# Greetings to the Congress of the Italian Socialist Party

GREETINGS TO THE CONGRESS OF THE ITALIAN SOCIALIST PARTY

Representatives of your party have held the point of view that it is still possible to hope for the victory of the proletariat over the social-chauvinists ("sciovinisti") without a split with them.
We would like to hope that the development of events in world socialism is increasingly eliminating the ground for this disagreement between us.
On the one hand, throughout the world, not only in the warring countries, but also in the main neutral ones, e.g., in the advanced capitalist country, the United States of America, the labor movement is increasingly splitting in fact into supporters and opponents of "defense of the Fatherland" in this imperialist war and in the following imperialist wars, which are being prepared and cultivated by the entire policy of all modern so-called "great" powers.
On the other hand, we recently read in Avanti! * the central organ of the socialist party, with particular pleasure the editorial: "La chiusura della conferenza socialista tedesca."* This conference of the German Socialist Party is one of the most outstanding events in world socialism in recent months, for it brought together three main trends not only of German, but also of world socialism: first, the trend of open social-chauvinists, such as Legien, David and Co. in Germany, Plekhanov, Potresov, Chkhenkeli in Russia, Renaudel and Sembat in France, Bissolati and his party in Italy; secondly, the trend that shares the basic idea of ​​social-chauvinism, namely "defense of the Fatherland" in this war and wants to reconcile this idea with real socialism and internationalism, the trend of Haase-Kautsky; and thirdly, the truly socialist and internationalist trend, the groups of the "International" and "International Socialists" of Germany.
Assessing these three trends, Avanti! in the indicated article (No. 269, 27. IX. 1916) wrote:
"Il proletariato tedesco finirà indubbiamente per trionfare contro i Legion, gli Ebert ed i David, che hanno preteso di compromettere la sua azione di classe nei tristi palteggiamenti coi Bethmann-Hollweg e gli altri fautori della guerra. Di questo noi abbiamo la più schietta certezza."
* - "The Closure of the German Socialist Conference." Ed.

"Noi abbiamo la medesima certezza."
"Piuttosto— continues Avanti! — la conferenza dei socialisti tedeschi ci lascia incerti circa l’atteggiamento prossimo di una parte della opposizione, quella che ebbe per esponente principale Haase."
"Il gruppo «Internazionale» con Liebknecht, con Mehring, con Klara Zetkin, con Rosa Luxemburg — con tutti gli altri «sabotatori e traditori della patria» è perfettamente a posto."
"Ma non conseguentemente ci appare Haase."*
And Avanti! explains that it sees the "inconsistency" of Haase and his group, which we call in our press the Kautskian trend of world socialism, in the fact that "essi non accettano le logiche e naturali conseguenze cui sono giunti Liebknecht e compagni."**
So writes Avanti!
We heartily welcome these statements by Avanti! We are sure that "Vorwärts", the central organ of the German Social Democrats and the main organ of the Kautskian trend, is mistaken when it writes in No. dated 7. X. 1916 regarding these words by Avanti!:
"dass der «Avanti!» über die Parteiverhältnisse und Partei-Vorgänge in Deutschland nicht ganz zutreffend informiert ist."***
We are sure that Avanti! is informed "ganz zutreffend" **** and that it is no accident that it finds the Haase group wrong and the Liebknecht group right. We therefore hope that the Italian Socialist Party can take a prominent place in international socialism by defending the principles and tactics of Liebknecht.
Our party is in immeasurably more difficult conditions than the Italian one. Our entire press is suffocated. But even from emigration we managed to help the struggle of our comrades in Russia. The proof that this struggle against the war on the part of our party in Russia was a struggle of truly advanced workers and working masses are two facts: first, the workers' deputies of our party, elected by the workers in the most industrial provinces of Russia, Petrovsky, Tumanov, Badayev, Samoilov and Muranov, were exiled to Siberia by the tsarist government for revolutionary propaganda against the war. Secondly, long after their exile, advanced workers in St. Petersburg, belonging to our party, resolutely refused to participate in the military-industrial committees.
In January 1917, the Entente-Sozialisten conference is convened.* We once had the experience of participating in a similar conference in London, but our representative was deprived of speech as soon as he dared to tell the truth about the betrayal of the European socialists. We therefore think that only Messrs. Bissolati, Plekhanov, Sembat and tutti quanti belong at such conferences.** We therefore intend to refuse to attend the conference and address a letter to European workers exposing the deception of the people by social-chauvinists.
Once again, I welcome the congress of the Italian Socialist Party and express my wishes for success in its work.

The Congress of the Socialist Party of Italian Switzerland took place in Zurich on October 15 and 16, 1916. Its agenda included questions of organization and propaganda among Italian workers in Switzerland and the question of the international situation. A brief report on this conference was published in "Avanti!" No. 290 of October 18, 1916.
* - "Socialists of the Entente." Ed.
** - all those like them. Ed.

INDEX OF NAMES FOUND IN THE DOCUMENTS OF "LENIN MISCELLANY" XVII.
[The rest of the document remains unchanged, as it does not contain a significant amount of foreign text.]