Imaginary or Real Marsh?

#PUBLICATION NOTE

This edition of Imaginary or Real Marsh? has been prepared and revised for digital publication by the Institute of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism under the Central Committee of the Communist Party in Switzerland on the basis of the edition published in the Collected Works of Lenin, Fourth English Edition, Volume 23, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1964.

#INTRODUCTION NOTE

This is an article written by Comrade Lenin in Zurich, Switzerland in late January 1917. It was first published in the Lenin Miscellany, Volume 27.

This article was written in reply to one by Robert Grimm, Majority and Minority on the War Issue, in the Berner Tagwacht [Bernese Guardian] of the 23rd to 27th of January, 1917 (Nos. 19-23) and the magazine Neues Leben [New Life], No. 1 of 1917.

#Workers and oppressed people of the world, unite!

#IMAGINARY OR REAL MARSH?

#Nikolaj Lenin

#Late January 1917

#★

In his article on the majority and minority (Bernese Guardian and New Life) Comrade Robert Grimm maintains that «we, too, invented» «the marsh, an imaginary Centrist trend in the Party».

We shall prove that the stand taken by Grimm in this article is a typically Centrist one.

In his polemic with the majority, Grimm writes:

No party that subscribes to Zimmerwald and Kienthal has advocated refusal to serve in the army and simultaneously obligated its members to put that slogan into effect. Liebknecht himself donned military uniform and entered the army. The Italian Party has confined itself to rejecting war credits and civil peace. The French minority has done likewise.

We rub our eyes in sheer astonishment. We reread this important passage in Grimm's article and advise the reader to ponder on it.

Incredible, but true! To prove that we invented the Centrist trend, a representative of this very Centre, Grimm, lumps together the Left-wing internationalists (Liebknecht) and the Zimmerwald Right or the Centre!!!

Does Grimm really think that he can deceive the Swiss workers and convince them that Liebknecht and the Italian Party belong to one and the same trend? That they are not separated by the very difference that distinguishes the Left wing from the Centre?

Let us set out our arguments:

First, let us hear a witness who does not belong either to the Centre or to the Left wing. The German social-imperialist Ernst Heilmann wrote in Die Glocke¹ [The Bell] of the 12th of August, 1916: «The Commonwealth of Labour, or the Zimmerwald Right, of which Kautsky is the theoretician and Haase and Ledebour the political leaders [...].» Can Grimm challenge the fact that Kautsky, Haase, and Ledebour are typical Centrists?

Second, can Grimm be unaware of the fact that, in present-day Socialism, the Zimmerwald Right or the Centre is opposed to an immediate break with the International Socialist Bureau in The Hague, the bureau of social-patriots? That the Left wing favours such a break? That, at Kienthal, representatives of the International group — the group to which Liebknecht belongs — fought against convocation of the International Socialist Bureau and insisted on a break with it?

Third, has Grimm forgotten that social-pacifism, directly condemned by the Kienthal resolution, has now become the platform of the Centre in France, Germany, and Italy? That the whole Italian Party, which did not protest either against the numerous social-pacifist resolutions and statements of its parliamentary group, or against Turati's disgraceful 17th of December speech, subscribes to social-pacifism? That both Left-wing groups in Germany, the Independent Socialists of Germany and the International (or Spartacus group, to which Liebknecht belongs), have explicitly rejected the social-pacifism of the Centre? Nor should it be forgotten that the worst social-imperialists and social-patriots in France, led by Sembat, Renaudel, and Jouhaux, likewise voted for social-pacifist resolutions, thereby strikingly demonstrating and exposing the real, objective meaning of social-pacifism.

Fourth... but enough! Grimm is expounding precisely the Centrist view when he advises the Swiss Party to «satisfy itself» with rejection of credits and civil peace, as the Italian Party has done. Grimm criticizes the majority proposal precisely from the Centrist standpoint, because the majority wants to move nearer to Liebknecht's standpoint.

Grimm calls for clarity, frankness, and honesty. Very well! But don't these virtuous qualities call for a clear, frank, and honest distinction between the views and tactics of Liebknecht and those of the Centre, which should not lumped together?

To side with Liebknecht implies:

• Attacking the main enemy in your own country.
• Exposing the social-patriots of your own country and (with your permission, Comrade Grimm!) not merely of other countries; combating them, and not uniting with them — as you do — against the Left-wing Radicals.
• Openly criticizing and exposing the weaknesses, not only of the social-patriots, but also of the social-pacifists and Centrists of your own country.
• Utilizing the parliamentary tribune to summon the proletariat to revolutionary struggle, urging it to turn its weapons against its enemy.
• Circulating underground literature and organizing underground meetings.
• Organizing proletarian demonstrations, such as, for instance, the demonstration on Potsdam Square in Berlin at which Liebknecht was arrested.
• Calling on the workers in the war industries to strike, as the International group has done through its underground leaflets.
• Openly demonstrating the need for complete «regeneration» of the present Socialist Parties, which confine themselves to reformist activity; acting as Liebknecht acted.
• Unreservedly rejecting defence of the homeland in an imperialist war.
• Fighting reformism and opportunism within the Social-Democratic movement all along the line.
• Just as relentlessly combating the trade-union leaders, who, in all countries, particularly Germany, England, and Switzerland, are the vanguard of social-patriotism and opportunism, and so on.

Clearly, from this point of view, much in the majority draft is subject to criticism. But that can be discussed only in a separate article. Here it is necessary to emphasize that the majority at any rate proposes certain steps in this direction, while Grimm attacks the majority not from the Left, but from the Right, not from Liebknecht's standpoints, but from those of the Centre.

Throughout his article, Grimm confuses two fundamentally different questions: first, the question of when, at what precise moment, should one or another revolutionary action be carried out. Attempts to decide that question in advance are meaningless, and Grimm is only throwing dust in the workers' eyes when he reproaches the majority on this point.

Second question: how to refashion, transform a political party now incapable of conducting a systematic, persistent, and, under any concrete conditions, genuinely revolutionary struggle into a political party capable of waging this struggle.

And that is the cardinal question. Here we have the very root of the whole controversy, of the whole struggle of trends, both on the war issue and on defence of the homeland! But that is the very question Grimm tries to pass over in silence, gloss over, obscure. More: Grimm's explanations boil down to denying the very existence of this question.

Everything remains as of old — that idea runs through his whole article. In this lies the most profound justification of the contention that the article speaks for the Centre. Everything remains as of old: only rejection of war credits and civil peace! Every intelligent bourgeois is bound to admit that, in the final analysis, this is not unacceptable to the bourgeoisie, too: this does not threaten its domination, does not prevent it from prosecuting the war («we submit» as the «minority of the country» — these words of Grimm's have very far-reaching political implications, much more than would appear at first sight!).

And isn't it an international fact that the bourgeoisie itself, and its governments in the warring countries, primarily England and Germany, are persecuting only supporters of Liebknecht and are tolerating Centrists?

Forward, to the Left, even if this means the resignation of certain social-patriot leaders! This, in a few words, is the political point and purpose of the majority proposals.

Retreat from Zimmerwald to the Right, to social-pacifism, to standpoints of the Centre, to «peace» with the social-patriotic leaders, no mass action, no revolutionizing of the movement, no regeneration of the Party! That is Grimm's point of view.

It is to be hoped that, at long last, it will open the eyes of the Swiss Left-wing Radicals to his Centrist standpoint.