The bourgeoisie is well aware of all this. Here is evidence of the fact. When the proletariat had effected the conquest of power in Russia, the Russian bourgeoisie began to fight against Russia, forming an alliance with anyone who was willing — with the Germans, the Japanese, the British, the Americans, with all the world and his wife. Why? Because, having lost power in Russia, it had also lost the power of robbing and plundering, the power of bourgeois exploitation. The Russian capitalists were ready at any moment to destroy proletarian Russia, to destroy, that is, the Soviet Power. Let us take Hungary for another example. When the bourgeois had the power in their own hands, they issued appeals for the defence of the fatherland; but in order to destroy proletarian Hungary they were prompt to enter into an alliance with the Rumanians, the Czecho-Slovaks, the Austrians, and the Entente. We see, then, that the bourgeoisie knows perfectly well what it is about. Under the plea of the defence of the fatherland, it appeals to all citizens to defend its own bourgeois power, and it sentences for high treason all who refuse to assist. On the other hand, when it is a question of destroying the proletarian fatherland, it assembles all its forces and sticks at nothing.
The proletariat must take a leaf out of the bourgeois book; it must destroy the bourgeois fatherland and must do nothing for its defence or enlargement; but the proletariat must defend its own fatherland with all its might and to the last drop of its blood.
To these considerations the objector may reply as follows. Do you not know, he will say, that colonial policy and imperialism have helped the industrial development of the Great Powers, and that, thanks to this, crumbs from the masters’ table fall to the working class? Surely this means that the worker should defend his master, should help his master against competitors?