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Special pages :
In the Footsteps of Russkaya Volya
The methods of Russkaya Volya, a paper from which even the Cadets turn away in disgust, find an increasing number of imitators. Look at Mr. Plekhanovâs Yedinstvo. Intent on âexposingâ Pravda, Mr. Plekhanov takes Leninâs first thesis, quotes the words saying that the war on Russiaâs part remains a predatory imperialist war, and then triumphantly asks:
âAnd how about Germany? Lenin says nothing about that.â
This, literally, is what he writes. The reader can scarcely believe the evidence of his own eyes. Can it be that Mr. Plekhanov has sunk to the level of Novoye Vremya and Russkaya Volya? Believe it or not, but the fact stares you in the face.
Mr. Plekhanovâs shamelessness knows no bounds. He is perfectly familiar with the Bolshevik literature published abroad. He knows perfectly well that all Bolsheviks, times without number, in their speeches, articles, and resolutions, have always declared that the war on the party of Germany was just as predatory and imperialist as it was on the part of the other belligerent âGreatâ Powers. The German capitalists, and their chieftain, the crowned brigand Wilhelm, are the same imperialist predators as the capitalists of other countries are.
We repeat: no intelligent person who knows anything at all about the Bolsheviks can help knowing that this is our point of view. Mr. Plekhanov, too, knows this perfectly well. He knows that Zinovievâs and Leninâs pamphlet, Socialism and War,[1] was published in Switzerland also in the German language, and smuggled into Germany. And that pamphlet states as blunt as blunt can be that Germany is carrying on a predatory war for the purpose of âplundering competitor countriesâ, that Germany is âa young and strong robberâ, that âthe German imperialists have brazenly violated the neutrality of Belgium, as belligerent states have done always and everywhere, trampling upon all treaties and obligations if necessaryâ; that âKautsky reconciles in an unprincipled way the fundamental idea of social-chauvinismârecognition of defence of the fatherland in the present warâwith a sham concession to the Leftsâ; that âopportunist-chauvinists have nowhere sunk to such foul apostasy as in Germanyâ.
Mr. Plekhanov knows all this perfectly well, yet he sinks to the methods of Novoye Vremya and Russkaya Volya, and tries to paint the followers of Pravda as Germanophiles.
Making a mockery of Marxism, Mr. Plekhanov further quibbles over the question as to who declared war on whom.
Mr. Plekhanov has forgotten that Marxists regard war as a continuation of the policies pursued by definite governments representing definite classes.
That both Nicholas II and Wilhelm II represented the reactionary and capitalist classes of their respective countries, that during the last few decades both had been pursuing a policy of plundering foreign countries, plundering China, subjugating Persia, carving up and partitioning Turkey, is a well-known fact. Had Mr. Plekhanov touched, however lightly, upon the history of diplomacy and foreign policies during the last few decades, he could not have failed to see this, and would not have dared to deny it.
The war waged by Nicholas II and Wilhelm II has been just the continuation of this predatory imperialist policy, which is so closely bound up with the banking capital of the two countries.
And when war is waged between two groups of predators and oppressors merely for division of the spoils of plunder, merely to see who will strangle more peoples, who will grab more, the question as to who began this war, who was the first to declare it and so forth, is of no economic or political significance.
Mr. Plekhanov, just like the German Plekhanovs, the Scheidemanns and Co., has descended to the level of the most vulgar and ordinary bourgeois chauvinist who refuses to see (if he ever did see) that war is a continuation of policy, that war and policy are bound up with the interests of definite classes, and that one must be able to understand who these classes are and what they are fighting for.
A vicious, shameless lie, a screen for the predatory policy of Nicholas IIâa policy which has not been abandoned by Lvov and Co. (they have even confirmed the tsarâs treaties!)âthat is what Mr. Plekhanovâs great wisdom amounts to.
This lie will mislead neither the class-conscious workers nor the class-conscious soldiers.
- â [PLACEHOLDER.] âEd.