[Marxism] "My" theses [was RE:Imperialism and the US working class(Was YADL)]

[Marv Gandall]

Joaquin quoted Lenin, Marx and Engels:

> Lenin, in his October, 1916 article "Imperialism and the Split in
> Socialism"
> asks: "Is there any connection between imperialism and the monstrous and
> disgusting victory opportunism (in the form of social-chauvinism) has
> gained
> over the labour movement in Europe?"
>
> And adding, "This is the fundamental question of modern socialism," he
> leaves no doubt that his answer is yes, and in so answering he bases
> himself
> directly on Marx and Engels:
>
> *  *  *
>
> These two trends, one might even say two parties, in the present-day
> labour
> movement, which in 1914-16 so obviously parted ways all over the world,
> were
> traced by Engels and Marx in England throughout the course of decades,
> roughly from 1858 to 1892.
==================================
They indicted the Labour and social democratic leadership of the trade
unions and workers' parties; they did not write off the working classes of
England or the continent, whom they expected to inevitably break with their
"bourgeois" leaders.  It didn't turn out that way, so within the framework
of your logic, I suppose you would have some justification for extending the
indictment to the class as a whole. My own view is that reformism was the
product of rising level standards to which other factors as well as
imperialism contributed, and that it is a decline in those standards,
especially abrupt ones, which are the precondition for corresponding changes
in consciousness - irrespective of whether such change occurs in imperialist
or non-imperialist countries. Am I seeing differences where there are none?