This is an instance of high-flown phraseology with which Trotsky always justifies opportunism.

The phrase-bandying Trotsky has completely lost his bearings on a simple issue.

(Bukvoyed and Semkovsky give more direct expression to the “thought”, or rather want of thought, which they share with Trotsky.)

Had Bukvoyed and Trotsky done a little thinking, they would have realised that they have adopted the viewpoint on the war held by governments and the bourgeoisie, i.e., that they cringe to the “political methodology of social-patriotism”, to use Trotsky’s pretentious language

Many of them will reply that it is impossible, as Kautsky has done, thereby fully proving his social-chauvinism.