Dear comrade! You dispute my observation about the possibility of a given imperialist war being transformed into a national war. Your argument? “we will have to defend the imperialist fatherland”... Is that logical? If the fatherland remains “i m p e r i a l i s t,” then how will the war be national?? Talk of “possibilities,” in my opinion, has been introduced theoretically incorrectly by Radek and §-f in the 5 theses of the *International*. Marxism takes its stand on facts, not on possibilities. A Marxist must include only precisely and indisputably proven facts in his policy premises. That is what our (party) resolution does*. When, instead, one presents an “impossibility,” I reply: incorrect, non-Marxist, a stereotype. All sorts of transformations are possible. And I cite a historical fact (the war of 1792–1815). I take an example to illustrate that a similar thing is possible even now (given a backward development). It seems to me that you are confusing the possible (about which it was not I who started the talk!!) with the real when you think that acknowledging a possibility permits a change of tactics. That is the height of illogicality.

* See Collected Works, 5th ed., Vol. 26, pp. 161–67. —Ed.
V. I. LENIN

I recognise it as possible for a Social-Democrat to turn into a bourgeois and vice versa. An indisputable truth. Does it follow that I will now recognise a given bourgeois, Plekhanov, as a Social-Democrat? No, it does not. And in possibility? Let us wait for its transformation into reality. That is all. Precisely in “methodology” (of which you write) one must distinguish the possible from the actual. All sorts of transformations are possible, even a fool into a wise man, but such a transformation is rarely an actual one. And I will not cease to consider a fool a fool on account of the mere “possibility” of a transformation of that kind.

Your perplexities concerning “dual” education are not clear to me. I gave a concrete example (Norway) both in *Prosveshcheniye* and in the article against Kievsky**. You do not reply to that!! You take a quite unclear example about Poland. That is not “dual” education, but bringing different things to a common denominator, leading to the same Moscow from Nizhny and from Smolensk. A Swedish Social-Democrat who does not stand for Norway’s right to secede is a scoundrel. You do not dispute that. A Norwegian may be either for secession or against it. Is unity on such a question obligatory for all Social-Democrats of all countries? No. That would be a stereotype, a ridiculous stereotype, a ridiculous pretension. We have never accused the Polish Social-Democrats (I wrote this in *Prosveshcheniye*) of being opposed to Poland’s independence. Instead of simple, clear, theoretically indisputable argumentation: one cannot now support such a democratic demand (an independent Poland) which in practice entirely subordinates us to one of the imperialist powers or coalitions

* See “The Right of Nations to Self-Determination” (Collected Works, 5th ed., Vol. 25, pp. 289–94). —Ed.
** See “A Caricature of Marxism and Imperialist Economism” (Collected Works, 5th ed., Vol. 30, pp. 99–106). —Ed.

N. D. KIKNADZE. NOVEMBER 1916

(this is indisputable, sufficient; it is necessary and enough)—instead of this, they went so far as to talk the absurdity: “unrealisable.” We ridiculed this in 1903 and in April 1916. The good Polish Social-Democrats almost, almost proved the impossibility of creating a new Polish state, only... only the imperialist Hindenburg got in the way: he went ahead and created it. What ridiculous doctrinairism people reach who wish (from the Cracow standpoint) to deepen (or make stupid?) the “economic”!! The P.S.D.* wrote themselves into a denial of “Staatenbau”!!** And is not all democracy a Staatenbau? And does not the independence of Dutch India, demanded by Gorter, amount to a Staatenbau? We are for freedom of secession for Dutch India. And is a Social-Democrat of Dutch India obliged to be for secession? There is yet another example of allegedly “dual” education!!

War is the continuation of politics. Belgium is a colonial country—so you reason. Surely, however, we will be able to determine what policy the given war is continuing, whether the policy of Belgian slave-holding or of Belgian liberation?? I think we will be able to. And if someone blunders, that will be a question of fact. One cannot “prohibit” national wars (as Radek wants) for fear that brainless people or swindlers might again pass off an imperialist war as a national one!! That is ridiculous, yet that is how it comes out with Radek. We are not against national uprisings, but *for* them. That is clear. And one cannot go further: we shall examine each case concretely, and perhaps we shall not mistake the uprising of the South of America in 1863 for a “national uprising”...

*—P.S.D. (Polish Social-Democrats). —Ed.
**—“state-building”!! —Ed.

V. I. LENIN

I had Engels’ article from Grünberg’s Archive, but I sent it to Grigory. I will get it back from him and send it to you.

I shake you firmly by the hand.

Yours,
Lenin

N. K. asks me to send you her warm regards.