Page:Lenin - The Proletarian Revolution and Kautsky the Renegade (1920).pdf/81

 war would bring about a revolutionary situation. Kautsky himself, before he became a renegade, expressly and clearly admitted it, both in 1902 (in his "Social Revolution"), and in 1909 (in his "Road to Power"). It was also proclaimed, in the name of the entire Second International, by the Basel Manifesto, and it is therefore not without reason that the Social Chauvinists and the Kautskians ("the men of the Centre," that is, those who are constantly oscillating between the revolutionists and the opportunists) of all countries are mortally afraid of the declarations of the Basel Manifesto on the subject. Hence, the expectation of a revolutionary situation in Europe was not an infatuation of the Bolsheviks, but the common opinion of all Marxists. When Kautsky tries to escape from this undoubted truth with the help of such Phrases as that the Bolsheviks "always believed in th omnipotence of force and will," he simply utters a sonorous and empty phrase to cover up his disgraceful failure to put the important, question about the revolutionary situation.

Further, has the revolutionary situation really supervened or not? This question. too. Kautsky has not been able to face. The economic facts of the situation are a sufficient answer: famine and ruin, brought about by the war everywhere, mean a revolutionary situation. The political facts also constitute a good answer to the question: ever since 1915 a scission has been taking place in all countries among the old and foul Socialist parties, a process of desertion of the masses of the proletariat from the Social-Chauvinist camp of the Left, to the ideas and moods of revolution, and the revolutionary leaders.

Only a person afraid of revolution, and betraying it, could have failed to note these facts on August 5th, 1918, when Kautsky was writing his pamphlet. And now, at the end of October, 1918, the revolution is growing in a number of European countries, very rapidly and under our very eyes. Kautsky, the "revolutionary," who wants