however, is clearly expressed in the theses of the German International group and in Junius' pamphlet, to which we devote a special article.^ In addition to what we said in that article we wish to note that a national rebellion of an annexed territory, or country, against the country which has annexed it may be described as a rebellion and not a war (we have heard this view expressed and that is why we refer to it, although we regard this controversy over terminology as frivolous). At all events, hardly any one will dare deny that annexed Belgium, Serbia, Galicia, Armenia will describe, and rightly describe, their ``rebellion'' against the countries which have annexed them as "defence of the fatherland." It follows that our Polish comrades are opposed to such a rebellion on the ground that there is also a bourgeoisie in the annexed countries, and that this bourgeoisie also oppresses other nations, or rather, it may oppress
*V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. XVIII, pp. 76 and 145.---^. t Cf. pp. 51-52; 54-55 of the volume.---Ed. t Cf. pp. 199-213 of this volume.---Ed.
DISCUSSION ON SELF-DETERMINATION 279
them, since the only point under discussion is "right to oppress." It appears, then, that the criterion of a given war, or a given rebellion, is not its real social content (the struggle of an oppressed nation against the oppressor for liberation), but the possibility of the now oppressed bourgeoisie exercising its "right to oppress." If, for example, Belgium were annexed by Germany in 1917 and rose in rebellion for its liberty in 1918, the Polish comrades would oppose the rebellion on the ground that the Belgian bourgeoisie had "the right to oppress foreign nations''!
There is not a trace of Marxian, or of revolutionary thinking, in general, in this line of argument. If we do not want to betray socialism, we must support every rebellion against our main enemy, the bourgeoisie of the big states, provided it is not the rebellion of a reactionary class. By refusing to support rebellions of annexed territories we objectively become annexationists. Precisely "in the era of imperialism," which is the era of the incipient social revolution, the proletariat makes special efforts to support the rebellion of annexed territories today, in order that tomorrow, or simultaneously with the rebellion, it may attack the bourgeoisie of the ``Great'' Power which is weakened by that rebellion.
The Polish comrades, however, go still further in their annexationism. They are not only opposed to rebellions of annexed territories, they are also opposed to the restoration of their independence in any way, even peacefully! Listen to this:
``Social-Democracy, rejecting all responsibility for the consequences of the imperialist policy of oppression, and combating it in the sharpest possible manner, under no circumstances supports the establishment of new frontier posts in Europe, the restoration of the barriers swept away by imperialism." (Authors' italics.)
At the present time "imperialism has swept away the frontier posts" between Germany and Belgium, between Russia and Galicia. But, you see, international Social-Democracy must, in general, oppose the restoration of these frontier posts in any way, whatever. When, in 1905, "in the era of imperialism," the autonomous Diet of Norway declared its secession from Sweden, and when war between Sweden and Norway, which was advocated by the Swedish reactionaries, was prevented by the resistance of the Swedish
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workers and also by the international imperialist situation, SocialDemocracy should have opposed the secession of Norway on the ground that it undoubtedly meant the "establishment of new frontier posts in Europe"!!
This is downright annexationism. There is no need to refute it, it refutes itself. No Socialist Party would dare to take up the position that "we are opposed to annexations in general, but as far as Europe is concerned, we sanction annexations, or reconcile ourselves to them when they are carried out....''
It is necessary to examine only the theoretical source of the error which has brought our Polish comrades to such a self-evident... "impossibility." Later on we will show that it is wrong to single out "Europe." The following two passages of the theses explain other sources of the error:
``... Where the wheel of imperialim has passed over an already established capitalist state and has crushed it, there the political and economic concentration of the capitalist world takes place in the brutal form of imperialist oppression, paving the way for socialism-----"
This justification of annexation is Struveism, not Marxism. Russian Social-Democrats who remember the 'nineties in Russia are quite familiar with this method of distorting Marxism commonly adopted by Messrs. Struve, Cunow, Legien and Co. It is precisely with reference to the German Struveists, the so-called "social-imperialists," that we read the following in another part of our Polish comrades' theses (II, 3) :
(The slogan of self-determination) "enables the social-imperialists, by proving the illusory character of this slogan, to represent our struggle against national oppression as historically unsound sentimentality, and thus to undermine the confidence of the proletariat in the scientific soundness of the Social-Democratic programme.''
This implies that the authors regard the position taken up by the German Struveists as ``scientific''! We congratulate diem!
But this astonishing argument, which threatened to prove that the Lensches, Cunows and Parvuses are right and that we are wrong, is shattered by the following "trifle," namely, that these Lensches are, in their way, consistent, and in No. 8-9 of the German chau-
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vinist Glocke---we deliberately quoted these issues in our theses--- Lensch simultaneously proves the "scientific unsoundness" of the slogan of self-determination (the Polish Social-Democrats have evidently accepted this argument of Lensche's as being irrefutable, as is apparent from the argument w£ have quoted from their theses... ) and the "scientific unsoundness" of the slogan: against annexations!!
For Lensch understands perfectly the simple truth which we pointed out to our Polish colleagues who refused to reply to our argument, namely, that there is no difference, "either economic or political," nor any logical difference, between ``recognising'' selfdetermination and ``protesting'' against annexations. If the Polish comrades regard Lensch's arguments against self-determination as irrefutable, then they cannot but admit the jact that die Lensches also direct all these arguments against the struggle against annexations.
The theoretical error which lies at the root of all the arguments advanced by our Polish colleagues has brought diem to the position of inconsistent annexationists.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ V. WHY IS SOCIAL-DEMOCRACY OPPOSED TO ANNEXATIONS?From our point of view, the answer is clear. We are opposed to annexations because they violate the right of self-determination of nations or, in other words, are one of the forms of national oppression.
From the point of view of the Polish Social-Democrats, it is necessary to give some special explanation as to why we are opposed to annexations, and these explanations (i, 3 in the theses) inevitably involve the authors in a new series of contradictions.
They advance two arguments to ``justify'' our opposition to annexations (notwithstanding the "scientifically sound" arguments of the Lensches). The first is:
``__To the assertion that annexations in Europe are necessary for
the military security of the victorious imperialist state, Social-- Democracy opposes the fact that annexations only intensify antagonisms and thereby increase the danger of war..,,"
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This answer to the Lensches is inadequate, for their main argument is not military necessity, but the economically progressive character of annexations, which mean concentration under imperialism. Where is the logic of the Polish Social-Democrats when at one and the same time they admit that such concentration is progressive, oppose the restoration in Europe of the frontier posts which have been swept away by imperialism, and object to annexations ?
To proceed. Annexations increase the danger of what fynd of wars? Not imperialist wars, because they are engendered by other causes. The main antagonisms in the present imperialist war are indisputably the antagonisms between England and Germany, Russia and Germany. The question of annexations was never involved here. The question here is the increase in the danger of national wars and national rebellions. But how is it possible, on the one hand, to declare that national wars are impossible "in the era of imperialism" and on the other hand, to point to the ``danger'' of national wars? This is not illogical.
The second argument:
(Annexations) "create a gulf between the proletariat of the ruling nation and that of the oppressed nation.... The proletariat of the oppressed nation would unite with its bourgeoisie and would regard the proletariat of the ruling nation as its enemy. Instead of the international class war of the proletariat against the international bourgeoisie there would be a split in the ranks of the proletariat, it would become ideologically corrupted___"
We fully accept these arguments. But is it logical, in discussing a given question, simultaneously to advance arguments which mutually exclude each other? In § 3, section i of the theses we read die above-quoted argument about, annexations causing a split in the ranks of the proletariat, and in the very next paragraph, § 4, we are told that in Europe we must oppose the annulment of annexations already effected and "educate the masses of the workers of both the oppressed and the oppressing nations for a united struggle." If die annulment of annexations is reactionary "sentimentality," it cannot be argued that annexations create a ``gulf'' in the midst of the `` proletariat'' and cause a ``split'' in its ranks. On the contrary, from this point of view annexations should be regarded as a condition for bringing the proletariat of various nations closer together.
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We say: In order that we may be able to bring about the socialist revolution and overthrow the bourgeoisie, the workers must unite more closely, and this close unity is facilitated by the struggle for self-determination, i.e., against annexations. We are consistent. Our Polish comrades, however, by accepting the ``non-annulment'' of annexations in Europe and by arguing that national wars are "impossible," contradict themselves when, in arguing ``against'' annexations, they use arguments that pertain to national wars! Arguments of the kind that annexations hinder the establishment of intimacy between and the amalgamation of the workers of different nations!
In other words, in order to oppose annexations, the Polish SocialDemocrats are compelled to take their arguments from that theoretical armory which they themselves reject on principle.
This is even more apparent in the question of the colonies.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ VI. CAN THE COLONIES BE CONTRASTED WITH EUROPE INIn our theses we said that the demand for the immediate liberation of the colonies is just as ``infeasible'' (i.e., infeasible without a series of revolutions and transient without socialism) under capitalism as self-determination of nations, or the election of public officials by the people, or a democratic republic, etc.---and on the other hand, that the demand for the liberation of the colonies is nothing more nor less than the "recognition of the self-- determination of nations.''
The Polish comrades have not replied to either of these arguments. They tried to draw a distinction between ``Europe'' and the colonies. Only in regard to Europe are they inconsistent annexationists and object to the annulment of annexations once they have been effected. For the colonies, however, they put forward the categorical demand: "Get out of the colonies!''
Russian Socialists must put forward the demand: "Get out of Turkestan, Khiva, Bokhara, etc.," but they would sink into "utopianism," into "unscientific sentimentality," etc., if they were to demand the same freedom of secession for Poland, Finland,
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Ukraine, etc. English Socialists must put forward the demand: "Get out of Africa, India, Australia," but not out of Ireland. What theoretical arguments can explain such a glaringly wrong distinction? This question cannot be evaded.
The main ``base'' of the opponents of self-determination is " infeasibility." The same idea, slightly different in shade, is expressed by the reference to "economic and political concentration.''
It is clear that concentration takes place also by means of the annexation of colonies. Formerly, the economic difference between colonies and the European nations---at least the majority of them--- was that the colonies had been drawn into the sphere of exchange of commodities, but not yet into the sphere of capitalist production. Imperialism has changed this. Imperialism, among other things, means the export of capital. Capitalist production is more and more rapidly being transplanted to the colonies. It is impossible to liberate them from their dependence upon European finance capital. From a military point of view, as well as from the point of view of expansion, the secession of the colonies can, as a general rule, be achieved only with the advent of socialism; whereas under capitalism it is possible, either as an exception, or as the result of a series of revolutions and rebellions in the colonies and in the mother country.
In Europe, most of the dependent nations (though not all of them---for example, the Albanians and many native peoples of Russia) are capitalistically more developed than the colonies. But it is this very fact that gives rise to greater resistance to national oppression and annexations! It is precisely for this reason that the development of capitalism is more secure in Europe, under all political conditions, including secession, than it is in the colonies. ... "There," the Polish comrades say of the colonies (i, 4), " capitalism is still confronted with the task of independently developing the productive forces...." In Europe this is still more marked: capitalism in Poland, in Finland, in the Ukraine and in Alsace is undoubtedly developing the productive forces more strongly, more rapidly and more independently than in India, Turkestan, Egypt and other colonies of the purest type. Neither independent nor any other kind of development is possible without capital in a society based on commodity production. The dependent nations of Europe
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have their own capital, and they can easily acquire more capital on the most diverse terms. The colonies, however, have no capital of their own, or almost none, and under the rule of finance capital a colony cannot obtain capital except at the price of political subjugation. In view of all this, what is the sense of demanding the immediate and unconditional liberation of the colonies? Is it not obvious that it is much more "utopian," in that vulgar, caricatureof-``Marxism'' sense of the word in which it is employed by the Struves, Lensches, Cunows and, following them, also, unfortunately, by our Polish comrades ? There the word ``utopian'' is taken to mean departure from the ordinary, including everything revolutionary. The fact is that revolutionary movements of all kinds---including national movements---are, under the conditions prevailing in Europe, more likely, more possible, more stubborn, more conscious and more difficult to subdue than in the colonies.
Socialism, say the Polish comrades (i, 3) "will be able to give to the backward peoples in the colonies unselfish cultural aid without ruling over them." This is perfectly true. But what grounds are there for believing that a great nation, a great state, having passed over to socialism, will not be able to attract to itself a small oppressed nation in Europe by means of "unselfish cultural aid"? It is precisely the freedom of secession, which the Polish Social-- Democrats "grant" the colonies, that will draw the small, but culturally and politically exacting, oppressed nations of Europe into an alliance with the great socialist states, for a big state under socialism would mean so many hours of work less every day, and so much more earnings every day. Liberated from the yoke of the bourgeoisie, the masses of the toilers will strive with all their might to ally themselves with the great advanced socialist nations for the sake of this "cultural aid," if only the quondam oppressors do not offend the highly developed democratic sense of self-respect of the long oppressed nations, if only they grant them equality in everything, including state construction, experience in constructing "their own" state. Under capitalism, this ``experience'' means wars, isolation, insularity, narrow selfishness on the part of the privileged small nations (Holland, Switzerland). Under socialism, the masses of the toilers themselves, for the purely economic reasons mentioned above, will refuse to agree to insularity, whereas the variety of
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political forms, the freedom to secede from the state, experience in state construction---all this will, until the state itself withers away, be the basis for a rich cultured life, the guarantee of an acceleration of the voluntary establishment of intimacy between and amalgamation of nations.
By singling out the colonies and contrasting them with Europe, the Polish comrades become involved in contradictions, which immediately shatter the whole of their mistaken line of argument.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ VII. MARXISM OR PROUDHONISM?Quite as an exception, our Polish comrades parry our reference to Marx's attitude towards the separation of Ireland not by inference, but directly. What is their objection? In their opinion, references to the position Marx held from 1848 to 1871 are "not of the slightest value." The argument advanced in support of this unusually irate and positive assertion is that Marx "at one and the same time" expressed opposition to the strivings for independence of the "Czechs, South Slavs, etc.''~^^51^^
The argument is so very irate because it is so very unsound. According to the Polish Marxists, Marx was simply a muddlehead who "at one and the same time" said contradictory things! This is altogether untrue, and it is altogether un-Marxist. The ``concrete'' analysis upon which our Polish comrades insist, but do not themselves apply, obliges us to investigate whether the different attitudes Marx adopted towards different concrete ``national'' movements did not spring from one and the same socialist philosophy.
As is generally known, Marx was in favour of Polish independence in the interests of European democracy in its struggle against the power and influence---we may say, against the omnipotence and predominating reactionary influence---of tsarism. That this attitude was correct was most clearly and practically demonstrated in 1849, when the Russian serf army crushed the national liberation and revolutionary-democratic rebellion in Hungary. From that time until Marx's death, and even later, until 1890, when there was a danger that tsarism, allied with France, would wage a reactionary war against a non-imperialist but nationally independent Germany,
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Engels stood first and foremost for a struggle against tsarism. It was for this reason, and exclusively for this reason, that Marx and Engels were opposed to the national movement of the Czechs and South Slavs. A simple comparison with what Marx and Engels wrote in 1848 and 1849 will prove to any one who is interested in Marxism not merely in order to brush Marxism aside, that Marx and Engels at that time drew a clear and definite distinction between "whole reactionary peoples" serving as "Russian outposts" in Europe, and "revolutionary peoples," namely, the Germans, Poles and Magyars. This is a fact. And this fact was indicated at the time with incontrovertible truth: in 1848 revolutionary peoples fought for liberty, the principal enemy of which was tsarism, whereas the Czechs, etc., were really reactionary nations, outposts of tsarism.
What does this concrete example, which must be analyzed concretely if one wishes to be true to Marxism, imply? Only this: i) that the interests of the liberation of a number of big and very big nations in Europe stand higher than the interests of the movement for liberation of small nations; 2) that a democratic demand must not be considered in isolation, but on a European---today we should say a world---scale.
Nothing more. There is not a hint in this of repudiation of the elementary socialist principle which the Poles are forgetting, but to which Marx was always faithful, namely, that no nation can be free if it oppresses other nations. If the concrete situation which confronted Marx in the epoch when tsarist influence was predominant in international politics were to repeat itself, for instance, in such a form that a number of nations were to start a socialist revolution (as a bourgeois-democratic revolution was started in Europe in 1848), while other nations serve as the chief bulwarks of bourgeois reaction---then we would have to be in favour of a revolutionary war against the latter, in favour of ``crushing'' them, in favour of destroying all their outposts, no matter what small national movements arose there. Consequently, we must not discard examples of Marx's tactics---this would mean professing Marxism in words while discarding it in practice---we must analyse them concretely and draw invaluable lessons from them for the future. The various demands of democracy, including self-- determination, are not absolute, but a small part of the general demo-
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cratic (now: general Socialist) world movement. Possibly, in individual concrete cases, the part may contradict the whole; if so, it must be rejected. It is possible that the republican movement in one country may be merely an instrument of the clerical or financialmonarchical intrigues of other countries; if so, we must not support this particular, concrete movement. But it would be ridiculous on these grounds to delete the demand for a republic from the programme of international Social-Democracy.
In what way has the concrete situation changed from 1848-71 to 1898-1916 (I take the most important landmarks of imperialism as a period; from the Spanish-American imperialist war to the European imperialist war) ? Tsarism has obviously and incontrovertibly ceased to be the chief mainstay of reaction, firstly, because it is supported by international finance capital, particularly French; secondly, because of 1905. At that time the system of big national states---the democracies of Europe---brought democracy and socialism to the world in spite of tsarism. Marx and Engels did not live to see the period of imperialism. At the present time a system of a handful of imperialist ``Great'' Powers (five or six in number) has come into being, each of which oppresses other nations; and this oppression is one of the sources that is artificially retarding the collapse of capitalism, that is artificially fostering opportunism and socialchauvinism in the imperialist nations which dominate the world. At that time West European democracy, which was liberating the big nations, was opposed to tsarism, which was using certain small national movements for reactionary ends. At the present time an alliance between tsarist imperialism and advanced capitalist, European imperialism, based on their general oppression of a number of nations, confronts die Socialist proletariat, which is split into chauvinists, ``social-imperialists'' and revolutionaries.
Such are the concrete changes that have taken place in the situation, and it is just these that the Polish Social-Democrats ignore, in spite of their promise to be concrete! Hence the concrete change in the application of the same Socialist principles: at that time first of all "against tsarism" (and against certain small national movements that were being utilised by it for anti-democratic ends), and for the big national, revolutionary peoples of the West; at the present time against the united, straightened-out front of the im-
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perialist powers, of the imperialist bourgeoisie, of the social-- imperialists, and for utilising all national movements against imperialism for the purposes of the socialist revolution. The purer the proletarian struggle against the general imperialist front now becomes, the more urgent, obviously, becomes the internationalist principle: "No nation can be free if it oppresses other nations.''
In the name of a doctrinaire conception of the social revolution, the Proudhonists ignored the international role of Poland and brushed the national movements aside. Equally doctrinaire is the attitude of the Polish Social-Democrats, since they breaJ^ the international front of the struggle against the social-imperialists ( objectively) helping the latter by their vacillations on the question of annexations. For it is precisely the international front of the proletarian struggle that has changed in relation to the concrete position of the small nations: at that time (1848-71) the small nations were important as the potential allies either of "Western democracy" and the revolutionary nations, or of tsarism; at the present time (1898-1914) the small nations have lost this importance; their importance now is that they are one of the sources fostering the parasitism and, consequently, the social-imperialism of the " ruling nations." The important thing is not whether one-fiftieth or one-hundredth of the small nations will be liberated before the socialist revolution, but the fact that in the epoch of imperialism, owing to objective causes, the proletariat has been split into two international camps, one of which has been corrupted by the crumbs that fall from the table of the bourgeoisie of the ruling nations---obtained, among other things, from the twofold or threefold exploitation of small nations---while the other cannot liberate itself without liberating the small nations, without educating the masses in an anti-chauvinist, i.e., anti-annexationist, i.e., "self-- determinationist" spirit.
This, the most important aspect of the question, is ignored by the Polish comrades, who do not view things from the central position in the epoch of imperialism, from the standpoint that die international proletariat is divided into two camps.
Here are other concrete examples of their Proudhonism: i) their attitude to the Irish rebellion of 1916, of which we shall speak later; 2) the declaration in the theses (II, 3, at the end of § 3) that the
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slogan of socialist revolution "must not be obscured by anything." To think that the slogan of socialist revolution can be ``obscured'' by combining it with a consistently revolutionary position on all questions, including the national question, is certainly profoundly anti-Marxist.
The Polish Social-Democrats consider that our programme is a ``national-reformist'' programme. Compare the two practical proposals: i) for autonomy (Polish theses, III, 4), and 2) for freedom of secession. It is here, and here alone, that our programmes differ! And is it not evident that the first proposal is reformist and not the second ? A reformist change is one which leaves the foundations of the power of the ruling class intact and which is merely a concession by the ruling class that leaves its power unimpaired. A revolutionary change undermines the foundations of power. The reformist proposals in the national programme do not abolish all the privileges of the ruling nation; they do not establish complete equality; they do not abolish national oppression in all its forms. An ``autonomous'' nation does not enjoy equal rights with the ``ruling'' nation; the Polish comrades could not have failed to notice this had they not obstinately avoided (like our old `` Economists'') an analysis of political concepts and categories. Until 1905 autonomous Norway, as a part of Sweden, enjoyed the widest autonomy, but it did not enjoy equality with Sweden. Only by its free secession was its equality manifested in practice and proved (and let us add in parentheses that it was precisely this free secession that created the basis for a more intimate and democratic friendship founded on equality of rights). As long as Norway was merely autonomous the Swedish aristocracy had one additional privilege; and this privilege was not ``mitigated'' by secession (the essence of reformism lies in mitigating an evil and not in destroying it), but entirely removed (the principal criterion of the revolutionary character of a programme).
Be it noted, in passing, that autonomy as a reform differs in principle from freedom of secession as a revolutionary measure. This goes without saying. But as every one knows, in practice a reform is often merely a step towards revolution. It is precisely autonomy which enables a nation forcibly retained within the boundaries of a given state to constitute itself completely as a nation,
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to gather, to ascertain and organise its forces, and to select the most opportune moment to declare...in. the ``Norwegian'' spirit: "We, the autonomous Parliament of such and such a nation, or of such and such a territory, declare that the Emperor of all the Russias has ceased to be King of Poland," etc. To this it is usually ``objected'' that such questions are decided by wars and not by declarations. True: in the vast majority of cases they are decided by wars (just as the question of the forms of government of big states in the vast majority of cases is decided only by wars and revolutions). However, it would do no harm to reflect and ask: Is such an ``objection'' to the political programme of a revolutionary party logical? Are we opposed to wars and revolutions on behalf of what is just and beneficial for the proletariat, on behalf of democracy and socialism? "But we cannot be in favour of a war between great nations, in favour of the slaughter of twenty million people for the sake of the problematical liberation of a small nation with a population of perhaps ten or twenty millions!" No, of course we cannot! But not because we throw out of our programme complete national equality, but because the interests of the democracy of one country must be subordinated to the interests of the democracy of several and of all countries. Let us assume that between two great monarchies there is a little monarchy whose kinglet is ``bound'' by blood and other ties to the monarchs of both neighbouring countries. Let us further assume that the declaration of a republic in the little country and the expulsion of its monarch would in practice lead to a war between the two neighbouring great nations for the restoration of some monarch or other in the little country. There is no doubt that in this case all international Social-Democracy, as well as the really internationalist section of Social-Democracy in the little country, would be opposed to substituting a republic for the monarchy. The substitution of a republic for a monarchy is not an absolute, but one of the democratic demands, a demand subordinated to the interests of democracy (and still more, of course, to the interests of the Socialist proletariat) as a whole. In all probability a case like this would not give rise to the slightest disagreement between Social-Democrats in any country. But if any Social-Democrat were to propose on these grounds that the demand for a republic be deleted altogether from the programme of international Social-Democracy,
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he would certainly be looked upon as insane. He would be told that the elementary logical difference between the particular and the general must not be forgotten.
This example brings us, from a somewhat different angle, to the question of the internationalist education of the working class. Can such education---about the necessity and urgent importance of which differences of opinion among the Zimmerwald Lefts are inconceivable---be concretely identical in great oppressing nations and in small oppressed nations, in annexing nations and in annexed nations ?
Obviously not. The way to the one goal---to complete equality, to the closest intimacy and the subsequent amalgamation of all nations---obviously proceeds here by different concrete routes; in the same way, let us say, as the route to a point in the middle of a given page lies towards the left from one edge and towards the right from the opposite edge. If a Social-Democrat belonging to a great, oppressing, annexing nation, when advocating the amalgamation of nations in general, were to forget even for one moment that ``his'' Nicholas II, ``his'' Wilhelm, George, Poincare, etc. also stands for amalgamation with small nations (by means of annexations)--- Nicholas II being for ``amalgamation'' with Galicia, Wilhelm II for ``amalgamation'' with Belgium, etc.---such a Social-Democrat would be a ridiculous doctrinaire in theory and an abettor of imperialism in practice.
The weight of emphasis in the internationalist education of the workers of the oppressing countries must necessarily consist in advocating and getting them to demand freedom of secession for oppressed countries. Without this there can be no internationalism. It is our right and duty to treat every Social-Democrat of an oppressing nation who fails to conduct such propaganda as an imperialist and a scoundrel. This is an absolute demand, even if the chance of secession was possible and ``feasible'' only one in a thousand before the introduction of socialism.
It is our duty to educate the workers to be ``indifferent'' to national distinctions. Nobody will dispute that. But not to be indifferent in the spirit of the annexationists. A member of an oppressing nation must be ``indifferent'' to whether small nations belong to his state or to a neighbouring state or to themselves, according to where
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their sympathies lie: if he is not ``indifferent'' in this way he is not a Social-Democrat. To be an internationalist Social-Democrat one must not think only of one's own nation, but must place the interests of all nations, their general liberty and equality, above one's own nation. In ``theory'' every one agrees with this, but in practice an annexationist indifference is displayed. Herein lies the root of the evil.
On the contrary, a Social-Democrat belonging to a small nation must place the weight of his agitation on the second word in our general formula: "voluntary amalgamation" of nations. He may, without violating his duties as an internationalist, be in favour either of the political independence of his nation or of its inclusion in neighbouring state X, Y, Z, etc. But in all cases he must fight against small-nation narrow-mindedness, insularity and aloofness, he must fight for the recognition of the whole and the general, and for the subordination of the interests of the particular to the interests of the general.
People who have not gone thoroughly into the question think that there is a ``contradiction'' in Social-Democrats of oppressing nations insisting on "freedom of secession" while Social-Democrats of oppressed nations insist on "freedom of amalgamation." However, a little reflection will show that there is not, nor can there be, any other road leading from the given situation to internationalism and the amalgamation of nations, that there is not, nor can there be, any other road leading to this goal.
This brings us to the particular position of Dutch and Polish Social-Democracy.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ VIII. THE PARTICULAR AND THE GENERAL IN THE POSITION OF THEThere is not the slightest doubt that the Dutch and Polish Marxists who are opposed to self-determination belong to the best revolutionary and internationalist elements in international SocialDemocracy. How is it, then, that their theoretical reasoning is, as we have seen, just a mass of errors? Not a single correct general argument; nothing but "Imperialist Economism''!
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It is not due to any particularly bad subjective qualities of the Dutch and Polish comrades; it is due to the special objective conditions prevailing in their countries. Both countries i) are small and helpless in the modern ``system'' of Great Powers; 2) are geographically located between very powerful, predatory imperialist Powers between whom rivalry is most acute (England and Germany, Germany and Russia); 3) retain very vivid and strong recollections and traditions of the times when they themselves were "Great Powers": Holland was a great colonial Power much stronger than England, Poland was a more cultured and stronger nation that Russia or Prussia; 4) up to the present time have retained the privilege of oppressing other peoples; the Dutch bourgeoisie possesses the fabulously rich Dutch East Indies, the Polish landlord oppresses the Ukrainian and Byelorussian peasants, the Polish bourgeoisie oppresses the Jews, etc.
This peculiarity, this combination of the four special conditions, enumerated above, is not to be found in Ireland, Portugal (which at one time was annexed to Spain), Alsace, Norway, Finland, the Ukraine, the Lettish Province, the Byelorussian Province, and many others. And it is in precisely this peculiarity that the whole essence of the matter lies. When the Dutch and Polish Social-Democrats advance general arguments against self-determination, i.e., arguments about imperialism in general, socialism in general, democracy in general, national oppression in general, we get a long string of errors, each racing after the other, as it were. But as soon as the obviously erroneous wrappings of general arguments are removed and the core of the question is examined from the standpoint of the peculiarity of the particular conditions in Holland and Poland, their peculiar position becomes intelligible and perfectly legitimate. Without running the risk of appearing paradoxical, one may say that in their vehement opposition to self-determination the Dutch and Polish Marxists do not quite say what they mean or, in other words, they do not quite mean what they say.*
We have already quoted one example in our theses.f Gorter is
*We recall the fact that in their Zimmerwald declaration all the Polish SocialDemocrats recognised self-determination in general, only in a slightly different formulation.
t Cf. pp. 54-55 of this volume.---Ed.
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opposed to self-determination for his own country, but is in fat/our of self-determination for the Dutch East Indies, which is oppressed by ``his'' nation! Is it surprising that we regard him as a more sincere internationalist and more akin to us in ideas than those who recognise self-determination in words alone, who recognise it hypocritically, as Kautsky does among the Germans, and Trotsky and Martov among us? From the general and fundamental principles of Marxism inevitably follows the duty of fighting for freedom of secession for nations which are oppressed by "my own" nation; but it does not follow that we must fight first of all for the independence of Holland, which suffers most of all from a narrow, hidebound, selfish and benumbing insularity which says: let the whole world burn, it's not our affair; ``we'' are satisfied with our old booty and with the rich "little remnant" of it, the Indies; ``we'' are not concerned with anything else.
Another example: Karl Radek---a Polish Social-Democrat who deserves particular recognition for the determined struggle he has carried on for internationalism in the German Social-Democratic movement since the outbreak of the war---in an article entitled "The Right of Nations to Self-Determination" (published in Lichtstrahlen---a Left radical monthly edited by J. Borchardt, suppressed by the Prussian censorship---Dec. 5, 1915, third year, No. 3) vehemently opposes self-determination, quoting by the way, only Dutch and Polish authorities to support his arguments, and inter alia advances the argument that self-determination fosters the idea that "it is the duty of Social-Democracy to support every struggle for independence.''
From the standpoint of general theory, this argument is positively outrageous, for it is obviously illogical; firstly, because there is not, nor can there be, a single partial democratic demand that does not give rise to abuses if the particular is not subordinated to the general; we are not obliged to support ``every'' struggle for independence or ``every'' republican or anti-clerical movement. Secondly, because there is not, nor can there be, a single formulation of the struggle against national oppression that does not suffer from just this "defect." Radek himself, in the Berner Tagivacht (1915, No. 253) used the formula: "Against old and new annexations." Any
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Polish nationalist will quite legitimately ``deduce'' from this formula the following: "Poland was annexed, I am opposed to annexations, therefore I am for the independence of Poland." Again, Rosa Luxemburg, we remember, in an article written in 1908, expressed the opinion that the formula "against national oppression" was sufficient. But any Polish nationalist will say---and quite rightly--- that annexation is one of the forms of national oppression, therefore, etc.
Instead of these general arguments, however, take the particular position of Poland: her independence is at present ``unachievable'' without wars or revolutions. To be in favour of a general European war merely for the sake of restoring Polish independence means being a nationalist of the worst brand; means putting the interests of a small number of Poles above the interests of hundreds of millions of people who would suffer from the war. Such indeed, are, for instance the "Frafy"^^52^^ (Right wing of the Polish Socialist Party) who are Socialists only in words, compared with whom the Polish Social-Democrats are a thousand times right. To advance the slogan of Polish independence at the present time, bearing in mind the relationships at present existing between the neighbouring imperialist nations, really means chasing after a Utopia, sinking into narrow-minded nationalism, forgetting the prerequisites for a general European, or at least a Russian and German, revolution. Similarly, advancing as a separate slogan the demand for freedom of association in the Russia of 1908-14, meant chasing after a Utopia, thereby, objectively, aiding the Stolypin labour party (now the party of Potresov and Gvozdev, which is just the same thing). It would have been madness, however, to have deleted the demand for freedom of association from the programme of Social-Democracy!
The third, and perhaps, the most important example: in the Polish theses (III, end of 2), in an argument against the idea of an independent Polish buffer state, we read that this is:
``... an idle Utopia entertained by small, impotent groups. If realised, this idea would mean the creation of a small, fragmentary Polish state, which would be a military colony of one or other group of Great Powers, a plaything of their military and economic interests, a field pi exploitation by foreign capital, a ba^defield iij future wars.''
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All this is very true in opposition to the slogan of Polish independence at the present time, for even a revolution in Poland alone would not alter anything, while the attention of the Polish masses would be diverted from the main thing: from the connection between their struggle and the struggle of the Russian and German proletariat. It is not a paradox, but a fact, that the Polish proletariat, as such, can now aid the cause of socialism and freedom, including that of Poland, only by righting in conjunction with the proletariat of the neighbouring countries against the narrow Polish nationalists. It cannot be denied that in the struggle against the latter, the Polish Social-Democrats have rendered historically important service.
But the very arguments which are correct from the standpoint of the particular position of Poland in the present epoch are obviously incorrect in the general form in which they are presented. Poland will always be a battlefield in the wars between Germany and Russia as long as wars are waged; this is not an argument against greater political freedom (and, consequently, against political independence) in periods between wars. The same holds true concerning the argument about exploitation by alien capital, about being a plaything in the hands of alien interests. The Polish SocialDemocrats cannot, at present, advance the slogan of Polish independence, because, as proletarian internationalists, the Poles can do nothing to achieve it without, like the "Frafy," sinking into mean servility to one of the imperialist monarchies. To the Russian and German workers, however, it is not a matter of indifference whether they participate in the annexation of Poland (which would mean educating the German and Russian workers and peasants in the spirit of most despicable servility, of reconciliation with the role of hangman of other peoples), or whether Poland is independent.
Undoubtedly, the situation is very complicated, but there is a way out which enables all the participants to remain internationalists: the Russian and the German Social-Democrats must demand unconditional "freedom of secession" for Poland; the Polish SocialDemocrats must fight for the unity of the proletarian struggle in small and big countries, without advancing, in the present epoch, or present period, the slogan of the independence of Poland,
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__ALPHA_LVL3__ IX. ENGELS' LETTER TO KAUTSKYIn his pamphlet Socialism and Colonial Politics (Berlin, 1907) Kautsky, who was then still a Marxist, published a letter written to him by Engels, dated September 12, 1882, which is extremely interesting in relation to the question under discussion. Here is the principal part of that letter:
``---In my opinion the colonies proper, i.e., the countries occupied by a European population, Canada, the Cape, Australia, will all become independent; on the other hand the countries inhabited by a native population, which are simply subjugated, India, Algiers, the Dutch, Portuguese and Spanish possessions, must be taken over for the time being by the proletariat and led as rapidly as possible towards independence. How this process will develop is difficult to say. India will perhaps, indeed very probably, produce a revolution, and as the proletariat emancipating itself cannot conduct any colonial wars, this would have to be given full scope; it would not pass of! without all sorts of destruction, of course, but that sort of thing is inseparable from all revolutions. The same might also take place elsewhere, e.g., in Algiers and Egypt, and would certainly be the best thing for us. We shall have enough to do at home. Once Europe is reorganised, and North America, that will furnish such colossal power and such an example that the semi-civilised countries will follow in their wake of their own accord. Economic needs alone will be responsible for this. But as to what social and political phases these countries will then have to pass through before they likewise arrive at socialist organisation, we today can only advance rather idle hypotheses, I think. One thing alone is certain: the victorious proletariat can force no blessings of any kind upon any foreign nation without undermining its own victory by so doing. Which, of course, by no means excludes defensive wars of various kinds...." *
Engels by no means supposes that ``economics'' will of itself and directly remove all difficulties. An economic revolution will be a stimulus to all peoples to tend towards socialism; but at the same time revolutions---against the socialist state---and wars are possible. Politics will inevitably adapt itself to economics, but not immedi-
Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Selected Correspondence (New York and j 19^4), p. jpt).---Ed,
DISCUSSION ON SELF-DETERMINATION 299
ately and smoothly, not simply, not directly. Engels mentions as ``certain'' only one, absolutely internationalist, principle, which he applies to all "other nations," i.e., not to colonial nations only, namely: to force blessings upon them would mean undermining the victory of the proletariat.
The proletariat will not become holy and immune from errors and weaknesses merely by virtue of the fact that it has carried out the social revolution. But possible errors (and selfish interest---- attempts to ride on the backs of others) will inevitably cause it to appreciate this truth.
We Left Zimmerwaldists are all convinced of what Kautsky, for example, was convinced of before his desertion in 1914 from Marxism to the defence of chauvinism, namely, that the socialist revolution is quite possible in the very near future---"any day," as Kautsky himself once put it. National antipathies will not disappear so quickly: the hatred---and perfectly legitimate hatred---of an oppressed nation for its oppressor will continue for a while; it will evaporate only after the victory of socialism and after the final establishment of completely democratic relations between nations. If we desire to be faithful to socialism we must educate the masses in internationalism now, which is impossible in oppressing nations without preaching freedom of secession for oppressed nations.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ X. THE IRISH REBELLION OF 1916Our theses were written before this rebellion broke out, but it must serve as material for testing our theoretical views.
The views of the opponents of self-determination lead to the conclusion that the vitality of small nations oppressed by imperialism has already been sapped, that they cannot play any role against imperialism, that support of their purely national strivings will lead to nothing, etc. The imperialist war of 1914-16 has provided facts which refute such conclusions.
The war proved to be an epoch of crisis for the West European nations, for imperialism as a whole. Every crisis casts off the conventional, it tears away outer wrappings, sweeps away the obsolete and reveals the deeper springs and forces. What has it revealed
300 Emacs-File-stamp: "/home/ysverdlov/leninist.biz/en/1942/LCW19IP/20100313/399.tx" __EMAIL__ webmaster@leninist.biz __OCR__ ABBYY 6 Professional (2010.03.13) __WHERE_PAGE_NUMBERS__ top __FOOTNOTE_MARKER_STYLE__ [*]+ __ENDNOTE_MARKER_STYLE__ [0-9]+from the standpoint of the movement of oppressed nations? In the colonies there has been a series of attempts at rebellion, which of course the oppressing nations did all they could to hide from the world by means of the military censorship. Nevertheless, it is known that in Singapore the English brutally suppressed a mutiny among their Indian troops; that there were attempts at rebellion in French Annam (see Nashe Slovo) and in the German Cameroons (see Junius' pamphlet), that in Europe, on the one hand, there was a rebellion in Ireland, which the ``freedom-loving'' English, who did not dare to extend conscription to Ireland, suppressed by executions; and, on the other, the Austrian government sentenced to death the deputies of the Czech Diet "for treason," and shot whole Czech regiments for the same "crime.''
This list is far from complete, of course. Nevertheless, it proves that, owing to the crisis of imperialism, the flames of national revolt burst out in the colonies and in Europe, that national sympathies and antipathies have manifested themselves in spite of draconic threats and measures of repression. And yet the crisis of imperialism has far from reached the highest point of its development: the power of the imperialist bourgeoisie has not yet been undermined (a war of ``exhaustion'' may bring that about, but it has not been brought about yet); the proletarian movements in the imperialist countries are still very feeble. What will happen when the war has caused complete exhaustion, or when, in at least one state, the power of the bourgeoisie is shaken under the blows of proletarian struggle, as was the power of tsarism in 1905?
In the Berner Tagwacht, the organ of the Zimmerwaldists, including some of the Lefts, an article on the Irish Rebellion appeared in the issue of May 9, 1916, entitled "A Played Out Song" and signed with the initials K. R. In this article the Irish Rebellion was declared to be nothing more nor less than a "putsch," for, the author argues, "the Irish question was an agrarian question," the peasants had been appeased by reforms, and the nationalist movement remained only as a "purely urban petty-bourgeois movement which, notwithstanding the sensation it caused, had not much social backing.''
It is not surprising that this monstrously doctrinaire and pedantic appraisal of the rebellion coincides with the appraisal by a Russian
DISCUSSION ON SELF-DETERMINATION 301
national-liberal Cadet, Mr. A. Kulisher (Reck, No. 102, April 28 [15], 1916), who also dubbed the rebellion "the Dublin putsch.''
It is to be hoped that, in accordance with the adage, "it's an ill wind 'that blows nobody any good," many who fail to realise the morass they are sinking into by repudiating "self-determination," and by treating the national movements of small nations with disdain, will have their eyes opened by the fact that the opinion of a representative of the imperialist bourgeoisie and that of a SocialDemocrat ``accidentally'' coincides.
The term "putsch," in the scientific sense of the word, may be employed only when the attempt at insurrection has revealed nothing but a circle of conspirators or stupid maniacs, and has aroused no sympathy among the masses. The century-old Irish national movement, having passed through various stages and combinations of class interests, expressed itself, inter alia, in a mass Irish National Congress in America (Vorwarts, March 20, 1916), which passed a resolution calling for Irish independence---it expressed itself in street fighting conducted by a section of the urban petty bourgeoisie and a section of the workers after a long period of mass agitation, demonstrations, suppression of papers, etc. Whoever calls such an uprising a ``putsch'' is either a hardened reactionary, or a doctrinaire hopelessly incapable of picturing to himself a social revolution as a living phenomenon.
To imagine that social revolution is conceivable without revolts by small nations in the colonies and in Europe, without the revolutionary outbursts of a section of the petty bourgeoisie with all its prejudices, without die movement of non-class conscious proletarian and semi-proletarian masses against the oppression of the landlords, the church, the monarchy, the foreign nations, etc.---to imagine this means repudiating social revolution. Only those who imagine that in one place an army will line up and say, "we are for socialism," and in another place another army will say, "we are for imperialism," and that this will be die social revolution, only those who hold such a ridiculously pedantic opinion could vilify the Irish Rebellion by calling it a "putsch.''
Whoever expects a ``pure'' social revolution will never live to see it. Such a person pays lip service to revolution without understanding what revolution is.
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The Russian Revolution of 1905 was a bourgeois-democratic revolution. It consisted of a series of battles in which all the discontented classes, groups and elements of the population participated. Among these there were masses imbued with the crudest prejudices, with the vaguest and most fantastic aims of struggle; there were small groups which accepted Japanese money, there were speculators and adventurers, etc. Objectively, the mass movement broke the back of tsarism and paved the way for democracy; for that reason the class conscious workers led it.
The socialist revolution in Europe cannot be anything else than an outburst of mass struggle on the part of all oppressed and discontented elements. Sections of the petty bourgeoisie and of the backward workers will inevitably participate in it---without such participation, mass struggle is impossible, without it no revolution is possible---and just as inevitably will they bring into the movement their prejudices, their reactionary fantasies, their weaknesses and errors. But objectively they will attack capital, and the class conscious vanguard of the revolution, the advanced proletariat, expressing this objective truth of a heterogeneous and discordant, motley and outwardly incohesive, mass struggle, will be able to unite and direct it, to capture power, to seize the banks, to expropriate the trusts (hated by all, diough for different reasons) and introduce other dictatorial measures which in their totality will amount to the overthrow of the bourgeoisie and the victory of socialism, which, however, will by no means immediately ``purge'' itself of petty-bourgeois slag.
Social-Democracy, we read in the Polish theses (I, 4), "must utilise the struggle of the young colonial bourgeoisie against European imperialism in order to sharpen the revolutionary crisis in Europe." (Author's italics.)
Is it not clear that it is leas.t of all permissible to contrast Europe with the colonies in this respect? The struggle of the oppressed nations in Europe, a struggle capable of going to the lengths of insurrection and street fighting, of breaking down the iron discipline in the army and martial law, will "sharpen the revolutionary crisis in Europe" infinitely more than a much more developed rebellion in a remote colony. A blow delivered against the English imperialist bourgeoisie by a rebellion in Ireland is a hundred times more sig-
DISCUSSION ON SELF-DETERMINATION 303
nificant politically than a blow of equal weight delivered in Asia or in Africa.
The French chauvinist press recently reported that the eightieth issue of an illegal newspaper, Free Belgium, had appeared in Belgium. Of course, the chauvinist press of France very often tells lies, but this piece of news resembles the truth. While the chauvinist and Kautskyan German Social-Democracy refrained from establishing a free press for itself during the two years of war, and has servilely borne the yoke of military censorship (only the Left radical elements, to their honour be it said, published pamphlets and manifestoes, in spite of the censorship)---an oppressed, civilised nation replied to a military oppression unparalleled in its ferocity, by establishing an organ of revolutionary protest! The dialectics of history is such that small nations, powerless as an independent factor in the struggle against imperialism, play a part as one of the ferments, one of the bacilli, which help the real power against imperialism to come on the scene, namely, the socialist proletariat.
The General Staffs in the present war assiduously strive to utilise all national and revolutionary movements in the camp of their enemy: the Germans utilise the Irish Rebellion, the French---the Czech movement, etc. From their standpoint they are acting quite properly. A serious war would not be treated seriously if advantage were not taken of the slightest weakness of the enemy, if every opportunity that presented itself were not seized, the more so since it is impossible to know beforehand at what moment, where and with what force a powder magazine will "explode." We would be very poor revolutionaries if, in the great proletarian war for emancipation and socialism, we did not know how to utilise every popular movement against each separate disaster caused by imperialism in order to sharpen and extend the crisis. If, on the one hand, we were to declare and to repeat in a thousand keys that we are ``opposed'' to all national oppression and, on the other hand, we were to describe the heroic revolt of the most mobile and intelligent section of certain classes in an oppressed nation against its oppressors as a "putsch," we would be sinking to the stupid level of the Kautskyists.
The misfortune of the Irish is that they rose prematurely, when the European revolt of the proletariat had not yet matured. Capi-
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talism is not so harmoniously built that the various springs of rebellion can immediately merge of their own accord, without reverses and defeats. On the other hand, the very fact that revolts break out at different times, in different places, and are of different kinds, guarantees wide scope and depth to the general movement; only in premature, partial, sporadic, and therefore unsuccessful, revolutionary movements will the masses gain experience, acquire knowledge, gather strength, get to know their real leaders, the socialist proletarians, and in this way prepare for the general onslaught, in the same way as separate strikes, demonstrations, local and national, mutinies in the army, outbreaks among the peasantry, etc., prepared the way for the general onslaught in 1905.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ XI. CONCLUSIONNotwithstanding the mistaken assertion of the Polish SocialDemocrats, the demand for self-determination of nations has played no less a part in our Party propaganda than, for instance, the demand for the armed nation, the separation of the church from the state, election of officers by the people, and other points called ``utopian'' by philistines. Indeed, the revival of national movements after 1905 naturally stimulated the revival of our agitation: the series of articles published in 1912-13, bur Party's resolution of 1913, which gave an exact and ``anti-Kautskyist'' (z>., irreconcilably hostile to purely verbal ``recognition'') definition of the essence of the question.*
Already at that time a fact came to light which cannot be ignored: the opportunists of various nations, the Ukrainian Yurkevich, the Bundist Liebman, and Semkovsky---the Russian henchman of Potresov and Co.---supported Rosa Luxemburg's arguments against self-determination! Uttered by this Polish Social-Democrat, this was only an incorrect theoretical generalization of the particular conditions of the movement in Poland; but on a wider field, not in the conditions of a small state, but on an international field, this at once turned out to be, objectively, opportunist support of Great Russian imperialism. The history of the trends of political thought (as dis-
*V. I. Lenin, "The Resolutions of the Summer Conference of the C.C. of the R.S.D.L.P. with Party Functionaries," Collected Wor\s, Vol. XVII (Russian Edition), pp. 11-13.---Ed.
DISCUSSION ON SELF-DETERMINATION 305
tinct from personal opinions) has proved the correctness of our programme.
And now avowed social-imperialists like Lensch openly oppose both self-determination and the repudiation of annexations. The Kautskyists hypocritically recognise self-determination---in Russia this is the road taken by Trotsky and Martov. In words, both declare that they are in favour of self-determination, as Kautsky does. But in practice? Trotsky engages in his customary eclecticism---see his article "Nation and Economics" in Nashe Slovo---on the one hand, he says, economics unite nations; on the other hand, national oppression disunites them. What conclusion is to be drawn from this? The conclusion that the prevailing hypocrisy remains unexposed; agitation is lifeless, it fails to touch the main, the fundamental, the material thing that is closest to practice, namely, the attitude to be adopted towards the nation that is oppressed by ``my'' nation. Martov and the other foreign secretaries preferred simply to forget ---convenient forgetfulness!---the fight their colleague and fellow member, Semkovsky, is waging against self-determination. In the Gvozdevist legal press (Nash Golos) Martov wrote in favour of self-determination and proved the incontrovertible truth that in an imperialist war this does not impose the duty of participating, etc.; but he evaded the main thing---which he evades also in the illegal press!---namely, that even in peace time Russia beat the world record of national oppression on the basis of a much more brutal, mediaeval, economically backward, military and bureaucratic imperialism. A Russian Social-Democrat who ``recognises'' self-- determination of nations approximately in the same way as it is recognised by Messrs. Plekhanov, Potresov and Co., i.e.f without fighting for freedom of secession for the nations oppressed by tsarism, is really an imperialist and a lackey of tsarism.
Whatever the subjective ``well-meaning'' intentions of Trotsky and Martov may be, they, by their evasions, objectively support Russian social-imperialism. The imperialist epoch has transformed all the ``Great'' Powers into oppressors of a number of nations, and the development of imperialism will inevitably lead to a clearer division of trends on this question also in international Social-Democracy.
Written in the autumn of 1916.
Sotsial-Demo/yata, No. i, October, 1916.
[306] __ALPHA_LVL2__ LETTER TO A. G. SHLYAPNIKOVDEAR FRIEND,
Judging from the letter which Gregory sent me to-day, Belenin has already decided about his "trip." 5S There is very little time left! Nevertheless, it is essential that we communicate and come to an agreement with him; this is now extremely important. Therefore, I beg you very urgently to make every effort to see Belenin personally, to convey to him the message below, and to write me frankly and in detail (without fail!) how matters stand, i£., whether there are disagreements, differences of opinion, etc., between ourselves and Belenin and if so, of what sort (and how they may be removed).
The removal of James (I earnestly beg of you not to say a single word about this removal to any person abroad; you cannot imagine how dangerous in all respects is gossip abroad about such matters and moreover in connection with such events)---the removal of James makes the situation critical and again brings up the question of the general plan of work.^^64^^
In my opinion, this plan consists, first, of the theoretical line; second, of the immediate tactical problems; and, third, of the immediate organisational tasks.
The first point, it is not only a matter of continuing the line (against tsarism, etc.) laid down in our resolutions and in the pamphlet* (the correctness of this line has been strikingly confirmed by events, by the split in England,^^55^^ etc.), but also of purging it of all the absurdities and confusion that have arisen from the repudiation of democracy (this includes disarmament, repudiation of self-determination, the theoretically mistaken repudiation of defence of the fatherland "in general," vacillation on the question of the role and significance of the state in general, etc.).
It will be a great pity if Belenin is unable to wait until my article in reply to Kievsky f appears (it was sent to be typed only yesterday
*V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. XVIII, pp. 145-50 and 215-58---Ed. t Cf. pp. 214-63 of this volume.---Ed.
306LETTER TO A. G. SHLYAPNIKOV 307
and will not be ready for a few days). What shall we do? Do not disdain agreement on theoretical questions; it is really very necessary for the work in these difficult times. Think it over and tell me whether it'is possible to carry out the following (or a similar) plan. I have guessed that Belenin's wife is not in America, as I thought, but in Spain,^^56^^ through which Belenin will now pass on his way. Is it not possible to arrange an exchange of correspondence and the sending of manuscripts to his wife in Spain ? If so, my article, even if sent in a week from now, will reach Belenin in time, for he will surely stay in Spain for a few days.
Think it over. Apart from this special case, it is extremely important to have regular correspondence with Belenin's wife, and with Spain in general. Spain is a very important point at present, for, after all, for work against England it is a more convenient place than any other.
I cannot say any more about the importance of an agreement on theory. Our enemies have already seized upon the stupid repudiation of the importance of democracy (Potresov in Dyelo, No. i). Bazarov has made a fool of himself in Lyetopis. In the same magazine, Bogdanov talks rubbish in a different way, but it is rubbish all the same. On it there is an extremely suspicious bloc between the Machists and the O.C.-ists. An abominable bloc! I doubt whether it is possible to break it.... Shall we try a bloc with the Machists against the O.C.-ists? I doubt if we could succeed! Gorky is always extremely weak in politics, and yields to sentiment and moods.
The legal press in Russia is becoming a matter of extreme importance, and, therefore, the question of a correct line is also becoming more and more important, for it is easier for the enemies to ``bombard'' us on this field.
Perhaps it would be best if Belenin had a ``base'' in Spain and could receive our letters and manuscripts there; contact would be maintained, correspondence exchanged and Belenin could return shortly, after a brief trip further afield (for the danger is very great, and it would be much more useful for the cause if Belenin made brief trips to several cities, and then returned to Spain, or to where he is now, or to a neighbouring country, in order to firmly establish connections, etc.).
The second point. The main thing at present, in my opinion,
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is the publication of popular leaflets and manifestoes against tsarism. Consider whether it is possible to arrange this in Spain. If not, we shall prepare them here and send them, but for this we need the most regular transportation connections. You were quite right; the Japanese " proved absolutely useless. It would be best to have foreigners with whom we could correspond in English, or in some other foreign language. I will not go into details about transportation, you understand enough about it yourself. The trouble is we have no money, but some is to be collected in Petrograd.
The principal Party question in Russia has been and remains the question of "unity." Trotsky, in five or six hundred issues of his paper, has after all not expressed, or thought out, his ideas to a logical conclusion: unity with Chkheidze, Skobelev and Co., or not? I think some obyedinentsi *^^58^^ have remained also in Petrograd, although they are very weak (is it they who published the Rabochiye Vyedomosti in Petrograd?).^^59^^ It seems that ``Makar'' is in Moscow, and is also engaged in conciliating. Both the conciliation and unity tendencies are the most harmful things for the workers' party in Russia; it is not only idiocy, it is fatal for our Party. For in reality, ``unity'' (or conciliation, etc.) with Chkheidze and Skobelev (they are the most important, for they pose as ``internationalists'') means ``unity'' with the Organisation Committee, and through it with Potresov and Co., in reality, this means subservience to the social-chauvinists. If Trotsky and Co. do not understand this, so much the worse for them. Dyelo No. i and, what is most important, the workers' participation in the War Industries Committees, prove that this is so.
``Unity" with Chkheidze and Co. is the crux of the question, not only with regard to the Duma elections on the day after peace is declared, but with regard to all questions of Party practice in general. We can rely only on those who have fully understood the deception contained in this idea of unity and the necessity of a rupture with that fraternity (Chkheidze and Co.) in Russia. Belenin should rally only such people for the role of leaders.
Incidentally: the split on an international scale has also matured. I think it is high time that all class-conscious leading workers in Russia understood this and passed resolutions in favour of an
•Those in favour of unity.---Ed.
LETTER TO A. G. SHLYAPNIKOV 309
organisational rupture with the Second International, with the International Bureau of Huysmans, Vandervelde and Co., in favour of building up a Third International, which, however, must be opposed to the Kautskyists of all countries (Chkheidze and Co., as well as Martov and Axelrod = the Russian Kautskyists), and which must unite only those who stand on the platform of the Zimmerwald Left.
The third point. The most tender spot now is the weakness of our contacts with the leading workers in Russia!! No correspondence at all!! No one but James, and now even he has gone. This cannot go on. No publication of leaflets, no transportation, no agreement concerning manifestoes, no sending of drafts of manifestoes, etc., etc., can be arranged without properly organised secret correspondence. This is the crux of the whole thing!
Belenin failed to arrange diis on his first trip (perhaps he could not do so then). But for Christ's sake convince him that it is absolutely necessary to do it on his second trip. Absolutely!! Indeed, the success of his trip should be measured by the number of contacts he establishes! (Of course, Belenin's personal influence is still more important, but he cannot remain in any one place for long without serious risk to himself and damage to the cause.) The number of contacts established in every city is the measure of success of the trip!!
A minimum of two or three contacts in every city with the leading workers, i.e., to arrange that they themselves write, they themselves must learn to conduct secret correspondence (it is not a gift of the gods); each one should train one or two ``successors'' to himself, in case he gets caught. They must not entrust this to the intelligentsia alone. They must not. The leading workers can and must do it. Unless this is done it will be impossible to establish continuity in the work and keep it going as one whole, and that is the main thing.
I think this is all.
A word about illegal literature: it is important to find out whether Lyetopis (if it is impossible to oust the O.C.-ists by a bloc with the Machists) will publish my articles.^^60^^ With restrictions or not? What restrictions?
More information is needed about the Volna.ei
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As for myself, I must say I've got to earn some money. Otherwise I shall simply crack up, really! The high cost of living is just diabolical, and I have nothing to live on. Use some pressure and get some money (let Belenin take up die question of money with Katin and with Gorky himself, if it is not inconvenient, of course) from the publisher of Lyetopis, to whom two of my pamphlets 62 have been sent (make him pay up immediately, and the more the better!). The same with Bonch.^^63^^ Also about translations. If this is not arranged, honestly, I won't be able to keep going; I say this in all seriousness, really I do.
Accept my hearty handshake, a thousand best wishes to Belenin, and write immediately, a few words at least, to let me know that you have received this.
Yours, Lenin
P.S. Write and tell me frankly, in what mood is Bukharin leaving? Will he write to us or not? Will he carry out our requests or not? Correspondence is possible only through Norway with America; tell him this and arrange it.
Written in September-October, 1916.
First published in the Lenin Miscellany, II, 1924.
[311] __ALPHA_LVL2__ SPEECH AT THE CONGRESS OF THE SOCIAL--THE Social-Democratic Party of Switzerland recently had the honour of rousing the ire of the leader of the official Danish SocialDemocratic Party, Herr Minister Stauning. In a letter to another quasi-Socialist Minister, Vandervelde, dated September 19 of this year, Stauning declared that:
``.., We [the Danish Party] have sharply and definitely disassociated ourselves from the disruptive splitting activities that are being carried on in the name of the 'Zimmerwald movement' on the initiative of the Italian and Swiss Parties.''
In greeting the Congress of the Social-Democratic Party of Switzerland on behalf of the Central Committee of the Russian SocialDemocratic Labour Party, I do so in the hope that this Party will continue to assist the work of internationally uniting the revolutionary Social-Democrats, which began at Zimmerwald and which must end in a complete rupture between Socialism and its Ministerial and social-patriotic betrayers.
This split is maturing in all countries of developed capitalism. In Germany, Comrade Otto Riihle, who holds the same opinions as Karl Liebknecht, was attacked by the opportunists and by the so-called Centre when he declared in the central organ of the German Party that the split had become inevitable (Vorwarts, January 12, 1916). The facts, however, prove more and more clearly that Comrade Riihle is right, that there are in reality two parties in Germany, one helping the bourgeoisie and the government to conduct the predatory war, the other, which for the most part is working secretly, is spreading really socialist manifestoes among the real masses and is organising mass demonstrations and political strikes.
3"
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In France, the "Committee for the Re-establishment of International Connections" 6<l recently published a pamphlet entitled The Zimmerwald Socialists and the War, in which we read that in France three main trends have developed within the Party. The first, embracing the majority and branded in the pamphlet as socialist-nationalists and social-patriots, has concluded a "holy alliance" with our class enemies. The second, according to the pamphlet, represents a minority and consists of the followers of the deputies Longuet and Pressemane, who on the most important questions go hand in hand with the majority and unconsciously bring grist to the mill of the majority by attracting the discontented elements, lulling their socialist conscience and inducing them to follow the official policy of the Party. The third trend mentioned in the pamphlet is that of the Zimmerwaldists, who assert that France was involved in the war, not because Germany declared war on her, but because she pursued an imperialist policy which, by means of treaties and loans, bound her to Russia. This third trend unambiguously proclaims that "defence of the fatherland is not a socialist matter"
Practically the same three trends have arisen in Russia, as well as in England and in the neutral United States of America---in fact, all over the world. The struggle among these trends will determine the course of the labour movement in the immediate future.
Permit me to say a few words on another point which is being very much discussed these days and concerning which we Russian Social-Democrats are particularly rich in experience, namely, the question of terrorism.
We have no information yet about the Austrian revolutionary Social-Democrats. We know that there are revolutionary SocialDemocrats in Austria, but our information about them is very meagre. Consequently, we do not know whether the assassination of Stiirgkh by Comrade Fritz Adler was the application of terrorism as tactics, i.e., systematically organised political assassinations without connection with the revolutionary struggle of the masses; or whether this assassination was a single act in the transition from the opportunist, non-socialist tactics of the official Austrian SocialDemocrats, who stand for defence of the fatherland, to the tactics pf revolutionary mass struggle. The latter assumption seems to fit
SPEECH AT CONGRESS OF SWISS PARTY 313
in more with the circumstances and for that reason, the greeting to Fritz Adler proposed by the Central Committee of the Italian Party and published in Avanti of October 29 deserves the fullest sympathy.
At all events, we are convinced that the experience of revolution and counter-revolution in Russia has proved the correctness of the struggle our Party has carried on for more than twenty years against terrorism as tactics. We must not forget, however, that this struggle was closely connected with a ruthless struggle against opportunism, which was inclined to repudiate the use of all violence by the oppressed classes against their oppressors. We have always stood for the employment of violence in the mass struggle and in connection with it. Secondly, we linked the struggle against terrorism with many years of propaganda, started long before December 1905, for armed insurrection. We have regarded armed insurrection not only as the best means by which the proletariat can retaliate to the government's policy, but also as the inevitable result of the development of the class struggle for socialism and democracy. Thirdly, we have not confined ourselves to recognising violence in principle and to propaganda for armed insurrection. For example, for four years before the revolution we supported the use of violence by the masses against their oppressors, particularly in street demonstrations. We tried to get the whole country to learn the lesson taught by every such demonstration. We began to devote more and more attention to the question of organising the sustained and systematic resistance of the masses against the police and the army, and by means of this resistance to win over as large a part of the army as possible to the side of the proletariat in its struggle against the government, to induce die peasantry and the army to take a conscious part in this struggle. These are the tactics we have applied in the struggle against terrorism, and it is our firm conviction that these tactics have been crowned widi success.
I conclude, comrades, by once again greeting the Congress of the Social-Democratic Party of Switzerland and by wishing you success in your work (applause).
Proto\ollen uber die V'erhandlungen des Parteitages in Zurich am 4. und 5. November, 1916.
Proletars\aya Revolutsiya, No. 4 (27), 1924.
[314] __ALPHA_LVL2__ ON SEPARATE PEACENEGOTIATIONS for a separate peace are already proceeding between Russia and Germany. These negotiations are official, and the two Powers have already reached an agreement on the main points.
The above statement was recently published in the Berne Socialist paper~^^65^^ on the basis of information in its possession. When the Russian Embassy in Berne hastened to issue an official denial, and the French chauvinists ascribed these rumours to "German dirty work," the Socialist paper refused to attach any importance whatsoever to these denials and in support of its statement pointed to the presence in Switzerland of German (Billow) and Russian ``statesmen'' (Sturmer, Giers and a diplomat who arrived from Spain), and to the fact that commercial circles in Switzerland were in possession of similar corroboratory information obtained from Russian commercial circles.
Of course, it is quite possible that a game of deception is being played by Russia, who cannot admit that she is conducting negotiations for a separate peace, and by Germany, who cannot miss an opportunity to create discord between Russia and England, irrespective of whether and with what success negotiations are being conducted.
In order to understand the question of a separate peace we must proceed, not from rumours and reports about what is going on in Switzerland, which really cannot be verified, but from indisputably established political facts that have occurred during the last decades. Let Messrs. Plekhanov, Chkhenkeli, Potresov and Co., who are now playing the role of lackeys or jesters in Marxian livery in the service of Purishkevich and Milyukov, try until they are blue in the face to prove "Germany's war guilt" and that Russia is fighting a "war of defence"; the class conscious workers have not listened and will not listen to these clowns. The war was engendered by the imperialist relations between the Great Powers, i.e., by the struggle
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for the division of the loot, by the struggle to decide which of them is to gobble up certain colonies and small states; and in this war two conflicts are in the foreground. First, that between England and Germany. Second, that between Germany and Russia. These three Great Powers, these three great highwaymen, are the principal figures in the present war. The rest are dependent allies.
The ground for both these conflicts was prepared by the whole policy pursued by each of these Powers for several decades before the war. England is waging this war in order to rob Germany of her colonies and to ruin her principal competitor, who has ruthlessly beaten her in competition by excellent technique, organisation and commercial vigour, and has beaten her so thoroughly that England could not retain her world domination without war. Germany is waging this war because her capitalists consider themselves ---and rightly so---entitled to the ``sacred'' bourgeois right to world supremacy in looting and plundering colonies and dependent countries; in particular, she is fighting to subjugate the Balkan countries and Turkey. Russia is waging the war for the sake of Galicia, which she wants particularly in order to throttle the Ukrainian people (for outside of Galicia the Ukrainians have not, nor can they have, a shred of liberty---relatively speaking, of course), for Armenia and Constantinople, and also to subjugate the Balkan countries.
Simultaneously with the conflict of predatory ``interests'' between Russia and Germany there is another no less---if not more---- profound conflict between Russia and England. The aim of Russia's imperialist policy, which has been determined by the age-long rivalry and objective international relations between the Great Powers, may be briefly defined as follows: to smash Germany's power in Europe with the aid of England and France in order to rob Austria (by annexing Galicia) and Turkey (by annexing Armenia and particularly Constantinople); and to smash England's power in Asia with the aid of Japan and this very Germany, in order to seize the whole of Persia, to complete the partition of China, etc.
For centuries tsarism has been striving to conquer Constantinople and a larger and larger part of Asia, systematically shaping her policy to this end, and exploiting every antagonism and conflict
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between the Great Powers in pursuit of this purpose. England has been a more long-standing, persistent and powerful opponent of these efforts than Germany. From 1878, when the Russian armies marched on Constantinople and the English fleet appeared at the Dardanelles and threatened to bombard the Russians if they dared approach "Tsargrad," * to 1885, when Russia was on the verge of war with England over the division of the spoils in Central Asia (Afghanistan; the advance of Russian military forces into the heart of Central Asia threatened British rule in India), and down to 1902, when England concluded a treaty with Japan, in preparation for die latter's war against Russia---throughout this long period England was the most powerful opponent of Russia's predatory policies, because Russia threatened to undermine British rule over a number of foreign nations.
And now? See what is happening in the present war. It is impossible to listen with patience to all the talk one hears from the "Socialists," who have deserted the proletariat to go over to the bourgeoisie, about Russia now waging a "war of defence" to "save the country" (Chkheidze). It is impossible to listen with patience to sentimental Kautsky and Co. talking about a democratic peace, as if these governments, or any bourgeois government for that matter, could conclude such a peace. As a matter of fact, these governments are enmeshed in a net of secret treaties with each other, with their allies, and against their allies; and the content of these treaties is not accidental, it was not determined only by "malice," but by the whole course and development of imperialist foreign policy. Those ``Socialists'' who hoodwink the workers with banal phrases about nice things in general (defence of the fatherland, democratic peace) without exposing the secret treaties their own governments have concluded to rob foreign countries---such `` Socialists'' are committing downright treachery to socialism.
The German, the English and the Russian governments only stand to gain by the speeches about a nice little peace uttered in the camp of the Socialists, because, firstly, they inspire the belief that such a peace is possible under the present governments; secondly, they divert attention from the predatory policies of those governments.
* Tsar City, old Russian name for Constantinople.---Ed.
ON SEPARATE PEACE 317
War is the continuation of politics. But politics also ``continues'' during war! Germany has secret treaties with Bulgaria and Austria concerning the division of spoils and continues to conduct these secret negotiations. Russia has secret treaties with England, France, etc., and all of them are concerned with plunder and robbery, with robbing Germany of her colonies, robbing Austria, partitioning Turkey, etc.
A ``Socialist'' who under such circumstances delivers speeches to the people and the governments about a nice little peace resembles the clergyman who, seeing before him in the front pews the mistress of a brothel and a police officer, who are working hand in hand with each other, ``preaches'' to them, and to the people, about loving one's neighbour and keeping the Christian commandments.
Undoubtedly, a secret treaty exists between Russia and England about Constantinople, among other things. It is known that Russia hopes to get Constantinople, but that England does not want to give it to her, and if she does, she will either attempt to take it from her later, or else will make this ``concession'' on terms directed against Russia. The text of the secret treaty is unknown, but that the struggle between England and Russia centres around precisely this question, that this struggle is going on even now, is not only known, but there cannot be the slightest doubt about it. It is also known that, in addition to the old treaties between Russia and Japan (for instance, the treaty of 1910, which allowed Japan to "gobble up" Korea and Russia to gobble up Mongolia), a new secret treaty was concluded during the present war, directed, not only against China, but, to a certain extent, also against England. There can be no doubt about this, although the text of the treaty is unknown. In 1904-05, Japan defeated Russia with England's aid; now she is cautiously preparing the conditions that will make the defeat of England with Russia's aid possible.
In "governing circles" in Russia---among the Court gang of Nicholas the Bloody, among the nobility, the army, etc.---there is a pro-German party. In Germany, a turn all along the line has been observed recently among the bourgeoisie (followed by the socialchauvinists) towards a pro-Russian policy, towards a separate peace with Russia, towards placating Russia in order to strike with full force against England. As far as Germany is concerned, this plan
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is clear and leaves no room for doubt. As for Russia, the situation is that tsarism would, of course, prefer to smash Germany first in order to ``take'' as much as possible---the whole of Galicia, the whole of Poland, Armenia, Constantinople---``crush'' Austria, etc. It would then be much easier, with the aid of Japan, to turn against England. But, apparently, Russia is not strong enough. That's the whole point.
The ex-Socialist, Mr. Plekhanov, is trying to make it appear that the Russian reactionaries are generally in favour of peace with Germany, while the "progressive bourgeoisie" are in favour of crushing "Prussian militarism" and friendship with ``democratic'' England; but this is a fairy tale suitable to the mental level of political infants. As a matter of fact, tsarism, the Russian reactionaries, the ``progressive'' bourgeoisie (Octobrists and Cadets), all of them desire one and the same thing: to rob Germany, Austria and Turkey in Europe, and to defeat England in Asia (to take the whole of Persia, Mongolia, Tibet, etc.). These "dear friends" disagree only as to when and how to turn from a struggle against Germany to a struggle against England. Only about when and how!
This question, the only one on which the dear friends disagree, will be determined by military and diplomatic considerations, which are known in full only to the tsarist government; the Milyukovs and Guchkovs know only a quarter of it.
Take the whole of Poland from Germany and Austria! Tsarism is in favour of that, but is it strong enough? And will England permit it?
Take Constantinople and the Straits! Crush and dismember Austria! Tsarism is entirely in favour of that. But is it strong enough? And will England permit it?
Tsarism knows just how many millions of soldiers have been slaughtered and how many more may be drawn from the people; it knows just how many shells are being expended and how many more can be obtained (in the event of war with China, which is threatening, and which is quite possible, Japan will not give any more ammunition!). Tsarism knows how its secret negotiations with England concerning Constantinople have been and are progressing; it knows the strength of the British forces in Salonica, Mesopotamia, etc. Tsarism knows all this. It has all the cards in its hands and is making exact calculations, />., as far as exact calcula-
ON SEPARATE PEACE 319
tions can be made in matters of this kind, in which that very doubtful and elusive element, the "fortune of war," plays such a great part.
As for the Milyukovs and Guchkovs, the less they know the more they talk; and the Plekhanovs, the Chkhenkelis, the Potresovs know nothing at all about tsarism's secret pacts, they have even forgotten what they knew before, they do not study what can be learned from the foreign press, they do not examine the course of tsarism's foreign policy before the war, they do not trace its course during the present war, and, therefore, are playing the part of a socialist Ivan the Fool.
If tsarism has become convinced that even with all the aid of liberal society, with all the zeal of the War Industries Committees, with all the help the Plekhanovs, Gvozdevs, Potresovs, Bulkins, Chirkins, Chkheidzes ("Save the country," don't laugh!), Kropotkins, and the whole of that menial crowd are giving to the noble cause of multiplying shells---that even with all this help and with the present state of military power (or military impotence) of all the allies it can possibly drag and has dragged into the war, it cannot achieve more, it cannot hit Germany harder, or that it can do so only at excessive cost (for example, the loss of ten million more Russian soldiers, the recruiting, training and equipment of whom would cost so many more billions of rubles and so many more years of war), then tsarism cannot help seeking a separate peace with Germany.
If ``we'' run after too much booty in Europe, ``we'' run the risk of utterly exhausting ``our'' military resources, of gaining almost nothing in Europe and of losing the opportunity of getting "our share" in Asia. This is how tsarism argues, and it argues correctly from the standpoint of imperialist interests. It argues more correctly than the bourgeois and opportunist chatterboxes, the Milyukovs, Plekhanovs, Guchkovs and Potresovs.
If no more can be obtained in Europe even after Rumania and Greece (from whom ``we'' have taken all we could) have joined in, then let us take what we can. England cannot give ``us'' anything just now. Germany will perhaps return to us Courland and a part of Poland, certainly Eastern Galicia---which ``we'' particularly need for the purpose of throttling the Ukrainian movement, the movement of historically still dormant people numbering many millions,
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for liberty and the right to use their native language---and, very likely, Turkish Armenia also. If we take this now, we may emerge from the war with increased strength, and tomorrow, we may with the aid of Japan and Germany, with a wise policy and with the further aid of the Milyukovs, Plekhanovs and Potresovs in the cause of ``saving'' our beloved "fatherland," get a good slice of Asia in a war against England (the whole of Persia and the Persian Gulf with an outlet to the ocean much better than Constantinople, which is an outlet only to the Mediterranean and is guarded by islands which England can easily take and fortify, thus depriving ``us'' of every outlet to the open sea), etc.
This is exactly how tsarism argues and, we repeat, it argues correctly, not only from the narrow monarchist point of view, but also from the general imperialist point of view; it knows more and sees further than the liberals, the Plekhanovs and the Potresovs.
It is quite possible, therefore, that tomorrow, or the day after, we shall wake up and hear the three monarchs proclaim: "We, hearkening to the voices of our beloved peoples, have resolved to endow diem widi the blessings of peace, to sign an armistice and to convene a general European Peace Congress." The three monarchs may even display dieir sense of humour by quoting fragments of the speeches of Vandervelde, Plekhanov and Kautsky, such as: We ``promise''---promises are the only thing that is cheap, even in this period of soaring prices---to discuss the question of reducing armaments, and of a ``lasting'' peace, etc. Vandervelde, Plekhanov and Kautsky will strut oft" like roosters to arrange their ``socialist'' congress in the city in which the Peace Congress is convened; and pious wishes, sentimental phrases and assertions that it is necessary to "defend the fatherland" will be uttered without end and in all languages. The stage will be well set for screening the transition from an imperialist Anglo-Russian alliance against Germany to an imperialist Russo-German alliance against England!
But whether the war ends in this way in the very near future or whether Russia "holds out" a little longer in its effort to vanquish Germany and to rob Austria more; whether the negotiations for a separate peace will have the effect of a shrewd blackmailer's trick (tsarism showing England a draft of a treaty wida Germany and saying: "Eidier so many billion rubles and such and such concessions
ON SEPARATE PEACE 321
or guarantees, or I sign this treaty tomorrow"), in any case the imperialist war cannot end otherwise than in an imperialist peace, unless it is transformed into a civil war of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie for socialism. In any case, unless this happens, the imperialist war will result in the strengthening of some of the three strongest imperialist Powers---England, Germany and Russia---at the expense of the weak (Serbia, Turkey, Belgium, etc.), and it is quite possible that all three robbers will become stronger after the war and divide the booty among themselves (the colonies, Belgium, Serbia, Armenia), the only disagreement among them being the proportions in which the booty is to be divided.
Whatever the outcome may be, it is inevitable and beyond doubt that the consistent and avowed social-chauvinists, i£,t those who frankly advocate "defence of the fatherland" in the present war, as well as the masked and half-hearted social-chauvinists, i.e., the Kautskyists, who preach ``peace'' in general, "neither victors nor vanquished," etc., will be taken in and fooled. Any peace concluded by these or any of die bourgeois governments that started the war will demonstrate to the people the servile role of lackeys of imperialism both these types of Socialists have played.
Whatever the outcome of the present war may be, it will prove that those who said that the only possible socialist way out of it is proletarian civil war for socialism were right. It will prove that the Russian Social-Democrats who said that the defeat of tsarism, the complete military defeat of tsarism, is "at any rate" a lesser evil were right. For history never stands still, it is moving forward even during the present war; and if the proletariat of Europe is unable to advance to socialism at the present time, if it is unable to cast off the yoke of the social-chauvinists and the Kautskyists during this first great imperialist war, Eastern Europe and Asia can march with seven-league strides towards democracy only if tsarism meets with utter military defeat and is deprived of all opportunity of practising its semi-feudal imperialist policy.
The war will kill and crush all that is weak, including socialchauvinism and Kautskyism. The imperialist peace will make these weaknesses still more obvious, still more shameful and still more repulsive.
Sotsial-Demofy-at, No. 56, November 6, 1916.
[322] __ALPHA_LVL2__ TEN ``SOCIALIST'' MINISTERS!HUYSMANS, the secretary of the International Social-Chauvinist Bureau, has sent a telegram of greetings to the Danish Minister without portfolio, Stauning, the leader of the Danish quasi-`` SocialDemocratic'' Party, saying:
``I learn from the newspapers that you have been appointed Minister. My heartiest congratulations. Now we have ten Socialist Cabinet Ministers in the world. Things are moving. Best greetings.''
Things are moving, indeed. The Second International is moving rapidly---towards complete amalgamation with national liberal politics. The militant organ of the extreme German opportunists and social-chauvinists, the Chemnitz Vol^stimme, in quoting this telegram, remarks, somewhat venomously:
``The secretary of the International Socialist Bureau unreservedly welcomes the acceptance by a Social-Democrat of a Ministerial post. And yet only a little while before the war broke out all Party Congresses, and International Congresses, expressed themselves sharply against this! Times change and views too on this point.''
The Heilmans, Davids and Siidekums are quite justified in condescendingly patting the backs of the Huysmans, Plekhanovs and Vanderveldes....
Recently Stauning published a letter he wrote to Vandervelde full of the stinging remarks of a pro-German social-chauvinist directed against a French social-chauvinist. Among other things, Stauning in his letter boasts of the fact that "we [the Danish Party] have sharply and definitely disassociated ourselves from the organisationally-pernicious splitting activities carried on on the initiative of the Italian and Swiss Parties, the so-called Zimmerwald movement." This is literally what he says!
The formation of the Danish national state dates back to the sixteenth century. The masses of the Danish people passed through
322TEN ``SOCIALIST'' MINISTERS! 323
the bourgeois liberationist movement long ago. More than 96 per cent of the population are Danes born in Denmark. The number of Danes in Germany is less than two hundred thousand. (The population of Denmark is 2,900,000.) This is enough to prove what crude bourgeois deception is the talk of the Danish bourgeoisie about an "independent national state" being the task of the day! This is said in the twentieth century by the bourgeoisie and the monarchists of Denmark, who possess colonies with a population almost equal to the number of Danes in Germany, and concerning which the Danish government is now bargaining.
Who says that trade in human beings is not carried on in our times? Quite a good trade is being carried on. Denmark is selling to America for so many millions (not yet agreed upon) three islands, all populated, of course.
In addition to this, the specific features of Danish imperialism is that she obtains super-profits accruing from the monopolistically advantageous position she occupies in the meat. and dairy produce market, supplying, as she does, by cheap maritime transport, the biggest market in the world, London. Owing to this, the Danish bourgeoisie and the rich Danish peasants (bourgeois of the purest type, in spite of the fables of the Russian Narodniks) have become ``prosperous'' satellites of the British imperialist bourgeoisie, sharing their particularly easy and particularly fat profits.
The Danish ``Social-Democratic'' Party completely succumbed to this international situation, and staunchly supported and supports the Right wing, the opportunists in the German Social-- Democratic Party. The Danish Social-Democrats voted credits for the bourgeois-monarchist government "to preserve neutrality," as it is euphemistically called. At the congress of September 30, 1916, there was a nine-tenths majority in favour of joining the Cabinet, in favour of striking a bargain with the government! The correspondent of the Berne Socialist paper reports that the opposition to Ministerialism in Denmark was represented by Gerson Trier and the editor, I. P. Sundbo. Trier defended revolutionary Marxist views in a splendid speech, and when the party decided to go into the government, he resigned from the Central Committee and from the Party, declaring that he would not be a member of a bourgeois
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party. During the last few years the Danish ``Social-Democratic'' Party has not differed in any way from the bourgeois radicals.
Greetings to Comrade G. Trier! "Things are moving." Huysmans is right---moving towards a precise, clear, politically honest, socialistically necessary division between the revolutionary Marxists, the representatives of the masses of the revolutionary proletariat, and the Plekhanov-Potresov-Huysmans allies and agents of the imperialist bourgeoisie, who have the majority of the "leaders" but who represent the interests, not of the oppressed masses, but of the minority of the privileged workers, who are deserting to the side of the bourgeoisie.
Will the Russian class conscious workers, those who elected the deputies now exiled to Siberia, those who voted against entering the War Industries Committees to support the imperialist war, wish to remain in an ``International'' of ten Cabinet Ministers ? In an International of Staunings? In an International which men like Trier are leaving?
Satsid-Demokrat, No. 56, November 6, 1916.
[325] __ALPHA_LVL2__ THE CHKHEIDZE FRACTION AND ITS ROLEWE have always asserted that Messrs. Chkheidze and Co. do not represent the Social-Democratic proletariat and that a real SocialDemocratic Labour Party will never be reconciled or united with this fraction. Our reasons were based on the following incontrovertible facts: i) the "save the country" formula employed by Chkheidze differs in no material respect from defencism; 2.) the Chkheidze fraction never opposed Mr. Potresov and Co., not even when Martov did; 3.) the decisive fact: the fraction has never opposed participation in the War Industries Committees.
Nobody has attempted to deny these facts. Chkheidze's adherents simply evade them.
Nashe Slovo and Trotsky, while abusing us for "factionalism," have been compelled by the pressure of facts more and more to enter the struggle against the O.C. and Chkheidze. But it was only "under pressure" (of our criticism and the criticism of the facts) that the Nasfie Slovo-ists retreated from position to position; they have not yet said the decisive word: Unity or a split with the Chkheidze fraction? They are still afraid to decide!
No. i of the Bulletin of die Foreign Committee of the Bund (September 1916) contains a letter from Petrograd dated February 26, 1916. This letter is a valuable document and fully confirms our view. The writer of the letter declares unequivocally that there is "a definite crisis in the camp of Menshevism itself," and what is particularly characteristic, he says nothing about the Menshevfys who are opposed to participation in the War Industries Committees! He has not seen or heard of them in Russia!
He declares that three out of the five members of the Chkheidze fraction are opposed to the "defencist position" (like the O.C.) and two are in favour of it.
``Those who assist the fraction," he writes, "are unable to shift the majority of the fraction from the position it has taken. The local 'initia-
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live group,' which rejects the defencist position, comes to the aid of the majority of the fraction.''
Those who assist---are the liberal intellectuals of the type of Potresov, Maslov, Orthodox and Co., who call themselves Social-- Democrats. Our repeated assertion that this group of intellectuals is a ``hotbed'' of opportunism and of liberal-labour politics has now been confirmed by a Bundist.
He writes further:
``Life has brought to the front" (not Purishkevich and Guchkov have brought to the front?) "...a new organ, the labour group, which is more and more becoming the centre of the labour movement." (The writer means the Guchkov or, to use an older term, the Stolypin labour movement; he recognises no other.) "At its election a compromise was reached: not defence and self-defence, but save the country, by which something broader was implied"
This is the exposure of Chkheidze and of Martov's lies about him by a Bundistl At the election of the Guchkov gang (Gvozdev, Breido, etc.) to the War Industries Committees, Chkheidze and the O.C. entered into a compromise. The formula Chkheidze employs is: compromise with the Potresovs and the Gvozdevs!
Martov concealed and is now concealing this.
The compromise did not end there. The declaration was also drawn up on the basis of a compromise, which the Bundist characterises in this way:
"Definiteness disappeared. The representatives of the majority of the fraction and of the 'initiative group' were dissatisfied because, after all, the declaration is a big step towards the formation of a defencist position. ... In essence, the compromise is the position of German SocialDemocracy, applied to Russia."
This is what a Bundist writes.
The matter seems to be clear, does it not? There is a party, that of the O.C., Chkheidze and Potresov. Within it there are two contending wings; they come to an agreement, they compromise and remain in one party. The compromise is concluded on the basis of participation in the War Industries Committees. The only point of disagreement is how to formulate the "motives," (t£., how dupe
CHKHEIDZE FRACTION AND ITS ROLE 327
the workers). As a result of the compromise we have "in essence, the position of German Social-Democracy.''
Well, were we not right when we said that the O.C. party was social-chauvinist, that as a party, the O.C. and Chkheidze were the same as the Siidekums in Germany?
Even a Bundist is compelled to admit their identity with the Sudekums!
Neither Chkheidze and Co., nor the O.C., have ever expressed opposition to the compromise, although they are ``dissatisfied'' with it.
This was the situation in February 1916. In April 1916, Martov appeared in Kienthal with a mandate from the "initiative group" to represent the whole O.C., the O.C. in general.
Is this not deceiving the International?
See what happens now! Potresov, Maslov and Orthodox establish their own organ, Dyelo, which is openly defencist; they invite Plefyhanov to contribute; they group around themselves Messrs. Dmitriev, Cherevanin, Mayevsky, G. Petrovich, etc., the whole crowd of intellectuals who were formerly the bulwark of liquidationism. What I said in the name of the Bolsheviks in May iaro ("Discussion Bulletin") about the final consolidation of the legalistindependent group * is fully confirmed.
Dyelo takes up a brazenly chauvinist and reformist position. See how Mme. Orthodox falsifies Marx and by misquoting him makes him appear to be an ally of Hindenburg (all on ``philosophic'' grounds; don't laugh!), how Mr. Maslov (especially in Dyelo, No. 2) champions reformism all along the line, how Mr. Potresov accuses Axelrod and Martov of ``maximalism'' and anarcho-- syndicalism, how the whole magazine tries to palm off the duty of defence as the cause of "democracy," while modestly evading the unpleasant question as to whether or not this reactionary war is being waged by tsarism for a predatory purpose, for throttling Galicia, Armenia, etc.
The Chkheidze fraction and the O.C. are silent. Skobelev sends greetings to the "Liebknechts of all countries," although the real Liebknecht has ruthlessly exposed and condemned his own Scheide-
``V. I. Lenin, "Notes of a Publicist," Collected Works, Vol. XIV (Russian edition).---Ed.
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manns and Kautskyists, whereas Skobelev remains in permanent harmony and friendship with the Russian Scheidemanns (Potresov and Co., Chkhenkeli, et al.) and with the Russian Kautskyists (Axelrod et al.).
In Golos,™ No. 2 (Samara, September 20,1916), Martov, on behalf of himself and of his friends abroad, announces his refusal to contribute to Dyelo, but at the same time he whitewashes Chkheidze; at the same time (Izvestia, No. 6, September 12, 1916) he asserts that he has parted with Trotsky and Nashe Slovo because of the ``Trotskyist'' idea of repudiating the bourgeois revolution in Russia, when everybody knows that this is a lie, that Martov left Nashe Slot/o because the latter could not tolerate Martov's whitewashing of the O.C.! In the same Izvestia Martov defends his deception of the German public, which even roused the indignation of RolandHoist. He published a pamphlet in German from which he omitted the very fart of the declaration of the Petrograd and Moscow Mensheviks in which they declared their willingness to participate in the War and Industries Committees!
Recall the controversy between Trotsky and Martov in Nashe Slot/o prior to the latter's resignation from the Editorial Board. Martov reproached Trotsky for not yet being able to say whether he would follow Kautsky at the decisive moment or not. Trotsky retorted that Martov was playing the part of a "bait," a ``decoy'' for the revolutionary workers, to entice them into the opportunist and chauvinist party of the Potresovs, then the O.C., etc.
Both sides repeated our arguments. And both were right. Much as the truth about Chkheidze and Co. is being concealed, it is, however, coming to light. Chkheidze's role is to compromise with the Potresovs, to camouflage opportunist and chauvinist politics by vague or almost ``Left'' phrases. And Martov's role is to whitewash Chkheidze.
N. Lenin
Sbornik Sotsial-Demokrata, No. 2, December, 1916.
[329] __ALPHA_LVL2__ ``THE YOUTH INTERNATIONAL" (A Review)IN Switzerland, since September i, 1915, a German publication bearing the above title has been appearing as the "Militant and Propaganda Organ of the International League of Socialist Youth Organisations." Altogether, six issues have appeared. This publication is worthy of general notice and should be strongly recommended to the attention of all members of our Party who are able to come into contact with foreign Social-Democratic Parties and youth organisations.
The majority of the official Social-Democratic Parties of Europe are now advocating the meanest and vilest form of social chauvinism and opportunism. This applies to the German and the French Parties, the Fabian Society and the ``Labour'' Party in England, the Swedish, the Dutch (Troelstra's party), Danish, Austrian, etc., Parties. In the Swiss Party, notwithstanding the secession (to the great benefit of die labour movement) of the extreme opportunists and their formation of a separate now-Party "Griitli League"67 there are still within the Social-Democratic Party itself numerous opportunists, social-chauvinist and Kautskyan leaders who exercise enormous influence on the affairs of die Party.
In the circumstances thus prevailing in Europe, on the League of Socialist Youth Organisations falls the tremendous, grateful, but difficult task of fighting for revolutionary internationalism, for true socialism, and against the prevailing opportunism, which has deserted to the side of die imperialist bourgeoisie. The Youth International has published a number of good articles in defence of revolutionary internationalism, and the whole publication is permeated with a fine spirit of intense hatred for the betrayers of socialism who "defend the fatherland" in the present war, and with an earnest desire to purge the international labour movement of the corroding influence of chauvinism and opportunism.
Of course, the organ of the youth still lacks theoretical clarity and consistency, and perhaps may never acquire this, precisely be-
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cause it is the organ of vigorous, turbulent, inquiring youth. However, our attitude towards the lack of theoretical clarity on the part of such people must be entirely different from what it is and should be towards the theoretical muddle in the heads, and the lack of revolutionary consistency in the hearts, of our "O.C.-ists," "Social-Revolutionaries," Tolstoyans, Anarchists, the European Kautskyists (of the ``Centre''), etc. Adults who pretend to lead and teach, but who mislead the proletariat are one thing: against such people a ruthless struggle must be waged, youth organisations, which openly declare that they are still learning, that their main task is to train Party workers for the Socialist Parties, are quite another thing. Such people must be assisted in every way. We must be patient with their faults and strive to correct them gradually, mainly by persuasion, and not by fighting them. Frequently, the middle aged and the aged do not fyiow how to approach the youth in the proper way; for, necessarily, the youth must come to socialism in a different way, by other paths, in other forms, under other circumstances than their fathers. Incidentally, this is why we must be decidedly in favour of the organisational independence of the Youth League, not only because the opportunists fear this independence, but because of the very nature of the case; for unless they have complete independence, the youth will be unable either to train good Socialists from their midst, or prepare themselves to lead socialism forward.
We stand for the complete independence of the Youth Leagues, but also for complete freedom for comradely criticism of their errors! We must not flatter the youth.
Of the errors to be noted in the excellent organ mentioned above, reference must first of all be made to the following three:
1. On the question of disarmament (or ``unarming''), a wrong position is taken; this position we have criticised in another article.* There is ground for believing that this error arises entirely out of the laudable desire to emphasise the necessity for striving for the "complete destruction of militarism," (which is perfectly correct); but the role of civil wars in the socialist revolution is forgotten.
2. On the question of the difference between Socialists and Anarchists in their attitude towards the state, Comrade Nota-Bene 6S
* C/. pp. 352-361 of this volume,---Ed,
``THE YOUTH INTERNATIONAL" 331
in his article (in issue No. 6) falls into a very serious error (as he also does on several other questions, for instance, our reasons for combating the "defence of the fatherland" slogan). The author wishes to present "a clear picture of the state in general" (together with that of the imperialist predatory state). He quotes several statements by Marx and Engels, and, inter alia, comes to the following two conclusions:
a. "... It is quite a mistake to seek for the difference between Socialists and Anarchists in the fact that the former are in favour of the state, while the latter are opposed to it. The real difference is that revolutionary Social-Democracy desires to organise social production on new, centralised, i.e., technically the most progressive, lines, whereas decentralised, anarchist production would mean retrogression to obsolete technique, to the old form of enterprises," This is wrong. The author raisfis-the question of the difference in the attitude of Socialists and Anarchists towards the state. But he does not answer this question, but another, namely the difference in the attitude of Socialists and Anarchists towards the economic foundation of future society. This, of course, is an important and necessary question to discuss; but diat does not mean that the main point of difference in the attitude of Socialists and Anarchists towards the state should be ignored. The Socialists are in favour of utilising the present state and its institutions in the struggle for the emancipation of the working class, and they also urge the necessity of utilising the state for the peculiar form of transition from capitalism to socialism. This transitional form is the dictatorship of the proletariat, which is also a state.
The Anarchists want to ``abolish'' the state, to "blow it up," (sprengen) as Comrade Nota-Bene expresses it in one place, mistakenly ascribing this view to the Socialists. The Socialists---- unfortunately the author quotes the words of Engels relevant to this subject rather incompletely---hold that the state will wither away, will ``gradually'' "fall asleep" after the bourgeoisie has been expropriated.
b. "Social-Democracy which is, or at least should be, the educator of the masses, must more than ever emphasise its hostility to
die state in principle-----The present war has shown how deeply
the roots of the state have penetrated the souls of workers," writes
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Comrade Nota-Bene. In order to ``emphasise'' our ``hostility'' to the state "in principle" we must indeed understand it "clearly." This clarity, however, our author lacks. His remark about the "roots of the state" is entirely muddled. It is un-Marxian and unsocialistic. The point is not that the ``state'' has clashed with the repudiation of the state, but that the opportunist policy (i.e., the opportunist, reformist, bourgeois attitude towards the state) has clashed with revolutionary Social-Democratic policy (i.e., the revolutionary Social-Democratic attitude towards the bourgeois state and towards utilising the state against the bourgeoisie, in order to overthrow it). These are entirely different things. We hope to return to this extremely important subject in a separate article.
3. The "declaration of principles of the International League of Socialist Youth Organisations" published in issue No. 6 as the "Secretariat's draft" contains not a few inaccuracies, but it does not contain the main thing: a clear comparison of the three fundamental trends (social-chauvinism, the ``Centre'' and the Left), which are now contending against each other in the Socialist movement in all countries.
We repeat, these errors must be refuted and explained; at the same time we must exert every effort to find points of contact and friendship with the youth organisations and help them in every way, but we must find the proper manner of approach to them.
N. Lenin
Soesial-Demo&ata, No. 2, December, 1916.
[333] __ALPHA_LVL2__ EFFORTS TO WHITEWASH OPPORTUNISMTHE Paris Nashe Slovo; which was recently suppressed by the French government to oblige tsarism (the excuse for the suppression being that copies of Nashe Slovo were found on the Russian soldiers who had mutinied in Marseilles!), is i indignant over the ``lamentable'' role of Deputy Chkheidze. With the permission of the authorities, Chkheidze addressed public meetings in the Caucasus, appealing to the population not to create ``disorder'' ( accompanied by looting of stores, etc.), but to organise co-operative societies, etc. A nice trip for an alleged Social-Democrat to make "under the protection of a Governor, a colonel, a priest and a police captain" (Nashe Slovo, No. 203).
L. Martov forthwith hastened to enter a noble protest in the Bund's Bulletin against "representing Chkheidze as a sort of" ( ? ? not "a sort of," but "the same sort as all the Liquidators") " extinguisher of the awakening revolutionary spirit." Martov's defence of Chkheidze proceeds along two lines: fact and principle.
He challenges the fact by declaring that Nashe Slovo quotes from a Caucasian Black Hundred paper, and that those who spoke at the meeting with Chkheidze were Mikoladze, a retired officer "known in his country as a radical public man," and the priest Khundadze, who "in 1905 was prosecuted for participating in the Social-Democratic movement." ("It is well-known," adds Martov, "that in the Georgian Social-Democratic movement the participation of village priests is quite an ordinary thing.")
This is Martov's ``defence'' of Chkheidze. A very weak defence, indeed. Even if Chkheidze's appearance on the same platform with a priest was reported by a Black Hundred paper it does not refute the fact, and Martov himself admits that the fact did occur.
That Khundadze "was prosecuted in 1905" proves nothing at all, for Gapon and Alexinsky were also ``prosecuted'' at that time. Which party do Khundadze and Mikoladze belong to, or sympathise with, now? Are they defencists? This is what Martov ought
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to have ascertained if he were seeking the truth and not doing a cheap lawyer's job. A man "known in his county as a radical public man," ordinarily means in our press nothing but a liberal landowner.
By shouting that Nashe Slovo has presented an "entirely false picture" Martov wishes to conceal the truth, which he has not refuted one iota.
But this is not the main thing. These are mere blossoms, the fruit is to come. Having failed to disprove Chkheidze's `` lamentable'' conduct by denying the fact, Martov confirms it by his defence of the principle.
``It remains beyond doubt," says Martov, "that Comrade" ( ?? of Potresov and Co. ? ) "Chkheidze found it necessary to speak out, not only against the reactionary direction taken by the Caucasian disorders in so far as it fell" ( ? they fell?) "under the influence of the Black Hundreds, but also against those of its destructive forms (looting of shops, violence against merchants) which, generally speaking, popular discontent may assume even independently of reactionary influences." Note the words: "It remains beyond doubt!''
Martov sings like a nightingale as sweetly as V. Maklakov: the helplessness, disunity, "consternation and even ignorance" of the masses..." `revolts' of this sort do not lead to the goal, and in the last analysis they are harmful from the point of view of the interests of the proletariat...." On the one hand, "it would be a bad revolutionary party which turned jts back upon an incipient movement because it was accompanied by spontaneous and inexpedient excesses." On the other hand, "it would be a bad party which deemed it to be its revolutionary duty to refrain from combating such excesses, as inexpedient actions....''
``Inasmuch as in Russia... an organised campaign against the war has not yet begun [?], inasmuch as the scattered state of the class conscious elements of the proletariat makes it impossible to compare our present position, not only with 1904-5 but even with 1913-14 [?], the popular unrest which flares up as a consequence of the high cost of living, etc., although a very important symptom, cannot [?] directly [?] become the source of that movement for which we are striving. The only way in which it may be `utilised' expediently is by guiding
EFFORTS TO WHITEWASH OPPORTUNISM 335
the discontent that breaks out into the channels of some kind of organised struggle, without which the idea of the masses setting themselves revolutionary aims is out of the question. For this reason, even [!!] appeals to organise co-operative societies, to compel municipal councils to fix prices, and similar palliatives based on the development of the initiative of the masses, are more revolutionary [hat ha!] and more fruitful than flirting ... frivolous speculation, which is 'positively criminal,' etc.''
It is difficult to keep calm when reading outrageous speeches like these. Even the Bundist editors seem to have understood that Martov was playing foul, and added an ambiguous promise to "return to the subject in a future issue....''
The question is as clear as clear can be. Supposing that Chkheidze had to deal with a form of unrest which he considered inexpedient. Obviously his right and duty as a revolutionary was to combat the inexpedient form---for the sake o£ what? For the sake of expedient revolutionary actions? Or for the sake of an expedient liberal struggle?
That is the whole point! And this is what Martov muddles up!
Mr. Chkheidze was ``diverting'' the rising revolutionary "mass discontent" "into the channel" of a liberal struggle (only peaceful co-operative societies, only legal pressure on the municipal councils, with the approval of the Governor, etc.), and not into the channel of an expedient revolutionary struggle. This is the crux of the question; but Martov is watering down the issue and defending a liberal policy.
A revolutionary Social-Democrat would say: "It is inexpedient to loot small shops. Let us set to work more seriously to organise a demonstration, simultaneously, say, with the Baku, Tiflis and Petrograd workers. Let us direct our hatred against the government; let us win over that part of the army which wants peace. Is this what Mr. Chkheidze said? No. He called for a ``struggle'' that would be acceptable to the liberals!
Martov, with a flourish, signed a ``platform'' that recommended "revolutionary mass actions" (one has got to appear like a revolutionary before the workers), but when the first symptoms of such actions appear in Russia, he begins, by fair means or foul, to defend the "~Leh"-liberal Chkheidze.
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``In Russia an organized campaign of struggle against the war has not yet begun." In the first place, this is not true. It has begun, at any rate, in Petrograd, with manifestoes, meetings, strikes, demonstrations. Secondly, if it has not begun in some provinces, it must be begun. But Martov claims that the liberal campaign ``begun'' by Mr. Chkheidze is more "revolutionary.''
Is this not whitewashing abominable opportunism?
N. Lenin
Sotsial-Demo/trata, No. 2, December, 1916.
[336] __ALPHA_LVL2__ IMPERIALISM AND THE SPLIT IN THE SOCIALISTIS there any connection between imperialism and that monstrously disgusting victory which opportunism (in the form of social-- chauvinism) has gained over the labour movement in Europe?
This is the fundamental question of modern socialism. Having fully established in our Party literature, (i) the imperialist character of the present epoch and the present war, and (2) the inseparable historical connection between social-chauvinism and opportunism, and also the similarity of their ideological and political content, we can and must proceed to analyse this fundamental question.
We must begin with the most precise and fullest possible definition of imperialism. Imperialism is a special historical stage of capitalism. Its specific character is three-fold: Imperialism is i) monopolistic capitalism; 2) parasitic, or decaying, capitalism; 3) moribund capitalism. The substitution of monopoly for free competition is the fundamental economic feature, the quintessence of imperialism. Monopoly manifests itself in five main forms: i) cartels, syndicates and trusts; the concentration of production has reached the stage which engenders these monopolistic combinations of capitalists; 2) the monopolistic position of big banks; three to five gigantic banks manipulate the whole economic life of America, France, Germany; 3) the seizure of the sources of raw material by the trusts and the financial oligarchy (finance capital is monopolistic industrial capital merged with bank capital); 4) the division of the world (economically) among the international cartels has commenced. The international cartels which dominate the whole world market, dividing it ``amicably'' among themselves---until war brings about a redivision---already numbers over one hundred! The export of capital, a particularly characteristic phenomenon as distinct from the export of commodities under non-monopolistic capitalism, is closely bound up with the economic and polirical-ter-
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ritorial division of the world; 5) the territorial division of the world (colonies) is finished.
Imperialism, as the highest stage of capitalism in America, Europe and in Asia, assumed full shape in the period 1898-1914. The Spanish-American War (1898), the Anglo-Boer War (1900-1902), the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905) and the economic crisis in Europe in 1900 are the principal historical landmarks in the new epoch of world history.
The fact that imperialism is parasitic or decaying capitalism manifests itself first of all in the tendency to decay; which is a distinguishing feature of all monopoly under the private ownership of the means of production. The difference between the republicandemocratic and the monarchist-reactionary imperialist bourgeoisie is obliterated precisely because both are rotting alive (which by no means prevents the astonishingly rapid development of capitalism in individual branches of industry, individual countries, individual periods). Secondly, the decay of capitalism manifests itself in the creation of a huge stratum of rentiers, capitalists who live by "clipping coupons." In each of the four advanced imperialist countries, Great Britain, United States, France and Germany, capital invested in securities amounts to 100 to 150 billion francs, from which each country derives an annual income of no less than 5 to 8 billions. Thirdly, the export of capital is parasitism raised to the second power. Fourthly, "finance capital tends towards domination, not towards freedom." Political reaction all along the line is the attribute of imperialism: Corruption, bribery on a gigantic scale. Panama scandals of all kinds. Fifthly, the exploitation of oppressed nations, which is inseparably connected with annexations, especially the exploitation of colonies by a handful of ``Great'' Powers, transforms the ``civilised'' world more and more into a parasite on the body of hundreds of millions of uncivilised people. The Roman proletarian lived at the expensfc of society. Modern society lives at the expense of the modern proletarian. Marx particularly emphasised this profound observation of Sismondi. Imperialism changes the situation somewhat. A privileged upper stratum of the proletariat in the imperialistic states lives partly at the expense of the hundreds of millions of uncivilised people.
It is clear, therefore, why imperialism is moribund capitalism, the
THE SPLIT IN THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT 339
transition to socialism: monopoly growing out of capitalism is already the dying of capitalism, the beginning of its transition to socialism. The socialisation of labour on a huge scale by imperialism (what the apologists, the bourgeois economists, call ``interlocking'') signifies the same thing.
In advancing this definition of imperialism, we definitely come into conflict with K. Kautsky, who refuses to regard imperialism as a "phase of capitalism," and who defines imperialism as a policy which is ``preferred'' by finance capital, as the striving of `` industrial'' countries to annex ``agrarian'' countries.* This definition of Kautsky's is thoroughly false theoretically. The distinguishing feature of imperialism is the domination, not of industrial capital, but of finance capital, the striving to annex, not only agrarian countries, but all T^inds of countries. Kautsky separates imperialist politics from imperialist economics, he separates monopoly in politics from monopoly in economics, in order to pave the way for his vulgar, bourgeois reformism in the shape of "disarmament," "ultra-- imperialism" and similar piffle. The meaning and object of this theoretical falsehood is to gloss over the most profound contradictions of imperialism and thus justify the theory of ``unity'' with the apologists of imperialism, the frank social-chauvinists and opportunists.
We have dealt sufficiently with Kautsky's rupture with Marxism in the Sotsial-Demo^rat and in the Communist. Our Russian Kautskyans, the O.C.-ists headed by Axelrod and Spectator, not forgetting Martov and, to a considerable degree, Trotsky, have preferred silently to ignore the question of Kautskyism as a trend. They did not dare to defend what Kautsky wrote during the war; they evaded the issue either by simply praising Kautsky (Axelrod in his German pamphlet, which the O.C. has promised to publish in Russian) or by quoting Kautsky's private letters (Spectator) in which he asserts that he belongs to the opposition, and thus tried, Jesuit-fashion, to nullify his chauvinist declarations.
We will note that Kautsky's ``conception'' of imperialism---which
* "Imperialism is the product of highly developed industrial capitalism. It consists in the striving of every industrial capitalist nation to bring under its control and to annex more and more agrarian regions irrespective of what nations inhabit those regions." (Kautsky in Neue Zeit, September u, 1914.)
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is tantamount to embellishing it---marks a retrogression, not only compared with Hilferding's Finance Capital (no matter how assiduously Hilferding may now defend Kautsky and ``unity'' with social chauvinism!), but also compared with the social-liberal J. A. Hobson. This English economist, who does not in the least claim to be a Marxist, in his work of 1902,* defines imperialism and reveals its contradictions much more profoundly. This is what that writer (in whose works can be found nearly all of Kautsky's pacifist and ``arbitration'' banalities) had to say on die particularly important question of the parasitic nature of imperialism.
Two factors, according to Hobson, have primarily contributed to weaken the power of the old empires: i) "Economic parasitism"; 2) formation of armies out of dependent peoples. The first factor is "the habit of economic parasitism, by which the ruling state has used its provinces, colonies, and dependencies in order to enrich its ruling class and to bribe its lower classes into acquiescence." Concerning the second factor, Hobson writes:
``One of the strangest symptoms of the blindness of imperialism" (this song about the ``blindness'' of imperialism comes more appropriately from the social-liberal Hobson than from the ``Marxian'' Kautsky) "is the reckless indifference with which Great Britain, France, and other imperialist nations are embarking on this perilous dependence. Great Britain has gone farthest. Most of the fighting by which we have won our Indian Empire has been done by natives; in India, as more recently in Egypt, great standing armies are placed under British commanders; almost all the fighting associated with our African Dominions, except in the Southern part, has been done for us by natives.''
The prospect of die partition of China elicited from Hobson the following economic estimation:
``The greater part of Western Europe might then assume the appearance and character already exhibited by tracts of country in the South of England, in the Riviera, and the tourist-ridden or residential parts of Italy and Switzerland, little clusters of wealthy aristocrats drawing dividends and pensions from the .Far East, with a somewhat larger group of professional retainers and tradesmen and a large body of personal servants and workers in the transport trade and in the final stages of production of the more perishable goods; all the main arterial
*J. A. Hobson, Imperialism, London, 1902.
THE SPLIT IN THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT 341
industries would have disappeared, the staple goods and manufactures flowing in as tribute from Asia and Africa ...
``We have foreshadowed the possibility of even a larger alliance of Western States, a European federation of Great Powers which, so far from forwarding the cause of world civilisation, might introduce the gigantic peril of a Western parasitism, a group of advanced industrial nations, whose upper classes drew vast tribute from Asia and Africa, with which they supported great tame masses of retainers, no longer engaged in the staple industries of agriculture and manufacture, but kept in the performance of personal or minor industrial services under the control of a new financial aristocracy. Let those who would scout such theory" (he should have said: prospect) "as undeserving of consideration examine the economic and social condition of districts in Southern England today which are already reduced to this condition, and reflect upon the vast extension of such a system which might be rendered feasible by the subjection of China to the economic control of similar groups of financiers, investors [rentiers] and political and business officials, draining the greatest potential reservoir of profit the world has ever known, in order to consume it in Europe. The situation is far too complex, the play of world-forces far too incalculable, to render this or any other single interpretation of the future very probable; but the influences which govern the imperialism of Western Europe today are moving in this direction, and, unless counteracted or diverted, make towards some such consummation.''
Hobson, the social-liberal, fails to see that this ``counteraction'' can be offered only by the revolutionary proletariat and only in the form of a social revolution. But then, he is only a social-liberal! Nevertheless, as early as 1902, he had an excellent approach to the question of what the "United States of Europe" means (for the information of the Kautskyan, Trotsky!) and to all that is now being glossed over by the hypocritical Kautsfyans o£ various countries, namely, that the opportunists (social chauvinists) are working together with the imperialist bourgeoisie precisely in the direction of creating an imperialist Europe on the backs of Asia and Africa, that objectively the opportunists are a section of the petty-bourgeoisie and of those strata of the working class who are being bribed out of imperialist super-profits and converted into watchdogs of capitalism, into corruptors of the labour movement.
We have repeatedly pointed to this very profound economic con-
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nection between the imperialist bourgeoisie and the opportunism that is now victorious (for how long?) in the labour movement, not only in articles, but also in our Party's resolutions. From this, among other things, we drew the conclusion that a split with social-chauvinism was inevitable. Our Kautskyans preferred to evade the question! Martov, for instance, in his lectures, gave utterance to a sophism, which in the "Bulletin of the Foreign Secretariat of the O.C." (No. 4, of April 10, 1916) is expressed as follows:
``... The cause of revolutionary Social-Democracy would be in a very bad plight, even hopeless, if those groups who approach most closely the mental development of the `intelligentsia' and the most highly skilled groups of workers fatally drifted away from it towards opportunism.''
By means of the silly catchword, ``fatally'' and a little "shuffle," he evades the fact that certain strata of workers have deserted to opportunism and to the imperialist bourgeoisie! And all that the sophists of the O.C. want is to evade this fact! They make shift with that "official optimism" which the Kautskyan Hilferding and many others are flaunting at the present time: Objective conditions, they say, guarantee the unity of the proletariat and the victory of the revolutionary trend! As much as to say: We are ``optimistic'' about the proletariat!
As a matter of fact, all these Kautskyans, Hilferdings, the O.C.- ists, Martov and Co. are optimistic... about opportunism. This is the whole point!
The proletariat is the child of capitalism, of world capitalism, not only of European, and not only of imperialist capitalism. On a world scale, fifty years earlier or fifty years later---on such a scale, this is a minor question---the ``proletariat'' "will," of course, be United, revolutionary Social-Democracy will ``inevitably'' be victorious in its ranks. But this is not the point, Messrs. Kautskyans. The point is that you are now in the imperialist countries of Europe cringing before the opportunists who are alien to the proletariat as a class, who are the servants, the agents, the conduits of the influence of the bourgeoisie, and of whom the labour movement must rid itself if it does not want to remain a bourgeois labour movement. Your advocacy of ``unity'' with the opportunists, with the Legiens and Davids, the Plekhanovs or Chkhenkelis and Po-
THE SPLIT IN THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT 343
tresovs, etc., is, objectively, the advocacy of enslaving the workers to the imperialist bourgeoisie with the aid of the latter's best agents in the labour movement. The victory of revolutionary Social-- Democracy on a world scale is absolutely inevitable, but it is marching and will take place against you, it will be a victory over you.
These two trends, even two parties in the present day labour movement, which so obviously parted ways all over the world in 1914-16, were traced by Engels and Marx in England for many decades, approximately from 1858 to 1892.
Neither Marx nor Engels lived to see the imperialist epoch of world capitalism, which began not earlier than 1898-1900. But as early as the middle of the nineteenth century, England's peculiar feature was that she displayed at least two of the distinguishing features of imperialism: i) vast colonies, 2) monopoly profits (due to her monopolist position in the world market). In both respects, England at that time was an exception among capitalist countries; but Marx and Engels, analysing that exception, clearly and definitely indicated its connection with the (temporary) victory of opportunism in the English labour movement.
In a letter to Marx dated October 7, 1858, Engels wrote:
``... the English proletariat is becoming more and more bourgeois, so that this most bourgeois of all nations is apparently aiming ultimately at the possession of a bourgeois aristocracy and a bourgeois proletariat as well as a bourgeoisie. For a nation which exploits the whole world this is of course to a certain extent justifiable." *
In a letter to Sorge dated September 21, 1872, Engels informs him that Hales kicked up a big row in the Federal Council of the International and secured a vote of censure against Marx for saying that "the English labour leaders had sold themselves." On April 4, 1874, Marx wrote to Sorge:
``As to the urban workers here (in England) it is a pity that the whole gang of leaders did not get elected to Parliament. This would be the surest way of getting rid of these blackguards.''
Engels in a letter to Marx, dated August n, 1881, speaks about "the worst English trade unions which allow themselves to be led
*Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Selected Correspondence, pp. 115-16.---Ed.
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by men sold to, or at least paid by, the bourgeoisie." In a letter to Kautsky dated September 12, 1882, Engels wrote:
``You ask me what the English workers think about colonial policy. Well, exactly the same as they think about politics in general.... There is no workers' party here, there are only Conservatives and LiberalRadicals, and the workers gaily share the feast of England's monopoly of the world market and the colonies." *
On December 7, 1889, Engels wrote to Sorge:
``... The most repulsive thing here" (in England) "is the bourgeois `respectability' which has grown deep into the bones of the workers.... Even Tom Mann, whom I regard as the finest of them, is fond of mentioning that he will be lunching with the Lord Mayor. If one compares this with the French, one can see what a revolution is good for after all." f
In a letter dated April 19, 1890:
``But under the surface the movement" (of the working class in England) "is going on, it is seizing ever wider sections of the workers and mostly just among the hitherto stagnant lowest" (Engels' italics) "masses, and the day is no longer far off when this mass will suddenly find itself, when the fact that it is this colossal self-impelled mass will dawn upon it....''
March 4, 1891: "... the failure of the collapsed Dockers' Union, the `old' conservative trade unions, rich and therefore cowardly, remain alone on the battle field-----" September 14, 1891: At the
Newcastle Trade Union Congress, the old unionists, opponents of the eight-hour day, were defeated and "the bourgeois papers recognise the defeat o£ the bourgeois labour party----" J (Engels' italics.)
That these ideas, repeated in the course of decades, were also expressed by Engels publicly, in the press, is proved by his preface to the second (1892) edition of his Condition of the Wording Class in England, where he speaks of the "aristocracy of the working class," of a "privileged minority of the workers" as distinct from the "broad masses of die workers." -"A small, privileged, sheltered mi-
*lbld., p. 399.---Ed. •\lKd., p. 461.---Erf. \ Ibid., p. 488.---Erf,
THE SPLIT IN THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT 345
nority" of the working class, he says, alone enjoyed "lasting benefits" from the privileged position of England in 1848-1868, whereas "the broad masses at best enjoyed only a shortlived improvement." "... With the collapse of England's industrial monopoly the English working class will lose its privileged position___" The members of the ``new'' unions, he continues, the unskilled workers' unions, "have one immense advantage: their psychology is still virgin soil, entirely free from inherited `respectable' bourgeois prejudices which muddle the heads of the better placed 'old unionists.' ..." In England, "the so-called labour representatives are those who are forgiven for belonging to the working class because they are themselves ready to drown this quality in the ocean of their liberalism.''
We have deliberately quoted the direct statements of Marx and Engels at length in order that the reader may study them as a whole. They must be studied; they are worth pondering over, because they reveal the pivot of the tactics in the labour movement that are dictated by the objective conditions of the imperialist epoch.
Here, too, Kautsky has attempted to "ruffle the waters" by substituting sentimental conciliation with opportunism for Marxism. In controversy with the avowed and naive social imperialists (like Lensch) who justify Germany in fighting this war on the grounds that it is destroying England's monopoly, Kautsky "corrects" this obvious falsehood by another equally obvious falsehood. Instead of a cynical falsehood he employs a sentimental one! England's industrial monopoly, he says, has long been broken, it was destroyed long ago, there is nothing left to destroy.
Why is this argument false?
Firstly, it overlooks England's colonial monopoly. As we have seen, Engels, as early as 1882, thirty-four years ago, pointed to this very clearly! Although England's industrial monopoly has been destroyed, her colonial monopoly has not only remained, but has become extremely acute, because the world is already divided up! By means of this sentimental lie Kautsky smuggles in the bourgeoispacifist and opportunist-philistine idea that "there is nothing to fight about." The contrary is the case; the capitalists not only have something to fight about, but they cannot help fighting if they are to preserve capitalism, because, without a forcible redivision of the
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colonies the new imperialist countries cannot obtain the privileges enjoyed by the older (and less powerful) imperialist powers.
Secondly, why does England's monopoly explain the (temporary) victory of opportunism in England? Because monopoly yields superprofits, i.e., profits over and above the capitalist profit which is normal and usual throughout the world. The capitalists are able to spare a part (and no small part, at that!) of these super-profits to bribe their workers, to create something like an alliance ( remember the famous ``alliances'' of the English trade unions with their employers as described by the Webbs) between the workers of the given nation and their capitalists against the other countries. England's industrial monopoly was destroyed about the end of the nineteenth century. This is beyond dispute. But how was it destroyed? Has all monopoly disappeared?
If that were the case there would be some justification for Kautsky's ``theory'' of conciliation (with the opportunists). But the whole point is that it is not the case. Imperialism is monopoly capitalism. Every cartel, trust and syndicate, every gigantic bank is monopoly. Super-profit has not disappeared, it has remained. The exploitation of all other countries by one privileged, financially rich country has remained and has become more intense. A handful of rich countries---there are only four of them, if we are to speak of independent, and really gigantic ``modern'' wealth: England, France, the United States and Germany---have developed monopoly to vast proportions, obtain super-profits amounting to hundreds of millions, even billions, "ride on the backs" of hundreds and hundreds of millions of the populations of foreign countries, fight among each other for the division of the particularly rich, particularly fat and particularly easy spoils.
This is the economic and political essence of imperialism, the very deep contradictions of which Kautsky does not expose, but covers up.
The bourgeoisie of a ``Great'' imperialist Power is economically able to bribe the upper strata of its workers, devoting one or two hundred million francs a year for this purpose, because its superprofits probably amount to a billion. The question as to how this little sop is distributed among the Labour Ministers, the "labour representatives" (remember Engels' splendid analysis of this term),
THE SPLIT IN THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT 347
the labour members of War Industries Committees, the labour officials, the workers who are organised in craft unions, salaried employees, etc., etc., is a secondary question.
Between 1848 and 1868, partly even later, England alone enjoyed a monopoly; that is why opportunism could be victorious there for decades. There were no other countries with very rich colonies, or with an industrial monopoly.
The last third of the nineteenth century witnessed the transition to the new imperialist epoch. Monopoly is enjoyed by finance capital not in one, but in some, very few, Great Powers. (In Japan and Russia, the monopoly of military power, vast territories, or special facilities for robbing minority nationalities, China, etc., partly supplements and partly takes the place of the monopoly of modern, up-to-date finance capital.) Because of this difference England's monopoly could remain unchallenged for decades. The monopoly of modern finance capital is furiously challenged; the epoch of imperialist wars has begun. Formerly, the working class of one country could be bribed and corrupted for decades. At the present time this is improbable, perhaps even impossible. On the other hand, however, every imperialist ``Great'' Power can and does bribe smaller (compared with England in 1848-1868) strata of the "labour aristocracy." Formerly a "bourgeois labour party," to use Engels' remarkably profound expression, could be formed only in one country, because that country alone enjoyed a monopoly, and enjoyed it for a long period. Now the "bourgeois labour party" is inevitable and typical for all the imperialist countries; but in view of the desperate struggle that is being waged for the division of the booty, it is improbable that such a party will remain victorious for any length of time in a number of countries; for while trusts, the financial oligarchy, high prices, etc., permit the bribing of small upper strata, they at the same time oppress, crush, ruin and torture the masses of the proletariat and the semi-proletariat more than ever.
On the one hand, there is the tendency of the bourgeoisie and the opportunists to convert a handful of the richest, privileged nations into ``eternal'' parasites on the body of the rest of mankind, to "rest on the laurels" of exploitation of Negroes, Hindus, etc., by keeping them in subjection with the aid of the excellent technique
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of destruction of modern militarism. On the other hand, there is the tendency of the masses, who are more oppressed than formerly and who bear the brunt of the suffering caused by imperialist wars, to throw off that yoke, to overthrow the bourgeoisie. Henceforth, the history of the labour movement will inevitably unfold itself in the struggle between these two tendencies: for the first tendency is not accidental, it is ``founded'' on economics. The bourgeoisie has already begotten, nurtured, secured for itself "bourgeois labour parties" of social chauvinists in all countries. The difference between a definitely formed party, like Bissolati's Party in Italy, for example, which is a perfectly social-imperialist party, and, say, the semi-formed, incomplete party of the Potresovs, Gvozdevs, Bulkins, Chkheidzes, Skobelevs and Co., is unimportant. The important thing is that the economic desertion of a stratum of the labour aristocracy to the side of the bourgeoisie has matured and become an accomplished fact. This economic fact, this change in the relations between classes, will find for itself political form of one kind or another without much "difficulty.''
On the economic foundation mentioned, the political institutions of modern capitalism---the press, parliament, trade unions, congresses, etc.---created political privileges and sops for the respectful, meek, reformist and patriotic salaried employees and workers corresponding to the economic privileges and sops. Lucrative and easy berths in the Ministries or War Industries Committees, in parliament and on various commissions, on the editorial staffs of `` respectable'' legal newspapers, or on management boards of no less respectable and "bourgeois law-abiding" trade unions---these are the means with which the imperialist bourgeoisie attracts and rewards the representatives and adherents of the "bourgeois labour parties.''
The mechanics of political democracy work in the same direction. It would not do to dispense with elections in our age; the masses cannot be dispensed with, and in this epoch of book printing and parliamentarism it is impossible to make the masses follow you without a widely ramified, systematically managed, well-equipped system of flattery, lies and fraud, without juggling with fashionable and popular catchwords, without scattering right and left promises of all kinds of reforms and blessings for the workers, if only they abandon the revolutionary struggle for the overthrow of the hour-
THE SPLIT IN THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT 349
geoisie. I would call this system, Lloyd-Georgian, after one of the most prominent and subtle representatives of this system in the classic land of the "bourgeois labour party," the English Cabinet Minister, Lloyd George. A first class bourgeois man of affairs and master of political cunning, a popular orator, able to make any kind of speech, even r-r-revolutionary speeches before labour audiences, capable of securing fairly considerable sops for the obedient workers in the shape of social reforms (insurance, etc.), Lloyd George serves the bourgeoisie splendidly,* and serves it precisely among the workers, transmits its influence precisely among the proletariat, where it is most needed and most difficult morally to subjugate the masses.
And is there much difference between Lloyd George and the Scheidemanns, Legiens, Hendersons and Hyndmans, the Plekhanovs, Renaudels and Co. ? It may be argued that of the latter, some will return to the revolutionary socialism of Marx. This is possible, but it is an insignificant difference in degree, if we take the question in its political, i.e., in its mass aspect. Certain individuals among the present social-chauvinist leaders may return to the proletariat; but the social chauvinist, or (what is the same thing) opportunist trend can neither disappear nor ``return'' to the revolutionary proletariat. Wherever Marxism is popular among the workers, this political trend, this "bourgeois labour party" will swear by the name of Marx. You cannot prevent it from doing so any more than a trading firm can be prevented from using any label, any sign, any advertisement it pleases. It has always happened in history that after the death of revolutionary leaders who were popular among the oppressed classes, their enemies attempted to assume their names in order to deceive the oppressed classes.
The fact is that as a political phenomenon "bourgeois labour parties" have already been formed in all the advanced capitalist countries, and unless a determined, ruthless struggle all along the line is conducted against these parties---or, what is the same thing, against these groups, trends, etc.---it is useless talking about
•Recently, in an English magazine, I read an article by a Tory, a political opponent of Lloyd George's, entitled "Lloyd George, from a Tory Point of View." The war has opened the eyes of this opponent and made him realise what an excellent servant of the bourgeoisie this Lloyd George is! The Tories have made geace with him!
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the struggle against imperialism, about Marxism, or about the socialist labour movement. The Chkheidze fraction, Nashe Dyelo, Golos Truda,™ in Russia, and the "O.C-ists" abroad, are nothing but varieties of one or other of these parties. We have not the slightest grounds for thinking that these parties can disappear before the social revolution. On the contrary, the nearer the revolution approaches, the stronger it flares up, the more sudden and violent the transitions and leaps are during the course of the revolution, the greater will be the role in the labour movement of the struggle between the revolutionary mass stream and the opportunist-philistine stream. Kautskyism is not an independent trend, for it has no roots either among the masses or among the privileged stratum which has deserted to the side of the bourgeoisie. The danger of Kautskyism lies in that it utilises the ideology of the past in its efforts to reconcile the proletariat with the "bourgeois labour party," to preserve the unity of the proletariat with that party and thereby to uphold its prestige. The masses no longer follow the lead of the avowed social-chauvinists. Lloyd George has been howled down at workers' meetings in England. Hyndman has resigned from the party. The Renaudels and Scheidemanns, the Potresovs and Gvozdevs have to be protected by the police. The concealed defence of the social-chauvinists by the Kautskyans is the most dangerous.
One of the most widespread sophisms of Kautskyism is its reference to the "masses." They say: We do not want to break away from the masses and mass organisations! But ponder over how Engels approached this question. In the nineteenth century the "mass organisations" of the English trade unions were on the side of the bourgeois labour party; but Marx and Engels did not compromise with it on those grounds, but exposed it. They did not forget, first, that the trade union organisations directly embraced a minority of the proletariat. In England then and in Germany now, not more than one-fifth of the proletariat was organised. It cannot be seriously believed that it is possible to organise the majority of the proletariat under capitalism. Second---and this is the main point--- it is not so much a question of how many members there are in an organisation, as of the real objective meaning of its policy: does this policy represent the masses? Does it serve the masses, t£. the
THE SPLIT IN THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT 351
emancipation of the masses from capitalism, or does it represent the interests of the minority, its conciliation with capitalism? The latter was true for England of the nineteenth century; it is true for Germany, etc., today.
Engels draws a distinction between the "bourgeois labour party" of the old trade unions, a privileged minority, and the "lower mass," the real majority. Engels appeals to the latter, which is not infected with "bourgeois respectability." This is the essence of Marxian tactics!
We cannot---nor can anybody else---calculate exactly what portion of the proletariat is following and will follow the socialchauvinists and opportunists. This will only be revealed by the struggle, it will be definitely decided only by the socialist revolution. But we know definitely that the "defenders of the fatherland" in the imperialist war represent only a minority. And it is our duty, therefore, if we wish to remain Socialists, to go down lower and deeper, to the real masses: this is the whole meaning and the whole content of the struggle against opportunism. Exposing the fact that the opportunists and social-chauvinists really betray and sell the interests of the masses, that they defend the temporary privileges of a minority of the workers, that they are the conduits of bourgeois ideas and influence, that in practice they are allies and agents of the bourgeoisie, we thereby teach the masses to understand their real political interests, to fight for socialism and the revolution throughout the long and painful vicissitudes of imperialist wars and imperialist armistices.
To explain to the masses the inevitability and the necessity of breaking with opportunism, to educate them for revolution by a ruthless struggle against opportunism, to utilise the experiences of the war for the purpose of unmasking the utter vileness of nationalliberal labour politics and not to cover them up---this is the only Marxian line to be pursued in the international labour movement.
In the next article we shall attempt to sum up the main features of this line which distinguish it from Kautskyism.
N. Lenin
Written in the autumn of 1916.
Sbornik. Sotsial-Demolyata, No. 2, December, 1916.
[352] __ALPHA_LVL2__ THE ``DISARMAMENT'' SLOGANIN a number of countries, mostly small and not involved in the present war, for example, Sweden, Norway, Holland and Switzerland, voices are heard in favour of substituting for the old point in the Social-Democratic minimum programme, namely, a "militia," or the "armed nation," a new point, namely, "disarmament." No. 3 of Jugend'Internationale (The Youth International), the organ of the international youth organisation, contained an editorial article in favour of disarmament. In R. Grimm's ``theses'' on the military question drafted for the Congress of the Swiss Social-Democratic Party we find concessions to the idea of "disarmament." In the Swiss magazine Neues Leben, 1915, Roland-Hoist ostensibly advocates ``conciliation'' between the two demands, in reality, she makes the same concession. In No. 2 of Vorbote, the organ of the International Left, an article appeared by the Dutch Marxist Wynkoop defending the old demand of the armed nation. The Scandinavian Lefts, as is evident from the articles printed below,* accept "disarmament," sometimes admitting that it contains an element of pacifism. Let us examine the position of the advocates of disarmament.
One of the principal premises advanced, although not always definitely expressed, in favour of disarmament, is the following: we are opposed to war, opposed to all wars in general, and the most definite, clear and unambiguous expression of this point of view is the demand for disarmament.
We showed that this idea was wrong in our review of Junius' pamphlet f to which we refer the reader. Socialists cannot be opposed to all war in general without ceasing to be Socialists. We
* Appearing in the same issue as Lenin's article.---Ed. t Cf. pp. 199-213 of this volume.---Ed.
352THE ``DISARMAMENT'' SLOGAN 353
must not allow ourselves to be blinded by the present imperialist war. Such wars between ``Great'' Powers are typical of the imperialist epoch; but democratic wars and rebellions, for instance, of oppressed nations against their oppressors to free themselves from oppression, are by no means impossible. Civil wars of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie for socialism are inevitable. Wars are possible between a country in which socialism has been victorious and bourgeois or reactionary countries.
Disarmament is the ideal of socialism. There will be no wars in socialist society; consequently, disarmament will be achieved. But whoever expects that socialism will be achieved without a social revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat is not a Socialist. Dictatorship is state power based directly on violence. Violence in the twentieth century---as in the epoch of civilisation generally---is neither a fist nor a club, but troops. To put ``disarmament'' in the programme is tantamount to saying in general: We are opposed to the use of arms. There is as little Marxism in diis as there would be if we said: We are opposed to violence!
We will observe that the international discussion of this question was conducted mainly, if not exclusively, in the German language. The Germans, however, use two words, the difference between which is not easily translated into Russian. One, strictly speaking, means "disarmament," * and is used by Kautsky and the Kautskyists, for instance, in the sense of reduction of armaments. The other, strictly speaking, means "disarming," f and is mainly used by the Lefts in the sense of abolishing militarism, abolishing all militarist systems. In this article we speak of the latter demand, which is current among certain revolutionary Social-Democrats.
The Kautskyist advocacy of "disarmament," which is addressed to the present governments of the imperialist Great Powers, is the most vulgar opportunism, it is bourgeois pacifism, which actually ---in spite of the "good intentions" of the sentimental Kautskyists ---serves to distract the workers from the revolutionary struggle; for this advocacy imbues the workers with die idea that the present bourgeois governments of die imperialist Powers are not bound by thousands of threads to finance capital and by scores of hundreds
* Abriistung.---Ed. t Entivaffnung.---Ed.
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of corresponding secret treaties (t.e., predatory, plundering treaties, preparing the way for imperialist war), between each, other.
ii
An oppressed class which does not strive to learn to use arms, to acquire arms, deserves to be treated like slaves. We cannot forget, unless we have become bourgeois pacifists or opportunists, that we are living in a class society, that there is no way out, and there can be none, except by means of the class struggle and the overthrow of the power of the ruling class.
In every class society, whether it is based on slavery, serfdom or, as at present, on wage labour, the oppressing class is armed. The modern standing army, and even the modern militia---even in the most democratic bourgeois republics, Switzerland, for example--- represents the bourgeoisie armed against the proletariat. This is such an elementary truth that it is hardly necessary to dwell on it. It is sufficient to recall the use of troops (including the republicandemocratic militia) against strikers, which occurs in all capitalist countries without exception. The fact that the bourgeoisie is armed against the proletariat is one of the biggest, most fundamental, most important facts in modern capitalist society.
And in face of this fact, revolutionary Social-Democrats are urged to ``demand'' ``disarmament''! This is tantamount to the complete abandonment of the point of view of the class struggle, the renunciation of all thought of revolution. Our slogan must be: the arming of the proletariat for the purpose of vanquishing, expropriating and disarming the bourgeoisie. These are the only possible tactics a revolutionary class can adopt, tactics which follow logically from the whole objective development of capitalist militarism, and dictated by that development. Only after the proletariat has disarmed the bourgeoisie will it be able, without betraying its worldhistorical mission, to dirow all armaments on the scrap-heap; the proletariat will undoubtedly do this, but only when this condition has been fulfilled, certainly not before.
If the present war calls forth among the reactionary Christian Socialists, among the whimpering petty bourgeoisie, only horror and fright, only aversion to all use of arms, to bloodshed, death,
THE ``DISARMAMENT'' SLOGAN 355
etc., in general, we must say: Capitalist society has always been an endless horror. And if this most reactionary of all wars is now preparing a horrible end for that society, we have no reason to drop into despair. At the present time, when, as every one can see, the bourgeoisie itself is paving the way for the only legitimate and revolutionary war, namely, civil war against the imperialist bourgeoisie, the objective significance of the ``demand'' for disarmament, or more correctly, the dream of disarmament, is nothing but an expression of despair.
Those who say that this is a theory that is divorced from life, we would like to remind of two world-historical facts: the role of the trusts and the employment of women in factories, on the one hand, and the Paris Commune of 1871 and the December insurrection of 1905 in Russia, on the other.
The business of the bourgeoisie is to promote trusts, to drive women and children into the factories, to torture them there, to corrupt them, to condemn them to extreme poverty. We do not ``demand'' such a development, we do not ``support'' it, we fight it. But how do we fight? We know that trusts and the employment of women in factories are progressive. We do not want to go back to the handicraft system, to pre-monopoly capitalism, to domestic drudgery for women. Forward through the trusts, etc., and beyond them to socialism!
This argument, which takes into account the objective course of development, is, mutatis mutandis, applicable also to the present militarisation of the people. Today the imperialist bourgeoisie militarises not only the adults, but also the youth. Tomorrow it may proceed to militarise the women. In this connection we must say: All the better! Move on faster! The faster we move, the nearer shall we be to the armed insurrection against capitalism. How can Social-Democrats allow themselves to be frightened by the militarisation of the youth, etc., if they have not forgotten the example of the Paris Commune? This is not a "theory divorced from life," it is not a dream, but a fact. It would be very bad indeed if, notwithstanding all the economic and political facts, Social-Democrats began to doubt that the imperialist epoch and imperialist wars must inevitably bring about a repetition of such facts.
A certain bourgeois observer of the Paris Commune, writing to
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an English newspaper in May 1871, said: "If the French nation consisted entirely of women, what a terrible nation it would be!" Women, and children of the age of thirteen and over, fought in the Commune side by side with the men. Nor can it be different in the forthcoming battles for the overthrow of the bourgeoisie. The proletarian women will not look on passively while the well-armed bourgeoisie shoot down the poorly armed or unarmed workers. They will take to arms, as they did in 1871, and from the frightened nations of today---or more correctly, from the present-day labour movement, which is disorganised more by the opportunists than by the governments---there will undoubtedly arise, sooner or later, but with absolute certainty, an international league of the "terrible nations" of the revolutionary proletariat.
At the present time the whole of social life is being militarised. Imperialism is a fierce struggle of the Great Powers for the division and redivision of the world---therefore, it must inevitably lead to further militarisation in all countries, even in the neutral and small countries. What will the proletarian women do against it? Only curse all war and everything military, only demand disarmament? The women of an oppressed class that is really revolutionary will never agree to play such a shameful role. They will say to their sons:
``You will soon be big. You will be given a gun. Take it and learn to use it well. The proletarians need this knowledge not to shoot your brothers, the workers of other countries, as they are doing in the present war, and as you are being advised to do by the traitors to Socialism, but to fight the bourgeoisie of your own country, to put an end to exploitation, poverty and war, not by means of good intentions, but by a victory over the bourgeoisie and by disarming them!'
If we are to refrain from conducting such propaganda, precisely such propaganda, in connection with the present war, then we had better stop using high falutin' phrases about international revolutionary Social-Democracy, about the socialist revolution, and about war against war.
in
The advocates of disarmament oppose the point in die programme also about the "armed nation," among other things, because this
THE ``DISARMAMENT'' SLOGAN 357
demand, they allege, easily leads to concessions to opportunism.
We have examined above the most important point, namely, the relation of disarmament to the class struggle and to the social revolution. We will now examine the relation between the demand for disarmament and opportunism. One of the most important reasons why this demand is unacceptable is precisely that it, and the illusions it creates, inevitably weaken and devitalise our struggle against opportunism.
Undoubtedly, this struggle is the main, immediate question of the International. A struggle against imperialism that is not intimately linked up with the struggle against opportunism is an idle phrase, or a fraud. One of the main defects of Zimmerwald and Kienthal, one of the main reasons why these embryos of the Third International may possibly end in a fiasco (failure, collapse) is that the question of the struggle against opportunism was not even raised openly, much less decided in the sense of proclaiming the necessity of breaking with the opportunists. Opportunism has triumphed--- temporarily---in the European labour movement. Two main shades of opportunism have arisen in all the big countries: first, the avowed, cynical and, therefore, less dangerous social-imperialism of Messrs. Plekhanov, Scheidemann, Legien, Albert Thomas and Sembat, Vandervelde, Hyndman, Henderson, et al.: second, the concealed Kautskyist opportunism: Kautsky-Haase and the Social-Democratic Labour Group in Germany; Longuet, Pressemane, Mayeras, et al., in France; Ramsay MacDonald, and the other leaders of the Independent Labour Party in England; Martov, Chkheidze and others in Russia; Treves and the other so-called Left reformists in Italy.
The avowed opportunism is openly and directly opposed to revolution and to the incipient revolutionary movements and outbursts, and is in direct alliance with the governments, varied as the forms of this alliance may be: from participation in the Cabinets to participation in the War Industries Committees. The concealed opportunists, the Kautskyists, are much more harmful and dangerous to the labour movement because they hide their advocacy of an alliance with the former under a cloak of plausible, pseudo-Marxist catchwords and pacifist slogans. The fight against both these forms of prevailing opportunism must be conducted on all fields of proletarian politics: parliament, trade unions, strikes, military matters, etc.
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What is the main distinguishing feature of both these forms of prevailing opportunism?
It is that the concrete question of the connection between the present war and revolution, and the other concrete questions of revolution, is hushed up, concealed, or treated with an eye to police prohibitions. And this is done, notwithstanding the fact that before the war the connection between precisely this impending war and the proletarian revolution was pointed to innumerable times, both unofficially, and officially in the Basle Manifesto.
The main defect of the demand for disarmament is its evasion of all the concrete questions of revolution. Or do the advocates of disarmament stand for a perfectly new species of unarmed revolution?
IV
To proceed. We are by no means opposed to the fight for reforms. We do not wish to ignore the sad possibility that humanity may---if the worst comes to the worst---go through a second imperialist war, if, in spite of the numerous outbursts of mass unrest and mass discontent and in spite of our efforts, revolution does not come out of the present war. We are in favour of a programme of reforms, which is also directed against the opportunists. The opportunists would be only too glad if we left the struggle for reforms entirely to them, and, saving ourselves by flight from sad reality, sought shelter in the heights above the clouds in some sort of "disarmament." Disarmament means simply running away from unpleasant reality and not fighting it.
Incidentally, one of the great defects in the method of presenting the question, for example, of defence of the fatherland, adopted by certain Lefts, is that the reply is not sufficiently concrete. Theoretically, it is much more correct, and in practice it is immeasurably more important, to say that in the present imperialist war defence of the fatherland is bourgeois-reactionary deception than to come out with a ``general'' stand against defence of the fatherland under ``all'' circumstances. The latter stand is wrong, and it also fails to ``hit'' the immediate enemies of the workers in the workers' parties, namely, the opportunists.
In working out the concrete and practically necessary answer
THE ``DISARMAMENT'' SLOGAN 359
to the question of a militia we should have said: We are not in favour of a bourgeois militia; we are in favour only of a proletarian militia. Therefore, "not a penny, not a man," not only for a standing army, but even for a bourgeois militia, even in countries like the United States, Switzerland, Norway, etc.; the more so that in the freest republican countries (e.g., Switzerland), we see that the militia is being more and more Prussianised, and prostituted by being mobilised against strikers. We can demand election of officers by the people, abolition of military law, equal rights for foreign and native workers (a point particularly important for those imperialist states which, like Switzerland, more and more blatantly exploit increasing numbers of foreign workers, while refusing to grant them rights); further, the right of every hundred, say, of the inhabitants of the given country, to form free associations for military training, with the free election of instructors, who are to be paid by the state, etc. Only under such conditions could the proletariat acquire military training really for itself and not for its slave-owners; and the need for such training is dictated by the interests of the proletariat. The Russian revolution showed that every success of the revolutionary movement, even a partial success like the seizure of a certain city, a certain factory village, or a certain section of the army, inevitably compels the victorious proletariat to carry out just such a programme.
Finally, it goes without saying that opportunism cannot be fought merely by means of programmes; it can be fought only by constant vigilance to see that they are really carried out. The greatest, the fatal error the bankrupt Second International committed was that its words did not correspond to its deeds, that it acquired the habit of unscrupulous revolutionary phrase-mongering (note the present attitude of Kautsky and Co. towards the Basle Manifesto). In approaching the demand for disarmament from this aspect we must first of all raise the question of its objective significance. Disarmament as a social idea, i£., an idea that springs from a certain social environment and which can affect a certain social environment---and is not merely the cranky notion of an individual or group---has evidently sprung from the exceptionally ``calm'' conditions of life in certain small states which have for a long time stood aside, and hope to stay aside, from the bloody world highway
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of war. To be convinced of this it is sufficient, for instance, to ponder over the arguments advanced by the Norwegian advocates of disarmament. "We are a small country," they say, "We have a small army, we can do nothing against the Great Powers [and therefore we are also powerless to resist being forcibly drawn into an imperialist alliance with one or other group of Great Powers!]. We want to be left in peace in our remote corner and continue to conduct our parochial politics, to demand disarmament, compulsory courts of arbitration, permanent neutrality, etc." ("permanent," probably after the Belgian fashion?)
A petty striving of petty states to stand aside, a petty-bourgeois desire to keep as far away as possible from the great battles of world history, to take advantage of one's relatively monopolistic position in order to remain in hidebound passivity---this is the objective social environment which may ensure the disarmament idea a certain degree of success and a certain degree of popularity in some of the small states. Of course, this striving is reactionary and is entirely based on illusions, for, in one way or another, imperialism drags the small states into the vortex of world economy and world politics.
We will explain this with the case of Switzerland. Her imperialist environment objectively prescribes two lines to the labour movement there. The opportunists, in alliance with the bourgeoisie, are trying to convert Switzerland into a republican-democratic monopolistic federation for obtaining profits from imperialist bourgeois tourists and to make this ``tranquil'' monopolistic position as profitable and as tranquil as possible. Actually, this policy is the policy of alliance between a small privileged stratum of the workers of a small privileged country and the bourgeoisie of that country against the masses of the proletariat. The genuine Social-Democrats of Switzerland are striving to take advantage of the comparative freedom in Switzerland, its ``international'' situation (proximity to the most cultured countries), the fact that Switzerland, thank God, has not "its own independent" language, but three world languages, to extend, consolidate and strengthen the revolutionary alliance of the revolutionary elements of the proletariat of the whole of Europe. We will help our bourgeoisie to retain its monopolistic position in the super-tranquil trade in the charms of the Alps as long as pos-
THE ``DISARMAMENT'' SLOGAN 361
sible; perhaps a penny or two will fall to our share---this is the objective content of the policy of the Swiss opportunists. We will help to weld the alliance of the revolutionary sections of the French, the German and the Italian proletariat for the overthrow of the bourgeoisie---this is the objective content of the policy of the Swiss revolutionary Social-Democrats. Unfortunately, this policy is still being carried out far from adequately by the ``Lefts'' in Switzerland; and the splendid decision of the Aarau Party Congress in 1915 (recognition of the revolutionary mass struggle) is still almost a dead letter. But that is not the point we are discussing at the moment.
The question that interests us now is: Does the demand for disarmament correspond to the revolutionary trend among the Swiss Social-Democrats? Obviously not. Objectively, the ``demand'' for disarmament corresponds to the opportunist, narrow nationalist line of a labour movement that is restricted by the outlook of a small state. Objectively, ``disarmament'' is an extremely national, specifically national programme of small states; it is not the international programme of international revolutionary Social-Democracy.
P. S. In the last issue of the English Socialist Review (September 1916), the organ of the opportunist Independent Labour Party, we find, on page 287, the resolution of the Newcastle Conference of that party---refusal to support any war waged by any government even if ``nominally'' it is a war of "defence." And on page 205 of the same issue, in an editorial, we read die following declaration: "We disapprove of the Sinn Fein rebellion [the Irish rebellion of 1916]. We disapprove of armed rebellion, just as we, disapprove of all forms of militarism and war.''
Is it necessary to prove that these "anti-militarists," that such advocates of disarmament, not in a small, but in a big, country, are the most pernicious opportunists? And yet, theoretically, they are quite right when they regard armed insurrection also as "a form" of militarism and war.
N. Lenin
Written in the beginning of October, 1916. Sbornil( Satsial-Demokrata, No. 2, December, 1916.
[362] __ALPHA_LVL2__ THE MILITARY PROGRAMME OF THEIN Holland, Scandinavia, Switzerland, voices are heard among the revolutionary Social-Democrats---who are combating the socialchauvinists' lies about "defence of the fatherland" in the present imperialist war---in favour of substituting for the old point in the Social-Democratic minimum programme: "militia, or the armed nation," a new one: "disarmament." The Jugend-Inter nationals has initiated a discussion on this question and has published in No. 3 an editorial article in favour of disarmament. In R. Grimm's latest theses, we regret to note, there is also a concession to the `` disarmament'' idea. Discussions have been started in the periodicals Neue Leben and Vorbote.
Let us examine the position of the advocates of disarmament.
The main argument is that the demand for disarmament is the clearest, most decisive, most consistent expression of the struggle against all militarism and against all war.
But this ma.in argument is precisely the main error of the advocates of disarmament. Socialists cannot, without ceasing to be Socialists, be opposed to all war.
In the first place, Socialists have never been, nor can they be, opposed to revolutionary wars. The bourgeoisie of the imperialist ``Great'' Powers has become thoroughly reactionary, and we regard the war which this bourgeoisie is now waging as a reactionary slaveowners' and criminal war. But what about a war against this bourgeoisie? What about a war for liberation waged by colonial peoples, for instance, who are oppressed by and dependent upon this bourgeoisie? In the theses of the International group, § 5, we
362THE MILITARY PROGRAMME 363
read: "In the era of this unbridled imperialism there can be no more national wars of any kind." This is obviously wrong.
The history of the twentieth century, this century of "unbridled imperialism," is replete with colonial wars. But what we Europeans, the imperialist oppressors of the majority of the peoples of the world, with our habitual, despicable European chauvinism, call "colonial wars" are often national wars, or national rebellions of those oppressed peoples. One of the main qualities of imperialism is that it hastens the development of capitalism in the most backward countries, and thereby extends and intensifies the struggle against national oppression. That is a fact. It inevitably follows from this that imperialism must often give rise to national wars. Junitts, who in her pamphlet defended the above-quoted "theses," says that in the imperialist epoch every national war against one of the imperialist Great Powers leads to the intervention of another imperialist Great Power, which competes with the former, and thus every national war is converted into an imperialist war. But this argument is also wrong. This may happen, but it does not always happen. Many colonial wars in the period between 1900 and 1914 did not follow this road. And it would be simply ridiculous if we declared, for instance, that after the present war, if it ends in the complete exhaustion of all the belligerents, "there can be no" national, progressive, revolutionary wars "whatever," waged, say, by China in alliance with India, Persia, Siam, etc., against the Great Powers.
To deny all possibility of national wars under imperialism is theoretically wrong, historically obviously mistaken, and practically tantamount to European chauvinism: we who belong to nations that oppress hundreds of millions of people in Europe, Africa, Asia, etc., must tell the oppressed peoples that it is ``impossible'' for them to wage war against ``our'' nations!
Secondly, civil wars are also wars. Any one who recognises the class struggle cannot fail to recognise civil wars, which in every class society are the natural, and under certain conditions, inevitable continuation, development and intensification of the class struggle. All the great revolutions prove this. To repudiate civil war, or to forget about it, means sinking into extreme opportunism and renouncing the socialist revolution.
Thirdly, the victory of socialism in one country does not at one
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stroke eliminate all war in general. On the contrary, it presupposes such wars. The development of capitalism proceeds very unevenly in the various countries. It cannot be otherwise under the commodity production system. From this it inevitably follows that socialism cannot be victorious simultaneously in all countries. It will be victorious first in one, or several countries, while the others will for some time remain bourgeois or pre-bourgeois. This must not only create friction, but a direct striving on the part of the bourgeoisie of other countries to crush the victorious proletariat of the socialist country. If we waged war under such circumstances, it would be a legitimate and just war. It would be a war for socialism, for the liberation of other nations from the bourgeoisie. Engels was perfectly right when, in his letter to Kautsky, September 12, 1882, hd openly admitted that it was possible for already victorious socialism to wage "wars of defence." What he had in mind was defence of the victorious proletariat against the bourgeoisie of other countries.
Only after we have overdirown, finally vanquished, and expropriated the bourgeoisie of the whole world, and not only of one country, will wars become impossible. And from a scientific point of view it would be utterly wrong and utterly unrevolutionary for us to evade or gloss over the most important thing, namely, that the most difficult task, the one demanding the greatest amount of fighting on the road to socialism, is to crush the resistance of the bourgeoisie. ``Social'' parsons and opportunists are always ready to dream about the future peaceful socialism, but the very thing that distinguishes them from revolutionary Social-Democrats is that they refuse to think about and reflect on the fierce class struggle and class wars that are necessary for the achievement of this beautiful future.
We must not allow ourselves to be led astray by words. The term "defence of the fatherland," for instance, is hateful to many, because the avowed opportunists and the Kautskyists use it to cover up and gloss over the lies of the bourgeoisie in the present predatory war. This is a fact. It does not follow from this, however, that we must forget to think about the meaning of political slogans. To recognise "defence of the fatherland" in the present war is nothing more nor less than recognising it as a ``just'' war in the interests of
THE MILITARY PROGRAMME
365
the proletariat, nothing more nor less, because invasions may occur in any war. It would be simply foolish to repudiate "defence of the fatherland" on the fart of the oppressed nations in their wars against the imperialist Great Powers, or on the part of a victorious proletariat in its war against some Gallifet of a bourgeois state.
Theoretically it would be quite wrong to forget that every war is but the continuation of politics by other means: the present imperialist war is the continuation of the imperialist politics of two groups of Great Powers, and these politics were engendered and fostered by the sum total of the relations of the imperialist epoch. But this very epoch must also necessarily engender and foster the politics of struggle against national oppression and the politics of the proletarian struggle against the bourgeoisie, and, therefore, also the possibility and the inevitability, first, of revolutionary national rebellions and wars; second, of proletarian wars and rebellions against the bourgeoisie, and, third, of a combination of both kinds of revolutionary war, etc.
ii
To this must be added the following general considerations: An oppressed class which does not strive to learn to use arms, to acquire arms, deserves to be treated like slaves. We cannot forget, unless we become bourgeois pacifists or opportunists, that we are living in a class society, that there is no way out, and there can be none, except by means of the class struggle. In every class society, whether it is based on slavery, serfdom, or, as at present, on wage labour, the oppressing class is armed. The modern standing army, and even the modern militia---even in the most democratic bourgeois republics, Switzerland, for example---represent the bourgeoisie armed against the proletariat. This is such an elementary truth that it is hardly necessary to dwell upon it. It is sufficient to recall the use of troops against strikers in all capitalist countries.
The fact that the bourgeoisie is armed against the proletariat is one of the biggest, most fundamental, and most important facts in modern capitalist society. And in face of this fact, revolutionary Social-Democrats are urged to ``demand'' ``disarmament''! This is tantamount to the complete abandonment of the point of view of
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the class struggle, the renunciation of all thought of revolution. Our slogan must be: the arming of the proletariat for the purpose of vanquishing, expropriating and disarming the bourgeoisie. These are the only tactics a revolutionary class can adopt, tactics which follow logically from the whole objective development of capitalist militarism, and dictated by that development. Only after the proletariat has disarmed the bourgeoisie will it be able, without betraying its world-historical mission, to throw all armaments on the scrap-heap; the proletariat will undoubtedly do this, but only when this condition has been fulfilled, certainly not before.
If the present war calls forth among the reactionary Christian Socialists, among the whimpering petty bourgeoisie, only horror and fright, only aversion to all use of arms, to bloodshed, death, etc., in general, we must say: Capitalist society has always been an endless horror. And if this most reactionary of all wars is now preparing a horrible end for that society, we have no reason to drop into despair. At the present time when, as every one can see, the bourgeoisie itself is paving the way for the only legitimate and revolutionary war, namely, civil war against the imperialist bourgeoisie, the objective significance of the ``demand'' for disarmament or more correctly, the dream of disarmament, is nothing but an expression of despair.
Those who say that this is a theory that is divorced from life, we should like to remind of two world-historical facts: the role of trusts and the employment of women in factories, on the one hand; and the Paris Commune of 1871 and the December insurrection of 1905 in Russia, on the other.
The business of the bourgeoisie is to promote trusts, to drive women and children into the factories, to torture them there, to corrupt them, to condemn them to extreme poverty. We do not ``demand'' such a development. We do not ``support'' it. We fight it. But how do we fight? We know that trusts and the employment of women in factories are progressive. We do not want to go back to the handicraft system, to pre-monopoly capitalism, to domestic drudgery for women. Forward through the trusts, etc., and beyond them to socialism!
This argument is mutatis mutandis, applicable also to the present militarisation of the people. Today the imperialist bourgeoisie mili-
THE MILITARY PROGRAMME 367
tarises not only the adults, but also the youth. Tomorrow, it may proceed to militarise the women. In this connection we must say: All the better! The faster we move the nearer shall we be to the armed insurrection against capitalism. How can Social-Democrats allow themselves to be frightened by the militarisation of the youth, etc., if they have not forgotten the example of the Paris Commune? This is not a "theory divorced from life." It is not a dream, but a fact. It would be very bad indeed if, notwithstanding all the economic and political facts, Social-Democrats began to doubt that the imperialist epoch and imperialist wars must inevitably bring about a repetition of such facts.
A certain bourgeois observer of the Paris Commune, writing to an English newspaper, said: "If the French nation consisted entirely of women, what a terrible nation it would be!" Women and children of the age of thirteen and over fought in the Commune side by side with the men. Nor can it be different in the forthcoming battles for the overthrow of the bourgeoisie. The proletarian women will not look on passively while the well-armed bourgeoisie shoot down the poorly armed or unarmed workers. They will take to arms as they did in 1871, and from the frightened nations of today---or more correctly, from the present-day labour movement, which is disorganised more by the opportunists than by the governments---there will undoubtedly arise, sooner or later, but with absolute certainty, an international league of the "terrible nations" of the revolutionary proletariat.
At the present time the whole of social life is being militarised. Imperialism is a fierce struggle of the Great Powers for the division and redivision of the world---therefore, it must inevitably lead to further militarisation in all countries, even in the neutral and small countries. What will the proletarian women do against it? Only curse all war and everything military, only demand disarmament? The women of an oppressed class that is really revolutionary will never agree to play such a shameful role. They will say to their sons:
``You will soon be big. You will be given a gun. Take it and learn to use it. The proletarians need this knowledge not to shoot your brothers, the workers of other countries, as they are doing in the present war, and as you are being advised to do by the traitors
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to Socialism, but to fight the bourgeoisie of your own country, to put an end to exploitation, poverty and war, not by means of good intentions, but by a victory over the bourgeoisie and by disarming them.''
If we are to refrain from conducting such propaganda, precisely such propaganda, in connection with the present war, then we had better stop using high falutin' phrases about international revolutionary Social-Democracy, about the socialist revolution, and about war against war.
in
The advocates of disarmament oppose the point in the programme about the "armed nation," among other things, because this demand, they allege, easily leads to concessions, to opportunism. We have examined above the most important point, namely the relation of disarmament to the class struggle and to the social revolution. We will now examine the relation between the demand for disarmament and opportunism. One of the most important reasons why this demand is unacceptable is precisely that it, and the illusions it creates, inevitably weaken and devitalise our struggle against opportunism.
Undoubtedly this struggle is the main immediate question of the International. A struggle against imperialism that is not intimately linked up with the struggle against opportunism is an idle phrase, or a fraud. One of the main defects of Zimmerwald and Kienthal, one of the main reasons why these embryos of the Third International may possibly end in a fiasco, is that the question of the struggle against opportunism was not even raised openly, much less decided in the sense of proclaiming the necessity of breaking with the opportunists. Opportunism has triumphed---temporarily---in the European labour movement. Two main shades of opportunism have arisen in all the big countries: first, the avowed, cynical, and therefore, less dangerous social-imperialism of Messrs. Plekhanov, Scheidemann, Legien, Albert Thomas and Sembat, Vandervelde, Hyndman, Henderson, et al.; second, the concealed, Kautskyist opportunism: Kautsky-Haase and the Social-Democratic Labour Group in Germany; Longuet, Pressemane, Mayeras, et al., in France;
THE MILITARY PROGRAMME 369
Ramsay MacDonald and the other leaders of the Independent Labour Party in England; Martov, Chkheidze and others in Russia; Treves and the other so-called Left reformists in Italy.
The avowed opportunism is openly and directly opposed to revolution and to the incipient revolutionary movements and outbursts, and is in direct alliance with the governments, varied as the forms of this alliance may be: from participation in the Cabinets to participation in the War Industries Committees (in Russia). The concealed opportunists, the Kautskyists, are much more harmful and dangerous to the labour movement because they hide their advocacy of an alliance with the former under a cloak of plausible, pseudoMarxist catchwords ,and pacifist slogans. The fight against both these forms of prevailing opportunism must be conducted on all fields of proletarian politics: parliament, trade unions, strikes, military affairs, etc. The main distinguishing feature of both these forms of prevailing opportunism is that the concrete question of the connection between the present war and revolution is hushed up, concealed, or treated with an eye to police prohibitions. And this is done, notwithstanding the fact that before the war the connection between precisely this impending war and the proletarian revolution was pointed to innumerable times, both unofficially, and officially in the Basle Manifesto. The main defect in the demand for disarmament is its evasion of all the concrete questions of revolution. Or do the advocates of disarmament stand for a perfectly new species of unarmed revolution ?
To proceed. We are by no means opposed to the fight for reforms. We do not wish to ignore the sad possibility that humanity may---if the worst comes to the worst---go through a second imperialist war, if, in spite of the numerous outbursts of mass unrest and mass discontent and in spite of our efforts, revolution does not come out of the present war. We are in favour of a programme of reforms which is also directed against the opportunists. The opportunists would be only too glad if we left the struggle for reforms entirely to them, and, saving ourselves by flight from sad reality, sought shelter in the heights above the clouds in some sort of "disarmament." ``Disarmament'' means simply running away from unpleasant reality and not fighting against it.
In such a programme we would say something like this: "The
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slogan of the recognition of defence of the fatherland in the imperialistic war of 1914-16 is only the corruption of the labour movement by means of a bourgeois lie." Such a concrete reply to concrete questions would be theoretically more correct, much more useful to the proletariat, more unbearable to the opportunists, than the demand for disarmament and the renunciation of "all defence of the fatherland"! And we might add: "The bourgeoisie of all the imperialist Great Powers---England, France, Germany, Austria, Russia, Italy, Japan, the United States---has become so reactionary and so imbued with the striving for world domination that any war conducted by the bourgeoisie of those countries can be nothing but reactionary. The proletariat must not only oppose all such wars, but it must also wish for the defeat of 'its own' government in such wars, and it must utilise it for revolutionary insurrection, if an insurrection to prevent the war proves unsuccessful.''
On the question of a militia, we should have said: We are not in favour of a bourgeois militia; we are in favour only of a proletarian militia. Therefore, "not a penny, not a man," not only for a standing army, but even for a bourgeois militia, even in countries like the United States, Switzerland, Norway, etc.; the more so that in the freest republican countries (e.g., Switzerland), we see that the militia is being more and more Prussianised, particularly in 1907 and 1911, and prostituted by being mobilised against strikers. We can demand election of officers by the people, abolition of military law, equal rights for foreign and native workers (a point particularly important for those imperialist states which, like Switzerland, more and more blatantly exploit increasing numbers of foreign workers while refusing to grant them rights); further, the right of every hundred, say, of the inhabitants of the given country, to form free associations for military training, with free election of instructors who are to be paid by the state, etc. Only under such conditions could the proletariat acquire military training really for itself and not for its slave-owners, and the need for such training is dictated by the interests of the proletariat. The Russian revolution showed that every success of the revolutionary movement, even a partial success like the seizure of a certain city, a certain factory village, a certain section of the army---inevitably compels the victorious proletariat to carry out just such a programme.
THE MILITARY PROGRAMME 371
Finally, it goes without saying that opportunism cannot be fought merely by means of programmes; it can be fought only by constant vigilance to see that they are really carried out. The greatest, the fatal error the bankrupt Second International committed was that its words did not correspond to its deeds, that it acquired the habit of unscrupulous revolutionary phrase-mongering (note the present attitude of Kautsky and Co. towards the Basle Manifesto). Disarmament as a social idea, i.e., an idea that springs from a certain social environment and which can affect a certain social environment---and is not merely a cranky notion of an individual---has evidently sprung from the exceptionally ``calm'' conditions of life in certain small states which have for a long time stood aside, and hope to stay aside, from the bloody world highway of war. To be convinced of this it is sufficient, for instance, to ponder over the arguments advanced by the Norwegian advocates of disarmament. "We are a small country," they say. "We have a small army, we can do nothing against the Great Powers [and therefore also we are powerless to resist being forcibly drawn into an imperialist alliance with one or the other group of Great Powers].... We want to be left in peace in our remote corner and continue to conduct our parochial politics, to demand disarmament, compulsory courts of arbitration, permanent neutrality, etc." (``permanent'' after the Belgian fashion, no doubt).
A petty striving of petty states to stand aside, a petty-bourgeois desire to keep as far away as possible from the great battles of world history, to take advantage of one's relatively monopolistic position in order to remain in hidebound passivity---this is the objective social environment which may ensure the disarmament idea a certain degree of success and a certain degree of popularity in some of the small states. Of course, this striving is reactionary and is entirely based on illusions, for in one way or another imperialism draws the small states into the vortex of world economy and world politics.
In Switzerland, for example, the imperialist environment objectively prescribes two lines to the labour movement. The opportunists, in alliance with the bourgeoisie, are trying to convert Switzerland into a republican-democratic monopolistic federation for obtaining profits from imperialist bourgeois tourists and to make
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this ``tranquil'' monopolistic position as profitable and as tranquil as possible.
The genuine Social-Democrats of Switzerland are striving to take advantage of the comparative freedom of Switzerland and its `` international'' situation (proximity to the most highly cultured countries), the fact that Switzerland, thank God, has not "its own independent" language, but three world languages,!to widen, consolidate and strengthen the revolutionary alliance of the revolutionary elements of the proletariat of the whole of Europe. Switzerland, thank God, has not a ``special'' language, but three world languages, pre-' cisely those that are spoken by the adjacent belligerent countries.
If the twenty thousand members of the Swiss Party were to pay a weekly levy of two centimes as a sort of "extra war tax," we would have about twenty thousand francs per annum, a sum more than sufficient to enable us periodically to publish in three languages and to distribute among the workers and soldiers of the belligerent countries---in spite of the ban of the General Staffs---all the material containing the truth about the incipient revolt of the workers, about their fraternising in the trenches, about their hope to use their arms in a revolutionary manner against the imperialist bourgeoisie of "their own" countries, etc.
All this is not new. This is exactly what is being done by the best papers, like La Sentinelled "Vol^srecht™ the Berner Tagwachi, but unfortunately it is not being done on a sufficiently large scale. Only by such activity can the splendid decision of the Aarau Party Congress~^^73^^ become something more than merely a splendid decision.
The question that interests us now is: Does the demand for disarmament correspond to the revolutionary trend among the Swiss Social-Democrats? Obviously not. Objectively ``disarmament'' is an extremely national, a specifically national programme of small states; it is certainly not the international programme of international revolutionary Social-Democracy.
N. Lenin
Written in the autumn of 1916.
Jugend Internationale, Nos, 9 and 10, September and October, 1917.
[371] __ALPHA_LVL2__ THE TASKS OF THE LEFT ZIMMERWALDISTS INTHE Zurich Congress of the Social-Democratic Party of Switzerland (November 4-5, 1916) has definitely proved that this Party's decisions to join Zimmerwald and to recognise revolutionary mass struggle (resolution of the Aarau Congress, 1915) are merely paper decisions and that within the Party there has been definitely formed a "Centre," i.e., a trend similar to that of Kautsky-Haase and the ``' Arbeitsgemeinschajt" * in Germany, and of Longuet-Pressemane and Co. in France. This "Centre," of which R. Grimm is found to be at the head, combines ``Left'' declarations with "Right," i.e., opportunist, tactics.
It is therefore the task of the Left Zimmerwaldists in the SocialDemocratic Party of Switzerland immediately and absolutely to consolidate their forces in order to exercise systematic influence in the Party so that the decisions of the Aarau Congress shall not remain a dead letter. The consolidation of the forces of the ``Left'' Zimmerwaldists is all the more urgent for the reason that both the Aarau and the Zurich Congresses have left no room whatever for doubt as to the revolutionary and internationalist sympathies of the Swiss proletariat. It is not sufficient to adopt resolutions of sympathy for Liebknecht; his slogan that the Social-Democratic Parties of today need regeneration must be taken seriously.
The platform of the Left Zimmerwaldists in the Social-Democratic Party of Switzerland should be, approximately, as follows:
__ALPHA_LVL3__ I. ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE WAR AND TOWARDS THE BOURGEOISi. "Defence of the fatherland" on the part of Switzerland in the present imperialist war as well as in the new imperialist wars that
* The Labour Association.---Ed.
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are now in preparation is nothing but the bourgeois deception of the people; for, actually, Switzerland's participation in the present war and in other similar wars would only be participation in a predatory and reactionary war in alliance with and on the side of one of the imperialist coalitions; it would not be a war for " freedom," "democracy," "independence," etc.
2. The attitude of the Social-Democratic Party of Switzerland towards the bourgeois Swiss government and towards all the bourgeois parties of Switzerland must be one of utter distrust: because a) that government is closely bound up, economically and financially, with the bourgeoisie of the imperialist ``Great'' Powers and is completely dependent upon them; b) it long ago turned towards political reaction all along the line in international and domestic affairs (political police, servility towards European reaction and European monarchies, etc.); c) its whole policy over a period of many years (military reorganisation in 1907, etc., the Egli "case," the De Loys "case," etc., etc.) has proved that it is more and more becoming a pawn in the hands of the most reactionary Swiss military party and military clique.
3. In view of the above, it is the urgent task of the SocialDemocratic Party of Switzerland to expose the true character of the government that is cringing before the imperialist bourgeoisie and the militarists, to expose its deception of the people by means of phrases about democracy, etc., to explain that it is quite possible that this government (with the approval of the whole of the ruling bourgeoisie in Switzerland) will sell the interests of the Swiss people to one or the other imperialist coalition.
4. Therefore, in the event of Switzerland becoming involved in the present war, it is the duty of the Social-Democrats absolutely to repudiate "defence of the fatherland" and to expose the way the people are being deceived by this slogan. In such a war the workers and peasants lay down their lives, not in their own interests, and not for democracy, but in the interests of the imperialist bourgeoisie. The Socialists of Switzerland, as of all other advanced countries, can and must recognise the military defence of the fatherland only when this fatherland has been reorganised on a socialist basis, *'.<?., defence of the proletarian socialist revolution against the bourgeoisie.
TASKS OF LEFT ZIMMERWALDISTS 375
5. Neither in peace nor in war can the Social-Democratic Party and its deputies vote war credits under any circumstances, no matter what deceitful speeches about "defending neutrality," etc., are made to justify such voting.
6. The proletariat must retaliate to the war by propaganda, and by preparing and carrying out revolutionary mass actions for the overthrow of the rule of the bourgeoisie, for the conquest of political power and the achievement of socialist society, which alone will save mankind from wars; and the determination to achieve it is maturing in the minds of the workers of all countries with unprecedented rapidity.
7. Revolutionary action must include demonstrations and mass strikes; but under no circumstances should this include refusal to take up military service. On the contrary, not refusal to take up arms, but turning those arms against one's own bourgeoisie is the only action that can correspond to the tasks of the proletariat and to the slogans of the best representatives of internationalism, for instance, Karl Liebknecht.
8. Upon the government taking the least step, either before or during the war, towards abolishing or curtailing political liberties, the Social-Democratic workers must form illegal organisations with the object of conducting systematic, persistent propaganda, at no matter what sacrifice, for war against war, and explain to the masses the real character of the war.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ II. THE HIGH COST OF LIVING AND THE INTOLERABLE ECONOMIC9. Not only in the belligerent countries, but in Switzerland also, the war has resulted in the unprecedented and scandalous enrichment of a handful of rich people and in incredible want among the masses as a consequence of high prices and the food shortage. The main task of the Social-Democratic Party must be to carry on, not a reformist, but a revolutionary struggle against this calamity: systematic and persistent propaganda and preparation for such a struggle undeterred by inevitable temporary difficulties and defeats.
10. In reply to the numerous bourgeois projects of financial reforms, the main task o£ the Social-Democratic Party must be to
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expose the attempts of the bourgeoisie to shift the burden of mobilisation and war to the shoulders of the workers and the poor peasants.
Under no circumstances, and under no pretext, can SocialDemocracy agree to indirect taxation. The decision of the Aarau Congress (1915), and the Huber-Grimm resolution adopted at the Zurich Congress (1916), which permit Social-Democrats to agree to indirect taxes, must be rescinded. All Social-Democratic organisations must forthwith begin most energetically to prepare for the Party Congress to be held in Berne in February 1917, and must elect to the Congress only such delegates as are in favour of rescinding these resolutions.
It is the business of liberal officials, and certainly not of revolutionary Social-Democracy, to help the bourgeois government to extricate itself from the present difficulties while preserving the capitalist system, i.e., perpetuating want among the masses.
11. The Social-Democrats must propagate as widely as possible among the masses the urgent necessity of introducing a high and progressive uniform, federal, property and income tax, with scales not lower than the following:
Property
Income
Rate of Taxation
20,000 francs
5,000 francs
exempt
50,000 "
10,000 "
10%
100,000 "
25,000 "
40%
200,000 "
60,000 "
60%, etc.
Tax on persons living in boarding houses:
Paying up to 4 francs per day---exempt
tt
tt tt e tt
ti tt
o /
5
r/o
" " 10 "
" "---20%
`` " 20 '.....---25%, etc.
12. The Social-Democrats must ruthlessly combat the bourgeois lie, which is also being spread by many opportunists in the SocialDemocratic Party, namely, that it is ``impractical'' to carry on propaganda in favour of revolutionary high rates of property and income taxation. On the contrary, this is the only practical and the only Social-Democratic policy, firstly, because we must not adapt our-
TASKS OF LEFT ZIMMERWALDISTS 377
selves to what is ``acceptable'' to the rich: we must appeal to the broad masses of poor and propertyless people who are indifferent to, or suspicious of, the Social-Democratic Party, largely owing to its reformist and opportunist character; secondly, the only way of wresting concessions from the bourgeoisie is not by ``bargaining'' with it, not by ``adapting'' ourselves to its interests or prejudices, but by preparing the revolutionary forces of the masses against it. The larger the section of people that we convince of the justice of revolutionary high rates of taxation and of the necessity of winning them by fighting, the sooner will the bourgeoisie make concessions; and we will utilise every concession, however small, in the unswerving struggle for the complete expropriation of the bourgeoisie.
13. The fixing of a maximum salary for all salaried employees and officials, Bundesrate,* etc., of 5,000 to 6,000 francs per annum, according to the size of the family. The prohibition of the accumulation of other incomes of any kind under penalty of imprisonment and confiscation of such incomes.
14. Compulsory expropriation of the factories and works---in the first instance of those that are indispensable for supplying the necessities of life of the population---and also of all agricultural enterprises of over fifteen hectares (over 40 ``Jucharten'') in area (in Switzerland there are only 22,000 enterprises of this size out of a total of 252,000, ije., less than one-tenth of all agricultural enterprises). Systematic measures to be taken on the basis of these reforms to increase the food output and to ensure the supply of cheap food for the people.
15. Immediate and compulsory expropriation by the state of all water power in Switzerland; this, as well as other expropriated property, to be subject to the above-mentioned scales of property and income tax.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ III. THE PARTICULARLY URGENT DEMOCRATIC REFORMS AND16. The utilisation of the parliamentary tribune and the right of initiative and referendum, not in a reformist manner, not in order * Members of the Federal Council.---Ed.
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ARTICLES, SPEECHES-AUG.-DEC., 1916
to advocate reforms that are ``acceptable'' to the bourgeoisie, and therefore powerless to remove the principal and fundamental evils suffered by the masses, but for propaganda in favour of the socialist transformation of Switzerland, which is quite possible economically, and which is becoming more and more urgently necessary because of the intolerably high cost of living and the oppression of finance capital and also because of the international relations which were created by the war and are pushing the proletariat of the whole of Europe onto the path of revolution.
17. The abolition of absolutely all restrictions on the political rights of women compared with the rights of men. It must be explained to the masses why this reform is particularly urgent at the present time, when the war and the high cost of living are agitating the minds of the broad masses of the people and, particularly, are rousing the interest and the attention of women towards politics.
18. The compulosry naturalisation (Ztvangseinbiirgerung) of all foreigners, free of charge. Every foreigner who has lived in Switzerland for three months becomes a Swiss citizen, unless he, on very good grounds, applies for a postponement, which may be granted for not more than three months. It must be explained to the masses that such a reform is particularly urgent for Switzerland, not only from the general democratic point of view, but also in view of the fact that, owing to its imperialist environment, Switzerland contains a larger percentage of foreigners than any other country in Europe. . Nine-tenths of these foreigners speak one of the three languages spoken in Switzerland. The disfranchisement of foreign workers and their alienation serve to increase the already growing political reaction and to weaken the international solidarity of the proletariat.
19. The immediate starting of agitation in favour of selecting Social-Democratic candidates for the Nationalrat elections, which are to take place in 1917, only on the basis of a political platform that has been previously widely discussed by the electors, in particular, the question of the attitude to be adopted towards the war and defence of the fatherland, and the question of reformist or revolutionary struggle against the high cost of living.
TASKS OF LEFT ZIMMERWALDISTS 379
__ALPHA_LVL3__ IV. THE IMMEDIATE TASKS OF PARTY PROPAGANDA, AGITATION20. The effective application of the Aarau decision on the revolutionary mass struggle is impossible without systematic and persistent efforts to extend Social-Democratic influence over the masses, without drawing new strata of the toiling and exploited masses into the movement. Propaganda and agitation for the social revolution must be conducted more concretely, more plainly, and on immediately practical issues, so that they may be understood, not only by the organised workers, who, under capitalism, will always remain a minority of the proletariat, and of the oppressed classes in general, but also by the majority of the exploited, who, in consequence of the terrible oppression of capitalism, are incapable of being systematically organised.
21. In order to influence broader masses, the Party must proceed more systematically to publish leaflets for free distribution, explaining to the.masses that the revolutionary proletariat is fighting for the socialist transformation of Switzerland, which is necessary for and in the interests of nine-tenths of the population. Open competitions should be organised between all the sections of the Party, and particularly the youth organisations, for the best distribution of such leaflets and agitation in the streets, tenement houses and flats; increased attention and effort must be devoted to agitation among the rural workers, agricultural labourers and day labourers, and also among the poor section of peasants who do not exploit hired labour and who do not profit from the high cost of living, but suffer from it. The parliamentary representatives of the Party (National, Kantons, Gross- and other Rate) must be called upon to utilise their particularly advantageous political position, not so much for idle reformist parliamentary talk, which naturally only bores the workers and rouses their suspicion, but for propaganda for the socialist revolution among the most backward strata of the proletariat and semi-proletariat of the towns, and particularly of the country.
22. A decisive rupture with the theory of ``neutrality'' of the industrial organisations of the working class, office employees, etc., to explain to the masses the truth which has been most strikingly
380
ARTICLES, SPEECHES---AUG.-DEC., 1916
confirmed by the war, namely, that so-called ``neutrality'' is bourgeois deception or hypocrisy, that in fact it means passive submission to the bourgeoisie and to its particularly disgusting undertakings, like the imperialist war. Social-Democratic work in every working class organisation, and organisation of the poor strata of the petty-bourgeoisie or office workers, must be intensified; special groups of Social-Democrats must be formed within all such organisations; systematic efforts must be made to create a situation in which revolutionary Social-Democracy shall have the majority in these organisations and have their management in their hands. The special importance of this condition for the success of the revolutionary struggle must be explained to the masses.
23. Social-Democratic work among the troops must be extended and intensified, both before the youth are called to the colours and when they are already in the service. Social-Democratic groups must be formed in all military units. The historical inevitability and legitimacy, from the standpoint of socialism, of using arms in the only legitimate war, namely, the proletarian war against the bourgeoisie for the liberation of humanity from wage slavery, must be explained. Propaganda must be carried on against isolated terrorist actions and in favour of linking up the struggle of the revolutionary section of the army with the broad movement of the proletariat and of the exploited among the population in general. Propaganda must be carried on in favour of that section of the Olten decision~^^74^^ which urges soldiers to refuse to obey when troops are used against strikers; in the course of this it must be explained that passive disobedience alone is not enough.
24. To explain to the masses the inseparable connection that exists between the practical, consistent, revolutionary Social-- Democratic work, as outlined above, and the systematic struggle of •principles that is going on among the three main trends in the present-day labour movement that have arisen in all civilised countries, and have taken definite shape also in Switzerland ( particularly at the Zurich Congress of 1916). These three trends are: i) the social-patriots, if., those who openly recognise "defence of the fatherland" in the present imperialist war of 1914-16; diis is an opportunist trend of the agents of the bourgeoisie in the labour movement; 2) the Left Zimmerwaldists, who, in principle, reject
TASKS OF LEFT ZIMMERWALDISTS 381
``defence of the fatherland" in the imperialist war, are in favour of a rupture with the social-patriots as agents of the bourgeoisie, and are in favour of a revolutionary struggle of the masses together with the complete reorganisation of Social-Democratic tactics to conform with the propaganda and preparation for such struggle; 3) the socalled ``Centre'' (Kautsky-Haase, Arbeitsgemeinschajt in Germany, Longuet-Pressemane in France),* which stands for unity between the first and the second trends. Such ``unity'' only ties the hands of revolutionary Social-Democracy and prevents it from developing its work, and corrupts the masses by its lack of inseparable and complete connection between Party principles and Party practice.
(To explain to the masses the meaning of the speeches delivered at the Zurich Congress of 1916 by Greulich, Naine and Flatten, who agreed in admitting that there were two main trends, but approached the evaluation of these trends from different angles and failed to draw all the logical conclusions.)
At the Zurich Congress of the Swiss Social-Democratic Party in 1916, in three speeches on the question of the Nationalratsfratyion f delivered by Flatten, Naine and Greulich, the admission was particularly clearly expressed that the struggle between the different trends in Social-Democratic politics within the Social-Democratic Party of Switzerland has been a fact for a long time. The sympathies of the majority of the delegates were obviously with Flatten when he spoke of the necessity of standing consistently for work in the spirit of revolutionary Social-Democracy. Naine openly, precisely and definitely declared that two trends were continuously fighting each other within the Nationalratsfrafyion, and that the labour organisations must themselves see to it that adherents of the revolutionary trend who were in complete agreement with each other be elected to the Nationalrat. When Greulich said that the Party had cast off its old ``favourites'' (Ueblinge) and had found new "favourites," he thereby also admitted the existence and the struggle of different trends. But not a single class conscious and thinking worker will agree with this ``favourites'' theory. It is precisely in order to prevent the inevitable and necessary struggle
*In the German Social-Democratic press the ``Centre'' is sometimes identified, and rightly so, with the Right wing of the "Zimmerwaldists," t The Socialist group in the National Council.---Ed,
382
ARTICLES, SPEECHES-AUG.-DEC., 1916
between trends from degenerating into a contest between " favourites," into personal conflicts, petty suspicions and petty scandals that all members of the Social-Democratic Party must see to it that the struggle between the different trends in Social-Democratic politics is fought openly and on principles.
25. An intensified struggle must be waged against the Griitli League from the point of view of principle, as against a striking expression on Swiss soil of the tendencies of bourgeois labour politics, namely, opportunism, reformism, social-patriotism and corruption of the masses by means of bourgeois-democratic illusions. The mistaken and pernicious character of the politics of social-patriotism and of the ``Centre'' must be explained to the masses, using the concrete activities of the Griitli League as an example.
26. Preparations must be immediately started for the elections to the February (1917) Party Congress in Berne. These elections must take place only after every Party organisation has discussed the various platforms of principles and concrete policies. The present platform should serve as the platform of the consistent, revolutionary, internationalist Social-Democrats.
The election of Party officials to all leading Party positions, to the Press^omission, to all representative bodies, to all management committees, etc., must take place only on the basis of such a discussion of platforms.
Every local organisation must carefully control the local Party press organ to see that it pursues the views and the tactics, not only) of Social-Democracy in general, but of a precisely defined platform) of Social-Democratic policy.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ V. THE INTERNATIONAL TASKS OF THE27. In order that the recognition of internationalism by the Swiss Social-Democrats may not remain an empty and non-committal word---to which the adherents of the "Centre," and Social-- Democracy of the epoch of the Second International in general always confine themselves, it is necessary, first, consistently and persistently to fight to establish organisational intimacy between and to unite in the same unions the foreign and Swiss workers, and for com-
TASKS OF LEFT ZIMMERWALDISTS 383
plete equality (civil and political) between them. The specific feature of imperialism in Switzerland is precisely the increasing exploitation of disfranchised foreign workers by the Swiss bourgeoisie, which bases its hopes on estrangement between these two categories of workers.
Second, it is necessary to exert every effort to create a united internationalist trend among the German, French and Italian workers of Switzerland, a trend that will be really united in all practical work in the labour movement, which will fight with equal determination and on principle, alike against French (in Latin-- Switzerland), against German and against Italian social-patriotism. The present platform must serve as the basis for a common and united platform of the workers of all three main nationalities or languages inhabiting Switzerland. Unless those workers among all the nationalities of Switzerland who adhere to revolutionary Social-Democracy are united in this way internationalism will remain an idle word.
To facilitate this amalgamation, the publication of supplements (if possible, weekly or even monthly and only two pages at first) to all Social-Democratic newspapers (and to all the publications of the trade unions of workers, office employees, etc.) of Switzerland must be secured; the supplements to be printed in three languages and to explain, in connection with everyday politics, the present platform.
28. The Swiss Social-Democrats must support only those elements in all other Socialist Parties who are revolutionary-- internationalists and stand on the basis of the Zimmerwald Left; and this support must not remain platonic. It is particularly important to reprint in Switzerland the anti-government manifestoes that are secretly printed in Germany, France and Italy, to translate them into all three languages, and to distribute them among the Swiss proletariat and also among the proletariat of all the adjoining countries.
29. At its Congress in Berne (February 1917) the Social-- Democratic Party of Switzerland must not only unreservedly accept the Kienthal Conference decisions, but must on its part demand an immediate and complete organisational rupture with the International Socialist Bureau at the Hague,^^75^^ which is the bulwark of
384
ARTICLES, SPEECHES-AUG.-DEC., 1916
opportunism and social-patriotism irreconcilably hostile to the interests of socialism.
30. The Social-Democratic Party of Switzerland, which is particularly well situated for the purpose of keeping itself informed of what is taking place in the labour movement in the advanced countries of Europe and for uniting the revolutionary elements of that labour movement, must not wait passively for the development of an internal struggle within the latter, but must %eep in advance of that struggle; that is to say, it must follow the road of the Zimmerwald Left, the correctness of which is being proved more clearly every day by the course of events in the Socialist movements in Germany, France, England, the United States and all civilised countries in general.
Written in December, 1916.
First published in French as a leaflet in 1918.
Proletarskaya Revolutsiya, No. 4, 1924.
[385] __ALPHA_LVL1__ ARTICLES AND SPEECHESMY Young Friends and Comrades!
Today is the twelfth anniversary o£ "Bloody Sunday," which is rightly regarded as the beginning of the Russian Revolution.
Thousands of workers---not Social-Democrats, but loyal godfearing people---led by the priest Gapon, streamed from all parts of the city to the centre of the capital, to the square in front of the Winter Palace, in order to submit a petition to the tsar. The workers carried icons, and their then leader Gapon, in a letter to the tsar, had guaranteed his personal safety and asked him to appear before the people.
Troops are called out. Uhlans and Cossacks hurl themselves upon the crowd with drawn swords. They fire on the unarmed workers, who on their bended knees implore the Cossacks to let them go to the tsar. On that day, according to police reports, more than a thousand were killed and more than two thousand were wounded. The indignation of the workers was indescribable.
Such is the bare outline of what took place on January 22, 1905--- on "Bloody Sunday.''
In order that you may understand more clearly the significance o£ this event, I shall quote a few passages from the workers' petition. The petition begins with the following words:
``We, workers, inhabitants of St. Petersburg, have come to Thee. We are unfortunate, reviled slaves. We are crushed by despotism and tyranny. At last, when our patience was exhausted, we ceased work and begged our masters to give us only that without which life is a torment. But this was refused. Everything seemed unlawful to the employers. We here, many thousands of us, like the whole of the Russian people, have no human rights whatever. Owing to die deeds of Thy officials we have become slaves.''
The petition enumerates the following demands: amnesty, civil liberties, normal wages, the land to be gradually transferred to die
387388
ARTICLES, SPEECHES-JAN.-MAR., 1917
people, convocation of a Constituent Assembly on the basis of universal and equal suffrage; and it ends with the following words:
``Sire, do not refuse aid to Thy people! Throw down the wall that separates Thee from Thy people. Order and swear that our requests will be granted, and Thou wilt make Russia happy; if not, we are ready to die on this very spot. We have only two roads: freedom and happiness, or the grave.''
Reading it now, this petition of uneducated, illiterate workers, led by a patriarchal priest, creates a strange impression. Involuntarily one compares this nai've petition with the peaceful resolutions passed today by the social-pacifists, i£., would-be socialists, but in reality bourgeois phrase-mongers. The unenlightened workers of prerevolutionary Russia did not know that the tsar was the head of the ruling class, namely, the class of big landowners, who were already bound by a thousand ties with the big bourgeoisie, who were ready to defend their monopoly, privileges and profits by every means of violence. The social-pacifists of today, who---without jesting---- pretend to be "highly educated" people, do not realise that it is just as foolish to expect a ``democratic'' peace from the bourgeois governments, which are waging an imperialist predatory war, as it was foolish to think that the bloody tsar could be induced to grant reforms by peaceful petitions.
Nevertheless, the great difference between the two is that the present-day social-pacifists are, to a large extent, hypocrites, who by gentle admonitions strive to divert the people from the revolutionary struggle, whereas the uneducated Russian workers in pre-- revolutionary Russia proved by their deeds that they were straightforward people who for the first time had awakened to political consciousness.
It is this awakening of tremendous masses of the people to political consciousness and revolutionary struggle that marks the historic significance of January 22, 1905.
``There is not yet a revolutionary people in Russia," wrote Mr. Peter Struve, then leader of the Russian liberals and publisher abroad of an illegal, free organ, two days before "Bloody Sunday." To this "highly educated," supercilious and extremely stupid leader of the bourgeois reformists the idea that an illiterate peasant coun-
LECTURE ON THE 1905 REVOLUTION 389
try could give birth to a revolutionary people seemed utterly absurd. So profoundly were the reformists of those days---like the reformists of today---convinced that a real revolution was impossible!
Prior to January 22 (January 9, old style), 1905, the revolutionary party of Russia consisted of a small handful of people, and the reformists of those days (like the reformists of today) derisively called us a "sect." Several hundred revolutionary organisers, several thousand members of local organisations, half a dozen revolutionary papers appearing not more frequently than once a month, published mainly abroad and smuggled into Russia with incredible difficulty---and at the cost of many sacrifices---such were the revolutionary parties in Russia, and revolutionary Social-Democracy in particular, prior to January 22, 1905. This circumstance gave the narrow-minded and overbearing reformists formal justification for asserting that there was not yet a revolutionary people in Russia.
Within a few months, however, the picture completely changed. The hundreds of revolutionary Social-Democrats ``suddenly'' grew into thousands; the thousands became leaders of between two and three million proletarians. The proletarian struggle gave rise to a great unrest, often to revolutionary movements among the peasant masses, fifty to a hundred million strong; the peasant movement had its repercussions in the army and led to soldiers' uprisings, to armed clashes between one section of the army and another. In this manner, a colossal country, with a population of 130,000,000, went into the revolution; in this way, slumbering Russia became transformed into a Russia of a revolutionary proletariat and a revolutionary people.
It is necessary to study this transformation, to understand why it was possible, its methods and ways, so to speak.
The principal means by which this transformation was brought about was the mass stride. The peculiar feature of the Russian revolution is that in its social content it was a bourgeois-democratic revolution, but in its methods of struggle it was a proletarian revolution. It was a bourgeois-democratic revolution since the aim toward which it strove directly and which it could reach directly with the aid of its own forces was a democratic republic, an eight-hour day and the confiscation of the immense estates of the nobility---
390
ARTICLES, SPEECHES-JAN.-MAR., 1917
all the measures achieved almost completely in the French bourgeois revolution in 1792 and 1793.
At the same time the Russian revolution was also a proletarian revolution, not only in the sense that the proletariat was the leading force, the vanguard of the movement, but also in the sense that the specifically proletarian means of struggle---namely, the strike---was the principal instrument employed for rousing the masses and the most characteristic phenomenon in the wave-like rise of decisive events.
The Russian revolution was the first, though certainly not the last, great revolution in history in which the mass political strike played an extraordinarily great role. It can even be asserted that it is impossible to understand the events in the Russian revolution and the changes that took place in its political forms, unless a study is made of the basis of these events and changes in form by means of the stride statistics.
I know perfectly well that statistics are very dry in a lecture and are likely to drive an audience away. Nevertheless, I cannot refrain from quoting a few figures, in order that you may be able to appreciate the objective foundation of the whole movement. The average number of persons involved in strikes in Russia during the ten years preceding the revolution was 43,000 per annum. Consequently, the total number of persons involved in strikes during the whole decade preceding the revolution was 430,000. In January 1905, which was the first month of the revolution, the number of persons involved in strikes was 440,000. Consequently more persons were involved in strikes in one month than in the whole of the preceding decade!
In no capitalist country in the world, not even in the most advanced countries like England, the United States of America, or Germany, has such a tremendous strike movement been witnessed as that which occurred in Russia in 1905. The total number of persons involved in strikes was 2,800,000, twice the total number of factory workers in the country! This, of course, does not prove that the urban factory workers of Russia were more educated, or stronger, or more adapted to the struggle than their brothers in Western Europe. The very opposite is true.
LECTURE ON THE 1905 REVOLUTION 391
But it does prove how great the dormant energy of the proletariat can be. It shows that in a revolutionary epoch---I say this without exaggeration, on the basis of the most accurate data of Russian history---the proletariat can develop fighting energy a hundred times greater than in normal, peaceful times. It shows that up to 1905 humanity did not yet know what a great, what a tremendous, exertion of effort the proletariat is capable of in a fight for really great aims, and when it fights in a really revolutionary manner!
The history of the Russian revolution shows that it was precisely the vanguard, the chosen elements of the wage workers, that fought with the greatest tenacity and the greatest devotion. The larger the enterprises involved, the more stubborn were the strikes, and the more often were they repeated during that year. The bigger the city, the more important was the r61e the proletariat played in the struggle. In the three large cities, St. Petersburg, Riga and Warsaw, where the workers were more numerous and more class conscious, the proportion of workers involved in strikes to the total number of workers was immeasurably larger than in other cities, and, o£ course, much larger than in the rural districts.
The metal workers in Russia---probably the same is true also in regard to the other capitalist countries---represent the vanguard of the proletariat. In this connection we note the following instructive fact: taking all factory workers, the number of persons involved in strikes in 1905 was 160 per hundred, whereas in the case of metal workers the number was 330 per hundred! It is calculated that in 1905 every Russian factory worker lost in wages, in consequence of strikes, an average of ten roubles---approximately 26 francs at the pre-war rate of exchange---sacrificing this money, as it were, for the sake of the struggle. If we take the metal workers alone, we find that the loss in wages was three times as great! The best elements of the working class marched in the forefront of the battle, leading after them the hesitant, rousing the dormant and encouraging the weak.
An outstanding feature was the manner in which economic strikes were interlaced with political strikes during the revolution.
Undoubtedly, it was only the very close manner in which the two forms of strike were linked up that secured for the movement its great power. The broad masses of the exploited could not have
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ARTICLES, SPEECHES---JAN.-MAR., 1917
been drawn into the revolutionary movement had they not seen daily examples of how the wage workers in the various branches of industry were compelling the capitalists to grant an immediate improvement in their conditions. This struggle imbued the masses of the Russian people with a new spirit. Only then did the old serfridden, boorish, patriarchal, pious and obedient Russia cast out the old Adam; only then did the Russian people obtain a really democratic and really revolutionary education.
When the bourgeois gentry and their uncritical chorus of satellites, the social-reformists, talk priggishly about the ``education'' of the masses, by education they usually mean something schoolmasterly, pedantic, something that demoralises the masses and imbues them with bourgeois prejudices.
The real education of the masses can never be separated from the independent, the political, and particularly from the revolutionary, struggle of the masses themselves. Only the struggle educates the exploited class. Only the struggle discloses to it the magnitude of its own power, widens its horizon, enhances its abilities, clarifies its mind, forges its will, and, therefore, even reactionaries had to admit that the year 1905, the year of struggle, the "mad year," definitely buried patriarchal Russia.
We shall examine more closely the relation between the metal workers and the textile workers in Russia during the strike struggle of 1905. The metal workers were the best paid, the most classconscious and the best educated proletarians. The textile workers, who in 1905 were over two and a half times as numerous as the metal workers, were the most backward and the worst paid mass of workers in Russia, who in very many cases had not yet definitely severed their connections with their peasant kinsmen in the village. In this connection a very important fact comes to light.
The metal workers' strikes in 1905 show a preponderance of political over economic strikes, although at the beginning of the year this preponderance was not as great as it was toward the end of the year. On the contrary, among the textile workers we observe a great preponderance of economic strikes at the beginning of 1905, and only at the end of the year do we get a preponderance of political strikes. From this it follows quite obviously that the economic struggle, the struggle for immediate and direct improve-
LECTURE ON THE 1905 REVOLUTION 393
ment of conditions, is alone capable of rousing the backward strata of the exploited masses, gives them a real education and transforms them---during a revolutionary epoch---into an army of political fighters within the space of a few months.
Of course, for this to happen, the vanguard of the workers had to understand that the class struggle was not a struggle in the interests of a small upper stratum, as the reformists too often tried to persuade the workers to believe; the proletariat had to come forward as the real vanguard of the majority of the exploited and draw the majority into the struggle, as was the case in Russia in 1905, and as will undoubtedly be the case in the coming proletarian revolution in Europe.
The beginning of 1905 brought with it the first great wave of strikes over the entire country. As early as the spring of that year we observe the awakening of the first big, not only economic, but also political, peasant movement in Russia. The importance of this turning point in history will be appreciated by those who bear in mind that it was only in 1861 that the peasantry in Russia was liberated from the severest bondage of serfdom, that the majority of the peasants are illiterate, that they live in indescribable poverty., oppressed by the landlords, deluded by the priests and isolated from each other by great distances and an almost complete absence of roads.
A revolutionary movement against tsarism arose for the first time in Russia in 1825, and that movement was represented almost exclusively by noblemen. From that moment up to 1881, when Alexander II was assassinated by the terrorists, the movement was led by middle-class intellectuals. They displayed the greatest spirit of self-sacrifice and they aroused the astonishment of the whole world by their heroic terroristic methods of struggle. Those sacrifices were certainly not made in vain. They certainly contributed--- directly and indirectly---to the subsequent revolutionary education of the Russian people. But they did not and could not achieve their immediate aim---of calling forth a people's revolution.
This was achieved only by the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat. Only the waves of mass strikes that swept over the whole country, coupled with the severe lessons of the imperialist RussoJapanese War, roused the broad masses of peasants from their
394
ARTICLES, SPEECHES---JAN.-MAR., 1917
lethargic slumber. The word ``striker'' acquired an entirely new meaning among the peasants: it signified a rebel, a revolutionary, a term previously expressed by the word "student." As, however, the ``student'' belonged to the middle class, to the "learned," to the "gentry," he was alien to the people. On the other hand, a ``striker'' was of the people; he belonged to the exploited class; when deported from St. Petersburg, he often went back to his village where he told his fellow-villagers about the conflagration which had broken out in the cities and which was to destroy the capitalists and nobility. A new type appeared in the Russian village---the classconscious, young peasant. He associated with "strikers," he read newspapers, he told the peasants about events in the cities, explained to his fellow-villagers the meaning of political demands, and called upon them to fight against the big landlords, the priests and the government officials.
The peasants would gather in groups to discuss their conditions, and gradually they were drawn into the struggle. Gathering in large crowds, they attacked the big landlords, set fire to their mansions and estates and looted their barns, seized grain and other foodstuffs, killed policemen and demanded that the huge estates belonging to the nobility be transferred to the people.
In the spring of 1905, the peasant movement was only in its inception; it spread to only a minority of the uyezds,* approximately one-seventh of the total were affected.
But the combination of the proletarian mass strikes in the cities with the peasant movement in the country was sufficient to shake the ``firmest'' and last prop of tsarism. I refer to the army.
A series of mutinies in the army and in the navy broke out. Every fresh wave of strikes and of the peasant movement during the revolution was accompanied by mutinies among the armed forces in all parts of Russia. The most well-known of these is the mutiny on the Black Sea cruiser, "Prince Potemkin," which, after it was seized by the revolutionaries, took part in the revolution in Odessa. After this revolution was defeated, and the attempts to seize other ports (for instance, Theodosia in the Crimea) had failed, it surrendered to the Rumanian authorities in Constanza.
Permit me to relate to you in detail one little episode in that
* Counties.---Ed.
LECTURE ON THE 1905 REVOLUTION 395
mutiny of the Black Sea Fleet, in order to give you a concrete picture of events at the apex of their development.
Gatherings of revolutionary workers and sailors were being organized more and more frequently. Since men in the armed forces were not permitted to attend workers' meetings, the workers in masses began to visit the military meetings. They gathered in thousands. The idea of joint action found a lively response. The most class conscious companies elected deputies.
Then the military authorities decided to take action. The attempts of some of the officers to deliver ``patriotic'' speeches at the meetings failed miserably; the sailors who were accustomed to debating put their officers to shameful flight. After these efforts had failed, it was decided to prohibit meetings altogether. On the morning of November 24, 1905, a company of sailors, in full war kit, was posted at the gate of the naval barracks. Rear-Admiral Pissarevsky shouted the order: "Permit no one to leave the barracks! In case of disobedience, shoot!" A sailor named Petrov stepped forth from the ranks of the company that had received that order, loaded his rifle in view of all, and with one shot killed Lieutenant-Colonel Stein of the BrestLitovsk Regiment, and with another wounded Rear-Admiral Pissarevsky. The command was given: "Arrest him!" Nobody budged. Petrov threw his rifle to the ground and exclaimed: "Why don't you move? Take me!" He was arrested. The sailors, who rushed from every side, angrily demanded his release, and declared that they vouched for him. Excitement ran high.
``Petrov, the shot was an accident, wasn't it?" asked one of the officers, trying to find a way out of the situation.
``What do you mean, an accident? I stepped forward, loaded and took aim. Is that an accident?''
``They demand your release-----"
And Petrov was released. The sailors, however, were not content with that; all officers on duty were arrested, disarmed, and taken to headquarters___Sailor delegates, about forty in number, conferred the whole night. The decision was to release the officers, but never to permit them to enter the barracks again.
This little incident shows you clearly how events developed in most of the mutinies. The revolutionary ferment among the people could not but spread to the armed forces. It is characteristic that the
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leaders of the movement came from those elements in the army and the navy which had been recruited mainly from among the industrial workers and possessed most technical training, for instance, the sappers. The broad masses, however, were still too naive, their mood was too passive, too good natured, too Christian. They flared up rather quickly; any case of injustice, excessively harsh conduct on the part of the officers, bad food, etc., was enough to call forth revolt. But there was no persistence in their protest; they lacked a clear perception of aim; they lacked a clear understanding of the fact that only the most vigorous continuation of the armed struggle, only a victory over all the military and civil authorities, only the overthrow of the government and the seizure of power over the whole state could guarantee the success of the revolution.
The broad masses of the sailors and soldiers readily rose in revolt. But with foolish naivete as readily released the arrested officers. They allowed themselves to be pacified by promises and persuasion on the part of their officers; in this way the officers gained precious time, obtained reinforcements, broke the ranks of the rebels, and then the most brutal suppression of the movement and the execution of the leaders followed.
It is interesting to compare the mutinies in Russia in 1905 with the mutiny of the Decembrists in 1825. At that time, the leaders of the political movement belonged almost exclusively to the officers, particularly the officers of the nobility; they had become infected through contact with the democratic ideas of Europe during the Napoleonic wars. The mass of the soldiers, who at that time were still serfs, remained passive.
The history of 1905 presents a totally different picture. The mood of the officers, with few exceptions, was either bourgeois-liberal reformist or openly counter-revolutionary. The workers and peasants in military uniform were the soul of the mutinies; the mutinies became a movement of the people. For the first time in the history of Russia the movement spread to the majority of the exploited. But on the one hand, the masses lacked persistence and determination, they were too much afflicted with the malady of trustfulness; on the other hand, the movement lacked an organisation of revolutionary Social-Democratic workers in military uniform. They lacked the ability to take the leadership into their own hands, to place
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themselves at the head of the revolutionary army, and to assume the offensive against the government authorities.
I would like to say incidentally that these two shortcomings will, more slowly than we would like perhaps, but surely, be removed not only by the general development of capitalism, but also by the present war.
At all events, the history of the Russian revolution, like the history of the Paris Commune of 1871, unfailingly teaches that militarism can never, under any circumstances, be vanquished and destroyed, except by a victorious struggle of one section of the national army against the other section. It is not sufficient simply to denounce, revile and to ``repudiate'' militarism, to criticise and to argue that it is harmful; it is foolish peacefully to refuse to perform military service; the task is to keep the revolutionary consciousness of the proletariat in a state of high tension and to train its best elements, not only in a general way, but concretely, so that when popular unrest reaches the highest pitch, they will put themselves at the head of the revolutionary army.
This same lesson is taught us by daily experience in any capitalist state. Every ``minor'' crisis that such a state experiences discloses to us in miniature the elements and the germs of the battles, which must inevitably take place on a large scale during a' big crisis. What else, for instance, is a strike if not a minor crisis in capitalist society? Was not the Prussian Minister for Internal Affairs, Herr von Puttkamer, right when he uttered his famous declaration: "Every strike discloses the hydra-head of revolution." Does not the calling out of troops during the strikes in all, even the most peaceful, the most ``democratic''---save the mark---capitalist countries, show how things will work in a really great crisis ?
But to return to the history of the Russian revolution.
I have tried to depict how the workers' strikes stirred up the whole country and the broadest, backward strata of the exploited, how the peasant movement began, and how it was accompanied by military uprisings.
In the autumn of 1905, the movement reached its zenith. On August 19, the tsar issued a manifesto on the introduction of popular representation. The so-called Bulygin Duma was to be created on the basis of a suffrage embracing a ridiculously small number
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of electors, and this peculiar ``parliament'' was to have, not legislative, but only advisory powers!
The bourgeoisie, the liberals, the opportunists, were ready to clutch this ``gift'' of a frightened tsar with both hands. Like all reformists, our reformists of 1905 could not understand that historical situations arise when reforms, and particularly mere promises of reforms, pursue only one aim: to allay the unrest of the people, to force the revolutionary class to cease, or at least to slacken, its struggle.
Russian revolutionary Social-Democracy well understood the true nature of this octroi, of this granting of an illusory constitution in August 1905. That is why, without a moment's hesitation, it issued the slogans: "Down with the advisory Duma! Boycott the Duma! Down with the tsarist government! Continue the revolutionary struggle for the overthrow of this government! Not the tsar, but a provisional revolutionary government must convene the first real, popular representative assembly in Russia!''
History proved that the revolutionary Social-Democrats were right by the fact that the Butygin Duma was never convened. It was swept away by die revolutionary whirlwind before it assembled; this whirlwind forced the tsar to promulgate a new electoral law, which provided for a considerable increase in the number of electors, and to recognise the legislative character of the Duma.
October and December 1905 marked the highest point of the rising tide of the Russian revolution. The floodgates of the revolutionary power of the people opened wider than ever before. The number of persons involved in strikes---which in January 1905, as I have already told you, was 440,000---reached over half a million in October 1905 (in the course of one month, be it observed). To this number, which applies only to factory workers, must be added several hundreds of thousands of railway workers, postal and telegraph employees, etc.
The Russian general railway strike stopped railway traffic and most effectively paralysed the power of the government. The doors of the universities and lecture halls, which in peace time were used only to befuddle youthful heads with pedantic professorial wisdom and to turn them into docile servants of the bourgeoisie and tsarism, were flung wide open and served as meeting places for thousands
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or workers, artisans and office workers, who openly and freely discussed political questions.
Freedom of the press was won. The censorship was simply ignored. No publisher dared send the copy to the authorities, and the authorities did not dare take any measure against this. For the first time in Russian history, revolutionary papers appeared freely in St. Petersburg and other towns. In St. Petersburg alone, three daily Social-Democratic papers, with circulations ranging from 50,000 to 100,000, were published.
The proletariat marched at the head of the movement. It set out to win the eight-hour day in a revolutionary manner. The fighting slogan of the St. Petersburg proletariat was then: "An Eight-Hour Day and Arms!" It became obvious to an ever increasing mass of workers that the fate of the revolution could and would be decided only by an armed struggle.
In the fire of battle, a peculiar mass organisation was formed, the famous Soviets of Workers' Deputies, meetings of delegates from all factories. In several cities in Russia, these Soviets of Worker/ Deputies began more and more to play the role of a provisional, revolutionary government, the role of organs and leaders of rebellion. Attempts were made to organise Soviets of Soldiers' and Sailors' Deputies and to combine them with the Soviets of Workers' Deputies.
For a period several cities of Russia at that time experienced something in the nature of small, local ``republics''; the state authorities were deposed, and the Soviet of Workers' Deputies actually functioned as the new state authority. Unfortunately, these periods were all too brief, the ``victories'' were too weak, too isolated.
The peasant movement in the autumn of 1905 reached still greater dimensions. Over one-third of the uyezds throughout the country were affected by "peasant riots" and real peasant uprisings. The peasants burned down no less than two thousand estates and distributed among themselves the provisions of which the predatory nobility had robbed the people.
Unfortunately, this work was not done with sufficient thoroughness; unfortunately, the peasants destroyed only one-fifteenth of the total number of noblemen's estates, only one-fifteenth part of what
400 Emacs-File-stamp: "/home/ysverdlov/leninist.biz/en/1942/LCW19IP/20100313/463.tx" __EMAIL__ webmaster@leninist.biz __OCR__ ABBYY 6 Professional (2010.03.13) __WHERE_PAGE_NUMBERS__ top __FOOTNOTE_MARKER_STYLE__ [*]+ __ENDNOTE_MARKER_STYLE__ [0-9]+ they should have destroyed in order to wipe the shame of big feudal landownership from the face of the land of Russia. Unfortunately, the peasants in their actions were too scattered, too unorganised, not aggressive enough, and therein lies one of the fundamental reasons for the defeat of the revolution.Among the oppressed peoples of Russia there flared up a national movement for liberation. Over one-half, almost three-fifths (to be exact, 57 per cent) of the population of Russia is subject to national oppression; they have not even the right to use their native language, they are forcibly Russified. For instance, the Mohammedans, who number tens of millions in the population of Russia, organised a Mohammedan League with astonishing rapidity; generally, it was a time when all sorts of organisations sprang up and grew at a colossal rate.
To give the audience, particularly the youth, an example of how at that time the national movement for liberation in Russia rose in conjunction with the labour movement, I quote the following case:
In December 1905, the Polish children in hundreds of schools burned all Russian books, pictures and portraits of the tsar, and attacked and drove the Russian teachers and their Russian schoolfellows from the schools, shouting: "Get out of here! Go back to Russia!" The Polish pupils in the secondary schools put forward, among others, the following demands: i) all secondary schools must be under the control of a Soviet of Workers' Deputies; 2) joint pupils' and workers' meetings to be called within the school buildings; 3) the wearing of red blouses in the secondary schools to be permitted as a token of membership of the future proletarian republic, etc.
The higher the tide of the movement rose, the more vigorously and decisively did the reaction arm itself to fight against the revolution. The Russian Revolution of 1905 confirmed the truth of what Karl Kautsky wrote in 1902 in his book Social Revolution and the Morrow of the Social Revolution. (At that time, by the way, he was still a revolutionary Marxist and not a champion of social-patriotism and opportunism as at present.) He wrote the following:
``The future revolution ... will be less like a spontaneous uprising against the government and will be more like a protracted civil war."
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This is exactly what happened! This will undoubtedly also happen in the coming European revolution!
Tsarism vented its hatred particularly upon the Jews. On the one hand, the Jews provided a particularly high percentage (compared with the total Jewish population) of leaders of the revolutionary movement. In passing, it should be said to their credit that to this day the Jews provide a relatively high percentage of representatives of internationalism as compared with other nations. On the other hand, tsarism knew perfectly well how to play on the basest prejudices of the most ignorant strata of the population against the Jews, in order to organise---if not to lead directly---pogroms, those atrocious massacres of peaceful Jews, their wives and children, which have roused such disgust throughout the entire civilised world. I have in mind, of course, the disgust of the truly democratic elements of the civilised world, and these are exclusively the socialist workers, the proletarians.
It is calculated that in a hundred cities at that time more than 4,000 were killed and more than 10,000 were mutilated. The bourgeoisie of even the freest, even of republican countries of Western Europe are very well able to combine their hypocritical phrases about "Russian atrocities" with the most shameless financial transactions, particularly with the financial support of tsarism and with imperialist exploitation of Russia through the export of capital, etc.
The climax of the Revolution of 1905 was reached in the December insurrection in Moscow. A handful of rebels, namely, of organised and armed workers---they numbered not more than eight thousand---resisted the tsar's government for nine days. The government dared not trust the Moscow garrison; on the contrary, it had to keep it behind locked doors, and only on the arrival of the Semenovsky Regiment from St. Petersburg was it able to quell the rebellion.
The bourgeoisie are pleased to describe the Moscow insurrection as something artificial, and to treat it with ridicule. In the German so-called ``scientific'' literature, for instance, Herr Professor Max Weber, in his large work on the political development of Russia, described the Moscow insurrection as a "putsch." "The Lenin group," says this "highly learned" Herr Professor, "and a section
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of the Socialist-Revolutionaries had long prepared for this senseless uprising.''
In order properly to appraise this professorial wisdom of the cowardly bourgeoisie, it is sufficient to recall the dry statistics of the strikes. In January 1905, there were only 13,000 persons involved in purely political strikes in Russia, whereas in October there were 330,000, and in December the maximum was reached, 570,000 were involved in purely political strikes---in one month alone! Let us recall the achievements of the counter-revolution, the uprisings of the peasants and the soldiers, and we will soon come to the conclusion that the dictum of bourgeois ``science'' concerning the December insurrection is not only absurd, but is a subterfuge on the part of the representatives of the cowardly bourgeoisie, which sees in the proletariat its most dangerous class enemy.
In reality, the whole development of the Russian revolution inevitably led to an armed, decisive battle between the tsarist government and the vanguard of the class conscious proletariat.
I have already pointed out in my previous remarks wherein lay the weakness of the Russian revolution that led to. its temporary defeat.
With the quelling of the December insurrection the revolution began to subside. Even in this period, extremely interesting moments are to be observed; suffice it to recall the twofold attempt of the most militant elements of the working class to stop the retreat of the revolution and to prepare for a new offensive.
But my time has nearly expired, and I do not want to abuse the patience of my audience. I think, however, that I have outlined the most important aspects of the revolution---its class character, its driving force and its methods of struggle---as fully as it is possible to deal with a very big subject in a brief lecture.
A few brief remarks concerning the world significance of the Russian revolution.
Geographically, economically and historically, Russia belongs not only to Europe, but also to Asia. This is why the Russian revolution not only succeeded in finally rousing the biggest and the most backward country in Europe but also in creating a revolutionary people led by a revolutionary proletariat.
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It achieved more than that. The Russian revolution gave rise to a movement throughout the whole of Asia. The revolutions in Turkey, Persia and China prove that the mighty insurrection of 1905 left deep traces, and that its influence, expressed in the forward movement of hundreds and hundreds of millions of people, is ineradicable.
In an indirect way the Russian revolution exercised influence also on the countries situated in the West. One must not forget that as soon as the telegram announcing the tsar's constitutional manifesto was received in Vienna on October 30, 1905, this news played a decisive role in the final victory of universal suffrage in Austria.
While the Congress of the Austrian Social-Democratic Party was in session, just as Comrade Ellenbogen---who at that time was not yet a social-patriot but a comrade---was making his report on the political strike, this telegram was placed on the table before him. The discussion was immediately stopped. "Our place is in the streets !'%r-was the cry that resounded in the meeting hall of the delegates of Austrian Social-Democracy. The following days witnessed monster street demonstrations in Vienna and barricades in Prague. The victory of universal suffrage in Austria was decided.
Very often we meet West Europeans who argue about the Russian revolution as if events, relationships and methods of struggle in that backward Country have very little resemblance to West European relationships, and, therefore, can hardly have any practical significance.
There is nothing more erroneous than such an opinion.
No doubt the forms and occasions for the impending battles in the coming European revolution will differ in many respects from the forms of the Russian revolution.
Notwithstanding that, the Russian revolution---precisely because of its proletarian character in that particular sense of which I have spoken---remains the prologue to the coming European revolution. Undoubtedly, this coming revolution can only be a proletarian revolution in the profounder sense of the word; a proletarian, socialist revolution also in its content. This coming revolution will show to an even greater degree, on the one hand, that only stern battles, namely, civil wars, can free humanity from the yoke of capital; on the other hand, that only class conscious proletarians can and will
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come forth in the role of leaders of the vast majority of the exploited.
The present grave-like stillness in Europe must not deceive us. Europe is charged with revolution. The monstrous horrors of the imperialist war, the suffering caused by the high cost of living, engender everywhere a revolutionary spirit; and the ruling classes, the bourgeoisie with its servitors, the governments, are more and more moving into a blind alley from which they can never extricate themselves without tremendous upheavals.
Just as in Russia, in 1905, a popular uprising against the tsarist government commenced under the leadership of the proletariat with the aim of achieving a democratic republic, so, in Europe, the coming years, precisely because of this predatory war, will lead to popular uprisings under the leadership of the proletariat against the power of finance capital, against the big banks, against the capitalists; and these upheavels cannot end otherwise dian with the expropriation of the bourgeoisie, with the victory of socialism.
We of the older generation may not live to see the decisive battles of this coming revolution. But I can, I believe, express the strong hope that the youth which is working so splendidly in the socialist movement of Switzerland, and of the whole world, will be fortunate enough not only to fight, but also to win, in the coming proletarian revolution.
Written in January, 1917.
First published in Pravda, No. 18 (2949), January 22, 1925.
[405] __ALPHA_LVL2__ BOURGEOIS PACIFISM AND SOCIALIST PACIFISM __ALPHA_LVL3__ I. THE TURN IN WORLD POLITICS "THERE are symptoms that such a turn has taken place, or is about to take place; that is, a turn from imperialist war to imperialist peace.
The undoubtedly severe exhaustion of both imperialist coalitions; the difficulty of continuing the war any longer; the difficulty for the capitalists generally, and for finance capital in particular, to skin the people more than they have done already in the way of outrageous ``war'' profits; the satiation of finance capital in the neutral countries, the United States, Holland, Switzerland, etc., which have made enormous profits out of the war and find it difficult to continue this ``profitable'' business owing to the shortage of raw materials and food supplies; the strenuous efforts being made by Germany to induce one or other of the allies of her principal imperialist rival, England, to desert her; the pacifist pronouncements of the German government followed by similar pronouncements by the governments of a number of neutral countries---these are the outstanding symptoms.
Are there any chances for a speedy cessation of the war or not ?
It is very difficult to give a positive reply to this question. In our opinion, two possibilities present themselves rather definitely.
The first is that a separate peace has been concluded between Germany and Russia, although it may not have been concluded in the usual form of a formal written treaty. The second is that such a peace has not been concluded, that England and her allies are really able to hold out for another year or two, etc. If the first assumption is correct, the war will come to an end, if not immediately, then in the very near future, and no important changes in its course can be expected. If the second assumption is correct, then the war may continue indefinitely.
We will examine the first possibility.
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It is beyond any doubt that negotiations for a separate peace between Germany and Russia were conducted quite recently, that Nicholas II himself, or an influential court clique, is in favour of such a peace, that in world politics a turn has taken place from an imperialist alliance between Russia and England against Germany, to a no less imperialist alliance between Russia and Germany against England.
The fact that Sturmer has been displaced by Trepov, the public declarations of tsarism that Russia's ``right'' to Constantinople has been recognised by all the Allies and the fact that Germany has set up a separate Polish state are signs that seem to indicate that the negotiations for a separate peace have ended in failure. Perhaps tsarism entered into these negotiations solely in order to blackmail England, to induce her formally and unambiguously to recognise Nicholas the Bloody's ``right'' to Constantinople and to give certain ``weighty'' guarantees for this right?
In view of the fact that the main, fundamental purpose of the present imperialist war is to decide the division of the spoils among the three principal imperialist rivals, the three robbers, Russia, Germany and England, there is nothing improbable in this assumption.
On the other hand, the clearer it becomes to tsarism that it is practically impossible by military means to regain Poland, to win Constantinople, to break the iron front of Germany, which the latter is magnificently straightening out, shortening and strengthening by its recent victories in Rumania, the more tsarism is compelled to conclude a separate peace with Germany, that is, to abandon its imperialist alliance with England against Germany and enter into, an imperialist alliance with Germany against England. Why not? Was not Russia on the verge of war with England as a consequence of the imperialist rivalry between the two powers over the division of the spoils in Central Asia? Were not negotiations carried on between England and Germany in 1898 for an alliance against Russia? England and Germany then secretly agreed to divide the colonies of Portugal between themselves "in the event" of Portugal not being able to meet her financial obligations!
Increased strivings on the part of the leading imperialist circles of Germany towards an alliance with Russia against England were
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already clearly defined several months ago. The basis of this alliance apparently is to be the partition of Galicia (tsarism deems it very important to strangle the centre of Ukrainian agitation and Ukrainian liberty), Armenia and perhaps Rumania! Was there not a ``hint'' in a German newspaper that Rumania might be divided among Austria, Bulgaria and Russia? Germany might agree to other "small concessions" to tsarism if only she could achieve an alliance with Russia, and perhaps also with Japan, against England.
A separate peace might have been concluded between Nicholas II and Wilhelm II secretly. Cases have occurred in the history of diplomacy when treaties have been concluded and, except for two or three persons, no one has known about them, not even the Cabinet Ministers. Cases have occurred in the history of diplomacy when the "Great Powers" have gathered at ``European'' congresses after the principal rivals had secretly decided the main questions among themselves (for example, the secret agreement between Russia and England to plunder Turkey, prior to the Berlin Congress of 1878). It would not be at all surprising if tsarism rejected a formal separate peace between the governments for the reason, among others, that in the present situation in Russia it might lead to Milyukov and Guchkov, or Milyukov and Kerensky taking over the government; but at the same time it may have concluded a secret, informal, but none the less ``durable'' treaty with Germany to the effect that the two "high contracting parties" undertake jointly to pursue such and such a policy at the forthcoming peace congress!
It is impossible to decide whether this assumption is correct or not. At all events it is a thousand times nearer to the truth, it is a far better description of the truth than the innumerable sentimental phrases that are uttered about peace between the present governments, or between any bourgeois governments for that matter, on the basis of no annexations, etc. These phrases either express innocent desires or are hypocrisy and lies uttered for the purpose of concealing the truth. The truth at the present time, about the present war, about the present attempts to conclude peace, is the division of the imperialist spoils. This is the quintessence of the whole thing; and to undertand this truth, to express it, "to speak the truth," is the fundamental task of socialist policy as distinct from bourgeois
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policy, the principal aim of which is to conceal, to gloss over this truth.
Both imperialist coalitions have grabbed a certain amount of loot, and the two principal and most powerful of the robbers, Germany and England, have grabbed most. England has not lost a foot of her territory or her colonies; but she has ``acquired'' the German colonies and part of Turkey (Mesopotamia). Germany has lost nearly all her colonies; but she has acquired immeasurably more valuable territory in Europe, by seizing Belgium, Serbia, Rumania, part of France, a part of Russia, etc. The fight now is over the division of the loot, and the ``chief'' of each of the robber gangs, i.e., England and Germany, must to some degree reward his allies, who, with the exception of Bulgaria and to a less extent Italy, have lost a great deal. The weakest of the allies have lost most: in the English coalition, Belgium, Serbia, Montenegro and Rumania have been crushed; in the German coalition, Turkey has lost Armenia and part of Mesopotamia.
Up to now Germany has undoubtedly secured far more loot than England. Up to now Germany has won; she has proved to be far stronger than anyone anticipated before the war. Naturally, therefore, it would be to Germany's advantage to conclude peace as speedily as possible, for her rival might still be able at the most favourable opportunity conceivable (although not very probable) to mobilise a larger reserve of recruits, etc.
This is the objective situation. Such is the present position in the struggle for the division of the imperialist loot. It is quite natural that this situation should give rise to pacifist strivings, to declarations and pronouncements, mainly on the part of the bourgeoisie and the governments of the German coalition and of the neutral countries. It is equally natural that the bourgeoisie and its governments are compelled to exert every effort to hoodwink the people, to conceal the hideous nakedness of imperialist peace, the division of the loot, by phrases, by utterly false phrases about democratic peace, about the liberty of small nations, about reducing armaments, etc.
But while it is natural for the bourgeoisie to strive to hoodwink the people, how do the Socialists fulfil their duty? This we shall deal with in the next article.
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__ALPHA_LVL3__ II. THE PACIFISM OF KAUTSKY AND TURATIKautsky is the most authoritative theoretician of the Second International, the most prominent leader of the so-called "Marxian Centre" in Germany, the representative of the opposition which organised a separate group in the Reichstag, the Social-Democratic Labour Group (Haase, Ledebour and others). A number of SocialDemocratic newspapers in Germany are now publishing articles by Kautsky on the terms of peace, which paraphrase the official declaration made by the Social-Democratic Labour Group on the German government's well-known note proposing peace negotiations. This declaration calls upon the German government to propose definite terms of peace and contains the following characteristic statement:
``... In order that this note" (the German government's) "may lead to peace, all countries must unequivocally renounce all thought of annexing alien territory, of the political, economic or military subjection of any people whatsoever by any other state power....''
In paraphrasing and concretising this postulate, Kautsky, in his articles, ``argues'' with great thoroughness that Constantinople must not be given to Russia and diat Turkey must not be made a vassal state to anyone.
We shall examine these political slogans and arguments of Kautsky and his associates as closely as possible.
In a matter that affects Russia, i.e, the imperialist rival of Germany, Kautsky advances, not abstract, not "general," but a very concrete, precise and definite demand: Constantinople must not be given to Russia. By that he exposes the real imperialist designs... of Russia. In a matter that affects Germany, however, i.e., the country in which the majority of the party which regards Kautsky as its member (and which appointed him the editor of its principal, leading, theoretical organ, the Neue Zeit) is helping the bourgeoisie and the government to conduct an imperialist war, Kautsky does not expose the concrete, imperialist designs of his own government, but confines himself to a ``general'' desideratum or postulate: Turkey must not be made a vassal state to anyone!!
In what way does Kautsky's policy, in substance, differ from that
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of the militant, so to speak, social-chauvinists (»>., Socialists in words but chauvinists in deeds) of France and England, who, while frankly exposing the concrete imperialist actions of Germany, make shift with ``general'' desiderata or postulates when it concerns the countries or nations conquered by England and Russia, who shout about the seizure of Belgium and Serbia, but say nothing about the seizure of Galicia, Armenia, the African colonies?
As a matter of fact, both the policy pursued by Kautsky and that pursued by Sembat and Henderson help their respective imperialist governments by concentrating attention principally on the insidiousness of their rival and enemy, while throwing a veil of vague, general phrases and sentimental wishes around the equally imperialist conduct of "their own" bourgeoisie. We would cease to be Marxists, we would cease to be Socialists generally, if we confined ourselves to the Christian, so to speak, contemplation of the benignity of benign general phrases and refrained from exposing their real political significance. Do we not see the continuous spectacle of the diplomacy of all the imperialist powers flaunting magnanimous ``general'' phrases and ``democratic'' declarations in order to screen their robbery, violation and strangulation of small nations?
``Turkey must not be made a vassal state to anyone...." If I say no more than that, I create the impression that I stand for the complete freedom of Turkey. As a matter of fact, I am only repeating a phrase that is usually uttered by German diplomats who are deliberately lying and deceiving, who employ this phrase in order to conceal the fact that Germany has already converted Turkey into her financial and military vassal! And if I am a German Socialist, my ``general'' phrases are extremely useful to German diplomacy, for their real significance lies in that they put German imperialism in a good light.
``... All countries must renounce all thought of annexations ... of the economic subjection of any people whatsoever...." What magnanimity! The imperialists "renounce the thought" of annexations and of the financial strangulation of weak nations a thousand times, but should we not compare these renunciations with the facts which show that any one of the big banks of Germany, England,
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France and of the United States do hold small nations "in subjection"? Can the bourgeois government of a wealthy country really renounce annexations and the economic subjugation of alien peoples when billions and billions have been invested in the railways and other enterprises of weak nations ?
Who really fights against annexations, etc.? Is it those who utter magnanimous phrases, the objective significance of which is the same as that of the Christian holy water that is sprinkled on the crowned and capitalist robbers? Or is it those who explain to the workers that it is impossible to put an end to annexations and financial strangulation without overthrowing the imperialist bourgeoisie and its governments?
Here is an Italian illustration of the kind of pacifism that Kautsky preaches.
Avanti, the central organ of the Socialist Party of Italy, of December 25,1916, contains an article by the well-known reformist, Filippo Turati, entitled "Abracadabra," in which he writes that on November 22, 1916, the Socialist group in the Italian parliament moved a resolution in favour of peace. In this resolution the group declared that "the principles proclaimed by the representatives of England and Germany were identical, and these principles should lie at the base of a possible peace"; and it invited "the government to open negotiations for peace through the mediation of the United States and other neutral countries." This is Turati's own account of the Socialist proposal.
On December 6, 1916, the Chamber ``buries'' the Socialist resolution by ``adjourning'' the debate on it. On December 12, the German Chancellor in the Reichstag proposes the very thing proposed by the Italian Socialists.^^78^^ On December 22, Wilson issues his note which, in the words of Turati, "paraphrases and repeats the ideas and arguments of the Socialist proposal." On December 23, other neutral countries come on the scene and paraphrase Wilson's note.
We are accused of having sold ourselves to the Germans, exclaimed Turati. Have Wilson and the neutral countries also sold themselves to Germany?
On December 17, Turati delivered a speech in parliament, one passage of which caused an unusual and deserved sensation. This is the passage, quoted from the report in Avanti:
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``Suppose a discussion like that proposed by Germany is able, in the main, to settle questions like the evacuation of Belgium and France, the restoration of Rumania, Serbia and, if you will, Montenegro; I will add the rectification of the Italian frontiers in regard to what is indisputably
Italian and corresponds to guarantees of a strategical character-----" At
this point the bourgeois and chauvinist Chamber interrupts Turati, and from all sides the shout goes up: "Excellent! So you too want all this! Long live Turati! Long live Turati!"...
Apparently, Turati realised that there was something wrong about the enthusiasm of these bourgeois and tried to ``correct'' himself and ``explain'':
``Gentlemen," he said, "cease this irrelevant jesting. It is one thing to admit the relevance and right of national unity, which we have always recognised, but to provoke, or justify, war for this aim is quite another thing.''
But neither Turati's ``explanation'' nor the articles in Avanti in his defence, nor Turati's letter of, December 21, nor the article by a certain "B.B." in the Zurich Vol\srecht can ``correct'' or explain away the fact that Turati jell into the trap!... Or it would be more correct to say that not Turati, but the whole of socialist pacifism represented by Kautsky, and, as we shall see below, the French "Kautskyans," fell into the trap. The Italian bourgeois press was right in seizing upon this passage in Turati's speech and exulting over it.
The above-mentioned "B.B." tries to defend Turati by arguing that the latter referred only to "the right of nations to self-- determination.''
A bad defence! What has this to do with "the right of nations to self-determination," which, as everyone knows, is that part of the Marxian programme---and has always been that part of the programme of international democracy---which deals with the defence of oppressed nations? What has it to do widi the imperialist war, if., with a war for the division of colonies, a war for the oppression of foreign countries, a war among predatory and oppressing powers to decide which of them shall oppress more foreign nations?
In what way does this argument about self-determination of nations in defence of an imperialist war, and not a national war,
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differ from the speeches delivered by Alexinsky, Herve and Hyndman who argue that republican France is opposed to monarchical Germany, in spite of the fact that everyone knows that this war has nothing to do with the conflict between republican and monarchist principles, but is a war for the division of colonies, etc., between two imperialist coalitions.
Turati explained and pleaded that he does not ``justify'' the war in the least.
We will take the reformist, Kautskyan Turati's word for it that he did not intend to justify the war. But who does not know that in politics it is not intentions that count, but deeds, not good intentions, but facts, not the imaginary, but the real?
Suppose we admit that Turati did not want to justify the war and that Kautsky did not want to justify Germany's placing Turkey in the position of a vassal to German imperialism; the fact remains that these two benign pacifists did justify the war! That is the point. Had Kautsky declared that "Constantinople must not be given to Russia, Turkey must not be made a vassal state to anyone" not in a magazine which is so dull that nobody reads it, but in parliament, before a lively, impressionable, bourgeois audience, full of southern temperament, it would not have been surprising if the witty bourgeois had exclaimed: "Excellent! Hear, hear! Long live Kautsky!''
Whether he intended to or not, deliberately or not, the fact is that Turati expressed the point of view of a bourgeois broker proposing a friendly deal between imperialist robbers. The ``liberation'' of Italian soil belonging to Austria would, in fact, be a concealed reward to the Italian bourgeoisie for participating in the imperialist war of a gigantic imperialist coalition; it would be a small sop thrown in, in addition to the share of the African colonies and spheres of influence in Dalmatia and Albania. Perhaps die reformist Turati adopts the point of view of the bourgeoisie naturally; but Kautsky really differs in no way from Turati.
In order not to embellish the imperialist war, in order not to help the bourgeoisie falsely to represent this war as a national war, as a war for the liberation of nations, in order to avoid taking up the position of bourgeois reformism, one must speak, not in the language of Kautsky and Turati, but in the language of Karl Liebknecht: one must tell one's otvn bourgeoisie that they arc hypo-
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crites when they talk about national liberation, one must say that this war cannot result in a democratic peace unless the proletariat "turns its guns" against its own governments.
Such and only such could be the position of a genuine Marxist, of a genuine Socialist and not a bourgeois reformist. It is not he who repeats the general, meaningless, non-committal, goody-goody desires of pacifism who is really working for a democratic peace, but he who exposes the imperialist character of the present war and of the imperialist peace that is being prepared, he who calls upon the peoples to rise in revolt against the criminal governments.
Some people sometimes try to defend Kautsky and Turati with the argument that it is impossible without committing a legal offence to do more than drop ``hints'' against the government and that the pacifists of this sort do ``hint'' at this kind of thing. The reply to this is, first, that the impossibility of speaking the truth without committing a legal offence is an argument, not in favour of concealing the truth, but in favour of the need for an illegal organisation and press, i.e., an organisation and press free from surveillance of die police and the censorship. Secondly, that moments occur in history when a Socialist is called upon to throw off all legality. Thirdly, that even in serf-ridden Russia, Dobrolyubov and Chernyshevsky managed to speak the truth, for example, by their silence regarding the Manifesto of March 3 (February 19), i86i,79 and the ridicule and abuse they hurled against the liberals of their day, who made exactly the same kind of speeches as those made today by Turati and Kautsky.
In the next article we shall deal with French pacifism, which found expression in the resolutions passed by the two recently held congresses of the labour and Socialist organisations of France.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ III. THE PACIFISM OF THE FRENCH SOCIALISTS AND SYNDICALISTSThe congresses of the French General Confederation of Labor (Confederation gSnerale du Travail, the federation of trade unions) and of the Socialist Party of France have just been held. At these congresses the true significance and true role of Socialist pacifism at the present moment were quite definitely revealed.
The following is the resolution passed unanimously at the trade
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union congress, including the majority of the ardent chauvinists headed by the notorious Jouhaux, the anarchist Broutchoux and ... the ``Zimmerwaldian'' Merrheim:
``This Conference of National Corporative Federations, trade unions and labour exchanges takes cognisance of the Note of the President of the United States~^^80^^ which 'invites all nations now at war with each other to publicly expound their views as to the terms upon which the war might be brought to an end'---
``requests the French government to agree to this proposal;
``invites the government to take the initiative in making a similar proposal to its allies in order to speed the hour of peace;
``declares that the federation of nations, which is one of the guarantees of a final peace, can be secured only with the independence, territorial inviolability and political and economic liberty of all nations, great and small.
``The organisations represented at this conference pledge themselves to support and spread this idea among the masses of the workers in order to put an end to the present indefinite and ambiguous situation, which can only benefit secret diplomacy, against which the working class has always protested.''
There you have an example of ``pure'' pacifism, entirely in the spirit of Kautsky, a pacifism approved by an official labour organisation which has nothing in common with Marxism, and the majority of whose members are chauvinists. We have before us an outstanding document, deserving the most serious attention, of the political unity of the chauvinists and the ``Kautskyans'' on a platform of empty pacifist phrases. In the preceding article we tried to explain the theoretical basis of the unity of ideas of the chauvinists and the pacifists, of the bourgeois and the Socialist reformists. Now we see this unity achieved in practice, in another imperialist country.
At the conference at Zimmerwald, September 5-9,1915, Merrheim declared: "Le parti, les Jouhaux, le gouvernement, ce no sont que trots tetes sous un bonnet!' ("The party, the Jouhaux and the government are three heads under one bonnet," «'.<?., they are all one.) At the conference of the C.G.T. of December 26, 1916, Merrheim voted together with Jouhaux, for a pacifist resolution. On December 23, 1916, one of the frankest and most extreme organs of the Ger-
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man social-imperialists, the Chemnitz Voll^sstimme, published a leading article entitled "The Disintegration of the Bourgeois Parties and the Restoration of Social-Democratic Unity." In this article, of course, the praises are sung of the peace-loving Siidekum, Legien, Scheidemann and Co., of the whole of the majority of the SocialDemocratic Party of Germany and also of the German government, and it is proclaimed that: "the first Party congress that is convened after the war must restore Party unity, with the exception of the few fanatics who refuse to pay Party dues" (;>., the adherents of Karl Liebknecht!); "...Party unity on the basis of the policy of the Executive of the Party, of the Social-Democratic Reichstag group and of the trade unions.''
This is a very clear expression of the idea and the proclamation of the policy of ``unity'' between the obvious social-chauvinists of Germany and Kautsky and Co., the "Social-Democratic Labour Group"---unity on the basis of pacifist phrases---``unity'' as achieved in France on December 26, 1916, between Jouhaux and Merrheim!
The central organ of the Socialist Party of Italy, Avanti, in a leading article in its issue of December 28, 1916, writes:
``Although Bissolati and Siidekum, Bonhommi and Scheidemann, Sembat and David, Jouhaux and Legien have deserted to the camp of bourgeois nationalism and have betrayed" (hanno tradito) "the ideological unity of the internationalists, which they promised to serve faithfully and loyally, we shall stay together with our German comrades like Liebknecht, Ledebour, Hoffmann, Meyer, and with our French comrades like Merrheim, Blanc, Brizon, Raffin-Dugens, who have not changed and have not vacillated.''
Note the confusion that is expressed here:
Bissolati and Bonhommi were expelled from the Socialist Party of Italy as reformists and chauvinists before the outbreak of the war. Avanti puts them on the same level as Sudekum and Legien, and quite rightly, of course; but Sudekum, David and Legien are at the head of the alleged Social-Democratic Party of Germany, which, in fact, is a social-chauvinist party, and yet this very Avanti is opposed to their expulsion, opposed to a rupture with them, and opposed to die formation of a Third International. Avanti quite correctly describes Legien and Jouhaux as deserters to the camp of bourgeois nationalism and contrasts their conduct with that of Lieb-
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knecht, Ledebour, Merrheim and Brizon. But we have seen that Merrheim votes on the same side as Jouhaux, while Legien, in the Chemnitz Vol\sstimme, declares that he is confident that Party unity will be restored, with the single exception, however, of the adherents of Liebknecht, t£., ``unity'' with the Social-Democratic Labour Group (including Kautsky) to which Ledebour belongs!!
This confusion arises from the fact that Avanti confuses bourgeois pacifism with revolutionary Social-Democratic internationalism, while experienced politicians like Legien and Jouhaux perfectly well understand the identity of Socialist and bourgeois pacifism.
Why, indeed, should not M. Jouhaux and his organ, the chauvinist La Bataille, rejoice at the ``unanimity'' between Jouhaux and Merrheim when, in fact, the unanimously adopted resolution, which we have quoted in full above, contains nothing but bourgeois pacifist phrases; not a shadow of revolutionary consciousness, not a single socialist idea!
Is it not ridiculous to talk about "the economic liberty of all nations great and small" and yet not say a word about the fact that, until the bourgeois governments are overthrown and the bourgeoisie expropriated, the phrase, "the economic liberty" of nations is just as much a deception of the people as the phrase, "the economic liberty" of the individual, in general, of the small peasants and the rich peasants, of the workers and the capitalists, in modern society?
The resolution which Jouhaux and Merrheim voted for unanimously is thoroughly imbued with the very ideas of "bourgeois nationalism" which Jouhaux expresses, as Avanti quite rightly points out, while, strangely enough, jailing to observe that Merrheim expresses the same ideas.
Bourgeois nationalists always and everywhere flaunt ``general'' phrases about a "federation of nations" in general and about " economic liberty of all nations great and small." But Socialists, unlike the bourgeois nationalists, have always said and now say: rhetoric about "economic liberty of all nations great and small" is disgusting hypocrisy as long as certain nations (for example, England and France) invest abroad, that is to say, lend at usurious interest to small and backward nations, scores and scores of billions of francs, and as long as the small and weak nations are in bondage to them.
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Socialists would not have allowed a single sentence of the resolution, for which Jouhaux and Merrheim voted unanimously, to pass without strong protest. In direct contrast to that resolution, Socialists would have declared that Wilson's pronouncement is a downright lie and sheer hypocrisy, because Wilson is the representative of a bourgeoisie which has piled up billions out of the war, because he is the head of a government that has frantically armed the United States obviously in preparation for a second great imperialist war; that the French bourgeois government is tied hand and foot by finance capital, whose slave it is, and by the secret, imperialist, thoroughly predatory and reactionary treaties with England, Russia, etc., and therefore cannot do or say anything except utter the same lies about a democratic and a ``just'' peace; that the struggle for such a peace cannot be waged by repeating general, vapid, benign, sentimental, meaningless and non-committal pacifist phrases, which merely serve to embellish the foulness of imperialism; it can be waged only by telling the people the truth, by telling the people that in order to obtain a democratic and just peace the bourgeois governments of all the belligerent countries must be overthrown, and that for this purpose advantage must be taken of the fact that millions of the workers are armed and that the high cost of living and the horrors of the imperialist war have roused the anger of the masses of the population.
This is what Socialists should have said instead of voting for the Jouhaux-Merrheim resolution.
The Congress of the Socialist Party of France, which took place in Paris simultaneously with that of the C.G.T., not only refrained from saying this, but passed a resolution that is even worse than the one mentioned above. This resolution was passed by 2,838 votes against 109, while 20 abstained, that is to say, by a bloc between the social-chauvinists (Renaudel and Co., the so-called ``majoritaires'') and the Longuet-ists (the adherents of Longuet, the French Kautskyists)!! Moreover, the Zimmerwaldian Bourderon and the Kienthalian Raffin-Dugens voted for this resolution!!
We shall not quote the full text of this resolution because it is inordinately long and totally uninteresting: it contains benign, sentimental phrases about peace, immediately followed by declarations of readiness to continue to support the so-called "national defence"
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of France, i.e., to support the imperialist war which France is conducting in alliance with bigger and more powerful robbers like England and Russia.
Unity between the social-chauvinists and the pacifists (or Kautskyists) and a section of the Zimmerwaldists in France has become a fact, not only in the C.G.T., but also in the Socialist Party.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ IV. ZIMMERWALD AT THE CROSSROADSThe French newspapers containing the report of the Congress of the C.G.T. were received in Berne on December 28, and on December 30, the Socialist newspapers of Berne and Zurich published another manifesto issued by the Berne I.S.K. ("Internationale Sozialistische Kommission"), the International Socialist Committee, the executive body of Zimmerwald. This manifesto, dated the end of December 1916, refers to the peace proposals made by Germany and by Wilson and the other neutral countries, and all these governmental pronouncements are described, and quite rightly described, of course, as a "farcical game of peace," "a game to deceive their own peoples," "hypocritical pacifist gesticulations of diplomats.''
As against this farce and falsehood the manifesto declares that the "only force" capable of bringing about peace, etc., is the "firm determination" of the international proletarians to "turn their weapons, not against their brothers, but against die enemy in their own country.''
The passages we have quoted clearly reveal the two fundamentally distinct policies which have lived side by side, as it were, up to now in the Zimmerwald group, but which have now finally parted company.
On the one hand Turati quite definitely and correctly states that the proposals made by Germany, Wilson, etc., were merely a `` paraphrase'' of Italian ``Socialist'' pacifism; the declarations of the German social-chauvinists and the voting of the French have shown that both fully appreciate the value of the pacifist screen for their policy.
On the other hand, the manifesto of the International Socialist Committee describes the pacifism of all belligerent and neutral governments as a farce and hypocrisy.
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On the one hand, Jouhaux joins with Merrheim; Bourderon, Longuet and Raffin-Dugens join with Renaudel, Sembat and Thomas, while the German social-chauvinists, Siidekum, David and Scheidemann, announce the forthcoming "restoration of SocialDemocratic unity" with Kautsky and the Social-Democratic Labour Group.
On the other hand the manifesto of the International Socialist Committee calls upon the "Socialist minorities" to fight strenuously against "their own governments" and "against their social-patriotic hirelings" (Soldlinge).
Either one thing or the other.
Either expose the vapidity, stupidity and hypocrisy of bourgeois pacifism, or, ``paraphrase'' it into ``Socialist'' pacifism. Fight against the Jouhaux, the Renaudels, the Legiens and the Davids as the ``hirelings'' of the governments, or join with them in making empty pacifist declamations on the French or German models.
This is now the dividing line between the Right wing of Zimmerwald, which has always strenuously opposed a split from the social-chauvinists, and the Left wing, which had the foresight at the Zimmerwald Conference publicly to dissociate itself from the Right and to put forward, at the conference and after it in the press, its own platform. The approach of peace, or at least the intense discussion of the question of peace by certain bourgeois elements, not accidentally, but inevitably gave rise to a particularly marked divergence between the two policies. Bourgeois pacifists and their ``Socialist'' imitators, or echoes, have always pictured, and now picture, peace as being something in principle distinct from war, for the pacifists of both shades have never understood that "war is the continuation of the politics of peace and peace is the continuation of the politics of war." Neither the bourgeoisie nor the socialchauvinists wanted, nor do they wish to see that the imperialist war of 1914-17 is the continuation of the imperialist politics of 1898-1914, if not of an earlier period. Neither the bourgeois pacifists nor the Socialist pacifists see that if the bourgeois governments are not overthrown by revolution peace now can only be an imperialist peace, a continuation of the imperialist war.
In the same way as they approached the question of appraising the present war with silly, vulgar, philistine phrases about aggression
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or defence in general, so they are approaching the question of appraising the peace with the same philistine commonplaces, forgetting all about the concrete historical situation, the actual concrete struggle between the imperialist Powers. And it was quite natural for the social-chauvinists, these agents of the governments and of the bourgeoisie in the workers' parties, to seize upon the approach of peace, or even upon mere peace talk, in order to gloss over the depths of their reformism and opportunism, which the war has exposed and in order to restore their damaged influence over the masses. Hence, the socialchauvinists in Germany, and in France, as we have seen, are making strenuous efforts to ``unite'' with the flabby, unprincipled pacifist section of the "opposition.''
Efforts will certainly be made also in the Zimmerwald group to gloss over the divergence between the two irreconcilable lines of policy. One can foresee these efforts being made along two lines. A "practical business" conciliation will take the form of mechanically combining loud revolutionary phrases (like those in the manifesto of the International Socialist Committee) with opportunist and pacifist practice. This is what happened in the Second International. The arch-revolutionary phrases in the manifestoes of Huysmans and Vandervelde and in certain congress resolutions merely served as a screen for the arch-opportunist practice of the majority of the European Parties, but they did not change, disrupt or combat this practice. It is doubtful whether these tactics will again be successful in Zimmerwald.
The "conciliators in principle" will strive to falsify Marxism by advancing such arguments: reform does not exclude revolution; an imperialist peace with certain ``improvements'' in the frontiers of certain nationalities, or in international law, or in expenditure on armaments, etc., is possible side by side with the revolutionary movement as "one of the aspects of the development" of this movement, and so on and so forth.
This would be a falsification of Marxism. Of course, reforms do not exclude revolution. But this is not the point at issue at the present moment. The point is that revolutionaries must not efface themselves before the reformists, i.e., that Socialists should not substitute reformist work for their revolutionary work. Europe is experiencing a revolutionary situation. The war and the high cost of
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living are making this situation more acute. The transition from war to peace will not necessarily alter this situation, for there are no grounds whatever for believing that the millions of workers who now have excellent weapons in their hands will necessarily permit themselves to be "peacefully disarmed" by the bourgeoisie instead of following the advice of Karl Liebknecht, %£., turning their weapons against their own bourgeoisie.
The question is not as it is put by the pacifist Kautskyists: either a reformist political campaign or else the renunciation of reforms. This is a bourgeois presentation of the question. The question is: either revolutionary struggle, the by-product of which, in the event of its not being quite successful, is reforms (the whole history of revolutions throughout the world has proved this), or nothing but talk about reforms and the promise of reforms.
The reformism of Kautsky, Turati and Bourderon, which now comes out in the form of pacifism, not only leaves aside the question of revolution (this in itself is a betrayal of socialism), not only abandons in practice all systematic and persistent revolutionary work, but even goes to the length of declaring that organising street demonstrations is the work of adventurers (Kautsky in the Neue Zeit, November 26, 1915). It goes to the length of advocating unity and uniting with the outspoken and determined opponents of revolutionary struggle, the Siidekums, Legiens, Renaudels, Thomases, etc., etc.
This reformism is absolutely irreconcilable with revolutionary Marxism, the duty of which is to take the utmost possible advantage of the present revolutionary situation in Europe in order openly to preach revolution, the overthrow of the bourgeois governments, the conquest of power by the armed proletariat, while at the same time not renouncing and not refusing to utilise reforms for the purpose of developing the revolutionary struggle and in the course of that struggle.
The immediate future will reveal how the progress of events in Europe in general, and the struggle between reformist pacifism and revolutionary Marxism, in particular, including the struggle between the two sections of Zimmerwald, will develop.
N. L.
Zurich, January i, 1917.
First published in the Lenin Miscellany, II, 1924.
[423] __ALPHA_LVL2__ A TURN IN WORLD POLITICSTHERE is something of a holiday atmosphere in the pacifist camp. There is rejoicing among the virtuous bourgeois of the neutral countries: ``We've made our little pile out of the war profits and high prices: isn't it time to stop? We can't make more profits anyway, and the people may not remain patient to the very end.''
Why shouldn't they rejoice when Wilson ``himself'' ``paraphrases'' the pacifist declaration of the Italian Socialist Party, which only just recently passed an official and solemn resolution in Kienthal to the effect that social-pacifism is utterly unsound?
Is it to be wondered at that Turati in Avanti exults at Wilson's having paraphrased their Italian ``pseudo-socialist'' pacifist phrases? Is it to be wondered at that in Le Populaire, the French socialpacifists and Kautskyists lovingly ``unite'' with Turati and Kautsky, who published in the German Social-Democratic press five particularly foolish pacifist articles, which also, of course, ``paraphrase'' the talk about the nice little democratic peace which events have brought to the fore?
And the present talk does indeed differ from the previous talk in that there is some objective ground for it. This ground was created by the turn which has taken place in world politics from imperialist war, which brought the people utter misery and the greatest betrayal of Socialism by Messrs. Plekhanov, Albert Thomas, Legien, Scheidemann, etc., towards an imperialist peace, which will bring the people the greatest deception in the form of nice phrases, semi-reforms, semi-concessions, etc.
This turn has taken place.
One cannot know at the present moment---even the leaders of imperialist politics, the financial kings and the crowned robbers are not in a position to determine this exactly---when this imperialist peace will come, what changes will take place in the war before then, what the details of that peace will be. But this is not important. What is important is the fact that a turn towards peace
4^^2^^3
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has taken place, the important thing is the fundamental character of that peace; and these two circumstances have been made sufficiently clear by the preceding development of events.
During the twenty-nine months of war, the extent of the resources of both imperialist coalitions has become sufficiently evident. All, or nearly all, the possible allies among the nearest ``neighbours'' of any importance have been drawn into the slaughter; the strength of the armies and navies has been tested and re-tested, measured and re-measured. Finance capital has made billions; the mountain of war debts shows the extent of the tribute which the proletariat and the propertyless masses ``must'' now pay for decades to the international bourgeoisie for having graciously permitted them to kill off millions of their fellow wage-slaves in a war for the division of imperialist booty.
Perhaps it is impossible to skin the oxen of wage labour in the present war any more than has been done already---this is one of the profound economic reasons for the turn in world politics now observed. It is impossible, because all resources in general are becoming exhausted. The American billionaires and their younger brothers in Holland, Switzerland, Denmark and other neutral countries are beginning to notice that the gold mine is giving out--- this is the cause of the growth of neutral pacifism, and not noble humanitarian sentiments, as the naive, miserable and ridiculous Turati, Kautsky and Co. think.
Added to this is the growth of discontent and anger among the masses. In our last issue we quoted the evidence of Guchkov and Helfferich,^^81^^ showing that both dread revolution. Is it not about time to stop the first imperialist slaughter?
The objective conditions that compel the cessation of the war are thus supplemented by the influence of the class instinct and class interests of the bourgeoisie, which is glutted with war profits.
The political turn on the basis of this economic turn is proceeding along two main lines: victorious Germany is driving a wedge between its main enemy, England, and England's allies, and she is able to do this, on the one hand, because it is those allies and not England who have received (and may yet receive) the heaviest blows; on the other hand, she is able to do this because German
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imperialism, having amassed a considerable amount of loot, is in a position to make minor concessions to England's allies.
It is possible that a separate peace between Germany and Russia has been concluded after all, except that the form of the political pact between those two robbers may have been changed. The tsar may have said to Wilhelm: "If I openly sign a separate peace, then tomorrow, you, my august contracting party, may have to deal with a government of Milyukov and Guchkov, if not of Milyukov and Kerensky. For the revolution is growing, and I cannot answer for the army, whose generals are in correspondence with Guchkov and whose officers are mainly the high-school boys of yesterday. Is there any sense in my risking my throne and your losing a good partner?''
``Of course not," Wilhelm must have replied, if such a suggestion was put to him, directly or indirectly. "Why should we conclude an open separate peace, or any written peace treaty? Cannot we achieve the same results by other, more subtle means? I will make an open appeal to all humanity and offer to bestow upon it the blessings of peace. At the same time I will drop a quiet hint to the French, to let them know that I am ready to restore to them all, or nearly all of France and Belgium in return for a `fair' concession of their colonies in Africa: I will let the Italians know that they may count on getting `scraps' of Italian territory belonging to Austria, in addition to some scraps in the Balkans. I am in a position to make these proposals and plans of mine known to die people: will the English be able to retain their Western European allies after that? You and I will then divide Rumania, Galicia, Armenia. As for Constantinople, O my august brother, you stand as much chance of seeing it as of seeing your own ears! Poland, O my august brother, you stand as much chance of seeing it as of seeing your own ears!''
Whether such a conversation actually took place or not it is impossible to say. Nor does it matter very much. The important thing is that events have taken precisely this turn. If the arguments of the German diplomats were unable to convince the tsar, the `` arguments'' of Mackensen's army in Rumania must have been more convincing.
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The plan to divide Rumania between Russia and the "black alliance" (t£., Germany's allies, Austria and Bulgaria) is already being openly discussed in the German imperialist press! Loquacious Herve is already blurting out: It will be impossible to compel the people to fight any longer if they learn that we can get back Belgium and France immediately. The pacifist simpletons of the neutral bourgeoisie have already been put "into action": Wilhelm has loosened their tongues! And the pacifist... wiseacres among the Socialists, Turati in Italy, Kautsky in Germany, etc., etc., are exerting all their humanitarianism, their love of humanity, their celestial virtue (and their high intellect) to embellish the coming imperialist peace!
How well things, in general, are arranged in this best of all possible worlds! We, the financial kings and crowned robbers, got ourselves entangled in the politics of imperialist plunder; we had to fight. Well, what of it? We are making as much out of war as we make in peace time; much more, in fact! And we have lackeys in plenty; all the Plekhanovs, Albert Thomas, Legiens, Scheidemanns and Co., to proclaim that our war is a war for ``liberation''! The time is coming to conclude an imperialist peace ? Well, suppose it is? Are not war debts also obligations guaranteeing our sacred right to take a hundredfold tribute from the people? And simpletons, to boost this imperialist peace, to fool the people by sentimental speeches, we have in plenty; take, for example, the Turatis, Kautskys and other ``leaders'' of world Socialism.
The tragi-comedy of Turati's and Kautsky's utterances is precisely that they do not understand the real objective political role they are playing, the role of parsons to console the people instead of rousing them to revolution, the role of bourgeois advocates, who by means of flamboyant phrases about good things in general and a democratic peace in particular, obscure, cover up, embellish and cloak the hideous nakedness of an imperialist peace that trades in nations and carves up countries.
What unites the social-chauvinists (Plekhanovs and Scheidemanns) and the social-pacifists (Turati and Kautsky) in principle is that objectively both are servants of imperialism. Some ``serve'' it by glorifying the imperialist war by describing it as a war for the "defence of the fatherland"; others serve the same imperialism by
A TURN IN WORLD POLITICS 427
decorating with phrases about a democratic peace the imperialist peace that is maturing and being prepared.
The imperialist bourgeoisie needs lackeys of both species and varieties: Plekhanovs, to encourage the continuation of the slaughter by shouting "Down with the conquerors"; the Kautskys, to console and placate the utterly embittered masses by sweet songs of peace.
Hence the general amalgamation of the social-chauvinists of all countries with the social-pacifists---the general "conspiracy against socialism" referred to in the manifesto of the Berne International Socialist Committee, the "general amnesty" to which we have more than once referred---is not an accident, but an expression of the unity on principle of both these trends of world pseudo-"Socialism." It is not an accident that Plekhanov, while shouting frantically about the ``treachery'' of the Scheidemanns, at the same time hints at peace and unity with those gentlemen when the time is ripe for it.
But, the reader may argue, can we forget that an imperialist peace is "after all, better" than imperialist war? that, if not the whole, then "at least" ``parts'' of the democratic peace programme may be achieved? that an independent Poland is better than a Russian Poland? that the annexation of Italian territory in Austria by Italy is a step forward?
v But these are exactly the arguments with which the champions of Turati and Kautsky shield themselves, failing to see that they are thus becoming transformed from revolutionary Marxists into ordinary bourgeois reformists.
Can any one in his senses deny that Bismarckian Germany and her social laws are ``better'' than the Germany before 1848? that the Stolypin reforms are ``better'' than the Russia before 1905? Did the German Social-Democrats (they were still Social-Democrats at that time) vote for Bismarck's reforms on these grounds? Were Stolypin's reforms glorified or even supported by the Russian SocialDemocrats, except, of course, for Messrs. Potresov, Maslov and Co., from whom even Martov, a member of their own Party, now turns away with contempt?
History does not stand still even in times of counter-revolution. History has been advancing even during the imperialist slaughter of 1914-16, which is a continuation of the imperialist politics of preceding decades. World capitalism, which in the sixties and seventies
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of the last century was an advanced and progressive force of free competition, and which at the beginning of the twentieth century grew into monopoly capitalism, i.e., into imperialism, took a big step forward during the war, not only towards the greater concentration of finance capital, but also towards transformation into state capitalism. The force of national cohesion, the significance of national sympathies, were revealed in this war, for example, by the conduct of the Irish in one imperialist coalition, and that of the Czechs in the other. The intelligent leaders of imperialism say to themselves: Of course, we cannot achieve our aims without throttling the small nations; but there are two ways of doing this. Sometimes the more reliable, and profitable, way is to obtain the services of sincere and conscientious advocates of "defence of the fatherland" in imperialist war by creating politically independent states; as for their financial dependence, ``we'' of course, will take care of that! It is more profitable (when imperialist Powers are engaged in a real war) to be an ally of an independent Bulgaria than the master of a dependent Ireland! To complete what has been left undone in the realm of national reforms may sometimes internally strengthen an imperialist coalition---this is properly taken into account by, for instance, one of the most servile lackeys of German imperialism, K. Renner, who, of course, is a staunch supporter of ``unity'' in the Social-Democratic Parties in general, and for unity with Scheidemann and Kautsky in particular.
The objective course of events is having its effect, and just as the executioners of the revolutions of 1848 and 1905 were, in a certain sense, their executors, so the wire-pullers in the imperialist slaughter are compelled to carry out certain state-capitalist, certain national reforms. Moreover, it is necessary, by throwing out a few sops, to pacify the masses, whose anger is rising against the war and the high cost of living: why not promise (and partly carry out, for it does not commit one to anything!) "reduction of armaments"? After all, war is a "branch of industry," similar to forestry: it takes decades for trees of proper size---that is to say, for a sufficiently abundant supply of adult "cannon fodder"---to grow up. During these decades, we hope, new Plekhanovs, new Scheidemanns, new sentimental conciliators like Kautsky will grow up from the depths of the ``united'' international Social-Democracy.
A TURN IN WORLD POLITICS 429
Bourgeois reformists and pacifists are people who, as a general rule, are paid in one form or another, to strengthen the rule of capitalism by patching it up, to keep the masses of the people quiet and to divert them from the revolutionary struggle. When Socialist ``leaders'' like Turati and Kautsky try to convince the masses, either . by blunt statements (Turati recently ``blurted'' one out in his notorious speech of December 17, 1916), or by silent evasions (in which Kautsky is a past-master), that the present imperialist war can result in a democratic peace, while the bourgeois governments remain in power and without a revolutionary insurrection against the whole network of imperialist world relations, it is our duty to declare that such propaganda is deception of die people, that it has nothing in common with socialism, that it amounts to the embellishment of an imperialist peace.
We are in favour of a democratic peace; and this is precisely why we do not want to lie to the people as Turati and Kautsky do---of course with the best intentions, and for the most virtuous motives! We shall tell the truth, namely, that a democratic peace is impossible unless the revolutionary proletariat of England, France, Germany and Russia overthrows the bourgeois governments. We think it would be very foolish for revolutionary Social-Democrats to refrain from fighting for reforms in general, including "state construction." But at the present moment, Europe is living in a period in which it is more than ever necessary to bear in mind the truth that reforms are a by-product of the revolutionary class struggle; for the task of the day---not because we want it, not because of anybody's plans, but because of the objective course of events---is to solve the great historical problems by means of direct mass violence, which will create new foundations, and not by means of agreements on the basis of the old, decaying and moribund.
It is precisely at the present time, when the ruling bourgeoisie is preparing peacefully to disarm millions of proletarians and to transfer them safely---under cover of a plausible ideology, and sprinkling them with the holy water of sentimental pacifist phrases! ---from the filthy, stinking, fetid trenches, where they were engaged in slaughter, to the penal servitude of the capitalist factories, where by their "honest toil" they must repay the hundreds of billions of national debt, it is precisely at this time that the slogan, which our
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Party issued to the people in the autumn of 1914,* viz., transform the imperialist war into civil war for socialism, acquires greater significance than it had at the beginning of the war. Karl Liebknecht, now sentenced to hard labour, adopted that slogan when he said from the Reichstag tribune: "Turn your weapons against your class enemies within the country!" The extent to which present-day society has matured for the transition to socialism is proved by this war, in which the exertion of national effort called for the regulation of the economic life of over fifty million people by a single centre. If this is possible under the direction of a handful of Jun^er- aristocrats, in the interests of a handful of financial magnates, it is certainly no less possible under the direction of class conscious workers in the interests of nine-tenths of the population, which is exhausted by starvation and war.
But in order to lead the masses, the class conscious workers must understand the utter corruption of such Socialist leaders as Turati, Kautsky and Co. These gentlemen imagine they are revolutionary Social-Democrats, and they are very indignant when they are told that their place is in the party of Messrs. Bissolati, Scheidemann, Legien and Co. But Turati and Kautsky totally fail to understand that only a revolution of the masses is capable of solving the great problems of the day: they have not a grain of faith in the revolution, they do not pay the slightest attention to, or display the slightest interest in, the way it is maturing in the minds and moods of the masses, precisely in connection with the war. Their attention is entirely absorbed in reforms, in pacts between sections of the ruling classes; it is to them that they address themselves, it is they whom they try to "persuade," it is to them they wish to adapt the labour movement.
But the whole thing now is to get the class conscious vanguard of the proletariat to direct its thoughts to and gather its forces for a revolutionary struggle to overthrow their governments. Revolutions such as Turati and Kautsky are ``ready'' to recognise, /.<?., revolutions for which the date and the chances of success can be told in advance, never happen. The revolutionary situation in Europe is a fact. The extreme discontent, the unrest and anger of die masses are facts. It is on strengthening this torrent that revolutionary Social-
*V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. XVIH, p. 85.---Ed.
A TURN IN WORLD POLITICS 431
Democrats must concentrate all their efforts. The strength of the revolutionary movement, in the event of its being not very successful, will determine what portion of the ``promised'' reforms will be realised in practice, and whether they will be of any use for the further struggle of the working class. The strength of the revolutionary movement, in the event of its being successful, will determine whether socialism in Europe is to be victorious, and whether we shall achieve, not an imperialist armistice in Germany's struggle against Russia and England, or of Russia's and Germany's struggle against England, or the United States' struggle against Germany and England, etc., but a really lasting and really democratic peace.
Sotsial-Demokfat, No. 58, January 31, 1917.
[434] __ALPHA_LVL2__ TO THE WORKERS WHO SUPPORT THE STRUGGLETHE international situation is becoming more and more clear and more and more menacing. The imperialist character of the war has been very strikingly revealed only very recently by both belligerent coalitions. The empty and lying nature of pacifist phrases, phrases about a democratic peace, peace without annexations, etc., are being exposed as fast as they are being zealously released by the governments of the capitalist countries and by the bourgeois and Socialist pacifists. Germany is crushing several small nations under her iron heel with the very evident determination not to give up her booty except by exchanging part of it for enormous colonial possessions, and she is screening her readiness to conclude an immediate imperialist peace by means of hypocritical pacifist phrases.
England and her allies are also clinging tightly to the colonies they have seized from Germany, a part of Turkey, etc., and they describe their endless continuation of the slaughter for the sake of seizing Constantinople, of strangling Galicia, the partition of Austria and the ruin of Germany, as a struggle for a ``just'' peace.
The truth, of which only a few were theoretically convinced at the beginning of the war, is now becoming palpably evident to an increasing number of class conscious workers, namely, that a serious struggle against the war, a struggle to abolish war and to establish a lasting peace is out of the question unless a mass revolutionary struggle led by the proletariat is waged against the government in every country, unless bourgeois rule is overthrown, unless a socialist revolution is brought about. And the war itself, which is imposing an unprecedented strain upon the people, is bringing mankind to this, the only way out of the impasse, is compelling giant strides to be taken along the road of state capitalism, and is demonstrating
432THE STRUGGLE AGAINST THE WAR 433
in a practical manner how planned social economy can and must be conducted, not in the interests of the capitalists, but by expropriating them, under the leadership of the revolutionary proletariat, in the interests of the masses who are now perishing from starvation and other calamities caused by the war.
The more obvious this truth becomes, the wider becomes the gulf that separates the two irreconcilable tendencies, policies, trends of socialist work which we indicated at Zimmerwald, where we acted as a separate Left wing, and, in the name of this Left wing, immediately after the Zimmerwald Conference, we issued a manifesto to all Socialist Parties and to all class conscious workers. This is the gulf that lies between the attempts to conceal the obvious bankruptcy of official Socialism and the desertion of its representatives to the side of the bourgeoisie and their governments, as well as the attempts to reconcile the masses with this complete betrayal of Socialism, on the one side, and the efforts to expose this bankruptcy in all its magnitude, to expose the bourgeois policy pursued by the ``social-patriots'' who have deserted the proletariat for the bourgeoisie, to destroy their influence over the masses and to create the possibility and the organisational basis for a genuine struggle against the war, on the other side.
The Zimmerwald Right wing, which was in the majority at the Zimmerwald Conference, strongly opposed the idea of breaking away from the social-patriots and of founding a Third International. Since then the split has become a definite fact in England; and in Germany, the last conference of the "opposition," held on January 7, 1917, revealed to all those who do not deliberately close their eyes to facts, that even in that country there are two irreconcilably hostile labour parties, working in opposite directions---one, a socialist party, working for the most part secretly, and among the leaders of which is K. Liebknecht, and the other, a thoroughly bourgeois, social-patriotic party, which is reconciling the workers to the war and to the government. There is not a country in the world where the same division is not observed.
At the Kienthal Conference the Zimmerwald Right wing did not have so large a majority as to be able to continue its own policy; this Right wing voted for the resolution against the social-patriotic International Socialist Bureau, a resolution which condemned the
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latter in the sharpest terms, and for the resolution against socialpacifism, which warned the workers against the falsehood of pacifist phrases, no matter what socialist ornaments they were embellished with. Socialist pacifism, which does not make clear to the workers the illusory nature of hopes for peace without overthrowing the bourgeoisie and organising socialism, is merely an echo of bourgeois pacifism, which imbues the workers with confidence in the bourgeoisie, puts the imperialist governments and the bargains they make with each other in a good light and distracts the masses from the socialist revolution, which is maturing, and which events have put on the order of the day.
But what transpired? After the Kienthal Conference, the Zimmerwald Right wing, in a number of important countries, in France, Germany and Italy, slipped wholly and entirely into the very social-pacifism that was condemned and rejected at Kienthal! In Italy the Socialist Party has tacitly become reconciled with the pacifist phrases uttered by its parliamentary group and by its principal speaker, Turati, although, at this very moment, the utterance of absolutely the same phrases by Germany and the Entente and the representatives of the bourgeois governments of a number of neutral countries, the bourgeoisie of which have piled up and are still piling up enormous profits out of the war, at this very moment, the utter falsehood of these pacifist phrases are being exposed. In fact, pacifist phrases have proved to be a screen to cover up the new turn that has taken place in the fight for the division of the imperialist spoils!
In Germany, the leader of the Zimmerwald Right wing, Kautsky, issued a similar meaningless and non-committal pacifist manifesto, which merely serves to imbue the workers with hopes in the bourgeoisie and faith in illusions, and from which the genuine Socialists, the genuine internationalists in Germany, of the ``International'' group and the "International Socialists of Germany," who are really pursuing the tactics of Karl Liebknecht, were obliged formally to dissociate themselves.
In France, Merrheim and Bourderon, who took part in the Zimmerwald Conference, and Raffin-Dugens, who took part in the Kienthal Conference, voted for meaningless and, objectively, thoroughly false pacifist resolutions, which, in the present state of
THE STRUGGLE AGAINST THE WAR 435
affairs, are so much to the advantage of the imperialist bourgeoisie that even Jouhaux and Renaudel, whom the Zimmerwald and Kienthal Conferences in all their declarations have accused of betraying socialism, voted for them!
The fact that Merrheim voted with Jouhaux, Bourderon and Raffin-Dugens with Renaudel is not an accident, not an isolated episode, but a striking symbol of the everywhere imminent amalgamation of the social-patriots with the social-pacifists against the international Socialists.
The pacifist phrases in the Notes of a long list of imperialist governments, the same pacifist phrases uttered by Kautsky, Turati, Bourderon and Merrheim---Renaudel stretching out a friendly hand to the one and the other---all this exposes pacifism in actual politics, as a means of consoling the people, as a means of helping the governments to keep the masses in submission in order to continue the imperialist slaughter!
This utter bankruptcy of the Zimmerwald Right wing was still more strikingly revealed in Switzerland, the only country in Europe in which the Zimmerwaldists could meet freely, and which served as their base. The Socialist Party of Switzerland, which has held its congresses during the war without interference from the government, and has had greater opportunities to help to establish international solidarity between the German, French and Italian workers against the war, has officially affiliated to Zimmerwald.
And yet, one of the leaders of this Party, the chairman of the Zimmerwald and Kienthal Conferences, a prominent member and representative of the Berne International Socialist Committee, National Councillor R. Grimm, on a decisive question affecting a proletarian party, deserted to the side of the social-patriots of his country, when, at the meeting of the Parteivorstan d * of the Socialist Party of Switzerland held on January 7, 1917, he secured the adoption of a resolution to postpone for an indefinite period the Party Congress that was to have been especially convened for the purpose of deciding the question of national defence and of the attitude to'be adopted towards the decisions of the Kienthal Conference condemning social-pacifism.
In a manifesto signed by the International Socialist Committee,
* Executive Committee.---Ed.
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dated December 1916, Grimm describes die pacifist phrases of the governments as hypocrisy, but says not a word about the Socialist pacifism which unites Merrheim and Jouhaux, Raffin-Dugens and Renaudel. In this manifesto Grimm calls upon the Socialist minorities to fight against the governments and their social-patriotic hirelings, but at the same time, jointly with the "social-patriotic hirelings" in the Swiss Party, he sets to work to bury the Party Congress, thus rousing the just indignation of all the class conscious and sincerely internationalist workers of Switzerland.
No excuses can conceal the fact that the decision of the Parteivorstand of January 7, 1917, signifies the complete victory of the Swiss social-patriots over the Swiss Socialist workers, the victory of the Swiss opponents of Zimmerwald over Zimmerwald.
The "Grutlianer" the organ of the consistent and avowed servants of the bourgeoisie in the labour movement, said what every one knows is true when it declared that social-patriots like Greulich and Pfliiger, to whom might be added Seidel, Huber, Lang, Schneeberger, Diirr, etc., want to prevent the congress from being held, want to prevent the workers from deciding the question of national defence, and threaten to resign if the congress is convened and a decision in the spirit of Zimmerwald is adopted.
Grimm uttered an outrageous and intolerable falsehood at the meeting of the Parteifor stand and in his newspaper Berner Tagwacht of January 8,1917, when he justified the postponement of the congress on the plea that the workers were not ready, that it was necessary to carry on a campaign against the high cost of living, that the ``Lefts'' themselves were in favour of postponement, etc.
As a matter of fact it was the Lefts, i£., the sincere Zimmerwaldists, who, wanting to choose the lesser of two evils, and also to expose the real intentions of the social-patriots and their new found friend, Grimm, proposed that the congress be postponed until March, voted in favour of postponing it until May, and proposed that the meetings of the Canton Committees be called on a date prior to July; but all these proposals were voted down by the advocates of "defence of the fatherland," at the head of whom was the chairman of the Zimmerwald and Kienthal Conferences, R. Grimm!!
THE STRUGGLE AGAINST THE WAR 437
As a matter af fact the question was: shall the Berne International Socialist Committee and Grimm's paper be allowed to hurl abuse at foreign social-patriots and, at first by silence and later by R. Grimm's desertion, screen the Swiss social-patriots; or shall an honest internationalist policy be pursued, a policy of fighting first of all against the social-patriots at home?
As a matter of fact the question was: shall the domination of the social-patriots and reformists in the Swiss Party be concealed by revolutionary phrases; or shall they be opposed with a revolutionary programme and tactics on the question of combating the high cost of living, as well as of fighting against war, of putting on the order of the day the fight for the socialist revolution ?
As a matter of fact the question was: shall the worst traditions of the shamefully bankrupt Second International be continued in Zimmerwald; shall the decisions and doings of the Party leaders and the Parteivorstand be concealed from the masses of the workers; shall revolutionary phrases be allowed to conceal the foulness of social-patriotism and reformism; or shall we be internationalists in deeds?
As a matter of fact the question was: shall we also in the Swiss party, which is of primary importance for the whole of the Zimmerwald group, insist upon a clear and politically honest line of demarcation between the principles of the social-patriots and the internationalists, between the bourgeois reformists and the revolutionaries, between the counsellors of the proletariat who are helping them to bring about the socialist revolution and the agents or the ``hirelings'' of the bourgeoisie, who, by means of reforms, or promises of reforms, want to divert the workers from revolution, between the Griitlianers and the Socialist Party---or shall we confuse and corrupt the minds of the workers by conducting in the Socialist Party the ``Grutlian'' policy of the Griitlians, of the social-patriots in the ranks of the Socialist Party?
Let the Swiss social-patriots, those ``Griitlianers'' who want to pursue in the Party the policy of Grutli, i.e., the policy of their national bourgeoisie, abuse the foreigners, let them defend the ``inviolability'' of the Swiss Party from the criticism of other Parties, let them champion the old bourgeois-reformist policy, t£., the very policy that brought about the collapse of the German and other
438 ARTICLES, SPEECHES-JAN.-MAR., 1917
Parties on August 4, 1914---we, the adherents of Zimmerwald, not in words but in deeds, interpret internationalism differently.
We do not agree to look on quietly when tendencies have been definitely revealed, and elucidated by the chairman of the Zimmerwald and Kienthal Conferences, to leave everything unchanged in decaying European Socialism and, by means of hypocritical avowals of solidarity with K. Liebknecht, to evade the real slogan of this leader of the international workers, his call to work for the `` regeneration'' of the old Parties, from "top to bottom." We are convinced that all the class conscious workers in all countries who enthusiastically greeted K. Liebknecht and his tactics are on our side.
We openly expose the Zimmerwald Right wing, which has deserted to the side of bourgeois-reformist pacifism.
We openly expose the betrayal of Zimmerwald by R. Grimm, and we demand that a conference be convened to remove him from his post on the International Socialist Committee.
The word Zimmerwald is a slogan of international Socialism and revolutionary struggle. This word must not serve to screen socialpatriotism and bourgeois reformism.
Stand for true internationalism, which calls for the struggle, first of all, against the social-patriots at home! Stand for true revolutionary tactics, which cannot be pursued if a compromise is made with the social-patriots against the revolutionary Socialist workers!
Written in January, 1917.
First published in Proletars/^aya Revolutsiya, No. 5, 1924.
[439] __ALPHA_LVL2__ AN OPEN LETTER TO CHARLES NAINE, MEMBERDEAR Comrade,
The stand taken by Mr. National Councillor Robert Grimm on January 7 of this year at the meeting of the Executive Committee of the Party jointly with all the social-nationalists, and to a considerable degree as their leader, in favour of the resolution to postpone the Party Congress fills the cup of patience to overflowing and utterly exposes Mr. National Councillor R. Grimm in his true colours.
The chairman of the International Socialist Committee elected at Zimmerwald, the chairman of the Zimmerwald and Kienthal Conferences, the most ``authoritative'' representative before the whole world of the whole of the Zimmerwald group, takes a stand together with the social-patriots, and as their leader, as a downright traitor to Zimmerwald, comes forward with a proposal to sabotage the Party Congress, which had been arranged for long ago especially for the purpose of deciding, in the freest, and considering the place and time, most internationally influential country of Europe---the question of national defence in an imperialist war!!
Can one remain silent? Can one remain calm in the face of such a fact, which would have forever disgraced the entire Zimmerwald movement, and converted it into a farce, had not the mask been torn from the face of Mr. National Councillor R. Grimm?
The Socialist Party of Switzerland is the only European Socialist Party which openly and officially, in open congress, without hindrance from military censorship and military authorities, affiliated to Zimmerwald, supported it, appointed two of its members to the International Socialist Committee, appeared before the whole world as the principal representative of the Zimmerwald movement, if we do not count the Italian Party, which is in an immeasurably
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more difficult situation owing to the stringency of the war emergency laws. And now, in the Socialist Party of Switzerland---which at its Zurich Congress of November 4-5, 1916, finally decided, after delays caused, among other things, by the struggle against the avowed social-patriots who only in the autumn of 1916 broke away from the Party to form a separate Grutli-Verein, to convene a special Party Congress in Berne, in February 1917, to decide the questions of war and of national defence---in that Party there are people who are resolved to prevent that congress from taking place, to sabotage it, to prevent the workers themselves, during the war, from discussing and deciding the question of their attitude towards militarism and defence of the fatherland.
At the head of those people, whose policy is an outrage to the whole Zimmerwald movement, we find the chairman of the International Socialist Committee!
Is this not die utter betrayal of Zimmerwald ? Is it not the sf urning of all the Zimmerwald decisions?
It is sufficient to glance at a few of the arguments officially advanced for postponing the congress to understand the whole meaning of this action.
``The workers, you see, are not yet ready" to decide this question!
All the manifestoes, all the resolutions of Zimmerwald and Kienthal, have declared over and over again that national defence in an imperialist war, a war between two imperialist coalitions, a war for robbing colonies and dirottling the weak nations, is a betrayal of Socialism, irrespective of whether this relates to the "Great Powers" or to small nations which for the time being have retained their neutrality. In dozens of ways this idea is repeated in all the official documents of Zimmerwald and Kiendial. In hundreds of articles and reports in all the Socialist press of Switzerland, and particularly in the Berner Tagwacht, of which Mr. National Councillor R. Grimm is editor, diis idea has been repeated over and over again. In declarations of sympathy for K. Liebknecht, Hoglund, MacLean, etc., the conviction common to all the Zimmerwaldists has been emphasised hundreds of times that these men have rightly understood the situation and the interests of the masses, that the sympathy of the masses, i£., of die majority of the oppressed and exploited, is on their side, that the proletariat by its class instinct,
OPEN LETTER TO CHARLES NAINE 441
everywhere, in ``Great'' belligerent Germany, as well as in small neutral Sweden, appreciates the truth that defence of the fatherland in an imperialist war is the betrayal of Socialism.
And now the chairman of the International Socialist Committee, with the enthusiastic approval and warm support of all the pronounced representatives of social-patriotism in the Socialist Party of Switzerland, like H. Greulich, Huber, P. Pfliiger, Manz-Schappi, etc., etc., comes forth with the hypocritical and false argument that the Party Congress is being postponed because "the workers are not ready.''
This is disgusting, intolerable hypocrisy; it is a lie. Everybody knows---and die Grutlianer openly publishes this bitter truth---that the Congress is being postponed because the above-mentioned socialpatriots are afraid of the workers, afraid that the workers will decide against defence of the fatherland; that they threaten to resign their seats in the Nationalrat if a decision against defence of the fatherland is carried. The social-patriotic ``leaders'' of the Socialist Party of Switzerland, who even now, two and a half years after the beginning of the war, are in favour of "defence of the fatherland," /.<?., defence of the imperialist bourgeoisie of one or the other coalition, have decided to sabotage the congress, to sabotage the will of the Swiss Socialist workers, to prevent them during the war from discussing and determining their attitude towards the war, towards the "defenders of the fatherland," *>., towards the lackeys of the imperialist bourgeoisie.
This is the real, universally known reason why the congress has been postponed; this is the betrayal of Zimmerwald by the chairman of the International Socialist Committee, who has deserted to the side of the social-patriots in the Socialist Party of Switzerland, against the class conscious workers of Switzerland!
This is the bitter truth, which has already been told by the avowedly social-patroitic Grutlianer, which by the way, is always most accurately informed about what the Grutlian leaders, Greulich, Pfliiger, Huber, Manz-Schappi and Co. are thinking and doing inside the Socialist Party. Incidentally, three days before the meeting of January 7, 1917, this paper wrote:.. .*
Another ``official'' motive for postponing the congress is that the
*In Lenin's manuscript this is followed by a blank space.---Ed.
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committee which was specially elected in December, or even November, 1916, to frame a resolution on the war question, "failed to arrive at a unanimous decision"!!
As if Grimm and Co. did not know beforehand that unanimity was impossible on such a question in the Socialist Party of Switzerland as long as there remained in it, not joining the social-patriotic Griitli party, ``leaders'' like Greulich, Pfliiger, G. Miiller, Huber, Manz-Schappi, Otto Lang and others, who fully share the socialpatriotic views of the Griitli-Verein, and who only deceive the Socialist workers by belonging to the Socialist Party!
As if Grimm and Co. did not clearly see in the summer of 1916 that there was no unity, nor could there be, on the question of defence of the fatherland: for in the summer of 1916 the socialpatriotic theses of Pfluger, G. Miiller and others had been published, and Grimm, naturally, could not help noting thousands of times in the Nationalrat, the social-patriotic views at least of Greulich and Co., if not of the majority of the members of the Social-Democratic group in the Nationalrat.
Grimm and Co. want to deceive the Socialist workers of Switzerland. Therefore, when they appointed a committee they did not publish the names of its members. But the Grutlianer told the truth when it published those names and added, as something taken for granted, as a generally accepted truth, that such a committee could not frame a unanimous decision!
In order to deceive the workers, Grimm and Co. did not decide immediately to publish the resolutions of the committee, but conceded the truth from the workers. These resolutions have been available for a long time, and have even been printed confidentially!!
As was to be expected, the resolution that recognises "defence of the fatherland," i.e., that justifies the betrayal of Socialism during a war whose imperialist character has been exposed a thousand times, is signed by Huber, Pfluger, Kloti and G. Miiller; the resolution that rejects "defence of the fatherland" is signed by Nobs, Affolter, Schneider, Naine and Graber.
See what a disgraceful, unscrupulous game Grimm and the socialpatriots are playing with the Socialist workers!
They are howling that the workers are not ready, and yet at the
OPEN LETTER TO CHARLES NAINE 443
very same time, these very leaders are concealing from the workers already available resolutions which definitely place before the workers two sets of ideas, two irreconcilable policies, the social-patriotic policy and the Zimmerwald policy!!
Grimm and the social-patriots are brazen deceivers of the workers, for it is they who have decided to sabotage the congress, to refrain from publishing the resolutions, to give the workers no opportunity openly to weigh and discuss both policies, and it is they who are shouting that the workers "are not ready''!
Other ``official'' reasons for postponing the congress are that it is necessary to fight against high prices, to conduct the election campaign, etc.
These arguments are a sheer insult to the workers. Who does not know that we Social-Democrats are not opposed to fighting for reforms, but that, unlike the social-patriots, unlike the opportunists and reformists, we do not confine ourselves to the struggle for reforms, but subordinate it to the struggle for revolution ? Who does not know that this is the policy that has been repeatedly expressed in the Zimmerwald and Kienthal manifestoes ? We are not opposed to elections and reforms for the purpose of reducing high prices, but we attach primary importance to openly telling the masses the truth, namely, that it is impossible to combat high prices except by expropriating the banks and the big factories, i.e., by social revolution.
And what does every manifesto of the Zimmerwald group call upon the proletariat to do in retaliation to the war, in connection with the war?
To wage a revolutionary mass struggle, to turn their weapons against the enemy in their own country (see the last manifesto of the International Socialist Committee: An die Arbeitertyasse,* (end of December 1916) i£., to turn their weapons against their own bourgeoisie, their own government.
Does this not make it clear to everyone who is capable of thinking at all that the policy that repudiates defence of the fatherland is connected with the really revolutionary and really socialist struggle against high prices, with a really socialist and not a bourgeoisreformist utilisation of the election campaign?
Is it not clear that the social-patriotic policy, the policy of "defence
•To the Working Class.---Ed.
444
ARTICLES, SPEECHES-JAN.-MAR, 1917
of the fatherland" in the imperialist war is the policy of reformism, t£., a bourgeois-reformist and not a socialist struggle against high prices, merely an election struggle.
How is it possible to "postpone" a congress which is to decide the question of "defence of the fatherland" (i.e., to choose between the social-patriotic and the socialist policy), "on the plea" that it is necessary to combat high prices, etc.? This false and fraudulent argument is advanced by Grimm and the social-patriots in order to obscure from the workers the truth that they want to combat high prices, to run the election campaign, etc., in a bourgeois-reformist spirit and not in the Zimmerwald spirit.
On August 6, 1916, Grimm delivered a speech in Zurich at a meeting of one hundred and fifteen Arbeitervertrauensleute aus der ganzen Schweiz* in the course of which he urged the need for a bourgeois-reformist and purely reformist struggle against high prices! Grimm is "marching firmly" to his goal, *>., to a rapprochement with the social-patriots against the Socialist workers, against Zimmerwald.
What is particularly disgusting in all this is the facfthat Grimm covers up his desertion to the side of the social-patriots by roundly abusing the non-Swiss social-patriots. Herein lies one of the deepest roots of Grimm's treachery, this is one of the deepest sources of the whole policy of deception which was revealed on January 7, 1917.
Look at the Berner Tagwacht. What abuse this paper has heaped on the Russian, French, English, German and Austrian socialpatriots---on all.. .except the Swiss! Grimm went so far as to call the German social-patriot Ebert, a member of the Parteivorstand of the German Social-Democratic Party, "einen Rausschmeisser in einem Bordell"\
A brave fellow, this Grimm, is he not? A knightly warrior! How bravely he, in Berne, attacks the social-patriots... in Berlin! What noble reticence this knight maintains about the social-patriots... in Berne and Zurich!
But what is the difference between Ebert in Berlin and Greulich, Manz-Schappi and Pfliiger in Zurich, and Gustav Miiller, Schneeberger and Diirr in Berne? None whatever. They are all social-
* Workers' representatives from all parts of Switzerland.---Ed. tA ``bouncer'' in a brothel.---Ed.
OPEN LETTER TO CHARLES NAINE 445
patriots. They all share the same principles. They all preach to the masses, not socialist ideas, but "Griltlian," if,, reformist, nationalist, bourgeois ideas.
When, in the summer of 1916, Grimm drew up his theses on the war question, deliberately making them long and vague in the hope of deceiving both the ``Left'' and the "Right," and of "making capital" out of the disagreements between them, he concluded these theses with the following sentence:
``The organs of the Party and of the trade unions must reach an agreement with each other" (precisely in case of war danger and the necessity for revolutionary mass actions).
But who is at the head of the trade unions in Switzerland? Among others, the very Schneeberger and Diirr who in the summer of 1916 were the editors of the Schweizerische Metallarbeiterzeitung, who conducted this paper in a reactionary, reformist, social-patriotic spirit, and declared openly that they stood for "defence of the fatherland," and openly protested against the whole policy of Zimmerwald.
And at the head of the Socialist Party of Switzerland, as the events of January 7, 1917, proved once again, are the social-patriots, Greulich, Pfluger, Manz-Schappi, Huber, etc., etc.
Well, what does it all amount to?
It amounts to this: that Grimm in his theses proposed that the Party should place the leadership of revolutionary mass actions against the war in the hands of none other than the social-patriots Schneeberger, Diirr, Greulich, Pfluger and Co.! In the hands of the very people who are opposed to such actions, in the hands of reformists!!
Now, after January 7, 1917, Grimm's ``tactics'' are utterly exposed.
He wants to be regarded as a leader of the Left, as chairman of the International Socialist Committee, as a representative and leader of the Zimmerwaldists; he deceives the workers with the most ``r-r-revolutionary'' phrases, actually using them to conceal the old, social-patriotic, bourgeois reformist, practice of the party.
He swears by God that he sympathises with K. Liebknecht, Hoglund, etc., that he is their follower, that he is pursuing their policy.
But Karl Liebknecht in Germany, Hoglund, etc., in small neutral Sweden, fought, not against foreign, but against their own social-
446
ARTICLES, SPEECHES-JAN.-MAR, 1917
patriots; they attacked the reformists and nationalists at home, in Berlin, in Stockholm, and not in other countries. By ruthlessly exposing the social-patriots, they had the honour of earning the hatred of the Greulichs, Pfliigers, Schneebergers, and Diirrs of Berlin and Stockholm.
Is it so difficult to understand that when the French chauvinists laud the German Liebknecht and when the German chauvinists laud the Englishman MacLean, they are behaving like swindlers, who with their ``internationalist'' phrases in praise of other people's internationalism cover up their own nationalism? Is it so difficult to understand that Grimm is behaving in the very same fashion when he pours abuse on the social-patriots of all countries except Switzerland, that he does this for the deliberate purpose of covering up his desertion to the side of the Swiss social-patriots ?
Grimm denounced the German social-patriot Ebert as a " Rausschmeisser in einem Bordett" for having stolen the Vorwarts from the German workers, for shouting about others wanting to split the party while he himself was ejecting Left wingers from the Party.
But what is Grimm doing at home, in Switzerland, in company with the sad heroes of sad January 7, 1917?
Did not Grimm steal from the Swiss workers the special congress that they were solemnly promised would be convened for the purpose of discussing the question of defence of the fatherland? Is not Grimm, while shouting about a split in the Party, preparing to expel Zimmerwaldists from the Party?
Let us not be childishly naive, let us look the truth in the face!
At the meeting of January 7, 1917, Grimm's new friends and protectors, the social-patriots, joined him in protesting against a split, and particularly in accusing the youth organisation of splitting tendencies, and one of them shouted to the Party secretary, Platten, "Er set fein Parteiselyetar, er sei Parteiverrdter." *
Is it possible to keep silent when such things are being said and when the ``leaders'' wish to hide these things from the Party? Will the Swiss Socialist workers tolerate such tactics?
What crime have the Youth League and Platten committed? Their only crime is that they are sincere adherents of Zimmerwald, sincere Zimmerwaldists, and not careerists. Their only crime is that
* "He is not the secretary of the Party, he is a traitor to the Party."---Ed.
OPEN LETTER TO CHARLES NAINE 447
they are opposed to postponing the congress. And if scandalmongers say that only the Zimmerwald Left, acting as a separate faction, is opposed to the postponement of the congress and " opposed to his majesty Grimm," in general, has not January 7, 1917, proved that this is nothing but idle gossip? Have not you, Comrade Naine, spoken in opposition to Grimm, although you have never, either directly or indirectly, formally or informally, adhered to the Zimmerwald Left?
Causing a split! This is the truly threadbare accusation which the social-patriots in all countries are making in order to cover up the fact that they are ejecting the Liebknechts and the Hoglunds from the Party.
Written in January, 1917.
First published in Proletarsfaya Revolutriya, No. 4, 1924.
[450] __ALPHA_LVL2__ A LETTER TO A. M. KOLLONTAIDEAR A. M.:
The newspapers report that a youth congress is to be convened in Sweden on May 12, for the purpose of forming a new party based on the "principles of Zimmerwald.''
I must confess that this news particularly disturbs and provokes me for ``Zimmerwald'' has obviously become bankrupt, and once again a good word is being used to cover up putridness! The Zimmerwald majority are Turati and Co., Kautsky and Ledebour, and Merrheim, all of whom have deserted to social-pacifism, which was so solemnly (and so fruitlessly) condemned at Kienthal. The manifesto issued by Kautsky and Co. on January 7, 1917, the resolutions passed by the Socialist Party of Italy, the resolutions adopted by Merrheim-Jouhaux and Longuet-Bourderon (-f- Raffin-Dugens in agreement with Renaudel)---does not all this signify the bankruptcy of Zimmerwald? And what about the Zimmerwald ``Centre''--- R. Grimm, who on January 7, 1917, entered into an alliance with the social-patriots of Switzerland to fight against the Lefts!! Grimm, who abused the social-patriots of all countries except those of Switzerland, whom he screened! C'est degoutantl * I am beside myself with rage at these scoundrels; it is sickening to hear them or about them; it is still more sickening to think of having to work with them. A farce!
We are beginning to collect materials for you on the bankruptcy of R. Grimm. Let us know if you can obtain the Zurich Voll(srecht? In that paper, in the arguments in favour of the referendum, and in the resolution of the Lefts passed in Toss S2 (February n, 1917), etc., you will find the main materials.
But the majority of the Swedish Lefts are surely sincere. That is clear. And we must at all costs help them to understand before May 12 the banality of social-pacifism and Kautskyism, help them
*It is disgusting!---Ed.
448LETTER TO A. M. KOLLONTAI 449
to understand how despicable is the Zimmerwald majority, help them draw up a good programme and good tactics for the new Party.
Really, we (all of us, the Lefts in Sweden and those who are able to get into touch with them) must unite, exert every effort and help, for this is the decisive moment in the life of the Swedish Party, of the Swedish and the Scandinavian labour movement.
Since you read (and speak) Swedish, a great deal of responsibility rests on your shoulders, that is, if we do not regard `` internationalism'' from the point of view of "it's none of my business.''
I am sure you are doing a great deal. I would like to rally, to unite all the Lefts to assist the Swedes in this very difficult moment of their lives. Is it not possible to organise for this purpose in Christiania, Copenhagen and Stockholm a group of Russian Bolsheviks and Lefts, who know Swedish, and would be able to help? Divide the work; collect the main materials and articles (the controversy between Nerman and Maurice Vastberg in PolitiJ(en, November 28, I9i6,^^83^^ on the subject "First a Programme and then a new Party," was sent to me, but I could not understand it); draw up theses for their assistance; publish a series of articles to assist them. Swedes able to unite in German, French or English could also join such a group.
What do you think, is this possible or not? Is it worth the trouble?
I think it is worth it, but being at a distance I am, of course, not able to judge. But I see, and l(now very definitely, that the question of a programme and tactics for a new socialism, for real revolutionary Marxism, and not rotten Kautskyism, is on the order of the day everywhere. This is evident from the Socialist Labour Party and The Internationalist^^8^^* in America, and from information about Germany (the resolution passed by the Lefts on January 7, 1917) and about France (the pamphlet published by the Lefts in Paris entitled: Les socialists de Zimmerwald et la guerre),* etc.
In Denmark, Trier and others would certainly join in creating a Left Marxian party in Scandinavia, and part of the Norwegian Lefts also. The fight against Branting and Co. is a serious matter:
*The Zimmerwald Socialists and the War.---Ed.
450
ARTICLES, SPEECHES---JAR-MAR., 1917
necessity must compel the adoption of a more serious attitude towards the questions of the theory and tactics of revolutionary Marxism.
I think the work of preparing for May 12 must be pushed on immediately, and simultaneously from three sides: i) an assistance group, to which I have referred above; 2) groups of Scandinavian Lefts; write a short article (in the Swedish newspapers) on the necessity of forming such groups 'immediately for the purpose of drawing up a programme and tactics in preparation for May 12. 3) The third interests me particularly, not because it is the most important (the important thing is that the initiative should come from within), but because we can help in this. As soon as you have gone through the principal literature of the Lefts and the Rights in Sweden, draw up on the basis of this literature a set of theses somewhat on the following lines: disagreements on theory (programme) and practice (tactics); defence of the fatherland; the conception of imperialism; the character of the war; disarmament; social-pacifism; the national question; revolution; "mass action"; the dictatorship of the proletariat; civil war; attitude towards the trade unions; opportunism and the fight against it; etc.
Each thesis should contain: a) what the Lefts in Sweden have said (the "gist" about this); b) what the Rights in that country have said.
On the basis of this, and taking into account the position taken up by the Lefts in Russia, Germany and America (the principal countries in this respect), we could draw up our own theses and by publishing them in Swedish, help the Swedes to prepare for May 12.
For this purpose, certain of the main passages from the principal resolutions and articles of the Right and Left wings in Sweden will have to be translated into Russian, German, French or English.
As a matter of fact, we are all morally and politically responsible for the Swedish youth and we must help them.
You are in an extremely favourable position to render this assistance. Write me immediately what you think about it. Perhaps it would be useful to send your letter together with your views also to Ludmila.
LETTER TO A. M. KOLLONTAI 451
What sort of a person is this Lindhagen? "S.R."? ``Narodnik''? ``Radical-Socialist''? Herve?
Accept my hearty handshake. Wishing you every success.
Yours, Lenin.
Written March 5, 1917.
First published in the Lenin Miscellany, Vol. II, 1924.
[452] ~ [453] __ALPHA_LVL1__ EXPLANATORY NOTES [454] ~ [455]EXPLANATORY NOTES
r. Lenin wrote this article in German for Vorbote (The Herald), the theoretical publication of the Zimmerwald Left. Its general trend is very close to that of the article with the same title in Volume XVIII of Lenin's Collected Worlds, but the texts are only partly identical.
2. The Basle Extraordinary Congress of the Second International was held in 1912, when the war between Turkey and the Balkan countries was at its height. For complete text of the Manifesto, see V. I. Lenin, Collected Wor\s, Volume XVIII, pp. 468-72.
3. Lenin is referring to Jules Guesde's article "Participation ministerielle," published in 1899. Guesde was one of the founders of the French Socialist movement. During the first imperialist war, he became a social-chauvinist and joined the war cabinet.
4. Die Neue Zeit (New Times) was the theoretical organ of the German Social-Democratic Party. Until 1917 it was edited by Karl Kautsky.
5. The British Labour Party was formed in 1900 and is based primarily on trade -unions and cooperative societies.
6. The British Independent Labour Party (I.L.P.) is a reformist party founded in 1893.
7. The British Socialist Party (B.S.P.) was formed in 1911 by the amalgamation of several Socialist organizations. The majority of its Left wing entered the Communist Party of Great Britain when the latter was founded in 1920.
8. The Organization Committee (O.C.) of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party was the leading body of the August Bloc formed in August, 1912, by Trotsky, the Mensheviks and all other anti-Bolshevik groups and trends directed against Lenin and the Bolshevik Party. For a fuller account of the August Bloc and the groupings it represented, see History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, pp. 136-138, International Publishers, New York, 1939.
9. The words paraphrased by Lenin come from Engels' article "Zur Kritik des sozial-demokratischen Programmentwurfes 1891" ("A Criticism of the Social-Democratic Draft Programme of 1891"), published in the Neue Zeit, October 2, 1901.
455456
EXPLANATORY NOTES
10. Lenin is referring to the speech made on March 18, 1915, during the discussion about the war credits.
11. Lenin is alluding to a demonstration in front of the German Party headquarters which took place on October 30, not November 30. A different demonstration took place on November 30.
12. Lenin is referring to the speech of Karl Legien, the head of the German trade unions, at a meeting of trade union functionaries.
13. Reference is here made to an article by Karl Kautsky in Die Neue Zeit, No. 9, 1915.
14. The Appeal to Reason was an American Socialist weekly newspaper, published in Girard, Kansas, which had a wide circulation among city workers and farmers, and to which Debs was a frequent contributor.
15. The Berner Tagwacht (Berne Guardian) was the official publication of the Swiss Social-Democratic Party. It was started in 1893. During the early part of the war the editors took a Centrist position.
16. La Bataille (The Battle) was a syndicalist daily which started publication in Paris in September 1915. It was subsidised by the French Government.
17. The Labour Leader was the weekly organ of the Independent Labour Party and during the imperialist war of 1914-18 was pacifist. In 1922 it was renamed the New Leader.
18. The Bulletin of the International Socialist Committee at Berne was the organ of the Zimmerwald League and was published between 1915 and 1917 in English, French and German.
19. The five Menshevik deputies in the first Duma headed by Chkheidze.
20. Nashe Dyelo (Our Cause), organ of the "defensists," published in Petrograd in 1915.
21. Nashe Slovo (Our Word) was a Russian daily published in Paris in 1915-16. It gave utterance to the views of various groupings in the antiBolshevik camp of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party, although occasionally indulging in ``Left'' outbursts. Trotsky was a leading contributor to this paper.
22. Lenin is referring to a group of extreme social-chauvinists, Mensheviks and Narodniks centring around a periodical entitled Prizyv (The Call).
23. Central organ of the Bolsheviks, founded in 1908 and edited by Lenin.
24. Polish independence and peace without annexations were demanded in an article entitled "The Polish Emigres," published in Rabocheye Dyelo (The Worker's Cause) October, 1915. Lenin accordingly refers to them as the "October slogans.''
25. The Dreyfus affair was the trial and conviction of Alfred Dreyfus,
EXPLANATORY NOTES 457
an officer of Jewish descent in the French army, which aroused a storm of public opinion in the 'nineties. In order to undermine the Republican regime, which allowed Jews to hold commissions in the army, the reactionaries among the French bourgeoisie, the monarchists, clericals and anti-Semites, disclosed military secrets to Germany through their agents in the General Staff and a charge was framed against Dreyfus. In 1894 Dreyfus was court-martialled and, under the pressure of the General Staff, headed by reactionaries, sentenced to solitary confinement for life. He was imprisoned until unabating public pressure secured his pardon and release in 1899.
26. The Zabern incident was the conflict which arose in 1913 as a result of the chauvinist, high-handed treatment of the inhabitants of Zabern ( AlsaceLorraine^^1^^) by a German officer, Lieutenant Forstner. When the indignant population attempted to voice their protest openly, Forstner, with the approval of the higher military authorities and even of Bethmann-Hollweg, the Chancellor, proclaimed martial law in the town and terrorized the inhabitants. Owing to mass pressure the incident was discussed in the Reichstag. Forstner was championed by the Chancellor and the Minister of War, but the overwhelming majority of the members (293 as against 54) expressed their condemnation by passing a vote of censure on the Chancellor.
27. Lenin is referring to the following passage in Marx's letter to Kugelmann of November 29, 1869:
``The English working class... can never do anything decisive here in England until... it not only makes common cause with the Irish, but actually takes the initiative in dissolving the Union established in 1801, and replacing it by a free federal relationship. And, indeed, this must be done, not as a matter of sympathy with Ireland, but as a demand made in the interests of the English proletariat. If not, the English people will remain tied.to the leading-strings of the ruling classes, because it must join with them in a common front against Ireland." (Karl Marx, Letters to Kugelmann, pp. 95-96, International Publishers, New York, 1934.)
28. The Garibaldi wars were the wars of national liberation waged by the people of Italy under Garibaldi's leadership in 1848-50 and 1859-67 against Austria, France and the Pope.
29. By the re-establishment of the Party in 1912 Lenin means the Prague Conference of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party, at which "the Mensheviks were expelled from the Party, and the formal unity of the Bolsheviks
with the Mensheviks within one party was ended forever___The Prague
Conference inaugurated a party of a new type, the party of Leninism, the Bolshevi\ Party." (History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, p. 144.)
30. The Second International Socialist Conference of the Zimmerwald Left
458
EXPLANATORY NOTES
was held April 24-30, 1916, in the Swiss village of Kienthal, from which it gets its name.
31. Lenin is referring to the Extraordinary Congress of the Social-- Democratic Party of Holland held in Arnhem, January 9, 1916.
32. The London Conference was a conference of British, French, Belgian and Russian Socialists; however, the Bolshevik representative withdrew as soon as the conference had opened since the chairman would not allow him to read the statement of the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party. The conference proclaimed the war of the Entente against Germany and AustriaHungary to be a "war of liberation.''
33. The Vienna Conference was called by the Socialists of Germany and Austria-Hungary as a counter-move to the London Conference. The resolution adopted stated that Socialists should do everything in their power for the defence of their fatherland, that is, the imperialism of their own countries.
34. The circular of the International Socialist Committee of February ro, 1916, published in its Bulletin of February 29, 1916, was issued after a lengthy debate over the Committee's original draft at an enlarged session held February 5-8, 1916. The circular described the slogan of the defence of the fatherland as a means of "gross deceit perpetrated for the end of subjecting the nations to imperialism." It condemned all participation in national defence and demanded that Socialists should vote against war credits regardless of the situation at the front, thus repudiating the stand of Haase and Ledebour on this issue. The circular denounced the policy of the International Socialist Bureau as violating the decisions of the Stuttgart, Copenhagen and Basle congresses. The attempts at "mutual amnesty" made by the social-chauvinist leaders were described as "a conspiracy against socialism." Lastly, the circular appealed for strikes, demonstrations, fraternisation at the front and other forms of revolutionary struggle.
35. Shortly after the Zimmerwald Conference, and against its decisions, the International Socialist Committee stated that it would ``dissolve'' should the International Socialist Bureau meet at The Hague. In its Bulletin of November 27, 1915, the International Socialist Committee published a statement (Eine ErJ(larung) dated September 29, 1915, in which it said: "This Committee has no intention of competing with the International Socialist Bureau. It is a provisional body and will dissolve as soon as the International Socialist Bureau, acting on the decisions of the Stuttgart, Copenhagen and Basle congresses, launches a struggle against the war, and does not make its tactics dependent on the consent of the Socialist parties which in their countries are supporting the war policy of the ruling classes.''
EXPLANATORY NOTES 459
36. Russl(pye Znamya (Russian Banner) was the publication of the Black Hundred "Union of the Russian People." It started publication in December, 1905, and continued until 1917.
37. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was the predatory treaty imposed upon young and weak Soviet Russia by imperialist Germany and her allies--- Austria-Hungary, Turkey and Bulgaria---in 1918. It was annulled by the Soviet Government after the German Revolution of November, 1918.
38. The Spartacists were the members of the Spartacus Group, also known as the "International Group," which was a separate trend in the German Party during the early part of the first imperialist war of 1914-18 and comprised some of the Left, revolutionary elements among the German SocialDemocrats. Karl Liebknecht, Rosa Luxemburg, Franz Mehring and Clara Zetkin were some of their leaders. When the Communist Party of Germany was founded, the Spartacus Group contributed the largest membership.
39. The Versaillese were the supporters of the bourgeois government of Thiers which, at the time of the Paris Commune in 1871, fled to Versailles. In order to maintain their class rule, they consented to a humiliating peace with their recent enemies---the Prussian army of occupation---and with the help of the latter crushed the heroic Paris Commune.
40. The Spanish-American War (1898) was an imperialist war waged by the United States against Spain in order to seize the Atlantic and Pacific islands belonging to Spain which were of strategic importance.
The ``liberation'' of the islands from Spanish oppression merely served as a pretext. After the Peace of Paris, December 10, 1898, under which Spain was forced to evacuate Cuba, Guam, Puerto Rico and the Philippines, these islands, except Cuba, were annexed by the United States.
41. The Boer War (1899-1902) was on England's part an imperialist war, for it was waged for the subjection of the Boer Transvaal and Orange Republics. After fighting for nearly four years, England succeeded in vanquishing the republics and incorporating them in the British Empire only upon dispatching 500,000 troops, although the population of the republics was only 645,000.
42. The French Panama scandal referred to by Lenin was that of the French company launched by de Lesseps in 1882 to dig the Panama Canal. In 1888 the company went bankrupt and the work was taken over by the United States, which did not complete it until 1913. The bankruptcy of the French company brought to light numerous large-scale embezzlements, briberies and other swindles, in which many prominent political figures, including Clemenceau and Loubet, were implicated.
43. Lenin is referring to Engels' note in Chapter VI of the third volume of
460
EXPLANATORY NOTES
Capital. Developing the idea that with every passing day modern productive forces outgrow the laws of capitalist commodity exchange, Engels writes:
``This is shown especially by two symptoms. First, by the new and general mania for a protective tariff, which differs from the old protectionism especially by the fact that now the articles which are capable of being exported are the best protected. In the second place it is shown by the trusts of manufacturers of whole spheres of production for the regulation of production, and thus of prices and profits." (Capital, Vol. Ill, Kerr edition, footnote, p. 142.)
44. The Boxer Rebellion was a rebellion of the peasants of North China against the foreign imperialists which broke out in the spring of 1900. The name ``Boxer'' is traced to the fact that the word fist figured in the names of several of the societies which led the rebellion (for instance, "The Fist of Justice and Harmony," "The Big Fist Society"). The rebellion was crushed by the concerted efforts of the big imperialist powers.
45. The "International Socialists of Germany" was one of the groups among the Left Social-Democrats in Germany during the World War. It was more consistent than the followers of Rosa Luxemburg in breaking with the socialchauvinists and the Centrists.
46. "The Bolsheviks who were ready to adopt the point of view of conditional defence" were those who in 1915 opposed Lenin's tactics of refusing support to a government of chauvinist republicans in the forthcoming revolution. Most of them took a chauvinist stand and joined the Prisyv amalgamation, whose slogan was war to the end.
47. P. Kievsky was a pen-name of Y. Pyatakov, tried and convicted of treason in 1938.
48. Lenin is referring to Engels' letter to Kautsky of September 12, 1882, where he writes: "In my opinion, the colonies proper, i.e., the countries occupied by a European population, Canada, the Cape, Australia, will all become independent; on the other hand, the countries inhabited by a native population, which are simply subjugated, India, Algiers, the Dutch, Portuguese and Spanish possessions, must be taken over for the time being by the proletariat and led as rapidly as possible towards independence. How this process will develop is difficult to say. India will perhaps, indeed very probably, produce a revolution, and as the proletariat emancipating itself cannot conduct any colonial wars, this would have to be given full scope; it would not pass off without all sorts of destruction, of course, but that sort of thing is inseparable from all revolutions." (The Correspondence of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, p. 399, International Publishers, New York, 1936.)
49. By the "Cracow viewpoint" Lenin means the national views of the
EXPLANATORY NOTES 461
Polish Social-Democrats, who repudiated the right of nations to self-- determination in general.
50. The Nepodleglostsevtsi were the advocates of Polish independence among the Polish Socialists; in 1893 they organized a party of their own, the Polish Socialist Party (P.P.S.).
51. The reference is to "Democratic Pan-Slavism," an article published in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung (New Rhine Newspaper) of February 14 and 15, 1849.
52. The ``Fraki'' was the name given to the members of the Right wing in the Polish Socialist Party after the party split in 1906. They were separatist nationalists in their views.
53. By the ``trip'' is meant a surreptitious return to Russia.
54. The "removal of James" implies the arrest in Petrograd of A. I. Yelizarova, who at one time served as the connection between the organisations in Russia and the members of the Central Committee living abroad.
55. By "the split in England" Lenin means the split in the British Socialist Party which took place at the Manchester Conference of the Party, April 23-24, 1916. After the Right wing, headed by Hyndman, had broken away, the Left majority at the conference passed a resolution demanding the conclusion of a speedy peace without annexations and denouncing the Labour Party for participating in the coalition government. The greater part of the Lefts later entered the Communist Party of Great Britain.
56. In speaking of Spain, Lenin actually meant Norway.
57. "The Japanese" was a nickname of Y. Pyatakov and E. Bosh.
58. Unity was advocated in Petrograd by the Mezhrayontsi (the members of the inter-regional organization, also called obyedinentsi, those favouring unity, from the Russian obyedineniye, meaning unity), "a small group that had existed in Petrograd since 1913 and consisted of Trotskyite-Mensheviks and a number of former Bolsheviks who had split away from the Party. During the war, the Mezhrayontsi were a Centrist organization----- During the Sixth Party Congress [in 1917] the Mezhrayontsi declared that they were in agreement with the Bolsheviks on all points and requested admission to the Party. The request was granted by the congress in the expectation that they would in time become real Bolsheviks." (History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, pp. 198-99.)
59. Rabochiye Vyedomosti (Workers' Chronicle) was the periodical published legally in Petrograd in 1916 by a Mezhrayontsi group.
60. Lyetopis (Chronicle) did not publish any of the Lenin articles.
61. The Volna (Wave) was a publishing undertaking in Petrograd.
462
EXPLANATORY NOTES
62. The two pamphlets are Capitalism in Agriculture in the United States (V. I. Lenin, Selected Worths, Vol. XII, pp. 190-283) and Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (in this volume, pp. 81-196).
63. This refers to V. Bonch-Bruyevich, who owned the Zhizn i Znaniye (Life and Knowledge) publishing house.
64. The Committee for the Re-establishment of International Connections was formed in September 1915 at the initiative of the Socialists who took part in the Zimmerwald Conference. It served as a centre for the internationalist elements in France and later formed the nucleus of the French Communist Party.
65. The Berne Socialist paper which published several articles on the negotiations for a separate peace between Russia and Germany was the Berner Tagu/acht.
66. Golos (the Voice) was a Menshevik paper published in 1916 in Samara.
67. The Griitli League was a Swiss organisation of artisans and some workers, founded in 1838 for the purpose of disseminating education among its members. It was a typical petty-bourgeois organisation, and though a Socialist program was adopted in 1878, the League's tactics and activities remained unchanged. During the war the League adopted a chauvinist position.
68. "Nota-Bene," criticized by Lenin, was N. Bukharin, tried and convicted for treason in 1938.
69. Golos Truda (The Voice of Labour) was a Menshevik newspaper published in 1916 in Samara.
70. "The Military Programme of the Proletarian Revolution" was written by Lenin in German; certain parts are a translation of the preceding article "The Disarmament Slogan.''
71. La Sentinelle (The Sentinel) was the publication of the Zimmerwald Left in the Swiss Social-Democratic Party.
72. Volfarecht (The People's Right) was the newspaper of the SocialDemocratic Party of Switzerland and of its Zurich organisation.
73. The Party Congress at Aarau was held November 20-21, 1915, and was the first congress of the Swiss Social-Democrats during the war.
74. The Olten decision was a decision of the Executive Committee of the Swiss Social-Democratic Party on the attitude to the war. It was adopted in the town of Olten on March 28, 1915.
75. The International Socialist Bureau at The Hague was the executive body of the Second International. It attempted to restore the International by a mutual amnesty of the Social-Democratic parties of the belligerent countries. In this it was supported by the Right wing of the Socialist Parties.
EXPLANATORY NOTES 463
76. The "Lecture on the 1905 Revolution" was written in German and delivered at a meeting of young workers in Zurich on January 22, 1917.
77. "Bourgeois Pacifism and Socialist Pacifism" was intended by Lenin either to appear in the form of a series of newspaper articles or to be published in full in some periodical. Of the newspaper articles only one was published. It was based on the first two sections and appeared under the title "The Turn in World Politics" in No. 58 of the Sotsial-Demofyat. This issue was the last, and the other two articles remained unpublished.
78. The German government's note proposing peace negotiations was presented to the Entente Powers on December 12, 1916. The German government had already stated its terms on December 8. These were for Germany to retain Lithuania, Latvia, the part of Poland belonging to tsarist Russia, the Liege area in Belgium, the French districts of Briey and Longwy---all of which she had seized---for France to pay an indemnity, for the Belgian colony of Congo to be transferred to Germany and the Duchy of Luxemburg incorporated in the German Empire. The Entente imperialists made no reply to these proposals.
79. The Manifesto of March 3, 1861, issued by Tsar Alexander II decreed the abolition of serfdom in Russia.
80. On December 18, 1916, President Woodrow Wilson sent a note to the governments of the belligerent countries asking them to state the terms on which they would consider concluding peace, and offering to act as intermediary.
81. By the evidence of Guchkov and Helfferich, Lenin means Guchkov's letter to General Alexeyev of August 15, 1916, and Helfferich's reply to questions regarding the numerous arrests made among the Social-Democratic opposition in Germany. In his letter to Alexeyev, Guchkov wrote: "The deluge is at hand, yet our worthless, spineless government is preparing to ward off this disaster by means that may serve in a good shower, such as galoshes and umbrellas." Helfferich said: "Are not arrests preferable to seeing some more corpses in the Potsdamerplatz?" The first document was reprinted in full, and the second in part, in the Sotsial-Demofyrat of December 30, 1916.
82. The Toss resolution of the Lefts, repudiating the slogan of defence of the fatherland, was adopted by the majority at the Toss Convention of the Zurich branch of the Swiss Social-Democratic Party, held February n, 1917.
83. The Polhi\en was a newspaper published by the Swedish Left SocialDemocrats in Stockholm in 1916, with the collaboration of the Left members of the Zimmerwald Conference.
84. An internationalist Socialist magazine published in Boston.