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

224V. I. LENINKlöti and G. Müller; the resolution rejecting “defence ofthe fatherland” is signed by Nobs, Affolter, Schmid, Naineand Graber.Grimm and the social-patriots are playing a disgraceful,unscrupulous game with the socialist workers.The workers are not yet ready, they shout, and yet at thevery same time, these leaders conceal from the workers availableresolutions which definitely place before the workerstwo sets of ideas, two irreconcilable policies, the socialpatriotand the Zimmerwald policies!!Grimm and the social-patriots are brazen deceivers ofthe workers, for it is they who have decided to disrupt thecongress, withhold publication of the resolutions, deny theworkers the opportunity openly to weigh and discuss the twopolicies—and yet they shout that the workers “are not yetready”!Other “official” arguments for postponing the congress:the need to combat the high cost of living, conduct theelection campaign, etc.These arguments are a sheer insult to the workers. Whodoes not know that we Social-Democrats are not against thestruggle for reforms, that, unlike the social-patriots, unlikethe opportunists and reformists, we do not confine ourselvesto the struggle for reforms, but subordinate it to thestruggle for revolution? Who does not know that this is exactlythe policy repeatedly formulated in the Zimmerwald andKienthal manifestos? We are not opposed to elections andreforms aimed at reducing the high cost of living, but ourfirst concern is openly to tell the masses the truth, namely,that it is impossible to eliminate high living costs withoutexpropriating the banks and big industry, i.e., withoutsocial revolution.What does every Zimmerwald manifesto call upon theproletariat to do in retaliation to the war, in connection withthe war?It calls for revolutionary mass struggle, for the workersto turn their weapons against the enemy in their own country(see the last International Socialist Committee manifesto:An die Arbeiterklasse,* end of December 1916), i.e., to turn* To the Working Class.—Ed.