Collected Works of V. I. Lenin - Vol. 13 - From Marx to Mao

THE HAPPENING TO THE KING OF PORTUGAL473ceeded in doing so far in Portugal is only to frighten the monarchyby the assassination of two monarchs, but not todestroy it.The socialists in all European parliaments have expressed,to the best of their ability, their sympathy with thePortuguese people and the Portuguese Republicans, theirloathing for the ruling classes, whose spokesmen condemnedthe assassination of the adventurer and expressed theirsympathy towards his successors. Some socialists openlydeclared their views in parliament, others walked out duringthe expressions of sympathy towards the “sufferer”—the monarchy.Vandervelde in the Belgian parliament chose a “middle”way—the worst way—by squeezing out of himself aphrase to the effect that he honoured “all the dead”, meaningboth the king and those who had killed him. We trust thatVandervelde will be a solitary exception among the socialistsof the world.Republican tradition has weakened considerably amongthe socialists of Europe. This is understandable and to someextent justifiable, inasmuch as the imminence of the socialistrevolution diminishes the practical importance of thestruggle for a bourgeois republic. Often, however, the slackeningof republican propaganda signifies, not vigourin the striving for the complete victory of the proletariat,but a weak consciousness of the proletariat’s revolutionaryaims in general. Not without reason did Engels, in criticisingthe Erfurt Draft Programme in 1891, impress uponthe German workers with the greatest possible emphasis theimportance of the struggle for a republic, and the possibilityof such a struggle becoming the order of the day inGermany as well. 167With us in Russia the struggle for a republic is a matterof immediate practical significance. Only the most contemptiblepetty-bourgeois opportunists like the Popular Socialistsor the “S. D.” Malishevsky (see Proletary, No. 7,in regard to him) could draw from the experience of the Russianrevolution the conclusion that in Russia the strugglefor the republic is relegated to the background. On thecontrary, the experience of our revolution has proved thatthe struggle for the abolition of the monarchy is inseparablybound up in Russia with the peasants’ struggle for the land,