Page:Lenin - The Collapse of the Second International - tr. Sirnis (1919).pdf/56

 town, but one cannot dispense with strong soles studded with nails for climbing mountains. Socialism in Europe has emerged from the comparatively peaceful stage limited by narrow national boundaries. With the war of 1914–15 Socialism in Europe has entered the stage of revolutionary action; it is high time then that a complete rupture with opportunism be effected and that the latter be turned out of the workers' parties.

Of course, from our analysis of the problems imposed upon Socialism by a new era in world development, we cannot infer directly with what speed and in what forms the process of separation of the workers of the revolutionary S.D. parties from the petty bourgeois-opportunist parties will take place in the different countries. But from our analysis follows the necessity for realising clearly that such a separation is inevitable and that the whole policy of the workers' parties must be directed from this angle of vision. The war of 1914–15 is such a great break in History that our attitude towards opportunism cannot remain the same. We cannot undo what has been done. The fact that the opportunists, in a moment of crisis, turned out to be the rallying point of those elements inside the workers' parties which went over to the side of the bourgeoisie—this fact cannot be effaced from the political experience of our epoch, nor can the workers and the master class be made to forget it. Prior to the war, opportunism throughout Europe was, so to say, in its youth. The war brought it to maturity and it cannot again be rendered "innocent" and youthful. A whole social stratum comprising parliamentarians, journalists, officials in the Labour movement, privileged servants and other hangers on of the proletariat, has become bound up with its national bourgeoisie; and the latter has known how to appraise and to adapt this stratum to its own ends. The wheel of History can be neither stopped nor turned back. But we can, and must, forge fearlessly ahead, passing from the preparatory, legal organisations of the working class—at present controlled by the opportunists—to revolutionary organisations of the proletariat, which do not limit themselves to legal activity and which are capable of safeguarding themselves against being betrayed by opportunists. The proletariat is embarking upon the "struggle for power," upon the struggle for the overthrow of the bourgeoisie.