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

86V. I. LENINminds among the German Social-Democrats have notedthis fact themselves and, casting aside all false shame, havedefinitely pointed to it as a warning.“In Amsterdam,” writes Clara Zetkin’s journal, “therevolutionary leit-motiv of all the debates in the parliamentof the world proletariat was the Dresden resolution;in Stuttgart a jarring opportunist note was struck by Vollmar’sspeeches in the Commission on Militarism, by Päplow’sspeeches in the Emigration Commission, and by David’s[and, we would add, Bernstein’s] speeches in theColonial Commission. On this occasion, in most of thecommissions and on most issues, the representatives of Germanywere leaders of opportunism.” And K. Kautsky,in appraising the Stuttgart Congress, writes: “...the leadingrole which German Social-Democracy has actuallyplayed in the Second International up to now was notin evidence on this occasion.”Let us now examine individual questions that were discussedat the Congress. The differences of opinion on thecolonial question could not be ironed out in the Commission.The dispute between the opportunists and the revolutionarieswas settled by the Congress itself, settled infavour of the revolutionaries by a majority of 127 votesagainst 108, with 10 abstentions. Incidentally, let us notethe gratifying fact that the socialists of Russia all votedunanimously on all questions in a revolutionary spirit.(Russia had 20 votes of which 10 were given to the RussianSocial-Democratic Labour Party without the Poles, 7 tothe Socialist-Revolutionaries, and 3 to the representativesof the trade unions. Poland had 10 votes: the Polish Social-Democrats—4,and the Polish Socialist Party andthe non-Russian parts of Poland—6. Finally the two representativesof Finland had 8 votes.)On the colonial question an opportunist majority wasformed in the Commission, and the following monstrousphrase appeared in the draft resolution: “The Congressdoes not in principle and for all time reject all colonialpolicy, which, under a socialist regime, may have a civilisingeffect.” In reality this proposition was tantamountto a direct retreat towards bourgeois policy and a bourgeoisworld outlook that justifies colonial wars and atrocities.