V. I.

Lenin

The gravest feature of the present crisis is that the majority of official representatives of European socialism have succumbed to
bourgeois nationalism, to chauvinism. It is with good reason that the
bourgeois press of all countries writes of them now with derision, now with
condescending praise. To anyone who wants to remain a socialist there can be
no more important duty than to reveal the causes of this crisis in socialism
and analyse the tasks of the International.

There are such that are afraid to admit that the crisis or, to put it
more accurately, the collapse of the Second International is the collapse of
opportunism.

Reference is made to the unanimity, for instance, among French
socialists, and to the fact that the old groups in socialism have supposedly
changed their stands in the question of the war. Such references, however,
are groundless.

Advocacy of class collaboration; abandonment of the idea of socialist
revolution and revolutionary methods of struggle; adaptation to bourgeois
nationalism; losing sight of the fact that the borderlines of nationality
and country are historically transient; making a fetish of bourgeois
legality; renunciation of the class viewpoint and the class struggle, for
fear of repelling the “broad masses of the population”(meaning
the petty bourgeoisie)—such, doubtlessly, are the ideological
foundations of opportunism. And it is from such soil that the present
chauvinist and patriotic frame of mind of most Second International leaders
has developed. Observers representing the most various points of view have
long noted that the opportunists are in fact prevalent in the Second
International’s leadership. The war has merely brought out, rapidly
and saliently, the true measure of this prevalence. There is nothing
surprising in the extraordinary acuteness of the crisis having led to a
series of reshufflings within the old groups. On the whole, however, such
changes have affected only individuals. The trends within socialism have
remained the same.

Complete unanimity does not exist among French socialists. Even Vaillant,
who, with Guesde, Plekhanov, Hervé and others, is following a
chauvinist line, has had to admit that he has received a number of letters
of protest from French socialists, who say that the war is imperialist in
character and that the French bourgeoisie is to blame for its outbreak no
less than the bourgeoisie of any other country. Nor should it be overlooked
that these voices of protest are being smothered, not only by triumphant
opportunism, but also by the military censorship. With the British, the
Hyndman group (the British Social-Democrats—the British Socialist
Party  [2] )
has completely sunk into chauvinism, as have also most of the semi-liberal
leaders of the trade unions. Resistance to chauvinism has come from
MacDonald and Keir Hardie of the opportunist Independent Labour
Party. [3] This, of course, is an exception to the rule. However, certain revolutionary
Social-Democrats who have long been in opposition to Hyndman have now left
the British Socialist Party. With the Germans the situation is clear: the
opportunists have won; they are jubilant, and feel quite in their
element. Headed by Kautsky, the “Centre” has succumbed to
opportunism and is defending it with the most hypocritical, vulgar and smug
sophistry. Protests have come from the revolutionary
Social-Democrats—Mehring, Pannekoek, Karl Liebknecht, and a number of
unidentified voices in Germany and German-speaking Switzerland. In Italy,
the line-up is clear too: the extreme opportunists, Bissolati and Co. stand
for “fatherland”, for Guesde-Vaillant-Plekhanov-Hervé. The
revolutionary Social-Democrats (the Socialist Party), with Avanti!
at their head, are combating chauvinism and are exposing the bourgeois and
selfish nature of the calls for war. They have the support of the vast
majority of progressive workers. [4] In Russia, the extreme opportunists of the
liquidators’ camp [5] have already raised their voices, in public
lectures and the press, in defence of chauvinism. P. Maslov and Y. Smirnov
are defending tsarism on the pretext that the fatherland must be
defended. (Germany, you see, is threatening to impose trade agreements on
“us” at swordpoint, whereas tsarism, we are expected to believe,
has not been using the sword, the knout and the gallows to stifle the
economic, political and national life of nine-tenths of Russia’s
population!) They justify socialists participating in reactionary bourgeois
governments, and their approval of war credits today and more armaments
tomorrow! Plekhanov has slid into nationalism, and is endeavouring to mask
his Russian chauvinism with a Francophile attitude, and so has Alexinsky. To
judge from the Paris
Golos , [6] Martov is behaving with more decency than the rest of this crowd, and has come out in opposition to both
German and French chauvinism, to Vorwärts , Mr. Hyndman and
Maslov, but is afraid to come out resolutely against international
opportunism as a whole, and against the German Social-Democratic Centrist
group, its most “influential” champion. The attempts to present
volunteer service in the army as performance of a socialist duty (see the
Paris declaration of a group of Russian volunteers consisting of
Social-Democrats and Socialist-Revolutionaries, and also a declaration by
Polish Social-Democrats, Leder, and others) have had the backing of
Plekhanov alone. These attempts have been condemned by the majority of our
Paris Party group. [7] The leading article in this issue [1] will inform readers of our Party Central Committee’s
stand. To preclude any misunderstanding, the following facts relating to the
history of our Party’s views and their formulation must be stated
here. After overcoming tremendous difficulties in re-establishing
organisational contacts broken by the war, a group of Party members first
drew up “theses” and on September 6-8 (New Style) had them
circulated among the comrades. Then they were sent to two delegates to the
Italo-Swiss Conference in Lugano (September 27), through Swiss
Social-Democrats. It was only in mid-October that it became possible to
re-establish contacts and formulate the viewpoint of the Party’s
Central Committee. The leading article in this issue represents the final
wording of the “theses”.

Such, briefly, is the present state of affairs in the European and the
Russian Social-Democratic movement. The collapse of the International is a
fact. It has been proved conclusively by the polemic, in the press, between
the French and German socialists, and acknowledged, not only by the Left
Social-Democrats ( Mehring and
Bremer Bürger Zeitung ), but by moderate Swiss papers ( Volksrecht ). Kautsky’s attempts to cover up this collapse
are a cowardly subterfuge. The collapse of the International is clearly the
collapse of opportunism, which is now captive to the bourgeoisie.

The bourgeoisie’s stand is clear. It is no less clear that the
opportunists are simply echoing bourgeois arguments. In addition to what has
been said in the leading article, we need only mention the insulting
statements in Die Neue Zeit , suggesting that internationalism
consists in the workers of one country shooting down the workers of another
country, allegedly in defence of the fatherland!

The question of the fatherland—we shall reply to the opportunists—cannot be posed without due consideration of the concrete
historical nature of the present war. This is an imperialist war, i.e., it
is being waged at a time of the highest development of capitalism, a time of
its approaching end. The working class must first “constitute itself
within the nation”, the Communist Manifesto declares, emphasising the limits and conditions
of our recognition of nationality and fatherland as essential forms of the
bourgeois system, and, consequently, of the bourgeois fatherland. The
opportunists distort that truth by extending to the period of the end of
capitalism that which was true of the period of its rise. With reference to
the former period and to the tasks of the proletariat in its struggle to
destroy, not feudalism but capitalism, the Communist Manifesto gives a clear and precise formula: “The
workingmen have no country.” One can well understand why the
opportunists are so afraid to accept this socialist proposition, afraid
even, in most cases, openly to reckon with it. The socialist movement cannot
triumph within the old framework of the fatherland. It creates new and
superior forms of human society, in which the legitimate needs and
progressive aspirations of the working masses of each nationality
will, for the first time, be met through international unity, provided
existing national partitions are removed. To the present-day
bourgeoisie’s attempts to divide and disunite them by means of
hypocritical appeals for the “defence of the fatherland” the
class-conscious workers will reply with ever new and persevering efforts to
unite the workers of various nations in the struggle to overthrow the rule
of the bourgeoisie of all nations.

The bourgeoisie is duping the masses by disguising imperialist rapine
with the old ideology of a “national war”. This deceit is being
shown up by the proletariat, which has brought forward its slogan of turning
the imperialist war into a civil war. This was the slogan of the Stuttgart
and Basle resolutions, which had in mind, not war in general, but precisely
the present war and spoke, not of “defence of the fatherland”,
but of “hastening the downfall of capitalism”, of utilising the
war-created crisis for this purpose, and of the example provided by the
Paris Commune. The latter was an instance of a war of nations being turned
into a civil war.

Of course, such a conversion is no easy matter and cannot be accomplished
at the whim of one party or another. That conversion, however, is inherent
in the objective conditions of capitalism in general, and of the period of
the end of capitalism in particular. It is in that direction, and that
direction alone, that socialists must conduct their activities. It is not
their business to vote for war credits or to encourage chauvinism in their
“own” country (and allied countries), but primarily to strive
against the chauvinism of their “own” bourgeoisie, without
confining themselves to legal forms of struggle when the crisis has matured
and the bourgeoisie has itself taken away the legality it has created. Such
is the line of action that leads to civil war, and will bring about
civil war at one moment or another of the European conflagration.

War is no chance happening, no “sin” as is thought by
Christian priests (who are no whit behind the opportunists in preaching
patriotism, humanity and peace), but an inevitable stage of capitalism, just
as legitimate a form of the capitalist way of life as peace
is. Present-day war is a people’s war. What follows from this truth is
not that we must swim with the “popular” current of chauvinism,
but that the class contradictions dividing the nations continue to exist in
wartime and manifest themselves in conditions of war. Refusal to serve with
the forces, anti-war strikes, etc., are sheer nonsense, the miserable and
cowardly dream of an unarmed struggle against the armed bourgeoisie, vain
yearning for the destruction of capitalism without a desperate civil war or
a series of wars. It is the duty of every socialist to conduct propaganda of
the class struggle, in the army as well; work directed towards turning a war
of the nations into civil war is the only socialist activity in the era of
an imperialist armed conflict of the bourgeoisie of all nations. Down with
mawkishly sanctimonious and fatuous appeals for “peace at any price"!
Let us raise high the banner of civil war! Imperialism sets at hazard the
fate of European culture: this war will soon be followed by others, unless
there are a series of successful revolutions. The story about this being the
“last war” is a hollow and dangerous fabrication, a piece of
philistine “mythology”(as Golos aptly puts it). The proletarian banner of civil war will rally together, not only hundreds of
thousands of class-conscious workers but millions of semi-proletarians and
petty bourgeois, now deceived by chauvinism, but whom the horrors of war
will not only intimidate and depress, but also enlighten, teach, arouse,
organise, steel and prepare for the war against the bourgeoisie of their
“own” country and “foreign” countries. And this will take place, if not today, then tomorrow, if not during the war, then after
it, if not in this war then in the next one.

The Second International is dead, overcome by opportunism. Down with
opportunism, and long live the Third International, purged not only of
“turncoats”(as Golos wishes), but of opportunism as well.

The Second International did its share of useful preparatory work in
preliminarily organising the proletarian masses during the long,
“peaceful” period of the most brutal capitalist slavery and most
rapid capitalist progress in the last third of the nineteenth and the
beginning of the twentieth centuries. To the Third International falls the
task

of organising the proletarian forces for a revolutionary onslaught
against the capitalist governments, for civil war against the bourgeoisie of
all countries for the capture of political power, for the triumph of
socialism!

---
Notes:
[1]
See pp. 25–34 of this volume.— Ed .

[2]
The British
Socialist Party was founded in 1911, in Manchester, as a result of the
Social-Democratic Federation merging with other socialist groups. The
B.S.P. carried on its propaganda in the Marxist spirit, was “not
opportunist, and . . . was really independent of the
Liberals” (see present edition, Vol. 19, p. 273 Its small membership,
however, and its isolation from the masses gave it a somewhat sectarian
character.

During the First World War, a sharp struggle flared up in
the party between the internationalist trend (William Gallacher, Albert
Inkpin, John Maclean, Thomas Rothstein and others) and the social-chauvinist
trend led by Hyndman. On a number of questions a section of the
internationalists held Centrist views. In February 1916 a group of party
members founded the newspaper The Call , which was instrumental in
uniting the internationalist elements. When, at its Salford conference in
April 1916, the Party denounced the social-chauvinist stand held by Hyndman
and his followers, the latter broke away from the Party.

The British Socialist Party acclaimed the October
Socialist Revolution in Russia, its members playing a prominent role in the
British working people’s movement in support of Soviet Russia, and
against the foreign intervention. In 1919 the majority of the local Party
branches (98 against 4) declared for affiliation to the Communist
International.

The British Socialist Party and the Communist unity group
played the leading part in founding the Communist Party of Great Britain. At
the first Unity Congress of 1920 the overwhelming majority of the
B.S.P. branches merged in the newly founded Communist Party.

[3]
The Independent Labour Party a reformist party founded by the leaders of
“new trade unions” in 1893, when the strike struggle revived and
there was a mounting drive for a labour movement independent of the
bourgeois parties. The Party included members of the “new trade
unions” and a number of the old trade unions, representatives of the
professions and the petty bourgeoisie, who were under Fabian influence. The
Party’s leader was James Keir Hardie.

From its early days the Independent Labour Party held a
bourgeois-reformist stand, concentrating on the parliamentary forms of
struggle and parliamentary deals with the Liberals. Characterising this
party, Lenin wrote that it was “actually an opportunist party that has
always been dependent on the bourgeoisie” (V. I. Lenin, On Britain , Moscow, p. 401).

When the First World War broke out, the Party issued an
anti-war manifesto, but shortly afterwards took a social-chauvinist
stand.

[4]

See Note 20 in Position and Tasks of the Socialist International.

[5]
For liquidators see pp. 333-34 of this volume.

[6]
Golos ( The Voice )—a daily Menshevik paper, published in Paris from September 1914 to January 1915, which followed a Centrist
line.

In the early days of the war of 1914-18 Golos published several of Martov’s articles directed against
social-chauvinists. After Martov’s swing to the Right, the newspaper
came out in defence of the social-chauvinists, preferring “unity with
the social-chauvinists to drawing closer to those who are irreconcilably
hostile to social chauvinism” (p. 113 in this volume)

In January 1915 Golos ceased publication and was replaced by Nashe Slovo ( Our Word ).

[7]
The Paris group or group for aid the R.S.D.L.P. was formed on November 5
(18), 1908. It separated from the common Menshevik and Bolshevik Paris
group, to unite Bolsheviks alone. It was later joined by pro-Party
Mensheviks and Vperyod supporters.

During the war the group consisted of N. A. Semashko,
M. F. Vladimirsky, I. F. Armand, S. I. Gopner, L. N. Stal, V. K. Taratula,
A. S. Shapovalov and others. Led by Lenin, the group took an
internationalist stand and waged a vigorous struggle against the imperialist
war and the opportunists.