Polemic on General Line of International ... - From Marx to Mao

The last war brought the entire world to the brink ofthe precipice; the next one would destroy it completely.The mere preparation for a new war would ruin the world. 14. They made no distinction between just and unjust warsand forbade revolution. Kautsky said in 1914:. . . in present-day conditions, there is no such thing asa war which is not a misfortune for nations in general andfor the proletariat in particular. What we discussed wasthe means by which we could prevent a threatening war,and not which wars are useful and which harmful. 2He also said:The yearning for perpetual peace increasingly inspiresthe majority of cultured nations. It temporarily pushesthe essentially great problem of our times into thebackground. . . . 35. They propagated the theory that weapons decideeverything and they opposed revolutionary armed struggle.Kautsky said:As has been often stated, one of the reasons why thecoming revolutionary struggles will more rarely be foughtout by military means lies in the colossal superiority inarmaments of the armies of modern states over the armswhich are at the disposal of “civilians” and which usuallyrender any resistance on the part of the latter hopelessfrom the very outset. 41“Resolution on the League of Nations”, adopted by the InternationalSocialist Conference in Berne, 1919, Material on the First and SecondInternationals, Russ. ed., Moscow, 1926, p. 378.2Karl Kautsky, “Social-Democracy in War”, Die Neue Zeit, October2, 1914.3Karl Kautsky, Preface to War and Democracy, Ger. ed., Berlin, 1932,p. xii.4Karl Kautsky, “A Catechism of Social-Democracy”, Die Neue Zeit,December 13, 1893.227