“The working class”, V.I Lenin was stressing out, “in case it is conscious, will not support any group of imperialistic predators” (1). More specifically, concerning the stance of the workers' movement towards imperialists, he was using the following characteristic example:
“A
country, let us say, possesses three-fourths of Africa, whereas another
possesses one-fourth. A repartition of Africa is the objective content
of their war. To which side should we wish success? It would be absurd
to state the problem in its previous form, since we do not possess the
old criteria of appraisal: there is neither a bourgeois liberation
movement running into decades, nor a long process of the decay of
feudalism. It is not the business of present-day democracy either to
help the former country to assert its “right” to three-fourths of
Africa, or to help the latter country (even if it is developing
economically more rapidly than the former) to take over those
three-fourths. Present-day democracy will remain true to itself only if
it joins neither one nor the other imperialist bourgeoisie, only if it
says that the two sides are equally bad, and if it wishes the defeat of
the imperialist bourgeoisie in every country. Any other decision will,
in reality, be national-liberal and have nothing in common with genuine
internationalism. [...] In reality, there can now be no talk of
present-day democracy following in the wake of the reactionary
imperialist bourgeoisie, no matter of what “shade” the latter may be“
(2).
