Imperialism and the Split in Socialism

#PUBLICATION NOTE

This edition of Imperialism and the Split in Socialism has been prepared and revised for digital publication by the Institute of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism under the Central Committee of the Communist Party in Switzerland on the basis of the edition published in the Collected Works of Lenin, Fourth English Edition, Vol. 23, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1964.

#INTRODUCTION NOTE

This is an article written by Comrade Nikolaj Lenin in October 1916. It was first published in the Sbornik Sotsial-Demokrata, No. 2 (December 1916).

#Workers and oppressed people of the world, unite!

#IMPERIALISM AND THE SPLIT IN SOCIALISM

#Nikolaj Lenin

#October 1916

#★

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, 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 three-fold — imperialism is:

• Firstly, monopoly capitalism.
• Secondly, parasitic, or decaying, capitalism.
• Thirdly, 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:

• Firstly, cartels, syndicates, and trusts — the concentration of production has reached a degree which gives rise to these monopolistic associations of capitalists.
• Secondly, the monopolist position of the big banks — three, four, or five giant banks manipulate the whole economic life of the United States, France, Germany.
• Thirdly, seizure of the sources of raw material by the trusts and the financial oligarchy (finance capital is monopoly industrial capital merged with bank capital).
• Fourthly, the (economic) partition of the world by the international cartels has begun. There are already over 100 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.
• Fifthly, the territorial partition of the world (colonies) is completed.

Imperialism, as the highest stage of capitalism in North 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, the United States, France, and Germany — capital in securities amounts to CHF 100 or 150 billion, from which each country derives an annual income of no less than 5'000'000'000 to 8'000'000'000. 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 «developed» world into a parasite on the body of hundreds of millions in the backward 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's.¹ 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 backward 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 tremendous socialization 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 Karl 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», «ultra-imperialism», 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 the Sotsial-Demokrat [Social-Democrat] and the Kommunist [Communist].³ Our Russian Kautskyites, the supporters of the Organizing Committee, headed by Akselrod and Spectator, including even Martov, and, to a large degree, Trotskij, preferred to maintain a discreet silence on the question of Kautskyism as a trend. They did not dare defend Kautsky's wartime writings, confining themselves simply to praising Kautsky (Akselrod in his German pamphlet, which the Organizing 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:

• Firstly, «economic parasitism».
• Secondly, 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.⁴

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.⁴

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 civilization, 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 toward such a consummation.⁴

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 Trotskij 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 toward creating an imperialist Europe on the backs of Asia and Africa, and that objectively the opportunists are a section of the small bourgeoisie and of certain strata of the working class who have been bribed out of imperialist superprofits and converted into watchdogs of capitalism and corrupters 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 Secretariat Abroad of the Organizing Committee⁵ (No. 4, 10th of April, 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 «intellectuals» and who are the most highly skilled fatally drifted away from it toward 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 Organizing Committee 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, indeed, are «optimists» with regard to the proletariat!

But in reality all these Kautskyites — Hilferding, the Organizing Committee supporters, Martov and Company — 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, 50 years sooner or 50 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, my Kautskyite friends. 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 Plehanovs, the Chenkelis and Potresovs, and so on, 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 political 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 of decades, roughly from 1858 to '92.

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 19th century, it already revealed at least two major distinguishing features of imperialism:

• Firstly, vast colonies.
• Secondly, monopoly profit (due to its 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 the 7th of October, 1858, Engels wrote: «[...] the English proletariat is actually becoming more and more bourgeois, so that the ultimate aim of this most bourgeois of all nations would appear to be the possession, alongside the bourgeoisie, of a bourgeois aristocracy and a bourgeois proletariat. In the case of a nation which exploits the entire world, this is, of course, justified to some extent.» In a letter to Sorge, dated the 21st of September, 1872, Engels informs him that Hales raised hell in the Federal Council of the International and proposed a motion of censure on Marx for saying that «the English workers' leaders had been sold down the river». Marx wrote to Sorge on the 4th of August, 1874: «As for the urban workers, it is regrettable that the whole gang of leaders did not get into Parliament. That is the surest way of getting rid of the rascals.» In a letter to Marx, dated the 11th of August, 1881, Engels speaks about «those very worst English» trade unions «which allow themselves to be led by people sold to, or at least paid by, the bourgeoisie». In a letter to Kautsky, dated the 12th of September, 1882, Engels wrote: «You ask me what the English workers think of colonial policy. Well, exactly what they think of any policy — the same as what the bourgeois think. There is, after all, no labour party here, only Conservatives and Liberal Radicals, and the workers cheerfully go snacks in England's monopoly of the world market and colonies.» On the 7th of December, 1889, Engels wrote to Sorge: «What is most repellent here is the workers' deeply ingrained sense of bourgeois ‹respectability›. [...] And even Tom Mann, who to my mind is the best of the lot, likes to say that he's going to lunch with the Lord Mayor. You only have to compare them with the French to see what the benefits of a revolution are.» In a letter to Sorge, dated the 19th of April, 1890: «But beneath the surface, the movement [of the working class in England] continues, spreading to ever wider strata, for the most part precisely those at the very basis of the until now inert masses, nor is the day far off when those masses will suddenly discover their identity, when it will dawn on them that it is they who are these vast dynamic masses [...].» To Sorge, on the 4th of March, 1891: «The disruption of the gas-workers and dockers, however, would bring with it the complete disruption of the new trade unions, which were introduced over here two years ago, and the old, Conservative trade unions, the ones that are rich and for that reason cowardly, would then have the field to themselves.» And to Sorge, on the 14th of September, 1891: at the Newcastle Trade Union Congress, the old trade unions, opponents of the eight-hour workday, were defeated «and the bourgeois papers fully recognize the defeat of the bourgeois labour party».

That these ideas, which were repeated by Engels over the course of decades, were also expressed by him publicly, in the press, is proved by his Preface to the 1893 English 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 masses of ‹unskilled› workers». 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 a temporary improvement of their condition». «With the breakdown of [England's industrial] monopoly, the English working class will lose that privileged position [...].» The members of the «new» trade 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 (people 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 industrial monopoly 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, 34 years ago! Although England's industrial monopoly may have been destroyed, its 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, that is, 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 19th 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 of millions, if not billions, 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 CHF 1'000'000'000. 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, labour officials, workers belonging to the narrow craft unions, office employees, and so on, and so forth, is a secondary question.

Between 1848 and '68, 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 1/3 of the 19th 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, and so on, 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 political party can prevail for long in a number of countries. For the trusts, the financial oligarchy, high prices, and so on, while enabling the bribery of a handful in the top strata, are increasingly oppressing, crushing, ruining, and torturing the masses 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 humanity, to «rest on the laurels» of the exploitation of Africans, Indians, and so on, 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 political party, like Bissolatiites in Italy, for example, which is fully social-imperialist, and, say, the semi-formed near-party of the Potresovs, Gvozdevs, Bulkins, Cheidzes, Skobelevs, and Company, 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, and so on — 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 and 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 the bourgeoisie. I would call this system Lloyd-Georgeism, 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 person who is capable of obtaining sizable sops for docile workers in the shape of social reforms (insurance, and so on), 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, Plehanovs, Renaudels, and Company? 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, that is, 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 is that «bourgeois labour parties», as a political phenomenon, have already been formed in all the foremost capitalist countries, and that, unless a determined and relentless struggle is waged all along the line against these political parties — or groups, trends, and so on, 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 Cheidze faction,⁷ Nase Delo [Our Cause] and Golos Truda⁸ [Voice of Labour] in Russia, and the Organizing Committee supporters abroad, are nothing but varieties of one such political party. There is not the slightest reason for thinking that these political 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 small-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, utilizing 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 political 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 Gvozdevs 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 organizations! But just think how Engels put the question. In the 19th century, the «mass organizations» 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 organizations directly embraced a minority of the proletariat. In England then, as in Germany now, not more than 1/5 of the proletariat was organized. No one can seriously think it possible to organize 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 organization, as of the real, objective significance of its policy: does its policy represent the masses, does it serve them, that is, 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 19th century, and it is true of Germany, and so on, now.

Engels draws a distinction between the «bourgeois labour party» of the old trade unions — the privileged minority — and the lowest masses, 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 homeland» 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 utilize the experiences 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.

#N. Lenin