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    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 Chenunitz Congress of the German Social-Democratic Party held in the same year,[118] 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

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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

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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 if Plekhanov 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 Luxem-

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burg'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

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(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.

    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

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the business of a Marxist to fight for illusions, Cunow argues. This Struvist,[119] 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

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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.

    Such are the Marxist views on revolution, views that have been deve]oped many, many times, have been accepted as indisputable by all Marxists, and for us, Russians, were corroborated in a particularly striking fashion by the expe rience of 1905. What, then, did the Basle Manifesto assurme 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 govornment is sure of the morrow,

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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 thesc 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

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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.

    Far from "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)[*] 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

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,[*] 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.)

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.[*]

    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

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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 Notesappeared 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

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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.

    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[121] 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

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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.*

    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

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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

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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 meas-

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ures 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.''[122]

    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

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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 ).

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    In August 1905 a revolutionary situation existed in Russia. The tsar had promised convocation of the Bulygin Duma[123] 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. . . .

    In the present war the national element is represented only by Serbia's war against Austria (which, by the way, was noted in the resolution of our Party's Berne Conference).[*] It is only in Serbia and among the Serbs that we can find a national-liberation movement of long standing, embracing millions, "the masses of the people", a movement of which the present war of Serbia against Austria is a "continuation". If this war were an isolated one, i.e., if it were not connected with the general European war, with the selfish and predatory aims of Britain, Russia, etc., it would have been the duty of all socialists to desire the success of the Serbian bourgeoisie�this is the only correct and absolutely inevitable conclusion to be drawn from the national element in the present war. However it is this conclusion that the sophist Kautsky, who is now in the service of the Austrian bourgeoisie, clericals and militarists, has failed to draw.

    Further, Marxist dialectics, as the last word in the scientific-evolutionary method, excludes any isolated examination of an object, i.e., one that is one-sided and monstrously distorted. The national element in the Serbo-Austrian war is not, and cannot be, of any serious significance in the general European war. If Germany wins, she will throttle Belgium, one more part of Poland, perhaps part of France, etc. If Russia wins, she will throttle Galicia, one more part of

and events which paved the way for their desertion to imperialism, not "overnight", but over decades; whether Vaillant had been held captive by the Jaurèsists, and Plekhanov by the Mensheviks and liquidators; whether the Guesdist trend had been publicly giving up the ghost in that typically lifeless and insipid Guesdist magazine, Le Socialisme,[124] which was incapable of taking an independent stand on any important issue; whether Kautsky himself (we add this for the benefit of those who very properly put him alongside Hyndman and Plekhanov) had been supine in the question of Millerandism, in the early stage of the struggle against Bernsteinism, etc.

    But Kautsky does not display the slightest shadow of interest in any scientific examination of these leaders' biographies. He does not even attempt to see whether these leaders are defending themselves with their own arguments or by repeating the arguments of the opportunists and the bourgeoisie; whether the actions of these leaders have acquired serious political significance because of their own extraordinary influence, or because they have adhered to some other really "influential" trend which is supported by a military organisation, namely, the bourgeois trend. Kautsky has not even set about examining this question; his only concern is to throw dust in the eyes of the masses, dumbfound them with the sound of authoritative names, prevent them from raising a clear issue and examining it from all sides.*

    ". . . an order given by a handful of parliamentarians is sufficient to make four million class-conscious proletalians turn right-about-face. . . ."

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    Every word uttered here is a lie. The German Party organisation had a membership of one million, not four million. As is the case with any organisation, the united will of this mass organisation was expressed only through its united political centre, the "handful", who betrayed socialism. It was this handful who were asked to express their opinion; it was this handful who were called upon to vote, they were in a position to vote; they were in a position to write articles, etc. The masses were not consulted. Not only were they not permitted to vote, but they were disunited and coerced "by orders ", not from a handful of parliamentarians, but from the military authorities. A military organisation existed; there was no treachery among the leaders of this organisation. It called up the "masses" one by one, confronted the individual with the ultimatum: either join the army, as your leaders advise you to, or be shot. The masses could not act in an organised fashion because their previously created organisation, an organisation embodied in a "handful" of Legiens, Kautskys and Scheidemanns, had betrayed them. It takes time to create a new organisation, as well as a determination to consign the old, rotten, and obsolete organisation to the scrap heap.

    Kautsky tries to defeat his opponents, the Lefts, by ascribing to them the nonsensical idea that the "masses", "in retaliation" to war, should make a revolution "within twenty four hours", and institute "socialism" as opposed to imperialism, or otherwise the "masses" would be revealing "spinelessness and treachery". But this is sheer nonsense, which the compilers of illiterate bourgeois and police booklets have hitherto used to "defeat" the revolutionaries, and Kautsky now flaunts in our faces. Kautsky's Left opponents know perfectly well that a revolution cannot be "made", that revolutions develop from objectively (i.e., independently of the will of parties and classes) mature crises and turns in history, that without organisation the masses lack unity of will, and that the struggle against a centralised state's powerful terrorist military organisation is a difficult and lengthy business. Owing to the treachery of their leaders, the masses could not do anything at the crucial moment, whereas this "handful" of leaders were in an excellent position and in duty bound to vote against the war credits, take a stand against

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a "class truce" and justification of the war, express themselves in favour of the defeat of their own governments, set up an international apparatus for the purpose of carrying on propaganda in favour of fraternisation in the trenches, organise the publication of illegal literature[*] on the necessity of starting revolutionary activities, etc.

    Kautsky knows perfectly well that it is precisely such or rather similar actions that the German "Lefts" have in mind and that under a military censorship they cannot talk about these things directly, openly. Kautsky's desire to defend the opportunists at all costs has led him into unparalleled anfamy: taking cover behind the military censors, he ittributes patent absurdities to the Lefts, in the confidence that the censors will protect him from exposure.

    This question should not, of course, be considered from the standpoint of the biographies of the individual leaders. Their future biographers will have to analyse the problem from this angle as well, but what interests the socialist movement today is not that, but a study of the historical

Let us take ten European countries: Germany, Britain, Russia, Italy, Holland, Sweden, Bulgaria, Switzerland, France and Belgium. In the first eight countries, the new division of socialists (according to internationalism) corresponds to the old division (according to opportunism): in Germany the magazine Sozialistische Monatshefte, which was a stronghold of opportunism, has become a stronghold of chauvinism. The ideas of internationalism have the support of the extreme Lefts. In Britain about three-sevenths of the British Socialist Party are internationalists (66 votes for an internationalist resolution and 84 against it, as shown by the latest counts), while in the opportunist bloc (the Labour Party plus the Fabians, plus the Independent Labour Party) less than one-seventh are internationalists.[*] In Russia, the liquidationist Nasha Zarya, the mainstay of the opportunists, has become the mainstay of chauvinism. Plekhanov and Alexinsky are making more noise, but we know from five years' experience (1910-14) that they are incapable of conducting systematic propaganda among the masses in Russia. The nucleus of the internationalists in Russia is made up of ''Pravdism''[125] and the Russian Social-Democratic Labour group in the Duma as representing the advanced workers who restored the Party in January 1912.

    In Italy, the party of Bissolati and Co., which was purely opportunist, has turned chauvinist. Internationalism is represented by the workers' party. The masses of the workers are for this party; the opportunists, the parliamentarians and the petty bourgeoisie are for chauvinism. In the course of several months a free choice could be made and indeed was made in Italy, not fortuitously but in conformity with the difference in the class stand of rank-and-file proletarians and the petty-bourgeois groups.

    In Holland, Troelstra's opportunist party is reconciled to chauvinism in general (one must not be deceived by the

fact that in Holland the petty bourgeoisie, like the big bourgeoisie, have a particular hatred of Germany, because the latter can "swallow" them up easiest of all). It is the Marxist party, led by Gorter and Pannekoek, that has produced consistent, sincere, ardent and convinced internationalists. In Sweden, Branting, the opportunist leader, is indignant at the German socialists being accused of treachery, while Höglund, leader of the Lefts, has declared that this is precisely the opinion of some of his adherents (see Sotsial-Demokrat No. 36). In Bulgaria, the "Tesnyaki", who are opposed to opportunism, have, in their press (the paper Novo Vreme[126]), accused the German Social-Democrats of having "perpetrated a foul act". In Switzerland, the adherents of the opportunist Greulich are inclined to justify the German Social-Democrats (see their organ, the Zurich Volksrecht, whereas those who support the much more radical R. Grimm have turned the Berne paper, Berner Tagwacht, into an organ of the German Lefts. Only two countries out of the ten -- France and Belgium -- are exceptions, but even here, strictly speaking, we see, not an absence of internationalists, but their excessive weakness and dejection (due in part to causes that can be readily understood); let us not forget that Vaillant himself has admitted, in l'Humanité, that he has received from his readers letters of an internationalist character, letters which, however, he has not published in full, not a single one of them!

    By and large, if we take the trends and tendencies, we must admit that it was the opportunist wing of European socialism that betrayed socialism and deserted to chauvinism. What is the source of its strength and its seeming omnipotence within the official parties? Now that he himself is involved, Kautsky, who is well versed in raising questions of history, especially with reference to ancient Rome or similar matters that do not have a direct bearing on problems of our times, hypocritically pretends a lack of understanding. But the whole thing is crystal-clear. The immense strength of the opportunists and the chauvinists stems from their alliance with the bourgeoisie, with the governments and the General Staffs. This is often overlooked in Russia, where it is assumed the opportunists are a section of the socialist parties, that there always have been and will be two

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extreme wings within those parties, that "extremes" should be avoided, etc., etc. -- and plenty of similar philistine copybook maxims.

    In reality, the opportunists' formal membership in workers' parties by no means disproves their objectively being a political detachment of the bourgeoisie, conductors of its influence, and its agents in the labour movement. When the opportunist Südekum, whose claim to fame is like that of Herostratus, convincingly demonstrated this social and class truth, many good people gasped with amazement. The French socialists and Plekhanov pointed the finger of scorn at Südekum -- although had Vandervelde, Semhat or Plekhanov looked into a mirror they would have seen nothing but a Südekum, with slightly different national features. The members of the German Executive (Vorstand ), who now praise Kautsky and are praised by Kautsky, have made haste to declare -- cautiously, modestly and politely (without naming Südekum) -- that they "do not agree" with Südekum's line.

    This is ridiculous, because, at the crucial moment, Südekum alone, actually proved stronger in the policies of the German Social-Democratic Party than a hundred Haases and Kautskys (just as Nasha Zarya alone is stronger than all the Brussels bloc trends, which are afraid to break away from that paper).

    Why is that so? It is because behind Südekum are the bourgeoisie, the government, and the General Staff of a Great Power. These support Südekum's policy in a thousand ways, whereas his opponents' policy is frustrated by every means, including prison and the firing squad. Südekum's voice reaches the public in millions of copies of bourgeois newspapers (as do the voices of Vandervelde, Sembat, and Plekhanov), whereas the voices of his opponents cannot be heard in the legal press because of the military censorship!

    It is generally agreed that opportunism is no chance occurrence, sin, slip, or treachery on the part of individuals, but a social product of an entire period of history. The significance of this truth is not always given sufficient thought. Opportunism has been nurtured by legalism. The workers' parties of the period between 1889 and 1914 had to take advantage of bourgeois legality. When the crisis

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came, they should have adopted illegal methods of work (but this could not be done otherwise than with the greatest vigour and determination, combined with a number of stratagems). A single Südekum was sufficient to prevent the adoption of illegal methods, because, speaking in a historico-philosophical sense, he had the whole of the "old world" behind him, and because he, Südekum, has always betrayed, and will always betray, to the bourgeoisie all the military plans of its class enemy, speaking in the sense of practical politics.

    It is a fact that the entire German Social-Democratic Party (and the same holds for the French and other parties) does only that which pleases Südekum or can be tolerated by Südekum. Nothing else can be done legally. Anything honest and really socialist that takes place in the German Social-Democratic Party, is done in opposition to its centres, by circumventing its Executive and Central Organ, by violating organisational discipline, in a factional manner, on behalf of new and anonymous centres of a new party, as was the case, for instance, with the German Lefts' manifesto published in Berner Tagwacht on May 31 of this year.[127] As a matter of fact, a new party is growing up, gaining strength and being organised, a real workers' party, a genuinely revolutionary Social-Democratic Party, unlike the old and corrupt national-liberal party of Legien, Südekum, Kautsky, Haase, Scheidemann and Co.*

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    It was, therefore, a profound historical truth that the opportunist "Monitor" blurted out in the conservative Preussische Jahrbücher[128] when he said it would be bad for the opportunists (i.e., the bourgeoisie ) if present-day Social-Democracy were to swing to the right -- because in that case the workers would desert it. The opportunists (and the bourgeoisie) need the party as it is today, a party combining the Right and the Left wings and officially represented by Kautsky, who will be able to reconcile everything in the world by means of smooth, "thoroughly Marxist" phrases. In word, socialism and the revolutionary spirit for the people, the masses, the workers; indeed, Südekumism, adhering to the bourgeoisie in any grave crisis. We say: any crisis, because in any serious political strike, and not only in time of war, "feudalist" Germany like "free and parliamentary" Britain or France will immediately introduce martial law under one name or another. No one of sound mind and judgement can have any doubt about this.

    Hence logically follows the reply to the question raised above, viz., how is social-chauvinism to be combated? Social-chauvinism is an opportunism which has matured to such a degree, grown so strong and brazen during the long period of comparatively "peaceful" capitalism, so definite in its political ideology, and so closely associated with the bourgeoisie and the governments, that the existence of such a trend within the Social-Democratic workers' parties cannot be tolerated. Flimsy, thin-soled shoes may be good enough to walk in on the well-paved streets of a small provincial town, but heavy hob-nailed boots are needed for walking in the hills. In Europe socialism has emerged from a comparatively peaceful stage that is confined within narrow and national limits. With the outbreak of the war of 1914-15, it entered the stage of revolutionary action; there can be no doubt that the time has come for a complete break with opportunism, for its expulsion from the workers' parties.

    This definition of the tasks the new era of international development confronts socialism with does not, of course, immediately show how rapidly and in what definite forms the process of separation of the workers' revolutionary Social-Democratic parties from the petty-bourgeois opportunist parties will proceed in the various countries. It does,

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however, reveal the need clearly to realise that such a separation is inevitable, and that the entire policy of the workers' parties must be directed from this standpoint. The war of 1914-15 is such a great turn in history that the attitude towards opportunism cannot remain the same as it has been. What has happened cannot be erased. It is impossible to obliterate from the minds of the workers, or from the experience of the bourgeoisie, or from the political lessons of our epoch in general, the fact that, at a moment of crisis, the opportunists proved to be the nucleus of those elements within the workers' parties that deserted to the bourgeoisie. Opportunism -- to speak on a European scale -- was in its adolescent stage, as it were, before the war. With the outbreak of the war it grew to manhood and its "innocence" and youth cannot be restored. An entire social stratum, consisting of parliamentarians, journalists, labour officials, privileged office personnel, and certain strata of the proletariat, has sprung up and has become amalgamated with its own national bourgeoisie, which has proved fully capable of appreciating and "adapting" it. The course of history cannot be turned back or checked -- we can and must go fearlessly onward, from the preparatory legal working-class organisations, which are in the grip of opportunism, to revolutionary organisations that know how not to confine themselves to legality and are capable of safeguarding themselves against opportunist treachery, organisations of a proletariat that is beginning a "struggle for power", a struggle for the overthrow of the bourgeoisie.

    This, incidentally, proves how wrong are the views of those who befog both their own minds and those of the workers with the question as to what should he done with such outstanding authorities of the Second International as Guesde, Plekhanov, Kautsky, etc. In fact, no such question arises. If these persons fail to understand the new tasks, they will have to stand aside or remain as they are at present, in captivity to the opportunists. If these persons free themselves from "captivity" they are hardly likely to encounter political obstacles to their return to the camp of the revolutionaries. At all events, it is absurd to substitute the question of the role of individuals for the question of the struggle between trends and of the new period in the working-class movement.

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tarians. A sudden change in the mood of the masses is not only possible, but is becoming more and more probahle, a change similar to that which was to be seen in Russia early in 1905 in connection with the "Gaponade",[129] when, in the course of several months and sometimes of several weeks, there emerged from the backward proletarian masses an army of millions, which followed the proletariat's revolutionary vanguard. We cannot tell whether a powerful revolutionary movement will develop immediately after this war, or during it, etc., but at all events, it is only work in this direction that deserves the name of socialist work. The slogan of a civil war is the one that summarises and directs this work, and helps unite and consolidate those who wish to aid the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat against its own government and its own bourgeoisie.

    In Russia, the complete severance of the revolutionary Social-Democratic proletarian elements from the petty-bourgeois opportunist elements has been prepared by the entire history of the working-class movement. Those who disregard that history, and, by declaiming against "factionalism", make themselves incapable of understanding the real process of the formation of a proletarian party in Russia, which has developed in the course of many years of struggle against various varieties of opportunism, are rendering that movement the worst possible service. Of all the "Great" Powers engaged in the present war, Russia is the only one that recently experienced a revolution. The bourgeois content of that revolution, in which the proletariat nevertheless played a decisive part, could not but cause a split between the bourgeois and proletarian trends in the working-class movement. In the approximately twenty years (1894-1914) that Russian Social-Democracy has existed as an organisation linked with the mass working-class movement (and not only as an ideological trend, as in 1883-94), there was a struggle between the proletarian-revolutionary trends and the petty-bourgeois, opportunist trends. The Economism[130] of 1894 1902 was undoubtedly a trend of the latter kind. A number of its arguments and ideological features -- the "Struvist distortion of Marxism, references to the "masses' in order to justify opportunism, and the like -- bear a striking resemblance to the present vulgarised Marxism of Kautsky,

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Cunow, Plekhanov, etc. It would be a very grateful task to remind the present generation of Social-Democrats of the old Rabochaya Mysl[131] and Rabocheye Dyelo, as[132] a parallel to the Kautsky of today.

    The "Menshevism" of the next period (1903-08) was the direct successor, both ideological and organisational, to Economism. During the Russian revolution, it pursued tactics that objectively meant the dependence of the proletariat upon the liberal bourgeoisie, and expressed petty-bourgeois, opportunist trends. When, in the ensuing period (1908-14), the mainstream of the Menshevik trend produced liquidationism, the class significance of that trend became so apparent that the best representatives of Menshevism were continually protesting against the policy of Nasha Zarya group. It is that very group -- the on]y one which, during the past five or six years, has conducted systematic work among the masses in opposition to the revolutionary Marxist party of the working class -- that has proved to be social-chauvinist in the war of 1914-15! And this in a country where absolutism still exists, the bourgeois revolution is far from consummated, and forty-three per cent of the population oppresses a majority consisting of non-Russian nations. The "European" type of development, in which certain strata of the petty bourgeoisie, especially the intelligentsia and an insignificant section of the labour aristocracy can share in the "Great-Power" privileges of their "own" nation, could not but have its Russian counterpart.

    All their history has prepared the working class and the workers' Social-Democratic Party of Russia for "internationalist" tactics, i.e., such that are truly revolutionary and consistently revolutionary.

    P.S. This article had already been set when a manifesto appeared in the press, jointly issued by Kautsky, Haase and Bernstein, who, seeing that the masses are swinging to the left, are therefore now prepared to "make peace" with the Left wing -- naturally, at the price of maintaining "peace" with the Südekums. Verily, Mädchen für alle !

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  [118] The Chemnitz Congress of the German Social-Democratic Party, held on September 15-21, 1912, passed a resotution "On Imperialism", which said that the imperialist states were pursuing a policy of shameless plunder and annexations" and called upon the party "to fight imperialism with greater energy".
    During World War I leaders of the Second International treacherously violated the decisions of the international socialist congresses, in particular, those adopted in Chemnitz.    [p.208]

  ^[119] On Struvism, see this volume, pp. 221-23.    [p.213]

  ^[120] Zhizn (Life ) -- a newspaper of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, published between March 1915 and January 1916, first in Paris and later in Geneva taking the place of newspaper Mysl which was closed down in 1915.    [p.221]

  ^[121] The man in a muffler -- a character in Chekhov's story of the same name, typifying a narrow-minded philistine who is afraid of innovations and any initiative.    [p.227]

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  ^[122] The quotation is from Goethe.    [p.231]

  ^[123] The Bulygin Duma -- a consultative Duma, the laws for the elections and convocation of which were drafted by a commission headed by A. G. Bulygin, Minister of the Interior, and published on August 6 (19),1905. The Bolsheviks boycotted the Bulygin Duma, and the government failed to convene it. The Duma was swept away by the October general political strike.    [p.233]

  ^[124] Le Socialisme -- a journal edited and published in Paris between 1907 and June 1914 by the French socialist Jules Guesde.    [p.239]

  ^[125] Pravdism, i.e., Bolshevism (from the name of the Bolshevik newspaper Pravda ).    [p.245]

  ^[126] Novo Vreme (New Times ) -- a scientific and theoretical journal of the revolutionary wing of the Bulgarian Social-Democratic Party (Tesnyaki), founded by Dimitr Blagoyev in 1897 in Plovdiv and later published in Sofia. In 1903 the journal became the organ of the Bulgarian Workers' Social-Democratic Party (Tesnyaki ). Its publication ceased in February 1916 but was resumed in 1919. The editor was Dimitr Blagoyev, its contributors including Georgiyev, Kirkov, Kabakchiev, Kolarov and Petrov. In 1923 the journal was suppressed by the Bulgarian reactionary government. Since 1947 Novo Vreme -- the monthly theoretical organ of the Central Committee of the Bulgarian Communist Party.    [p.246]

  ^[127] This refers to the manifesto "The Chief Enemy Is in Our Own Country", written by Karl Liebknecht.    [p.248]

  ^[128] Preussische Jahrbücher -- a monthly of a conservative trend, organ of the German capitalists and landownors, published in Berlin from 1858 to 1935.    [p.249]

  ^[129] Gaponade -- derived from the name of Gapon, a priest of the Orthodox Church. On the eve of the first Russian revolution he founded the Assembly of Russian Factory Workers, with the aim of distracting the workers from the revolutionary struggle. In so doing he acted on instructions from the tsarist secret police. On January 9, 1905, Gapon, taking advantage of the growing unrest, provoked the workers into demonstrating before the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg for the purpose of presenting a petition to the tsar. By order of Nicholas II, troops fired at the unarmed demonstrators. This act destroyed the naïve faith of workers throughout the country in the tsar, and served as the starting-point of the first Russian revolution. The political consciousness of the proletariat was aroused and a wave of protest strikes swept Russia.    [p.258]

  ^[130] On Economism, see this volume, pp. 331-32.    [p.258]

  ^[131] Rabochaya Mysl (Workers' Thought ) -- an Economists' paper, published from 1897 to 1902. In his Iskra articles and his book

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What Is To Be Done? Lenin criticised Rabochaya Mysl views as a Russian variety of international opportunism.    [p.259]

  ^[132] Rabocheye Dyelo (The Workers' Cause ) -- a journal of the Economists, organ of the Union of Russian Social-Democrats Abroad. It was published at irregular intervals in Geneva from 1899 to 1902 Lenin criticised the views voiced by the Rabocheye Dyelo group, in a number of articles published in Iskra and in his book What Is To Be Done?    [p.259]