V. I.

Lenin

(THE SAD RESULTS OF OPPORTUNISM)

The British Labour Party, which must be distinguished from the two
socialist parties in Britain, the British Socialist Party and the Independent
Labour Party, is the workers’ organisation that is most opportunist and soaked
in the spirit of liberal-labour policy.

In Britain there is full political liberty and the socialist parties exist quite
openly. But the Labour Party is the parliamentary representative of workers’
organisations, of which some are non-political, and others liberal, a regular
mixture of the kind our liquidators want, those who hurl so much abuse at the
“underground”.

The opportunism of the British Labour Party is to be explained by the
specific historical conditions of the latter half of the nineteenth century in
Britain, when the “aristocracy of labour” shared to some extent in
the particularly high profits of British capital. Now these conditions are be
coming a thing of the past. Even the Independent Labour Party, i.e., the
socialist opportunists in Britain, realises that the Labour Party has
landed in a morass.

In the last issue of The Labour Leader , the organ of the Independent
Labour Party, we find the following edifying communication. Naval estimates are
being discussed in the British Parliament. The socialists introduce a motion to
reduce them. The bourgeoisie, of course, quash it by voting
for the government.

And the Labour M.P.s?

Fifteen vote for the reduction, i.e., against the government; 21 are absent ; 4 vote for the government , i.e., against the reduction!

Two of the four try to justify their action on the grounds that the
workers in their constituencies earn their living in the armament
industries.

There you have a striking example of how opportunism leads to the
betrayal of socialism, the betrayal of the workers’ cause. As we have already indicated, condemnation of this treachery is
spreading ever wider among British socialists. From the example of other
people’s mistakes, the Russian workers, too, should learn to understand how
fatal are opportunism and liberal-labour policy.