Date: 1915-04-17
Source: Lenin Collection, Volume 27
Pages: 166-167

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"E C O N O M IST" ON THE WAR
The Economist, 17 April 1915.
Article "The End of the War".
But the longer the war lasts, the more prone will the peoples, as distinct from the governments, be to cry out against the carnage which is desolating day by day and week by week so many thousands of homes. Thus we are brought back again to the problem of "State versus Man", and to the question how far the rulers of the highly organised bureaucratic State will be able to hold out against internal revolutionary forces.

ARGUMENTS OF SOCIAL-PATRIOTS
Arguments of social-patriots
A pamphlet by Upton Sinclair with a response by Blatchford puts forward particularly clearly, directly, precisely, and decisively a new (not Plekhanov's, not Kautsky's, etc.) argument of the social-patriots:
Yes, the war is in the interests of the capitalists, etc., but we are obviously weak, obviously unable to prevent it. Talk about fighting the war, about "insurrection," etc., etc. — this is "quiet reasoning," hopeless "exaggeration" of our strength.
This is a variant of the argument about "utopianism," which was also present in Plekhanov's report.
From this point of view, the Basel resolution is a sincere attempt to scare the governments, not a promise or determination for revolutionary action or revolutionary propaganda.
Extremely narrow — and deliberately narrowed by Blatchford — is such a formulation of the question, which reduces everything to "preventive war." The use of the crisis for revolutionary propaganda and preparation for revolutionary actions — that is the essence.

In the manuscript, pages 4 and 5 are blank. Ed.
In the manuscript, the word "Extremely" is written over a crossed-out word that remains undeciphered. Ed.
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