GERMAN SOCIAL DEMOCRACY AND LAW
NATIONS AND SELF-DETERMINATION *
[1916. Zurich]
German Social Democracy was the strongest and most influential party within the Second International. Consequently, on the one hand, it bears the greatest responsibility for the International’s collapse; on the other hand, its example and its experience are of paramount importance for understanding the causes of that collapse and for analyzing the measures, means, and paths of struggle against the opportunism that had strangled this very party.
The opportunism that suffocated the German Social Democratic Party—transforming it into a national‑liberal workers’ party—culminated in the form of social‑chauvinism during the war of 1914–1915. **
* Lenin’s heading. Ed.
** The manuscript breaks off here. Ed.
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