The Proletariat's Stance on the Question of Peace

Draft Theses

I

The present war is the result of imperialist contradictions engendered by bourgeois property relations; its aim is the rearrangement of the power relation among capitalist classes on the world market in accordance with the military successes achieved in the war. Since the aim of this war is not the destruction of capitalist commodity production, which gave rise to it, it is likewise incapable of eliminating the causes of future wars. It leaves old problems unsolved, entangles them further still, and creates new contradictions which, on the basis of unhindered imperialist development, provoke, alongside an intensification of economic and militarist oppression, new conflicts, and thereby the danger of further military clashes.

Therefore, when bourgeois governments and their agents claim that the aim of the war is the establishment of permanent peace, they are either lying or ignoring the conditions necessary for achieving such an aim. Just as annexations—that is, the oppression of foreign peoples—cannot be a means which would ensure peaceful development of humanity, so too is it impossible to establish permanent peace through such, admittedly well-intentioned, but historically contradictory demands (to the development of capitalism) as the limitation of armaments, the introduction of compulsory arbitration courts, the democratization of foreign policy, and so forth.

On the basis of [capitalist] class society these demands remain utopia. The limitation of armaments, which in itself is merely a means to establish an armistice among imperialist states, can neither eliminate nor mitigate the causes of war, not to mention that in the epoch of imperialism there exists no universally binding standard on the basis of which armaments could be limited. Compulsory arbitration courts presuppose the existence of universally recognized law, which can be created neither by means of the brutal force of imperialist war, nor realized in such a class society whose legal consciousness at each given stage flows from the material interests of its ruling class. The democratization of foreign policy has as its presupposition, alongside political democracy, also social democracy in the internal life of states, the creation of which, in turn, is impossible so long as the capitalist form of property exists, and thereby also the exploitation of human being by human being.

The very same presuppositions are necessary for the so-called right of nations to self-determination. So long as peoples in their internal economic, political and social relations are subjected to the rule of propertied classes, who dispose of all economic and state means of power by means of which they oppress and exploit their own fellow countrymen, the people cannot determine themselves.

Proceeding from these considerations, the proletariat must, just as decisively as it rejects the imperialist war, reject also the utopian demands of bourgeois pacifists and embourgeoisified socialists, who are preparing to awaken new illusions in place of old ones and to force the proletariat to serve these illusions, which ultimately serve only confusion, the arousal and kindling of chauvinism, militarist delirium, and the policy of war to the bitter end.

II

If it is impossible to establish permanent peace on the basis of capitalist society, then its presuppositions are created in the struggle for socialism. Socialism, by destroying capitalist private property, simultaneously eliminates, along with the exploitation of the popular masses by propertied classes, and thereby with national oppression, also the causes of war. Therefore, the struggle for permanent peace can consist only in the struggle for the realization of socialism. Every proletarian action which represents a renunciation of class struggle and subordinates the aims of the proletariat to the aims of bourgeois classes and their governments, insofar as it solidarizes itself with the national class of exploiters, hinders the creation of conditions for permanent peace. Such actions merely entrust capitalist classes and bourgeois governments with a task which they cannot fulfill; moreover, they senselessly throw the best forces of the working class into the slaughter and thereby condemn to destruction and annihilation the most energetic and capable part of the working class, which is called upon in the first place to wage the struggle for socialism both during the war and in the subsequent period of peace that follows it.

Therefore, the sole solution possible from the standpoint of proletarian interests, as compared with bourgeois aims for peace, is the call for an immediate cessation of hostilities and the prompt beginning of peace negotiations, independently of the military and strategic position at the given stage.

III

Only insofar as this call finds an echo in the ranks of the international proletariat and leads to energetic actions in the spirit of class struggle with the final aim of the overthrow of capitalist class rule will the working class succeed in exercising influence on the character of the coming peace. Any other position excludes the influence of the proletariat on the character of peace and leaves the determination of its conditions to the arbitrary will of governments, diplomacy, and ruling classes.

Waging revolutionary mass struggle for the realization of the final aims of socialism, and thereby for the liberation of humanity from the scourge of militarism and war, the proletariat must simultaneously oppose all annexationist ambitions of the warring states. The proletariat must wage the struggle against annexations not because it views the (political) map of the world as it existed before the war as some immovable magnitude, not because it considers unnecessary and impossible the future formation of new state boundaries. Socialism itself strives toward the elimination of all national oppression through the economic and political unification of peoples on a democratic basis, which cannot be realized within the framework of capitalist state boundaries. But it is precisely annexations, in whatever form they appear, that make the achievement of this aim difficult, because the violent dismemberment of nations, their arbitrary division and incorporation into foreign states, worsen the conditions of proletarian class struggle.

Just as with annexations, the demand for war contributions is incompatible with the interests of the proletariat. Just as ruling classes in each country endeavor to shift the expenses of conducting war onto the shoulders of the working class, so too will the burden of paying war contributions ultimately have to be borne by the proletariat of the respective country. Such a shifting of the burden will also cause harm to the working class of the victorious country, inasmuch as the worsening of the economic and social situation of the proletariat of one country exerts a reciprocal effect on the proletariat of another country and thereby complicates the conditions of international class struggle.

Neither annexations nor contributions, but rather the common liberation from the burden of war through the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat against the ruling classes in each country—such is the slogan of socialist workers in their action for the immediate establishment of peace.