Imperialism, the Last Stage of Capitalism/Preface
Preface
The booklet that we here present to our readers was written at Zurich in the spring of 1916. In the working conditions that were then imposed on us, I was naturally without a certain amount of English and French scientific literature and a great deal of Russian literature. However, I made use of the chief English work on Imperialism, J. A. Hobson's book, with all the care that it deserves.
This booklet was written under the censorship of autocracy. Thus I was forced to confine myself strictly to a theoretical analysis, mainly economic, of facts, and only to express the small number of indispensable political observations with the greatest caution, by way of allusions in that "Æsopian" language—in that cursed "Æsopian" language—to which Tsarism forced revolutionaries to have recourse, whenever they took up their pens in order to undertake a "legal" work.[1]
Now that the days of liberty have come, it is hard to read again these pages, mutilated by fear of the imperial censorship, gripped and crushed in a vice of iron. Of how imperialism is the eve of the Socialist revolution; of how social-Chauvinism (Socialism in words, Chauvinism in deeds), is the betrayal of Socialism, a complete crossing over to the side of the bourgeoisie; of the manner in which the division of the working class movement corresponds to the existing situation of Imperialism, I have had to speak in a slavish tongue, and to-day I must direct the reader who is interested in these questions to the collection of my articles published abroad from 1914 to 1917, and now in the press, entitled Against the Stream.
There is need, however, to point out the inadequacy in this pamphlet of a passage at the end of Chapter IX., in which, in order to show, in a guise acceptable to the censors, the cynical trickery of the capitalists, as well as of the jingo Socialists gone over to their service (and whom Kautsky opposes with so much inconsistency) in the question of annexations; in order to show with what cynicism they justify the annexations of their capitalists, I was forced to put forward as an example—Japan. The careful reader will easily substitute Russia for Japan, and Finland, Poland, Esthonia, Khiva, Bokhara or other countries peopled by non-Russians for Corea.
I would hope that this little book will help the reader to understand the fundamental economic question, without the study of which modern war and politics are unintelligible—to be more precise, the question of the economic nature of Imperialism.
- ↑ "Æsopian" was the term applied to the allusive and roundabout style adopted in 'legal' publications by revolutionaries in order to avoid words which would attract the notice of the police. Thus, instead of 'Social-Democrat' they wrote 'consistent Marxist.'