V. I.

Lenin

The Seventh (April) All-Russia Conference of the R.S.D.L.P.(B.)

APRIL 24–29, 1917

9

Resolution on the War

I

The present war is, on the part of both groups of the belligerent powers, an imperialist war, i. e., one waged by the
capitalists for the division of the profits obtained from world
domination, for markets for finance (banking) capital, for the
subjugation of the weaker nationalities, etc. Each day of war
enriches the financial and industrial bourgeoisie and impoverishes
and saps the strength of the proletariat and the peasantry of all
the belligerents, as well as of the neutral countries. In Russia,
moreover, prolongation of the war involves a grave danger to the
revolution’s gains and its further development.

The passing of state power in Russia to the Provisional
Government, a government of the landowners and capitalists, did
not and could not alter the character and meaning of the war as
far as Russia is concerned.

This fact was most strikingly demonstrated when the new
government not only failed to publish the secret treaties
between Tsar Nicholas II and the capitalist governments of
Britain, France, etc., but even formally and without consulting
the nation confirmed these secret treaties, which promise the
Russian capitalists a free hand to rob China, Persia, Turkey,
Austria, etc. By concealing these treaties from the people of
Russia the latter are being deceived as to the true character of
the war.

For this reason, no proletarian party that does not wish to break
completely with internationalism, i. e., with the fraternal
solidarity of the workers of all countries in their struggle
against the yoke of capital, can support the present war, or the
present government, or its loans.

No trust can be placed in the present government’s promises to
renounce annexations, i. e., conquests of foreign countries or
retention by force of any nationality within the confines of
Russia. For, in the first place, the capitalists, bound together
by the thousand threads of banking capital, cannot renounce
annexations in this war without renouncing the profits from the
thousands of millions invested in loans, concessions, war
industries, etc. And secondly, the new government, after
renouncing annexations to mislead the people, declared through
Milyukov (Moscow, April 9, 1917) that it had no intention of
renouncing them, and, in the Note of April 18 and its elucidation of April 22, confirmed the expansionist character of
its policy. Therefore, in warning the people against the
capitalists’ empty promises, the Conference declares that it is
necessary to make a clear distinction between a renunciation of
annexations in word and a renunciation of annexations in deed,
i. e., the immediate publication and abrogation of all the
secret, predatory treaties and the immediate granting to all
nationalities of the right to determine by free voting whether
they wish to be independent states or to be part of another
state.

II

The “revolutionary defencism”, which in Russia has now permeated
all the Narodnik parties (the Popular Socialists, Trudoviks, and
Socialist-Revolutionaries), the opportunist party of the
Menshevik Social-Democrats (the Organising Committee, Chkheidze,
Tsereteli, etc.), and the majority of the non-party revolutionaries, reflects, in point of class significance, the
interests and point of view of the well-to-do peasants and a
part of the small proprietors, who, like the capitalists, profit
by oppressing weak peoples. on the other hand, “revolutionary
defencism” is a result of the deception by the capitalists of a
part of the urban and rural proletariat and semi-proletariat,
who, by their class position, have no interest in the profits of
the capitalists and in the imperialist war.

The Conference recognises that any concessions to “revolutionary
defencism” are absolutely impermissible and virtually signify a
complete break with internationalism and socialism. As for the
defencist tendencies among the broad masses, our Party will
fight against these tendencies by ceaselessly explaining the
truth that the attitude of unreasoning trust in the government
of the capitalists, at the moment, is one of the chief obstacles
to a speedy termination of the war.

III

In regard to the most important question of all, namely, how to
end the present capitalist war as soon as possible, not by a
coercive peace, but by a truly democratic peace, the Conference
recognises and declares the following:

This war cannot be ended by a refusal of the soldiers of one
side only to continue the war, by a simple cessation of
hostilities by one of the belligerents.

The Conference reiterates its protest against the base slander
spread by the capitalists against our Party to the effect that
we are in favour of a separate peace with Germany. We consider
the German capitalists to be as predatory as the Russian,
British, French, and other capitalists, and Emperor Wilhelm as
bad a crowned brigand as Nicholas II or the British, Italian,
Rumanian, and all other monarchs.

Our Party will patiently but persistently explain to the people
the truth that wars are waged by governments , that wars
are always indissolubly bound up with the policies of definite
classes , that this war can be terminated by a democratic peace only if the entire state power, in at
least several of the belligerent countries, has passed to the
class of the proletarians and semi-proletarians which is really
capable of putting an end to the oppressive rule of capital.

In Russia, the revolutionary class, having taken state power,
would adopt a series of measures that would undermine the
economic rule of the capitalists, as well as measures that would
render them completely harmless politically, and would immediately and frankly offer to all nations a democratic peace
on the basis of a complete renunciation of every possible form
of annexation and indemnity. Such measures and such a frank
offer of peace would bring about complete confidence of the
workers of the belligerent countries in each other and would
inevitably lead to uprisings of the proletariat against those
imperialist governments as might resist the offered peace.

Until the revolutionary class in Russia takes the entire state
power, our Party will do all it can to support those proletarian
parties and groups abroad that are in fact, already during the
war, conducting a revolutionary struggle against their imperialist governments and their bourgeoisie. Our Party will
particularly support the mass fraternisation of the soldiers of
all the belligerent countries that has already begun at the
front, endeavouring to turn this instinctive expression of
solidarity of the oppressed into a politically conscious
movement as well organised as possible for the transfer of all
state power in all the belligerent countries to the revolutionary proletariat.

| Pravda No. 44, April 29 (May 12), 1917 | Published according to the typewritten copy of the Minutes verified with the text in Pravda |

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