The Bolsheviki and World Peace

national that is still unclarified. It dwells at the he

erialistic policy of the state is a question which, as far as I know, has never been discussed in the Socialist press. Nor can I atte

lopment of the forces of production on a national foundation. It supported the bourgeoisie in its conflicts with alien enemies for national liberation; also in its conflicts with the monarchy, with feudalism and the church for political democracy. And in the measure in which the bourgeois turned to "law and or

th in so far as final aims and daily policies are concerned. The struggle against the remnants of feudal barbarism, against the boundless demands of militarism, against agrarian duties and indirect taxes was the main object of working-class politics and served, directly an

se conditions of the world-market which are secured by dreadnaughts and cannon. In other words, in contradiction of the fundamental interests of the proletariat taken in their wide histori

ominion. In championing its own class interests, the English proletariat limited itself to exercising pressure on the bourgeois parties which granted it a share in the capitalistic exp

man workingmen, "counted among the politically intelligent, to whom we have preached the dangers of imperialism for years (although with very little success, we must confess)" scold at Italian neutrality like the extremest chauv

not the first time that Socialistic imperialism reveals itself in the German Social Democracy. Suffice it to recall the fact that at the International Congress in Stuttgart it was the majority of the German delegates, notably the trade unionists, who voted against the Marxist resolution on the colonial policy. The

emocracy condemned them to isolation and gradual extinction. But when the capitalist states overstep their national form to become imperialistic world powers, the proletariat cannot oppose this new imperialism. And the reason is the so-called minimal programme which fashioned its policy upon the framework of the national state. When its main concern is for tariff treatie

working class is powerless against imperialism as long as its great organizations stand by their old opportunist tact

s lose all interest in them because they find that their earnings and their very existence are not affected by what

eal to the laboring masses, because the workers find that, behind the backs of the parliamentarians, imperialism, by armed

aval. But no one foresaw that history would preface this inevitable change of tactics by such a catastrophal collapse of the International. History works with titanic relentl

k her broom in hand, swept the International of the epigone apart in all directions and led the slow-moving millions into the field where