V. I.

Lenin

92

To:   ALEXANDRA KOLLONTAI

Dear A. M., We were very glad about the statement by the Norwegians
and your efforts with the
Swedes. [1] It would be devilishly important to have a joint international statement by the
Left Marxists! (A statement of principle is the main thing,
and so far the only thing possible.)

Roland-Hoist, like Rakovsky (have you seen his French pamphlet?), like Trotsky, in my opinion, are all the most
harmful “Kautskians”, in the sense that all of them in various forms are for unity with the opportunists, all in
various forms embellish opportunism, all of them (in various
ways) preach eclecticism instead of revolutionary Marxism.

I think your criticism of the draft declaration does not
show (unless I am mistaken) any serious differences between
us. I think it mistaken in theory and harmful in practice
not to distinguish types of wars. We cannot be against wars of national liberation. You quote the example of
Serbia. But if the Serbs were alone against Austria, would we
not be for the Serbs?

The essence of the thing today is the struggle between the Great Powers for the redivision of the colonies and the
subjugation of the smaller powers.

A war of India, Persia, China and so forth with Britain
or Russia? Would we not be for India against Britain, etc.?
To call that “a civil war” is inexact, an obvious exaggeration. It is extremely harmful to stretch the conception of
civil war beyond measure, because that blurs the essence of
the question: a war of hired workers against the capitalists
of a particular state.

It is the Scandinavians, apparently, who are falling into
a petty-bourgeois (and provincial, kleinstaatisch ) pacifism,
repudiating “war” in general. That is not Marxist. One has to combat this, like their rejection of the militia.

Once again greetings, and congratulations on the
Norwegian declaration!

Yours, Lenin