V. I.

Lenin

Greetings to the Italian Socialist Party Congress [6]

Dear Comrades, On behalf of the Central Committee of the Russian Social-Democratic
Labour Party, I convey greetings to the Congress of the Italian Socialist
Party and wish it every success in its work.

Yours is the first socialist party to do what all socialist
parties of the warring countries could and should have done, had they not
betrayed socialism and sided with the bourgeoisie, namely: convene a
congress or conference in a free country, beyond the reach of their
“native” military censorship and military authorities, in a country where
the socialist attitude towards the war can be freely ex pressed and
discussed. Permit me to express the hope that your Congress—free of
patriotic muzzles—will accomplish as much or even more than your party
has already accomplished in the struggle against the betrayal of socialism
by nearly all the European socialist parties.

Representatives of our two parties worked together at Zimmerwald and
Kienthal. The only serious difference dividing us was over the
inevitability and necessity of breaking with the social—chauvinists,
i.e., socialists in words and chauvinists in deeds, namely, with all those
who advocate or seek to justify “defence of the fatherland” in the
present imperialist war, who directly or indirectly support their “own”
government and their “own” bourgeoisie in this reactionary, predatory war
for division of colonies and world domination. We believe that a break with
the social-chauvinists is historically inevitable and necessary if the
proletariat’s revolutionary struggle for socialism is to be sincere, and not confined merely to verbal protests. Your party’s representatives
believed there was still hope that proletarian victory over the
social—chauvinists (“ sciovinisti ”) could be achieved without a break.

We would like to hope that developments in world socialism will
increasingly remove the grounds for this difference between us.

On the one hand, the workers’ movement is increasingly developing
towards a factual division into adherents and opponents of
“defence of the fatherland” in this imperialist war and in subsequent
imperialist wars, which are being prepared and instigated by the entire
policy of all the modern so-called “Great” Powers. This applies to the
whole world, not only to the belligerent countries, but also to the chief
neutral powers—the United States of America, for instance, the foremost
capitalist country.

On the other hand, we read with especial pleasure an editorial in a
recent issue of Avanti! , the Central Organ of the Socialist Party,
“La chiusura della conferenza socialista tedesca”. [1]

This Conference of the German Socialist Party was one of the most
outstanding events in world socialism in recent months, for at it there
clashed three principal trends not only in German, but in-world
socialism: first, avowed social-chauvinism represented by Legien, David and
Co. in Germany, Plekhanov, Potresov, Chkhenkeli in Russia, Renaudel and
Sembat in France, Bissolati and his party in Italy; second, the
Haase-Kautsky trend which subscribes to the basic idea of
social-chauvinism, namely, “defence of the fatherland” in the present
war, and seeks to reconcile this idea with genuine socialism and
internationalism; and, third, the genuine socialist and internationalist
trend represented by the Internationale group and international
socialists in
Germany. [7]

Evaluating these three trends, Avanti! (No. 269, September 27,
1916) wrote in the above-mentioned editorial:

“... il proletariato tedesco finir‘a indubbiamente per trionfare contro i Legien, gli Ebert ed i David, che hanno preteso di
compromettere la sua azione di classe nei tristi pattegiameni coi
Bethmann-Hollweg e gli altri fautori della guerra. Di questo noi abbiamo la
pi‘u schietta certezza.”

Noi abbiamo la medesima certezza.

“ Piuttosto”—continues Avanti! —“la conferenza dei socialisti tedeschi ci lascia incerti circa l’atteggiamento
prossimo di una parte della opposizione, quella che ebbe per esponente
principale l’Haase”.

“ Il gruppo ‘Internazionale’ con Liebknecht, con Mehring,
con Clara Zetkin, con Rosa Luxemburg—con tutti gli altri ‘sabotatori e
traditori della patria’ è perfettamente a posto.”

...“ Meno conseguente ci ‘e parso Haase ”. [2]

And Avanti! explains what it considers to be the “inconsistency” of Haase and his group, which we in our press call the
Kautsky trend in world socialism, “ essi non accettano le logiche e naturali conseguenze cui sono giunti Liebknecht e compagni ”. [3]

So writes Avanti !

We whole-heartedly welcome these statements of Avanti! We feel
sure that the Vorwärts , Central Organ of the German
Social-Democrats and chief organ of the Kautsky trend, is wrong when it
writes, in its issue of October 7, 1916, in connection with this
Avanti! statement, “ dass der Avanti! über die Parteiverhältnisse und
Parteivorgänge in Deutschland nicht ganz zutreffend informiert ist .” [4]

We feel sure that Avanti! is “ganz zutreffend” [5] informed. That it considers the Haase group wrong and the Liebknecht group
right is no accident. We therefore hope that, by its defence of
Liebknecht’s principles and tactics, the

Italian Socialist Party will occupy an outstanding place in international
socialism.

Our Party finds itself in incomparably more difficult conditions than
the Italian party. Our entire press has been clamped down. But even in
emigration we have been able to assist our comrades’ struggle in
Russia. Two facts prove that our Party’s anti-war struggle in Russia is the
struggle of truly front-rank workers and the masses of workers. Firstly, our Party’s deputies in the Duma—Petrovsky, Shagov,
Badayev, Samoilov and Muranov—elected by the workers of the leading
industrial gubernias, have been exiled to Siberia by the tsarist government
for revolutionary propaganda against the war. [8] Secondly, long after their exile, the front-rank workers in
St. Petersburg belonging to our Party categorically rejected participation
in the war industries committees.

A conference of Entente socialists [9] is being convened in January 1917. We have already had one
experience of participation in such a conference in London. Our
representative was denied the floor the moment he dared tell the truth
about the European socialists’ betrayal. [10] We there fore consider that only the Bissolatis,
Plekhanovs, Sembats and tutti quanti should share in these
conferences. For that reason we do not intend to attend the conference, and
we shall address a letter to the European workers exposing the
social-chauvinists’ deception of the people.

I once again convey greetings to the Congress of the Italian Socialist
Party and best wishes for its success.