V. I.

Lenin

The Tasks of Revolutionary Social-Democracy in the European War [1]

Reports have reached us from most reliable sources, regarding
a conference recently held by leaders of the Russian Social-Democratic
Labour Party, on the question of the European war. The conference was not of
a wholly official nature, since the Central Committee of the R.S.D.L.P. has
as yet been unable to gather, as a result of the numerous arrests and
unprecedented persecution by the tsarist government. We do, however, have
precise information that the conference gave expression to views held by the
most influential circles of the R.S.D.L.P.

The conference adopted the following resolution, whose full text we are
quoting below as a document:

Resolution Of A Group Of Social-Democrats

1. The European and world war has the clearly defined character of a
bourgeois, imperialist and dynastic war. A struggle for markets and for
freedom to loot foreign countries, a striving to suppress the revolutionary
movement of the proletariat and democracy in the individual countries, a
desire to deceive, disunite, and slaughter the proletarians of all countries
by setting the wage slaves of one nation against those of another so as to
benefit the bourgeoisie—these are the only real content and
significance of the war.

2. The conduct of the leaders of the German Social-Democratic Party, the
strongest and the most influential in the Second International (1889-1914),
a party which has voted for war credits and repeated the
bourgeois-chauvinist phrases of the Prussian Junkers and the bourgeoisie, is
sheer betrayal of socialism. Under no circumstances can the conduct of the
leaders of the German Social-Democratic Party be condoned, even if we assume
that the party was absolutely weak and had temporarily to bow to the will of
the bourgeois majority of the nation. This party has in fact adopted a
national-liberal policy.

3. The conduct of the Belgian and French Social-Democratic party leaders,
who have betrayed socialism by entering bourgeois governments, [2] is just as
reprehensible.

4. The betrayal of socialism by most leaders of the Second International
(1889-1914) signifies the ideological and political bankruptcy of the
International. This collapse has been mainly caused by the actual prevalence
in it of petty-bourgeois opportunism, the bourgeois nature and the danger of
which have long been indicated by the finest representatives of the
revolutionary proletariat of all countries. The opportunists had long been
preparing to wreck the Second International by denying the socialist
revolution and substituting bourgeois reformism in its stead, by rejecting
the class struggle with its inevitable conversion at certain moments into
civil war, and by preaching class collaboration; by preaching bourgeois
chauvinism under the guise of patriotism and the defence of the fatherland,
and ignoring or rejecting the fundamental truth of socialism, long ago set
forth in the Communist Manifesto , that the workingmen have no country; by
confining themselves, in the struggle against militarism, to a sentimental
philistine point of view, instead of recognising the need for a
revolutionary war by the proletarians of all countries, against the
bourgeoisie of all countries; by making a fetish of the necessary
utilisation of bourgeois parliamentarianism and bourgeois legality, and
forgetting that illegal forms of organisation and agitation are imperative
at times of crises. One of the organs of international opportunism,
Sozialistische Monatshefte , [3] which has long taken a national
liberal stand, is very properly celebrating its victory over European
socialism. The so-called Centre of the German and other Social-Democratic
parties has in actual fact faint heartedly capitulated to the
opportunists. It must be the task of the future International resolutely and
irrevocably to rid itself of this bourgeois trend in socialism.

5. With reference to the bourgeois and chauvinist sophisms being used by
the bourgeois parties and the governments of the two chief rival nations of
the Continent—the German and the French—to fool the masses most
effectively, and being copied by both the overt and covert socialist
opportunists, who are slavishly following in the wake of the bourgeoisie,
one must particularly note and brand the following:

When the German bourgeois refer to the defence of the fatherland and to
the struggle against tsarism, and insist on the freedom of cultural and
national development, they are lying, because it has always been the policy
of Prussian Junkerdom, headed by Wilhelm II, and the big bourgeoisie of
Germany, to defend the tsarist monarchy; whatever the outcome of the war,
they are sure to try to bolster it. They are lying because, in actual fact,
the Austrian bourgeoisie have launched a robber campaign against Serbia, and
the German bourgeoisie are oppressing Danes, Poles, and Frenchmen (in
Alsace-Lorraine); they are waging a war of aggression against Belgium and
France so as to loot the richer and freer countries; they have organised an
offensive at a moment which seemed best for the use of the latest
improvements in military matériel, and on the eve of the introduction
of the so-called big military programme in Russia.

Similarly, when the French bourgeois refer to the defence of the
fatherland, etc., they are lying, because in actual fact they are defending
countries that are backward in capitalist technology and are developing more
slowly, and because they spend thousands of millions to hire Russian
tsarism’s
Black-Hundred [4] gangs for a war of aggression, i.e., the looting
of Austrian and German lands.

Neither of the two belligerent groups of nations is second to the other
in cruelty and atrocities in warfare.

6. It is the first and foremost task of Russian Social-Democrats to wage a
ruthless and all-out struggle against Great-Russian and tsarist-monarchist
chauvinism, and against the sophisms used by the Russian liberals,
Cadets, [5] a section of the Narodniks , and other bourgeois parties, in defence of that chauvinism. From the viewpoint
of the working class and the toiling masses of all the peoples of Russia,
the defeat of the tsarist monarchy and its army, which oppress Poland, the
Ukraine, and many other peoples of Russia, and foment hatred among the
peoples so as to increase Great-Russian oppression of the other
nationalities, and consolidate the reactionary and barbarous government of
the tsar’s monarchy, would be the lesser evil by far.

7. The following must now be the slogans of Social-Democracy:

First, all-embracing propaganda, involving the army and the theatre of
hostilities as well, for the socialist revolution and the need to use
weapons, not against their brothers, the wage slaves in other countries, but
against the reactionary and bourgeois governments and parties of all
countries; the urgent necessity of organising illegal nuclei and groups in
the armies of all nations, to conduct such propaganda. in all languages; a
merciless struggle against the chauvinism and “patriotism” of
the philistines and bourgeoisie of all countries without exception. In the
struggle against the leaders of the present International, who have betrayed
socialism, it is imperative to appeal to the revolutionary consciousness of
the working masses, who bear the entire burden of the war and are in most
cases hostile to opportunism and chauvinism.

Secondly, as an immediate slogan, propaganda for republics in (Germany,
Poland, Russia, and other countries, and for the transforming of all the
separate states of Europe into a republican United States of
Europe. [6]

Thirdly and particularly, a struggle against the tsarist monarchy and
Great-Russian, Pan-Slavist chauvinism, and advocacy of a revolution in
Russia, as well as of the liberation of and self-determination for
nationalities oppressed by Russia, coupled with the immediate slogans of a
democratic republic, the confiscation of the landed estates, and an
eight-hour working day.

A group of Social-Democrats, members of the Russian
Social-Democratic Labour Party

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Notes:
[1]
These theses on the war were drawn up by Lenin not later than August 24 (September
6), 1914 after he had come to Berne from Poronin (Galicia). They were
discussed at a meeting of the Bolshevik group in Berne on August 24-26
(September 6-8). Approved by the group, the theses were circulated among
Bolshevik groups abroad. To throw the police off the scent, the copy of the
theses made out by N. K. Krupskaya, carried the inscription: “Copy of
the manifesto issued in Denmark. ”

The theses were smuggled into Russia for discussion by the Russian section of the Central Committee, Party organisations and the
Bolshevik Duma group.

Through Swiss Social-Democrats the theses were submitted
to the conference of the Swiss and Italian Socialists held in Lugano on
September 27, 1914. Many of the ideas contained in the theses were
incorporated in the conference’s resolution.

On learning of the approval of the theses in Russia, Lenin used them as a basis for writing the manifesto of the
R.S.D.L.P. Central Committee “The War and Russian Social-Democracy
”(see this volume, pp. 25-34).

The introduction to the theses (“The Russian
Social-Democrats on the European War”, which was written on a separate
sheet) was discovered only later, and was first published in the 4th Russian