V. I.

Lenin

In the Footsteps of Russkaya Volya

The methods of Russkaya Volya , a paper from which even the Cadets
turn away in disgust, find an increasing number of imitators. Look at Mr. Plekhanov ’s
Yedinstvo .
Intent on “exposing” Pravda , Mr. Plekhanov takes Lenin’s first thesis, quotes the words
saying that the war on Russia’s part remains a predatory
imperialist war, and then triumphantly asks:

“ And how about Germany? Lenin says nothing about that.”

This, literally, is what he writes. The reader can scarcely
believe the evidence of his own eyes. Can it be that
Mr. Plekhanov has sunk to the level of Novoye Vremya and Russkaya Volya? Believe it or not, but the fact
stares you in the face.

Mr. Plekhanov’s shamelessness knows no bounds. He is perfectly
familiar with the Bolshevik literature published abroad. He
knows perfectly well that all Bolsheviks, times without number,
in their speeches, articles, and resolutions, have always
declared that the war on the party of Germany was just as predatory and imperialist as it was on the part of the
other belligerent “Great” Powers. The German capitalists, and
their chieftain, the crowned brigand Wilhelm, are the same
imperialist predators as the capitalists of other countries
are.

We repeat: no intelligent person who knows anything at all about
the Bolsheviks can help knowing that this is our point of
view. Mr. Plekhanov, too, knows this perfectly well. He knows
that Zinoviev’s and Lenin’s pamphlet, Socialism and War , [1] was published in Switzerland also in the German language, and smuggled into Germany. And that pamphlet states as
blunt as blunt can be that Germany is carrying on a predatory
war for the purpose of “plundering competitor countries”, that
Germany is “a young and strong robber ”, that “ the German imperialists have brazenly violated the neutrality of Belgium, as belligerent states have done always and
everywhere, trampling upon all treaties and obligations if
necessary”; that “Kautsky reconciles in an unprincipled way the
fundamental idea of social-chauvinism—recognition of defence of the fatherland in the present war—with a sham
concession to the Lefts”; that “opportunist-chauvinists have
nowhere sunk to such foul apostasy as in Germany”.

Mr. Plekhanov knows all this perfectly well, yet he sinks to the
methods of Novoye Vremya and Russkaya Volya, and tries to paint the followers of Pravda as
Germanophiles.

Making a mockery of Marxism, Mr. Plekhanov further quibbles over
the question as to who declared war on whom.

Mr. Plekhanov has forgotten that Marxists regard war as a
continuation of the policies pursued by definite governments representing definite classes.

That both Nicholas II and Wilhelm II represented the reactionary
and capitalist classes of their respective countries, that
during the last few decades both had been pursuing a policy of
plundering foreign countries, plundering China, subjugating
Persia, carving up and partitioning Turkey, is a well-known
fact. Had Mr. Plekhanov touched, however lightly, upon the
history of diplomacy and foreign policies during the last few
decades, he could not have failed to see this, and would not
have dared to deny it.

The war waged by Nicholas II and Wilhelm II has been just the
continuation of this predatory imperialist policy, which is so closely bound up with the banking capital of the two
countries.

And when war is waged between two groups of predators and
oppressors merely for division of the spoils of plunder, merely
to see who will strangle more peoples, who will grab more, the question as to who
began this war, who was the first to declare it and so forth, is
of no economic or political significance.

Mr. Plekhanov, just like the German Plekhanovs, the Scheidemanns
and Co., has descended to the level of the most vulgar and
ordinary bourgeois chauvinist who refuses to see (if he ever did
see) that war is a continuation of policy, that war and policy
are bound up with the interests of definite classes, and that
one must be able to understand who these classes are and what
they are fighting for.

A vicious, shameless lie, a screen for the predatory policy of
Nicholas II—a policy which has not been abandoned by Lvov
and Co. (they have even confirmed the tsar’s treaties!)—that is
what Mr. Plekhanov’s great wisdom amounts to.

This lie will mislead neither the class-conscious workers nor
the class-conscious soldiers.

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Notes:
[1]



— Ed .