Page:Lenin - The Collapse of the Second International - tr. Sirnis (1919).pdf/43

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The whole matter lies in that Kautsky supports the fraud which the imperialists perpetrate upon the common people in saying that "for the masses, including the proletarian masses," national problems "were the decisive factor," and for the ruling classes "imperialist tendencies" were this factor (p. 273). Kautsky upholds this fraud when he pretends to "confirm" his statement by a dialectical reference to "infinitely varied reality" (p. 274). Reality is no doubt infinitely varied; this is a sacred truth! But just as certain is it that in this infinite variety there manifest themselves two principal and basic currents: (1) that the objective contents of the war are a "continuation of the policy " of imperialism, that is to say, of the plunder of other nations by the decrepit bourgeoisie of the "Great Powers" (and their governments); and (2) that the prevailing subjective ideology consists of "nationalist" phrases scattered broadcast to stupefy the masses.

We have already examined Kautsky's old sophism, repeated afresh, alleging that those of the "Left" had made out that "when the war broke loose" the choice lay between "imperialism and socialism." This is a shameless exaggeration, for Kautsky knows well that the men of the Left had put forward a different alternative: that the party should either join in the imperialist plunder and deception or preach, and prepare for revolutionary action. Kautsky also knows that only the German censorship prevents the men of the Left from exposing this idle tale which he spreads in order to pander to the Suedekums.

As regards the relation between the "proletarian masses" and the "handful of parliamentarians," Kautsky here puts forward one of the most hackneyed objections:

"Let me leave the Germans aside, that we may not be defending ourselves. But who would asert in all seriousness that in one day men such as Vaillant and Guesde, Hyndman and Plekhanov had become imperialists and betrayed Socialism? Let us leave aside the parliamentarians and the committees which direct the activity of the Party.^[1] … But who will dare to assert that it sufficed for a handful of parliamentarians to give an order to four million class-conscious German proletarians for them to veer right round within 24 hours and go against their former aims? If this were true, it would prove, of course, that not our Party alone, but also the masses, had

1. Kautsky is here hinting. obviously, at the Internazionale, the paper conducted by Rosa Luxemburg and F. Mehring, where they shower well-deserved contempt upon the policy of the Executive Committee of the German S.D. Party, its parliamentary fraction, etc., that is to say, the official bodies which direct the party policy.