Page:The Proletarian Revolution in Russia - Lenin, Trotsky and Chicherin - ed. Louis C. Fraina (1918).djvu/132

 likely to drive those who do not believe in the possibility of the immediate establishment of Socialism, into the imperialistic camp" (page 17.) (Italics mine.)

Speaking of the immediate establishment of Socialism, Kautsky takes advantage of the fact that the military censorship does not allow any talk about revolutionary activities. He knows very well that the left-wing Socialists demand from the party immediate propaganda and the preparation for revolutionary action, and not "the immediate establishment of the Socialist system."

From the inevitability of Imperialism, the left wing Socialists deduce the necessity of revolutionary action. The theory of ultra-Imperialism, is used by Kautsky to justify the opportunists, to throw such a light upon their behavior that they no longer seem to have gone over to the bourgeois camp; they were simply people who did not believe in the feasibility of establishing immediately the Socialist system, and who expected the future to bring us an era of disarmament and lasting peace.

His theory is purely and simply a means of justifying by the expectation of a new peaceful era of Capitalism the alliance of the opportunists and official Social-Democrats with the bourgeois, and their refusal to adopt a revolutionary, that is proletarian, attitude, when the actual storm broke out, in spite of the solemn promises of the Basel resolution.

Notice that Kautsky does not state that a new era shall result from certain conditions; he simply says: "whether there will be such a new era, I cannot state at present."

At the same time let us look at the tendencies to which Kautsky is pointing and which may bring about the new era. It is quite amazing to find among them economic facts cited by Kautsky, the trend toward disarmament Which means that, Kautsky, unable to make certain positive facts chime with his contradictory theory, takes refuge in bourgeois babble and dreams. Kautsky's ultra-Imperialism, a word which by the way does not express accurately what he means, simply designates the blunt contradictions of Capitalism.

Kautsky writes about "The weakening of the protectionist movement in England and America;" but how does this reveal in the slightest way the coming of a new era? Having reached its climax, protectionism in America is loosing its strength, but protectionism remains, as does the privileged position granted to England by the colonial custom tariffs. Let us not forget what condi-