Recently completed its work the conference of foreign sections of the RSDLP, which took place in Switzerland. Apart from the discussion of purely foreign matters, on which we shall endeavor to report, if only briefly, in the following issues of TsO, the conference drew up resolutions on an important and pressing question concerning war. We are printing these resolutions immediately, in the hope that they will be useful to all s.-d.'s seriously seeking a way out toward living work from the present chaos of opinions, which amounts essentially to verbal recognition of internationalism and a striving in practice, at any cost, in one way or another, to come to terms with social-chauvinism. We add that on the question of the slogan "United States of Europe" the discussion took on a one-sidedly political character, and it was decided to postpone the question until the economic aspects of the matter could be discussed in print.

## Resolutions of the Conference

Standing on the basis of the CC Manifesto, printed in No. 33[21], the conference, for the sake of greater systematic propaganda, establishes the following propositions:

### On the Character of War

The present war has an imperialist character. This war has been created by the conditions of an epoch when capitalism has reached its highest stage of development; when the export of capital, and not merely the export of commodities, has become of paramount importance; when the cartelization of production and the internationalization of economic life have attained considerable dimensions; when colonial policy has led to the division of almost the entire globe; — when the productive forces of world capitalism have outgrown the narrow framework of national-state divisions; — when the objective conditions for the realization of socialism have fully matured.

### On the Slogan of "Defence of the Fatherland"

The real essence of the present war lies in the struggle between England, France, and Germany for the partition of colonies and for the plunder of competing countries, and in the striving of tsarism and the ruling classes of Russia to seize Persia, Mongolia, Asiatic Turkey, Constantinople, Galicia, etc. The national element in the Austro-Serbian war has an entirely subordinate significance, in no way changing the general imperialist character of the war.

The entire economic and diplomatic history of recent decades shows that both groups of warring nations systematically prepared precisely such a war. The question of which group struck the first military blow or first declared war has no significance whatsoever in determining the tactics of socialists. Phrases about the defense of the fatherland, about repelling foreign invasion, about a defensive war, etc., on both sides are nothing but outright deception of the people.

The truly national wars, which occurred especially during the period 1789–1871, rested on a prolonged process of mass national movements, struggle against absolutism and feudalism, the throwing off of national oppression, and the creation of states on a national basis, as a prerequisite for capitalist development.

The national ideology created by that epoch left deep traces in the mass of the petty bourgeoisie and part of the proletariat. This is now being exploited, in a completely different, imperialist epoch, by the sophists of the bourgeoisie and those who trail behind them — traitors to socialism — in order to split the workers and distract them from their class tasks and from revolutionary struggle against the bourgeoisie.

More than ever before, the words of the Communist Manifesto are now true, that "workers have no fatherland." Only the international struggle of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie can safeguard its conquests and open to the oppressed masses the path to a better future.

### Slogans of Revolutionary Social-Democracy

"The transformation of the present imperialist war into civil war is the only correct proletarian slogan, indicated by the experience of the Commune, outlined in the Basel (1912) resolution, and flowing from all the conditions of imperialist war between highly developed bourgeois countries"[22].

The civil war to which revolutionary social-democracy calls at the present epoch is the struggle of the proletariat, armed, against the bourgeoisie for the expropriation of the class of capitalists in the advanced capitalist countries, for the democratic revolution in Russia (democratic republic, eight-hour working day, confiscation of landowners' lands), — for a republic in backward monarchical countries generally, etc.

The extreme hardships for the masses created by war cannot but give rise to revolutionary sentiments and movements, for the generalization and direction of which the slogan of civil war must serve.

At the present moment the organization of the working class has been severely shattered. But the revolutionary crisis, nevertheless, is ripening. After the war, the ruling classes in all countries will make even greater efforts to thrust back for long decades the liberation movement of the proletariat. The task of revolutionary social-democracy, both in the event of a rapid tempo of revolutionary development and in the event of a protracted character of the crisis, will be — not to abandon lengthy, daily work, not to neglect a single one of the former methods of class struggle. Its task will be to direct both parliamentarism and economic struggle against opportunism, in the spirit of revolutionary struggle of the masses.

As the first steps along the path of transforming the present imperialist war into civil war, one must point to: 1) an absolute refusal to vote for military credits and withdrawal from bourgeois ministries; 2) a complete break with the policy of "national peace" (bloc national, Burgfrieden); 3) the creation of illegal organizations everywhere, where governments and the bourgeoisie, by introducing martial law, are abolishing constitutional freedoms; 4) support for the fraternization of soldiers of warring nations in the trenches and in theaters of war generally; 5) support for all kinds of revolutionary mass uprisings of the proletariat generally.

### Opportunism and the Collapse of the II International

The collapse of the Second International is the collapse of socialist opportunism. The latter grew as a product of the preceding "peaceful" epoch of development of the labor movement. This epoch taught the working class such important means of struggle as the utilization of parliamentarism and all legal possibilities, the creation of mass economic and political organizations, a wide workers' press, etc. On the other hand, this epoch generated the tendency to deny class struggle and to preach social peace, to deny socialist revolution, to deny in principle illegal organizations, to recognize bourgeois patriotism, etc. Certain strata of the working class (the bureaucracy in the labor movement and the labor aristocracy, which received a share of the profits from the exploitation of colonies and from the privileged position of their "fatherland" on the world market), as well as petit-bourgeois fellow-travelers within the socialist parties, became the main social support for these tendencies and the conductors of bourgeois influence on the proletariat.

The pernicious influence of opportunism was manifested with particular clarity in the policy of the majority of the official s.-d. parties of the II International during the war. The voting of credits, entry into ministries, the policy of "civil peace," the refusal of illegal organization at a time when legality has been taken away — this means the disruption of the International's most important decisions and direct betrayal of socialism.

### The III International

The crisis created by war has exposed the real essence of opportunism, revealing it in the role of a direct accomplice of the bourgeoisie against the proletariat. The so-called s.-d. "center," with Kautsky at its head, has in fact completely slid into opportunism, covering it with particularly pernicious hypocritical phrases and with falsification of Marxism in the direction of imperialism. Experience shows that, for example, in Germany only a decisive violation of the will of the party majority at the top made it possible to come forward with a defense of the socialist point of view. It would be a harmful illusion to hope for the restoration of a truly socialist International without a complete organizational break with opportunists.

The RSDLP should support all kinds of international and revolutionary mass uprisings of the proletariat, striving toward the drawing together of all anti-chauvinist elements of the International.

### Pacifism and the Slogan of Peace

One of the forms of deceiving the working class is pacifism and abstract preaching of peace. Under capitalism, and especially at its imperialist stage, wars are inevitable. On the other hand, s.-d.'s cannot deny the positive significance of revolutionary wars, i.e., non-imperialist wars, but such as were waged, for example, from 1789 to 1871 for the purpose of throwing off national oppression and creating from feudally fragmented territories national capitalist states, or which are possible for the protection of the conquests of the proletariat in its victorious struggle against the bourgeoisie.

Propaganda for peace at the present time, not accompanied by appeals for revolutionary action by the masses, is capable only of sowing illusions, corrupting the proletariat by inspiring confidence in the humanitarianism of the bourgeoisie, and making it a plaything in the hands of the secret diplomacy of the warring countries. In particular, it is profoundly mistaken to think that so-called democratic peace is possible without a series of revolutions.

### The Defeat of Tsarist Monarchy

In each country, the struggle against one's own government, which is waging an imperialist war, should not be halted by the possibility that, as a result of revolutionary agitation, this country may suffer defeat. The defeat of the governmental army weakens that government, facilitates the liberation of peoples oppressed by it, and eases the path to civil war against the ruling classes.

In application to Russia, this proposition is particularly true. A Russian victory entails the strengthening of world reaction, the strengthening of reaction within the country, and is accompanied by the complete enslavement of peoples in the territories already conquered. For this reason, the defeat of Russia under all circumstances represents the lesser evil.

### Attitude Toward Other Parties and Groups

The war, by unleashing an orgy of chauvinism, has revealed the submission to it of both the democratic (populist) intelligentsia and the s.-r. party, with complete instability of their oppositional trend in "Mysl'," — and the core nucleus of the liquidators ("Nasha Zarya"), supported by Plekhanov. In fact, on the side of chauvinism stand also the OK, ranging from the disguised support for it by Larin and Martov to the principled defense of patriotic ideas by Axelrod, — and the Bund, in which Germanophile chauvinism predominates{165}. The Brussels (July 3, 1914) bloc has completely disintegrated. And the elements grouping themselves around "Nashe Slovo"{166} waver between platonic sympathy for internationalism and a striving for unity at any cost with "Nasha Zarya" and the OK. In the same way waver the s.-d. fraction of Chkheidze, on the one hand expelling the Plekhanovite, i.e., chauvinist, Mankov, on the other hand, wishing to cover up at any cost the chauvinism of Plekhanov, "Nasha Zarya," Axelrod, the Bund, etc.

The task of the s.-d. workers' party in Russia is the further strengthening of proletarian unity, created in 1912–1914 largely by "Pravda"{167}, the restoration of party s.-d. organizations of the working class on the basis of a decisive organizational break with the social-chauvinists. Temporary agreements are permissible only with those s.-d.'s who stand for a decisive organizational break with the OK, "Nasha Zarya," and the Bund.

Written in February, no later than February 19 (March 4), 1915.

Published on March 29, 1915 in the newspaper "Social-Democrat." No. 40

Printed from the text of the newspaper