Written by Lenin in the first months of the World War this full throttle attack on Kautsky’s position and leadership was first published Sotsial Demokrat, No. 35, December 12, 1914. This first English translation from the Selected Works series edited by Alexander Trachtenberg in 1929.

‘Dead Chauvinism and Living Socialism’ (1914) by V.I. Lenin from Selected Works, Vol. 18. International Publishers, New York. 1929.

How Shall the International Be Restored

For the Social-Democrats of Russia, even somewhat more than for the Social-Democrats of the whole world, the German Social Democracy was a model throughout the last decade. It is therefore obvious that there can be no intelligent, i.e., critical attitude towards social-patriotism or “Socialist” chauvinism now prevailing, if we do not clearly define our attitude toward German Social-Democracy. What was it? What is it? What will it be?

The first question can be answered by Der Weg zur Macht, a pamphlet written by K. Kautsky in 1909 and translated into many European languages. It contained the most complete exposition of the tasks of our epoch; it was most advantageous to the German Social-Democrats, because it showed that they were a promising party; and it was written by the most eminent writer of the Second International. We wish to recall that pamphlet in some detail. This will be the more useful now since those “forgotten words” are so often shamelessly rejected.

Social-Democracy, it says, is a “revolutionary party” not only in the sense that a steam engine is revolutionary, but also “in another sense” (first sentence of the pamphlet): namely, it strives for the conquest of political power by the proletariat, for proletarian dictatorship. Showering ridicule on those who “doubt the revolution,” Kautsky writes: “Of course, in every important movement and uprising we must reckon with the possibility of defeat. Before the struggle only a fool can think himself entirely certain of victory.” It would be, on the other hand, “a direct betrayal of our cause,” he says, if we were to refuse to reckon with the possibility of victory. A revolution in connection with a war, he says, is possible both during and after the war. It is not possible to say definitely when the sharpening of class antagonisms would lead to revolution, the author continues, but “I can quite definitely assert that a revolution which war brings in its wake, will break out either during or immediately after the war.” There is nothing more vulgar, we read further, than the theory of “peacefully growing into Socialism.” “Nothing is more erroneous,” he continues, “than the idea that the knowledge of economic necessity would weaken the will.” “The will as a desire for struggle,” he says, “is determined, first, by the cost of the struggle, second, by the consciousness of power, and third, by the real power.” When an attempt was made by the Vorwarts, among others, to interpret Engels’ famous preface to Class Struggles in France in an opportunist spirit, Engels was indignant, branding as shameful the assumption that he was a “peaceful worshipper of legality at any price.” “We have every reason to believe that we are entering a period of struggle for state power,” he writes further. This struggle may last for decades, he says; this we do not know, but “it will in all probability bring about in the near future a considerable strengthening of the proletariat, if not its dictatorship in Western Europe.” The revolutionary elements are growing, Kautsky declares: in 1895 there were six million proletarians and three and a half million people interested in private property out of ten million voters in Germany; in 1907 the number of the latter grew 0.03 million, that of the former 1.6 million! “The tempo of the forward movement becomes very fast as soon as a revolutionary ferment begins.” Class antagonisms are not softened, but on the contrary they become acute; the prices of commodities are rising; imperialist competition and militarism are raging. “The new era of revolution” is approaching. The mad growth of taxes would long since have led to war as the only alternative of a revolution, if this very alternative of revolution were not nearer as a consequence of war, than as the outcome of a period of armed peace. A world war is menacingly near, Kautsky continues, and a war also means revolution. In 1891 Engels had reasons to fear a premature revolution in Germany; since then, however, “the situation has materially changed.” “The proletariat,” says Kautsky, “can no longer speak of a premature revolution” (emphasis by Kautsky). The petty bourgeoisie cannot be relied upon and is becoming ever more hostile to the proletariat, but, says the author, in the period of crisis it is “capable of going over to our side in masses.” The main thing is, concludes the pamphlet, that Social-Democracy “should remain unshakable, consistent, irreconcilable.” There is no doubt, it sums up, that we have entered a revolutionary period.

This is how Kautsky wrote in times long, long past, fully five years ago. This is what German Social-Democracy was, or, more correctly, what it promised to be. This kind of Social-Democracy it was possible and necessary to respect.

See what that same Kautsky is writing now. Here are the most important statements contained in his article “Social-Democracy in War Time” (Neue Zeit , No. 1, October 2, 1914): “Our party has much more seldom discussed the question of how to behave in war time than how to prevent war…” “Never is the government so strong, never are the parties so weak, as at the beginning of war.” “War time is least of all propitious for peaceful discussion.” “The practical question of to-day is the victory or defeat of our own country.” Is there a prospect for an understanding among the parties of the belligerent countries as to an anti-war action? Kautsky says no. “This kind of thing has never been tried in practice. We always denied its possibilities…” The difference between the French and German Socialists is “not one of principle” (as both defend their fatherland). “Social-Democrats of all countries have an equal right and duty to participate in the defence of the fatherland; no nation ought to blame the other for doing it…” Has the International become bankrupt? Has the party refused directly to defend its party principles in war time? (Mehring’s queries in the same issue.) “This is an erroneous conception,” says Kautsky, “…there are no grounds at all for such pessimism…the differences are not fundamental…unity of principles remains…to disobey martial laws would simply lead to the suppression of our press.” “To obey these laws,” says Kautsky, “does not in any way mean to refuse to defend party principles any more than does the similar behaviour of our party press under the Damocles’ sword of the Anti-Socialist Law.” (1)

We have purposely quoted the original statements because it is not easy to believe that such things could have been written. It is not easy to find in literature (except in that of downright renegades) such self-satisfied vulgarity, such shameful deviation from the truth, such unsavory evasions to cover up the most flagrant renunciation both of Socialism in general and of the strict international decisions unanimously adopted (as for instance in Stuttgart and particularly in Basle) precisely with a view towards a European war of just the same character as the present war! We do not wish to insult the intelligence of the reader by taking Kautsky’s arguments seriously and trying to analyse them. For if the European War in many respects differs from a simple “little” Jewish pogrom, the “Socialist” arguments in favour of participating in such a war perfectly coincide with the “democratic” arguments in favour of participating in a Jewish pogrom. One does not analyse arguments in favour of a pogrom; one only points at them in order to place their authors at the pillory in front of all class-conscious workers.

But how could it happen, the reader will ask, that the greatest authority of the Second International, a writer who defended the opinions quoted at the beginning of this article, should have sunk to a position which is worse than that of a renegade? This may be incomprehensible, we answer, only for those who, perhaps unconsciously, maintain that nothing in particular has happened, that it is not difficult even now to “make peace and forget,” etc., that is to say, for those who look from the renegade’s point of view. Those, however, who earnestly and sincerely professed Socialist convictions and who shared the views that have been expressed in the beginning of this article, will not be surprised to hear that the Vorwarts is dead, (Martov’s expression in the Paris Golos) and that Kautsky is dead. The bankruptcy of individual persons is nothing rare in the epochs of great historic cataclysms. Notwithstanding his great merits, Kautsky never belonged to those who at the time of great crises immediately assume a militant Marxist position (let us not forget his vacillations in the question of Millerandism).

It is just such an epoch that we are passing through. “Be the first to shoot, Messrs. Bourgeois!” Engels wrote in 1891, advocating, most correctly, the use of bourgeois legality by us revolutionists in the period of so-called peaceful constitutional development. Engels’ idea was perfectly clear: we class-conscious workers, he said, would be the next to shoot; it is more favourable for us to choose the moment for changing the ballots into bullets (to pass to civil war) when the bourgeoisie itself has broken the legal basis created by it. In 1909 Kautsky expressed the undisputed opinion of all revolutionary Social-Democrats when he said that now a revolution in Europe could not be premature and that war meant revolution.

Decades of “peaceful” life, however, did not pass without leaving a mark. They inevitably created opportunism in all countries; they secured for it a prevalence among “leaders,”—parliamentarians, union officials, journalists, etc. There is not one country in Europe where, in one form or another, a long and stubborn struggle was not conducted against opportunism, the latter being in millions of ways supported by the whole bourgeoisie which is striving to corrupt and weaken the revolutionary proletariat. Fifteen years ago, at the beginning of the Bernstein controversy, the same Kautsky wrote that if opportunism were to pass from the state of a sentiment to that of a policy, a split would be the order of the day. In Russia, the old Iskra, which created the Social-Democratic Party of the working class, wrote in its second issue early in 1901, in an article entitled “On the Threshold of the Twentieth Century,” that the revolutionary class of the twentieth century, like the revolutionary class of the eighteenth century, had its own Gironde and its own Mountain.

The European War is the greatest historical crisis; it means the beginning of a new epoch. Like every crisis, the war has sharpened the antagonisms deeply hidden underneath, has brought them to the surface, tearing apart all the hypocritical cloaks, rejecting all conventionality, destroying all discredited or half-discredited authorities. (This, parenthetically speaking, is the salutary and progressive effect of all crises; it is incomprehensible only to the dull-witted worshipers of “peaceful evolution”). The Second International, which, for the twenty-five to forty-five years of its existence, (according to whether we count from 1870 or from 1889), accomplished the extraordinarily important and useful work of spreading Socialism over large areas and of preparing the initial more rudimentary organisation of Socialist forces, has completed its historic role and has died, not so much at the hands of Von Klucks, as at the hands of opportunism. Let the dead bury their dead. Let the empty-headed busybodies (or, rather, the intriguing lackeys of the chauvinists and opportunists) labour over the task of bringing together Vandervelde and Sembat with Kautsky and Haase, as if we were confronted with another Ivan Ivanovich who has called Ivan Nikiforovich “gander,” and who is in need of being urged by his friends to make peace with his opponent. (2) To have an International does not mean to sit around one table and to have hypocritical and pettifogging resolutions written by people who see genuine internationalism in German Socialists justifying the appeal of the German bourgeoisie to shoot at French workers, and in French Socialists justifying the appeal of the French bourgeoisie to shoot at German workers in the name of the “defence of the fatherland”!!! Internationalism consists in coming together (first ideologically, then in due time also organisationally) of people who, in these grave days, are capable of defending Socialist internationalism in practice, i.e., to gather their forces and “to be next in shooting” at the governments and the ruling classes of one’s own “fatherland.” This is not an easy task; it will require much preparation, great sacrifices, it will not fail to suffer defeats. But just because it is not an easy task, it must be done in company with those only who wish to do it, who are not afraid of a complete break with the chauvinists and with the defenders of social-chauvinism.

For a sincere non-hypocritical restoration of a Socialist, and not chauvinist, International, more is being done by such persons as Pannekoek than by any one else. In an article entitled “The Collapse of the International,” Pannekoek said: “If the leaders were to convene and to attempt to patch up their differences, it would be of no value at all.”

Let us openly state the facts; the war will compel us to do it anyway, if not to-morrow, then the day after. There are three currents in international Socialism: (1) the chauvinists who consistently pursue a policy of opportunism; (2) the consistent enemies of opportunism who in all countries have already begun to make themselves heard (the opportunists have almost everywhere dealt them a staggering blow, but “defeated armies learn fast”) and who are capable of leading revolutionary work in the direction of civil war; (3) confused and vacillating elements who at present drag themselves in the wake of the opportunists and who are most harmful to the proletariat by their hypocritical attempts to justify opportunism, which they do (no joke!) almost scientifically and with the use of the Marxian method. Part of those perishing in this last-named current can be saved and restored to Socialism, but only through the policy of a most decisive break and rupture with the first current, with all those who are capable of justifying the vote for appropriations, “the defence of the fatherland,” the “submission to martial law,” the eagerness to use legal means only, the renunciation of civil war. Only those who follow such a policy do in practice build a Socialist International. We, on our part, having established connections with the Russian bureau of the Central Committee and with the leading elements of the St. Petersburg labour movement, having exchanged opinions with them and be¬ come convinced that we are agreed in the main, are in a position, as editors of the Central Organ, to declare in the name of our party that only work conducted in this direction is party work and Social Democratic work.

A split in German Social-Democracy seems to be an idea which horrifies many by its unusualness. The objective situation, however, is such that either the unusual will happen (it was Adler and Kautsky who, at the last session of the International Socialist Bureau in July, 1914, B2 declared that they did not believe in miracles and therefore did not believe in a European war!) or we shall witness a painful decomposition of what was once German Social-Democracy. For the benefit of those who are too much accustomed to trust German Social-Democracy (its former self!) we wish, in conclusion, to mention the fact that the idea of a split begins to dawn upon people who, for many years, have been our opponents in a number of questions. Thus Martov wrote in the Golos: “The Vorwdrts is dead. Social-Democracy which publicly renounces the class struggle would do better to recognise the facts as they are, to disband its organisation for a time, to close its organs.” Thus Plekhanov is quoted by the Golos as having said in a lecture: “I am very much against splits, but if principles are sacrificed for the maintenance of the organisation, then I prefer a split to false unity.” In these words Plekhanov referred to the German radicals: he sees a mote in the eye of the Germans, but he does not see a beam in his own eye. This is his individual peculiarity; we have all become accustomed for the last ten years to Plekhanov’s radicalism in theory and opportunism in practice. However, if even persons with such individual “oddities” begin to talk of a split among he Germans, it is a sign of the times indeed

Notes.

1. Kautsky, “Die Internationale und der Burgfrieden” [“The International and Civil Peace”], Neue Zeit, No. 1, October 2, 1914— Ed.

2. This refers to a story by Gogol where two close friends become tempoparily estranged on account of harsh words uttered against each other.— Ed.

International Publishers was formed in 1923 for the purpose of translating and disseminating international Marxist texts and headed by Alexander Trachtenberg. It quickly outgrew that mission to be the main book publisher, while Workers Library continued to be the pamphlet publisher of the Communist Party.

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