Page:The Proletarian Revolution in Russia - Lenin, Trotsky and Chicherin - ed. Louis C. Fraina (1918).djvu/137

 Of course, it should be possible to develop Capitalism and to increase the markets by raising wages. This is perfectly "feasible"; one might give that advice to financiers and it would make a fine subject for a sermon. Poor Kautsky all but tells German financiers that it isn't worth their while to fight England for her colonies, as those colonies are bound very soon to regain their freedom. …

The amount of the Anglo-Egyptian export-import trade grew much more slowly from 1872 to 1912 than the general export-import trade of England with other nations. The conclusion which the "Marxist" Kautsky draws from that fact is the following: "We have no reason to suppose that, without a military occupation of Egypt, commercial relations with that country would have been less important if left to the sole influence of economic factors (72).

"Capital's efforts to increase its share of activity are beeterbetter [sic] rewarded by avoiding the violent methods of imperialism and only resorting to peaceful democratic means" (70).

What a wonderfully earnest, scientific, marxist analysis! Kautsky improves upon this stupid story by "proving" that the English should not have taken Egypt from the French, that German financiers should not have started the war and organised the Turkish campaign, and other operations to drive the English out of Egypt. All this is rot. The English would never suspect that it would have been better for them, not to use violence in Egypt, but to resort (in order to develop the exportation of capital in true Kautskian style) to peaceful democracy.

"The bourgeois free-traders would be greatly mistaken if they thought that free trade would eliminate the economic antagonisms created by Capitalism. Neither free trade nor democracy could do away with them. But at any rate we are interested in seeing those antagonisms disappear in a struggle such as will impose upon the working class the smallest amount of suffering and sacrifice." (73)

Lord have pity on us! "What is a philistine?" Lassalle once asked. He answered the question by quoting the well known verse: "a philistine is an empty piece of gut, filled with fear and with the hope that God will take pity on him."

Kautsky has gone to an incredible length in prostituting Marxism and has made himself the priest of that new religion. He preaches to the capitalists the necessity of resorting to peaceful democracy and this is the way he builds up his argument: If in the beginning there was free trade, and then monopoly and Imperialism, why not have ultra-Imperialism and after that, free trade?