V. I.

Lenin

Shortly before the Zimmerwald Conference, a pamphlet by P. Axeirod, came
out in Zurich in the German language, under the title of The Crisis and the Tasks of International Social-Democracy . [1]

The Zurich
Volksrecht subsequently pub-lished two articles by L. Martov in
praise of the pamphlet. We do not know whether the two authors will bring
out these works in Russian. It would be hard to find a better illustration
of the way the leaders of the Organising Committee are defending
opportunism and social-chauvinism.

The struggle against “dangers threatening party unity” runs
through the whole pamphlet. “A rupture and dissension”—this is what Axeirod is afraid of, and endlessly
repeats ad nausearn. Do not imagine, however, that it is the
present state of affairs in Social-Democracy, the present alliance between
its leaders and their respective national bourgeoisie, that Axelrod
considers dissension and a rup-ture. Oh, no! In Axelrod’s opinion,
dissension means drawing a clear line of distinction between true socialists
and social-chauvinists. Kautsky is numbered by Axeirod among the comrades
“whose internationalist sentiments and con-sciousness are beyond any
doubt”. Yet, in all the forty-six pages of the pamphlet there is not
the slightest attempt to bring Kautsky’s views together, quote them
correctly, and ascertain whether recognition of the defence of the
father-land idea in the present war does not imply chauvinism.

Not a word on the issue, or about our arguments. What we find is a
“report to the authorities”. In the course of a lecture
delivered in Zurich, Lenin, he writes, called Kautsky chauvinist,
philistine, traitor (p. 21). Dear Martov and Axelrod, this is no longer
literature, but a desk-sergeant’s report.

“ In the West,” the pamphlet says, “we do not find that
variety of supermen who utilise each party crisis, any difficult situation,
to step forth in the role of the Party’s sole saviours from
destruction, and light-heartedly conduct an inner-party policy of chaos and
disorganisation” (p. 22). Is this literature?

But if there are no such super-monsters “in the West” who
dare consider Kautsky and Axeirod chauvinists and. opportunists, and at the
very thought of whom dear Axol-rod trembles With rage and emits a spate of
such elegant and choice language, how could Axelrod have written two pages
earlier:

“ If one considers the indignation that is mounting in ever broader
party circles, especially in Germany and France, against the policy of
‘seeing it through’ that is followed by our responsible party
organs, it is by no means impossible that the practical tendencies of the
Leninist propaganda may, through various channels, penetrate into the ranks
of Western Social-Democracy.”

That being the case, the fault does not seem to lie with the genuinely
Russian super-monsters who are flaying dear Axelrod! It would appear that
the international chauvinism of the official parties—both in
Germany and France, as Axeirod himself admits (note this!)—is evoking
indignation in and resistance from international revolutionary
Social-Democrats. Consequently, we have two trends, both
international. The angry Axelrod is abusive because he does not realise the
inevitability of both trends, of a decisive struggle between them; another
reason is that it pains his conscience and sensibilities, and that it is not
to his advantage openly to show his own stand, which consists in a desire to
appear internationalist while bein g chauvinist.

“ The problem of internationalising the working-class movement is
not identical with the question of revolutionising our forms and methods of
struggle,” he says; it is, as you see, “an ideological explanation” when one reduces everything to opportunism and ignores
the “tremendous force” of “patriotic ideas” which are “the product of thousand-year-old historical
processes”. “One must therefore strive”, he continues, “to create within the framework of this bourgeois society an actual
reality [italics by Axelrod], objective conditions of existence, at
least for the struggling masses of workers’, which can weaken the
above-mentioned dependence”, namely, “the dependence of the
masses upon the historically evolved national and territorial social
formations”. “For instance,” Axeirod goes on to illustrate
his profound idea, “labour protection and insurance legislation, as
well as various other important political demands, and, finally, the
cultural and educational needs and strivings of the workers, must become the
object of their international [italics by Axelrod] action and
organisations.” Everything, he says, reduces itself to “internationalising the day-by-day struggle for the demands of the
moment”.

This is certainly enticing and so unlike the struggle against opportunism
invented by some super-monsters! True internationalism in italics and a true
“Marxism” that is not satisfied with “ideological” explanations consist in concern over the internationalisation of insurance
legislation! Wonderful! The idea of a genius. Without any “struggle,
rupture or dissension”, all international opportunists or
international liberals, from Lloyd George to Friedrich Naumann and from
Leroy Beaulieu to Milyukov, Struve and Guchkov, will eagerly subscribe to
the scientific, profound and objective “internationalism” of
Axeirod, Martov, and Kautsky.

Here are some real gems of “internationalism”! Kautsky says:
If I defend my fatherland in an imperialist war, i.e., a war to plunder and
enslave other countries, and recognise that the workers of the other
belligerent countries are entitled to defend their fatherland, this is true
inter-nationalism. Axelrod says: One must not be carried away by
“ideological” attacks on opportunism but must carry on a
practical struggle against thousand-year-old nationalism by means of (also a
thousand-year-old) internationalisation of day-by-day work in the field of
insurance laws. Martov agrees with Axelrod.

Axeirod’s phrases about the thousand-year-old roots of nationalism,
etc., have about as much political sense as the declarations of the Russian
serf-owners prior to
1861, [2] about the thousand-year-old roots of serfdom. Such phrases are grist to the mill of the reactionaries and the
bourgeoisie, since Axelrod fails to mention—modestly fails to
mention—that decades of capitalist development, particularly after
1871, have created those objective international links between the
proletarians of all countries which today, at the present juncture, must
find expression in international revolutionary action. Axeirod is opposed to
such action. He is in favour of referring to the thousand-year-old roots of
the knout, but he is opposed to action aimed at destroying the knout!

But what about the proletarian revolution? The 1912 Baste Manifesto spoke
of it in connection with the impending war, which actually broke out two
years later. Perhaps Axeirod considers that this manifesto is also frivolous
“ideology”—an expression quite in the spirit of
Struve’s and Cunow’s “Marxism”!—for he does not say a word about it. As for the revolution, he dismisses
it as follows:

“ The tendency to view stormy and revolutionary mass action or
uprisings as the sole way of overcoming nationalism would have some
justification if we were on the eve of a social revolution, in the very same
way, for instance, as was the casein Russia beginning with the
students’ demonstrations of 1901, which were the precursors of the
approaching decisive battles against absolutism. But even those comrades who
place all their hopes on the speedy beginning of a stormy revolutionary
period will not risk stating definitely that the decisive conflict between
the proletariat and the bourgeoisie is imminent. On the contrary, they too
count on a period lasting decades” (p. 41). This, of course, is
followed by fulmination against the “Utopia” and the “Bakuninists” among Russian \’emigr\’es.

This example, chosen by Axelrod, exposes our opportunist in peerless
fashion. Could anybody in his right mind have “definitely
stated” in 1901 that the decisive struggle against absolutism in
Russia was “imminent”? Nobody could have done so and nobody did
say so. Nobody could have known at the time that four years later one of the decisive clashes (December 1905) was to come, and that the
next “decisive” battle against absolutism would take place
perhaps in 1915-16, or even later.

If nobody asserted in 1901, either definitely or in any other way, that a
decisive battle was “imminent”; if we declared at the time that
the “hysterical” outcries of Krichevsky, Martynov and Co. about
an “imminent” battle were lacking in seriousness, then we
revolutionary Social-Democrats were at that time positively affirming
something else: we affirmed that only hopeless opportunists could fail to
understand in 1901 the task of actively supporting the revolutionary demonstrations of 1901, encouraging and developing them, and
providing them with the most determined revolutionary slogans. History has
proved that we, and only we, were right; history has condemned the
opportunists, and has thrown them out of the working-class movement,
although no decisive battle was “imminent” at the time, and the
first decisive battle took place only four years later and yet did not prove
to be the last battle, i.e., the final and decisive battle.

Today Europe is going through quite the same experience, literally the
same experience. There cannot be the slightest doubt that a revolutionary
situation exists in the Europe of 1915, as in the Russia of 1901. We cannot
tell whether the proletariat’s first “decisive” battle against the bourgeoisie will take place in four years or two, within a
decade or more; we cannot tell whether the second “decisive”
battle will take place a decade after that, but we do know firmly and we
declare “positively” that at present it is our immediate and
bounden duty to support the growing unrest and the demonstrations which have
already begun. It is a fact that in Germany a crowd has booed
Scheidemann, and that in many countries crowds have demonstrated against the
high cost of living. Axelrod is evading this immediate and imperative duty
of Social-Democrats; Axelrod would dissuade the workers from performing that
duty. If one weighs the political sum and substance of Axelrod’s
arguments, one will see that he is with the leaders of social-patriotism and
social-chauvinism, and against the immediate propaganda of and preparations
for revolutionary action. This is the gist of the matter. All the rest is
just words.

We are undoubtedly on the eve of a socialist revolution. This
was recognised by ultra-cautious theorists, like Kautsky, as early as 1909
(Der weg zur Machi); it was recognised in the unanimously adopted
Basic Manifesto of 1912. Just as in 1901 we did not know whether the
“eve” of the first Russian revolution would last four years, we
do not know that today. The revolution may and probably will consist of many
years of fighting, of several periods of onslaught with intervals of
counter-revolutionary convulsions of the bourgeois system. The main issue of
the present political situation boils down to the question of whether the
already existing revolutionary situation should be exploited by supporting
and developing revolutionary movements. Yes or no? That is the
question that at present politically divides social-chauvinists and
revolutionary internationalists. Despite the revolutionary phrases of all
three, as well as of the five secretaries of the Organising Committee
abroad, Kautsky, Axelrod, and Martov are, on this issue, on the side of the
social-chauvinists.

Axelrod makes use of a profusion of phrases to cover up his defence of
social-chauvinism. His pamphlet may serve as an example of how
opinions can be concealed and how language and print can be used to
disguise ideas. Axelrod harps on the word internationalism. He censures both
the social-patriots and their friends for not wanting to shift to the left,
hints that he stands left of Kautsky , and speaks of the need for a Third
International, which, he says, should be strong enough to reply to attempts
by the bourgeoisie to kindle a world war conflagration “not with
threats but by unleashing a revolutionary storm” (p. 14), and so on
and so forth ad infinitum . In word, Axelrod is prepared to
recognise anything, including a revolutionary storm; in deed, he wants unity
with Kautsky and consequently with Scheidemann in Germany, with the
chauvinist and counter-revolutionary Nashe Dyelo, and with
Chkheidze’s group in Russia; in deed, he is against supporting and
furthering at present the incipient revolutionary movement. In
word,

everything; in deed, nothing. In word, he vehemently avows that he is an
“internationalist” and a revolutionary; in deed, he supports
the social-chauvinists and opportunists of the whole world in their
struggle against the revolutionary internationalists.

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Notes:
[1]
Die Krise und die Aufgaben dee Inlernationalen Sozial-demokratie
— Lenin

[2]
The year of the abolition of serfdom in Russia.— Ed .