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

180V. I. LENINBoth imperialist coalitions have grabbed a certain amountof loot, and the two principal and most powerful of the robbers,Germany and England, have grabbed most. Englandhas not lost an inch of her territory or of her colonies; butshe has “acquired” the German colonies and part of Turkey(Mesopotamia). Germany has lost nearly all her colonies,but has acquired immeasurably more valuable territory inEurope, having seized Belgium, Serbia, Rumania, part ofFrance, part of Russia, etc. The fight now is over the divisionof the loot, and the “chieftain” of each of the robbergangs, i.e., England and Germany, must to some degreereward his allies, who, with the exception of Bulgaria andto a lesser extent Italy, have lost a great deal. The weakestof the allies have lost most: in the English coalition, Belgium,Serbia, Montenegro and Rumania have been crushed;in the German coalition, Turkey has lost Armenia and partof Mesopotamia.So far Germany has secured undoubtedly far more lootthan England. So far Germany has won; she has proved tobe far stronger than anyone anticipated before the war.Naturally, therefore, it would be to Germany’s advantage toconclude peace as speedily as possible, for her rival mightstill be able, given the most favourable opportunity conceivable(although not very probably), to mobilise a largerreserve of recruits, etc.Such is the objective situation. Such is the present positionin the struggle for the division of the imperialist loot.It is quite natural that this situation should give rise topacifist strivings, declarations and pronouncements, mainlyon the part of the bourgeoisie and governments of the Germancoalition and of the neutral countries. It is equallynatural that the bourgeoisie and its governments are compelledto exert every effort to hoodwink the people, to cover upthe hideous nakedness of an imperialist peace—the divisionof the loot—by phrases, utterly false phrases about a democraticpeace, the liberty of small nations, armaments reduction,etc.But while it is natural for the bourgeoisie to try tohoodwink the people, how are the socialists fulfillingtheir duty? This we shall deal with in the next article (orchapter).