Lenin CW-Vol. 23.pdf - From Marx to Mao

IMPERIALISM AND THE SPLIT IN SOCIALISM117for itself “bourgeois labour parties” of social-chauvinists.The difference between a definitely formed party, likeBissolati’s in Italy, for example, which is fully socialimperialist,and, say, the semi-formed near-party of thePotresovs, Gvozdyovs, Bulkins, Chkheidzes, Skobelevs andCo., is an immaterial difference. The important thing isthat, economically, the desertion of a stratum of the labouraristocracy to the bourgeoisie has matured and become anaccomplished fact; and this economic fact, this shift inclass relations, will find political form, in one shape oranother, without any particular “difficulty”.On the economic basis referred to above, the politicalinstitutions of modern capitalism—press, parliament, associations,congresses, etc.—have created political privilegesand sops for the respectful, meek, reformist and patrioticoffice employees and workers, corresponding to the economicprivileges and sops. Lucrative and soft jobs in the governmentor on the war industries committees, in parliamentand on diverse committees, on the editorial staffs of “respectable”,legally published newspapers or on the managementcouncils of no less respectable and “bourgeoislaw-abiding” trade unions—this is the bait by which theimperialist bourgeoisie attracts and rewards the representativesand supporters of the “bourgeois labour parties”.The mechanics of political democracy works in the samedirection. Nothing in our times can be done without elections;nothing can be done without the masses. And inthis era of printing and parliamentarism it is impossibleto gain the following of the masses without a widely ramified,systematically managed, well-equipped system offlattery, lies, fraud, juggling with fashionable and popularcatchwords, and promising all manner of reforms andblessings to the workers right and left—as long as theyrenounce the revolutionary struggle for the overthrow of thebourgeoisie. I would call this system Lloyd-Georgism,after the English Minister Lloyd George, one of the foremostand most dexterous representatives of this system inthe classic land of the “bourgeois labour party”. A firstclassbourgeois manipulator, an astute politician, apopular orator who will deliver any speeches you like,even r-r-revolutionary ones, to a labour audience, and a