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

36V. I. LENIN2. “OUR UNDERSTANDING OF THE NEW ERA”The heading is Kievsky’s. He constantly speaks of a “newera”, but here, too, unfortunately his arguments are erroneous.Our Party resolutions speak of the present war as stemmingfrom the general conditions of the imperialist era. We givea correct Marxist definition of the relation between the “era”and the “present war”: Marxism requires a concrete assessmentof each separate war. To understand why an imperialistwar, i.e., a war thoroughly reactionary and anti-democraticin its political implications, could, and inevitably did,break out between the Great Powers, many of whom stoodat the head of the struggle for democracy in 1789-1871—tounderstand this we must understand the general conditionsof the imperialist era, i.e., the transformation of capitalismin the advanced countries into imperialism.Kievsky has flagrantly distorted the relation between the“era” and the “present war”. In his reasoning, to consider thematter concretely means to examine the “era”. That is preciselywhere he is wrong.The era 1789-1871 was of special significance for Europe.That is irrefutable. We cannot understand a single nationalliberation war, and such wars were especially typical ofthat period, unless we understand the general conditions ofthe period. Does that mean that all wars of that period werenational liberation wars? Certainly not. To hold that viewis to reduce the whole thing to an absurdity and apply a ridiculousstereotype in place of a concrete analysis of eachseparate war. There were also colonial wars in 1789-1871,and wars between reactionary empires that oppressed manynations.Advanced European (and American) capitalism hasentered a new era of imperialism. Does it follow fromthat that only imperialist wars are now possible? Any suchcontention would be absurd. It would reveal inability todistinguish a given concrete phenomenon from the sum totalof variegated phenomena possible in a given era. An era iscalled an era precisely because it encompasses the sum totalof variegated phenomena and wars, typical and untypical,big and small, some peculiar to advanced countries, others