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

122V. I. LENINthat in reality there are two parties in Germany, one helpingthe bourgeoisie and the government wage the predatorywar, the other, which for the most part is workingillegally, spreading really socialist manifestos among thereal masses and organising mass demonstrations andpolitical strikes.In France, the Committee for the Re-establishmentof International Contacts 61 recently published a pamphlet,The Zimmerwald Socialists and the War, in which weread that three main trends have developed within theFrench party. The first, comprising the majority andbranded in the pamphlet as socialist-nationalists, socialpatriots,has entered into a “holy alliance” with our classenemies. The second, according to the pamphlet, representsa minority and consists of followers of Members of ParliamentLonguet and Pressemane, who on key issues go handin hand with the majority and unconsciously bring gristto the mill of the majority by attracting the discontentedelements, lulling their socialist conscience and inducingthem to follow the party’s official policy. The third trend,the pamphlet says, are the Zimmerwaldists. They maintainthat France was involved in the war not because Germanydeclared war on her, but because she pursued an imperialistpolicy which, through treaties and loans, boundher to Russia. This third trend unambiguously proclaimsthat “defence of the fatherland is not a socialistcause”.Practically the same three trends have arisen in Russia,as well as in England and in the neutral United States ofAmerica—in fact, all over the world. The struggle ofthese trends will determine the course of the labour movementin the immediate future.Permit me to say a few words on another point whichis being very much discussed these days and on which weRussian Social-Democrats are particularly rich inexperience, namely, the question of terrorism.We have no information yet about the Austrian revolutionarySocial-Democrats. We know that there are revolutionarySocial-Democrats in Austria, but information aboutthem is very meagre anyway. Consequently, we do not knowwhether the assassination of Stürgkh by Comrade Fritz