Notes: Zimmerwald conference materials

J 74
of the capitalists of a single country, but the entire development of bourgeois relations has led to imperialism and to the present imperialist war. Likewise, it is not accidental nor the result of any demagogy or agitation, but the objective conditions of the crisis created by the war and the exacerbation of class contradictions that are now giving rise in a number of warring countries to strikes, demonstrations, and other manifestations of mass revolutionary struggle.
The question is objectively posed thus and only thus: whether to assist this, as yet weak, but internally mighty, profound, and capable of developing into a socialist revolution, ferment and movement of the masses. Or to pursue a policy of assisting the bourgeois governments (Durchhaltspolitik, politique jusqu'aubouliste).* The real significance of saccharine speeches about a democratic peace consists exclusively in helping governments by means of hypocritical stupefaction and deception of the masses.
4.
But it is senseless to admit the possibility of a reformist solution to the fundamental questions of imperialism, which are objectively posed by this war, which can only be resolved by violent means [due to the state of crisis that capitalism is experiencing] on the basis of capitalist relations. Kind wishes for a "democratic" peace, ending this war on the basis of preserving bourgeois relations, amount to this bourgeois deception of the people, to a hypocritical cover-up with false reformist phrases of the real interests and real policies of the capitalists, who in fact are already preparing now with their exploitative, annexationist, and reactionary policies the conditions for a peace that consolidates precisely this policy.
5.
Phrases about a democratic peace are essentially an attempt to revive the sufficiently bankrupt theory of dishonest attack and honest defense in this war, or an attempt to continue by other means the same bourgeois deception of the people that was carried out by means of this theory.
* — (policy of continuing the war until a victorious end). Ed.

PROPOSAL OF THE CC RSDLP TO THE 2ND SOCIALIST CONFERENCE

6.
There are situations when small transformations are placed on the agenda of history, which can be carried out by reformist means. But there are also situations when great world crises can only be resolved revolutionarily, and when pious wishes for a peaceful and reformist resolution of the issues on the agenda play—objectively—the role of simple deception of the people and distraction of the proletariat from revolutionary struggle. Precisely such is the situation now being experienced by Europe.
7.
If this war is a continuation of the imperialist policy of the bourgeoisie and the ruling classes of the warring "great" powers, then, on the other hand, during the war, not some other policy continues and develops, but precisely imperialist policy (colonial plunder, annexation of weak peoples, violation of their rights, strengthening of national oppression and reaction within the country, etc.).
8.
When they say that the influence of Social Democracy, its democratic and socialist propaganda, is capable of accelerating the end of the war and increasing the possibility of a democratic peace, then such formulas unite and mix precisely what is most necessary to separate for the truly socialist education of the masses, namely: reformism, which only recognizes revolutionary struggle in words, and real support for the revolutionary mass actions that are already beginning now.
The draft appeal to the ISC was written in the first days of January 1917, when in the ranks of the Swiss Social Democratic Party the discussion on the war question, preceding the congress scheduled for February 4, 1917, was still in full swing, and the treacherous position of the center had not yet been exposed with sufficient clarity. On January 7, the party board, on the proposal of R. Grimm, adopted the well-known decision to postpone the congress. From that same moment, a series of speeches by Swiss centrists began

in a bloc with the right wing. This rapprochement of the center with the right is connected with the pacifist sentiments and illusions that arose during the period of peace proposals made by a number of bourgeois governments. After R. Grimm's turn, Lenin made a number of changes to the draft, including an indication of the January 7 incident. Then, apparently, he decided to completely postpone the variant of the draft printed below: this is evident from the note made by his hand in the upper left corner of the first page of the manuscript:
((written before 7.1.1917 and therefore partly outdated)).
m i
DRAFT THESES OF AN APPEAL TO THE I. S. C.
AND TO ALL SOCIALIST PARTIES.
(for sending to the I. S. C. and for printing).
[Before January 7, 1917. Zurich.]
1. With the turn in world politics from the imperialist war to the open advocacy by a number of bourgeois governments
for an imperialist peace, a turn in the development of world socialism now coincides.
2. The first turn evokes a flood of pacifist, kind, and sentimental phrases, promises, assurances, with which the imperialist bourgeoisie and imperialist governments are trying to deceive the peoples and "peacefully" transfer them to a state of obedient payment for the predatory war, peacefully disarm millions of proletarians, cover up with half-concessions the deals being prepared on the division of colonies and on the financial (and, if necessary, political) strangulation of weak nations—deals that constitute the content of the coming imperialist peace and a direct continuation of the existing secret predatory agreements between all the powers of both warring imperialist coalitions, especially those concluded during the war.
*3. The second turn consists in the "reconciliation" of the social-chauvinists, who have betrayed socialism and gone over to the side of bourgeois nationalism or imperialism, as a trend, with the right wing of the Zimmerwaldists, represented by Kautsky and Co. in Germany, Turati and Co. in Italy, Longuet-Presseman-Merrheim in France, etc. Uniting on empty, meaningless

DRAFT THESES OF AN APPEAL TO THE I. S. C.

and non-committal pacifist phrases, which in fact cover up imperialist politics and an imperialist peace, embellishing them instead of exposing them, these two trends are taking a decisive step towards the greatest deception of the workers, towards strengthening the domination in the labor movement of bourgeois labor politics, disguised with socialist phrases, of those leaders and those privileged strata of the working class who helped the governments and the bourgeoisie to wage the predatory imperialist war, calling it "defense of the fatherland."
4. Social-pacifist politics or the politics of social-pacifist phrases, which has now become predominant in the socialist parties of the main countries of Europe (see Kautsky's speech with five pacifist articles in the German Social Democratic press and the simultaneous statement by the leaders of social-imperialism in the Chemnitzer Volksstimme about their complete readiness for peace and unity with the Kautskyites on the basis of pacifist phrases; the pacifist manifesto of the German Kautskyan opposition of 7.1.1917;*3 the voting of the Longuetists and Renaudel with Co., jointly at the congress of the socialist party in France;4 Jouhaux and Merrheim, as well as Bourderon, at the congress of the Confederation Generale du Travail for resolutions composed of pacifist phrases deceiving the people;5 a pacifist speech of the same kind by Turati on 17.XII.1916 and the defense of his position by the entire Italian socialist party),6—this policy, under all possible conditions of a peace being prepared between the present, i.e., bourgeois governments of both imperialist coalitions, means the transformation of socialist and syndicalist (Jouhaux and Merrheim) organizations into instruments of governmental intrigues and secret imperialist diplomacy.
5. The possible conditions of a peace being prepared now by the bourgeois governments of both imperialist coalitions are determined in fact by those changes in the balance of power that the war has produced and can produce.
These changes in the basic and main features are as follows: (a) The German imperialist coalition has so far proved to be much stronger than its rival, and the lands occupied by the German and allied forces are in their hands a pledge for a new imperialist division of the world (colonies, weak countries, spheres of influence of financial capital, etc.), which will only be formally consolidated by peace; (b) The English imperialist coalition hopes to improve its military situation in the spring; but (c) the exhaustion caused by the war, and, most importantly, the difficulty for the financial oligarchy to plunder the peoples even more than has been done through unprecedented "war profits," causes, in connection with [fear of] the fear of proletarian revolution, the aspirations of some bourgeois circles to end the war as soon as possible with a deal between both groups of imperialist robbers; (d) in world politics, a turn is visible from the Anglo-Russian coalition against Germany to a coalition (of the same imperialist character) of German-Russian against England—a coalition based on the fact that Tsarism is unable to conquer Constantinople, promised to it by secret treaties with France, England, Italy, etc., and seeks to compensate itself for losses by the division of Galicia, Armenia, and perhaps Romania, etc., as well as by an alliance with Germany for the plunder of Asia against England; (e) another major turn in world politics consists in the gigantic enrichment, at the expense of Europe, of the financial capital of the United States of America, which has increased its armaments (as has Japanese imperialism, although much weaker) to an unprecedented extent in the very recent past, and which is very happy to divert attention from these armaments by means of cheap pacifist phrases about... Europe!
6.
This objective political situation, this imperialist reality, the bourgeoisie, fearing proletarian revolution, is forced to try in every possible way to cover up and embellish, to divert the attention of the workers from it, to deceive them, and the best means are non-committal, hypocritical phrases, common to thoroughly lying diplomacy, about a "democratic" peace, freedom of small peoples "in general," "limitation of armaments," etc. Such deception of the peoples is all the easier for the imperialist bourgeoisie to accomplish because, speaking, for example, of "peace without annexations," every bourgeoisie has in mind the annexations of its rival and "modestly remains silent" about the annexations already made by itself. The Germans "forget" that their annexation is in fact not only Constantinople, Belgrade, Bucharest, Brussels, but also Alsace-Lorraine, part of Schleswig, Prussian Poland, etc. Tsarism and its lackeys, the imperialist bourgeois of Russia (Plekhanov and Potresov with Co. included, i.e., the majority of the O.K. party in Russia) "forget" that Russia's annexation is not only Erzurum and part of Galicia, but also Finland, Ukraine, etc. The French bourgeois "forget" that they, together with the English, plundered the colonies of Germany. The Italian bourgeois "forget" that they are plundering Tripoli, Dalmatia, Albania, etc. without end.
7. In such an objective state of affairs, the obvious and unconditional task of every sincere socialist, every honest proletarian policy (not to mention a consciously Marxist policy) is, first and foremost, a consistent, systematic, bold, and unconditional exposure of the pacifist and democratic hypocrisy of one's own government and one's own bourgeoisie. Without this, all phrases about socialism, syndicalism, internationalism are one continuous deception of the people, for exposing the annexations of one's imperialist rivals (regardless of whether the latter are directly named or only implied silently, by means of phrases against annexations "in general," etc. and "diplomatic" methods of concealing one's thoughts) constitutes the direct interest and direct profit of all venal journalists, all imperialists, including those disguised as socialists, such as Scheidemann and Co., Sembat and Co., Plekhanov and Co., etc.
8. This direct duty was completely misunderstood by Turati and Co., Kautsky and Co., Longuet and Merrheim and Co., who represent an entire trend in international socialism and who in fact, objectively, whatever their most virtuous intentions may be, simply help each "their own" imperialist bourgeoisie to deceive the peoples, to embellish its imperialist goals. These social-pacifists, i.e., socialists in words, conductors of bourgeois-pacifist hypocrisy in deeds, now play exactly the same role that Christian priests have played for centuries, embellishing with phrases about love for one's neighbor and about the commandments of Christ the policy of the oppressing classes, slave owners, feudal lords, capitalists, reconciling the oppressed classes with their domination.
9. A policy that does not deceive the workers, but opens their eyes, should consist of the following:
(a)
The socialist of each country must, precisely now, when the question of peace has arisen, more energetically than ever, expose

LENINIST COLLECTION
______ <_________ necessarily his own government and his own bourgeoisie, expose the secret treaties concluded and being concluded by them with their imperialist allies on the division of colonies, on the division of spheres of influence, on joint financial enterprises in other countries, on the purchase of shares, on monopolies, concessions, etc.
For in this and only in this consists the real, actual, non-false basis, the essence of the imperialist peace being prepared, everything else is deception of the people. Not he stands for a democratic peace, without annexations, etc., who swears and vows, repeating these words, but he who in fact exposes precisely his own bourgeoisie, which by its deeds destroys these great principles of true socialism and true democracy.
For every parliamentarian, editor, secretary of a labor union, journalist, public figure can always collect material concealed by the government and financiers, containing the truth about the real foundations of imperialist deals, and failure to fulfill this duty by socialists is treason on their part to socialism. There is no doubt that no government will freely allow the publication of denunciations of its real policy, its treaties, financial deals precisely now, etc. This is not an argument for refusing to denounce. This is an argument for the necessity of moving from slavish submission to censorship to free, i.e., uncensored, i.e., illegal publishing.
For the socialist of another country cannot expose the government and bourgeoisie of a state warring with "his" nation, not only because of ignorance of the language, history, peculiarities of the people, etc., but also because such exposure is an imperialist intrigue, not an internationalist duty.
Not he is an internationalist who swears and vows that he is an internationalist, but only he who actually fights in an internationalist way against his own bourgeoisie, against his own social-chauvinists, against his own Kautskyites.
(b)
The socialist of each country must now emphasize most of all in his agitation the necessity of complete distrust not only of every political phrase of his own government, but also of every political phrase of his own social-chauvinists, who in fact serve this government.
The last part of the paragraph, starting with the words: "There is no doubt," represents a subsequent insertion, placed at the bottom.
Ed.

DRAFT THESES OF AN APPEAL TO THE I. S. C.

(c) The socialist of each country must explain to the masses most of all the indisputable truth that a truly lasting, truly democratic (without annexations, etc.) peace can now be concluded only on the condition that it is concluded not by the present and not by bourgeois governments in general, but by proletarian governments that have overthrown the domination of the bourgeoisie and have begun its expropriation.
The war has proved especially clearly and practically the truth that before the war was repeated by all the leaders of socialism, now gone over to the bourgeoisie, namely, that modern capitalist society, especially (at least) in the advanced countries, is fully ripe for the transition to socialism. If, in the interests of straining the forces of the people for a predatory war, Germany, for example, had to direct the entire economic life of a 66-million people from one central institution in the interests of a hundred or two financial magnates or petty nobles, the monarchy and Co., then this thing in the interests of 9/10 of the population can be done quite well by the propertyless masses, if their struggle is led by conscious workers, freeing themselves from the influence of social-imperialists and social-pacifists.
All agitation for socialism must be transformed from abstract and general into concrete and directly practical: do the same thing that Wumba is doing in Germany, expropriating banks, relying on the masses and in their interests!
(d) The socialist of each country must explain to the masses the indisputable truth that, if we take the words about a "democratic peace" seriously, sincerely, and honestly, and not use them as a Christian lying phrase covering up an imperialist peace, then the workers [must] only in one way could really now actually realize such a peace, namely: by turning their weapons against their own government (i.e., fulfilling the advice of Karl Liebknecht, sentenced to penal servitude for this and saying in other words what our party in its manifesto of 1.IX.1914 called the transformation of the imperialist war into a civil war of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie for socialism).
When the Basel Manifesto of 24.XI.1912, signed by all socialist parties and having in mind precisely the same war that has come, threatened the governments with a "proletarian revolution" precisely in connection with the coming war, when

LENINIST COLLECTION it referred to the Paris Commune, it spoke the truth, which the traitors of socialism are now cowardly renouncing. For if the Parisian workers in 1871 could use the excellent armaments given into their hands by Napoleon III for his Caesarist purposes to make an attempt, heroic and honored by socialists all over the world, to overthrow the bourgeoisie and conquer power for the implementation of socialism—then 1000 times more feasible, possible, and promising success would be such an attempt now, when a much larger number of more organized, more conscious workers of several countries have in their hands much better armaments and when the masses are enlightened and revolutionized every day by the course of the war! And the main obstacle to the beginning of systematic propaganda and agitation in this spirit in all countries is now not at all the "fatigue of the masses," to which Scheidemanns plus Kautsky and Co. falsely refer—the "masses" are not yet tired of shooting and will shoot even more in the spring, if their class enemies do not agree on the division of Turkey, Romania, Armenia, Africa, etc.—the main obstacle is the trust of part of the conscious workers in social-imperialists and social-pacifists, and the destruction of trust in these trends, ideas, types of politics, must become the main task of the day.
How feasible such an attempt is from the point of view of the mood of the broadest masses can only be proved by the most decisive, universal, most energetic start to such agitation and propaganda, the most sincere and selfless support of all revolutionary manifestations of the growing embitterment of the masses, those strikes and demonstrations that force representatives of the bourgeoisie in Russia to directly admit that the revolution is coming, and that forced Helfferich to say in the Reichstag: "it is better to keep the left Social Democrats in prison than to receive (see) corpses on Potsdam Square," i.e., to admit that the agitation of the left has soil in the masses.
In any case, the alternative that socialists must clearly put before the masses is this: either continue to kill each other for the profits of the capitalists, endure the high cost of living, hunger, and the yoke of multi-billion debts and the comedy of an imperialist truce covered with democratic and reformist promises, or an uprising against the bourgeoisie.
A revolutionary party that openly threatened governments before the whole world with a "proletarian revolution" in the event of precisely such a war that has come, this party morally kills itself if it does not give the workers and the masses the advice to direct all thoughts and all efforts to an uprising, when the masses are excellently armed, excellently trained in military art, and exhausted by the awareness of the absurdity and criminality of that imperialist slaughter to which they have so far been helping.
(e)
Socialists must put at the forefront of their work the struggle against reformism, which has always corrupted the revolutionary labor movement with bourgeois ideas and which has now taken a somewhat special form. Namely: it "relies" on the reforms that the bourgeoisie will have to carry out after the war! It poses the question as if, by preaching, propagating, preparing the socialist revolution of the proletariat, we "lose sight of" the "practical," "lose" the chances for reforms.
This entire posing of the question, common to both social-chauvinists and supporters of Kautsky, who could call street demonstrations an "adventure," is fundamentally unscientific, false, bourgeois-lying.
During the war, world capitalism took a step forward not only towards concentration in general, but also towards the transition from monopolies in general to state capitalism on an even wider scale than before. Economic reforms in this direction are inevitable.
In the field of politics, the imperialist war has proved that precisely from the point of view of the imperialists it is sometimes much more profitable to have as an ally a small, politically [independent] autonomous, financially dependent nation than to risk Irish or Czech "incidents" (i.e., uprisings or the transition of entire regiments to the side of the enemy) during the war. It is therefore quite possible that, along with the policy of direct strangulation of small nations, from which imperialism will never be able to completely abandon, it will carry out in individual cases a policy of "voluntary" (i.e., caused only by financial strangulation) union with new small national states or bastard states, like Poland.
It does not follow from this at all that social democrats, without betraying themselves, can "vote" for such "reforms" of the imperialists or join them.
Only bourgeois reformists, to whose position Kautsky, Turati, Merrheim have essentially moved, pose the question thus: either renunciation of the revolution and then reforms, or no reforms.
The entire experience of world history, as well as the experience of the Russian revolution of 1905, teaches us the opposite: either revolutionary class struggle, the by-product of which are always reforms (in the event of incomplete success of the revolution), or no reforms.
For the only real force forcing changes is only the revolutionary energy of the masses, and not such that remains only on paper, as was the case with the 2nd International, but that leads to comprehensive revolutionary propaganda, agitation, and organization of the masses by the parties themselves, going at the head, and not in the tail of the revolution.
Only by openly proclaiming the revolution, removing from the workers' parties all opponents or "skeptical" permitters of it, only by making all the work of the parties revolutionary, Social Democracy in such "critical" epochs of world history as now can guarantee the masses either the complete success of their cause, in the event of support for the revolution by very broad masses, or reforms, i.e., concessions from the bourgeoisie, in the event of incomplete success of the revolution.
Otherwise, with the policy of Scheidemanns and Kautskys, there are no guarantees that the reforms will be reduced to zero or carried out with such police-reactionary restrictions that will exclude the possibility for the proletariat to rely further on them in its repeated struggle for the revolution.
(c) Socialists must seriously take to heart the slogan of Karl Liebknecht. The sympathy of the masses for this name is one of the guarantees of the possibility and reliability of revolutionary work. The attitude of Scheidemann and Co., Kautsky and Co. to this name is an example of hypocrisy, in words bowing to "Liebknechts of all countries," in deeds fighting against Liebknecht's tactics.
Liebknecht broke not only with the Scheidemanns (Renaudels, Plekhanovs, Bissolatis), but also with the trend of Kautsky (Longuet, Axelrod, Turati).
Liebknecht proclaimed even in his letter to the Parteivorstand of December 2, 1914:7

DRAFT THESES OF AN APPEAL TO THE I. S. C.

"Ich habe erklart, dass die deutsche Partei, nach meiner inner-
sten Ueberzeugung, von der Haut bis zum Mark regeneriert wer-
den muss, wenn sie das Recht nicht verwirken will, sich s[o-
cial]-d[emokratisch zu nennen, wenn sie sich die jetzt griindlich ver-
scherzte Achtung der Welt wiedererwerben will" ("Klassenk[ampf]
gegren] d[en] Krieg". Material zum Fall Liebknecht. Seite 22).
(Geheim gedruckt in Deutschland: "Als Manuskript gedruckt")/
All parties must adopt this slogan of Liebknecht, and it would be ridiculous, of course, to think about the possibility of fulfilling this slogan without excluding from the party Scheidemanns, Legiens, Renaudels, Sembats, Plekhanovs, Vanderveldes and Co., or without breaking with the policy of concessions to the direction of Kautsky, Turati, Longuet-Merrheim.
10.
We therefore propose the convocation of a conference of Zimmerwaldists and put the following proposals to this conference:
(1) decide fully, unconditionally to reject, as bourgeois reformism (on the basis of the above theses) socialist pacifism of a certain direction: Longuet-Merrheim, Kautsky, Turati, etc., which is rejected in principle already in Kienthal and must be rejected in its concrete defense by the named representatives of trends.
(2) declare an equally decisive break with social-chauvinism also in the organizational respect.
(3) Indicate to the working class its immediate and urgent revolutionary tasks precisely in connection with the exhaustion of the patience of the masses by the war and the lies of the high-minded pacifist phrases of the bourgeoisie.
(4) [discuss the inconsistency (weak word)] openly recognize and condemn the complete break with the entire spirit and all the decisions of Zimmerwald and Kienthal as the policy of the Italian socialist party, which has taken precisely the path of pacifism, as well as
*
— "I have declared that the German party, according to my deepest conviction, must be regenerated from top to bottom, if it does not want to lose the right to call itself social-democratic, if it intends to restore its prestige in the eyes of the world, which is now thoroughly battered" ("Class Struggle against War". Materials on the Liebknecht Case. Page 22).
(Secretly printed in Germany: "printed as a manuscript"). Ed.

LENINIST COLLECTION
the policy of the Swiss Social Democratic Party, which voted for the admissibility of indirect taxes in Zurich, 4.XI.1916,8
[and the majority of the opportunist leaders of this party, who are doing everything to delay the discussion by the workers and the decision of the question of "defense of the fatherland" about the bourgeois lie...* in the imperialist war], which carried out on 7.1.1917, thanks to the alliance of the "centrist" R. Grimm with the social-patriots Greulich, G. Muller and Co., the postponement indefinitely of a special party congress, scheduled for 11.II.1917 to discuss the war question, and which now silently endures the direct ultimatum of the same social-patriotic leaders, who openly threaten to resign their mandates if the party rejects the defense of the fatherland.**
The sad experience of the 2nd International has sufficiently shown the deep harm of the practice when general, in general phrases formulated revolutionary decisions are accompanied in fact by reformist practice—when the proclamation of internationalism is accompanied by the refusal of a truly internationalist joint discussion of the fundamental questions of tactics of each individual party, which is part of the international association.
Our party already before Zimmerwald and at the conference in Zimmerwald considered it its duty to acquaint comrades with our irrevocable condemnation of pacifism, abstract preaching of peace, as bourgeois deception (resolution of our party, distributed in Zimmerwald in German in the brochure "Socialism and War" and in French in a leaflet with a translation of the resolutions).
The Zimmerwald Left, in the formation of which we participated, organized separately in the same Zimmerwald precisely in order to show that we support the Zimmerwald association insofar as it fights against social-chauvinism.
Precisely now it has finally become clear, according to our deep conviction, that the Zimmerwald majority or the Zimmerwald Right has completely turned not to the struggle against social-chauvinism, but to the surrender of all positions, to the merger with it on the platform of empty pacifist phrases. And we consider it our duty to declare openly that the support of illusions about the unity of Zimmerwald
*Here one word is not deciphered. Ed.
**Later note by Lenin. Ed.