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

258V. I. LENIN10. The “pledge” of National Council members to defendthe country’s independence is “incompatible”, in Greulich’sview, with refusal to defend the country.Very well! But what revolutionary activity is “compatible”with “pledges” to uphold the laws of capitalist states??The Grütlians, i.e., servants of the bourgeoisie, recogniseonly legal methods as a matter of principle. So far, not asingle Social-Democrat has rejected revolution, or acceptedonly such revolutions as were “compatible” with “pledges”to uphold bourgeois laws.11. Greulich denies that Switzerland is a “bourgeoisclass state” “in the absolute meaning of the term”. Hedefines socialism (at the end of his fourth article) in a waythat wholly precludes both social revolution and all revolutionaryaction. Social revolution is “utopian”—that is theshort meaning of all Greulich’s long speeches and articles.Very well! But that is the most blatant Grütlianism, notsocialism. It is bourgeois reformism, not socialism.Why does not Comrade Greulich openly propose that thewords about “proletarian revolution” be deleted from the1912 Basle Manifesto? Or the words about “revolutionarymass action” from the 1915 Aarau resolution? Or that allthe Zimmerwald and Kienthal resolutions be burned?12. Comrade Greulich has both feet planted on nationalsoil—on bourgeois-reformist, Grütli soil.He obstinately ignores the imperialist character of thepresent war and the imperialist ties of the present-daySwiss bourgeoisie. He ignores the fact that the socialistsof the whole world are split into social-patriots and revolutionaryinternationalists.He forgets that, in reality, only two paths are open to theSwiss proletariat:First path. Help its own national bourgeoisie to arm,support mobilisation for the alleged purpose of defendingneutrality, and face the daily menace of being inveigledinto the imperialist war. In the event of “victory” in thiswar—be reduced to semi-starvation, record the loss of100,000 killed, put more billions of war profits into thepockets of the Swiss bourgeoisie, assure it more profitableinvestments abroad, and fall into more financial dependenceon its imperialist “allies”—the Great Powers.