V. I. Lenin

Source: ru:PSS/v49;es:MT
Translated: machine translation (DeepSeek) from the Russian; AI-translated.

Dear Friend! I am sending you the clippings I took from Radek (only until Saturday: return them to me immediately after the lecture).

Pay attention to that paragraph of the International’s resolution which speaks against pacifism (against “exhortation”).

The Hague Conference and similar pacifist declarations and undertakings of the governments and the bourgeoisie are prompted by

(1) hypocrisy;

(2) deception of the people;

(3) the trend of bourgeois pacifism, which has “big” names and dreams of peace without social revolution. This trend has a vast literature (gentlemanly, not for the people);

(4) calculation: it is sometimes advantageous for one power or another to “appear” peaceful, to gain time, etc.

This in general. Concretely: each particular case, each power, must be studied.

I have not got the figures you asked for.
(The addresses have been sent: if a recommendation is needed, Abramovich and his friends can best give it.)
The crux of the question of pacifism (a question of extreme importance for Switzerland) is the idea that war is not connected with capitalism, that it is not a continuation of the policy of peace-time. This is theoretically false; practically it amounts to evading social revolution.

In great haste! Greetings! Yours, Lenin

1917

to Clarens (Switzerland)

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Written between January 22 and 30

Sent from Zurich

First published in 1949

in the magazine “Bolshevik” No. 1

Printed from the manuscript