Page:The Proletarian Revolution in Russia - Lenin, Trotsky and Chicherin - ed. Louis C. Fraina (1918).djvu/97



In the Revolution of 1848, in Paris, Louis Blanc, the French Socialist, sadly distinguished himself by passing over from the position of the class struggle to the position of petit bourgeois illusions. These illusions, employing a phraseology not unlike that of "Socialism," actually served to strengthen the influence of the bourgeoisie. Louis Blanc expected to receive aid from the bourgeoisie; his hopes aroused hopes in others, as if the bourgeoisie could aid the workers in the matter of an "organization of labor"—this unclear expression was supposed to express a "Socialistic" tendency.

In Russia, at present, the policy of Louis Blanc has met with complete success in the "Social Democracy" of the right wing, the Menshevik Party. Cheidse, Tseretelli and many others, who arc now leaders of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Delegates, have assumed precisely the position of Louis Blanc. In all the chief questions agitating the political life of our day, these leaders have accepted the petit bourgeois illusions of Louis Blanc. Take, for instance, the war question.

The proletarian standpoint in this matter consists of a definite class characterization of the war and irreconcilable hostility to an imperialistic war,—that is, to wars waged between groups of imperialistic countries, (no matter whether they are monarchic or republican,) for a division of the capitalist spoils.