Page:Lenin - The Collapse of the Second International - tr. Sirnis (1919).pdf/31

 Basle resolution! It should be noted that Kautsky does not declare that a new phase is resulting, and must result, from such and such circumstances and conditions. He declares plainly that he cannot even decide the question as to whether such a new phase is "feasible." And, indeed, let us glance at the "tendencies" which protend the new era pointed out by Kautsky. It is surprising that the author enumerates the "striving for disarmament" as an economic fact! This means to forsake undoubted facts which are compatible with the theory of the weakening of antagonisms, and to take cover under innocent bourgeois chatter and fantasies. Kautsky's "ultra-imperialism" though, by the way, this term does not at all express what the author wishes it to convey—means that under capitalism (class) antagonisms have been greatly weakened. Though they tell us of the weakening of the protectionist movement both in England and America, where do we espy therein the slightest tendency towards a new era? Though protectionism—which in America has reached its highest pitch—has been weakened, it still remains protectionism, as also remain the privileges and preferential tariffs in those of the English colonies which favour England. Let us recall what induced a substitution of the present-day imperialist era for the former "peaceful" era of capitalism. The facts are that free competition has given way to capitalist monopolies, and that the whole globe has been divided up. It is clear that both these facts and factors have a real world significance. Free Trade and peaceful competition were possible and necessary as long as there was nothing to hinder capital from increasing the number of its colonies and from seizing unoccupied lands in Africa and elsewhere; furthermore, the concentration of capital was then weak, and there did not exist monopolies gigantic enough to dominate the whole of a certain branch of industry. The inception and growth of such monopolies (this process has probably not yet been arrested either in England or America, and possibly not even Kautsky will dare to deny that the war has accelerated and intensified it) renders the former free competition impossible, cuts the ground from under its feet, where as the division of the globe compels the rivals to pass from peaceful expansion to an armed struggle for a re-division of colonies and of spheres of influence. It is ridiculous to imagine that the weakening of protectionism in two countries can