The attempts to revive the Second International took place under the benevolent patronage of the robber League of Nations. For, in fact, the jingo socialists are faithful supporters of the decaying capitalist order, and are its very last props. The imperialist war could never have continued to rage for five years but for the treachery of the socialist parties. Directly the period of revolution began, the bourgeoisie looked to the socialist traitors for help in crushing the proletarian movement. The sometime socialist parties were the chief obstacle in the way of the struggle of the working class for the overthrow of capitalism. Throughout the war, every one of the traitor socialist parties echoed all that the bourgeoisie said. After the peace of Versailles, when the League of Nations was founded, the remnants of the Second International (the Centre as well as the jingo socialists) began to reecho all the slogans uttered by the League of Nations. The League accused the bolsheviks of terrorism, of violating democracy, of Red imperialism. The Second International repeated the accusations. Instead of engaging in a decisive struggle against the imperialists, it voiced the imperialist war-cries. Just as the various parties of socialist traitors had supported the respective bourgeois administrations, so did the Second International support the League of Nations.
40. The Third International.
The jingo socialists and the Centre adopted as their watchword during the war, the defence of the (bourgeois) fatherland, this meaning the defence of the State organisation of the enemies of the proletariat. A logical sequel was the watchword of the “party truce,” which signified universal submission to the bourgeois State. The matter is perfectly clear.