Kautsky is the most authoritative theoretician of the Second International, the most prominent leader of the so-called “Marxist centre” in Germany, the representative of the opposition which formed a special faction in the Reichstag: the “Social-Democratic Labour Group” (Haase, Ledebour and others). A number of Social-Democratic newspapers in Germany are now publishing articles by Kautsky on peace terms, paraphrasing the official statement of the “Social-Democratic Labour Group” which it issued in connection with the well-known note of the German government proposing negotiations for peace. While demanding that the government should propose definite peace terms, this statement, among other things, contains the following characteristic phrase:

“…In order that this note (of the German government) may lead to peace, it is necessary that the idea of annexations of alien territories, of the political, economic or military subordination of any people whatsoever to another state power should be unequivocally rejected in all countries…”.

Paraphrasing and concretising this proposition, Kautsky, in his articles, “proves” in detail that Constantinople must not fall to Russia and that Turkey must not become a vassal state of anyone.

Let us examine more closely these political slogans and arguments of Kautsky and his co-thinkers.

When the question concerns Russia, i.e., an imperialist rival of Germany, Kautsky puts forward not an abstract, not a “general” demand, but a completely concrete, precise, definite demand: Constantinople must not fall to Russia. In this way he exposes the actual imperialist designs… of Russia. When the question concerns Germany, i.e., precisely the country whose bourgeoisie and government are assisted in waging the imperialist war by the majority of the party which considers Kautsky its member (and which appointed Kautsky editor of its main, leading, theoretical organ, “Neue Zeit”), Kautsky does not expose the concrete imperialist designs of his own government, but confines himself to a “general” wish or proposition: Turkey must not become a vassal state of anyone!!

In what, by its actual content, does Kautsky’s policy differ from the policy of the militant, so to speak, social-chauvinists (i.e., socialists in words, chauvinists in deeds) of France and England, who directly expose the concrete imperialist steps of Germany while fobbing off with “general” wishes or propositions regarding the countries or peoples conquered by England and Russia? They shout about the seizure of Belgium, Serbia, but keep silent about the seizure of Galicia, Armenia, colonies in Africa?

In fact, the policy of Kautsky and that of Sembat–Henderson equally help their own imperialist government, by drawing the main attention to the malevolence of the rival and enemy, by casting a veil of vague general phrases and kind-hearted wishes over the equally imperialist steps of “their own” bourgeoisie. And we would cease to be Marxists, we would cease to be socialists altogether, if we confined ourselves to Christian, so to speak, contemplation of the goodness of kind-hearted general phrases, without laying bare their real political significance. Do we not constantly see that the diplomacy of all imperialist powers flaunts the most noble-minded “general” phrases and “democratic” declarations, using them to cover up the robbery, rape and strangulation of small nations?

“Turkey must not be anyone’s vassal state”… If I say only that, the appearance is created as though I am a supporter of full freedom for Turkey. But in fact I am merely repeating a phrase usually uttered also by German diplomats, who are deliberately lying and playing the hypocrite, using this phrase to cover up the fact that Germany has now turned Turkey into her own financial and military vassal! And if I am a German socialist, then my “general” phrases are only advantageous for German diplomacy, since their real meaning consists in prettifying German imperialism.

“…The idea of annexations… of the economic subordination of any people whatsoever… must be rejected in all countries.”

What noble-mindedness! The imperialists “reject the idea” of annexations and financial strangulation of weak peoples thousands of times over; but ought not this to be compared with the facts showing that every big bank in Germany, England, France, the United States keeps small peoples “in subordination”? Can the present-day bourgeois government of a rich country really reject annexations and the economic subordination of alien peoples, when thousands of millions are invested in railways and other enterprises of weak peoples?

Who really fights against annexations and the like – is it he who scatters to the wind noble-minded phrases whose objective significance is completely equivalent to the Christian holy water sprinkled upon crowned and capitalist robbers, or is it he who explains to the workers the impossibility of ending annexations and financial strangulation without overthrowing the imperialist bourgeoisie and its governments?

Here is yet another, Italian, illustration of the pacifism preached by Kautsky.

In the central organ of the Italian Socialist Party, “Avanti!” (“Forward!”), of December 25, 1916, the well-known reformist Filippo Turati published an article entitled “Abracadabra”. On November 22, 1916, he writes, the parliamentary socialist group of Italy introduced a proposal on peace in parliament. In this proposal it “noted the concordance of the principles proclaimed by the representatives of England and Germany, principles which should form the basis of a possible peace, and invited the government to begin negotiations for peace through the mediation of the United States and other neutral countries”. This is how Turati himself sets forth the content of the socialist proposal.

On December 6, 1916, the Chamber “buries” the socialist proposal by “postponing” its discussion. On December 12 the German chancellor, in the Reichstag, proposes on his own account what the Italian socialists wanted. On December 22 Wilson comes out with his note, “paraphrasing and repeating,” in F. Turati’s expression, “the ideas and motives of the socialist proposal.” On December 23 other neutral states enter the scene, paraphrasing Wilson’s note.

We are accused of having sold ourselves to Germany, exclaims Turati. Have not Wilson and the neutral states also sold themselves to Germany?

On December 17 Turati delivered a speech in parliament, one passage of which caused an extraordinary – and deserved – sensation. Here is that passage, according to the “Avanti!” report:

“…Let us suppose that a discussion of the kind proposed to us by Germany is capable of resolving, in its main outlines, questions such as the evacuation of Belgium, France, the restoration of Rumania, Serbia and, if you like, Montenegro; I will add for you the rectification of Italy’s frontiers in respect of that which is indisputably Italian and which meets the guarantees of a strategic character…” At this point the bourgeois and chauvinist Chamber interrupts Turati; exclamations come from all sides: “Excellent! So you too want all this! Long live Turati! Long live Turati…”

Turati, evidently sensing something amiss in this enthusiasm of the bourgeoisie, attempts to “correct” himself or “explain” himself:

“…Gentlemen,” he says, “there must be no misplaced jokes. It is one thing to admit the appropriateness and the right of national unity, always recognised by us; it is another thing to provoke or justify war for this aim.”

Neither this “explanation” of Turati, nor the articles in “Avanti!” in his defence, nor Turati’s letter of December 21, nor an article by a certain “bb” in the Zurich “Volksrecht” in any way “corrects” the matter or removes the fact that Turati got caught out!.. Or rather: it was not Turati who got caught out, but the entire socialist pacifism, represented both by Kautsky and, as we shall see below, by the French “Kautskyites”. The bourgeois press of Italy was right in seizing upon that passage in Turati’s speech and rejoicing over it.

The aforementioned “bb” attempts to defend Turati by the argument that he was speaking only of the “right of nations to self-determination”.

A poor defence! What has the “right of nations to self-determination,” which, as everyone knows, relates in the programme of the Marxists – and has always related in the programme of international democracy – to the defence of oppressed nations, got to do with an imperialist war, i.e., a war over the division of colonies, over the oppression of foreign countries, a war between plundering, oppressing powers over who shall oppress more alien peoples?

To invoke the self-determination of nations in justification of an imperialist, and not a national, war – how does this differ from the speeches of Alexinsky, Hervé, Hyndman, who invoke the republic in France, standing opposed to the monarchy in Germany, although everyone knows that this war is being waged not at all over a clash between republicanism and the monarchical principle, but over the division of colonies, etc., between two imperialist coalitions?

Turati explained and justified himself by saying that he was not at all “justifying” the war.

Let us believe the reformist Turati, the supporter of Kautsky, Turati, that it was not his intention to justify the war. But who does not know that in politics it is not intentions that are taken into account, but deeds? Not good wishes, but facts? Not the imaginary, but the actual?

Let Turati not have wanted to justify the war; let Kautsky not have wanted to justify Germany’s establishment of vassal relations of Turkey to German imperialism. But in fact both these kind-hearted pacifists ended up precisely with a justification of the war! That is the crux of the matter. Had Kautsky uttered, not in a journal so boring that nobody reads it, but from the rostrum of parliament, before a live, impressionable, Southern-temperamented bourgeois audience, a similar phrase: “Constantinople must not fall to Russia,” “Turkey must not be anyone’s vassal state,” there would have been nothing surprising in the exclamations of the witty bourgeoisie: “Excellent! Correct! Long live Kautsky!”

Turati in fact stood – regardless of whether he wanted this, whether he was conscious of it – on the point of view of a bourgeois broker proposing an amicable deal between the imperialist predators. The “liberation” of the Italian territories belonging to Austria would have been in reality a cover for the compensation of the Italian bourgeoisie for participation in the imperialist war of a gigantic imperialist coalition, would have been an inessential appendage to the division of colonies in Africa, spheres of influence in Dalmatia and Albania. For the reformist Turati it is perhaps natural to stand on a bourgeois point of view, but Kautsky in fact did not differ one iota from Turati.

In order not to prettify the imperialist war, in order not to help the bourgeoisie falsely to pass off such a war as a national war, as a war liberating peoples, in order not to find oneself on the position of bourgeois reformism, one should have spoken not as Kautsky and Turati do, but as Karl Liebknecht does, one should have declared to one’s own bourgeoisie that it is being hypocritical when it talks of national liberation, that a democratic peace is impossible in connection with a given war unless the proletariat “turns its weapons” against its own governments.

Such, and only such, could be the position of a genuine Marxist, a genuine socialist, and not a bourgeois reformist. It is not he who repeats the general, meaningless, non-committal, kind-hearted wishes of pacifism who really works for the benefit of a democratic peace, but he who exposes the imperialist character both of the given war and of the imperialist peace being prepared by it, who calls upon the peoples to revolt against the criminal governments.

Some sometimes attempt to defend Kautsky and Turati by arguing that it was impossible legally to go beyond a “hint” against the government, and such a “hint” is present in pacifists of this kind. To this it must be replied, firstly, that the impossibility of telling the truth legally is an argument not in favour of concealing the truth, but in favour of the necessity for an illegal, i.e., free from the police and censorship, organisation and press; secondly, that there are historical moments when a socialist is required to break with all legality; thirdly, that even in serf-ridden Russia Dobrolyubov and Chernyshevsky were able to tell the truth, either by silence about the manifesto of February 19, 1861, or by ridiculing and pillorying the liberals of that time, who spoke exactly such speeches as Turati and Kautsky.

In the next article we shall pass to French pacifism, which found expression in the resolutions of the two just-held congresses of the workers’ and socialist organisations of France.