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

22REPLY TO P. KIEVSKY (Y. PYATAKOV) 17Like every crisis in the life of individuals or in the historyof nations, war oppresses and breaks some, steels and enlightensothers.The truth of that is making itself felt in Social-Democraticthinking on the war and in connection with the war. It isone thing to give serious thought to the causes and significanceof an imperialist war that grows out of highly developedcapitalism, Social-Democratic tactics in connection withsuch a war, the causes of the crisis within the Social-Democraticmovement, and so on. But it is quite another to allowthe war to oppress your thinking, to stop thinking and analysingunder the weight of the terrible impressions andtormenting consequences or features of the war.One such form of oppression or repression of human thinkingcaused by the war is the contemptuous attitude of imperialistEconomism towards democracy. P. Kievsky doesnot notice that running like a red thread through all hisarguments is this war-inspired oppression, this fear, thisrefusal to analyse. What point is there in discussing defenceof the fatherland when we are in the midst of such a terribleholocaust? What point is there in discussing nations’ rightswhen outright strangulation is everywhere the rule? Selfdeterminationand “independence” of nations—but lookwhat they have done to “independent” Greece! What is theuse of talking and thinking of “rights”, when rights are everywherebeing trampled upon in the interests of the militarists!What sense is there in talking and thinking of arepublic, when there is absolutely no difference whatsoeverbetween the most democratic republics and the most reactionarymonarchies, when the war has obliterated every traceof difference!