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

IMAGINARY OR REAL MARSH?281Second question: how to refashion, transform a party nowincapable of conducting a systematic, persistent and, underany concrete conditions, genuinely revolutionary struggleinto a party capable of waging this struggle.And that is the cardinal question. Here we have thevery root of the whole controversy, of the whole struggleof trends, both on the war issue and on defence of the fatherland!But that is the very question Grimm tries to pass overin silence, gloss over, obscure. More: Grimm’s explanationsboil down to denying the very existence of this question.Everything remains as of old—that idea runs through hiswhole article. In this lies the most profound justification ofthe contention that the article speaks for the Centre. Everythingremains as of old: only rejection of war credits and civilpeace! Every intelligent bourgeois is bound to admit that,in the final analysis, this is not unacceptable to the bourgeoisietoo: this does not threaten its domination, does notprevent it from prosecuting the war (“we submit” as the “minorityof the country”—these words of Grimm’s have veryfar-reaching political implications, much more than wouldappear at first sight!).And isn’t it an international fact that the bourgeoisieitself, and its governments in the warring countries, primarilyEngland and Germany, are persecuting only supporters ofLiebknecht and are tolerating men of the Centre?Forward, to the Left, even if this means the resignationof certain social-patriot leaders! This, in a few words, is thepolitical point and purpose of the majority proposals.Retreat from Zimmerwald to the Right, to social-pacifism,to positions of the Centre, to “peace” with the socialpatriotleaders, no mass action, no revolutionising of themovement, no regeneration of the party! That is Grimm’spoint of view.It is to be hoped that, at long last, it will open the eyes ofthe Swiss Left Radicals to his Centrist position.Written (in German)in late January 1917First published in 1931in Lenin Miscellany XVIIPublished according tothe manuscriptTranslated from the German