Page:Karl Kautsky - The Road to Power - tr. A. M. Simons (1909).pdf/114

 Everywhere in Asia and Africa the spirit of rebellion is spreading, and with it is spreading also the use of European arms, and a growing resistance to European exploitation. It is impossible to transplant capitalist exploitation into any country without therewith sowing the seeds of revolt against that exploitation. This expresses itself first in a growing difficulty in colonial politics, and a constant increase in their cost. Our colonial enthusiasts comfort us for the burdens that the colonies now impose upon us with promises of the rich rewards that the future is to bring. In reality the military expenses for the maintenance of colonies will, from now on, constantly increase—and this will not be all. The majority of the countries in Asia and Africa are reaching a condition in which the temporary uprisings will become open and continuous, and will end with the destruction of the foreign yoke. The British colonies of East India are nearest to this stage; their loss is equivalent to the bankruptcy of the English government.

We have already called attention to the fact that the Russo-Japanese war has inspired Eastern Asia and the Mohammedan world to throw off European capitalism. In this they are fighting the same enemy that the European proletariat is fighting. To be sure, we must not forget that while they are fighting the same enemy they are not fighting it with the same object—not in order to gain a victory for the proletariat over capital, but in order to substitue an internal national capitalism for an external one they are rising. We must not have any illusions on this point. Just as the Boers were the closest skinners of the people, so the Japanese rulers are the worst persecutors of Socialists and the Young Turks have already felt themselves compelled to proceed against striking workers. We must not take an uncritical attitude to the non-European opponents of European capitalism.

This, however, does not alter the fact that these