# Date: September 5, 1914

Lenin's theses on the slaughter were discovered simultaneously:
in the files of the Special Section of the Department of Police No. 343, section
3, for 1914 "On the Activity of Revolutionary (S.D.) Parties in Connection with
the War of 1914"— in a report from the head of the Baku gendarme administration and in file 5 of the Department of Police No. 5/f for 1914 "On the Detention
of a Social-Democratic Conference in which participated members of the State
Duma Badayev, Muranов, Petrovsky, Samoylov and Shagov"— in material evidence
seized during a search at Badayev's residence.

Comparison of the text of these "Theses" with the resolution published in Volume XVIII
of the Collected Works under the title: "The Tasks of Revolutionary Social-Democracy
in the European War" (pp. 44–46) establishes with complete certainty the fact that
the document discovered at present is the ORIGINAL TEXT of Lenin's theses on war,
which subsequently formed the basis of the aforementioned resolution. The fact of the
discovery of this document in the file of the Duma quintet also confirms that Lenin
sent to Petersburg not the text of the resolution, as indicated in note 2 to Volume XVIII
(p. 424), but precisely this text of the theses. As is evident from file No. 5/f, pages 482–483,
the Department of Police knew that the author of the theses was "the leader of the
Bolshevik social-democrats, assistant attorney Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, known in the party
under the pseudonym 'Lenin', residing abroad."

Regarding these theses, Lenin wrote in his article "The Position and Tasks of the Socialist
International" (Collected Works, Vol. XVIII, p. 69) the following: "To the history of how
the formulation of our party's views took shape, we must—to avoid misunderstandings—
establish the following facts: a group of members of our party, overcoming enormous
difficulties in restoring organizational links interrupted by the war, first worked out
'theses' and on September 6–8, new style, put them into circulation among comrades.
Then they transmitted them through Swiss social-democrats to two members of the
Italian-Swiss conference in Lugano (September 27). Only in mid-October was it possible
to restore links and formulate the point of view of the Party Central Committee. The
leading article of this issue [No. 33 of the Social-Democrat. —Ed.] is the final revision
of the 'theses'". The reference is to the Central Committee manifesto "War and Russian
Social-Democracy" (see also note 2, Vol. XVIII, p. 424).

The "Theses" are printed from a copy. The original apparently has not been preserved.
All variants from the text of the "Resolution" are given in separate notes in each case.
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected in the text itself.

* THESES ON WAR
ORIGINAL TEXT.

[September 5 or 6, 1914. Bern.]

§ 1. The European and world war has a sharply defined character of a bourgeois,
imperialist, dynastic war. The struggle for markets and the plunder of countries,
the striving to deceive, divide, and slaughter the proletarians of all countries,
inciting hired slaves of one nation against hired slaves of another for the benefit
of the bourgeoisie—such is the sole real content and purpose of the war.

§ 2. The conduct of the leaders of the German social-democratic party of the
Second International (1889–1914), who voted for the military budget and repeat
the bourgeois-chauvinist phrases of Prussian junkers and the bourgeoisie, is direct
treason to socialism. In no case, even on the assumption of absolute weakness of
this party and the necessity of submission to the will of the bourgeois majority of
the nation, can the conduct of the leaders of the German S.D. party be justified.
In fact, this party has conducted national-liberal politics at the present time.

§ 3. The conduct of the leaders of the Belgian and French S.D. parties, who betrayed
socialism by entering bourgeois ministries, deserves the same condemnation.

§ 4. The betrayal of socialism by the majority of the leaders of the Second International
(1889–1914) signifies the ideological collapse of this International. The fundamental
cause of this collapse is the actual predominance in it of petty-bourgeois opportunism,
to the bourgeois character and danger of which the best representatives of the
proletariat of all countries have long pointed. Opportunists long prepared the collapse
of the Second International by denying the socialist revolution and substituting for
it bourgeois reformism, by denying class struggle with its necessary transformation,
at certain moments, into civil war, and by preaching the cooperation of classes,
preaching bourgeois chauvinism under the guise of patriotism and defense of the
fatherland, and ignoring or denying the elementary truth of socialism, set forth
already in the "Communist Manifesto"—that workers have no fatherland; by limiting
the struggle against militarism to a sentimental petty-bourgeois point of view, instead
of recognizing the necessity of revolutionary war of the proletarians of all countries
against the bourgeoisie of all countries; by transforming the necessary use of bourgeois
parliamentarism and bourgeois legality into fetishizing this legality and forgetting the
obligatory character of illegal forms of organization and agitation in epochs of crisis.
One of the organs of international opportunism, the "Socialist Monthly," long having
taken up a national-liberal position, now triumphantly celebrates its victory over
European socialism. One of the organs of international opportunism, the German
"Socialist Monthly," long having assumed a national-liberal stance, now triumphantly
celebrates its victory over European socialism.

§ 5. From among those bourgeois and chauvinist sophisms with which, in particular,
the bourgeois parties and governments of the two main rival nations of the continent—
Germany and France—deceive the masses, and which the socialist opportunists, both
open and hidden, slavishly repeat while trailing behind the bourgeoisie, the following
must be singled out and branded in particular: when German bourgeois appeal to the
defense of the fatherland, to the struggle against tsarism, to the upholding of freedom
of cultural and national development, they lie, for Prussian junkerdom with Wilhelm II
at its head and the major bourgeoisie of Germany have always pursued a policy of
defending the tsarist monarchy and will not fail, whatever the outcome of the war,
to direct efforts to its support; they lie, because in fact the Austrian bourgeoisie has
undertaken a plundering campaign against Serbia, the German—oppresses the Danes,
Poles, and French (in Alsace-Lorraine), conducting an offensive war against Belgium
and France for the plunder of richer and freer countries, organizing the offensive at
the moment which seemed to them most convenient for using their latest improvements
in military technology, and on the eve of Russia's implementation of the so-called
great military program. When French bourgeois appeal in exactly the same way to the
defense of the fatherland, etc., they also lie, because in fact they are defending
countries backward in relation to capitalist technique, developing more slowly, hiring
with their billions the black-hundred gangs of Russian tsarism for an offensive war,
with the aim of plundering Austrian and German lands. Both warring groups of nations
are not inferior to each other in cruelty and barbarism in the conduct of war.

§ 6. The task of the social-democracy of Russia is in particular and first and foremost
the merciless and unconditional struggle against Great Russian and tsar-monarchical
chauvinism and its sophistical defense by Russian liberals, Cadets and others and
some populists. From the point of view of the working class and the laboring masses
of all peoples of Russia the least evil would be the defeat of the tsarist monarchy and
its troops, oppressing Poland, Ukraine and a whole series of peoples of Russia, and
fomenting national enmity to strengthen the oppression of other nationalities by the
Great Russians and to consolidate the reaction and barbarous government of the
tsarist monarchy.

§ 7. The slogans of social-democracy at the present time must be: first, comprehensive
propaganda, extending to the troops and to the theater of military operations, of
socialist revolution and the necessity of turning weapons not against one's brothers,
the hired slaves of other countries, but against the reaction of bourgeois governments
and parties of all countries. Unconditional necessity of organizing for such propaganda
in all languages illegal cells and groups in the troops of all nations.

Merciless struggle against the chauvinism and "patriotism" of the petty bourgeoisie
and bourgeoisie without exception of all countries. Against those who betrayed socialism
among the leaders of the contemporary International, it is obligatory to appeal to the
revolutionary consciousness of the working masses, bearing the full weight of the war
and hostile to chauvinism and opportunism; second, propaganda, as one of the immediate
slogans, of the German, Polish, Russian and other republics alongside the transformation
of all separate European states into republican united states.

1 In the text of the "Resolution" a misprint: "European world."
2 In the text of the "Resolution": "The struggle for markets and the plunder of foreign countries, the striving to suppress the revolutionary movement of the proletariat and democracy within countries, the striving to deceive, divide and slaughter the proletarians of all countries"
3 — "significance of the war"
4 — "German S.D. party, the strongest and most influential party"
5 — "who voted for the military budget and repeating"
6 — "necessity of temporary submission"
7 — "national-liberal"
8 In the text of the resolution: "ideological-political"
9 — "representatives of the revolutionary proletariat"
10 — "with its necessary transformation, at certain moments"
11 — "elementary"
12 — "One of the international organs of opportunism, the German 'Socialist Monthly'"
13 — "now triumphs"
14 In the text of the "Resolution" the following follows after these words: "The so-called 'center' of the German social-democratic party and other social-democratic parties has in fact cowardly capitulated before the opportunists. The task of the future International should be the irrevocable and decisive elimination of this bourgeois trend in socialism"
15 In the text of the "Resolution": "whom"
16 — "governments of the two main rival nations of the continent—the Germanic and French—and which they slavishly repeat"
17 — "with Wilhelm at its head"
18 — "conducting an offensive war with Belgium and France"
19 — "which seemed to it most convenient for using its latest improvements in military technology"
20 — "more backward"
21 — "and more slowly"
22 — "that is"
23 — "in no way yield to each other in cruelties and barbarism of war"
24 — "liberals, K.D., some populists and other bourgeois parties"
25 — "laboring masses"
26 — "oppressing"
27 — "fomenting"
28 — "reactionary"
29 — "and to the troops"
30 — "reactionary and"
31 — "In the troops"
32 — "and in most cases hostile to opportunism and chauvinism"
33 — "and so forth"
34 Subsequently in the text of the "Resolution" the following appears after these words: "of Europe; third, in particular the struggle against the tsarist monarchy and Great Russian, pan-Slavist chauvinism and the preaching of revolution in Russia, as well as the liberation and self-determination of peoples oppressed by Russia with the immediate slogans of a democratic republic, confiscation of landlord lands and the 8-hour working day".