# The Slogan of Marxists – the Slogan of Revolutionary Social Democracy
Source: PSS, Volume 26

The war has undoubtedly given rise to the most acute crisis and intensified the suffering of the masses to an unimaginable degree. The reactionary nature of this war, the brazen lies with which the bourgeoisie of all nations cloaks its predatory aims under the guise of “national” ideology—these factors, set against the backdrop of an objectively revolutionary situation, inevitably stir up revolutionary sentiments among the masses. It is our duty to help these sentiments come to conscious awareness, to deepen them, and to give them clear form. Only the slogan of transforming the imperialist war into a civil war correctly expresses this task—and any consistent class struggle waged during wartime, any earnestly pursued tactic of “mass action,” will inevitably lead toward this goal. We cannot know whether, in connection with the First or Second Imperialist War of the Great Powers, a powerful revolutionary movement will erupt during the war itself or in its aftermath; but in any case, it is our unconditional duty to work systematically and steadfastly precisely in this direction.

The Basel Manifesto explicitly draws upon the example of the Paris Commune—that is, the transformation of wars waged by governments into civil wars. Half a century ago, the proletariat was far too weak; the objective conditions for socialism had not yet ripened, and there could be no convergence or mutual reinforcement of revolutionary movements across all warring nations. The tendency among some Parisian workers to embrace “national ideology” (the tradition of 1792) was a petty-bourgeois weakness on their part—a weakness that Marx rightly identified at the time and which proved to be one of the chief causes of the Commune’s collapse. Half a century later, those very conditions that had weakened the revolution of that era had vanished; and today, it is unforgivable for a socialist to acquiesce in abandoning activity precisely in the spirit of the Paris Commune.