V. I. Lenin

Source: ru:PSS/v26; en:CW/CW41;es:MT
Translated: machine translation (DeepSeek) from the Russian; AI-translated.

THE EUROPEAN WAR AND EUROPEAN SOCIALISM

1. Character of the war: imperialism (as the main thing).

Imperialism as the last stage of the development of capitalism.

3. Long-standing (30–40 years) diplomatic preparation for the war: its “naturalness”, “expectedness” (and “they have lost the habit”: Adler at the last meeting of the International Bureau{240}).

4. Subsidiary character of the national war (Serbia) in the present war.

5. Utilisation by the bourgeoisie of the tradition of national war: “La patrie”, Luzzatti[50].

6. “Fatherland”. Quotation from the *Communist Manifesto*. Its analysis.

7.

(α) The working men have no country.

(β) First within the nation cf.[51] the wars of 1790–1814,

** Presumably. Ed.

(γ) and even then not in the bourgeois sense.

(δ) Without the joint efforts of the proletarians emancipation is impossible.

(ε) The fall of national barriers.

8. Attitude to this truth: defence of nationalism by the opportunists (Jaurès in *L’Armée nouvelle*)…{241}

(H. Wendel in *Die Neue Zeit*, 1914, No. 19, p. 843; for Jaurès){242}.

9. Vacillations in the International: defensive and offensive war or “the point of view of the proletarian interest”?

10. Quotations from old statements by Bebel and others and silence about the resolution of 1912.

11. The Basle Manifesto

(α) quotations from Stuttgart

(β) threat of civil war (1871 and 1905)

(γ) “crime”

12. “The calamities of invasion”[52] = sophism (Kautsky)…

“Tolstoyanism” = id[53].

“The practical question: victory or defeat of one’s own country” = sophism{243}.

All this reduces itself to the question of the two camps.

Yes, but which two camps? Nations or classes?

What do the workers lose with the fatherland? The “eternal” in the fatherland.

The fatherland as a bourgeois state and its frontiers—the fatherland as language, territory, etc.

13. The practical conduct of socialists with regard to the present war:

Before the war: H. Wendel in *Die Neue Zeit*. 1914 No. 18.{244}

id. *Vorwärts*

*Leipziger Volkszeitung* on the war with “tsarism”

id. *Vorwärts*{245}.

251 This refers to an article by R. Fischer, “Vandalen”, printed in No. 206 of the newspaper *Volksrecht* on September 5, 1914. The extracts made by V. I. Lenin from this article are printed in *Lenin Miscellany* XIV, p. 61.

Ad 15.

“Volunteering” of the Russians in Paris??

(1) Declaration of the Russian socialists.

(2) ” ” of Leder and Co.{246}.

*Golos* No. 9.{247}

Plekhanov’s position

||| *Sovremennoye Slovo* extracts{248}.

||| *Golos* No. 3 (15. IX){249}.

Smirnov (Ye.) and P. Maslov{250}.

16. The French and Belgian socialists.

They are being throttled? Therefore… a bourgeois minister??

Vandervelde. Guesde. (Authorities?)

Voting of credits?

What is to be done? To preach and prepare civil war. To go over not into ministers, but into illegal propagandists!!

The chauvinism of Vaillant and Co. in

*L’Humanité*{251}.

Compère-Morel on 1792{252} and…

…the Russians in Poland.

Contemptible G. Hervé and the anarcho-syndicalists{253}.

“Democracy”—but an alliance with the tsar??

17. The English socialists

Hyndman and the attitude of the German Social-Democratic press towards him before the war{254}.

Keir Hardie and MacDonald.

The struggle against the chauvinism of one’s own country.

Prussian militarism, but Egypt?

And the chaining of women?

Participation in recruiting.

18. The German Social-Democrats. The main thing. Hegemony in the International. “Much will be required”…

Haase’s speech… Justification of the war{255}.

Voting of credits = betrayal!

“Tsarism”. Sophism and lie!!

Bourgeois lie!!

Bernstein in *Vorwärts* on Engels (1859)…{256}

Engels 1890{257} (contra Mehring){258}

*Hamburger Echo* vs. *Vorwärts*{259}.

19. Brutal chauvinism vs. dull and hypocritical chauvinism.

20. R. Fischer and the reply to him{260}.

(Defence of the violation of Belgium’s neutrality.)

*Sozialistische Monatshefte*: moral justification of the violation of Belgium’s neutrality{261}.

21. Two trends in German socialism. K. Liebknecht (*Golos* No. 12{262} and the English newspapers).

*Bremer Bürger-Zeitung*{263}—Mehring—Halle{264}

(timid protests)…

271 This refers to the article “Die Zertrümmerte Internationale” (“The Shattered International”), printed in No. 211 of the *Bremer Bürger-Zeitung* on September 10, 1914. The extracts made by V. I. Lenin from this newspaper are to be found in *Lenin Miscellany* XIV, p. 83.

*Volksrecht*{265}

273 This refers to the appeal of the French and Belgian delegations to the ISB to the German people. See Note 16 on this.

274 This refers to a letter from L. Martov to G. Hervé, printed in No. 12 of the newspaper *Golos* on September 25, 1914.

275 This refers to the journey to Italy of A. Südekum, one of the leaders of the German Social-Democratic Party, an extreme social-chauvinist. This journey was undertaken by him on the instructions of the Executive of the German Social-Democratic Party. A record of Südekum’s conversation with the Italian socialists was printed in *Avanti!*, and then in reprints from *Avanti!* in various socialist newspapers. In Russian it was printed in the Menshevik journal *Nasha Zarya* Nos. 7–8–9 for 1914.

*“Faint-hearted friends”?? Ed.

24. Causes of the collapse of the International: opportunism.

Stuttgart 1907.

Left conference 1910 in Copenhagen{266}.

25. The ideas of the opportunists and the present behaviour

277 V. I. Lenin calls the “Danish resolution” the resolution “The Tasks of Revolutionary Social-Democracy in the European War”, adopted on Lenin’s report at the conference of Bolsheviks in Berne. On one copy of this document, for the sake of conspiracy, was written “Copy of a proclamation issued in Denmark”. For more details on this see Note 1.

26. The whole International?

No!!! The Serbs

Keir Hardie

Reply to Fischer.

Elements of the Third International.

Authorities: Kautsky, Guede, Vandervelde??

(attitude to authorities)…

27. Opportunism vs. the “Centre” in the International.

278 The Parliamentary Secretary to the English Ministry of Education, C. F. Trevelyan, said in an open letter to his constituents that in the imperialist war the interests of one’s own nation are above everything, and that these interests are peace.

279 In No. 254 of the newspaper *Frankfurter Zeitung* on September 13, 1914, an article by F. Oppenheimer, “Neue Rom und neue Karthago” (“New Rome and New Carthage”), was printed. The extracts made by V. I. Lenin from this article are to be found in *Lenin Miscellany* XIV, p. 85.

One thing is the rapidity of this transformation, another is the direction towards it.

280 *Russkoye Znamya*—a Black-Hundred newspaper, organ of the “Union of the Russian People”; published in St. Petersburg from 1905 to 1917.

Lenin has in mind the leading article in No. 105 of *Russkoye Znamya* of August 30, 1914, which spoke of the proclamations of the Petrograd Committee of the R.S.D.L.P.

281 V. I. Lenin has in mind an article by K. Kautsky, “Prospects of Peace”, extracts from which were printed in the newspaper *Golos* Nos. 18 and 19 of October 2 and 3, 1914.

282 This refers to a note, “W. C. Modell 70”, printed in No. 227 of the newspaper *Vorwärts* on August 21, 1914.

31. “Volkskrieg”[54]. Yes! But from this follow different conclusions:

283 Apparently this refers to the 42-cm. guns produced in Germany by the Krupp works and used for the first time in the war of 1914–1918.

32. Frank and “Opfertod”[55]

…“from the Social-Democratic point of view”…

32 bis. The war has revealed all the weaknesses both of governments and of socialist parties.

33. The calamities of the war and its consequences. The revolutionary movement—and the collapse of the miserable diplomacy of the “Centre”.

284 *Kreuz-Zeitung* (“Cross Gazette”)—the well-known name of the extremely reactionary German daily newspaper *Neue Preußische Zeitung* (“New Prussian Gazette”), which had a cross in its heading. The newspaper was the organ of the German conservatives, published in Berlin from 1848 to 1939. From 1911 it was called *Neue Preußische (Kreuz) Zeitung*, from 1932—*Kreuz-Zeitung*.

285 *Novoye Vremya*—a daily newspaper; published in St. Petersburg from 1868 to 1917; belonged to various publishers and repeatedly changed its political trend. At first moderately liberal, the newspaper, after its publisher became A. S. Suvorin in 1876, turned into an organ of the reactionary noble and bureaucratic circles, propagated great-power chauvinism, anti-Semitism and by its servility to the government earned the nickname “What is your pleasure?”. From 1905—an organ of the Black Hundreds. After the February bourgeois-democratic revolution the newspaper, taking a counter-revolutionary stand, conducted a furious campaign of calumny against the Bolsheviks. It was closed by the Military-Revolutionary Committee under the Petrograd Soviet on October 26 (November 8), 1917. V. I. Lenin called *Novoye Vremya* a model of venal newspapers. “*Novovremenstvo*,” he wrote, “became an expression synonymous with the concepts: apostasy, renegacy, toadyism” (Collected Works, 5th ed., Vol. 22, p. 44).

286 V. I. Lenin has in mind the “Press Review” in No. 14 of the newspaper *Golos* of September 27, 1914, which dealt with the position of the English socialists and gave extracts from articles by Keir Hardie and MacDonald. The note said that MacDonald “shows too much pessimism in his assessment of all the consequences of the present war”.

287 *Russkiye Vedomosti*—a newspaper; published in Moscow from 1863, expressed the views of the moderately liberal intelligentsia. In the 1880s and 1890s writers of the democratic camp, V. G. Korolenko, M. Ye. Saltykov-Shchedrin, G. I. Uspensky and others, took part in the newspaper; works of the liberal Narodniks were printed. From 1905 the newspaper was the organ of the right wing of the Cadets. Lenin pointed out that *Russkiye Vedomosti* peculiarly combined “right-wing Cadetism with a Narodnik tinge” (Collected Works, 5th ed., Vol. 23, p. 193). In 1918 *Russkiye Vedomosti* was closed together with other counter-revolutionary newspapers.

35. There may be yet another half-century of enslavement before the socialist revolution, but what will our epoch leave, what shall we contribute? Contempt for the opportunists and traitors or preparation for civil war??

Martov in *Golos* No. 21 the slogan of the Commune is not yet possible: isolation from the broad popular masses!!?{267}