V. I. Lenin

Source: ru:PSS/v49; en:CW/CW35;es:MT
Translated: machine translation (DeepSeek) from the Russian; AI-translated.

TO A. SCHMID. DECEMBER 1, 1916

This idea is very important and, in my opinion, absolutely correct.

Could not this idea be applied in such a way that our differences (probably very insignificant) would disappear? For example:
If we put the question for a referendum only in this form: for the complete abolition of militarism or against it?—then we would get a muddle of pacifist (bourgeois-pacifist, etc.) and socialist votes for it, i.e., not a clarification of socialist consciousness, but only its obfuscation, not an application of the idea and policy of the class struggle to this special question (namely, the question of militarism), but a renunciation of the standpoint of the class struggle on the question of militarism.

But if we put the question for a referendum in this form: for the expropriation of the large capitalist enterprises in industry and agriculture, as the only way to the complete abolition of militarism, or against expropriation?

In that case, in our practical policy we would be saying the same thing that we all theoretically recognise, namely, that the complete abolition of militarism is conceivable and feasible only in connection with the abolition of capitalism.

Consequently, the formulation should be approximately as follows: 1) We demand the immediate expropriation of the large enterprises—perhaps in the form of a direct federal property and income tax with such high, revolutionarily high, rates on large fortunes that the capitalists would actually be expropriated.

2) We declare that such a socialist transformation of Switzerland is economically possible even now, immediately, and, owing to the unbearable high cost of living, is urgently necessary—and that for the political carrying out of such a transformation Switzerland needs not a bourgeois government, but a proletarian government, which would rely not on the bourgeoisie, but on the broad masses of wage-workers and the petty folk.