PANNEKOEK, 'STATE EXPENDITURE AND IMPERIALISM' (original) (raw)

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

NOTEBOOK “δ”

(“DELTA”)

PANNEKOEK, “STATE EXPENDITURE AND IMPERIALISM”

Ant. Pannekoek, “State Expenditure and Imperialism” (Die Neue Zeit, 1913-14, 32, 1, No. 4, October 24, 1913, p. 110 et seq.).

| | (✕) “In my opinion, the contradiction betweenprincipled and reformist tactics is that the latteris too strongly determined by imme-diate interests, by easily attainable andapparent results, and sacrifices to themthe inner strength of the prole-tariat. Principled, Marxist tactics aim primarilyat increasing the power of the proletariat, therebysecuring the highest positive results; for theseresults, being concessions made by the rulingclasses, depend primarily on the power of theproletariat” (p. 111). | | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | | ? | | | | | | |

And before the above passage:

| (**)not therightword;not sotrue! | | | “The essence of the socialist class struggle isinseparable unity of the struggle for social-ism (**) and representation of all the immediateinterests of the proletariat. Only the Party’s fightfor the current interests of the working class makesit the party of the proletariat, the party of themasses, and enables it to win victory” (✕). | | ---------------------------------- | | | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |

| | | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | | N.B. Pannekoek’s formulation of the ques-tion of reformism is wrong. | | | | |

| | | | | | | ---- | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | | | | | | | N.B. | | Pannekoek has here posed a question of primeimportance, but has answered it badly—or, atleast, inaccurately. “The unity of the struggle forsocialism and for reforms” or “and for the immediateinterests of the workers”? But what is the strugglefor socialism? In Pannekoek’s formula, the distinc-tion between the Left and the “Centre” is blurred,wiped out, has disappeared. Even Kautsky (who,incidentally, made no rejoinder to this articleof Pannekoek’s) would subscribe to Pannekoek’sformula (the one given here). This formula is wrong.The struggle for socialism lies inthe unity of the struggle for the immediateinterests of the workers (including reforms) and the revolutionary struggle for power, for expro-priation of the bourgeoisie, for the overthrow ofthe bourgeois government and the bourgeoisie. | | | | | | | | | | | | |

What have to be combined are not the struggle for reforms + phrases about socialism, the struggle “for socialism”, but two forms of struggle.

For example:

1. Voting for reforms + revolutionary action by the masses....

2. Parliamentarism + demonstrations....

3. The demand for reforms + the (concrete) demand for revolution....

Economic struggle together with the unorganised, with the masses, and not only on behalf of the organised workers....

4. Literature for the advanced + free, mass literature for the more backward, for the unorganised, for the “lower masses”....

5. Legal literature + illegal....

{cf. same volume of Die Neue Zeit, p. 591, on “unskilled” workers in America}

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