Notes: Corrections to Kollontai pamphlet, Autumn 1915

Regarding L. Kollontai's pamphlet "Who Needs the War?", Lenin wrote in a letter to A. Shlyapnikov: "Kollontai's pamphlet is good in its conception. But the topic is extremely difficult; to write with such a degree of popularity is extremely difficult. In my opinion, corrections are required. I have already written to her about this, asking for her consent to the corrections. If she gives it, I already have a draft of corrections ready, and then the matter will move quickly." (Cf. //, p. 244). We do not have Lenin's letters to Kollontai on this matter at our disposal. Lenin's remarks and corrections have been preserved among other archive materials for the war years in the form of two separate leaflets. From these notes, it can be judged that Lenin was reviewing the manuscript of Kollontai's pamphlet in the original (the manuscript is not available). In addition to Lenin's notes, there are also minor corrections by Zinoviev, which are not reproduced here.

Almost all of the remarks and corrections of both Lenin and Zinoviev were accepted by Kollontai and included in the text of the pamphlet. Lenin's corrections and his insertions, which were included in the pamphlet, are marked with braces, discrepancies with the text of the pamphlet and other corrections are stipulated in the footnotes. Numbers in square brackets indicate the pages of the pamphlet in the illegal edition 4946 "L.K. Who Needs the War? Publication of the Central Committee of the RSDLP. 1916?". Lenin's insertions are printed here from the manuscript.
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CORRECTIONS TO A.M. KOLLONTAI'S PAMPHLET "WHO NEEDS THE WAR?".
AUTUMN 1915.

WHO NEEDS THE WAR?
"The Hero".
[3]
The war is not over yet and there is no end in sight, and already how many^>* cripples have sprung up in the world:
armless, legless, blind, deaf, mutilated...
For that they are "heroes" – say those who started the European war, who led people against people ^"workers of one country against the brother-worker of another"^. For that they deserved a cross! They will walk with an award!
They will enjoy honor!**

* Original text: "already how many". Ed.
** This, obviously, refers to Lenin's remark: "get rid of honor". Ed.

CORRECTIONS TO THE PAMPHLET "WHO NEEDS THE WAR?"

But in life—everything is different. The "hero" will return to his homeland, ^[to his native village, or to his city]^,** and he will not believe his eyes: instead of "honor" and joy, new sorrows, sufferings, and disappointments await him. In the village—ruin, hunger...
It is no better for the "hero" if, instead of the village, he returns to his native city...
Where does the working people have the time, leisure to take care of a cripple? Everyone has his own business, his own concern. And the times are tough. Life gets more expensive every day. War!... Children get sick, ^"contagion and epidemics are inseparable from war"^. The wife is torn apart, struggling. She must work for herself and for the breadwinner. And what about the Tsar's pension for the "hero"?
[4]
Is it large? Is it even enough for one boot for the surviving leg?!...
...The state treasury is governed not by those "hero-soldiers" who die by the hundreds of thousands, millions in the war,***** but ^"all the same"^ gentlemen: landlords, factory owners, officials—the Tsar's servants.
..."Peaceful" times will come. The peoples will live their former busy, bustling life. What will happen then to the "heroes"?
Crippled colonels and generals will ride around in their automobiles^>; they took care of themselves during the war, grabbed money, stuffed their pockets with soldiers' rations... And what about the hero-soldiers, crippled with crosses? What will be their fate?
Surely they will not have to go to the porch, beg with the beggars?...
The fate of a hero, a savior of the fatherland, will not be sweet, it will not be joyful, it will be rightless, even if he is covered with ten crosses...
Until the people themselves stand up for the "heroes", until the people take power into their own hands, until the people themselves begin to manage the treasury, ^"until then, the cripple-heroes will not be able to improve their lives"^.

* Lenin proposed replacing this phrase with the following: "But in life it will be quite different." Ed.
** In Lenin's remarks, this phrase is given in the following version: "village or to his city, and to his eyes". Ed.
*** This, obviously, refers to Lenin's remark: "get rid of in the village". Ed.
**** This, obviously, refers to Lenin's remark: "get rid of himself". Ed.
***** Original text: "for the fatherland". Ed.

LENIN'S MISCELLANY
What did they fight for?
[5]...
The capitalist newspapers, in their millions of publications, spread lies about the war, the governments introduced military censorship and did not allow a word of truth to be printed, the best friends of the working class were thrown into prisons. The people were deceived, as^> the Russian soldiers were deceived when they claimed to have gone to Galicia for "land"...
[6]...But just look—something strange is happening: the peoples lived peacefully, the Kaiser was friends with the Tsar, they visited each other. ^"Capitalists from different countries jointly set up factories and trading companies, jointly robbed colonies in Asia and Africa, profited from the construction of cannons and battleships. And suddenly all the Tsars and all the capitalists of different countries were seized by a supposedly noble passion"^: let's go "liberate" the neighboring country! Let us plant rights and justice, equality and prosperity in the neighbors!
They went: the Germans to save Russia from Tsarist oppression, and the French to liberate the Germans from the power of the Kaiser...
But, as you look closer, you see—so far the Kaisers and Tsars are all whole, unharmed, in their places, and their power has not been shaken. ^"The capitalists profited from the war, 'earned' 20-30 kopecks on a ruble of supplies to the army, and these supplies amount to hundreds and thousands of millions of rubles."^> And hundreds of thousands, millions of those very citizens, about whom the "great powers" suddenly fussed, strewed their own and foreign lands with their bones. Is the "liberation" of a foreign people the cause of the war? Who still believes these fables?
Let's take another example: the English apparently only got involved in the war in order to stand up for Belgium on the one hand, and to defeat, destroy the German "militarism" on the other...
[7] Now the English millionaires and robbers have already managed to break the resistance and begin to introduce compulsory military service.
^"Again it turns out to be untrue"^: the English government decided to liberate a foreign country from the evil of "militarism", and impose the same evil on its own people! ** But that's not all. The English government liked the example of Germany so much that, following

* Original text: "as if". Ed.
** This, obviously, refers to the following remark by Lenin: "get rid of 'But let's figure it out'". Ed.

CORRECTIONS TO THE PAMPHLET "WHO NEEDS THE WAR?"

other countries, it decided to introduce the “military system” into the workshops as well: to mobilize workers, subordinate them to the military authorities, take away their right to strike, to defend their interests, to enslave them to the state.... <^And this real “military slavery” of workers has been introduced, besides England, in all the warring countries, in France, and in Germany, and in Russia. Work for a pittance, endure all kinds of oppression and abuse, and if not – to the Front, under the bullets of the “enemies”^>..,.
And it turns out upon verification: the very same reason, that “evil,” because of which they went to war against a neighboring power, this “evil” is introduced and strengthened in their own country!...
Who is the culprit of the war?
18] ... But, who is the culprit?
Ask a Russian, he will say: Germany! It was the first to declare war, so it is the instigator. Ask a German, he will say: that is not true! a lie! we Germans did not want war, we dragged out negotiations. But the Russian government was the first to declare mobilization. So – Russia is the instigator!... Not true, the “allies” of Russia shout, the Russian government declared mobilization in response to the ultimatum, to the demand sent to Serbia by the Austrian government. Austria is the instigator!
And Austria points to Russia and to England, standing behind Russia. But take and read all these orange, white, red, blue, gray, yellow government books about the war, where letters, telegrams, government “notes” (demands) are collected, <^recall how in the last decades the warring great powers competed with each other in the plunder of China, Persia, Turkey, the lands of Africa, and so on.,—and it will become clear to us^> one thing: for many months, for years before the war, the governments of all countries schemed with each other, conducted diplomatic negotiations, and secretly prepared for war...
The Fatherland is in danger!
The “Great” powers, which are at war with each other, each oppresses a whole series of peoples and nations. Russia – Jews,*
*
Apparently, this refers to Lenin's remark: “page 14, line 8–7 from bottom to throw out: ‘Try to figure it out! They blame each other’”. – Ed.

Ukrainians, Poles, Finns and many others, Germany – Poles, Danes, and so on. England and France – tens and hundreds of millions in the colonies. The war is not being waged for the freedom of peoples, not for the freedom and right to one's native language, not for the integrity of institutions useful to the working class. No. The war is being waged for the "right" of the great powers to oppress as many foreign peoples as possible, to plunder as many colonies as possible. The war is being waged by predators over the division of loot^>....
[12] <^There was a time when, defending the “fatherland,” workers and peasants defended their native language from foreign oppression, defended their freedom from serf owners and tsars, defended the republic from the conspiracies of monarchs. But now the capitalist class has seized all the wealth and all the power even in the freest countries [not to mention Russia,] and in Russia [the first place among the oppressing classes is occupied by] the noble landlords-serf owners together with the capitalists oppress the people. The capitalists of the whole world are now united in unions that plunder and oppress the workers of different countries. The capitalists [incite] incite the workers of one country against the workers of another, in order to strengthen their power over the workers of the whole world. The capitalists wage war for the division of loot and for weakening the workers by splitting them. Therefore, those who speak of defending freedom and the fatherland in the present war are lying. To defend freedom and right, to defend the cause of the working class in this war, there is only one path: an agreement between the workers of all countries and their common struggle against the capitalists, the struggle for a socialist society ^>.
"If we get beaten, it will be worse."
"The German is a beast."
[14]!... They say: "the German is an enemy, the German is a beast"... But let those who say so remember: when has the German shown himself as a beast in peacetime? A person is a person, one is kinder, another is more evil, one is more honest, another is more dishonest... There science is higher than ours, learning, knowledge is more valued. There, life is better arranged. There is something for a Russian to learn from the Germans!
<^From Russia, hundreds of thousands of workers went to work in Germany every year. They saw that in Germany wages are higher, the people are wealthier, more educated, newspapers are freely published, unions are freely organized not only by capitalists, but also by peasants and workers.

ADDITIONS TO THE BROCHURE "WHO NEEDS THE WAR?"

The cause of the war.
15]...What caused it? What are the reasons?
There are different causes of wars; once they fought for land, they fought for the freedom of their region. But the current war has its own reason: this war was born – from capitalism.* Capitalist
economy is called such an economy, when capitals, factories, lands are divided between a relatively small group of people in the country, and others have only working hands to feed themselves, which they sell to the owner—the capitalist, the factory owner, the landlord-owner...
The large capitalist powers, those that are now at war with each other, all equally need the world trade market, colonies. And each power only thinks about how to conquer for itself, <[whether through diplomatic deception and all sorts of bribery of governments and capitalists in weak and dependent countries, or with weapons^]> in hand... colonies and markets of other countries.**
Because of colonies, because of the dominance of powers over the world market, disputes flare up between modern large states...
[16 -17 ... The dispute between the capitalist states is not waged for the sake of the people, but because of the benefits of the capitalists. It is they, the capitalist owners, who push the states onto the path of so-called colonial and "imperialist" policy...
*
This refers to the following remark by Lenin: "throw out the entire note, except for its first phrase, which should be inserted into the text after the word: 'capitalism'." – Ed.
**
The original text: "And each power only thinks about how to conquer for itself by peaceful trade competition or with weapons in hand—colonies and markets of other countries." – Ed.