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

A CARICATURE OF MARXISM71formulations on the basis of the existing system. Againstwar, yes, but not for a democratic peace....”Wrong— from the first word to the last. Kievskyhas read our resolution on “Pacifism and the Peace Slogan”(in the pamphlet Socialism and War, pp. 44-45*) and evenapproved it, I believe. But obviously he did not understandit. We are for a democratic peace, only we warn the workersagainst the deception that such a peace is possible underthe present, bourgeois governments “without a series of revolutions”,as the resolution points out. We denounced as adeception of the workers the “abstract” advocacy of peace,i.e., one that does not take into account the real classnature, or, specifically, the imperialist nature of the presentgovernments in the belligerent countries. We definitelystated in the Sotsial-Demokrat (No. 47 ) theses that if therevolution places our Party in power during the present war,it will immediately propose a democratic peace to all thewarring countries.**Yet, anxious to convince himself and others that he isopposed “only” to self-determination and not to democracyin general, Kievsky ends up by asserting that we are “notfor a democratic peace”. Curious logic!There is no need to dwell on all the other examples hecites, and no sense in wasting space on refuting them, forthey are on the same level of naïve and fallacious logic andcan only make the reader smile. There is not, nor can therebe, such a thing as a “negative” Social-Democratic sloganthat serves only to “sharpen proletarian consciousnessagainst imperialism” without at the same time offering apositive answer to the question of how Social-Democracy willsolve the problem when it assumes power. A “negative” sloganunconnected with a definite positive solution will not“sharpen”, but dull consciousness, for such a slogan is ahollow phrase, mere shouting, meaningless declamation.P. Kievsky does not understand the difference between“negative” slogans that stigmatise political evils and economicevils. The difference lies in the fact that certain economicevils are part of capitalism as such, whatever the political* See present edition, Vol. 21, pp. 162-63.—Ed.**Ibid., pp. 403-04.—Ed.