The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1930-01-13
LENIN ON IMPERIALIST WAR

leave the meeting hall of the Duma in order
more energetically to express its protest; it
considered it its duty to brand the politics OF the
European governments as imperialist. Not
withstandjng the tenfold increased oppression
by the tsar's government, our comrade workers
in Russia already publishing their first
illegal appeals against the war; doing their
duty by democracy and by the international.
If the representatives of revolutionary So
cial-democracy, the minority of the German
al-democrats and the best socialdenocrats
in the neutral countries, are experiencing a
burning feeling Of shame over this collapse of
the second International if voices Of socialists
against the chauvinism of the majority OF the
social democratic parties are becoming audible
both in England and in France; if the oppor-
tunists, represented, for instance, by the Ger
man monthly, the Soziaistiche Monatshefte,.
who had long occupied a national-liberal posi-
ton, are justly celebrating their victory over
European socialisn,--then the worst service is
being rendered to the proletariat by those who
vacillate between opportunisIn and revolution
airy social-democracy Qike the centre in the
German social-democratic partly who attempt ]
to pass over in silence or to cover up with dip
omatc phrases the collapse of the second in !
ternationa 4.,f
On the contrary, it is necessary, openly to
recognize this collapse. and understand its
causes in order to be- able to build "a new, a
more lasting socialist notification of the work
ers of all countries. ~ Il! $500 ~ ~
The opportunists have set at naughts the
decisions of the Stuttgart, Copenhagen and
Basic congresses, which made it the duty of
the socialists of all countries to fight against
chauvinism under all possible conditions, which
made it the duty of socialists to react against
any war begun by the bourgeoisie and thesg gov
ernments by increasing propaganda of civil
war and social revolution. The collapse of the,
second international is. the collapse of oppor-
tunism which was growing on the soil of a
specific (the so-caled peacefully historic
epoch now passed, and which practically dom-
mated the International in the last year. The
opportunists had long been preparing this col
lapse by rejecting the socialist revolution and
substituting for it, bourgeois reformism; by
repudiating the class struggle with its newt
able transformation into civil war at certain
moments, and by preaching class collahora-
ton; by preaching bourgeois chauvinism under
the name Of patriotism and defense Of the
fatherland and ignoring or repudiating the
fundamental truth of socialism early expressed
in the Communist Manifesto, namely, that the
workers have no fatherland; by confinine.
themselves in their struggle against militarismq
to sentimental, philstine point of view in
stead of recognizing the necessity Of revolu-
tionary war of the proletarians Of ill coun-
tries against the bourgeoisie of all countries;
by turning the necessary utilisation Of bour-
geois parliamentarism and bourgeois legality
into fetish of the legality into forgetfulness
of the duty to have illegal forms Of organiza-
ton and agitation in times of crises. A natural
Supplement of opportunism, as bourgeois as
the latter and as hostile to the proletarian,
i.e., the MARKHAM point of view, is the anarcho-
syndicalist current which became marked IN
the present crisis by no less shamefully self
satisfied repetition of the slogans of chauv-
nisni than that Of the opportunists.
ITO be Continued Il ~, u.