P. Lensch, Social-Democracy, Its End and Its Successes, Leipzig (Hirzel), 1916 (preface May 22, 1916).
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Pp. 11-12. Marx, he says, had only “derision” for such “well-intentioned conceptions” as disarmament, “the right of nations to self-determination[1]”, etc. |
! |
(p. 41: “old petty-bourgeois dogmatism”)
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p. 15—since the nineties Social-Democracy has been “gradually discarding of everything of a sectarian nature”... (hopes of a millennium, and so forth have been dropped, etc.).... |
“sect” | |||
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Everything was judged from an “agitational” stand- point (17) ... German Social-Democracy’s “period of enthusiasm” ... (as early as 1889, the decision about May Day). |
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Growth of imperialism—close of the nineteenth century— of Great Britain, France, and also Germany (26-27)....
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Growth of revisionism: both trends (revision- ism and radicalism) were necessary and useful (31-35).... |
ha-ha!! |
Marx and Engels were not “petty-bourgeois sentimentalists”: “They knew that in war there would be shooting” (39).... 62-68. We should have voted against war credits on August 4 (in point of fact it would have been all the same), but for war credits on December 2, 1914—for it was the French and British who went back on internationalism. [The swindler!!]
That would have diminished international hatred of the Germans and so strengthened their national cause: 69-70.
| What a swindler!!! | ||
| ha-ha!!! |
“The collapse of the International” (Chapter 3) was due to the fact that the French and British came out for war (sic!!). |
| sic! |
Of course, there will be a Third International, only “less utopian” (112) and more conscious of its “economic basis”... |
| sic! |
“The more mature a proletariat, the more active it has been in the war” (113)—this proposition of Renner’s, he says, is “not valid”, for their be- haviour in Britain and France is due not to “matu- rity”, but to the struggle for world domination against Germany. |
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The British workers were defending their (monopoly) exceptional position and their privileges (114-15)....
The aristocratic upper stratum (115) of the British proletariat.
| ha-ha! |
So long as there are exploiter-nations, so long as there is no “equilibrium” of the “powers” (116), it is “too early” to speak of the international soli- darity of the working class (117).... |
And the “catalogue of pious wishes” (the right to self-determination (petty-bourgeois, etc.), against annexations, etc.) is abstract, takes no account of the concrete (121) aim of the war—to smash the “class domination” (114) (+122) of Great Britain, her monopoly (122), her “exceptional position” (120)....
| clown! |
A “revolution” (123 and preface), that is what the present war is!! “The rise of this” (proletarian) “class is taking place, it is true, amid the thunder of a revolutionary world war, but without the lightning of a revolutionary civil war”... (124) (author’s italics). |
“The shattering of British world domination”=revolution.
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submarines and Zeppelins (125)... “the beginning of the end” of Britain’s ruling position (126) (their role will be still greater after the war) |
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131—In the last 34 decades of the nineteenth century, Great Britain added to her colonies 15 million sq. km., an additional 15 million
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| cf. my figures | |||||
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Britain + France + Russia= “a syndicate for dividing up the world” (132 and elsewhere) with the aim: “weltpolitisch aushungern” Germany[3] (132) |
ha-ha expres- sion |
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| N.B. | N.B. | ||||||||||||
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175: Almost half of the British working class do not have the franchise. The “principle of organisation”—such is the essence of Prussian history, and the source of Germany’s strength. She is nearest of all to “social revolution” (184), she embodies the “revolutionary principle”. Britain—the “reactionary”. |
⎧ ⎪ ⎪ ⎪ ⎪ ⎩ |
⎧ ⎪ ⎪ ⎪ ⎪ ⎩ |
!!! |
186: “Symbolic visit to Berlin trade union headquarters”... (the government appreciates the role of the trade unions). (All praise for the trade union leaders) (185-86).
188: I called this “war socialism”, and the term has acquired “international legitimacy”.
195: New expenditure (4,000 million per annum) after the war will inevitably lead to socialisation and monopolies.
198: “Democratisation of the army system”—from this... =“arming of the people” (204)=the meaning “of our Social-Democratic” programme....
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209-10—The minority in the German Party is reactio- nary in the historical sense, and hence its fate is: “impossibilism and sectarian prattle”. |
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The Social-Democratic Party will henceforward be less narrow; the “intellectuals” and even the officers will return to it (212).
The state will recognise the need for the Party and will allow Social-Democrats to be officers (!!).
| N.B. |
Social-Democracy, which has “uplifted” the work- ers has raised them nationally (215 in fine) (“national upsurge”) |
(=“the Social-Democrats are the most national of all parties”) (216).
| Sophistry instead of dialectics |
Everywhere there is play with the catch- word “dialectics”, used in very banal sense. Not the slightest attempt to see the whole picture. One thing alone is brought out sophistically: British world domination must be undermined. |
[1] In the manuscript, the words “right to self-determination” are joined by an arrow to the subsequent addition “(p. 41: ‘old petty-bourgeois dogmatism’)”.—Ed.
[2] See p. 253 of this volume.—Ed.
[3] An untranslatable expression. Literally, “to starve Germany in relation to world politics”, i.e., deprive her of all possibility of pursuing a world policy.—Ed.
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