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

countries on the continent force must serve as the lever ofour revolution”. 1 What is more, he pointed out:The English bourgeoisie has always shown its readinessto accept the decision of the majority, so long as it has themonopoly of the suffrage. But believe me, at the momentwhen it finds itself in the minority on questions which itconsiders vitally important, we will have a new slaveholders’war here. 2Lenin said in his criticism of the renegade Kautsky:The argument that Marx in the ‘seventies granted thepossibility of a peaceful transition to socialism in Englandand America is the argument of a sophist, or, to put itbluntly, of a swindler who juggles with quotations andreferences. First, Marx regarded this possibility as anexception even then. Secondly, in those days monopolycapitalism, i.e., imperialism, did not yet exist. Thirdly, inEngland and America there was no military then — asthere is now — serving as the chief apparatus of the bourgeoisstate machine. 3Lenin said that, by virtue of its fundamental economictraits, imperialism is distinguished “by a minimum attachmentfor peace and freedom, and by a maximum and universaldevelopment of militarism”. “To ‘fail to notice’ this” in thediscussion of the question of peaceful or violent change is“to stoop to the position of a common or garden varietylackey of the bourgeoisie.” 41Karl Marx, “On the Hague Congress, Speech at a Mass Meeting inAmsterdam”, Collected Works of Marx and Engels, Russ. ed., Moscow,1961, Vol. XVIII, p. 154.2“Record of a Talk Between K. Marx and the Correspondent ofThe World “, Collected Works of Marx and Engels, Russ. ed., Moscow,1961, Vol. XVII, p. 637.3V. I. Lenin, “The Proletarian Revolution and the RenegadeKautsky”, Collected Works, Eng. ed., International Publishers, NewYork, 1945, Vol. XXIII, pp. 233-34.4Ibid., p. 357.376