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
- ↑ "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.'
