# What Is Social-Chauvinism?
Source: PSS, Volume 26

Social-chauvinism consists in the defense of the “defense of the fatherland” in the current war. From this very notion, it further follows that social-chauvinists renounce class struggle during wartime, vote in favor of war loans, and engage in similar actions. In practice, social-chauvinists pursue an anti-proletarian, bourgeois policy—since what they actually defend is not the “defense of the fatherland” in the sense of combating foreign national oppression, but rather the “right” of certain “great” powers to plunder colonies and oppress other peoples. Social-chauvinists repeat the bourgeois deception of the masses, claiming that the war is being waged in the name of defending the freedom and existence of nations—and in doing so, they side with the bourgeoisie against the proletariat. Social-chauvinists include both those who justify and beautify the governments and bourgeoisie of one of the warring imperialist powers, and those who, like Kautsky, recognize the equal right of socialists in all belligerent nations to “defend the fatherland.” As a defense—in practice—of the privileges, advantages, plunder, and violence perpetrated by “one’s own” (or indeed any) imperialist bourgeoisie, social-chauvinism represents a complete betrayal of all socialist convictions and of the resolution adopted at the International Socialist Congress in Basel.