Kautsky is most firmly convinced that he is an internationalist and calls himself one. Scheidemann he declares to be a "government socialist." In defending the Mensheviks (Kautsky does not say directly that he is in solidarity with them, but completely upholds their views), Kautsky has revealed most strikingly what sort of "internationalism" his is. And since Kautsky is not alone, but represents a trend that inevitably grew up in the atmosphere of the II International (Longuet in France, Turati in Italy, Nobs and Grimm, Graber and Näne in Switzerland, Ramsay MacDonald in England, etc.), it is instructive to dwell on Kautsky's "internationalism."

Emphasizing that the Mensheviks too were at Zimmerwald (a diploma, to be sure, but... a diploma that has rotted through), Kautsky describes the views of the Mensheviks, with which he agrees, in the following manner:

"...The Mensheviks wanted universal peace. They wanted all warring parties to accept the slogan: without annexations and indemnities. Until this was achieved, the Russian army, according to this view, had to remain in combat readiness. The Bolsheviks, on the other hand, demanded immediate peace at any cost; they were prepared, if necessary, to conclude a separate peace; they sought to force it by violence, intensifying the already severe disorganization of the army" (p. 27). According to Kautsky, the Bolsheviks should not have taken power and should have been content with the Constituent Assembly.

So, Kautsky's and the Mensheviks' internationalism consists of this: demanding reforms from an imperialist bourgeois government, but continuing to support it, continuing to support the war led by this government, until all warring parties have accepted the slogan: without annexations and indemnities. Such a view was repeatedly expressed by Turati and the Kautskyans (Haase and others), and by Longuet and Co., who claimed that we are for the "defense of the fatherland."

Theoretically, this is complete inability to separate from social-chauvinists and complete confusion on the question of defense of the fatherland. Politically, this is the substitution of internationalism with petty-bourgeois nationalism and a transition to the side of reformism, a renunciation of revolution.

Recognition of "defense of the fatherland" is, from the viewpoint of the proletariat, a justification of the given war, an acknowledgment of its legitimacy. And since the war remains imperialist (whether under a monarchy or a republic)—regardless of where enemy troops stand at a given moment, in my country or a foreign one—then recognition of defense of the fatherland is in fact support for imperialist, predatory bourgeoisie, complete betrayal of socialism. In Russia, even under Kerensky, in a bourgeois-democratic republic, the war continued to remain imperialist, because it was waged by the bourgeoisie as the ruling class (and war is the "continuation of politics"); and a particularly vivid expression of the imperialist character of the war were the secret treaties about the division of the world and the plunder of foreign countries, concluded by the former tsar with the capitalists of England and France.

The Mensheviks shamefully deceived the people, calling such a war defensive or revolutionary, and Kautsky, approving of Menshevik policy, approves of deception of the people, approves of the role of petty bourgeoisie serving capital by swindling workers, tying them to the chariot of imperialists. Kautsky pursues a typically petty-bourgeois, philistine policy, imagining (and suggesting to the masses a silly notion) that the raising of a slogan changes matters. The entire history of bourgeois democracy exposes this illusion: to deceive the people, bourgeois democrats have always put forward and continue to put forward any "slogans." The point is to test their sincerity, to compare words with deeds, not to be content with an idealistic or charlatan phrase, but to get to the heart of class reality. An imperialist war does not cease to be imperialist when charlatans or phrasemakers or petty-bourgeois philistines raise a sweet "slogan"—but only when the class conducting the imperialist war and bound to it by millions of economic ties (and even cables), actually turns out to be overthrown and is replaced in power by a truly revolutionary class, the proletariat. Otherwise, there is no way out of imperialist war—or equally out of imperialist, predatory peace.

Approving the foreign policy of the Mensheviks, declaring it internationalist and Zimmerwaldist, Kautsky, in the first place, thereby shows all the rottenness of the Zimmerwald, opportunistic majority (no wonder we, the Left of Zimmerwald, immediately separated ourselves from such a majority!), and in the second place—and this is the main thing—Kautsky moves from the position of the proletariat to the position of the petty bourgeoisie, from a revolutionary position to a reformist one.

The proletariat fights for the revolutionary overthrow of imperialist bourgeoisie; the petty bourgeoisie fights for reformist "improvement" of imperialism, for adaptation to it, while submitting to it. When Kautsky was still a Marxist, for example, in 1909, when he wrote "The Road to Power," he upheld precisely the idea of the inevitability of revolution in connection with war; he spoke of the approach of an era of revolutions. The Basel Manifesto of 1912 speaks directly and decidedly of a proletarian revolution in connection with precisely that imperialist war between the Germanic and English groups which broke out in 1914. And in 1918, when revolutions in connection with war began, instead of explaining their inevitability, instead of thinking through and working out revolutionary tactics, methods and means of preparing for revolution, Kautsky began to call the reformist tactics of the Mensheviks internationalism. Is this not renegacy?

Kautsky praises the Mensheviks for insisting on maintaining the army's combat readiness. He censures the Bolsheviks for intensifying the already severe "disorganization of the army." This means praising reformism and submission to imperialist bourgeoisie, censuring revolution, renouncing it. For maintaining combat readiness meant and was, under Kerensky, the preservation of an army with bourgeois command (even if republican). Everyone knows—and the course of events has vividly confirmed it—that this republican army preserved the Kornilov spirit thanks to the Kornilov officer corps. The bourgeois officer corps could not but be Kornilovite, could not but tend toward imperialism, toward violent suppression of the proletariat. To leave unchanged all the foundations of imperialist war, all the foundations of bourgeois dictatorship, to repair trifles, to paint over minor matters ("reforms")—this is what Menshevik tactics in fact amounted to.

And conversely. Without the "disorganization" of the army, no great revolution has taken place and can take place. For the army is the most ossified instrument for upholding the old order, the most hardened bulwark of bourgeois discipline, the support of the dominion of capital, the preservation and cultivation of slavish obedience and submission to it by the working masses. Alongside the army, counterrevolution never tolerated and could not tolerate armed workers. In France—wrote Engels—after each revolution the workers were armed; "therefore, for the bourgeoisie holding the state apparatus, the first commandment was the disarming of the workers." Armed workers were the germ of a new army, the organizational cell of a new social order. To crush this cell, not to allow it to grow—was the first commandment of the bourgeoisie. The first commandment of every victorious revolution—Marx and Engels repeatedly emphasized this—was: destroy the old army, disband it, replace it with a new one. A new social class, rising to dominion, could never and cannot now achieve and consolidate this dominion otherwise than by completely decomposing the old army ("disorganization"—shriek reactionary or simply timid philistines about this); otherwise than by passing through the most difficult, most painful period without any army (the great French revolution passed through this painful period); otherwise than by gradually working out, in the hard school of civil war, a new army, new discipline, new military organization of the new class. The historian Kautsky once understood this. The renegade Kautsky has forgotten it.

What right has Kautsky to call Scheidemann "government socialists" when he approves the tactics of the Mensheviks in the Russian revolution? The Mensheviks, supporting Kerensky, entering his ministry, were government socialists just the same. Kautsky cannot wriggle away from this conclusion if he only tries to raise the question of the ruling class conducting the imperialist war. But Kautsky evades raising the question of the ruling class—the question that is obligatory for a Marxist—because merely raising such a question would expose the renegade.

The Kautskyans in Germany, the Longuetists in France, Turati and Co. in Italy reason as follows: socialism presupposes equality and freedom of nations, their self-determination; therefore, when our country is attacked or when enemy troops invade our land, socialists have the right and the duty to defend the fatherland. But this reasoning is, theoretically, either downright mockery of socialism or fraudulent evasion, and practically-politically this reasoning coincides with the reasoning of a quite illiterate peasant who is not even capable of thinking about the social, class character of war and about the tasks of a revolutionary party during a reactionary war.

Socialism against violence toward nations. This is unquestionable. But socialism is generally against violence toward people. However, aside from Christian anarchists and Tolstoyans, no one has yet derived from this that socialism is against revolutionary violence. Hence, to speak of "violence" in general, without distinguishing the conditions that differentiate reactionary from revolutionary violence, means to be a philistine renouncing revolution, or it means simply to deceive oneself and others with sophistry.

The same applies to violence toward nations. Every war consists of violence toward nations, but this does not prevent socialists from being for revolutionary war. The class character of war—this is the fundamental question standing before a socialist (if he is not a renegade). The imperialist war of 1914–1918 is a war between two groups of imperialist bourgeoisie for the division of the world, for the division of spoils, for the plunder and strangulation of small and weak nations. Such an assessment of the war was given by the Basel Manifesto in 1912; such an assessment has been confirmed by the facts. Whoever departs from this viewpoint on war is not a socialist.

If a German under Wilhelm or a Frenchman under Clemenceau say: I have the right and the duty, as a socialist, to defend my fatherland if the enemy has invaded my country, then this is the reasoning not of a socialist, not of an internationalist, not of a revolutionary proletarian, but of a petty-bourgeois nationalist. For in this reasoning disappears the class revolutionary struggle of the worker against capital, disappears the assessment of the entire war as a whole, from the viewpoint of world bourgeoisie and world proletariat, that is, internationalism disappears, and there remains a wretched, hardened nationalism. My country is wronged, I care about nothing else—this is what such reasoning amounts to, this is its petty-bourgeois-nationalist narrowness. It is as if, with respect to individual violence, against one person, someone reasoned: socialism is against violence, therefore I would rather commit betrayal than sit in prison.

A Frenchman, German, or Italian who says: socialism is against violence toward nations, therefore I defend myself when the enemy has invaded my country, betrays socialism and internationalism. For such a person sees only his own "country," places above all his own... bourgeoisie, not thinking of the international connections that make the war imperialist, that make his bourgeoisie a link in the chain of imperialist plunder.

All philistines and all stupid and illiterate peasants reason precisely as the renegade Kautskyans, Longuetists, Turati and Co. reason, namely: an enemy is in my country, and I care about nothing else.

A socialist, a revolutionary proletarian, an internationalist reasons differently: the character of war (reactionary or revolutionary) depends not on who attacked and in whose country the "enemy" stands, but on what class conducts the war, what politics is continued by this war. If a given war is a reactionary imperialist war, that is, conducted by two world groups of imperialist, violent, predatory, reactionary bourgeoisie, then every bourgeoisie (even of a small country) becomes a participant in plunder, and my task, the task of a representative of revolutionary proletariat, is to prepare a world proletarian revolution as the only salvation from the horrors of world slaughter. Not from the viewpoint of "my own" country should I reason (for this is the reasoning of a stupid blockhead, a nationalist philistine who does not understand that he is a toy in the hands of imperialist bourgeoisie), but from the viewpoint of my participation in preparing, in propaganda, in hastening the world proletarian revolution.

That is what internationalism is, that is the task of an internationalist, a revolutionary worker, a true socialist. That is the ABC which the renegade Kautsky has "forgotten." And his renegacy becomes all the more evident when he, from approving the tactics of petty-bourgeois nationalists (Mensheviks in Russia, Longuetists in France, Turati in Italy, Haase and Co. in Germany), moves on to criticize Bolshevik tactics. Here is this criticism:

"The Bolshevik revolution was built on the assumption that it would serve as the starting point for a general European revolution; that the bold initiative of Russia would induce the proletarians of all Europe to rise.

Under such an assumption, it was, of course, a matter of indifference what forms the Russian separate peace would take, what hardships and territorial losses (literally: mutilations, Verstümmelungen) it would bring to the Russian people, what interpretation it would give to the self-determination of nations. Then it was equally a matter of indifference whether Russia was able to defend itself or not. A European revolution, according to this view, would constitute the best defense of the Russian revolution; it was supposed to bring complete and genuine self-determination to all peoples on the former Russian territory.

A revolution in Europe, which would bring socialism there and consolidate it, was also supposed to become a means for eliminating those obstacles that were placed in Russia against the implementation of socialist production by the economic backwardness of the country.

All this was very logical and well-grounded, if only one admitted the basic assumption: that the Russian revolution would inevitably unleash the European one. Well, but what if this does not happen?

So far this assumption has not justified itself. And now the proletarians of Europe are accused of having abandoned and betrayed the Russian revolution. This is an accusation against unknowns, for who is to be made responsible for the conduct of the European proletariat?" (p. 28).

And Kautsky elaborates further that Marx, Engels, Bebel were not infrequently mistaken about the advent of the revolution they expected, but that they never built their tactics on the expectation of a revolution "within a definite period" (p. 29), whereas, he says, the Bolsheviks "staked everything on a single card—universal European revolution."

We have deliberately quoted such a long passage in order to show the reader clearly how "cleverly" Kautsky falsifies Marxism, substituting for it a vulgar and reactionary petty-bourgeois view.

First, to attribute to one's opponent obvious stupidity and then refute it is not the method of particularly intelligent people. If the Bolsheviks had built their tactics on expectation of revolution in other countries within a definite period, that would certainly be stupidity. But the Bolshevik party did not commit this stupidity: in my letter to American workers (August 20, 1918) I directly distance myself from this stupidity, saying that we count on the American revolution, but not within a definite period. In my polemic against the Left SRs and "Left Communists" (January–March 1918) I repeatedly developed this very same thought. Kautsky committed a small... a very small distortion, upon which he built his criticism of Bolshevism. Kautsky confused together the tactics of counting on European revolution within a more or less near, but not within a definite period, and the tactics of counting on European revolution within a definite period. The second tactic is stupidity. The first is obligatory for a Marxist, for every revolutionary proletarian and internationalist—obligatory because only it correctly takes into account from a Marxist viewpoint the objective situation in all European countries created by the war, only it corresponds to the international tasks of the proletariat.

By substituting a minor question—about a possible error that Bolshevik revolutionaries might have committed but did not commit—for the major question about the foundations of revolutionary tactics in general, Kautsky conveniently renounced revolutionary tactics in general!

A renegade in politics, in theory he is unable to go further in raising the question about the objective premises of revolutionary tactics.

And here we have approached the second point.

Second. The count on European revolution is obligatory for a Marxist if there is a revolutionary situation at hand. This is an elementary truth of Marxism—that the tactics of the socialist proletariat cannot be the same when there is a revolutionary situation at hand as when there is none.

If Kautsky had raised this question, obligatory for a Marxist, he would have seen that the answer emerges absolutely against him. Long before the war, all Marxists, all socialists agreed that the European war would create a revolutionary situation. When Kautsky was not yet a renegade, he clearly and definitely recognized this—both in 1902 ("The Social Revolution") and in 1909 ("The Road to Power"). The Basel Manifesto, on behalf of the entire II International, recognized this: no wonder that social-chauvinists and Kautskyans ("centrists," people wavering between revolutionaries and opportunists) of all countries fear the corresponding statements of the Basel Manifesto like fire!

Consequently, the expectation of a revolutionary situation in Europe was not an infatuation of the Bolsheviks, but the common opinion of all Marxists. If Kautsky gets rid of this indisputable truth with such phrases as that the Bolsheviks "always believed in the omnipotence of violence and will," then this is precisely an empty phrase covering flight—and shameful flight—by Kautsky from raising the question of revolutionary situation.

Furthermore. Has a revolutionary situation actually come about or not? And this question Kautsky was unable to raise. Economic facts answer it: hunger and ruin, created by war everywhere, signify a revolutionary situation. Political facts also answer this question: already from 1915 there was clearly evident in all countries the process of split in the old, rotted socialist parties, the process of the masses of the proletariat breaking away from social-chauvinist leaders to the left, toward revolutionary ideas and moods, toward revolutionary leaders.

On August 5, 1918, when Kautsky was writing his pamphlet, only a man fearing revolution, betraying it, could fail to see these facts. And now, at the end of October 1918, revolution in a number of European countries is growing before everyone's eyes and very rapidly. The "revolutionary" Kautsky, who wishes to be considered a Marxist as before, turned out to be such a myopic philistine who—like the philistines of 1847, mocked by Marx—did not see the approaching revolution!!

We have reached the third point.

Third. What are the distinctive features of revolutionary tactics under the condition that a European revolutionary situation exists at hand? Kautsky, having become a renegade, was afraid to raise this question, obligatory for a Marxist. Kautsky reasons as a typical philistine-petty bourgeois or illiterate peasant: has a "universal European revolution" broken out or not? If it has broken out, then he too is ready to become a revolutionary! But then—we remark—any scoundrel (like those villains who sometimes now attach themselves to the victorious Bolsheviks) will declare himself a revolutionary!

If not, then Kautsky turns his back on revolution! Kautsky has not a shadow of understanding of that truth which distinguishes a Marxist revolutionary from a philistine and petty bourgeois: the ability to preach to the dark masses the necessity of an impending revolution, to prove its inevitability, to explain its utility for the people, to prepare the proletariat and all toiling and exploited masses for it.

Kautsky attributed to the Bolsheviks the nonsense that they staked everything on one card, counting on a European revolution within a definite period. This nonsense turned against Kautsky himself, for with him it turned out: Bolshevik tactics would have been correct if European revolution had come by August 5, 1918! It is precisely this date that Kautsky mentions as the time of writing his pamphlet. And when, a few weeks after this August 5, it became clear that revolution in a number of European countries was breaking out, then all of Kautsky's renegacy, all his falsification of Marxism, all his inability to reason revolutionarily and even to raise questions revolutionarily became apparent in all its glory!

When European proletarians are accused of betrayal, writes Kautsky, this is an accusation against unknowns.

You are mistaken, Mr. Kautsky! Look in the mirror, and you will see those "unknowns" against whom this accusation is directed. Kautsky pretends to be naive; he makes it seem that he does not understand who directed this accusation and what sense it has. In reality, Kautsky knows perfectly well that this accusation was put forward and is put forward by German "Leftists," the Spartacists, Liebknecht and his friends. This accusation expresses a clear consciousness that the German proletariat was committing betrayal of the Russian (and international) revolution when it was strangling Finland, Ukraine, Latvia, Estonia. This accusation is directed first and foremost not against the masses, who are always downtrodden, but against those leaders who, like Scheidemann and Kautsky, were not fulfilling their duty of revolutionary agitation, revolutionary propaganda, revolutionary work among the masses against their inertia, who were acting in fact in opposition to revolutionary instincts and strivings, always smoldering in the depths of the oppressed class. Scheidemann directly, rudely, cynically, mostly from mercenary motives, betrayed the proletariat and went over to the side of the bourgeoisie. Kautskyans and Longuetists did the same thing, wavering, vacillating, fearfully looking about at whoever was strong at the given moment. Kautsky with all his writings during the war was extinguishing the revolutionary spirit instead of supporting and developing it.

It will remain a veritable historical monument to the petty-bourgeois stupefaction of the "moderate" leader of German official social-democracy, that Kautsky does not even understand what gigantic theoretical significance, what even greater agitational and propaganda significance the "accusation" of European proletarians of having betrayed the Russian revolution has! Kautsky does not understand that this "accusation" is—under the censorship conditions of the German "empire"—scarcely anything other than the sole form in which German socialists who have not betrayed socialism, Liebknecht and his friends, express their call to German workers to throw off Scheidemann and Kautsky, to repel such "leaders," to free themselves from their stupefying and vulgarizing preaching, to rise in spite of them, outside them, through them, to revolution, into revolution!

Kautsky does not understand this. How then can he understand the tactics of the Bolsheviks? Can one expect from a man who renounces revolution in general that he would weigh and assess the conditions for the development of revolution in one of the most "difficult" cases?

The tactics of the Bolsheviks were correct, were the only internationalist tactics, because they were based not on cowardly fear of world revolution, not on petty-bourgeois "disbelief" in it, not on narrow-nationalist desire to defend "one's own" fatherland (the fatherland of one's own bourgeoisie) and to spit on all the rest—they were based on a correct (before the war, before the renegacy of social-chauvinists and social-pacifists, universally recognized) assessment of the European revolutionary situation. These tactics were the only internationalist tactics because they carried out the maximum achievable in one country for the development, support, awakening of revolution in all countries. These tactics have been vindicated by enormous success, because Bolshevism (not at all through the merits of Russian Bolsheviks, but through the deepest sympathy of the masses everywhere for tactics that are truly revolutionary) became world Bolshevism, gave an idea, theory, program, tactics, concretely and practically distinct from social-chauvinism and social-pacifism. Bolshevism finished off the old, rotted International of Scheidemann and Kautsky, Renaudel and Longuet, Henderson and MacDonald, who will now get tangled up in each other's feet, dreaming of "unity" and resurrecting a corpse. Bolshevism created the ideological and tactical foundations of the III International, truly proletarian and communist, taking into account both the conquests of the peaceful epoch and the experience of the beginning epoch of revolutions.

Bolshevism popularized throughout the world the idea of the "dictatorship of the proletariat," translated these words from Latin first into Russian, and then into all the languages of the world, showing by the example of Soviet power that workers and the poorest peasants even of a backward country, even the least experienced, educated, accustomed to organization, were capable of maintaining the power of the toilers for a whole year, amid gigantic difficulties, in struggle with the exploiters (supported by the bourgeoisie of the whole world), of creating a democracy immeasurably higher and broader than all previous democracies of the world, of beginning the creative work of tens of millions of workers and peasants in the practical implementation of socialism.

Bolshevism aided in fact the development of the proletarian revolution in Europe and America more powerfully than any party in any country has ever been able to aid. At the very time when it is becoming clearer to workers throughout the world each day that the tactics of Scheidemann and Kautsky did not save from imperialist war and from hired slavery to imperialist bourgeoisie, that these tactics are not suitable as a model for all countries—at this very time it is becoming clearer to the masses of proletarians of all countries each day that Bolshevism has pointed the true path to salvation from the horrors of war and imperialism, that Bolshevism is suitable as a model of tactics for all.

Not only all-European, but world proletarian revolution is ripening before everyone's eyes, and it was helped, accelerated, supported by the victory of the proletariat in Russia. Is all this sufficient for complete victory of socialism? Of course not. One country cannot do more. But this one country, thanks to Soviet power, nonetheless accomplished so much that even if the Russian Soviet power were crushed tomorrow by world imperialism—let us suppose, through the agreement of German imperialism with Anglo-French imperialism—even in this, the worst of worst cases, Bolshevik tactics would prove to have brought tremendous benefit to socialism and to have supported the growth of the invincible world revolution.