V. I.
Lenin

The question of peace as an immediate programme of action for
the socialists, and in this connection the question of peace terms,
presents a universal interest. One can only be grateful to Berner Tagwacht for its efforts to pose the question, not from the usual
petty-bourgeois national angle, but from one that is genuinely proletarian
and internationalist. The editorial note in No. 73 (“ Friedenssehnsucht ”), that the German
Social-Democrats who wish for peace must break (sich lossagen with the
policies of the Junker government, was excellent. Also excellent was
Comrade
A. P.’s [1] attack (Nos. 73 and 75) on the “pompous
airs of impotent phrase-mongers” (Wichtigtuerei macht loser Schönredner ), who are vainly attempting to solve the peace
question from the petty-bourgeois point of view.

Let us see how this question should be posed by socialists.

The peace slogan can be advanced either in connection with definite peace
terms, or without any conditions at all, as a struggle, not for a definite
kind of peace, but for peace in general (Frieden ohne weiters). In
the latter case, we obviously have a slogan that is not only non-socialist
but entirely devoid of meaning and content. Most people are definitely in
favour of peace in general, including even Kitchener, Joffre, Hindenburg,
and Nicholas the Bloodstained, for each of them wants an end to the
war. The trouble is that every one of them advances peace terms that are
imperialist (i.e., predatory and oppressive, towards other peoples), and to
the advantage of his “own” nation. Slogans must be brought
forward so as to enable the masses, through propaganda and agitation, to see
the unbridgeable distinction between socialism and capitalism (imperialism),
and not

for the purpose of reconciling two hostile classes and two
hostile political lines, with the aid of a formula that “unites”
the most different things.

To continue: can the socialists of different countries be united on
definite terms of peace? If so, such terms must undoubtedly include
the recognition of the right to selfdetermination for all nations, and also
renunciation of all “annexations”, i.e., infringements of that
right. If, however, that right is recognised only for some nations,
then you are defending the privileges of certain nations, i.e., you
are a nationalist and imperialist, not a socialist. If, however, that right
is recognised for all nations, then you cannot single out Belgium
alone, for instance; you must take all the oppressed peoples, both in Europe
(the Irish in Britain, the Italians in Nice, the Danes in Germany,
fifty-seven per cent of Russia’s population, etc.) and outside of Europe, i.e., all colonies. Comrade A. P. has done well to remind us
of them. Britain, France, and Germany have a total population of some one
hundred and fifty million, whereas the populations they oppress in the
colonies number over four hundred million! The essence of the imperialist
war, i.e., a war waged for the interests of the capitalists, consists, not
only in the war being waged with the aim of oppressing new nations, of
carving up the colonies, but also in its being waged primarily by the
advanced nations, which oppress a number of other peoples comprising the
majority of the earth’s population.

The German Social-Democrats, who justify the seizure of Belgium or
reconcile themselves to it, are actually imperialists and nationalists, not
Social-Democrats, since they defend the “right” of the German
bourgeoisie (partly also of the German workers) to oppress the Belgians, the
Alsatians, the Danes, the Poles, the Negroes in Africa, etc. They are not
socialists, but menials to the German bourgeoisie, whom they are
aiding to rob other nations. The Belgian socialists who demand the
liberation and indemnification of Belgium alone are also actually
defending a demand of the Belgian bourgeoisie, who would go on plundering
the 15,000,000 Congolese population and obtaining concessions and privileges
in other countries. The Belgian bourgeoisie’s foreign investments
amount to something like three thousand million francs. Safeguarding the
profits from these investments by using every kind of fraud and machinations
is the real “national interest” of “gallant
Belgium”. The same applies in a still greater degree to Russia,
Britain, France and Japan.

It follows that if the demand for the freedom of nations is not to be a
false phrase covering up the imperialism and the nationalism of certain individual countries, it must be extended to all peoples and to all
colonies. Such a demand, however, is obviously meaningless unless
it is accompanied by a series of revolutions in all the advanced
countries. Moreover, it cannot be accomplished without a successful
socialist revolution.

Should this be taken to mean that socialists can remain indifferent to
the peace demand that is coming from ever greater masses of the people? By
no means. The slogans of the workers’ class-conscious vanguard are one
thing, while the spontaneous demands of the masses are something quite
different. The yearning for peace is one of the most important symptoms
revealing the beginnings of disappointment in the bourgeois lie
about a war of “liberation”, the “defence of the fatherland”, and similar falsehoods that the class of capitalists
beguiles the mob with. This symptom should attract the closest attention
from socialists. All efforts must be bent towards utilising the
masses’ desire for peace. But how is it to be utilised? To recognise
the peace slogan and repeat it would mean encouraging “pompous airs of impotent [and frequently what is worse: hypocritical]
phrase-mongers”; it would mean deceiving the people with
illusion that the existing governments, the present-day master classes, are
capable-without being “taught” a lesson (or rather without being
eliminated) by a series of revolutions-of granting a peace in any way
satisfactory to democracy and the working class. Nothing is more harmful
than such deception. Nothing throws more dust in the eyes of the workers,
nothing imbues them with a more deceptive idea about the absence of deep contradictions between capitalism and socialism, nothing
embellishes capitalist slavery more than this deception does. No,
we must make use of the desire for peace so as to explain to the masses that
the benefits they expect from peace cannot be obtained without a series of
revolutions.

An end to wars, peace among the nations, the cessation of pillaging and
violence-such is our ideal, but only bourgeois sophists can seduce the
masses with this ideal, if the latter is divorced from a direct and
immediate call for revolutionary action. The ground for such propaganda is
prepared; to practice that propaganda, one need only break with the
opportunists, those allies of the bourgeoisie, who are hampering
revolutionary work both directly (even to the extent of passing information
to the authorities) and indirectly.

The slogan of self-determination of nations should also be advanced in
connection with the imperialist era of capitalism. We do not stand
for the status quo, or for the philistine Utopia of standing aside
in great wars. We stand for a revolutionary struggle against imperialism,
i.e., capitalism. Imperialism consists in a striving of nations that oppress
a number of other nations to extend and increase that oppression and to
repartition the colonies. That is why the question of self-determination of
nations today hinges on the conduct of socialists of the
oppressor nations. A socialist of any of the oppressor nations (Britain. France, Germany, Japan, Russia, the United States of
America, etc.) who does not recognise and does not struggle for the right of
oppressed nations to self-determination (i.e., the right to secession) is in
reality a chauvinist, not a socialist.

Only this point of view can lead to a sincere and consistent struggle
against imperialism, to a proletarian, not a philistine approach (today) to
the national question. Only this point of view can load to a consistent
application of the principle of combating any form of the oppression of
nations; it removes mistrust among the proletarians of the oppressor and
oppressed nations, makes for a united international struggle for the
socialist revolution (i.e., for the only accomplishable regime of complete
national equality), as distinct from the philistine Utopia of freedom for
all small states in general, under capitalism.

This is the point of view adopted by our Party, i.e., by those
Social-Democrats of Russia who have rallied around the Central
Committee. This was the point of view adopted by Marx when he taught the
proletariat that “no nation can he free if it oppresses other
nations”. It was from this point of view that Marx demanded the
separation of Ireland from

Britain, this in the interests of the freedom movement, not only of the Irish, but especially of the British
workers.

If the socialists of Britain do not recognise and uphold Ireland’s
right to secession, if the French do not do the same for Italian Nice, the
Germans for Alsace-Lorraine, Danish Schleswig, and Poland, the Russians for
Poland, Finland, the Ukraine, etc., and the Poles for the Ukraine-if all the
socialists of the “Great” Powers, i.e., the great robber powers,
do not uphold that right in respect of the colonies, it is solely because
they are in fact imperialists, not socialists. It is ridiculous to cherish
illusions that people who do not fight for “the right to
self-determination” of the oppressed nations, while they themselves
belong to the oppressor nations, are capable of practising socialist
policies.

Instead of leaving it to the hypocritical phrase-mongers to deceive the
people by phrases and promises concerning the possibility of a democratic
peace, socialists must explain to the masses the impossibility of anything
resembling a democratic peace, unless there are a series of revolutions and
unless a revolutionary struggle is waged in every country against the
respective government. Instead of allowing the bourgeois
politicians to deceive the peoples with talk about the freedom of nations,
socialists must explain to the masses in the oppressor nations that
they cannot hope for their liberation, as long as they help oppress other
nations, and do not recognise and uphold the right of those nations to
self-determination, i.e., the freedom to secede. That is the socialist, as
distinct from the imperialist, policy to be applied to all countries, on the
question of peace and the national question. True, this line is in most
cases incompatible with the laws punishing high treason-but so is the Basle
resolution, which has been so shamefully betrayed by almost all the
socialists of the oppressor nations.

The choice is between socialism and submission to the laws of Joffre and
Hindenburg, between revolutionary struggle and servility to
imperialism. There is no middle course. The greatest harm is caused to the
proletariat by the hypocritical (or obtuse) authors of the
“middle-course” policy.

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Notes:
[1]
A. P.— Anton Pannekoek , the Dutch Left socialist