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

esents a lever for the preservation of peace such as noother institution can offer. 110. They spread the illusion that reliance could be placedon U.S. imperialism to defend world peace. Kautsky said:Today the United States is the strongest power in theworld and will make the League of Nations irresistible assoon as it works inside it or with it to prevent war. 2Lenin ruthlessly exposed the ugly features of Kautsky andhis ilk. He pointed out that the pacifist phrases of the revisionistsof the Second International served only “as a meansof consoling the people, as a means of helping the governmentsto keep the masses in submission in order to continuethe imperialist slaughter!” 3Stalin pointed out:And the most important thing in all this is that Social-Democracy is the main channel of imperialist pacifismwithin the working class — consequently, it is capitalism’smain support among the working class in preparing for newwars and intervention. 4Even a cursory comparison of Comrade Khrushchov’sstatements on the question of war and peace with those ofBernstein, Kautsky and others shows that there is nothing newin his views, which are a mere reproduction of the revisionismof the Second International.On the question of war and peace, which has a vital bearingon the destiny of mankind, Khrushchov is following in1Ibid., p. 25.2Karl Kautsky, Socialists and War, Ger. ed., Prague, 1937, p. 639.3V. I. Lenin, “To the Workers Who Support the Struggle Againstthe War and Against the Socialists Who Have Deserted to the Sideof Their Governments”, Collected Works, Eng. ed., International Publishers,New York, 1942, Vol. XIX, p. 435.4J. V. Stalin, “Results of the July Plenum of the C.C., C.P.S.U. (B.)”,Works, Eng. ed., FLPH, Moscow, 1954, Vol. XI, p. 210.229