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

BOURGEOIS PACIFISM AND SOCIALIST PACIFISM191tions of readiness to continue to support the so-called “nationaldefence” of France, i.e., the imperialist war Franceis waging in alliance with bigger and more powerful robberslike England and Russia.In France, unity of the social-chauvinists with pacifists(or Kautskyites) and a section of the Zimmerwaldists hasbecome a fact, not only in the C.G.T., but also in the SocialistParty.A R T I C L E (O R C H A P T E R) IVZIMMERWALD AT THE CROSSROADSThe French newspapers containing the report of theC.G.T. Congress were received in Berne on December 28, andon December 30, Berne and Zurich socialist newspapers publishedanother manifesto by the Berne I.S.K. (InternationaleSozialistische Kommission), the International Socialist Committee,the executive body of Zimmerwald. Dated the end ofDecember 1916, the manifesto refers to the peace proposalsadvanced by Germany and by Wilson and the other neutralcountries, and all these governmental pronouncements aredescribed, and quite rightly described, of course, as a “farcicalgame of peace”, “a game to deceive their own peoples”,“hypocritical pacifist diplomatic gesticulations”.As against this farce and falsehood the manifesto declaresthat the “only force” capable of bringing about peace, etc.,is the “firm determination” of the international proletariatto “turn their weapons, not against their brothers, butagainst the enemy in their own country”.The passages we have quoted clearly reveal the two fundamentallydistinct policies which have lived side by side,as it were, up to now in the Zimmerwald group, but whichhave now finally parted company.On the one hand, Turati quite definitely and correctlystates that the proposals made by Germany, Wilson, etc.,were merely a “paraphrase” of Italian “socialist” pacifism;the declaration of the German social-chauvinists and thevoting of the French have shown that both fully appreciatethe value for their policy of the pacifist screen.On the other hand, the International Socialist Committeemanifesto describes the pacifism of all belligerent andneutral governments as a farce and hypocrisy.