Page:Lenin - The Collapse of the Second International - tr. Sirnis (1919).pdf/13

11 CHAPTER II.

Is there evidence that the principal Socialist parties of Europe have betrayed all their convictions and duties? The traitors, and those who know or vaguely guess that they will have to be friends with the former in the future, do not care to discuss the matter at all. But however disagreeable it may prove to various "authorities” of the second International, or to their friends amongst the Russian social democrats, we, who care more for socialism than anything else, must face the question squarely, must call things by their true names, and must not be afraid to tell the workers the truth.

Is there any material evidence showing how the socialist parties viewed their duties and tactics before the present war broke out, or even in anticipation of a world war? Certainly. We have the famous resolu­tion passed by the International Socialist Congress at Basle in 1912. We reprint that resolution, together with one passed at Chemnitz in the same year by the German Social Democrats.

The Basle resolution is a reminder of the forgotten words of International Socialism. It sums up the con­tents of an enormous quantity of propagandist litera­ture circulated in every country prior to the war. It represents a most complete and formal statement of the Socialist view of war, and of Socialist tactics in relation to war. We cannot help characterising as a betrayal the fact that not one of the authorities of the Inter­national of yesterday, who are the Socialist jingoes of to-day—men like Guesde, Kautsky, Hyndman and Plekhanov—dare remind his readers of the Basle reso­lution. They either pass it over in silence, or they only quote passages of secondary importance, and leave everything out that is essential, as is done by Kautsky. The fact that the most radical and revolutionary resolutions have been shamelessly forgotten, or repudiated,