Collected Works of V. I. Lenin - Vol. 26 - From Marx to Mao

154V. I. LENINThirdly, the old programme showed why the labour movement“has long since become” international. It had unquestionablybecome international before the export ofcapital, which is the highest stage of capitalism.To sum up: Comrade Sokolnikov inserted a bit of thedefinition of imperialism (the export of capital) in a placewhere it is obviously incongruous.Moreover, the words “the civilised world” do not appealto Comrade Sokolnikov, for, in his opinion, they refer tosomething peaceful and harmonious, and leave the coloniesout.Quite the contrary. Speaking of the “civilised world”,the programme points out the disharmony, the existenceof uncivilised countries (this is a fact), while in ComradeSokolnikov’s draft things appear much more harmonious,for it speaks simply of “drawing all peoples into one worldeconomy”! As if all peoples were equally drawn into thisone world economy! As if there existed no relationship ofbondage between the uncivilised and the “civilised” peoplesprecisely on the basis of “all peoples” being drawn “into oneworld economy”.Comrade Sokolnikov has really weakened the old programmeon the two points he mentions. He has put less emphasison internationalism. It is very important for us to pointout that it emerged long ago, long before the era of financecapital. His wording gives the impression of a greater “harmony”in respect of the colonies. It is nevertheless unfortunatelytrue that so far the labour movement has affected onlythe civilised countries, and to ignore this fact is notproper.I would be ready to agree with Comrade Sokolnikov hadhe demanded a clearer exposition of the exploitation of thecolonies. That is a really important component of theconcept “imperialism”. But in the first section of ComradeSokolnikov’s draft, there is no mention of it. He scatters thevarious component parts of the concept “imperialism” overseveral places to the detriment of consistency andclarity.We shall soon see how Comrade Sokolnikov’s entire draftsuffers from this looseness and inconsistency.