Page:The Proletarian Revolution in Russia - Lenin, Trotsky and Chicherin - ed. Louis C. Fraina (1918).djvu/130

 The development of science offers more and more evidence favorable to Marxism. And, therefore, the fight against Marxism has to be waged in a hypocritical fashion. One cannot attack it openly but one can accept it, adulterating its essential points by sophistry, and transforming it into some sacred "ikon" which is not dangerous for the bourgeoisie.

The growth of opportunism among the Socialist parties favors this distortion of Marxism, which is only one of the many concessions made by the opportunists.

In our imperialistic times, the world is being divided up among the large privileged powers which are enslaving all the others. Some crumbs from the feast arc being picked up by certain groups of bourgeois, aristocrats, office holders and even workingmen. The latter class of the people, an insignificant minority of the proletariat and of the laboring masses, gravitate toward Struvism, for it gives them an excuse for joining hands with "their" own bourgeoisie against the exploited masses or "all" nations. We shall come back to this later, when we discuss the reasons for the collapse of the International.

Kautsky's theory of "ultra Imperialism" is simply a subtle form of social-patriotism attired in scientific and international trappings, Here is a clear, precise and new analysis of it by its own author:

"The weakening of the protectionist movement in England, the adoption of lower tariff duties in America, the movement toward disarmament, the decreases in the export of capital from France and Germany in the years immediately preceding the war, finally, the closer international relations which had been establishing themselves between the various groups to financiers and capitalists, caused me to wonder whether our present-day imperialism was not in the process of being displaced by a new (system, ultra-Imperialism, which in place of the strife waged among national groups of capitalists, would usher in a general exploitation of the entire world by an international alliance of capitalists. This new development of capitalism can very well be imagined. Whether it is realizable or not, we cannot very well say at the present time. Neue Zeit, No. 5, 30, 1915, page 144.)

"The course and the outcome of the present war may supply an answer to that question. It may annihilate the weak germs of ultra-Imperialism by fostering an extreme hatred between national