Written in by Lenin, with Zinoviev’s input, as part of the pamphlet ‘Socialism and War’ this exposition of Lenin’s revolutionary internationalist position remains among his most complete and potent statement’s on the imperialist war. This first English translation was down by Moissaye J. Olgin for International Publisher’s Selected Works series edited by Alexander Trachtenberg in 1929.

‘The Principles of Socialism and the War of 1914–1915’ by V.I. Lenin from Selected Works, Vol. 18. International Publishers, New York. 1929.

ATTITUDE OF SOCIALISTS TOWARDS WAR

The Socialists have always condemned wars between peoples as barbarous and bestial. Our attitude towards war, however, differs in principle from that of the bourgeois pacifists and Anarchists. We differ from the first in that we understand the inseparable connection between wars on the one hand and class struggles inside of a country on the other, we understand the impossibility of eliminating wars without eliminating classes and creating Socialism, and in that we fully recognise the justice, the progressivism and the necessity of civil wars, i.e., wars of an oppressed class against the oppressor, of slaves against the slave-holders, of serfs against the landowners, of wage-workers against the bourgeoisie. We Marxists differ both from pacifists and Anarchists in that we recognise the necessity of an historical study of each war individually, from the point of view of Marx’s dialectical materialism. There have been many wars in history which, notwithstanding all the horrors, cruelties, miseries and tortures, inevitably connected with every war, had a progressive character, i.e., they served the development of mankind, aiding in the destruction of extremely pernicious and reactionary institutions (as, for instance, absolutism or serfdom), or helping to remove the most barbarous despotisms in Europe (that of Turkey and Russia). It is therefore necessary to examine the historic characteristics of the present war taken by itself.

TYPES OF WARS IN MODERN TIMES

A new epoch in the history of mankind was opened by the great French Revolution. From that time down to the Paris Commune, i.e., from 1789 to 1871, some of the wars had a bourgeois progressive character, being waged for national liberation. In other words, the main contents and the historic significance of those wars consisted in overthrowing absolutism and feudalism, at least in undermining those institutions, or in casting off the yoke of foreign nations. Therefore these wars can be considered progressive. When such wars were waged, all honest revolutionary democrats as well as Socialists always sympathised with that side (i.e., with that bourgeoisie) which helped to overthrow or at least to undermine the most dangerous foundations of feudalism and absolutism, or to combat the oppression of foreign peoples. For instance, die fundamental historic significance of the revolutionary wars of France, notwithstanding the tendency to plunder and conquer foreign lands on the part of the French, consists in the fact that they shook and destroyed feudalism and absolutism in the whole of old Europe hitherto based on serf labour. In the Franco-Prussian War, Germany certainly robbed France; this, however, does not change the fundamental historic significance of that war as having freed tens of millions of the German people from feudal decentralisation and from the oppression of two despots, the Tsar and Napoleon III.

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN OFFENSIVE AND DEFENSIVE WAR

The period between 1789 and 1871 left deep traces and revolutionary reminiscences. Before the overthrow of feudalism, absolutism, and foreign oppression, there could be no thought of developing the proletarian struggle for Socialism. When, in speaking of the wars of such periods, the Socialists always recognised the justice of a “Defensive” war, they had in view the above aims, namely, a revolution against medievalism and serf labour. Under a ^^defensive” war the Socialists always understood a “just” war in this particular sense. (Wilhelm Liebknecht once expressed himself in this very way.) Only in this sense did the Socialists recognise, and do recognise at present, the legitimacy, progressivism, and justice of “defending the fatherland” or of a ‘^defensive” war. For instance, if Morocco were to declare war against France to-morrow, or India against England, or Persia or China against Russia, etc., those wars would be “just,” “defensive” wars, no matter which one was the first to attack. Every Socialist would then wish the victory of the oppressed, dependent, non-sovereign states against the oppressing, slave-holding, pillaging “great” nations. 

But imagine that a slave-holder possessing 100 slaves wages war against a slave-holder possessing 200 slaves for a more “equitable’’ re-distribution of slaves. It is evident that to apply to such a case the term “’defensive” war or ‘‘defence of the fatherland,” would be an historical lie; in practice it would mean that the crafty slaveholders were plainly deceiving the unenlightened masses, the lower strata of the city population. It is in this very fashion that the present-day imperialist bourgeoisie, when war is waged among the slave-holders for the strengthening and consolidation of slavery, deceive the peoples by means of the “national” ideology and the idea of defence of the fatherland.

THE PRESENT WAR IS AN IMPERIALIST WAR

Nearly every one admits the present war to be an imperialist war. In most cases, however, this term is either distorted, or applied to one side only, or a loophole is left for the assertion that the war is a bourgeois-progressive means for national liberation. Imperialism is the highest stage in the development of capitalism, one that has been reached only in the twentieth century. Capitalism began to feel cramped within the old national states, without the formation of which it could not overthrow feudalism. Capitalism has brought about such economic concentration that entire branches of industry are in the hands of syndicates, trusts, or corporations of billionaires; almost the entire globe has been parceled out among the “giants of capital,” either in the form of colonies, or through the entangling of foreign countries by thousands of threads of financial exploitation. Free trade and competition have been superseded by tendencies towards monopoly, towards seizure of lands for the investment of capital, for the export of raw materials, etc. Capitalism, formerly a liberator of nations, has now, in its imperialist stage, become the greatest oppressor of nations. Formerly progressive, it has become a reactionary force. It has developed the productive forces to such an extent that humanity must either pass over to Socialism, or for years, nay, decades, witness armed conflicts of the “great” nations for an artificial maintenance of capitalism by means of colonies, monopolies privileges, and all sorts of national oppression.

WAR AMONG THE GREATEST SLAVE-HOLDERS FOR THE MAINTENANCE AND STRENGTHENING OF SLAVERY

To make the meaning of imperialism clear, we will quote exact figures showing the division of the world among the so-called “great” nations, (i.e., nations successful in the great robbery).

It is evident that the peoples who, between 1789 and 1871, were usually the foremost fighters for freedom, have become, after 1876, under highly-developed and “over-ripe” capitalism, the oppressors and subjugators of the majority of the populations and nations of the entire globe. Between 1876 and 1914, the six “great” nations grabbed 25,000,000 square kilometres, i.e., a territory two and a half times the size of Europe. The six nations hold enslaved more than a half-billion (523,000,000) of colonial peoples. For every four inhabitants of the “great” nations, there are five inhabitants in “their” colonies. Everybody knows that the colonies were conquered by fire and sword, that the colonial populations are treated in a barbarous fashion, that they are exploited in a thousand ways, such as exportation of capital, concessions, etc., deceptions in selling commodities, submission to the authorities of the “ruling” nation, and so on, and so forth The Anglo-French bourgeoisie is deceiving the people when it says that it wages war for the freedom of peoples, including Belgium; in reality, it wages war for the sake of holding on to the colonies which it has stolen on a large scale. The German imperialists would free Belgium, etc., forthwith, were the English and the French willing to share with them the colonies on the basis of “justice.” It is a peculiarity of the present situation that the fate of the colonies is being decided by war on the continent. From the standpoint of bourgeois justice and national freedom, which means the right of nations to exist, Germany could unquestionably have a just claim against England and France, because it has been “wronged” as far as its share of colonies is concerned, because its enemies are oppressing more nations than Germany, and because under its ally, Austria, the oppressed Slavs are enjoying decidedly more freedom than in tsarist Russia, this veritable “prison of the peoples.” Germany itself, however, is waging war, not for the liberation, but for the oppression of nations. It is not the business of Socialists to help the younger and stronger robber (Germany) to rob the older and fatter bandits, but the Socialists must utilise the struggle between the bandits to overthrow all of them. For this reason the Socialists must first of all tell the people the truth, namely, that this war is in three senses a war of slave-holders for the strengthening of the worst kind of slavery. It is a war, first, for the strengthening of colonial slavery by means of a more “equitable” division of the colonies and more “team work” in their exploitation; it is, secondly, a war for the strengthening of the oppression of minority nationalities inside the “great” nations, since Austria and Russia (Russia much more and in a much worse manner than Austria) are based on such oppression which is strengthened by the war; third, it is a war for the strengthening and prolongation of wage slavery, the proletariat being divided and subdued while the capitalists are gaining through war profits, through fanning national prejudices, and deepening the reaction which has raised its head in all countries, even in the freest and republican countries.

“WAR IS POLITICS CONTINUED BY OTHER (I.E. FORCIBLE) MEANS”

This famous dictum belongs to one of the profoundest writers on military questions, Clausewitz. Rightly, the Marxists have always considered this axiom as the theoretical foundation for their understanding of the meaning of every war. It is from this very standpoint that Marx and Engels regarded wars.

Apply this idea to the present war. You will find that for decades, for almost half a century, the governments and the ruling classes of England, France, Germany, Italy, Austria and Russia, conducted a policy of colonial robbery, of suppressing labour movements, of oppressing foreign nations. Such a policy, and no other one, is being pursued also in the present war. Notably in Austria and in Russia the policy of both peace and war times consists in the enslavement of nations, not in Their liberation. On the contrary, in China, Persia, India and other dependent nations we note in the last decade a policy of national awakening, tens and hundreds of millions of people striving to liberate themselves from under the yoke of the reactionary “great” nations. War growing out of this historic basis, even at the present time, can be of a bourgeois progressive nature, a war for national liberation.

One glance at the present war, conceived as a continuation of the policy of the “great” nations and their fundamental classes, shows that the opinion which justifies “defence of the fatherland” in the present war is false, hypocritical and in glaring contradiction to historic facts.

EXAMPLE OF BELGIUM

The social-chauvinists of the Triple (now Quadruple) Entente (in Russia, Plekhanov and Co.) love to refer to the example of Belgium. This example speaks against them. The German imperialists shamelessly violated Belgian neutrality; this has always and everywhere been the practice of warring nations which, in the case of necessity, trample upon all treaties and obligations. Suppose all nations interested in maintaining international treaties declared war against Germany, demanding the liberation and indemnification of Belgium. In this case the sympathy of the Socialists would naturally be on the side of Germany’s enemies. The truth, however, is that the war is being waged by the “Triple” (and Quadruple) Entente not for the sake of Belgium. This is well known, and only the hypocrites conceal it. England is robbing German colonies and Turkey; Russia is robbing Galicia and Turkey; France is striving to obtain Alsace Lorraine and even the left bank of the Rhine; a treaty providing the sharing of spoils (in Albania and Asia Minor) has been concluded with Italy; with Bulgaria and Rumania there is haggling as to the division of the spoils. In the present war, conducted by the present governments, it is impossible to help Belgium without helping to throttle Austria or Turkey, etc. What meaning, then, has the “defence of the fatherland”? This is the peculiar characteristic of the imperialist war, a war between reactionary bourgeois governments that have historically outlived themselves, conducted for the sake of oppressing other nations. Whoever justifies participation in this war, perpetuates imperialist oppression of nations Whoever seeks to use the present difficulties of the governments in order to fight for a social revolution, is fighting for the real freedom of really all nations, a freedom that can be realised only under Socialism.

WHAT IS RUSSIA FIGHTING FOR?

In Russia, modern capitalist imperialism has clearly manifested itself in the policy of tsarism relative to Persia, Manchuria and Mongolia; in general, however, the prevailing type of Russian imperialism is military and feudal. Nowhere in the world is there such an oppression of the majority of die country’s population as there is in Russia: the Great-Russians form only 43 per cent of the population, i.e., less than half; the rest have no rights as Belonging to other nationalities. Out of 170,000,000 of the population of Russia, about 100,00,000 are oppressed and without rights. The tsarist government wages war for the seizure of Galicia and the final throttling of the freedom of the Ukrainians, for the seizure of Armenia, Constantinople, etc. Tsarism sees in this war a means to distract the attention from the growing discontent within the country and to suppress the growing revolutionary movement. For every two Great-Russians in present-day Russia, there are Between two and three “aliens” without rights. In waging this war tsarism strives to increase the number of nations oppressed by Russia, to perpetuate their oppression and subsequently to undermine the struggle for freedom of the Great-Russians themselves. The opportunity of suppressing and robbing foreign peoples spells economic stagnation, since it often substitutes semi-feudal exploitation of the “aliens” as a source of income for the development of productive forces. It is for this reason that, as far as Russia is concerned, the war is doubly reactionary and hostile to national liberation.

WHAT IS SOCIAL-CHAUVINISM?

Social-chauvinism is adherence to the idea of “defending the fatherland” in the present war. From this idea follows repudiation of the class struggle in war time, voting for military appropriations, etc. In practice the social-chauvinists conduct an anti-proletarian bourgeois policy, because in practice they insist not on the “defence of the fatherland” in the sense of fighting against the oppression of a foreign nation, but upon the “right” of one or the other of the “great” nations to rob the colonies and oppress other peoples. The social-chauvinists follow the bourgeoisie in deceiving the people by saying that the war is conducted for the defence of the freedom and the existence of the nations, thus they put themselves on the side of the bourgeoisie against the proletariat. To the social-chauvinists belong those who justify and idealise the governments and the bourgeoisie of one of the belligerent groups of nations, as well as those who, like Kautsky, recognise the equal right of the Socialists of all belligerent nations to “defend the fatherland.” Social-chauvinism, being in practice a defence of the privileges, prerogatives, robberies and violence of “one’s own” (or any other) imperialist bourgeoisie, is a total betrayal of all Socialist convictions and a violation of the decisions of the International Socialist Congress in Basle,

THE BASLE MANIFESTO

The war manifesto unanimously adopted in 1912 in Basle has in view the kind of war between England and Germany with their present allies which actually broke out in 1914. The manifesto declares unequivocally that no people’s interests of whatever nature can justify such a war, it being conducted “for the profits of capitalists” and “the ambitions of dynasties” as an outgrowth of the imperialist predatory policy of the great nations. The manifesto plainly states that the war is dangerous “for the governments” (all governments without exception); it notes their fear “of a proletarian revolution”; it refers with full clarity to the example of the Commune of 1871 and of October-December, 1905, i.e., to the example of revolution and civil war. The Basle Manifesto thus establishes for this present war the tactics of workers’ revolutionary struggle on an international scale against their governments, the tactics of proletarian revolution. The Basle Manifesto repeats the words of the Stuttgart resolution to the effect that in case of war the Socialists must take advantage of the “economic and political crisis” created by it to “hasten the downfall of capitalist class rule,” i.e., to take advantage of the difficulties of the governments and of mass indignation created by the war to advance the Socialist revolution.

The policy of the social-chauvinists, their justification of the war from the bourgeois standpoint of national liberty, their acceptance of the “defence of the fatherland,” their voting for war appropriations, their participation in the cabinets, etc., etc., is a direct betrayal of Socialism. As we shall see below, it can be explained only by the triumph of opportunism and of national-liberal labour policy inside of the majority of the European parties.

FALSE REFERENCES TO MARX AND ENGELS

The Russian social-chauvinists (headed by Plekhanov) refer to Marx’s tactics in the war of 1870. The German chauvinists (of the type of Lensch, David and Co.) refer to Engels, who in 1891 declared that it would be the duty of the German Socialists to defend their fatherland in case of a war against Russia and France combined. Finally, the social-chauvinists of the Kautsky type, wishing to justify and sanction international chauvinism, quote both Marx and Engels who, while denouncing wars, always sided with one or the other of the belligerent governments, once the war had actually broken out, as was the case in 1854-1855, 1870-1871 and 1876-1877.

All these references are an abominable distortion of Marx’s and Engels’ views, made in favour of the bourgeoisie and the opportunists, just as the writings of the Anarchists, Guillaume and Co., distort the views of Marx and Engels for the justification of Anarchism. The war of 1870-1871 was historically progressive on Germany’s side up to the defeat of Napoleon III, because both he and the Tsar had long oppressed Germany, keeping it in a state of feudal decentralisation. As soon as the war turned into a plunder of France (annexation of Alsace and Lorraine), Marx and Engels decisively condemned the Germans. Even at the beginning of the war of 1870-1871 Marx and Engels approved of Rebel’s and Liebknecht’s refusal to vote for military appropriations; they advised the Social-Democrats not to merge with the bourgeoisie, but to defend the independent class-interests of the proletariat. To apply the characterisation of the Franco-Prussian War, which was of a bourgeois progressive nature and fought for national liberty, to the present imperialist war, is to mock at history. The same is even more true about the war of 1854-1855 and all other wars of the nineteenth century, i.e., a time when there was no modern imperialism, no ripe objective conditions for Socialism, no mass Socialist parties in all the belligerent countries, i.e., when there were none of those conditions from which the Basle Manifesto deduced the tactics of a “proletarian revolution” in the case of a war’s arising among the great nations.

Whoever refers at present to Marx’s attitude towards the wars of a period when the bourgeoisie was progressive, forgetting Marx’s words that “the workers have no fatherland,” words which refer to a period when the bourgeoisie is reactionary and has outlived itself, to the period of Socialist revolutions, is shamelessly distorting Marx and substituting a bourgeois for a Socialist standpoint.

COLLAPSE OF THE SECOND INTERNATIONAL

The Socialists of the whole world solemnly declared in 1912, in Basle, that they considered the coming European war a “criminal” and reactionary undertaking of all the governments, an undertaking which must hasten the breakdown of capitalism by inevitably generating a revolution against it. The war came, the crisis was there. Instead of revolutionary tactics, the majority of the Social Democratic parties followed reactionary tactics, siding with their governments and their respective bourgeoisies. This betrayal of Socialism means the collapse of the Second (1889-1914) International. We must make clear to ourselves the causes of that collapse, the reasons for the birth and growth of social-chauvinism.

SOCIAL-CHAUVINISM IS OPPORTUNISM BROUGHT TO COMPLETION

During the entire period of the Second International, a struggle was going on everywhere inside of the Social-Democratic parties between the revolutionary and the opportunist wings. In a series of countries there was a split along this line (England, Italy, Holland, Bulgaria). There was no doubt in the mind of any Marxist that opportunism expressed a bourgeois policy inside of the labour movement, that it expressed the interests of the petty bourgeoisie and of the alliance of an insignificant section of bourgeois-like workers with “their own” bourgeoisie against the interests of the mass of proletarians, the mass of the oppressed.

The objective conditions at the end of the nineteenth century were such that they strengthened opportunism, turning the use of legal bourgeois opportunities into servile worship of legalism, creating a thin layer of bureaucracy and aristocracy in the working class, attracting to the ranks of the Social-Democratic parties many petty bourgeois “fellow travellers.”

The war hastened this development; it turned opportunism into social-chauvinism; it changed the alliance of the opportunists with the bourgeoisie from a secret to an open one. At the same time, the military authorities everywhere introduced martial law and muzzled the working mass, whose old leaders, almost in a body, went over to the bourgeoisie.

The economic basis of opportunism and social-chauvinism is the same: the interests of an insignificant layer of privileged workers and petty bourgeoisie who are defending their privileged positions, their “right” to the crumbs of profits which “their” national bourgeoisie receives from robbing other nations, from the advantages of its position as a great nation.

The ideological and political contents of opportunism and social-chauvinism is the same: class collaboration instead of class struggle; renunciation of revolutionary means of struggle; aiding “one’s” own government in its difficulties instead of taking advantage of its difficulties to work for a revolution. If we take all European countries as a whole, if we look not at individual persons (however authoritative), it appears that the opportunist ideology has become the mainstay of social-chauvinism, whereas from the camp of the revolutionists we hear almost everywhere more or less consistent protests against it. If we take, for instance, the division of opinion manifested at the Stuttgart International Socialist Congress of 1907, we find that international Marxism was against imperialism while international opportunism was even then already for it.

UNITY WITH THE OPPORTUNISTS IS AN ALLIANCE OF THE WORKERS WITH “THEIR” NATIONAL BOURGEOISIE AND A SPLIT IN THE INTERNATIONAL REVOLUTIONARY WORKING CLASS

During the period that preceded the war, opportunism was often considered a legitimate component part of a Social-Democratic party, though “deviating” and “extreme.” The war has proven the inadmissibility of this combination in the future. Opportunism has ripened, it has brought to completion its role of an emissary of the bourgeoisie within the labour movement. Unity with the opportunists has become nothing but hypocrisy, as evidenced by the example of the German Social-Democratic Party. On all important occasions (as at the voting of August 4) the opportunists confront the party with their ultimatum, the acceptance of which is secured through their numerous connections with the bourgeoisie, through their majorities on the executive committees of the labour unions, etc. To keep united with opportunism at the present time means practically to subjugate the working class to “its” bourgeoisie, to make an alliance with it for the oppression of other nations and for the struggle for the privileges of a great nation; at the same time it means splitting the revolutionary proletariat of all countries.

However difficult it may be in individual cases to fight the opportunists who occupy a leading position in many organisations; whatever peculiar forms the process of purging the labour parties of the opportunists may assume in various countries, this process is inevitable and fruitful. Reformist Socialism is dying; regenerating Socialism “will be revolutionary, non-compromising, rebellious,” according to the just expression of the French Socialist, Paul Golay.

KAUTSKYISM

Kautsky, the greatest authority of the Second International, represents the most typical and striking example of how lip service to Marxism has in reality led to its transformation into “Struveism” or “Brentanoism.” Plekhanov represents a similar example. Those people castrate Marxism; they purge it, by means of obvious sophisms, of its revolutionary living soul; they recognise in Marxism everything except revolutionary means of struggle, except the advocacy of, and the preparation for, such struggle, and the education of the masses in this direction. Kautsky quite meaninglessly “reconciles” the fundamental idea of social-chauvinism, the defence of the fatherland in this war, with a diplomatic sham concession to the Left, such as abstaining from voting appropriations, verbal expression of opposition, etc. Kautsky, who in 1909 wrote a book predicting the approach of a revolutionary period and discussing the relation between war and revolution, Kautsky, who in 1912 signed the Basle Manifesto on revolutionary utilisation of the coming war, now justifies and embellishes social-chauvinism in every way. Like Plekhanov, he joins the bourgeoisie in ridiculing the very idea of revolution, in repudiating every step towards immediate revolutionary struggle.

The working class cannot realise its revolutionary role, which is of world significance, otherwise than by waging a merciless war against this desertion of principles, this supineness, this servility to opportunism and this unexampled theoretical vulgarisation of Marxism. Kautskyism is not an accident but a social product of the contradictions within the Second International which combined faithfulness to Marxism in words with submission to opportunism in deeds.

In every country this fundamental falsehood of Kautskyism assumes different forms. In Holland, Roland-Holst, though rejecting the idea of defence of the fatherland, is supporting unity with the party of the opportunists. In Russia, Trotsky, apparently repudiating this idea, also fights for unity with the opportunist and chauvinist group Nasha Zarya. In Rumania, Rakovsky, declaring war against opportunism which he blames for the collapse of the International, is at the same time ready to recognise the legitimacy of the idea of the defence of the fatherland. These are manifestations of the evil which the Dutch Marxists Gorter and Pannekoek have named “passive radicalism” and which reduces itself to substituting eclecticism for revolutionary Marxism in theory and to slavishness or impotence in the face of opportunism in practice.

THE SLOGAN OF MARXISTS IS THE SLOGAN OF REVOLUTIONARY SOCIAL-DEMOCRACY

The war has undoubtedly created the acutest crisis and has incredibly intensified the sufferings of the masses. The reactionary character of this war, the shameless lie of the bourgeoisie of all countries which covers its predatory aims with “national” ideology, all this inevitably creates, on the basis of an objective revolutionary situation, revolutionary sentiments in the masses. Our duty is to help make these sentiments conscious, to deepen them and give them form. The only correct expression of this task is the slogan “Turn the imperialist war into civil war.” All consistent class struggle in time of war, all “mass actions” earnestly conducted must inevitably lead to this. We cannot know whether in the first or in the second imperialist war between the great nations, whether during or after it, a strong revolutionary movement will flare up. Whatever the case may be, it is our absolute duty systematically and unflinchingly to work in that particular direction.

The Basle Manifesto directly refers to the example of the Paris Commune, i.e., to turning a war between governments into civil war. Half a century ago, the proletariat was too weak; objective conditions for Socialism had not ripened yet; a co-ordination and co-operation of the revolutionary movements in all the belligerent countries could not take place; the fact that a section of the Paris workers was captivated by “national ideology” (traditions of 1792) was its petty-bourgeois weakness noted at the time by Marx, and one of the reasons for the collapse of the Commune. Now, half a century later, all the conditions that weakened the revolution are no more. At the present time it is unforgivable for a Socialist to countenance repudiation of activities in the spirit of the Paris Communards.

EXAMPLE OF FRATERNISATION IN THE TRENCHES

The bourgeois papers of all the belligerent countries have quoted examples of fraternisation between the soldiers of the belligerent nations, even in the trenches. The fact that the military authorities of Germany and England have issued severe orders against such fraternisation proves that the government and the bourgeoisie consider it of serious importance. If at a time when opportunism among the leaders of the Social-Democratic parties of Western Europe is supreme and social-chauvinism is supported by the entire Social-Democratic press as well as by all influential figures of the Second International, such cases of fraternisation are possible, how much nearer could we bring the end of this criminal, reactionary and slave-driving war and the organisation of a revolutionary international movement if systematic work were conducted in this direction, at least by the Left Socialists of all the belligerent countries!

IMPORTANCE OF ILLEGAL ORGANISATIONS

Like the opportunists, the most eminent Anarchists of the world have covered themselves in this war with the shame of social-chauvinism in the spirit of Plekhanov and Kautsky. One of its useful results, however, will undoubtedly be the death of both opportunism and Anarchism in this war. The Social-Democratic parties, in no case and under no conditions refusing to take advantage of the slightest legal possibility for the organisation of the masses and the preaching of Socialism, must do away with a servile attitude towards legalism. “Be the first to shoot, Messrs. Bourgeois!” Engels wrote in reference to civil war, pointing out the necessity for us to violate legality after it has been violated by the bourgeoisie. The crisis has shown that the bourgeoisie is violating legality in every country, including the freest, and that it is impossible to lead the masses towards revolution without creating an illegal organisation for preaching, discussing, analysing, preparing revolutionary means of struggle., In Germany, for instance, all honest activities of the Socialists are being conducted against abject opportunism and hypocritical “Kautskyism,” and conducted illegally. In England, men are being sentenced to hard labour for appeals to abstain from joining the army.

To think that membership in a Social-Democratic party is compatible with repudiation of illegal methods of propaganda and the ridicule of them in the legal press is to betray Socialism.

DEFEAT OF “ONE’S OWN” GOVERNMENT IN IMPERIALIST WAR

The advocates of victory of “one’s own” government in the present war, as well as the advocates of the slogan “Neither victory nor defeat,” proceed equally from the standpoint of social-chauvinism. A revolutionary class in a reactionary war cannot help wishing the defeat of its government, it cannot fail to see the connection between the government’s military reverses and the increased opportunity for overthrowing it. Only a bourgeois who believes that the war started by the governments will necessarily end as a war between governments, and who wishes it to be so, finds “ridiculous” or “absurd” the idea that the Socialists of all the belligerent countries should express their wish that all “their” governments be defeated. On the contrary, such expression would coincide with the hidden thoughts of every class-conscious worker, and would lie along the line of our activity which tends to turn the imperialist war into civil war.

An earnest anti-war propaganda by a section of the English, German and Russian Socialists would undoubtedly “weaken the military strength” of the respective governments, but such propaganda would be to the credit of the Socialists. The Socialists must explain to the masses that there is no salvation for them outside of a revolutionary overthrow of “their” governments and that the difficulties of those governments in the present war must be taken advantage of for just this purpose.

PACIFISM AND THE PEACE SLOGAN

A mass sentiment for peace often expresses the beginning of a protest, an indignation and a consciousness of the reactionary nature of the war. It is the duty of all Social-Democrats to take advantage of this sentiment. They will take the most ardent part in every movement and in every demonstration made on this basis, but they will not deceive the people by assuming that in the absence of a revolutionary movement it is possible to have peace without annexations, without the oppression of nations, without robbery, without planting the seed of new wars among the present governments and the ruling classes. Such deception would only play into the hands of the secret diplomacy of the belligerent countries and their counter-revolutionary plans. Whoever wishes a durable and democratic peace must be for civil war against the governments and the bourgeoisie.

RIGHT OF NATIONS TO SELF-DETERMINATION

The most widespread deception of the people by the bourgeoisie in the present war consists in hiding its predatory aims under an ideology of “national liberation.” The English promise freedom to Belgium, the Germans to Poland, etc. As we have seen, this is in reality a war of the oppressors of the majority of the nations of the world for the deepening and widening of such oppression. The Socialists cannot reach their great aim without fighting against every form of national oppression. They must therefore unequivocally demand that the Social-Democrats of the oppressing countries (of the so-called “great” nations in particular) should recognise and defend the right of the oppressed nations to self-determination in the political sense of the word, i.e., the right to political separation. A Socialist of a great nation or a nation possessing colonies who does not defend this right is a chauvinist.

To defend this right does in no way mean to encourage the formation of small states, but on the contrary it leads to a freer, more fearless and therefore wider and more universal formation of larger governments and unions of governments—a phenomenon more advantageous for the masses and more in accord with economic development.

On the other hand, the Socialists of the oppressed nations must unequivocally fight for complete unity of the workers of both the oppressed and the oppressor nationalities (which also means organisational unity). The idea of a lawful separation between one nationality and the other (the so-called “national cultural autonomy” of Bauer and Renner) is a reactionary idea.

Imperialism is the period of an increasing oppression of the nations of the whole world by a handful of “great” nations; the struggle for a Socialist international revolution against imperialism is therefore impossible without the recognition of the right of nations to self-determination. “No people oppressing other peoples can be free” (Marx and Engels). No proletariat reconciling itself to the least violation by “its” nation of the rights of other nations can be Socialist.

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