32
The conclusion is clear: To reject compromises on "principle," to reject every admissibility of compromises generally, no matter of what kind, is a piece of childishness hard even to take seriously. He who wishes to be useful to the revolutionary proletariat must be able to sift the concrete cases of such compromises which are inadmissible, which stand for opportunism and treachery, and to direct all the force of his criticism against these concrete compromises, mercilessly exposing them, fighting them to a finish, and not allowing "experienced Socialists" and parliamentary Jesuits to dodge and shirk responsibilities by resorting to discussions of "compromises generally." The "leaders" of the British trade unions, as well as of the Fabian Society and the "Independent" Labor Party, use just this method of dodging responsibility for the betrayal they committed. Theirs was a compromise which indicated the worst kind of opportunism, treason and betrayal.
There are compromises and compromises. It is necessary to be able to analyze the situation and the concrete facts of each compromise or of each species of compromise. It is necessary to learn to distinguish the man who gave the bandits money and arms in order to lessen the evil caused by this gentry and to facilitate the business of capturing and shooting them, from the man who gives to bandits money and arms in order to share the booty. In politics it is not always so easy to make distinctions as in this childishly simple little example. But whoever took it into his head that he could contrive for the workers a formula which would give beforehand ready solutions of all cases, or who would assert that in the political experience of the revolutionary proletariat there will be no difficulties, no intricate problems to solve, would be merely a charlatan. To leave no room for misunderstandings, I shall attempt to outline very briefly a few fundamental rules for the analysis of concrete compromises.
The party which compromised with German imperialism by signing the Brest Treaty had been evolving internationalism in deed since the end of 1914. It did not fear to proclaim the defeat of the Czarist monarchy and to repudiate the "defence of the Fatherland" in a war between two imperialist plunderers. The members of this party in the Duma preferred
