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

INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST CONGRESS IN STUTTGART77tunism, which succumbs to bourgeois blandishments.Secondly, it revealed a negative feature in the Europeanlabour movement, one that can do no little harm to theproletarian cause, and for that reason should receive seriousattention. Marx frequently quoted a very significant sayingof Sismondi. The proletarians of the ancient world, thissaying runs, lived at the expense of society; modernsociety lives at the expense of the proletarians. 42The non-propertied, but non-working, class is incapableof overthrowing the exploiters. Only the proletarian class,which maintains the whole of society, can bring about thesocial revolution. However, as a result of the extensive colonialpolicy, the European proletarian partly finds himselfin a position when it is not his labour, but the labour ofthe practically enslaved natives in the colonies, that maintainsthe whole of society. The British bourgeoisie, forexample, derives more profit from the many millions ofthe population of India and other colonies than from theBritish workers. In certain countries this provides the materialand economic basis for infecting the proletariat withcolonial chauvinism. Of course, this may be only a temporaryphenomenon, but the evil must nonetheless be clearlyrealised and its causes understood in order to beable to rally the proletariat of all countries for the struggleagainst such opportunism. This struggle is bound to be victorious,since the “privileged” nations are a diminishingfaction of the capitalist nations.There were practically no differences at the Congresson the question of women’s suffrage. The only one whotried to make out a case for a socialist campaign in favourof a limited women’s suffrage (qualified as opposed to universalsuffrage) was a woman delegate from the extremelyopportunist British Fabian Society. No one supported her.Her motives were simple enough: British bourgeois ladieshope to obtain the franchise for themselves, without itsextension to women workers in Britain.The First International Socialist Women’s Conferencewas held concurrently with the Congress in the same building.Both at this Conference and in the Congress Commissionthere was an interesting dispute between the Germanand Austrian Social-Democrats on the draft resolution. In