Switzerland, and the Swiss labor movement, was long host to exiles from European Social Democracy. With Lenin, Plekhanov, and many other leaders of the R.S.D.L.P., Switzerland was also the site of many of the most important discussions and meetings, including the Zimmerwald gatherings, among the left during the First World War. Written in early April, 1917 as he readied to return to a Russia in the throes of revolution, Lenin recounts the debates of the previous years and gives his views on the possible course the unfolding Russian Revolution might take.

‘Farewell Letter to the Swiss Workers’ by V.I. Lenin from Collected Works, Vol. 20. International Publishers, New York. 1929.

Comrades, Swiss Workers:

Leaving Switzerland for Russia, in order to continue the revolutionary-internationalist work in our country, we, members of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party united under the Central Committee (in distinction from another party bearing the same name but united under the Organisation Committee) , wish to convey to you our fraternal greetings and expression of our profound comradely gratitude for your comradely attitude to the political emigrants.

If the avowed social-patriots and opportunists, the Swiss Gruetlians who, like the social-patriots of all countries, have deserted the camp of the proletariat for the camp of the bourgeoisie; if these people have openly called upon you to fight against the harmful influence of foreigners upon the Swiss labour movement; if the disguised social-patriots and opportunists who constitute a majority among the leaders of the Swiss Socialist Party have been pursuing similar tactics under cover, we think it necessary to declare that on the part of the revolutionary Socialist workers of Switzerland holding internationalist views we have met with warm sympathy, and have derived a great deal of benefit from our comradely relations with them.

We have always been particularly careful in dealing with those questions of the Swiss movement, acquaintance with which requires prolonged participation in the local movement. But those of us who have been members of the Swiss Socialist Party, the number hardly exceeding from ten to fifteen, have regarded it as our duty steadfastly to maintain our point of view, i.e., the point of view of the “Zimmerwald Left,” on general and fundamental questions pertaining to the international and Socialist movement, to fight determinedly not only social-patriotism, but also the line of the so-called “centre” to which belong R. Grimm, F. Schneider, Jacques Schmidt, and others in Switzerland, Kautsky, Haase, and the Arbeitsgemeinschaft in Germany, Longuet, Pressemane, and others in France, Snowden, Ramsay MacDonald, and others in England, Turati, Treves, and their friends in Italy, and the abovementioned party headed by the Organisation Committee (Axelrod, Martov, Chkheidze, Skobelev, and others) in Russia.

We have worked hand in hand with those revolutionary Social Democrats of Switzerland who were grouped about the magazine, Freie Jugend, who formulated and circulated (in the German and French languages) the proposals for the holding of a referendum regarding a party conference in April, 1917, to take up the question of the party’s attitude to the war; who at the convention of the Zurich Canton in Toss introduced the resolution of the young and the “Lefts” dealing with the question of war; who in March, 1917, issued and circulated in certain localities of French Switzerland a leaflet in the German and French languages entitled, “Our Conditions of Peace,” etc.

We are sending our fraternal greetings to these comrades, with whom we have been working together, in agreement.

We have not, and we never had, the slightest doubt that the imperialist government of England will under no circumstances permit the return to Russia of Russian internationalists, who are irrevocably against the imperialist government of Guchkov-Miliukov and Co., and irrevocably against the continuation of the imperialist war by Russia.

In connection with this we must say a few words about our understanding of the tasks of the Russian Revolution. We deem this all the more necessary because through the Swiss workers we can and must address ourselves to the German, French, and Italian workers, who speak the same languages as the population of Switzerland that still enjoys the advantages of peace and the relatively greatest political freedom.

We remain unconditionally loyal to the declaration which we made in the central organ of our party, No. 47 of the Social-Democrat (October 13, 1915), published in Geneva. We stated there that should the revolution prove victorious in Russia, and should a republican government, a government intent on continuing the imperialist war, a war in league with the imperialist bourgeoisie of England and France, a war for the purpose of seizing Constantinople, Armenia, Galicia, etc., etc., find itself in power, that we would be most resolutely opposed to such a government, that we would be against the “defence of the fatherland” in such a war.

A contingency approaching the above has now arisen. The new government of Russia, Avhich has conducted negotiations with the brother of Nicholas II with regard to the restoration of the monarchy in Russia, and in which the most important and influential posts have been given to the monarchists Lvov and Guchkov, this government is trying to deceive the workers by the slogan, “the Germans must overthrow Wilhelm” (correct, but why not add: the English, the Italians, etc., must do the same to their own kings; and the Russians must remove their monarchists Lvov and Guchkov?). This government, by using the above slogan, while refusing to publish the imperialist, predatory treaties concluded by the Tsar with France, England, etc., and confirmed by the government of Guchkov-Miliukov-Kerensky, is trying to represent its imperialist war with Germany as a war of “defence” ( i.e., as a just war, legitimate even from the point of view of the proletariat)—is trying to represent a war for the defence of the bloodthirsty, imperialist, predatory aims of capital—Russian, English, etc., as the “defence” of the republic (which does not yet exist in Russia, and which the Lvovs and the Guchkovs have not even promised to establish) .

If there is truth in the latest telegraphic reports that the avowed Russian social-patriots (such as Plekhanov, Zasulich, Potresov, etc.) have entered into something like a rapprochement with the party of the “centre,” the party of the “Organisation Committee,” the party of Chkheidze, Skobelev, etc., on the basis of a common slogan: “While the Germans do not overthrow Wilhelm, our war remains a defencive war,”—if this is true, then we shall redouble our energy in carrying on the struggle against the party of Chkheidze, Skobelev, etc., which we have always waged against that party for its opportunist, vacillating, unstable political behaviour.

Our slogan is: No support to the government of Guchkov-Miliukov! He who says that such support is necessary in order to fight against the restoration of the monarchy deceives the people. On the contrary, it is this very government of Guchkov that has already conducted negotiations concerning the restoration of the monarchy in Russia. Only the arming of the proletariat can prevent Guchkov and Co. from restoring monarchy in Russia. Only the proletariat of Russia and the rest of Europe, remaining loyal to internationalism, is capable of ridding humanity of the horrors of the imperialist war.

We do not close our eyes to the tremendous difficulties facing the revolutionary-internationalist vanguard of the Russian proletariat. In these times most sudden and swift changes are possible. In No. 47 of the Social-Democrat we gave a clear and direct answer to the question that naturally arises: What would our party do, if the revolution placed it immediately in power? Our answer was: 1. We would forthwith offer peace to all the warring peoples; 2. We would announce our peace conditions consisting of immediate liberation of all the colonies and all the oppressed and non-sovereign peoples; 3. We would immediately begin and carry out the liberation of all the peoples oppressed by the Great-Russians; 4. We do not deceive ourselves for one moment, we know that such conditions would be unacceptable not only to the monarchist but also to the republican bourgeoisie of Germany, and not only to Germany, but also to the capitalist governments of England and France.

We would be forced to carry on a revolutionary struggle against the German—and not only the German—bourgeoisie. This struggle we would carry on. We are not pacifists. We are opposed to imperialist wars over the division of spoils among the capitalists, but we have always considered it absurd for the revolutionary proletariat to disavow revolutionary wars that may prove necessary in the interests of Socialism.

The task that we outlined in No. 47 of the Social-Democrat is of gigantic proportions. It can be solved only by a long series of great class conflicts between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. However, it was not our impatience, nor our wishes, but the objective conditions created by the imperialist war that brought humanity to an impasse, that placed it in a dilemma: either to allow the destruction of more millions of lives and utterly ruin the entire European civilisation, or to hand over the power in all the civilised countries to the revolutionary proletariat, to realise the Socialist overturn.

The great honour of beginning the series of revolutions caused with objective inevitability by the war has fallen to the Russian proletariat. But the idea that the Russian proletariat is the chosen revolutionary proletariat among the workers of the world is absolutely alien to us. We know full well that the proletariat of Russia is less organised, less prepared, and less class-conscious than the proletariat of other countries. It is not its special qualities but rather the special coincidence of historical circumstances that has made the proletariat of Russia for a certain, perhaps very short time, the vanguard of the revolutionary proletariat of the whole world.

Russia is a peasant country, it is one of the most backward of European countries. Socialism cannot triumph there immediately. But the present character of the country in the face of a vast reserve of land retained by noblemen landowners may, to judge from the experience of 1905, give tremendous sweep to the bourgeois-democratic revolution in Russia, and may make our revolution a prologue to the world Socialist revolution, a step forward in that direction.

In the struggle for these ideas, which have been fully confirmed by the experience of 1905 and the spring of 1917, in the struggle against all the other parties, our party was formed, and for these ideas we shall continue to struggle.

In Russia Socialism cannot triumph directly and immediately. But the peasant mass may bring the inevitable and ripe agrarian upheaval to the point of confiscating all the immense holdings of the landowners. This has always been our slogan and now the Petrograd and the Central Committees of our party, as well as the paper of our party, Pravda, have again brought it to the fore. The proletariat is going to fight for this slogan without closing its eyes to the inevitability of cruel class conflicts between the hired agricultural workers and the impoverished peasants closely allied with them on the one hand and the prosperous peasants whose position has been strengthened by the agrarian “reform” of Stolypin (1907-1914) on the other. One must not forget that 104 peasant Deputies in the first (1906) and second (1907) Dumas came forward with a revolutionary agrarian bill demanding the nationalisation of all lands and the management of such lands by local committees elected on the basis of complete democracy.

Such an overturn would, in itself, not be Socialism as yet. But it would give a great impetus to the world labour movement. It would greatly strengthen the position of a Socialist overturn in Russia, and of its influence on the agricultural workers and the poorest peasants. It would enable the city proletariat to develop, on the strength of this influence, a revolutionary organisation like the Soviets of Workers’ Deputies, to replace by them the old instruments of oppression used by the bourgeois states, the army, the police, the bureaucracy; to put into effect, under the pressure of the unbearably burdensome imperialist war and its consequences, a series of revolutionary measures to insure control over the production and distribution of goods.

The Russian proletariat single-handed cannot bring the Socialist revolution to a victorious conclusion. But it can give the Russian Revolution a mighty sweep such as would create most favourable conditions for a Socialist revolution, and would, in a sense, start it. It can help create more favourable circumstances for its most important, most trustworthy and most reliable collaborator, the European and the American Socialist proletariat, to join in the decisive battles.

Let the sceptics despair because of the temporary triumph within the European Socialist movement of such disgusting lackeys of the imperialist bourgeoisie as the Scheidemanns, the Legiens, the Davids and Co. in Germany; Sembat, Guesde, Renaudel and Co. in France; the Fabians and the Labourites in England. We are firmly convinced that this filthy froth on the surface of the world labour movement will be soon swept away by the waves of the revolution.

In Germany there is already a seething unrest of the proletarian masses that contributed so much to humanity and Socialism by their persistent, unyielding, sustained organisational work during the many decades of the period of European “calm” from 1871 to 1914. The future of German Socialism is represented not by the traitors, the Scheidemanns, Legiens, Davids and Co., nor by the vacillating and spineless ones, Haase, Kautsky and their ilk, who have been enfeebled by the routine of the period of political “peace.”

The future belongs to that tendency which has given us Karl Liebknecht, which has created the “Spartacus group,” which has carried on its propaganda in the Bremen Arbeiter politik.

The objective circumstances of the imperialist war make it certain that the revolution will not be limited to the first stage of the Russian Revolution, that the revolution will not be limited to Russia.

The German proletariat is the most trustworthy, the most reliable ally of the Russian and the world proletarian revolution.

When in November, 1914, our party had put forward the slogan “Turn the imperialist war into a civil war” of the oppressed against the oppressors for the attainment of Socialism, this slogan was met with the hatred and malicious ridicule of the social-patriots and with the incredulous, sceptical, meek and expectant silence of the Social-Democratic “centre.” David, the German social-chauvinist and social-imperialist, called it “insane,” while Mr. Plekhanov, the representative of Russian (and Anglo-French) social-chauvinism, of Socialism in words, imperialism in deeds, called it “a dream farce” (Mittelding zwischen Traum und Komoedie) [*Something between a dream and a comedy.—Ed]. The representatives of the “centre” confined themselves to silence or to cheap little jokes about this “straight line drawn in empty space.”

Now, after March, 1917, only the blind can fail to see that this slogan is correct. The turning of the imperialist war into civil war is becoming a fact.

Long live the proletarian revolution that is beginning in Europe!

Upon the instruction of the departing comrades, members of the R.S.-D.L.P. (united under the Central Committee), who have passed on this letter at a meeting held April 8, 1917.

N. Lenin.

Written April 8, 1917, and first published from manuscript in the Proletarskaia Revolutsia, No. 2, 1921.

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