1) The European and world war bears a distinctly defined character of a bourgeois, imperialist, dynastic war. The struggle for markets and the plunder of foreign countries, the striving to suppress the revolutionary movement of the proletariat and democracy within nations, the striving to deceive, divide, and slaughter the proletarians of all countries by pitting the hired slaves of one nation against the hired slaves of another for the benefit of the bourgeoisie – such is the sole real content and significance of the war.

2) The behavior of the leaders of the German Social-Democratic party, the strongest and most influential party of the Second International (1889–1914), which voted for the military budget and repeats the bourgeois-chauvinist phrases of the Prussian junkers and bourgeoisie, is a direct betrayal of socialism{2}. In no case whatsoever, even under the assumption of absolute weakness of this party and the necessity of temporary submission to the will of the bourgeois majority of the nation, can the behavior of the leaders of the German Social-Democratic party be justified. In fact, this party has conducted a national-liberal policy at the present time.

3) The behavior of the leaders of the Belgian and French Social-Democratic parties, who betrayed socialism by entering bourgeois ministries{3}, deserves the same condemnation.

4) The betrayal of socialism by the majority of the leaders of the Second (1889–1914) International signifies the ideological-political collapse of that International. The fundamental cause of this collapse is the actual predominance within it of petty-bourgeois opportunism, whose bourgeois character and danger have long been pointed out by the best representatives of the revolutionary proletariat of all countries. The opportunists long prepared the collapse of the Second International by denying socialist revolution and substituting bourgeois reformism in its place; by denying class struggle, with its necessary transformation at certain moments into civil war, and preaching the cooperation of classes; by preaching bourgeois chauvinism under the guise of patriotism and defense of the fatherland, and ignoring or denying the fundamental truth of socialism, set forth already in the *Communist Manifesto*, that workers have no fatherland{4}; by limiting their struggle against militarism to a sentimental-petty-bourgeois point of view, instead of recognizing the necessity of revolutionary war by the proletarians of all countries against the bourgeoisie of all countries; by transforming the necessary utilization of bourgeois parliamentarism and bourgeois legality into a fetishization of this legality and a forgetting of the obligatoriness of illegal forms of organization and agitation in epochs of crisis. One of the international organs of opportunism, the German *Socialist Monthly*{5}, long since taken up a national-liberal position, now quite rightly exults in its victory over European socialism. 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 must be the irrevocable and decisive elimination of this bourgeois current within socialism.

Manuscript of V. I. Lenin — introduction to the theses "The Tasks of Revolutionary Social-Democracy in the European War." — 1914 (Abridged)

5) From among those bourgeois and chauvinist sophisms with which the bourgeois parties and governments of the two principal rival nations of the continent – the German and the French – in particular deceive the masses, and which are slavishly repeated by the socialist opportunists, both open and concealed, following behind the bourgeoisie – the following must be especially noted and branded: when the German bourgeois appeal to the defense of their homeland, to the struggle against tsarism, to the upholding of freedom of cultural and national development, they lie, for Prussian junkerdom with Wilhelm at its head and the major bourgeoisie of Germany have always conducted a policy of defending tsarist monarchy and will not fail, in any outcome of the war, to direct their efforts toward its support; they lie, for in fact the Austrian bourgeoisie has undertaken a plundering campaign against Serbia, the German bourgeoisie oppresses the Danes, the Poles, and the French in Alsace-Lorraine, waging an offensive war against Belgium and France for the plunder of richer and freer countries, organizing the offensive at a moment which seemed to them most convenient for exploiting their latest improvements in military technology, and on the eve of Russia's implementation of the so-called great military program.

When the French bourgeois appeal likewise to the defense of their homeland and so forth, they also lie, for in fact they are defending countries more backward in capitalist technique and developing more slowly, hiring with their billions the black-hundred bands of Russian tsarism for an offensive war – that is, for the plunder of Austrian and German lands.

Both warring groups of nations are not at all superior to each other in the cruelties and barbarism of war.

6) The task of Russian Social-Democracy is in particular, and first and foremost, ruthless and unconditional struggle against Great Russian and tsar-monarchist chauvinism and its sophistic defense by Russian liberals, Kadets{6}, part of the Populists{7}, and other bourgeois parties. 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 tsarist monarchy and its troops, which oppress Poland, Ukraine, and a whole series of peoples of Russia and kindle national enmity in order to strengthen the oppression of other nationalities by Great Russians and to reinforce the reactionary and barbarous government of tsarist monarchy.

7) The watchwords of Social-Democracy at the present time must be:

First, comprehensive propaganda, extending to the army and to the theater of military operations, of socialist revolution and the necessity of directing weapons not against one's brothers – the hired slaves of other countries – but against the reactionary and bourgeois governments and parties of all countries. An unconditional necessity to organize for such propaganda in all languages illegal cells and groups in the armies of all nations. Ruthless struggle against the chauvinism and "patriotism" of the petty bourgeois and bourgeois of all countries without exception. Against the leaders of the present-day International who have betrayed socialism, it is obligatory to appeal to the revolutionary consciousness of the working masses, bearing the full burden of the war and in the majority of cases hostile to opportunism and chauvinism; Second, propaganda, as one of the immediate watchwords, of a German, Polish, Russian, etc. republic, alongside the transformation of all individual European states into republican United States of Europe{8}; Third, in particular, struggle against tsarist monarchy and Great Russian, pan-Slavist chauvinism, and the preaching of revolution in Russia, as well as the liberation and self-determination of the peoples oppressed by Russia, with the immediate watchwords of a democratic republic, the confiscation of landlords' lands, and an eight-hour working day.

Written in August, no later than September 24 (old style), 1914.

First printed in full in 1929 in the 2nd–3rd editions of the Works of V. I. Lenin, volume XVIII; the introduction – in 1948 in the 4th edition of the Works of V. I. Lenin, volume 21.

Printed according to the copy written by N. K. Krupskaya, reviewed and corrected by V. I. Lenin; the introduction – according to the manuscript.