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

266V. I. LENINin principle is that objectively both are servants of imperialism.The former serve it by glorifying the imperialist war,describing it as a war for “defence of the fatherland”; thelatter serve the same imperialism by glorifying, withtheir talk of a democratic peace, the imperialist peace thatis maturing and being prepared.The imperialist bourgeoisie needs lackeys of both speciesand varieties: the Plekhanovs, to encourage the continuationof the slaughter by shouting “Down with the conquerors”;the Kautskys, to console and placate the embitteredmasses by sweet songs of peace.Hence the general amalgamation of the social-chauvinistsof all countries with the social-pacifists—the general “conspiracyagainst socialism” referred to in the manifesto ofthe Berne International Socialist Committee, 107 the “generalamnesty” to which we have more than once referred—will not be an accident, but an expression of the unity onprinciple of both these trends of world pseudo-“socialism”.It is no accident that Plekhanov, while shouting franticallyabout the “treachery” of the Scheidemanns, hints at peaceand unity with those gentry when the time is ripe for it.The reader may argue, can we forget that an imperialistpeace is “after all better” than imperialist war? that,if not the whole, then at least “parts” of the democratic peaceprogramme might possibly be achieved? that an independentPoland is better than a Russian Poland? that integration inItaly of Austrian-held Italian territory is a step forward?But these are exactly the arguments defenders of Turatiand Kautsky use as a cover, failing to see that this transformsthem from revolutionary Marxists into ordinary bourgeoisreformists.Can anyone in his right mind deny that Bismarck Germanyand her social laws are “better” than pre-1848 Germany?that the Stolypin reforms 108 are “better” than pre-1905Russia? Did the German Social-Democrats (they were stillSocial-Democrats at that time) vote for Bismarck’s reformson these grounds? Were Stolypin’s reforms extolled, or evensupported, by the Russian Social-Democrats, except, ofcourse, for Messrs. Potresov, Maslov and Co., from whom evenMartov, a member of their own party, now turns away withcontempt?