V. I.

Lenin

The Conference of the R.S.D.L.P. Groups Abroad [3]

Held in Switzerland, a conference of the R.S.D.L.P. groups whose members
are resident abroad concluded its work several days ago. Besides
discussing purely foreign affairs, which we shall try briefly to comment
on in the next issues of the Central Organ, the conference framed
resolutions on the important and burning question of the war. We are
publishing these resolutions forthwith, in the hope that they will prove
of use to all Social-Democrats who are earnestly seeking the way towards
live work from the present-day welter of opinions which boil down to an
acknowledgement of internationalism in word, and an urge to come to terms
at any cost with social-chauvinism in deed. We might add that, on the
question of the “United States of Europe” slogan, the discussion was purely political, it being decided that the question be
deferred pending a discussion, in the press, of the economic
aspect of the matter.

The Conference’s Resolutions

The conference, which stands on the basis of the Central
Committee’s Manifesto, as published in
No. 33, [1] lays down the following principles designed to bring system into propaganda:

On the Character of the War

The present war is imperialist in character. This war is the outcome of
conditions in an epoch in which capitalism has reached the highest stage in
its development; in which the greatest significance attaches, not only to
the export of commodities, but a]so to the export of capital; an epoch in
which the cartelisation of production and the internationalisation of
economic life have assumed impressive proportions, colonial policies have
brought about the almost complete partition of the globe, world
capitalism’s productive forces have outgrown the limited boundaries of
national and state divisions, and the objective conditions are perfectly
ripe for socialism to be achieved.

The “Defence of the Fatherland” Slogan

The present war is, in substance, a struggle between Britain, France and
Germany for the partition of colonies and for the plunder of rival
countries; on the part of tsarism and the ruling classes of Russia, it is an
attempt to seize Persia, Mongolia, Turkey in Asia, Constantinople, Galicia,
etc. The national element in the Austro-Serbian war is an entirely secondary
consideration and does not affect the general imperialist character of the
war.

The entire economic and diplomatic history of the last few decades shows
that both groups of belligerent nations were systematically preparing the
very kind of war such as the present. The question of which group dealt the
first military blow or first declared war is immaterial in any determination
of the tactics of socialists. Both sides’ phrases on the defence of
the fatherland, resistance to enemy invasion, a war of defence, etc., are
nothing but deception of the people.

At the bottom of genuinely national wars, such as took place especially
between 1789 and 1871, was a long process of mass national movements, of a
struggle against absolutism and feudalism, the overthrow of national
oppression, and the formation of states on a national basis, as a
prerequisite of capitalist development.

The national ideology created by that epoch left a deep impress on the
mass of the petty bourgeoisie and a section of the proletariat. This is now
being utilised in a totally different and imperialist epoch by the sophists
of the bourgeoisie, and by the traitors to socialism who are following in
their wake, so as to split the workers, and divert them from their class
aims and from the revolutionary struggle against the bourgeoisie.

The words in the Communist Manifesto that “the working men have no country” are
today truer than ever before. Only the proletariat’s international
struggle against the bourgeoisie can preserve what it has won, and open to
the oppressed masses the road to a better future.

The Slogans of the Revolutionary Social-Democrats “ The conversion of the present imperialist war into a civil war is
the only correct proletarian slogan, one that follows from the experience of
the Commune, and outlined in the Basle resolution (1912); it has been
dictated by all the conditions of an imperialist war between highly
developed bourgeois countries.” [2]

Civil war, for which revolutionary Social-Democracy today calls, is an
armed struggle of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie, for the
expropriation of the capitalist class in the advanced capitalist countries,
and for a democratic revolution in Russia (a democratic republic, an
eight-hour working day, the confiscation of the landowners’ estates),
for a republic to be formed in the backward monarchist countries in general,
etc.

The appalling misery of the masses, which has been created by the war,
cannot fail to evoke revolutionary sentiments and movements. The civil war
slogan must serve to co-ordinate and direct such sentiments and
movements.

The organisation of the working class has been badly damaged. Nevertheless, a revolutionary crisis is maturing. After the war,
the ruling classes of all countries will make a still greater effort to
throw the proletariat’s emancipation movement back for decades. The
task of the revolutionary

Social-Democrats—both in the event of a rapid revolutionary development and in that of a protracted crisis, will not
consist in renouncing lengthy and day-by-day work, or in discarding any of
the old methods of the class struggle. To direct both the parliamentary and
the economic struggle against opportunism, in the spirit of revolutionary
struggle of the masses—such will be the task.

The following should be indicated as the first steps to wards converting
the present imperialist war into a civil war: (1) an absolute refusal to
vote for war credits, and resignation from bourgeois governments; (2) a
complete break with the policy of a class truce ( bloc national ,
Burgfrieden ); (3) formation of an underground organisation
wherever the governments and the bourgeoisie abolish constitutional
liberties by introducing martial law; (4) support for fraternisation between
soldiers of the belligerent nations, in the trenches and on battlefields in
general; (5) support for every kind of revolutionary mass action by the
proletariat in general.

Opportunism And The Collapse Of The Second International

The collapse of the Second International is the collapse of socialist
opportunism. The latter has grown as a product of the preceding
“peaceful” period in the development of the labour movement. That period taught the working class to utilise such important
means of struggle as parliamentarianism and all legal opportunities, create
mass economic and political organisations, a widespread labour press, etc.;
on the other hand, the period engendered a tendency to repudiate the class
struggle and to preach a class truce, repudiate the socialist revolution,
repudiate the very principle of illegal organisations, recognise bourgeois
patriotism, etc. Certain strata of the working class (the bureaucracy of the
labour movement and the labour aristocracy, who get a fraction of the
profits from the exploitation of the colonies and from the privileged
position of their “fatherlands” in the world market), as well as
petty-bourgeois sympathisers within the socialist parties, have proved the
social mainstay of these tendencies and channels of bourgeois influence over
the proletariat.

The baneful influence of opportunism has made itself felt most strongly
in the policies of most of the official Social-Democratic parties of the
Second International during the war. Voting for war credits, participation
in governments, the policy of a class truce, the repudiation of an illegal
organisation when legality has been rescinded—all this is a violation
of the International’s most important decisions, and a downright
betrayal of socialism.

The Third International

The war-created crisis has exposed the real essence of opportunism as the
bourgeoisie’s accomplice against the proletariat. The so-called
Social-Democratic “Centre”, headed by Kautsky, has in practice
completely slid into opportunism, behind a cover of exceedingly harmful and
hypocritical phrases and a Marxism falsified to resemble
imperialism. Experience shows that in Germany, for instance, a defence of
the socialist standpoint has been possible only by resolute opposition to
the will of the majority of the Party leadership. It would be a harmful
illusion to hope that a genuinely socialist International can be restored
without a full organisational severance from the opportunists.

The Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party must support all and every
international and revolutionary mass action by the proletariat, and strive
to bring together all anti-chauvinist elements in the International.

Pacifism and the Peace Slogan

Pacifism, the preaching of peace in the abstract, is one of the means of
duping the working class. Under capitalism, particularly in its imperialist
stage, wars are inevitable. On the other hand, however, Social-Democrats
cannot over look the positive significance of revolutionary wars, i.e., not
imperialist wars, but such as were fought, for instance, between 1789 and
1871, with the aim of doing away with national oppression, and creating
national capitalist states out of the feudal decentralised states, or such
wars

that may be waged to defend the conquests of the proletariat victorious
in its struggle against the bourgeoisie.

At the present time, the propaganda of peace unaccompanied by a call for
revolutionary mass action can only sow illusions and demoralise the
proletariat, for it makes the proletariat believe that the bourgeoisie is
humane, and turns it into a plaything in the hands of the secret diplomacy
of the belligerent countries. In particular, the idea of a so-called
democratic peace being possible without a series of revolutions is
profoundly erroneous.

The Defeat Of The Tsarist Monarchy

In each country, the struggle against a government that is waging an
imperialist war should not falter at the possibility of that country’s
defeat as a result of revolutionary propaganda. The defeat of the
government’s army weakens the government, promotes the liberation of
the nationalities it oppresses, and facilitates civil war against the ruling
classes.

This holds particularly true in respect of Russia. A victory for Russia
will bring in its train a strengthening of reaction, both throughout the
world and within the country, and will be accompanied by the complete
enslavement of the peoples living in areas already seized. In view of this,
we consider the defeat of Russia the lesser evil in all conditions.

The Attitude Towards Other Parties And Groups

The war, which has engendered a spate of chauvinism, has revealed that
the democratic (Narodnik) intelligentsia, the party of the
Socialist-Revolutionaries (with complete instability of the oppositional
trend, which is centred in Mysl ), and the main group of liquidators
( Nasha Zarya ) which is supported by Plekhanov, are all in the grip
of chauvinism. In practice, the Organising Committee is also on the side of
chauvinism, beginning with Larin and Martov’s camouflaged support of
chauvinism and ending with Axelrod’s defence of the principle of
patriotism; so is the Bund, in which a Germanophile chauvinism prevails. The
Brussels bloc (of July 3, 1914) has disintegrated, while the elements that
are grouped around Nashe Slovo are vacillating between a Platonic
sympathy with internationalism and a striving for unity, at any price, with
Nasha Zarya and the Organising Committee. The same vacillation is
manifest in Chkheidze’s Social-Democratic group. The latter has, on
the one hand, expelled the Plekhanovite, i.e., the chauvinist, Mankov; on
the other hand, it wishes to cover up, by all possible means, the chauvinism
of Plekhanov, Nasha Zarya , Axelrod, the Bund, etc.

It is the task of the Social-Democratic Labour Party in Russia to
consolidate the proletarian unity created in 1912-14, mainly by
Pravda , [4] and to re-establish the Social-Democratic Party
organisations of the working class, on the basis of a decisive
organisational break with the social-chauvinists. Temporary agreements are
possible only with those Social-Democrats who stand for a decisive
organisational rupture with the Organising Committee, Nasha Zarya
and the Bund.

---
Notes:
[1]
See pp. 25–34 of this volume.— Ed .

[2]
See pp. 34 of this volume.— Ed .

[3]
The reference is to the Conference of the R.S.D.L.P. groups abroad, held in
Berne on February 27-March 4, 1915. Convened on Lenin’s initiative, it
was in fact a general conference of the Party, since neither a party
congress nor an all-Russia conference could be convened during the war.

The Conference was attended by representatives of the
R.S.D.L.P. Central Committee, the R.S.D.L.P. Central Organ,
Sotsial-Demokrat , and delegates from R.S.D.L.P. (Bolshevik) groups
in Paris, Zurich, Geneva, Berne, Lausanne and from the Baugy group. Lenin
was delegated by the Central Committee and the Central Organ, directed the
work of the Conference, and made a report on the main item on the agenda,
“The War and the Tasks of the Party". The Conference adopted
resolutions on war as drafted by Lenin.

[4]
Pravda —a legal Bolshevik daily published in St. Petersburg.
Founded in April 1912, on the initiative of the St. Petersburg
workers.

Pravda was a popular working-class newspaper, published with money collected by the workers themselves. A wide circle of
worker correspondents and worker-publicists formed around the
newspaper. Over eleven thousand correspondence items from workers were
published in a single year. Pravda had an average daily circulation
of 40,000, with some issues running into 60,000 copies.

Lenin directed Pravda from abroad, where he was living. He wrote for the paper almost daily, gave instructions to the
editorial board, and rallied the Party’s best literary forces around
the newspaper.

Pravda was constantly persecuted by the police. During its first year of existence it was confiscated forty-one
times, and thirty-six legal actions were brought against its editors, who
served prison sentences totalling forty-seven and a half months. In the
course of twenty-seven months Pravda was banned eight times by the
tsarist government, but reissued under the new names of Rabochaya Pravda , Severnaya Pravda , Pravda Truda , Za Pravdu , Proletarskaya Pravda , Put Pravdy ,
Rabochy , and Trudovaya Pravda. The paper was closed down
on July 8 (21), 1914, on the eve of World War I.

Publication was not resumed until after the February
Revolution. Beginning from March 5 (18), 1917, Pravda appeared as
the Central Organ of the R.S.D.L.P. Lenin joined the editorial board on
April 5 (18), on his return from abroad, and took over the paper’s
management. On July 5 (18), 1917, the Pravda editorial office was
raided by military cadets and Cossacks. In July-October 1817 Pravda
frequently changed its name as a result of persecution by the Provisional
Government. It appeared successively under the names of Listok Pravdy , Proletary , Rabochy , and Rabochy Put.
On October 27 (November 9) the newspaper began to appear under its former
name— Pravda.