Vladimir Ilyich Lenin-
Imperialism and the Split in Socialism.
Published in Sbornik Sotsial-Demokrata No. 2, December 1916. Signed: N. Lenin. Published according to the Sbornik text.
Source: Lenin Collected Works, Progress Publishers, 1964, Moscow, Volume 23, pages 105-120 / Web source: https://www.marxists.org.
Is
there any connection between imperialism and the monstrous and
disgusting victory opportunism (in the form of social-chauvinism) has
gained over the labour movement in Europe?
This is the fundamental question of modern socialism. And having
in our Party literature fully established, first, the imperialist
character of our era and of the present war [1] ,
and, second, the inseparable historical connection between
social-chauvinism and opportunism, as well as the intrinsic
similarity of their political ideology, we can and must proceed to
analyse this fundamental question.
We have
to begin with as precise and full a definition of imperialism as
possible. Imperialism is a specific historical stage of capitalism.
Its specific character is threefold: imperialism is monopoly
capitalism; parasitic, or decaying capitalism; moribund capitalism.
The supplanting of free competition by monopoly is the fundamental
economic feature, the quintessence of
imperialism. Monopoly manifests itself in five principal forms: (1)
cartels, syndicates and trusts—the concentration of production has
reached a degree which gives rise to these monopolistic associations
of capitalists; (2) the monopolistic position of the big banks—three,
four or five giant banks manipulate the whole economic life of
America, France, Germany; (3) seizure of the sources of raw
material by
the trusts and the financial oligarchy (finance capital is monopoly
industrial capital merged with bank capital); (4) the (economic)
partition of the world by the international cartels has begun.
There are already over one
hundred such
international cartels, which command the entire world
market and divide it “amicably” among themselves—until
war redivides
it. The export of capital, as distinct from the export of commodities
under non-monopoly capitalism, is a highly characteristic phenomenon
and is closely linked with the economic and territorial-political
partition of the world; (5) the territorial partition of the world
(colonies) is completed.
Imperialism, as
the highest stage of capitalism in America and Europe, and later in
Asia, took final shape in the period 1898–1914. The
Spanish-American War (1898), the Anglo-Boer War (1899–1902), the
Russo-Japanese War (1904–05) and the economic crisis in Europe in
1900 are the chief historical landmarks in the new era of world
history.
The fact
that imperialism is parasitic or decaying capitalism is manifested
first of all in the tendency to decay, which is characteristic
of every monopoly
under the system of private ownership of the means of production. The
difference between the democratic-republican and the
reactionary-monarchist imperialist bourgeoisie is obliterated
precisely because they are both rotting alive (which by no means
precludes an extraordinarily rapid development of capitalism in
individual branches of industry, in individual countries, and in
individual periods). Secondly, the decay of capitalism is manifested
in the creation of a huge stratum of rentiers, capitalists who live
by “clipping coupons”. In each of the four leading imperialist
countries—England, U.S.A., France and Germany—capital in
securities amounts to 100,000 or 150,000 million francs,
from which each country derives an annual income of no less than five
to eight thousand million. Thirdly, export of capital is parasitism
raised to a high pitch. Fourthly, “finance capital strives for
domination, not freedom”. Political reaction all
along the
line is a characteristic feature of imperialism. Corruption, bribery
on a huge scale and all kinds of fraud. Fifthly, the exploitation of
oppressed nations—which is inseparably connected with
annexations—and especially the exploitation of colonies by a
handful of “Great” Powers, increasingly transforms the
“civilised” world into a parasite on the body of hundreds of
millions in the uncivilised nations. The Roman
proletarian lived at the expense of society. Modern society lives at
the expense of the modern proletarian. Marx specially stressed this
profound observation of Sismondi.[7] Imperialism
somewhat changes the situation. A privileged upper stratum of the
proletariat in the imperialist countries lives partly at the expense
of hundreds of millions in the uncivilised nations.
It is
clear why imperialism is moribund capitalism,
capitalism in transition to
socialism: monopoly, which grows out
of capitalism,
is already dying
capitalism, the beginning of its transition to socialism. The
tremendoussocialisation of
labour by imperialism (what its apologists-the bourgeois
economists-call “interlocking”) produces the same result.
Advancing this
definition of imperialism brings us into complete contradiction to
K. Kautsky, who refuses to regard imperialism as a “phase of
capitalism” and defines it as a policy “preferred”
by finance capital, a tendency of “industrial” countries to annex
“agrarian” countries.[2] Kautsky’s
definition is thoroughly false from the theoretical standpoint. What
distinguishes imperialism is the rule not of
industrial capital, but of finance capital, the striving to
annex not agrarian
countries, particularly, but every kind
of country. Kautsky divorces imperialist
politics from imperialist economics, he divorces monopoly in politics
from monopoly in economics in order to pave the way for his vulgar
bourgeois reformism, such as “disarmament”, “ultraimperialism”
and similar nonsense. The whole purpose and significance of this
theoretical falsity is to obscure the most
profound contradictions
of imperialism and thus justify the theory of “unity” with the
apologists of imperialism, the outright social-chauvinists and
opportunists.
We have
dealt at sufficient length with Kautsky’s break with Marxism on
this point in Sotsial-Demokrat and Kommunist.[8] Our
Russian Kautskyites, the supporters of the Organising
Committee[3] (O.C.),
headed by Axelrod and Spectator, including even Martov, and to a
large degree Trotsky, preferred to maintain a discreet silence on the
question of Kautskyism as a trend. They did not dare defend Kautsky’s
war-time writings, confining themselves simply to praising Kautsky
(Axelrod in his German pamphlet, which the Organising Committee
has promised to
publish in Russian) or to quoting Kautsky’s private letters
(Spectator), in which he says he belongs to the opposition and
jesuitically tries to nullify his chauvinist declarations.
It should
be noted that Kautsky’s “conception” of imperialism—which is
tantamount to embellishing imperialism—is a retrogression not only
compared with Hilferding’s Finance
Capital (no
matter how assiduously Hilferding now defends Kautsky and “unity”
with the social-chauvinists!) but also compared with
the social-liberal J. A.
Hobson. This English economist, who in no way claims to be a Marxist,
defines imperialism, and reveals its contradictions, much more
profoundly in a book published in 1902[4] .
This is what Hobson (in whose book may be found nearly all Kautsky’s
pacifist and “conciliatory” banalities) wrote on the highly
important question of the parasitic nature of imperialism:
Two sets
of circumstances, in Hobson’s opinion, weakened the power of the
old empires: (1) “economic parasitism”, and (2) formation of
armies from dependent peoples. “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.” Concerning
the second circumstance, Hobson writes:
“One of
the strangest symptoms of the blindness of imperialism [this song
about the “blindness” of imperialists comes more appropriately
from the social-liberal Hobson than from the “Marxist” Kautsky]
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.”
The prospect
of partitioning China elicited from Hobson the following economic
appraisal: “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 larger 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 semi-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 a 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 such a
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 a social-liberal!
Nevertheless, as early as 1902 he had an excellent insight into the
meaning and significance of a “United States of Europe” (be it
said for the benefit of Trotsky the Kautskyite!) and of all that is
now being glossed over by the hypocritical
Kautskyites of
various countries, namely, that the opportunists (social-chauvinists)
are working hand in glove with the imperialist
bourgeoisie precisely towards
creating an imperialist Europe on the backs of Asia and Africa, and
that objectively the opportunists are
a section of the petty bourgeoisie and of a certain strata of the
working class who have
been bribed out
of imperialist superprofits and converted to watchdogs of
capitalism and corruptors of
the labour movement.
Both in
articles and in the resolutions of our Party, we have repeatedly
pointed to this most profound connection, the economic connection,
between the imperialist bourgeoisie and the opportunism which has
triumphed (for long?) in the labour movement. And from this,
incidentally, we concluded that a split with the social-chauvinists
was inevitable. Our Kautskyites preferred to evade the question!
Martov, for instance, uttered in his lectures a sophistry which in
the Bulletin
of the Organising Committee, Secretariat Abroad[9] (No. 4,
April 10, 1916) is expressed as follows:
“...The cause
of revolutionary Social-Democracy would be in a sad, indeed hopeless,
plight if those groups of workers who in mental development approach
most closely to the ‘intelligentsia’ and who are the most highly
skilled fatally drifted away from it towards opportunism....”
By means
of the silly word “fatally” and a certain sleight-of-hand,
the fact is evaded that certain groups
of workers have
already drifted away to
opportunism and to the imperialist bourgeoisie! And that is the very
fact the sophists of the O.C. want to evade!
They confine themselves to the “official optimism” the Kautskyite
Hilferding and many others now flaunt: objective conditions guarantee
the unity of the proletariat and the victory of the revolutionary
trend! We, forsooth, are “optimists” with regard to the
proletariat!
But in
reality all these Kautskyites—Hilferding, the O.C. supporters,
Martov and Co.—are optimists...
with regard to opportunism.
That is the whole point!
The proletariat
is the child of capitalism—of world capitalism, and not only of
European capitalism, or of imperialist capitalism. On a world scale,
fifty years sooner or fifty years later—measured on a world scale,
this is a minor point—the “proletariat” of course “will be”
united, and revolutionary Social-Democracy will “inevitably” be
victorious within it. But that is not the point, Messrs. Kautskyites.
The point is that at the present time, in the imperialist countries
of Europe, you
are fawning on
the opportunists, who are alien to
the proletariat as a class, who are the servants, the agents of the
bourgeoisie and the vehicles of its influence, and unless the
labour movement rids itself
of them, it will remain a bourgeois
labour movement.
By advocating “unity” with the opportunists, with the Legiens and
Davids, the Plekhanovs, the Chkhenkelis and Potresovs, etc., you are,
objectively, defending the enslavement of
the workers by the imperialist bourgeoisie with the aid of its best
agents in the labour movement. The victory of revolutionary
Social-Democracy on a world scale is absolutely inevitable, only it
is moving and will move, is proceeding and will proceed,against you,
it will be a victory over you.
These two
trends, one might even say two parties,
in the present-day labour movement, which in 1914–16 so obviously
parted ways all over the world, were traced
by Engels and Marx in England throughout
the course ofdecades,
roughly 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 it has been a peculiar
feature of England that even in the middle of the
nineteenth century she already revealed at least two major
distinguishing features of imperialism: (1) vast colonies, and (2)
monopoly profit (due to her monopoly position in the world market).
In both respects England at that time was an exception among
capitalist countries, and Engels and Marx, analysing this exception,
quite 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 actually 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 alongside the
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 on Marx for saying that “the English labour
leaders had sold themselves”. Marx wrote to Sorge on August 4,
1874: “As to the urban workers here [in England], it is a pity that
the whole pack of leaders did not get into Parliament. This would be
the surest way of getting rid of the whole lot.” In a letter to
Marx, dated August 11, 1881, Engels speaks about “those very
worst English trade unions which allow themselves to be led 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
Liberal-Radicals, 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
best of the lot, is fond of mentioning that he will be lunching with
the Lord Mayor. If one compares this with the French, one
realises, what a revolution is good for, after all.”[10] In
a letter, dated April 19, 1890: “But under the
surface the movement [of the working class in England] is going on,
is embracing ever wider sections and mostly just among the hitherto
stagnant lowest [Engels’s
italics] strata. The day is no longer far off when this
mass will suddenly find
itself,
when it will dawn upon it that it itself is this colossal mass in
motion.” On March 4, 1891: “The failure of the collapsed
Dockers’ Union; the ‘old’ conservative trade unions, rich and
therefore cowardly, remain lone on the 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 of the bourgeois
labour party”
(Engels’s italics throughout)...
That these
ideas, which were repeated by Engels over the course of decades, were
so expressed by him publicly, in the press, is proved by his preface
to the second edition of The
Condition of the Working Class in England,
1892. Here he speaks of an “aristocracy among the working class”,
of a “privileged minority of the workers”, in contradistinction
to the “great mass of working people”. “A small, privileged,
protected minority” of the working class alone was “permanently
benefited” by the privileged position of England in 1848–68,
whereas “the great bulk of them experienced at best but a temporary
improvement”.... “With the break-down of that [England’s
industrial] monopoly, the English working class will lose that
privileged position...” The members of the “new” unions, the
unions of the unskilled workers, “had this immense advantage, that
their minds were virgin soil, entirely free from the inherited
‘respectable’ bourgeois prejudices which hampered the brains of
the better situated ‘old unionists’” .... “The so-called
workers’ representatives” in England are people “who are
forgiven their being members of the working class because they
themselves would like to drown their quality of being workers in the
ocean of their liberalism...”
We have
deliberately quoted the direct statements of Marx and Engels at
rather great length in order that the reader may study them as
a whole.
And they should be studied, they are worth carefully pondering over.
For they are the pivot of
the tactics in the labour movement that are dictated by the objective
conditions of the imperialist era.
Here, too,
Kautsky has tried to “befog the issue” and substitute for Marxism
sentimental conciliation with the opportunists. Arguing against the
avowed and naive social-imperialists (men like Lensch) who justify
Germany’s participation in the war as a means of destroying
England’s monopoly, Kautsky “corrects”
this obvious falsehood by another equally obvious falsehood. Instead
of a cynical falsehood he employs a suave falsehood!
The industrialmonopoly
of England, he says, has long ago been broken, has long ago been
destroyed, and there is nothing left to destroy.
Why is
this argument false?
Because, firstly,
it overlooks England’s colonial monopoly.
Yet Engels, as we have seen, pointed to this very clearly as early as
1882, thirty-four years ago! Although England’s industrial monopoly
may have been destroyed, her colonial monopoly not only remains, but
has become extremely accentuated, for the whole world is already
divided up! By means of this suave lie Kautsky smuggles in the
bourgeois-pacifist and opportunist-philistine idea that “there is
nothing to fight about”. On the contrary, not only have
the capitalists something
to fight about now, but they cannot
help fighting
if they want to preserve capitalism, for without a forcible
redivision of colonies the new imperialist
countries cannot obtain the privileges enjoyed by the older (and
weaker)
imperialist powers.
Secondly, why
does England’s monopoly explain the (temporary) victory of
opportunism in England? Because monopoly yields superprofits,
i.e., a surplus of profits over and above the capitalist profits that
are normal and customary all over the world. The
capitalists can devote
a part (and not a small one, at that!) of these superprofits to
bribe their
own workers,
to create something like an alliance (recall the celebrated
“alliances” described by the Webbs of English trade unions and
employers) between the workers of the given nation and their
capitalists against the
other countries. England’s industrial monopoly was
already destroyed by the end of the nineteenth century. That is
beyond dispute. But how did
this destruction take place? Did all monopoly
disappear?
If that
were so, Kautsky’s “theory” of conciliation (with the
opportunists) would to a certain extent be justified. But it
is not so,
and that is just the point. Imperialism is monopoly
capitalism. Every cartel, trust, syndicate, every giant bank is a
monopoly Superprofits have not disappeared; they still remain. The
exploitation of all other
countries by one privileged, financially wealthy country remains and
has become more intense. A handful of wealthy countries—there are
only four of them, if we mean independent, really gigantic, “modern”
wealth: England, France, the United States and Germany—have
developed monopoly to vast proportions, they obtain superprofits
running into hundreds, if not thousands, of millions, they “ride on
the backs” of hundreds and hundreds of millions of people in other
countries and fight among themselves for the division of the
particularly rich, particularly fat and particularly easy spoils.
This, in
fact, is the economic and political essence of imperialism, the
profound contradictions of which Kautsky glosses over instead of
exposing.
The bourgeoisie
of an imperialist “Great” Power can
economically bribe
the upper strata of “its” workers by spending on this a hundred
million or so francs a year, for its superprofits
most likely amount to about a thousand million. And how this little
sop is divided among the labour ministers, “labour representatives”
(remember Engels’s splendid analysis of the term), labour members
of War Industries Committees,[5] labour
officials, workers belonging to the narrow craft unions, office
employees, etc., etc., is a secondary question.
Between 1848
and 1868, and to a certain extent even later, only England enjoyed a
monopoly: that
is why opportunism
could prevail there for decades. No other
countries possessed either very rich colonies or an industrial
monopoly.
The last
third of the nineteenth century saw the transition to the new,
imperialist era. Finance capital not of
one, but of several, though very few, Great Powers enjoys
a monopoly. (In Japan and Russia the monopoly of military power, vast
territories, or special facilities for robbing minority
nationalities, China, etc., partly supplements, partly takes the
place of, the monopoly of modern, up-to-date finance capital.) This
difference explains why England’s monopoly
position could remain unchallenged for
decades. The monopoly of modern finance capital is being frantically
challenged; the era of imperialist wars has begun. It was possible in
those days to bribe and corrupt the working class of one country
for decades. This is now improbable, if not impossible. But on the
other hand, every imperialist
“Great” Power can and does bribe smaller strata
(than in England in 1848–68) of the “labour aristocracy”.
Formerly a “bourgeois
labour party”,
to use Engels’s remarkably profound expression, could arise only in
one country, because it alone enjoyed a monopoly, but, on the other
hand, it could exist for a long time. Now a “bourgeois
labour party” is
inevitable and
typical in all imperialist
countries; but in view of the desperate struggle they are waging for
the division of spoils it is improbable that such a party can prevail
for long in a number of countries. For the trusts, the financial
oligarchy, high prices, etc., while enabling the
bribery of a handful in the top layers, are increasingly oppressing,
crushing, ruining and torturing the mass of
the proletariat and the semi-proletariat.
On the
one hand, there is the tendency of the bourgeoisie and the
opportunists to convert a handful of very rich and privileged nations
into “eternal” parasites on the body of the rest of mankind, to
“rest on the laurels” of the exploitation of Negroes, Indians,
etc., keeping them in subjection with the aid of the excellent
weapons of extermination provided by modern militarism. On the other
hand, there is the tendency of the masses,
who are more oppressed than before and who bear the whole brunt of
imperialist wars, to cast off this yoke and to overthrow the
bourgeoisie. It is in the struggle between these two tendencies that
the history of the labour movement will now inevitably develop. For
the first tendency is not accidental; it is “substantiated”
economically. In all countries
the bourgeoisie has already begotten, fostered and secured
for itself “bourgeois labour parties” of social-chauvinists. The
difference between a definitely formed party, like Bissolati’s in
Italy, for example, which is fully social-imperialist, and, say, the
semi-formed near-party of the Potresovs, Gvozdyovs, Bulkins,
Chkheidzes, Skobelevs and Co., is an immaterial difference. The
important thing is that, economically, the desertion of a stratum of
the labour aristocracy to the bourgeoisie has matured and become an
accomplished fact; and this economic fact, this shift in class
relations, will find political form, in one shape or another, without
any particular “difficulty”.
On the
economic basis referred to above, the political institutions of
modern capitalism—press, parliament associations, congresses
etc.—have created political privileges
and sops for the respectful, meek, reformist and patriotic office
employees and workers, corresponding to the economic privileges and
sops. Lucrative an soft jobs in the government or on the war
industries committees, in parliament and on diverse committees, on
the editorial staffs of “respectable”, legally published
newspapers or on the management councils of no less respectable and
“bourgeois law-abiding” trade unions—this is the bait by which
the imperialist bourgeoisie attracts and rewards the representatives
and supporters of the “bourgeois labour parties”.
The mechanics
of political democracy works in the same direction. Nothing in our
times can be done without elections; nothing can be done without the
masses. And in this era of printing and parliamentarism it
is impossible to
gain the following of the masses without a widely ramified,
systematically managed, well-equipped system of flattery, lies,
fraud, juggling with fashionable and popular catchwords, and
promising all manner of reforms and blessings to the workers right
and left—as long as they renounce the revolutionary struggle for
the overthrow of bourgeoisie. I would call this system
Lloyd-Georgism, after the English Minister Lloyd George, one of the
foremost and most dexterous representatives of this system in the
classic land of the “bourgeois labour party”. A first-class
bourgeois manipulator, an astute politician, a popular orator who
will deliver any speeches you like even r-r-revolutionary ones, to a
labour audience, and a man who is capable of obtaining
sizable sops for docile workers in the shape of social reforms
(insurance, etc.), Lloyd George serves the bourgeoisie
splendidly,[6] and
serves it precisely among the
workers, brings its influence precisely to
the proletariat, to where the bourgeoisie needs it most and where it
finds it most difficult to subject the masses morally.
And is
there such a great difference between Lloyd George and the
Scheidemanns, Legiens, Hendersons and Hyndmans, Plekhanovs, Renaudels
and Co.? Of the latter, it may be objected, some will return to the
revolutionary socialism of Marx. This is possible, but it is an
insignificant difference in degree, if the question is regarded from
its political, i.e., 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. It
cannot be prohibited from doing this, just as a trading firm cannot
be prohibited from using any particular label, sign or advertisement.
It has always been the case in history that after the death of
revolutionary leaders who were popular among the oppressed classes,
their enemies have attempted to appropriate their names so as to
deceive the oppressed classes.
The fact
that is that “bourgeois labour parties,” as a political
phenomenon, have already been formed in all the
foremost capitalist countries, and that unless determined and
relentless struggle is waged all along the line against these
parties—or groups, trends, etc., it is all the same—there can be
no question of a struggle against imperialism, or of Marxism, or of a
socialist labour movement. The Chkheidze faction,[11] Nashe
Dyelo and Golos
Truda[12] in
Russia, and the O.C. supporters abroad are nothing but
varieties of one such party.
There is not the slightest reason for thinking that these parties
will disappear before the
social revolution. On the contrary, the nearer the revolution
approaches, the more strongly it flares up and the more sudden and
violent the transitions and leaps in its progress, the greater will
be the part the struggle of the revolutionary mass stream against the
opportunist petty-bourgeois stream will play in the labour movement.
Kautskyism is not an independent trend, because it has no roots
either in the masses or in the privileged stratum which has deserted
to the bourgeoisie. But the danger of Kautskyism lies in the fact
that, utilising the ideology of the past, it endeavours to reconcile
the proletariat with the “bourgeois labour party”, to preserve
the unity of the proletariat with that party and thereby enhance the
latter’s prestige. The masses no longer follow the avowed
social-chauvinists: Lloyd George has been hissed down at workers’
meetings in England; Hyndman has left the party; the Renaudels and
Scheidemanns, the Potresovs and Gvozdyovs are protected by the
police. The Kautskyites’ masked defence of the social-chauvinists
is much more dangerous.
One of
the most common sophistries of Kautskyism is its reference to the
“masses”. We do not want, they say, to break away from the masses
and mass organisations! But just think how Engels put the question.
In the nineteenth century the “mass organisations” of the English
trade unions were on the side of the bourgeois labour party. Marx and
Engels did not reconcile themselves to it on this ground; they
exposed it. They did not forget, firstly, that the trade union
organisations directly embraced a minority
of the proletariat.
In England then, as in Germany now, not more than one-fifth of the
proletariat was organised. No one can seriously think it possible to
organise the majority of the proletariat under capitalism.
Secondly—and this is the main point—it is not so much a question
of the size of an organisation, as of the real, objective
significance of its policy: does its policy represent the masses,
does it serve them, i.e., does it aim at their liberation from
capitalism, or does it represent the interests of the minority, the
minority’s reconciliation with capitalism? The latter
was true of England in the nineteenth century, and it is true of
Germany, etc., now.
Engels draws
a distinction between the “bourgeois labour party” of
the old trade
unions—the privileged minority—and the “lowest
mass”,
the real majority, and appeals to the latter, who are not infected by
“bourgeois respectability”. This is the essence of Marxist
tactics!
Neither we
nor anyone else can calculate precisely what portion of the
proletariat is following and will follow the social-chauvinists and
opportunists. This will be revealed only by the struggle, it will be
definitely decided only by the socialist revolution. But we know for
certain that the “defenders of the fatherland” in the imperialist
war represent only
a minority. And it is therefore our duty, if we wish to remain
socialists to go down lower
and deeper,
to the real masses; this is the whole meaning and the whole purport
of the struggle against opportunism. By exposing the fact that the
opportunists and social-chauvinists are in reality betraying and
selling the interests of the masses, that they are defending the
temporary privileges of a minority of the workers, that they are the
vehicles of bourgeois ideas and influences, that they are really
allies and agents of the bourgeoisie, we teach the masses to
appreciate their true political interests, to fight for socialism and
for the revolution through all the long and painful vicissitudes of
imperialist wars and imperialist armistices.
The only
Marxist line in the world labour movement is to explain to the masses
the inevitability and necessity of breaking with opportunism, to
educate them for revolution by waging a relentless struggle against
opportunism, to utilise the experience of the war to expose, not
conceal, the utter vileness of national-liberal labour politics. In the
next article, we shall try to sum up the principal features that
distinguish this line from Kautskyism.
[1] The reference is to the First World War of 1914–18. p.5 —Lenin
[2] “Imperialism is a product of highly developed industrial capitalism. It consists in the striving of every industrial capitalist nation to subjugate and annex ever larger agrarian territories irrespective of the nations that inhabit them” (Kautsky in Die Neue Zeit; September 11, 1914). —Lenin
[3] Organising Committee (O.C.)—the leading centre of the Mensheviks, supporters of the petty-bourgeois, opportunist trend in the Russian Social-Democratic Party. It was formed in 1912; during the world imperialist war it took a social-chauvinist stand, justifying the war led by the tsarist government and preaching nationalistic and chauvinistic ideas. p.7 —Lenin
[4] J. A. Hobson, Imperialism, London, 1902. —Lenin
[5] War Industries Committees were set up in Russia in May 1915 by the big imperialist bourgeoisie for aiding tsarism in conducting the war. In an attempt to bring the workers under its influence and instil defencist sentiments into them, the bourgeoisie decided to form “Workers’ Groups” of the War Industries Committees, thereby showing that a “class truce” between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat was established in Russia. The Bolsheviks advocated a boycott of the War Industries Committees and were successful in securing this boycott with the support of the majority of the workers. p. 4 —Lenin
[6] I recently read an article in an English magazine by a Tory, a political opponent of Lloyd George, entitled “Lloyd George from the Standpoint of a Tory”. The war 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 peace with him! —Lenin
[7] See Karl Marx, Preface to the second edition of The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. p.6
Die Neue Zeit (New Times)—the theoretical journal of the German Social-Democratic Party, published in Stuttgart from 1883 to 1923. Up to October 1917 it was edited by Karl Kautsky, later by Heinrich Cunow. Some of the writings of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels were first published in Die Neue Zeit. Engels gave regular advice to the editors and frequently criticised them for permitting deviations from Marxism in the journal. In the late nineties, after the death of Engels, the journal regularly carried articles by revisionists. During the First World War (1914–18) the journal occupied a Centrist position, in reality supporting the social-chauvinists. p. 7
[8] Sotsial-Demokrat—Central Organ of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party, published as an illegal newspaper from February 1908 to January 1917. p.7.
Kommunist—a journal started by Lenin; published in Geneva in 1915 by the editorial board of the newspaper Sotsial-Demokrat. Only one (double) issue appeared. p.7
[9] Bulletin of the R.S.D.L.P. Organising Committee, Secretariat Abroad—a Menshevik Centrist organ, published in Geneva from February 1915 to March 1917. Altogether ten issues appeared.
[10] [PLACEHOLDER ENDNOTE.]
[11] Chkheidze faction—the Menshevik group in the Fourth Duma led by N. S. Chkheidze. Officially followed a Centrist policy in the First World War, but factually supported the Russian social-chauvinists. In 1916 the group was composed of M. I. Skobelev, I. N. Tulyakov, V. I. Khaustov, N. S. Chkheidze and A. I. Chkhenkeli. Lenin criticises their opportunist policy in several articles, including “The Chkheidze Faction and Its Role”, “Have the Organising Committee and the Chkheidze Group a Policy of Their Own?”
[12] Nashe Dyelo (Our Cause)—a Menshevik monthly, chief mouthpiece of the liquidators and Russian social-chauvinists. Published in Petrograd in \thinspace1915 in place of Nasha Zarya (Our Dawn) which was closed in October 1914. Contributors included Y. Mayevsky, P. P. Maslov, A. N. Potresov and N. Cherevanin. Six issues appeared altogether.
Golos Truda (Voice of Labour)—a legal Menshevik paper published in Samara in 1916, after the closure of Nash Golos (Our Voice). Three issues appeared.
NOTES:
[1] The reference is to the First World War of 1914–18. p.5 —Lenin
[2] “Imperialism is a product of highly developed industrial capitalism. It consists in the striving of every industrial capitalist nation to subjugate and annex ever larger agrarian territories irrespective of the nations that inhabit them” (Kautsky in Die Neue Zeit; September 11, 1914). —Lenin
[3] Organising Committee (O.C.)—the leading centre of the Mensheviks, supporters of the petty-bourgeois, opportunist trend in the Russian Social-Democratic Party. It was formed in 1912; during the world imperialist war it took a social-chauvinist stand, justifying the war led by the tsarist government and preaching nationalistic and chauvinistic ideas. p.7 —Lenin
[4] J. A. Hobson, Imperialism, London, 1902. —Lenin
[5] War Industries Committees were set up in Russia in May 1915 by the big imperialist bourgeoisie for aiding tsarism in conducting the war. In an attempt to bring the workers under its influence and instil defencist sentiments into them, the bourgeoisie decided to form “Workers’ Groups” of the War Industries Committees, thereby showing that a “class truce” between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat was established in Russia. The Bolsheviks advocated a boycott of the War Industries Committees and were successful in securing this boycott with the support of the majority of the workers. p. 4 —Lenin
[6] I recently read an article in an English magazine by a Tory, a political opponent of Lloyd George, entitled “Lloyd George from the Standpoint of a Tory”. The war 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 peace with him! —Lenin
[7] See Karl Marx, Preface to the second edition of The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. p.6
Die Neue Zeit (New Times)—the theoretical journal of the German Social-Democratic Party, published in Stuttgart from 1883 to 1923. Up to October 1917 it was edited by Karl Kautsky, later by Heinrich Cunow. Some of the writings of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels were first published in Die Neue Zeit. Engels gave regular advice to the editors and frequently criticised them for permitting deviations from Marxism in the journal. In the late nineties, after the death of Engels, the journal regularly carried articles by revisionists. During the First World War (1914–18) the journal occupied a Centrist position, in reality supporting the social-chauvinists. p. 7
[8] Sotsial-Demokrat—Central Organ of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party, published as an illegal newspaper from February 1908 to January 1917. p.7.
Kommunist—a journal started by Lenin; published in Geneva in 1915 by the editorial board of the newspaper Sotsial-Demokrat. Only one (double) issue appeared. p.7
[9] Bulletin of the R.S.D.L.P. Organising Committee, Secretariat Abroad—a Menshevik Centrist organ, published in Geneva from February 1915 to March 1917. Altogether ten issues appeared.
[10] [PLACEHOLDER ENDNOTE.]
[11] Chkheidze faction—the Menshevik group in the Fourth Duma led by N. S. Chkheidze. Officially followed a Centrist policy in the First World War, but factually supported the Russian social-chauvinists. In 1916 the group was composed of M. I. Skobelev, I. N. Tulyakov, V. I. Khaustov, N. S. Chkheidze and A. I. Chkhenkeli. Lenin criticises their opportunist policy in several articles, including “The Chkheidze Faction and Its Role”, “Have the Organising Committee and the Chkheidze Group a Policy of Their Own?”
[12] Nashe Dyelo (Our Cause)—a Menshevik monthly, chief mouthpiece of the liquidators and Russian social-chauvinists. Published in Petrograd in \thinspace1915 in place of Nasha Zarya (Our Dawn) which was closed in October 1914. Contributors included Y. Mayevsky, P. P. Maslov, A. N. Potresov and N. Cherevanin. Six issues appeared altogether.
Golos Truda (Voice of Labour)—a legal Menshevik paper published in Samara in 1916, after the closure of Nash Golos (Our Voice). Three issues appeared.
