German Social-Democracy was the strongest and most influential party of the Second International. Therefore, on the one hand, it bears the greatest responsibility for its collapse, and on the other hand, its example, its experience is of supreme importance for studying the causes of this collapse and for analyzing the measures, means, and methods of struggle against the opportunism that strangled this party.

The opportunism that strangled the S.D. party of Germany, transforming this party into a national-liberal workers' party, took the form of social-chauvinism in the war of 1914–1915.

Written in 1915

First published in 1937 in Lenin Miscellany XXX

Printed from the manuscript