V. I. Lenin

Source: ru:PSS/v49; en:CW/CW35;es:MT
Translated: machine translation (DeepSeek) from the Russian; AI-translated.

17/X. 1914.

Dear Friend, I arrived home yesterday evening from a lecture tour and found your letters. A very warm greeting to you, and through you to all our Russian friends! The reply to Vandervelde was handed in for translation yesterday, and I have not yet seen the text. I will write to you about it as soon as I see it.

In my opinion, the most important thing now is a consistent and organised struggle against the chauvinism that has seized the whole of the bourgeoisie and the majority of the opportunist (and those who make their peace with opportunism—tel Mr. Kautsky!*) socialists. And to accomplish the tasks of this struggle, we must first of all combat the chauvinism of our own country—concretely, in our case, the gentlemen à la Maslov and Smirnov (see *Russkiye Vedomosti* and *Russkoye Slovo*), whose “works” I read on the 19th, or the gentlemen Sokolov, Meshkovsky, Nikitin and others, whom you have seen or heard of. Plekhanov, as you have probably already been informed, has become a French chauvinist. Among the Liquidators there is apparently a split*. Alexinsky, they say, is a Francophil. Kosovsky (a Bundist, a Right-winger, I heard his lecture) is a Germanophil**. It looks as though the middle line of the whole “Brussels bloc”20 of the Liquidator gentlemen with Alexinsky and Plekhanov will be adaptation to Kautsky, who is now more harmful than anyone else. So dangerous and vile is his sophistry, which covers up the dirty tricks of the opportunists with the smoothest and most slick phrases (in *Neue Zeit*21). The opportunists are an open evil. The German “Centre” with Kautsky at its head is a concealed evil, diplomatically painted over, befogging the eyes, minds and consciences of the workers, and therefore the most dangerous. Our task now is an absolute and open struggle against international opportunism and its concealers (Kautsky). This we shall do in the Central Organ, which we shall soon bring out (probably two pages). We must now give every support to the legitimate hatred of the class-conscious workers for the filthy behaviour of the Germans, and draw from this hatred the political conclusion against opportunism and every concession to it. This is an international task. It falls on us; there is no one else to do it. We cannot retreat from it. The slogan of a “simple” restoration of the International is incorrect (for the danger of a rotten conciliatory resolution along the lines of Kautsky-Vandervelde is very, very great!). The slogan of “peace” is incorrect; the slogan must be the conversion of the national war into a civil war. (This conversion may be a long process, may require and will require a number of preliminary conditions, but all work must be conducted along the lines of precisely such a conversion, in its spirit and direction.) Not sabotage of the war, not isolated, individual actions in that spirit, but mass propaganda (not only among “civilians”) leading to the conversion of the war into a civil war.

* In Paris the intellectuals (outvoted in the section by the workers) have joined up as volunteers (Nik. Vas., Antonov and others) and, together with the S.R.s, have issued a stupid non-party appeal.22 It has been sent to you.

** Martov is the most decent in *Golos*. But will Martov hold out? I don’t believe it.

In Russia chauvinism hides behind phrases about “belle France”* and unhappy Belgium (and the Ukraine? etc.) or behind the “popular” hatred of the Germans (and of “Kaiserism”). Therefore our absolute duty is to combat these sophisms. And in order that the struggle may be conducted along a precise and clear line, a generalising slogan is needed. This slogan is: for us Russians, from the standpoint of the interests of the working masses and the working class of Russia, there cannot be the slightest, absolutely any doubt that the least evil now and immediately would be the defeat of tsarism in this war. For tsarism is a hundred times worse than Kaiserism. Not sabotage of the war, but struggle against chauvinism and the direction of all propaganda and agitation towards the international unification (rapprochement, solidarity, agreement selon les circonstances**) of the proletariat for the purposes of civil war. It would be wrong both to call for individual acts of shooting at officers, etc., and to admit arguments like “we do not want to help Kaiserism”. The first is a deviation towards anarchism, the second towards opportunism. We must prepare a mass (or at least collective) action in the army of more than one nation, and conduct all propaganda and agitation work in this direction. The direction of the work (persistent, systematic, possibly long) in the spirit of converting the national war into a civil war—that is the whole essence. The moment of this conversion is another question, as yet unclear. We must let this moment mature and “hasten its maturing” systematically.

I will stop for now. I shall write often. Write more often yourself.

Give me more details about the leaflet of the P.C.

More details about the voices and opinions of the workers.

What is the correlation of forces of the “fractions” in St. Petersburg? That is, have the Liquidators grown stronger compared with us? To what extent?

Is Dan at liberty? What is his position? And Chirkin, Bulkin and Co.?

* - “beautiful France”. Ed.

** - according to circumstances. Ed.

More details.

To whom exactly, and from whom, did you send the hundred rubles?

I press your hand firmly. Yours, Lenin

The slogan of peace, in my opinion, is incorrect at the present moment. It is a philistine, a priestly slogan. The proletarian slogan must be: civil war.

Objectively, from the radical change in the situation in Europe, such a slogan follows for the epoch of mass war. The same slogan follows from the Basle resolution.23

We can neither “promise” civil war nor “decree” it, but we are obliged to conduct work—if necessary, for a very long time—in this direction. You will see the details from the article in the Central Organ.* For the present I am only outlining the main points of the position, so that we may be in full harmony.