put by every Marxist, since by doing so he would have proved himself a renegade.
The Kautskians of Germany, the Longuetists of France, the Turatis of Italy, reason in this way: Socialism implies the equality and freedom of nationalities, their self-determination: hence, when our country is attacked or invaded by enemy troops, the Socialists are justified and under an obligation to defend it. But such reasoning from a theoretical standpoint is either a hollow mockery of Socialism or a tricky manoeuvre, and, from the point of view of practical politics, is no better than the reasoning of the most backward and ignorant peasant who cannot even reflect upon the social, the class character of the war, and on the duties of a revolutionary party in time of a reactionary war.
Certainly Socialism is opposed to violation of the rights of nationality. But Socialism is altogether opposed to violence against man; yet, apart from Christian Anarchists and Tolstoyans, no one has as yet drawn the conclusion from this proposition that Socialism is opposed to revolutionary violence. Hence, to talk about violence in general, without examining the conditions distinguishing reactionary from revolutionary violence, is to abjure the revolution or to deceive oneself and others by sophisms.
The same holds good about violence against nations. Every war implies violence against nations, but that does not prevent the Socialists from being in favor of a revolutionary war. The class character of the war—that is the fundamental question which confronts a Socialist who is not a renegade. The Imperialist war of 1914–18 is a war between two coalitions of the imperialist bourgeoisie for the partition of the world, for the division of booty, and for the strangulation and spoliation of small and weak nationalities. Such was the view of the war, which was given in 1912 by the Basel Manifesto, which has since been confirmed by facts. He who abandons this point of view is not a Socialist, and if a German, under Wilhelm,
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