The Collapse of the Second International

The Collapse of the Second International

I

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

The Collapse of the Second International

The collapse of the International is sometimes taken to mean simply the formal aspect of the matter, namely, the interruption in international communication between tbe socialist parties of the belligerent countries, the impossibility of converting either an international conference or the International Socialist Bureau , etc. This is the point of view held by certain socialists in the small neutral countries, probahly even by the majority of the official parties in those countries, and also by the opportunists and their defenders. With a frankness that deserves profound gratitude, this position was defended in the Russian press by Mr. V. Kosovsky, in No. 8 of the Bund's Information Bulletin , whose editors said nothing to indicate that they disagreed with the author. Let us hope that Mr. Kosovsky's defence of nationalism, in which he went so far as to justify the German Social-Democrats who voted for war credits, will help many a worker at last to realise the bourgeois-nationalist-character of the Bund.

To the class-conscious workers, socialism is a serious conviction, not a convenient screen to conceal petty-bourgeois conciliatory and nationalist-oppositional strivings. By the collapse of the International they understand the disgraceful treachery to their convictions which was displayed by most of the official Social-Democratic parties, treachery to the most solemn declarations in their speeches at the Stuttgart and Basle international congresses, and in the resolutions of these congresses, etc. Only those can fail to see this treachery who do not wish to do so or do not find it to their advantage to see it. If we would formulate the question in a scientific fashion, i.e., from the standpoint of class relations in modern society, we will have to state that most of the Social Democratic parties, and at their head the German Party first and foremost—the biggest and most influential party in the Second International—have taken sides with their General Staffs, their governments, and their bourgeoisie, against the proletariat. This is an event of historic importance, one that calls for a most comprehensive analysis. It has long been conceded that, for all the horror and misery they entail, wars bring at least the following more or less important benefit—they ruthlessly reveal, unmask and destroy much that is corrupt, outworn and dead in human institutions. The European war of 1914-15 is doubtlessly beginning to do some good by revealing to the advanced class of the civilised countries what a foul and festering abscess has developed within its parties, and what an unbearably putrid stench comes from some source.

I

Is it a fact that the principal socialist parties of Europe have forsaken all their convictions and tasks? This, of course, is something that is readily discussed neither by the traitors nor those who are fully aware—or surmise—that they will have to be friendly and tolerant towards them. However unpleasant that may be to various "authorities" in the Second International or to their fellow-thinkers among the Russian Social-Democrats , we must face the facts and call things by their right names; we must tell the workers the truth.

Do any facts exist that show how the socialist parties regarded their tasks and their tactics before the present war and in anticipation of it? They undoubtedly do. There was the resolution adopted at the Basle International Socialist Congress of 1912, which we are reprinting together with the resolution adopted at the Chemnitz Congress of the German Social-Democratic Party held in the same year, [1] as a reminder of socialism's forgotten ideals. This resolution, which summarises the vast anti-war propagandist and agitational literature in all countries, is a most complete and precise, a most solemn and formal exposition of socialist views on war and tactics towards war. One cannot but qualify as treachery the fact that none of the authorities of yesterday's International and of today's social-chauvinism—neither Hyndman and Guesde , nor Kautsky and Plekhanov —dare remind their readers of that resolution. They are either silent about it, or (like Kautsky) quote excerpts of secondary importance and evade everything that is really of significance. On the one hand, the most "Left" and arch-revolutionary resolutions, and on the other, the most shameless forgetfulness or renunciation of these resolutions—this is one of the most striking manifestations of the International's collapse, and at the same time a most convincing proof that at present only those whose rare simplicity borders on a cunning desire to perpetuate the former hypocricy can believe that socialism can be "rectified" and "its line straightened out" by means of resolutions alone.

Only yesterday, one might say, when, before the war, Hyndman turned towards a defence of imperialism, all "respectable" socialists considered him an unbalanced crank, of whom nobody spoke otherwise than in a tone of disdain. Today the most prominent Social-Democratic leaders of all countries have sunk entirely to Hyndman's position, differing from one another only in shades of opinion and in temperament. We are quite unable to find some more or less suitable parliamentary expression in appraising or characterising the civic courage of such persons as, for instance, the Nashe Slovo authors, who write of "Mr." Hyndman with contempt, while speaking—or saying nothing—of "Comrade" Kautsky with deference (or obsequiousness?). Can such an attitude be reconciled with a respect for socialism, and for one's convictions in general? If you are convinced that Hyndman's chauvinism is false and destructive, does it not follow that you should direct your criticism and attacks against Kautsky, the more influential and more dangerous defender of such views?

In perhaps greater detail than anywhere else, Guesde's views have recently been expressed by the Guesdist Charles Dumas, in a pamphlet entitled The Peace That We Desire . This "Chef du Cabinet de Jules Guesde", as he styles himself on the title-page of the pamphlet, naturally "quotes" the former patriotic declarations of the socialists (David, the German social-chauvinist, does the same in his latest pamphlet on defence of the fatherland), but he fails to refer to the Basle Manifesto! Plekhanov, who utters chauvinist banalities with an extraordinarily smug air, is likewise silent on the Manifesto. Kautsky behaves just like Plekhanov: in quoting from the Basle Manifesto, he omits all the revolutionary passages (i.e., all the vital content!), probably on the pretext of the censorship regulations... . The police and the military authorities, whose censorship regulations forbid any mention of the class struggle or revolution, have rendered timely aid to the traitors to socialism!

Perhaps the Basle Manifesto is just an empty appeal, which is devoid of any definite content, either historical or tactical, with a direct bearing on the concrete war of today?

The reverse is true. The Basle resolution has less idle declamation and more definite content than other resolutions have. The Basle resolution speaks of the very same war that has now broken out, of the imperialist conflicts that have flared up in 1914-15. The conflicts between Austria and Serbia over the Balkans, between Austria and Italy over Albania, etc., between Britain and Germany over markets and colonies in general, between Russia and Turkey, etc., over Armenia and Constantinople—all this is what the Basle resolution speaks of in anticipation of the present war. It follows from that resolution that the present war between "the Great Powers of Europe" " cannot be justified on the slightest pretext of being in the least in the interests of the people ".

And ifPlekhanov and Kautsky—to take two of the most typical and authoritative socialists, who are well known to us, one of whom writes in Russian while the other is translated into Russian by the liquidators are now (with the aid of Axelrod ) seeking all sorts of "popular justifications" for the war (or, rather, vulgar ones taken from the bourgeois gutter press) if, with a learned mien and with a stock of false quotations from Marx, they refer to "precedents", to the wars of 1813 and 1870 (Plekhanov), or of 1854-71, 1876-77, 1897 (Kautsky), then, in truth, only those without a shadow of socialist conviction, without a shred of socialist conscience, can take such arguments in earnest, can fail to call them otherwise than unparalleled Jesuitism, hypocrisy and the prostitution of socialism! Let the Executive ( Vorstand ) of the German Party anathematise Mehring and Rosa Luxemburg 's new magazine ( Die Internationale ) for its honest criticism of Kautsky; let Vandervelde, Plekhanov, Hyndman and Co. treat their opponents in the same manner, with the aid of the police of the Allied Powers. We shall reply by simply reprinting the Basle Manifesto, which will show that the leaders have chosen a course that can only be called treachery.

The Basle resolution does not speak of a national or a people's war—examples of which have occurred in Europe, wars that were even typical of the period of 1789-1871—or of a revolutionary war, which Social-Democrats have never renounced, but of the present war, which is the outcome of "capitalist imperialism" and "dynastic interests", the outcome of "the policy of conquest" pursued by both groups of belligerent powers—the Austro-German and the Anglo Franco-Russian. Plekhanov, Kautsky and Co. are flagrantly deceiving the workers by repeating the selfish lie of the bourgeoisie of all countries, which is striving with all its might to depict this imperialist and predatory war for colonies as a people's war, a war of defence (for any side); when they seek to justify this war by citing historical examples of non -imperialist wars.

The question as to the imperialist, predatory and anti-proletarian character of the present war has long outgrown the purely theoretical stage. All the main features of imperialism have been theoretically assessed, as a struggle being waged by the senile and moribund bourgeoisie for the partition of the world and the enslavement of "small" nations; these conclusions have been repeated thousands of times in the vast socialist press in all countries; in his pamphlet The Impending War ( 1911! ), for example, the Frenchman Delaisi, a representative of one of our "Allied" nations, has explained in simple terms the predatory character of the present war, with reference to the French bourgeoisie as well. But that is far from all. At Basle, representatives of the proletarian parties of all countries gave unanimous and formal expression to their unshakable conviction that a war of an imperialist character was impending, and drew tactical conclusions therefrom. For this reason, among others, we must flatly reject, as sophistry, all references to an inadequate discussion on the difference between national and international tactics see Axelrod's latest interview in Nashe Slovo Nos. 87 and 90), etc., etc. This is sophistry, because a comprehensive scientific analysis of imperialism is one thing—that analysis is only under way and, in essence, is as infinite as science itself. The principles of socialist tactics against capitalist imperialism, which have been set forth in millions of copies of Social-Democratic newspapers and in the decision of the International, are a quite different thing. Socialist parties are not debating clubs, but organisations of the fighting proletariat; when a numher of battalions have gone over to the enemy, they must be named and branded as traitors; we must not allow ourselves to be taken in by hypocritical assertions that "not everybody understands imperialism in the same way", or that the chauvinist Kautsky and the chauvinist Cunow can write volumes about it, or that the question has not been "adequately discussed", etc., etc. Capitalism will never be completely and exhaustively studied in all the manifestations of its predatory nature, and in all the most minute ramifications of its historical development and national features. Scholars (and especially the pedants) will never stop arguing over-details. It would be ridiculous to give up the socialist struggle against capitalism and to desist from opposing, on such grounds, those who have betrayed that struggle. But what else are Kautsky, Cunow, Axelrod and their like inviting us to do?

Now, when war has broken out, no one has even attempted to examine the Basle resolution and prove that it is erroneous.

II

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

The Collapse of the Second International

II

But perhaps sincere socialists supported the Basle resolution in the anticipation that war would create a revolutionary situation, the events rebutting them, as revolution has proved impossible?

It is by means of sophistry like this that Cunow (in a pamphlet Collapse of the Party? and a series of articles) has tried to justify his desertion to the camp of the bourgeoisie. The writings of nearly all the other social-chauvinists, headed by Kautsky, hint at similar "arguments". Hopes for a revolution have proved illusory, and it is not the business of a Marxist to fight for illusions, Cunow argues. This Struvist, [2] however, does not say a word about "illusions" that were shared by all signatories to the Basle Manifesto. Like a most upright man, he would put the blame on the extreme Leftists, such as Pannekoek and Radek!

Let us consider the substance of the argument that the authors of the Basle Manifesto sincerely expected the advent of a revolution, but were rebutted by the events. The Basle Manifesto says: (1) that war will create an economic and political crisis; (2) that the workers will regard their participation in war as a crime, and as criminal any "shooting each other down for the profit of the capitalists, for the sake of dynastic honour and of diplomatic secret treaties", and that war evokes "indignation and revolt" in the workers; (3) that it is the duty of socialists to take advantage of this crisis and of the workers' temper so as to "rouse the people and hasten the downfall of capitalism"; (4) that all "governments" without exception can start a war only at "their own peril"; (5) that governments "are afraid of a proletarian revolution"; (6) that governments "should remember" the Paris Commune (i.e., civil war), the 1905 Revolution in Russia, etc. All these are perfectly clear ideas; they do not guarantee that revolution will take place, but lay stress on a precise characterisation of facts and trends . Whoever declares, with regard to these ideas and arguments, that the anticipated revolution has proved illusory, is displaying not a Marxist but a Struvist and police-renegade attitude towards revolution.

To the Marxist it is indisputable that a revolution is impossible without a revolutionary situation; furthermore, it is not every revolutionary situation that leads to revolution. What, generally speaking, are the symptoms of a revolutionary situation? We shall certainly not be mistaken if we indicate the following three major symptoms: (1) when it is impossible for the ruling classes to maintain their rule without any change; when there is a crisis, in one form or another, among the "upper classes", a crisis in the policy of the ruling class, leading to a fissure through which the discontent and indignation of the oppressed classes burst forth. For a revolution to take place, it is usually insufficient for "the lower classes not to want" to live in the old way; it is also necessary that "the upper classes should be unable" to live in the old way; (2) when the suffering and want of the oppressed classes have grown more acute than usual; (3) when, as a consequence of the above causes, there is a considerable increase in the activity of the masses, who uncomplainingly allow themselves to be robbed in "peace time", but, in turbulent times, are drawn both by all the circumstances of the crisis and by the "upper classes" themselves into independent historical action.

Without these objective changes, which are independent of the will, not only of individual groups and parties but even of individual classes, a revolution, as a general rule, is impossible. The totality of all these objective changes is called a revolutionary situation. Such a situation existed in 1905 in Russia, and in all revolutionary periods in the West; it also existed in Germany in the sixties of the last century, and in Russia in 1859-61 and 1879-80, although no revolution occurred in these instances. Why was that? It was because it is not every revolutionary situation that gives rise to a revolution; revolution arises only out of a situation in which the above-mentioned objective changes are accompanied by a subjective change, namely, the ability of the revolutionary class to take revolutionary mass action strong enough to break (or dislocate) the old government, which never, not even in a period of crisis, "falls", if it is not toppled over.

Suchare the Marxist views on revolution, views that have been developed many, many times, have been accepted as indisputable by all Marxists, and for us, Russians, were corroborated in a particularly striking fashion by the experience of 1905. What, then, did the Basle Manifesto assume in this respect in 1912, and what took place in 1914-15?

It assumed that a revolutionary situation, which it briefly described as "an economic and political crisis", would arise. Has such a situation arisen? Undoubtedly, it has. The social-chauvinist Lensch , who defends chauvinism more candidly, publicly and honestly than the hypocrites Cunow, Kautsky, Plekhanov and Co. do, has gone so far as to say: "What we are passing through is a kind of revolution " (p. 6 of his pamphlet, German Social-Democracy and the War , Berlin, 1915). A political crisis exists; no government is sure of the morrow, not one is secure against the danger of financial collapse, loss of territory, expulsion from its country (in the way the Belgian Government was expelled). All governments are sleeping on a volcano; all are themselves calling for the masses to display initiative and heroism. The entire political regime of Europe has been shaken, and hardly anybody will deny that we have entered (and are entering ever deeper—I write this on the day of Italy's declaration of war) a period of immense political upheavals. When, two months after the declaration of war, Kautsky wrote (October 2, 1914, in Die Neue Zeit ) that "never is government so strong, never are parties so weak as at the outbreak of a war", this was a sample of the falsification of historical science which Kautsky has perpetrated to please the Südekums and other opportunists. In the first place, never do governments stand in such need of agreement with all the parties of the ruling classes, or of the "peaceful" submission of the oppressed classes to that rule, as in the time of war. Secondly, even though "at the beginning of a war", and especially in a country that expects a speedy victory, the government seems all powerful, nobody in the world has ever linked expectations of a revolutionary situation exclusively with the "beginning" of a war, and still less has anybody ever identified the "seeming" with the actual .

It was generally known, seen and admitted that a European war would be more severe than any war in the past. This is being borne out in ever greater measure by the experience of the war. The conflagration is spreading; the political foundations of Europe are being shaken more and more; the sufferings of the masses are appalling, the efforts of governments, the bourgeoisie and the opportunists to hush up these sufferings proving ever more futile. The war profits being obtained by certain groups of capitalists are monstrously high, and contradictions are growing extremely acute. The smouldering indignation of the masses, the vague yearning of society's downtrodden and ignorant strata for a kindly ("democratic") peace, the beginning of discontent among the "lower classes"—all these are facts. The longer the war drags on and the more acute it becomes, the more the governments themselves foster—and must foster—the activity of the masses, whom they call upon to make extraordinary effort and self-sacrifice. The experience of the war, like the experience of any crisis in history, of any great calamity and any sudden turn in human life, stuns and breaks some people, but enlighten and tempers others . Taken by and large, and considering the history of the world as a whole, the number and strength of the second kind of people have—with the exception of individual cases of the decline and fall of one state or another—proved greater than those of the former kind.

Farfrom "immediately" ending all these sufferings and all this enhancement of contradictions, the conclusion of peace will, in many respects, make those sufferings more keenly and immediately felt by the most backward masses of the population.

In a word, a revolutionary situation obtains in most of the advanced countries and the Great Powers of Europe. In this respect, the prediction of the Basle Manifesto has been fully confirmed. To deny this truth, directly or indirectly, or to ignore it, as Cunow, Plekhanov, Kautsky and Co. have done, means telling a big lie, deceiving the working class, and serving the bourgeoisie. In Sotsial-Demokrat (Nos. 34, 40 and 41) [1] we cited facts which prove that those who fear revolution—petty-bourgeois Christian parsons, the General Staffs and millionaires' newspapers—are compelled to admit that symptoms of a revolutionary situation exist in Europe.

Will this situation last long; how much more acute will it become? Will it lead to revolution? This is something we do not know, and nobody can know. The answer can be provided only by the experience gained during the development of revolutionary sentiment and the transition to revolutionary action by the advanced c]ass, the proletariat. There can be no talk in this connection about "illusions" or their repudiation, since no socialist has ever guaranteed that this war (and not the next one), that today's revolutionary situation (and not tomorrow's) will produce a revolution. What we are discussing is the indisputable and fundamental duty of all socialists—that of revealing to the masses the existence of a revolutionary situation, explaining its scope and depth, arousing the proletariat's revolutionary consciousness and revolutionary determination, helping it to go over to revolutionary action, and forming, for that purpose, organisations suited to the revolutionary situation.

No influential or responsible socialist has ever dared to feel doubt that this is the duty of the socialist parties. Without spreading or harbouring the least "illusions", the Basle Manifesto spoke specifically of this duty of the socialists—to rouse and to stir up the people (and not to lull them with chauvinism, as Plekhanov, Axelrod and Kautsky have done), to take advantage of the crisis so as to hasten the downfall of capitalism, and to be guided by the examples of the Commune and of October-December 1905. The present parties' failure to perform that duty meant their treachery, political death, renunciation of their own role and desertion to the side of the bourgeoisie.

III

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

The Collapse of the Second International

III

But how could it have happened that the most prominent representatives and leaders of the Second International have betrayed socialism? We shall deal with this question in detail later, after we have examined the attempts being made to give this treachery "theoretical" justification. We shall try to characterise the principal theories of social-chauvinism, of which Plekhanov (who in the main reiterates the arguments of the Anglo-French chauvinists, Hyndman and his new adherents) and Kautsky (who advances much more "subtle" arguments) with their semblance of far greater theoretical profundity may be regarded as representatives.

Perhaps the most primitive of these is the "who-started it?" theory, which may be worded as follows: we have been attacked and are defending ourselves; the interests of the proletariat demand that the violators of the peace in Europe should be properly dealt with. This is merely a rehash of the declarations made by all governments and of the outcries of the bourgeois and the gutter press all over the world. Plekhanov embellishes even this threadbare piece of vulgarity with his inevitable Jesuitical reference to "dialectics": to be able to assess the concrete situation, he says, we must first of all find out who started it and punish him; all other problems will have to wait until another situation arises. (See Plekhanov's pamphlet, The War , Paris, 1914, and Axelrod's repetition of its arguments, in ( Golos Nos. 86 and 87.) Plekhanov has set a new record in the noble sport of substituting sophistry for dialectics. The sophist grabs at one of many "arguments"; it was Hegel who long ago very properly observed that "arguments" can be found to prove any thing in the world. Dialectics calls for a many-sided investigation into a given social phenomenon in its development, and for the external and the seeming to be reduced to the fundamental motive forces, to the development of the productive forces and to the class struggle. Plekhanov has plucked out a quotation from the German Social-Democratic press: the Germans themselves, before the war, admitted that Austria and Germany had "started it", he says, and there you are. He does not mention the fact that the Russian socialists repeatedly exposed the tsarist plans of conquest of Galicia, Armenia, etc. He does not make the slightest attempt to study the economic and diplomatic history of at least the past three decades, which history proves conclusively that the conquest of colonies, the looting of foreign countries, the ousting and ruining of the more successful rivals have been the backbone of the politics of both groups of the now belligerent powers. [1]

With reference to wars, the main thesis of dialectics, which has been so shamelessly distorted by Plekhanov to please the bourgeoisie, is that " war is simply the continuation of politics by other [i.e., violent] means ". Such is the formula of Clausewitz, [2] one of the greatest writers on the history of war, whose thinking was stimulated by Hegel. And it was always the standpoint of Marx and Engels, who regarded any war as the continuation of the politics of the powers concerned—and the various classes within these countries—in a definite period.

Plekhanov's crude chauvinism is based on exactly the same theoretical stand as the more subtle and saccharo-conciliatory chauvinism of Kautsky, who uses the following arguments when he gives his blessing to the desertion of tlle socialists of all countries tn the side of their "own" capitalists:

It is the right and duty of everyone to defend his fatherland; true internationalism consists in this right being recognised for the socialists of all nations, including those who are at war with my nation... . (See Die Neue Zeit , October 2, 1914, and other works by the same author.)

This matchless reasoning is such an unutterable travesty of socialism that the best answer to it would be to strike a medal with the portraits of Wilhelm II and Nicholas II on one side and of Plekhanov and Kautsky on the other. True internationalism, we are told, means that we must justify German workers firing at French workers, and French workers firing at German workers, in the name of "defence of the fatherland"!!

However, closer examination of the theoretical premises in Kautsky's reasoning will reveal the selfsame idea that Clausewitz ridiculed about eighty years ago, viz., that when war breaks out, all historically created political relations between nations and classes cease and that a totally new situation arises! There are "simply" those that attack and those that are defending themselves, "simply" the warding off of the "enemies of the fatherland"! The opyression of a number of nations which comprise over half the population of the globe, by the dominant imperialist nations; the rivalry between the bourgeoisie of these countries for a share of the loot; the desire of the capitalists to split and suppress the working-class movement—all these have suddenly disappeared from the pen of Plekhanov and Kautsky, although they themselves were describing these very "politics" for decades before the war.

In this connection, false references to Marx and Engels are the crowning argument of these two chieftains of social chauvinism; Plekhanov recalls Prussia's national war of 1813 and Germany's national war of 1870, while Kautsky argues, with a most learned air, that Marx examined the question of whose success (i.e., the success of which bourgeoisie) was more desirable in the wars of 1854-55, 1859 and 1870-71, and that the Marxists did likewise in the wars of 1876-77 and 1897. In all times the sophists have been in the habit of citing instances that refer to situations that are dissimilar in principle. The wars of the past, to which they make references, were a "continuation of the politics" of the bourgeoisie's national movements of many years' standing, movements against an alien yoke and against absolutism (Turkish or Russian). At that time the only question was: the success of which bourgeoisie was to be preferred; for wars of this type, the Marxists could rouse the peoples in advance, fostering national hatred, as Marx did in 1848 and later, when he called for a war against Russia, and as Engels in 1859 fostered German national hatred of their oppressors— Napoleon III and Russian tsarism. [3]

Comparing the "continuation of the politics" of combating feudalism and absolutism—the politics of the bourgeoisie in its struggle for liberty—with the "continuation of the politics" of a decrepit, i.e. , imperialist, bourgeoisie, i.e. , of a bourgeoisie which has plundered the entire world, a reactionary bourgeoisie which, in alliance with feudal landlords, attempts to crush the proletariat, means comparing chalk and cheese. It is like comparing the "representatives of the bourgeoisie", Robespierre , Garibaldi and Zhelyabov, with such "representatives of the bourgeoisie" as Millerand , Salandra and Guchkov . One cannot be a Marxist without feeling the deepest respect for the great bourgeois revolutionaries who had an historic right to speak for their respective bourgeois "fatherlands", and, in the struggle against feudalism, led tens of millions of people in the new nations towards a civilised life. Neither can one be a Marxist without feeling contempt for the sophistry of Plekhanov and Kautsky, who speak of the "defence of the fatherland" with regard to the throttling of Belgium by the German imperialists, or with regard to the pact between the imperialists of Britain, France, Russia and Italy on the plundering of Austria and Turkey.

There is another "Marxist" theory of social-chauvinism, which runs as follows: socialism is based on the rapid development of capitalism; the development of capitalism in my country, and consequently the advent of socialism there will be speeded up by her victory; my country's defeat will retard her economic development and consequently the advent of socialism. In Russia this Struvist theory has been developed by Plekhanov, and among the Germans by Lensch and others. Kautsky argues against this crude theory—against Lensch, who defends it overtly, and against Gunow, who de fends it covertly; his sole purpose, however, is to reconcile the social-chauvinists of all countries on the basis of a more subtle and more Jesuitical chauvinist theory.

We need not dwell on this crude theory. Struve's Critical Notes appeared in 1894, and during the past twenty years Russian Social-Democrats have become thoroughly familiar with this habit of the enlightened Russian bourgeois of advancing their ideas and advocating their desires under the cloak of a "Marxism" purged of revolutionary content. Struvism is not merely a Russian, but, as recent events clearly prove, an international striving on the part of the bourgeois theoreticians to kill Marxism with "kindness", to crush it in their embraces, kill it with a feigned acceptance of "all" the "truly scientific" aspects and elements of Marxism except its "agitational", "demagogic", " Blanquist -utopian" aspect. In other words, they take from Marxism all that is acceptable to the liberal bourgeoisie, including the struggle for reforms, the class struggle (without the proletarian dictatorship), the "general" recognition of "socialist ideals" and the substitution of a "new order" for capitalism; they cast aside "only" the living soul of Marxism, "only" its revolutionary content.

Marxism is the theory of the proletarian movement for emancipation. It is clear, therefore, that the class-conscious workers must pay the utmost attention to any substitution of Struvism for Marxism. The motive forces in this process are varied and manifold. We shall indicate only the three main forces: (1) the development of science is providing more and more material that proves that Marx was right. This makes it necessary to fight against him hypocritically—not to oppose the principles of Marxism openly, but to pretend to accept Marxism, while emasculating it by sophistry and turning it into a holy "icon" that is harmless to the bourgeoisie. (2) The development of opportunism among the Social-Democratic parties fosters such a re-fashioning of Marxism, and adjusts it for a justification of all kinds of concessions to opportunism. (3) The epoch of imperialism is one in which the world is divided among the "great" privileged nations that oppress all other nations. Morsels of the loot obtained as a result of these privileges and this oppression undoubtedly fall to the share of certain sections of the petty bourgeoisie and to the working-class aristocracy and bureaucracy. These strata, which form an insignificant minority of the proletariat and of the toiling masses, gravitate towards "Struvism", because it provides them with a justification of their alliance with their "own" national bourgeoisie, against the oppressed masses of all nations. We shall have occasion to deal with this later, in connection with the causes of the collapse of the International.

IV

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

The Collapse of the Second International

IV

The most subtle theory of social-chauvinism, one that has been most skilfully touched up to look scientific and international, is the theory of "ultra-imperialism" advanced by Kautsky. Here is the clearest, most precise and most recent exposition of this theory in the words of the author himself:

"The subsiding of the Protectionist movement in Britain, the lowering of tariffs in America; the trend towards disarmament; the rapid decline in the export of capital from France and Germany in the years immediately preceding the war; finally, the growing international interweaving between the various cliques of finance capital—all this has caused me to consider whether the present imperialist policy cannot be supplanted by a new, ultra-imperialist policy, which will introduce the joint 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 No. 5, April 30, 1915, p. 144).

"The course and the outcome of the present war may prove decisive in this respect. It may entirely crush the weak beginnings of ultra-imperialism by fanning to the highest degree national hatred also among the finance capltalists, by intensifying the armaments race, and by making a second world war inevitable. Under such conditions, the thing I foresaw and formulated in my pamphlet, The Road to Power , would come true in horrifying dimensions; class antagonisms would become sharper and sharper and with it would come the moral decay [literally: "going out of business, Abwirtschaftung ", bankruptcy] of capitalism... . [It must be noted that by this pretentious word Kautsky means simply the "hatred" which the "strata intermediary between the proletariat and finance capital", namely, "the intelligentsia, the petty bourgeois, even small capitalists", feel towards capitalism.] But the war may end otherwise. It may lead to the strengthening of the weak beginnings of ultra-imperialism... . Its lessons [note this!] may hasten developments for which we would have to wait a long time under peace conditions. If it does lead to this, to an agreement between nations, disarmament and a lasting peace, then the worst of the causes that led to the growing moral decay of capitalism before the war may disappear." The new phase will, of course, bring the proletariat "new misfortunes", "perhaps even worse", but "for a time", "ultra-imperialism" "could create an era of new hopes and expectations within the framework of capitalism" (p. 145).

How is a justification of social-chauvinism deduced from this "theory"?

In a way rather strange for a "theoretician", namely as follows:

The Left-wing Social-Democrats in Germany say that imperialism and the wars it engenders are not accidental, but an inevitable product of capitalism, which has brought about the domination of finance capital. It is therefore necessary to go over to the revolutionary mass struggle, as the period of comparatively peaceful development has ended. The "Right"-wing Social-Democrats brazenly declare: since imperialism is "necessary", we too must be imperialists. Kautsky, in the role of the "Centre", tries to reconcile these two views.

"The extreme Lefts," he writes in his pamphlet, The National State , the Imperialist State and the League of States (Nuremberg, 1915), wish to contrapose—socialism to inevitable imperialism, i. e., not only the propaganda for socialism that we have been carrying on for half a century in contraposition to all forms of capitalist domination, but the immediate achievement of socialism. This seems very radical, but it can only serve to drive into the camp of imperialism anyone who does not believe in the immediate practical achievement of socialism" (p. 17, italics ours).

When he speaks of the immediate achievement of socialism, Kautsky is resorting to a subterfuge, for he takes advantage of the fact that in Germany, especially under the military censorship, revolutionary action cannot be spoken of. Kautsky is well aware that the Left wing is demanding of the Party immediate propaganda in favour of and preparation for, revolutionary action, not the "immediate practical achievement of socialism".

From the necessity of imperialism the Left wing deduces the necessity of revolutionary action. The "theory of ultra-imperialism", however, serves Kautsky as a means to justify the opportunists , to present the situation in such a light as to create the impression that they have not gone over to the bourgeoisie but simply "do not believe" that socialism can arrive immediately, and expect that a new "era" of disarmament and lasting peace "may be" ushered in. This "theory" boils down, and can only boil down, to the following: Kautsky is exploiting the hope for a new peaceful era of capitalisms as to justlfy the adhesion of the opportunists and the official Social-Democratic parties to the bourgeoisie, and their rejection of revolutionary, i.e., proletarian, tactics in the present stormy era , this despite the solemn declarations of the Basle resolution!

At the same time Kautsky does not say that this new phase follows, and necessarily so, from certain definite circumstances and conditions. On the contrary, he states quite outspokenly that he cannot yet even decide whether or not this new phase is " achievable ". Indeed, consider the "trends" towards the new era, which have been indicated by Kautsky. Astonishingly enough, the author has included among the economic facts "the trend towards disarmament"! This means that, behind innocent philistine talk and pipe-dreaming, Kautsky is trying to hide from indisputable facts that do not at all fit in with the theory of the mitigation of contradictions. Kautsky's "ultra-imperialism"—this term, incidentally does not at all express what the author wants to say—implies a tremendous mitigation of the contradictions of capitalism. We are told that Protectionism is subsiding in Britain and America. But where is there the least trend towards a new era? Extreme Protectionism is now subsiding in America, but Protectionism remains, just as the privileges, the preferential tariffs favouring Britain, have remained in that country's colonies. Let us recall what the passage from the previous and "peaceful" period of capitalism to the present and imperialist period has been based on: free competition has yielded to monopolist capitalist combines, and the world has been partitioned. Both these facts (and factors) are obviously of world-wide significance: Free Trade and peaceful competition were possible and necessary as long as capital was in a position to enlarge its colonies without hindrance, and seize unoccupied land in Africa, etc., and as long as the concentration of capital was still weak and no monopolist concerns existed, i.e., concerns of a magnitude permitting domination in an entire branch of industry. The appearance and growth of such monopolist concerns (has this process been stopped in Britain or America? Not even Kautsky will dare deny that the war has accelerated and intensified it) have rendered the free competition of former times impossible ; they have cut the ground from under its feet, while the partition of the world compels the capitalists to go over from peaceful expansion to an armed struggle for the repartitioning of colonies and spheres of influence. It is ridiculous to think that the subsiding of Protectionism in two countries can change anything in this respect.

Let us further examine the fall in capital exports from two countries in the course of a few years. In 1912 these two countries, France and Germany, each had about 35,000 million marks (about 17,000 million rubles) of foreign investments, this according to Harms's statistics, while Britain alone had twice that sum. [1] The increase in exports of capital has never proceeded evenly under capitalism, nor could that have been so. Kautsky dares not even suggest that the accumulation of capital has decreased, or that the capacity of the home market has undergone any important change, say through a big improvement in the conditions of the masses. In these circumstances, the fall in capital exports from two countries over several years cannot imply the advent of a new era.

"The growing international interweaving between the cliques of finance capital" is the only really general and indubitable tendency, not during the last few years and in two countries, but throughout the whole capitalist world. But why should this trend engender a striving towards disarmament, not armaments, as hitherto? Take any one of the world-famous cannon (and arms) manufacturers, Armstrong, for instance. The British Economist (May 1, 1915) published figures showing that this firm's profits rose from £606,000 (about 6,000,000 rubles) in 1905/6 to £856,000 in 1913, and to £940,000 (9,000,000 rubles) in 1914. Here, the intertwining of finance capital is most pronounced, and is on the increase, German capitalists have "holdings" in British firms; British flrms build submarines for Austria, and so on. Interlinked on a world-wide scale, capital is thriving on armaments and wars. To think that the fact of capital in the individual states combining and interlinking on an international scale must of necessity produce an economic trend towards disarmament means, in effect, allowing well-meaning philistine expectations of an easing of class contradictions take the place of the actual intensification of those contradictions.

V

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

The Collapse of the Second International

V

It is in a wholly philistine spirit that Kautsky speaks of the "lessons" of the war, presenting those lessons in the light of a moral abhorrence at the misery it causes. Here, for instance, is how he argues in the pamphlet entitled The National State , etc .:

"It stands beyond doubt and needs no proof that there are strata of the population that are greatly interested in universal peace and disarmament. The petty bourgeoisie and the small peasants, and even many capitalists and intellectuals, are not tied to imperialism by any interests that outweigh the damage suffered by these strata as a result of war and armaments" (p. 21).

This was written in February 1915! The facts show that all the propertied classes, down to the petty bourgeoisie and the "intelligentsia", have joined the imperialists en masse , and yet Kautsky, like Chekhov's man in a mufller [2] shrugs off the facts with an air of extraordinary smugness and with the aid of saccharine phrases. He judges of the interests of the petty bourgeoisie, not by their conduct , but by the words of certain petty bourgeois, although at every step such words are refuted by the deeds. It is exactly like judging of the "interests" of the bourgeoisie in general, not by their deeds, but by the benevolent speeches made by bourgeois clergymen who avow that the present-day system is imbued with the ideals of Christianity. Kautsky applies Marxism in a way that voids it of all content, so that what remains is the catchword of "interests", in a kind of supernatural, other worldly meaning, for it implies, not real economics, but pious wishes for the common weal.

Marxism appraises "interests" according to the class antagonisms and the class struggle which find expression in millions of facts of daily life. The petty bourgeoisie prattle and dream of the abatement of antagonisms, whose aggravation, they "argue", leads to "harmful consequences". Imperialism means the subjugation of all strata of the propertied classes to finance capital, and the partition of the world among five or six "Great" Powers, most of which are now involved in the war. The partition of the world among the Great Powers means that all their propertied classes are interested in possessing colonies and spheres of influence, in oppressing other nations, and in securing the more or less lucrative posts and privileges that stem from belonging to a "Great" Power and an oppressor nation. [1]

Life cannot go on in the old way, in the comparatively tranquil, cultured and peaceful conditions of a capitalism that is smoothly developing and gradually spreading to new countries. A new epoch has arrived. Finance capital ousts , and will completely oust, a particular country from the ranks of Great Powers, will deprive it of its colonies and spheres of influence (as Germany, which has gone to war with Britain, threatens to do), and it will deprive the petty bourgeoisie of their dominant-nation privileges and additional incomes. This has been proved by the war. It is the outcome of that aggravation of antagonisms which has long been admitted by all, including Kautsky, in his pamphlet The Road to Power .

Now that the armed conflict for Great-Power privileges has become a fact, Kautsky wants to persuade the capitalists and the petty bourgeoisie to believe that war is horrible, while disarmament is beneficial, in exactly the same way and with exactly the same results as the Christian churchman, speaking from the pulpit, would persuade the capitalist to believe that love of one's fellow-men is a Divine commandment, as well as the spiritual yearning and the moral law of civilisation. What Kautsky calls an economic trend towards "ultra-imperialism" is just a petty-bourgeois exhortation to the financiers that they should refrain from doing evil.

The export of capital? But more capital is exported to independent countries such as the United States of America, than to the colonies. The seizure of colonies? But they have all been seized, and nearly all of them are striving for liberation. "India may cease to be a British possession, but as an integral empire it will never fall under the sway of another foreign power" (p. 49 in the pamphlet quoted). "Any attempt on the part of any industrial capitalist state to acquire for itself a colonial empire sufficient to make it independent of other countries in regard to raw materials must cause all other capitalist states to unite against it and involve it in endless and exhausting wars, without bringing it nearer to its goal. Such a policy would be the surest road towards the bankruptcy of the entire economic life of that state" (pp. 72-73).

Is not this a philistine attempt to persuade financiers to renounce imperialism? Any atternpt to frighten capitalists with the prospect of bankruptcy is like advising against speculating in shares on the Stock Exchange because many fortunes have been lost in this way. Capital gains from the bankruptcy of a rival capitalist or of a rival nation, because in this way capital becomes more concentrated. Hence the keener and "closer" economic competition becomes, i.e., the economic driving of a compctitor towards bankruptcy, the more the capitalists strive to add military pressure in order to drive the competitor in that direction. The fewer the countries to which capital can still be exported as advantageously as to colonies or to such dependent states as Turkey—since in such cases the financier reaps a triple proflt as against capital exports to a free, independent and civilised country like the United States of America—the fiercer is the struggle for the subjugation and partition of Turkey, China, etc. That is what economic theory reveals about the period of finance capital and imperialism. That is what the facts reveal. But Kautsky turns everything into a trite petty-bourgeois "moral": it is not worth while getting worked up and certainly not worth while going to war over the partition of Turkey, or the seizure of India, since they cannot be held for long anyway, and, moreover, it would be better to develop capitalism peacefully... . It would be better still, of course, to develop capitalism and expand the home market by increasing wages; this is quite "conceivable" and it is a very fitting topic for a churchman to preach on to the financiers. ... The good Kautsky has almost succeeded in persuading the German financiers that it is not worth while waging war against Britain for the colonies, because these colonies will soon secure their liberation in any case!

Britain's exports to and imports from Egypt between 1872 and 1912 have not kept pace with the overall growth of British exports and imports, whence the "Marxist" Kautsky draws the following moral: "We have no reason to suppose that British trade with Egypt would have been less developed as a result of the mere operation of economic factors, without mi]itary occupation" (p. 72). "Capital's urge to expand ... can be best promoted, not by the violent methods of imperialism, but by peaceful democracy " (p. 70).

What a remarkably serious, scientific and "Marxist" analysis! Kautsky has splendidly "rectified" unreasonable history; he has "proved" that there was no need for the British to have taken Egypt from the French, that it was absolutely not worth the German financiers' while to have started the war, organised the Turkish campaign, and taken other measures to drive the British out of Egypt! All this is merely a misunderstanding—it has not yet dawned upon the British that it would be "best" to give up forcible methods in Egypt, and adopt "peaceful democracy" (so as to increase exports of capital à la Kautsky !).

"Of course it was an illusion on the part of the bourgeois Free Traders to think that Free Trade would entirely eliminate the economic antagonisms generated by capitalism. Neither Free Trade nor democracy can eliminate these. We, in all respects are interested in having these antagonisms eliminated by a struggle waged in such forms as will impose the least amount of suftering and sacrifice on the masses" (p. 73)

The Lord help us, the Lord have mercy on us! "What is a philistine?" Lassalle used to ask, and answered by quoting the words of the well-known poet: "A philistine is a gut void of everything but fear and hope that God will have mercy on him." [3]

Kautsky has degraded Marxism to unparalleled prostitution and has turned into a real churchman. The latter tries to persuade the capitalists to adopt peaceful democracy—and calls this dialectics: if at first, he argues, there was Free Trade, and then arrived the monopolies and imperialism, why should there not he "ultra-imperialism", and then Free Trade again? The churchman consoles the oppressed masses by depicting the blessings this ultra-imperialism will bring, although he has not even the courage to say whether it can be "achieved"! Feuerbach was right when, in reply to those who defended religion on the ground that it consoles the people, he indicated the reactionary significance of consolation: whoever consoles the slave instead of arousing him to rise up against slavery is aiding the slaveowner.

All oppressing classes stand in need of two social functions to safeguard their rule: the function of the hangman and the function of the priest. The hangman is required to quell the protests and the indignation of the oppressed; the priest is required to console the oppressed, to depict to them the prospects of their sufferings and sacrifices being mitigated (this is particularly easy to do without guaranteeing that these prospects will be "achieved"), while preserving class rule, and thereby to reconcile them to class rule, win them away from revolutionary action, undermine their revolutionary spirit and destroy their revolutionary determination. Kautsky has turned Marxism into a most hideous and stupid counter-revolutionary theory, into the lowest kind of clericalism.

In 1909, he acknowledged, in his The Road to Power , the fact of the unrefuted and irrefutable intensification of antagonisrms within capitalism, the approach of a period of wars and revolutions, of a new "revolutionary period". There can be no "premature" revolution, he said, and branded as "a direct betrayal of our cause" any refusal to count on the possibility of victory in an uprising, even though, before the fighting began, the prospect of defeat could not be denied.

With the advent of war, the antagonisms have become still more bitter. The sufferings of the masses have assumed tremendous proportions. The end of the war is not in sight and the hostilities are spreading more and more. Kautsky is writing pamphlet after pamphlet and, meekly submitting to the dictates of the censorship, refrains from quoting the facts on the land-grabbing, the horrors of war, the scandalous profiteering of the war contractors, the high cost of living and the actual slavery of the workers mobilised in the munitions industries; instead, he keeps on consoling the proletariat. He does so by quoting the instance of wars in which the bourgeoisie was revolutionary and progressive, in regard to which "Marx himself" desired victory for one bourgeoisie or the other; he consoles it by quoting rows and columns of figures to prove that capitalism is "possible" without colonies, without the plundering of others, without wars and arruaments, and to prove that "peaceful democracy" is preferable. Not daring to deny that the sufferings of the masses are becoming more acute and that a revolutionary situation is arising before our very eyes (one must not talk about this, since it is not permitted by the censor!), Kautsky, in his servility to the bourgeoisie and the opportunists, depicts the "prospect" (he does not guarantee that it can be "achieved") of forms of struggle in a new phase, which will entail "less sacrifice and suffering"... . Franz Mehring and Rosa Luxemburg were quite right when, for this very reason, they called Kautsky a street-walker ( Mädchen für alle ).

* *

*

In August 1905 a revolutionary situation existed in Russia. The tsar had promised convocation of the Bulygin Duma [4] in order to "console" the masses who were in a state of unrest. If the abandoning of armaments by the financiers and their agreeing to a "lasting peace" can be called "ultra-imperialism", then the Bulygin regime of consultative parliamentary representation may be described as "ultra-autocracy". Let us assume for a moment that tomorrow a hundred of the world's biggest financiers, "interwoven" as they are in hundreds of colossal enterprises, will promise the peoples that they will stand for disarmament after the war (we make this assumption only for a moment in order to draw political conclusions from Kautsky's foolish little theory). Even if that happened, it would be downright treachery to the proletariat to dissuade it from taking revolutionary action, without which all promises and all fine prospects are only a mirage.

The war has not only brought the capitalist class huge profits and splendid prospects of fresh plunder (Turkey, China, etc.), new contracts worth thousands of millions; and new loans at increased rates of interest; it has also brought the capitalist class still greater political advantages in that it has split and corrupted the proletariat. Kautsky is encouraging this corruption; he sanctifies this international split among the militant proletarians in the name of unity with the opportunists of their "own" nations, with the Südekums! And yet there are people who fail to understand that the unity slogan of the old parties means the "unity" of the proletariat of a given nation with the bourgenisie of that nation, and a split among the proletariat of the various nations....

VI

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

The Collapse of the Second International