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Such is the Marxian view of revolution, elaborated time after time and recognised as indisputable by all Marxists. The correctness of this view was, for us Russians, clearly confirmed by the experiences of 1905. The question now arises as to what was anticipated in this respect by the Basle manifesto in 1912 and what actually took place in 1914 and 1915.
A revolutionary situation was anticipated which was briefly described as an “economic and political crisis.” Did such a crisis arise? Undoubtedly it did. Lensch, the Socialist jingo (who is more honest and straight forward in his defence of jingoism than such hypocrites as Cunow, Kautsky, Plekhanov and Co), went as far as to say that “we are passing through a revolution of a peculiar kind” (see his pamphlet “German Social-Democracy and the War,” p. 6, Berlin, 1915). The existence of a political crisis cannot be denied: not one of the governments was sure of the morrow; not one of them felt secure against financial collapse, or loss of territory, or even expulsion―as instance the Belgian Government―from its own country. The Governments to-day live on the top of a volcano and they all appeal to the self-activity and heroism of the masses. The political regime of the whole of Europe rocks on its foundations, and he must be blind who would deny that we have entered a period of great social upheavals.[1]
Kautsky, two months after the outbreak of war, wrote in the Neue Zeit, October 2nd, 1914, that “a government is never so strong, nor the parties so feeble as at the beginning of a war.” This is one of the instances of Kautsky’s falsification of historical science in order to please the opportunists. A government is never so much in need of agreement amongst the parties of the ruling class and never so much in need of the submission of the oppressed classes as during the period of war. That is the first point. The second is, that a government only appears to be all-powerful at the outbreak of war, and this is largely due to the fact that the revolutionary situation does not arise simultaneously with the outbreak of war.
The present European war is a bigger affair than any in the past. The misery of the masses is greater, and the toll of life and suffering is frightful. The repercussion of these experiences tend to convulse the political foundations of Europe. Governments and Socialist
- ↑ I am writing this on the day of Italy’s declaration of war.
