direct struggle against it is, therefore (!!) absolutely vain, unless it is to be confined to protests against isolated excesses of a particularly flagrant kind."93
It is a fundamental point in the critique of imperialism to know whether a reformist modification of the bases of imperialism is possible; that is, whether we must go forward to an increase of the antagonisms which they engender, or backwards to a reduction of their acuteness. As the political characteristics of imperialism are reaction all along the line and increased national oppression consequent upon the yoke of the financial oligarchy and the elimination of free competition, a democratic petty bourgeois opposition is rising against it in almost all imperialist countries at the beginning of the 20th century.
The breakaway from the Marxism of Kautsky and the broad international tendency which he represents, consists just in the fact that Kautsky and his fellow believers not only did not trouble to, but actually could not take up a stand against this petty bourgeois reformist opposition which is really reactionary in its economic basis; and, on the contrary, became practically identified with it.
In the United States, the imperialist war waged against Spain in 1898 stirred up the opposition of the "anti-imperialists," the last of the Mohicans of bourgeois democracy. They declared this war to be "criminal"; denounced the annexation of foreign territories as being a violation of the constitution, and they denounced the "jingo treachery" by means of which Aguinaldo, leader of the rebel native Philippinos, was deceived (first the Americans promised him the independence of his coun-
