V. I.

Lenin

In its issue of January 9, the German Social-Democrats
Gothaer Volksblatt published an article entitled, “Police
Protection for the Policy of the Social-Democratic Parliamentary
Group”.

“ The first two days of the operation of the censorship,” says
the paper, which has been placed under the gratifying guardianship of the
military authorities, “show with full clarity that the central
authorities are particularly anxious to gag the undesirable critics of the
policy of the Social-Democratic group within our own ranks. The censorship
is designed to preserve ‘party peace’ within the ranks of the
Social-Democrats, in other words, to preserve a “united”,
“cemented” and powerful German Social-Democratic
Party. Social-Democracy under governmental tutelage-such is the most
important event in the internal policies of our “great” time, of
the era of the rebirth of the German nation.

“ Several weeks have passed since the politicians who make up our
Social-Democratic parliamentary group began an energetic propaganda campaign
of their views. They have come up against strong opposition in several very
large party centres. Their propaganda has put the workers in a frame of mind
unfavourable rather than favourable to those who vote for war credits, which
is why the military authorities have sought to help the latter now by means
of the censorship, now by abolishing freedom of assembly. With us in Gotha,
this help is coming from the military censor, in Hamburg, from the ban on
meetings.

In quoting these words, the Swiss Social-Democratic paper, which is
published in Berne, adds that a number of Social-Democratic papers in
Germany have been placed under censorship, and continues with the comment:
“very soon there will be nothing to disturb the unanimity of the
German press. If anybody attempts to affect it, the military dictatorship
will firmly and rapidly put an end to that, acting on information supplied
directly or indirectly by ‘Social-Democrats’ that stand for
party peace.”

The opportunist Social-Democratic papers do indeed, directly or
indirectly, pass on information about the radical press!

Consequently, the facts go to show that we were perfectly right in
writing in No. 36 of Sotsial-Demokrat: “The opportunists are
bourgeois enemies of the proletarian revolution .... In times of crisis they
immediately prove to be open allies of the entire united
bourgeoisie.” [1]

As a slogan of the Social-Democratic Party, unity today means unity with the opportunists and submission to them (or to
their bloc with the bourgeoisie). This is a slogan which in actual fact aids the police and the reactionaries, and is disastrous to the
labour movement.

We might, incidentally, mention the appearance of a splendid pamphlet by
Borchardt (in German) entitled Vor und nach dem 4. August 1914 , [2] with the
sub-title, Hat die deutsche Sozialdemokratie abgedankt? Indeed, it
has repudiated itself, says the author, revealing the glaring contrast
between party declarations prior to August 4 and the policies of
“August 4”. We shall stop at no sacrifice in the war against
war, the Social-Democrats of Germany (and other countries) said prior to
August 4, 1914, whereas, on September 28, 1914, Otto Braun, member of the
Central Committee, made reference to the 20 millions of marks invested in
legal papers, and their 11,000 employees. The tens of thousands of leaders,
officials and privileged workers, who have been demoralised by legalism,
have disorganised the million-strong army of the Social-Democratic
proletariat.

The lesson to be derived is as clear as clear can be: a decisive break
with chauvinism and opportunism. Yet, vapid Social-Revolutionary babblers
(J. Gardenin [3] and Co.) have, in the vapid Paris Mysi,
repudiated Marxism, in favour of petty-bourgeois ideas! Forgotten are the
elementary truths provided by political economy, and the world-wide
development of capitalism, which produces only one revolutionary
class—the proletariat. Forgotten are Chartism, June 1848, the Paris
Commune, and October and December, 1905. The workers can advance towards
their world-wide revolution only through a series of defeats and errors,
failures and weaknesses, but they are advancing towards it. One must be
blind not to see bourgeois and petty-bourgeois influence on the proletariat
as the main and fundamental cause of the International’s disgrace and
collapse in 1914. However, windbags like Gardenin and Co. would aply a
remedy to socialism by completely repudiating its only sociohistorical
foundation—the class struggle of the proletariat—and by diluting
Marxism with philistine and intellectualist—Narodnik verbiage. The
call is not for strenuous work towards a rupture between the proletarian
revolutionary movement and opportunism, but for unification of this movement
with the opportunists of the
Ropshin [4] and Chernov type, who were bomb-throwing liberals the day before yesterday, renegades in the toga of
liberals yesterday, and today delight in saccharine bourgeois phrases about
the “labour” principle! The Gardenins are no better than the
Südekums and the Socialist-Revolutionaries no better than the
liquidators. This is why they all meet so lovingly in
Sovremennik , [5] a journal that advocates a programme of a merger between the Social-Democrats
and the Socialist-Revolutionaries.

---
Notes:
[1]
See p. 110 of this volume.— Ed .

[2]
On August
4, 1914, the German Social-Democratic parliamentary party voted for war
credits for the Kaiser’s Government.

[3]
J. Garclenin—leader of the Socialist-Revolutionaries’ party
V. Chernov.

[4]
Ropshin—the Socialist-Revolutionary B. Savinkov.

[5]
Sovremennik —The Contemporary—a literary and political monthly published in St. Petersburg in 1911-15. A group of Menshevik,
Socialist-Revolutionaries, Popular-Socialists, and Left liberals formed
around the journal, which had no roots whatever in the working-class
masses. In 1914, Lenin defined its trend as a blend of Narodismn and
Marxism.