Written in late 1916 while Lenin was in Zurich and published in the second, and final, issue of his Sbornik Sotsial-Demokrata (Social-Democratic Review), this now ‘classic’ article looks at the material and political connections between imperialism and opportunism in the workers movement, in particular the role and ideas of Karl Kautsky. This original English translation differs slightly from the later one found in Lenin’s Collected Works.

‘Imperialism and the Split in Socialism’ (1916) by V.I. Lenin from The Communist. Vol. 12 No. 7. July, 1933.

Is there any connection between imperialism and that absolutely unparalleled victory which opportunism (in the form of social chauvinism) has gained over the working-class movement in Europe?

This is the fundamental question of contemporary Socialism. It will only be possible and necessary to proceed to an analysis of this fundamental question after we have once and for all established in our Party literature; firstly, the imperialist character of our epoch and the present war; secondly, the indissoluble historical connection of social chauvinism with opportunism, and in like manner, the similarity of the content of their political ideas.

It is necessary to commence with as accurate and as complete a definition as possible. Imperialism is a particular historic stage of capitalism. Its particular features are threefold: Imperialism is 1) monopoly capitalism; 2) parasitic or decaying capitalism; 3) dying capitalism. The change from free competition to monopoly is the basic economic feature, the essence of imperialism. Monopoly manifests itself in five main aspects: 1) cartels, syndicates and trusts; concentration of production has reached such a stage that it has given birth to these monopolist associations of capitalists; 2) monopolist position of the big banks: three to five gigantic banks dominate the whole economic life of America, France, Germany; 3) seizure of the sources of raw materials by trusts and financial oligarchy (finance capital is monopolist industrial capital, which has fused with banking capital); 4) the division (economic) of the world by the international cartels has commenced. Such international cartels, ruling the whole world market and dividing it “amicably” until war re-distributes it—already amount to over a hundred. The export of capital, as an especially characteristic feature, as distinct from the export of commodities in the epoch of non-monopoly capitalism, stands in close relation to the economic and political—territorial division of the world. 5) The territorial division of the world (colonies) is completed.

Imperialism, as the highest stage of capitalism in America and Europe, and subsequently in Asia, became fully developed in the period 1898-1914. The Spanish-American war of 1898, the Anglo-Boer war (1900-1902), the Russo-Japanese war (1904-1905) and the economic crisis in Europe in 1920 — these are the chief historical landmarks of this new epoch in the history of the world.  

That imperialism is parasitic or decaying capitalism is shown, in the first place, in the tendency to decay, which distinguishes every monopoly under the private ownership of the means of production. The difference between the republican, democratic and the reactionary monarchist bourgeoisie disappears precisely because both are rotting alive (which in no way does away with the amazingly rapid development of capitalism in various spheres of industry, in different countries, at various periods). Secondly, the decay of capitalism manifests itself in the creation of a huge section of rentiers, capitalists, who live by clipping coupons. In each of the four foremost imperialist countries, England, America, France and Germany, capital in securities comprises 100-150 billion francs, which means a yearly revenue of not less than 5-8 billions per country. Thirdly, the export of capital has the effect of multiplying parasitism by itself. Fourthly, “finance capital strives towards domination, and not towards freedom.” Political reaction along the whole line— is the essence of imperialism. Bribery, corruption to a gigantic degree. Panama scandals of every kind. Fifthly, the exploitation of oppressed nations, indissolubly bound up with annexations, and the especial exploitation of the colonies by a handful of “great” powers, increasingly transforms the “civilized” world into a parasite on the body of millions of uncivilized peoples. The Roman proletariat lived at the expense of society. Present day society lives at the expense of the modern proletariat. Marx particularly emphasized this profound remark of Sismondi. Imperialism to some degree changes this. To a certain extent, a privileged section of the proletariat of the imperialist powers lives at the expense of hundreds of millions of uncivilized peoples.

It is evident why imperialism is dying capitalism, transitional to Socialism: monopoly, growing out of capitalism, is already the dying of capitalism, the beginning of its going over to Socialism. The gigantic socialization of labor by imperialism (which its apologists, the bourgeois economists, call “interlacing”) means the same thing.

In putting forward this definition of imperialism we differ completely from Karl Kautsky, who, it appears, sees in imperialism a “phase of capitalism” and defines imperialism as a policy “preferred” by finance capital; as a striving of “industrial” countries to annex “agrarian countries.” (1) Kautsky’s definition is absolutely false theoretically. The particular feature of imperialism is precisely the domination, not of industrial but of finance capital, the tendency towards annexations, not only of agrarian, but of all countries. Kautsky isolates the policy of imperialism from its economics; isolates monopoly in politics from monopoly in economics, in order to clear the way for his trivial bourgeois reformism, such as “disarmament,” “ultra-imperialism” and similar nonsense. The aim of this theoretical falsehood is wholly designed to hide the deepest contradictions in imperialism, and so justify the theory of “unity” with the apologists of imperialism, with frank social-chauvinists and opportunists.

The proletariat is an offspring of capitalism—world capitalism, not merely European, and not only imperialist. On a world scale —50 years earlier or 50 years later, from the point of view of this scale the question is a special one—the “proletariat” of course, “will be” united, and “inevitably” revolutionary social democracy will be victorious amongst the proletariat. That is not the point, Messrs. Kautskians. The point is that now, in the imperialist countries of Europe, you are the lackeys of the opportunists, who are alien to the proletariat, as a class, who are the servants, agents, and transmitters of the influence of the bourgeoisie, and unless it is rid of you the labor movement remains a bourgeois labor movement. Your propaganda for “unity” with the opportunists, with Legien and David, Plekhanov or Chkhenkeli or Potresov, etc., is objectively a defense of the enslavement of the workers by the imperialist bourgeoisie aided by its best agents in the working-class movement. The victory of revolutionary social democracy on a world scale is absolutely inevitable, but it is coming and will come, it is being consummated and will be consummated against you and will be victorious over you.

Those two tendencies, yes even two parties in the modern working-class movement, which so manifestly parted company throughout the whole world in 1914-1916, were carefully traced by Engels and Marx in England through several decades, approximately from 1858—1892.

Neither Marx nor Engels lived to see the imperialist epoch of world capitalism, which first began in the years 1898-1900. But the peculiarity of England was that already from the middle of the 19th century, at least two outstanding features of imperialism were present: 1) immense colonies and 2) monopoly profit (due to its monopolist position on the world market). In both connections England was then an exception amongst the capitalist countries, and Engels together with Marx in analyzing this exception, absolutely clearly and definitely pointed out its relation to the temporary victory of opportunism in the English working-class movement.

In a letter to Marx, dated October 7, 1858, Engels wrote:

“The English proletariat actually becomes more and more bourgeoisified, so that this most bourgeois of all nations apparently desires to bring matters to such a pass as to have a bourgeois aristocracy and bourgeois proletariat side by side with the bourgeoisie. Obviously, this is to a certain extent, well calculated, on the part of a nation which is exploiting the world.”

In a letter to Sorge dated September 21, 1872, Engels informs him that Hales made a terrific row in the Federal Council of the International and “secured a vote of censure on Marx, for his words that the English labor leaders had sold themselves.”

Marx writes to Sorge on April 4, 1874:

“As regards the urban workers here (in England) one is forced to regret that the whole band of leaders don’t get into Parliament. This would be the surest way of getting rid of this mob.”

Engels, in a letter to Marx, dated August 11, 1881, talks of “the worst of the English trade unions, which allow themselves to be ruled by the people, bought over by the bourgeoisie, or at any rate, paid by it.” In a letter to Kautsky dated September 12, 1882, Engels wrote:

“You ask me, what the English workers think about colonial policy? Precisely the same as they think of politics generally. Here there is no working class party, there are only Conservative and Liberal radicals, and the workers freely enjoy with them the fruits of the colonial monopoly of England and its monopoly of the world market.”

In a letter of April 19, 1890, he says:

“The movement (of the working class in England) proceeding under the surface, embraces ever wider sections, the great majority of whom have been the hitherto motionless lowest (emphasis Engels’) masses, and the day is not far off, when this mass will discover itself, when it will see clearly that it alone is that colossal moving mass.”

On March 4, 1891, he writes: “With the failure of the disrupted Dockers’ Union, the ‘old’ conservative trade unions, rich and, therefore, cowardly, remain alone on the field of battle…” On September 14, 1891, at the Newcastle Trade Union Congress the old unionists, opponents of the eight hour day, were defeated “and the bourgeois newspapers admit the defeat of the bourgeois labor party.” (All italics are Engels’.)

These ideas of Engels, repeated in the course of a decade, were also expressed by him publicly, in the press, as is proved by his preface to the second edition (1892) of The Condition of the Working Class in England. Here mention is made of “the aristocracy among the working class,” of “the privileged minority of the workers,” in contrast to the “wide masses of the workers.” ‘A small, privileged, ‘protected’ minority” of the working class, were the only ones who “permanently benefited” from the privileged position of England in 1848-1868; “the great bulk of them experienced but a temporary improvement of their conditions”…“With the breakdown of England’s industrial monopoly, the English working class will lose that privileged position.” ‘The membership of the “New Unionism,” unions of unskilled workers, “had this immense advantage, that their minds were virgin soil, entirely free from inherited ‘respectable’ bourgeois prejudices, which hampered the brains of the better situated ‘old’ unionists.”…“So-called workers’ representatives” is the title given to people in England, “who are forgiven their position as workers because they would rather drown themselves in the ocean of liberalism.”

We have taken these fairly detailed extracts from Marx and Engels, in order that readers might become fully acquainted with them. Not only is it essential to become acquainted with them but it is worth while paying deep attention to them. Because here is the key to those tactics in the working-class movement, which are dictated by the objective conditions of the imperialist epoch.

Already here, Kautsky has endeavored to “trouble the waters” and to substitute for Marxism, sugar-coated conciliation with the opportunists. Polemizing with the frank and naive social-imperialists (like Lensch) who justify the war from the standpoint of Germany, as the destruction of England’s monopoly, Kautsky “corrects” this obvious falsehood by another one, just as obviously false. In the place of a cynical falsehood, he uses a sugar-coated one! The industrial monopoly of England has long been broken, he says; it has long been destroyed. There is nothing more that can or need to be destroyed.

Wherein lies the falsity in this argument?

Firstly, the colonial monopoly of England is ignored. And Engels, as we have seen, already in 1882, 34 years ago, quite clearly directed attention to it. Even if England’s industrial monopoly has been destroyed, its colonial monopoly not only remains, but is extraordinarily increased, for the whole world has already been divided. By means of his sugar-coated lies, Kautsky smuggles through a bourgeois pacifist and opportunist philistine idea, to the effect that “well, there’s nothing to wage war about.” On the contrary, not only is there something for the capitalists to fight for now, but it is impossible not to fight, if they desire to retain capitalism, for without a forcible redistribution of the colonies, the new imperialist countries cannot obtain those privileges which the older (and less strong) imperialist countries enjoy.

Secondly, why does England’s monopoly explain the (temporary) victory of opportunism in England? Because, monopoly yields super-pro fit, i.e., a surplus of profit above that capitalist profit which is normal and usual throughout the world. From this super-profit the capitalists are able to set aside a portion (and by no means a small one) in order to bribe their workers, to create something similar to a union, (recollect the famous “alliances” of the English trade unions with their masters, described by the Webbs) the union of the workers of this particular nation with their masters against the other countries. The industrial monopoly of England was destroyed even at the end of the 19th century. This is indisputable. But how did this destruction take place? Is it true, that all monopoly disappeared?

If this were so, then Kautsky’s “theory” of conciliation (with opportunism) would have a certain amount of justification. But the fact is, that it is not so. Imperialism is monopoly capitalism. Every cartel, trust, syndicate, every gigantic big bank is a monopoly. Super-profit has not disappeared. It has remained. The exploitation of every country by a single privileged, financially rich one persists, and has strengthened. A handful of rich countries—in all there are four, if one speaks of independent and really gigantic “modern” wealth; England, France, U.S.A., and Germany; this handful has developed monopoly to an immeasurable degree; and receives super-profit to the extent of hundreds of millions, even billions; it “rides on the back” of hundreds and hundreds of millions of people in other countries, and it fights among itself for the division of that booty which is the most luxurious, most plentiful, and the easiest to get.

This is the economic and political essence of imperialism, the profound contradictions of which Kautsky covers up, instead of exposing.

The bourgeoisie of a “great” imperialist power is economically in a position to bribe the higher sections of “its” workers, expending on this a hundred or so million francs a year, since its superprofit comprises undoubtedly, nearly a billion. It is of secondary importance as to how this small bribe is divided amongst the labor ministers, “the workers’ representatives” (remember Engels’ splendid analysis of this conception), the labor participants in the war industry committees, labor officials, workers, organized in narrow craft unions, employees and so on.

During the period 1848-68 and for a short time afterwards, England alone enjoyed a monopoly; therefore, opportunism was victorious for decades; there were no other countries with rich colonies or with industrial monopolies.

The last third of the 19th century was a transition to the new imperialist epoch. Monopoly is enjoyed by the finance capital, not of one, but of a limited few great powers. (In Japan and Russia there is a monopoly of military power, limitless territories, or the special advantage for robbing the natives of China and others which partly supplements, partly takes the place of the monopoly of modern present-day finance capital). Due to this difference for decades, England’s monopoly could remain unchallenged. The monopoly of present-day finance capital is being hotly challenged; the epoch of imperialist war has commenced. Formerly the working class of one country could be bribed, corrupted for decades. Now this is unlikely, even impossible, but on the other hand every imperialist “great”? power, can and does bribe smaller (compared with England in 1848-68) sections of the “labor aristocracy.” During that period, a “bourgeois labor party” according to the splendidly profound expression used by Engels, could be formed only in one country because it alone enjoyed monopoly, but for that matter lasting for a long time. Now a “bourgeois labor party” is unavoidable and typical for all imperialist countries, but in view of their desperate struggle for the division of the booty, it is unlikely that such a party could for long be victorious in a number of countries. For the masses of the proletariat and semi-proletariat are more and more crushed, oppressed, tortured and harried by the trusts, financial oligarchy and high prices, which make it possible to bribe a handful of their higher sections.

On the one hand, there is the tendency of the bourgeoisie and the opportunists, to turn a handful of the richest, privileged nations into “eternal” parasites on the body of the rest of humanity, “to rest on the laurels” of the exploitation of the Negroes, Indians, etc., keeping them in subjection with the assistance of the well-equipped destructive technique of modern militarism. On the other hand, the tendency of the masses, more oppressed than formerly and bearing all the tortures of imperialist wars, is to throw off that yoke, to overthrow the bourgeoisie. The history of the labor movement will from now on inevitably unfold itself in the struggle between these two tendencies. For the first tendency is not accidental, but has its economic “basis.” The bourgeoisie has already begotten, nurtured and made sure of for itself, the “bourgeois labor parties” of the social chauvinists, in all countries. The difference, for instance, between the already formed party of Bissolati in Italy, a party wholly social-imperialist, and, let us say, a partially-formed semi-party, of the Potresovs, Gvozdevs, Bulkins, Chkheidzes, Skobelevs and Co,— is immaterial. The important thing is that the economic breaking away of a section of the labor aristocracy to the bourgeoisie has developed and become completed, and whatever its political form, this economic fact, this shifting in the relations between the classes, can be found without special effort.

On the economic basis indicated, the political institutions of modern capitalism—press, parliament, trade unions, congresses, etc., have created, corresponding to the economic privileges and bribes for respectful, meek, reformist and patriotic employees and workers, political privileges and bribes. Lucrative and peaceful berths in the ministries, or the war industry committees, in parliament and in various commissions, on the editorial staffs of “solid” legal newspapers, or in the administration of no less solid and “bourgeois-abiding” labor unions—this is how the imperialist bourgeoisie attracts and rewards the representatives and supporters of the “bourgeois labor parties.”

The mechanics of political democracy act in the same direction. You cannot get on without elections in our time. You cannot get along without the masses; and in this period of the printing press and parliamentarism it is impossible to make the masses follow you without a widely ramified, systematically conducted, well-equipped system of flattery, lies, fraud, of juggling with fashionable and popular words, of promising right and left any kind of reforms, and any blessings to the workers, if only they will give up revolutionary struggle for the overthrow of the bourgeoisie. I would call this system, Lloyd-Georgism, after one of the most advanced and slick representatives of this system in the classical country of the “bourgeois labor party,” the English minister, Lloyd George. A first-class bourgeois manipulator and political shark, a popular orator, able to deliver all sorts of speeches, even r-r-revolutionary speeches before a workers’ audience, capable of giving considerable gifts to the obedient workers in the shape of social reforms (insurance, etc.), Lloyd George serves the bourgeoisie splendidly. (2) He serves the bourgeoisie precisely amongst the workers, transmits its influence precisely to the proletariat, there, where it is most needed and where it is most difficult of all to subordinate the masses morally to the bourgeoisie.

And is there a great difference between Lloyd George and the Scheidemanns, Legiens, Hendersons and Hyndmanns, the Plekhanovs, Renaudels and Co.? Some will argue that from the latter, some will return to the revolutionary Socialism of Marx. This is impossible, but it is an insignificant difference in degree, if we consider the question on a political, i.e., mass scale. Individual figures from the present-day social chauvinist leaders may return to the proletariat. But the social chauvinist tendency or (what amounts to the same thing) the opportunist tendency, neither disappears nor “returns” to the revolutionary proletariat. Wherever Marxism is popular amongst the workers, this political current, this “bourgeois labor party” will swear by the name of Marx. We cannot prevent them from doing this, just as it is impossible to prohibit a trading firm using any label, any sign, any advertisement. It has always happened in history, that after the death of revolutionary leaders popular amongst the oppressed classes, their enemies attempted to utilize their names, for the deception of the oppressed classes.

The fact is, that “bourgeois labor parties” as a political phenomenon, have already formed themselves in al/ the advanced capitalist countries, that without a determined, merciless struggle all along the line, against these parties, or, it is the same thing, against groups, tendencies, etc., there can be no talk of a struggle against imperialism, or of Marxism, or of a Socialist labor movement. Chkheidze’s fraction, Nashe Dielo (Our Cause), The Voice of Labor (Golos Truda), and the supporters of the Organizing Committees (3) abroad, are nothing but varieties of one or the other of, such parties. There is not the slightest reason to believe that these parties could disappear before the social revolution. On the contrary, the nearer the revolution, the more powerful will it develop, the more sudden and violent the transitions and jumps from one stage to another in its process, the greater will be the struggle inside the labor movement, of the revolutionary mass stream against opportunist philistinism. Kautskianism represents no independent current, having no roots either in the masses or in the privileged section which went over to the bourgeoisie. The danger of Kautskianism is that, utilizing the ideology of the past, it energetically attempts to reconcile the proletariat with the “bourgeois labor parties” to maintain their unity, and in this way raise the authority of the latter. Open social chauvinists are not followed by the masses any longer. Lloyd George was hissed at workers’ meetings in England; Hyndemann left the party; the Renaudels and Scheidemanns, Potresovs and Gvozdevs are protected by the police. The concealed defence of social chauvinism by the Kautskians is the most dangerous thing of all.

One of the most widely spread sophisms of Kautskianism consists in their references to the “masses.” We do not want, they say, to break away from the masses and mass organizations. But consider how Engels approached this question. The “mass organization” of the English trade unions in the nineteenth century was on the side of the bourgeois labor party. Marx and Engels did not reconcile themselves to it on these grounds, but exposed it. They did not forget firstly that the trade union organizations directly embraced a minority of the proletariat. In England then, as in Germany now, no mere than one-fifth of the proletariat are members of organizations. One cannot seriously imagine that under capitalism it is possible to include in organizations the majority of the proletariat; secondly, and this is the main point, it is not so much a question of how many members there are in an organization, what is the real objective meaning of its politics; whether these politics represent the masses, whether they serve the masses, i.e., the liberation of the masses from capitalism, or whether it represents the interest of the minority, its conciliation with capitalism. It was specifically the latter which was true for England in the 19th century, and is true for Germany, etc., today.

Engels distinguishes between the “bourgeois labor party” of the old trade unions, a privileged minority, and the “lowest masses,” the real majority. Engels appeals to the latter, which is mot infected with “bourgeois respectability.” This is the essence of Marxian tactics.

We cannot—nor can anybody, calculate beforehand what section of the proletariat follows and will follow the social chauvinists and opportunists. Only the struggle will reveal this; it will be definitely decided only by the social revolution. But we know, quite indubitably, that the “defenders of the fatherland” in the imperialist war represent only a minority. It is our duty, therefore, if we wish to remain socialists, to go lower and deeper to the real masses; this is the meaning and content of the struggle against opportunism. Exposing the fact that the opportunists and social chauvinists in reality betray and sell out the interests of the masses, that they defend the temporary privileges of a minority of the workers, that they are transmitting bourgeois ideas and influence, that in practice they are allies and agents of the bourgeoisie, we thereby teach the masses to recognize their real political interests, to fight for Socialism and the revolution throughout all the long and painful vicissitudes of imperialist wars and imperialist armed truces.

To explain to the masses the inevitability and the necessity for breaking with opportunism, to educate them for the revolution by a merciless struggle with opportunism, to utilise the experiences of the war in order to unmask the whole repulsiveness of national liberal labor politics, and not to cover them up—that is the only Marxian line in the working class movement of the world.

NOTES

1. Imperialism is the product of highly developed industrial capitalism. It consists in the tendency of every industrial capitalist nation more and more to subordinate or to bring under their control all the big agrarian regions irrespective of what nations inhabit those regions. (Kautsky’s article “Imperialism,” published in the New Times [Neue Zeit], No. 21, September 11, 1914.)

2. Recently in an English journal I came across an article by a Tory, a political opponent of Lloyd George’s, entitled “Lloyd George from the point of view of a Tory.” The war had opened the eyes of this opponent to a realization of what an excellent assistant of the bourgeoisie this Lloyd George is! The Tories have made peace with him!

3. The Organizing Committee formed inside the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party, arose as the leading organ of the August bloc of 1912, which was created by the Menshevik fraction for struggle with the Bolsheviks. The war divided its members amongst various tendencies of social-patriotism and “platonic internationalism,” the representative of which was the Foreign Secretariat of the Organizing Committee. (Ed.)

There are a number of journals with this name in the history of the movement. This ‘Communist’ was the main theoretical journal of the Communist Party from 1927 until 1944. Its origins lie with the folding of The Liberator, Soviet Russia Pictorial, and Labor Herald together into Workers Monthly as the new unified Communist Party’s official cultural and discussion magazine in November, 1924. Workers Monthly became The Communist in March ,1927 and was also published monthly. The Communist contains the most thorough archive of the Communist Party’s positions and thinking during its run. The New Masses became the main cultural vehicle for the CP and the Communist, though it began with with more vibrancy and discussion, became increasingly an organ of Comintern and CP program. Over its run the tagline went from “A Theoretical Magazine for the Discussion of Revolutionary Problems” to “A Magazine of the Theory and Practice of Marxism-Leninism” to “A Marxist Magazine Devoted to Advancement of Democratic Thought and Action.” The aesthetic of the journal also changed dramatically over its years. Editors included Earl Browder, Alex Bittelman, Max Bedacht, and Bertram D. Wolfe.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/communist/v12n07-jul-1933-communist.pdf