| 1. | Definition | {{ | economic | ||
| political | { | reaction | |||
| national oppression | |||||
| annexations | |||||
| Imperialism = capitalism | |||||
| α monopolist |
⎧ ⎪ ⎪ ⎨ ⎪ ⎪ ⎩ |
1) cartels | |||
| 2) big banks | |||||
|
3) financial oligarchy (more than 100,000 million of share capital) |
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4) colonies and export of capital (division of the world) |
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| α monopolist | { | 1) export of capital | |||
| 2) 100,000 million of share capital | |||||
| γ moribund (“transitional”) | ||||||
| 1a. Basle and Chemnitz | ||||||
| 2. | Contra K. Kautsky. Blunting the contradictions, con- cealment, evasions, etc. |
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| 3. | Three lines: lackeys |
⎧ ⎪ ⎪ ⎨ ⎪ ⎪ ⎩ |
opportunists | crude |
⎫ ⎬ ⎭ |
National- |
| cynical | Liberals | |||||
| reformists | ” | subtle | (Lieb- | |||
| concealed | knecht)[2] | |||||
| revolutionary | ||||||
| Social-Democrats | Marxists | |||||
| 4. |
Fabians, Vandervelde, Jaurès and Co. (1907).... + Sozialistische Monatshefte + Die Glocke + Renner and Co. + Plekhanov and “disciples” in Russia. |
|
| (1) | Disarmament.... | |
| (2) |
United States of Europe (cartel of imperialists)... (Organisation of “Central Europe”).... |
|
| (3) | Annexations.... | |
| (4) | “Peace” (social-pacifism).... | |
| (5) | “Ultra-imperialism”.... | |
| (6) | “Defence of the fatherland”.... | |
| (7) | Imperialist character of the war.... | |
| (8) | Freedom of trade (“peaceful relations”) | |
| (9) | Colonies (cf. 1907 and 1914-16).... (Away from colo- nies?) |
|
| (10) |
Benefits from colonies import and export from own colonies versus “freedom of trade” |
} |
| (11) | Imperialism and opportunism (sentiment versus trend). |
|
| (12) | “Unity” with the opportunists. |
| (13) |
Trends in international Social-Democracy 1889-1914[3] versus present disintegration. |
⎧ ⎨ ⎩ |
Millerandism[4] (Jaurès), Bernsteinism,[5] British “Liberal- Labour” [policy] |
⎫ ⎬ ⎭ |
| (14) | Voting for war credits. | |
| (15) | Mass actions = “adventurism”? | |
| (16) | Past (1909; 1910; 1911 K. Kautsky versus 1914-16) and present. |
|
| (17) | K. Kautsky versus Pannekoek, 1912, on mass actions.... | |
| (18) | Eclecticism versus dialectics. | |
| (19) | Engels and Marx on the roots of British opportunism. |
| (20) | { |
August 4, 1914 August 2, 1914 and ultimatum to the opposition |
} |
| (21) |
Sympathy for Karl Liebknecht (everywhere) (or in Europe?) |
|
| (22) | Zimmerwald and The Hague. |
[1] This item, apparently, is a plan for an article or several articles on the revolutionary Marxist attitude versus the opportunist attitude towards imperialism. The beginning of the plan corresponds to the text of “Imperialism and the Split in Socialism” (see present edition, Vol. 23, pp. 105-20). To bring out the connection between imperialism and opportunism, Lenin critically analyses, in the plan and the article, the attitude of Kautsky, the outstanding spokesman of opportunism. He reveals “the inseparable historical connection between social-chauvinism and opportunism, as well as the intrinsic similarity of their political ideology” (ibid. p. 105). Lenin used only part of the plan in writing “Imperialism and the Split in Socialism”. That is suggested by the concluding sentence of the article: “In the next article we shall try to sum up the principal features that distinguish this [Marxist—Ed.] line from Kautskyism” (ibid., p. 120).
[2] The reference, apparently, is to the errors of Wilhelm Liebknecht (vacillations towards national-liberalism) in 1864-70, when the bourgeois-democratic revolution in Germany was in its concluding stage, and the Prussian and Austrian exploiting classes were trying to devise a method of completing the revolution from above. Lenin pointed out that “Marx not only rebuked Lassalle, who was coquetting with Bismarck, but also corrected Liebknecht, who had lapsed into ‘Austrophilism’ and a defence of particularism; Marx demanded revolutionary tactics which would combat with equal ruthlessness both Bismarck and the Austrophiles” (see present edition, Vol. 21, p. 78, and also pp. 119 and 308). The Mensheviks and other national-liberals tried to make use of Wilhelm Liebknecht’s errors to justify their chauvinist stand during the imperialist war of 1914-18.
[3] Analysing the development of opportunism in the international Social-Democratic movement, Lenin demonstrated the inevitability of its transformation into social-chauvinism during the imperialist war of 1914-18. In “Opportunism and the Collapse of the Second International” he showed that the opportunism of the years 1889-1914 and the social-chauvinism of the period of the First World War have the same class basis and the same political content, namely, alliance of the servitors to the bourgeoisie and the big capital against the working class, class collaboration, repudiation of revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat. “Social-chauvinism is the direct continuation and consummation of British liberal-labour politics, of Millerandism and Bernsteinism” (see present edition, Vol. 22, p. 112).
[4] Millerandism—an opportunist trend named after the French socialist Millerand, who in 1899 joined the reactionary bourgeois government of France and helped the bourgeoisie carry out its policy.
[5] Bernsteinism—an opportunist trend in international Social-Democracy which arose at the end of the nineteenth century and derived its name from the German Social-Democrat Eduard Bernstein. In articles published in 1896-98 in Die Neue Zeit, the theoretical organ of the German Social-Democratic Party, and in his book The Premises of Socialism and the Tasks of Social-Democracy (1899), Bernstein came out against the Marxist theory of class struggle, the inevitable collapse of capitalism, against the socialist revolution and proletarian dictatorship. He urged Social-Democrats to confine themselves to achieving reforms that would improve the workers’ economic position under capitalism. Bernstein’s opportunist and revisionist views were supported by the Right wing of the German Social-Democratic Party and of other Second International parties. Only the Bolshevik Party, headed by Lenin, resolutely fought Bernsteinism and its adherents and successors.
In characterising one trend of opportunism and social-chauvinism, Lenin uses Engels’s appraisal of the British Labour Party as a “bourgeois labour party”. In “Imperialism and the Split in Socialism”, Lenin states that a “bourgeois labour party” is inevitable and typical in all imperialist countries, and that “‘bourgeois labour parties’, as a political phenomenon, have already been formed in all the foremost capitalist countries” (see present edition, Vol. 23, p. 118)
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