NOTE ON THE DEFEAT OF ONE’S OWN COUNTRY IN AN IMPERIALIST WAR
Notes: On the defeat of one’s own country in an imperialist war
1. Axelrod—first approach (concerning defeat, but not the underlying causes)
2. Axelrod—second approach
»
(against).
3. The bourgeoisie and its
revolutions j 1870: the republican opposition
^
^ 1905: Russia ί
4. For any government—and for all governments—to speak of “defeat” is either absurd or a prelude to civil war.
5*. But what about reaching an agreement among all nations? Should we simply wait?
6. Russia: the bourgeois revolution
national question
7. Russia’s defeat—German and Austrian “shovinism.”
8. “Neither victory nor defeat”? = Status quo, perhaps…
9. Hochland** on social democracy.
10. “The chief enemy lies within one’s own country.”
11. A loophole for shovinism = a renunciation of “defeat”........
12. Defeat and the suffering of the people__ (social democracy) . . .
13. “Liberation” from colonies—and from oppressed nations—is a boon for revolutionaries. (An imperialist war is, after all, a struggle over the division of colonies and over great-power privileges.)
14. “The defense of great-power privileges”?
15. Three lines of hatred.
Yet another of the sophisms peddled, incidentally, by Axelrod and others: the so‑called “internationalist” tactic, as if,
20407
In the manuscript, point 5 was written after point 6. Ed.
“Hochland” was a “Catholic aristocratic organ of Austro–Hungarian clerical circles” [see Lenin Collection XXVII, p. 268]. Ed.
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note, on the defeat of one’s own country

It has yet to be fully elaborated, fully discussed; it is still only taking shape—too early to draw definitive conclusions, and so forth. There is no such thing as a distinct “internationalist” tactic, we might add in response; in fact, such a tactic can exist in no other form than revolutionary tactics—namely, the propaganda, preparation, and support of revolutionary action*.
* The final paragraph was crossed out by Lenin. In his article “The Collapse of the Second International,” written in the summer of 1915 (Works, Volume XVIII, p. 243), Lenin sharply criticized this sophism of Axelrod. Ed.


“VORWÄRTS” 15 III. ΙΟ Ιβ
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Vorwärts] 15. III. 1916.
A major note in response to the “International Correspondence,” which had cited the speech of Br. Glasier (at the congress of the Independent Labour Party) concerning legal means of struggle. Vorwärts commented on this as follows:
j
“Even the most radical of our comrades would hardly have dared to dream that the party as a whole might one day resort to illegal means of opposition. Yet many, month after month, kept waiting for the moment when they would finally resolve themselves to pursue an independent policy—one that would inevitably place them in opposition to the government.”
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