ial-Democracy as traitors and
deserters stranded in the bourgeois camp, treating these comrades,
whose international conscience and sentiments are above all suspicion,
as National Liberals, chauvinists, philistines, traitors, etc." Is this
the way in which to raise the enthusiasm of the workers for the cause
of Socialism? Is this the manner in which the spirit of self-sacrifice
can be roused in the masses? It savours far too much of the old
implacable bitterness of the Terrorists--reasonable and natural enough
in their secret conspiracies, where a fellow-conspirator might be a
police agent--but utterly out of place and mischievous when introduced
into open propaganda and organisation.

To this jaundiced outlook of the prominent Bolsheviks is added
ignorance of administration. Nearly all of them are refugees who have
spent many years of their lives outside of Russia. They have evolved
theories of Socialist policy from their inner consciousness without an
opportunity of putting them to practical tests--until now, when the
world is in the throes of a war crisis. And they attempt to apply
their theories of the "dictatorship of the proletariat" in a vast
nation made up of various races in different stages of civilisation,
only just entering upon full capitalist development, where the
proletariat, the wage workers, constitute fewer than 20,000,000 out of
a total population of 180,000,000! And yet there are supporters of the
Bolsheviks in Britain who profess to be Marxists--more Marxist than
Marx, in fact--and who can countenance such a logical outrage on the
"materialist conception of history"!

Offensive and Defensive Wars.

Nothing better illustrates the unreality of some of Lenin's theories
than his attitude on national self-defence. In 1915 he and Zinovieff,
another well-known Bolshevik, published a pamphlet on "Socialism and
the War." One chapter dealt with "A War of Defence and a War of
Attack." It contains this passage:--"If to-morrow, for example,
Morocco were to go to war against France, the Indies against England,
and China against Russia, they would be wars of defence, just wars,
independently of any question of which began the war." Being "wars of
defence, just wars," the people would obviously be justified in taking
part in them from Lenin's point of view. Now let us see where the
logic of this contention will land us. Morocco, possibly because what
capitalism is there is foreign, may justly wage war against