Page:Lenin - The Collapse of the Second International - tr. Sirnis (1919).pdf/36

 appeal like this to financiers would form the best text for a parson to preach from. The good Kautsky almost succeeded in persuading the German financiers that it was not worth while to go to war with England over her colonies, since these colonies would, in any case, soon free themselves! England's exports to and imports from Egypt from 1872 to 1912 rose at a slower rate than her imports and exports as a whole. Where from the "Marxist" Kautsky deduces the following moral:—

What a wonderfully grave, scientific "Marxist" analysis! Kautsky "has put this foolish episode in the right light," and has proved that the English had no need to deprive the, French of Egypt, and that the German financiers had no need whatsoever to begin the war, nor to organise the Turkish campaign, hand in hand with other undertakings, in order to drive the English out of Egypt! All this, claims Kautsky, is a mere misunderstanding. The English have not yet realised that it were far better to give up coercing Egypt and to adopt the methods of a peaceful democracy in order to increase the amount of capital exported. …

"Oh, Lord, tell us what is a Philistine?" asked Lassalle, and in reply quoted the well known words of a poet: "A Philistine is an empty gut filled with fear, who hopes that God will take pity on him."

Kautsky has prostituted Marxism in an unheard of manner and has become a real priest. exhorts capitalists to resort to peaceful democratic methods by what he calls dialectics. If at the commencement there was Free Trade and subsequently monopolies and imperialism, then why should there not