Written in German by Lenin in November, 1915 this critique of Karl Radek’s (Parabellum) article “Annexations and Social-Democracy” was part of a broader debate in the Zimmerwald and wider Socialist movement. Lenin’s interventions played a key role in developing the positions later adopted by the Soviets and the Third International on national self-determination. This first English translation from the Selected Works series edited by Alexander Trachtenberg in 1929.

‘The Revolutionary Proletariat and the Right of Nations to Self-Determination’ (1915) by V.I. Lenin from Selected Works, Vol. 18. International Publishers, New York. 1929.

The Zimmerwald Manifesto, like the majority of the programmes of the Social-Democratic parties or their resolutions on tactics, proclaims the right of nations to self-determination. Comrade Parabellum, in Nos. 252 and 253 of the Berner Tagwacht, declares the “struggle for the non-existent right to self-determination” to be illusory; this struggle he contrasts with a “revolutionary mass struggle of the proletariat against capitalism,” at the same time asserting that “we are against annexations” (this assertion is repeated five times in Comrade Parabellum’s article), and against all “national acts of violence.”

The arguments in favour of Comrade Parabellum’s position reduce themselves to the assertion that all national problems of the present, like those of Alsace-Lorraine, Armenia, etc., are problems of imperialism; that capital has outgrown the framework of national states; that it is impossible to turn the wheel of history backward to the antiquated ideal of national states, etc.

Let us see whether Comrade Parabellum’s arguments are correct.

First of all, it is Comrade Parabellum who looks backward and not forward when, at the beginning of his campaign against the acceptance by the working class “of the ideal of a national state,” he directs his glance towards England, France, Italy, Germany, i.e., countries where the national movement for liberation is a thing of the past, and not towards the Orient, Asia, Africa, the colonies, where this movement is a thing not of the past, but of the present and the future. Suffice it to mention India, China, Persia, Egypt.

Imperialism, further, means that capital has outgrown the framework of national states; it means the widening and sharpening of national oppression on a new historical basis. It follows from this, in contradiction to the conception of Comrade Parabellum, that we must connect the revolutionary struggle for Socialism with a revolutionary programme on the national question.

As to Comrade Parabellum, he, in the name of a Socialist revolution, scornfully rejects a consistently revolutionary programme in the realm of democracy. This is incorrect. The proletariat cannot become victor save through democracy, i.e., through introducing complete democracy and through combining with every step of its movement democratic demands formulated most vigorously, most decisively. It is senseless to contrast the Socialist revolution and the revolutionary struggle against capitalism to one of the questions of democracy, in this case the national question. On the contrary, we must combine the revolutionary struggle against capitalism with a revolutionary programme and revolutionary tactics relative to all democratic demands: a republic, a militia, officials elected by the people, equal rights for women, self-determination of nations, etc. While capitalism exists, all these demands are realisable only as an exception, and in an incomplete, distorted form. Basing ourselves on democracy as it already exists, exposing its incompleteness under capitalism, we advocate the overthrow of capitalism, expropriation of the bourgeoisie as a necessary basis both for the abolition of the poverty of the masses and for a complete and manifold realisation of all democratic reforms. Some of those reforms will be started prior to the overthrow of the bourgeoisie, others in the process of the overthrow, still others after it has been accomplished. The Socialist revolution is by no means a single battle; on the contrary, it is an epoch of a whole series of battles around all problems of economic and democratic reforms, which can be completed only by the expropriation of the bourgeoisie. It is for the sake of this final aim that we must formulate in a consistently revolutionary manner every one of our democratic demands. It is quite conceivable that the workers of a certain country may overthrow the bourgeoisie before even one fundamental democratic reform has been realised in full. It is entirely inconceivable, however, that the proletariat as an historical class will be able to defeat the bourgeoisie if it is not prepared for this task by being educated in the spirit of the most consistent and determined revolutionary democracy.

Imperialism is the progressing oppression of the nations of the world by a handful of great powers; it is an epoch of wars among them for the widening and strengthening of national oppression; it is the epoch when the masses of the people are deceived by the hypocritical social-patriots, i.e., a people who under the pretext of ‘‘freedom of nations,” “right of nations to self-determination,” and “defence of the fatherland” justify and defend the oppression of a majority of the world’s nations by the great powers.

This is just why the central point in a programme of Social Democrats must be that distinction between oppressing and oppressed nations, since the distinction is the essence of imperialism, and is fraudulently evaded by the social-patriots, Kautsky included. This distinction is not important from the point of view of bourgeois pacifism, or the petty-bourgeois Utopia of peaceful competition between independent nations under capitalism, but it is most important from the point of view of the revolutionary struggle against imperialism. From this distinction there follows our consistently democratic and revolutionary definition of the “right of nations to self-determination,” which is in accord with the general task of the immediate struggle for Socialism. It is in the name of this right, and fighting for its unequivocal recognition, that the Social-Democrats of the oppressing nations must demand the freedom of separation for the oppressed nations, for otherwise recognition of the equal rights of nations and international solidarity of the workers in reality remains an empty phrase, a hypocritical gesture. The Social-Democrats of the oppressed nations, however, must view as foremost the demand for the unity and the fusion of the workers of the oppressed nations with the workers of the oppressing nations, because otherwise those Social-Democrats involuntarily become the allies of one or the other national bourgeoisie, which always betrays the interest of the people and of democracy, and which in its turn is always ready for annexations and for oppressing other nations.

The approach to the national problem by the end of the sixties of the nineteenth century may serve as an instructive example. The petty-bourgeois democrats, devoid of every idea concerning the class struggle and the Socialist revolution, pictured a Utopia of peaceful competition between free and equal nations under capitalism. The Proudhonists “denied” entirely the national question and the right of self-determination of nations and precisely from the point of view of the immediate tasks of a social revolution. Marx scoffed at French Proudhonism showing its affinity to French chauvinism (“All Europe must sit quietly and obediently on its behind until the masters abolish poverty in France,” “by the denial of the national question, they seem to understand, without being aware of it, the swallowing up of the nations by the exemplary French nation”). Marx demanded the separation of Ireland from England, “even should the separation finally result in a federation,” and not from the standpoint of the petty-bourgeois Utopia of a peaceful capitalism, not from considerations of “justice to Ireland,” but from the standpoint of the interests of the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat of the oppressing, i.e., the English, nation against capitalism. The freedom of that nation was cramped and mutilated by the fact that it oppressed another nation. The internationalism of the English proletariat would have remained a hypocritical phrase were it not to demand the separation of Ireland. Marx never was in favour of small states, or of splitting up states, or of the federation principle. Still he considered the separation of an oppressed nation as a step towards federation, consequently not towards a splitting of nations but towards concentration, towards political and economic concentration, but concentration on the basis of democracy. From Comrade Parabellum’s standpoint, Marx must have fought an “illusory” battle when he demanded the separation of Ireland. In reality, however, only this demand was a consistent revolutionary programme, only it corresponded to internationalism, only it represented concentration not along the lines of imperialism.

The imperialism of our days has brought about a situation where the oppression of nations by the great powers is a common phenomenon. It is precisely the standpoint of struggle against the social-patriots of the great-power nations that are now waging an imperialist war for the purpose of strengthening the oppression of nations—that are oppressing the majority of nations of the world and the majority of the earth’s population—it is precisely this standpoint that must become the decisive, cardinal, basic point in the Social-Democratic national programme.

Let us now cast a glance at the present-day currents of Social-Democratic thought on this question. The petty-bourgeois Utopians who dream of equality and peace among nations under capitalism have ceded their place to the social-patriots. In battling against the former, Comrade Parabellum battles against windmills, thereby unwillingly aiding the latter. What, then, is the programme of the social-patriots on the national question?

They either entirely deny the right to self-determination, using arguments like those of Comrade Parabellum (Cunow, Parvus, the Russian opportunists Semkovsky, Liebman, etc.), or they recognise that right in an obviously hypocritical fashion, namely, without applying it to precisely those nations which are oppressed by their own nation or by the military allies of their own nation (Plekhanov, Hyndman, all the Francophile social-patriots, Scheidemann and Co., etc.). It is Kautsky, however, that gives the formulation of the social-patriotic lie that is most plausible and therefore most dangerous for the proletariat. In words he is for self-determination of nations; in words he says that the Social-Democratic Party “die Selbststandigkeit der Nationen allseitig und riichhaltlos [??] [risum tenatis, amici!] achtet und fordert ” “Respect and demand everywhere [!!] and without reservations [??] [withhold your laughter, friends!] the independence of nations.”— Ed. [Neue Zeit, 33, II, p. 241, May 21, 1915]. In reality, however, he adapts the national programme to the prevailing social-patriotism; he distorts and mutilates it without clearly determining the duties of the Socialists of the oppressing nations, and he even falsifies the democratic principle itself when he says that to demand “state independence” (staatliche Selbststandigkeit) for every nation would mean to demand “too much” (zu viel) [Neue Zeit, 33, II, p. 77, May 16, 1915]. 105 “National autonomy” alone, according to his sagacious opinion, is sufficient. Kautsky thus evades the most important question which the imperialist bourgeoisie does not allow one to touch upon, namely, the question of the boundaries of a state which rests on the oppression of nations. Kautsky, to please the bourgeoisie, throws out of the national programme of the Social-Democratic Party the most essential thing. The bourgeoisie will promise any “national autonomy,” if only the proletariat remains within the framework of legality and peacefully submits to the bourgeoisie on the question of the state boundaries! Kautsky formulates the national programme of Social-Democracy not like a revolutionary but like a reformist.

Comrade Parabellum’s national programme or, more correctly, his assurances to the effect that “we are against annexations” is eagerly subscribed to by the German Parteivorst and Kautsky, Plekhanov and Co. just because that programme does not expose the dominating social-patriots. Bourgeois pacifists would also be willing to sign this programme. Parabellum’s splendid general programme (“revolutionary mass struggle against capitalism”) serves him, as it did the Proudhonists of the sixties, not to work out an uncompromising, equally revolutionary programme in the national question in conformity with the general programme and its spirit, but only to clear the field for the social-patriots! The majority of the Socialists of the world belong, in our imperialist epoch, to nations that oppress other nations and strive to widen the scope of that oppression. This is why our “struggle against annexations” will be meaningless and not at all terrifying to the social-patriots, if we do not declare that a Socialist of an oppressing nation who does not conduct a propaganda, both in peace and war time, in favour of separation, a Socialist of an oppressing nation who does not conduct such a propaganda, in defiance of the governmental prohibitions, i.e., in a free,, i.e., in an illegal press, is not a Socialist or an internationalist but a chauvinist, whose adherence to national equality is sheer hypocrisy.

About Russia, which has not yet completed its bourgeois-democratic revolution, Comrade Parabellum says only one sentence:

“Selbst das wirtschaftlich sehr zuriickgebliebene Russland hat in der Haltung der polnischen, lettischen , armenischen Bourgeoisie gezeigt , dass nicht nur die militarische Bewachung es ist, die die Volker in diesem u Zuchthaus der Volker zusammenhalt , sondern Bediirfnisse der kapitalistischen Expansion , fur die das ungeheure Territorium ein glanzender Boden der Entwieklung ist.”

“Even the economically very backward Russia proved in the stand taken by the Polish, Lettish, Armenian bourgeoisie that it is not only military supervision that keeps the peoples in that ‘prison of peoples’ together, but also the need for capitalist expansion, for which the vast territory is a splendid ground for development.”

This is not a “Social-Democratic,” but a liberal-bourgeois point of view, not an internationalist but a Great-Russian chauvinist point of view. It is unfortunate that Comrade Parabellum, who so excellently fights the German social-patriots, evidently has very little acquaintance with Russian chauvinism! To make a Social-Democratic sentence and to allow Social-Democratic conclusions to be drawn from the above sentence of Comrade Parabellum, it must be changed and amended in the following way Russia is a prison of peoples not only because of the military, feudal character of tsarism, not only because the Great-Russian bourgeoisie supports tsarism, but also because the Polish, Lettish, etc., bourgeoisie has sacrificed the freedom of nations and democracy in general for the interests of capitalist expansion. The proletariat of Russia, marching at the head of the people, cannot complete the victorious democratic revolution (which is its immediate task); neither can it fight together with its brothers, the proletarians of Europe, for a Socialist revolution, without demanding at once full and “unreserved” freedom of separation from Russia for all the nations oppressed by Russia. This we demand not as something independent from our revolutionary struggle for Socialism, but because this struggle would remain an idle phrase if it were not linked up with a revolutionary approach to all the questions of democracy, including the national question. We demand the freedom of self-determination, i.e., independence, i.e., the freedom of separation for the oppressed nations, not because we dream of an economically atomised world, nor because we cherish the ideal of small states, but on the contrary because we are for large states and for a coming closer, even a fusion of nations, but on a truly democratic, truly internationalist basis, which is unthinkable without the freedom of separation. In the same way as Marx in 1869 demanded the separation of Ireland, not for the purpose of splitting England, but for a subsequent free alliance of Ireland with England, not for the sake of “justice to Ireland,” but for the interests of the revolutionary struggle of the English proletariat, so we at present consider the refusal by the Socialists of Russia to demand freedom of self-determination for the nations, in the sense indicated by us above, as a direct betrayal of democracy, internationalism, and Socialism.

International Publishers was formed in 1923 for the purpose of translating and disseminating international Marxist texts and headed by Alexander Trachtenberg. It quickly outgrew that mission to be the main book publisher, while Workers Library continued to be the pamphlet publisher of the Communist Party.

PDF of original book: https://archive.org/download/in.ernet.dli.2015.190250/2015.190250.Lenin-Vol-Xviii_text.pdf