The Daily Worker Newspaper, February 19, 1924, Page 9

i THE FATHERLAND AND THE SECOND INTERNATIONAL By NICOLAI LENIN (Lenin wrote this article on Nov. 1, 1914. The idea of the Third International is expressed for the first time in this article.) if Bice question of the fatherland— this is meant for the opportun- ists—cannot be considered properly while the concretely historical char- acter of this war is ignored. This was is an imperialist war, that is, a war of the epoch of the most ad- vanced form of capitalism, the epoch of the consummation and end of capitalism. The sworking class. first has to “establish” itself within the national frame-work, says the Com- munist Manifesto, while pointing out at the same time the limits and. con- ditions of our recognition of nation- ality and fatherland as the indispens- able forms of the capitalist system as well as of the capitalist fatherland. The Opportunists distert this truth; and that which holds true for the epoch of capitalism’s start they transfer to the epoch of the end of Capitalism. But Karl Marx speaks clearly and distinctly of this epoch, and of the tasks of the working class in the fight to destroy, not feudalism, but capitalism. He says: “The work- ers have no fatherland.” It is clear enough why the Opportunists are afraid to recognize this truth of So- cialism, or why they are afraid, for the most part, even to take it openly into account. The Socialist move- ment cannot be victorious within the old framework of the fatherland. It creates new, higher forms of human co-operation, for the justified needs ality will Be gratified for the first time by international unity, with the elimination of the present national limitations. The attempts of the present capitalist class to separate and to split the workers by means of hypocritical arguments of “defense of the fatherland” will be answered by the class-conscious. workers with new and ever new and repeated at- tempts to restore the unity of the workers in™the fight for the over- throw of the rule of the capitalist class of all nations, The capitalist class deceives the masses and cloaks every imperialist predatory attack with the old ideology of “national war.” The working class exposes this deception and proclaims the slogan: coriver- sion of imperialist war into civil war. In fact this slogan was the object of the Stuttgart and Basle resolutions which did not foresee war in general, but-precisely the present war; these resolutions did not speak of “defense of fatherland,” but of “hastening the collapse of: capital- ism,” of the utilization of the crisis created thru the war, and utilization of the example of the Commune. The Commune was a transformation of a national war into a civil war. Such a transformation is of course, not easy and cannot take place “by desire” of single parties. But it is just this transformation which is in- herent in the objective conditions of capitalism in general and the epoch of the end of capitalism in particular. And Socialists must act in this sense, and only in this sense. Not to vote for war credits, not to aid and abet and fomward looking endeavors of}the chauvinism of one’s “own” coun- the laboring masses of every natiom-try (or of the allied countries), but Lenin By SIMON FELSHIN In the Children’s Homes The orphans are weeping For their father, who is dead, The men of the Red Army Stand at attention. The men of the Red Arm Who never bow their heads Are bowed with grief, I am standing in the snow, I am there in Moscow. We are eight abreast waiting. My heart is lying in the snow Waiting to see Lenin. I go by and look at his face, It is the last time, Our leader is lying dead. I know in Russia Humble women are wailing, Men are weeping. I know in Russia The peasants are grieving, Because Ilyitch is dead. In the whole world There is mourning In the homes of the poor. - A rending cry arises from the lower depths, The cautious ones in our midst say: “We must make Lenin’s retreats,” We reply: “First make Lenin’s advances.” Our enemies say: “Lenin, the dictator.” Our answer is: “Denin, the leader.” The wiseacres say: “It’s all over with Russia.” But we answer: “Leninism lives.” Lenin on DeLeon Told By ARTHUR RANSOME ENIN said he had read in an Eng- lish Socialist paper a comparison of his own theories with those of an American, Daniel Le Leon. He had then borrowed some of De L&)n’s amphlets from Reinstein (who be- fouged to the party which De Leon founded in America), read them for the first time, and was amazed to see how far and how early De Leon had pursued the same train of thought as the Russians, His theory that repre- sentation should be by industries, not} ference, to fight in the first place against the chauvinism of one’s “own” capitalist class, not to confine oneself to legal forms when the crisis is an actuality and the capitalist class itself has done away with the very legality which it created—that is the direc- tion which leads to civil war and which at one moment or another evén of the present European conflagra- tion may lead to civil war. The war is no accident, not a “sin,” as the Christian clergymen. believe (who preach patriotism, humanity and peace exactly like the opportun- ists), but an inevitable stage of capi- talism, just as much justified a form of capitalist existence as peace. The war of the present is a people’s war. But it does not follow from this truth that we must swim with the “people's current” of chauvinism; but on the contrary, in war times, in the midst of war, the class antagonisms by which the nations are lacerated will continue and rwill come to the surface, Refusal to serve in the army, military strike, ete., is simply idiotic, a deplorable and cowardly dream of unarmed struggle against the armed capitalist class, a fancy that capitalism can be done away with without a desperate civil war or a series of wars. The propaganda of class struggle remains even in war a duty of Socialists. The work which aims for the transformation of the national war into civil war is the only Socialist war in the period of imperialist, armed clash of the capitalist class of all nations. Down with the priestly, sentimental and deluding dreams of “Peace at any price!” We must raise the banner of civil war. Imperialism has staked the destiny of European culture. If there are not a series of successful revolutions, this war will be followed by other wars—the myth of the “last war” is a flat, injurious fairy-tale, a petty bourgeois “mythology.” To- day or tomorrow, after the present war if not during it—in this war or the next war, the proletarian banner of civil war will rally, not only hun- dreds of thousands of class-conscious workers, but also millions of semi- proletarians and petty bourgeois at present misled by chauvinism, who are not only terrified and disgusted by the frightfulness of war but are being taught, enlightened, awakened, organized, steeled; and they will be prepared for war against the capital- ist class of their “own” country as well as of “foreign” countries, The Second International is dead, vanquished by Opportunism. Dewn with Opportunism and long live a Second International purified of its “deserters” as well as of Opportun- ism! The Second International has done its share of useful work of prepara- tion in organizing the proletarian masses during the long “period of peace,” during the cruellest capitalist enslavement and the most rapid capi- talist advance in the third part of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century. Upon the Third International devolves the task of organizing the forces of the work- ing class for the revolutionary on- slaught against the capitalist govern- ment: for civil war against the capi- talist class of all countries, to secure political power and the victory of Socialism! THE LIGHT OF LENINISM TROTZKY’S MESSAGE “With the light of Leninism in our hand, we shall find the true road, by collective thought and collective will.” by areas, was already the germ of the| sion at all, a gray old man, quite un- Soviet system. He remembered see-| able ing De Leon at an International Con- De Leon made no impres-{ looked, since his pam written before the experience of the to speak to such an audience, but | Russian Revolution of 1905. phlets were Some evidently a much bigger man than he! days afterwards I noticed that Lenin had introduced a few phrases of De Leon, as if to do honor to his mem- ory, into the draft of the new ‘pro- gramme of the Communist Party,