Comrades, allow me to preface my analysis of the question of war by recalling two passages from the appeal to all countries published on March 14 by the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies. "The time has come," it said in this appeal, "to begin a decisive struggle against the annexationist strivings of the governments of all countries, the time has come for the peoples to take into their own hands the decision of the question of war and peace." Another passage of the appeal—addressed to the proletarians of the Austro-German coalition—says: "refuse to serve as an instrument of conquest and violence in the hands of kings, landowners and bankers." Here are these two passages, which have been repeated in various formulations in dozens, hundreds, I even think in thousands of resolutions by Russian workers and peasants.

These two passages, in my conviction, show better than anything else the contradictory, irresistibly tangled position into which, thanks to the present policy of the Mensheviks and Populists, the revolutionary workers and peasants have fallen. On the one hand, they support the war; on the other hand, they belong to representatives of classes which have no interest in the annexationist strivings of the governments of all countries, and they cannot help but say this. This psychology and ideology, however confused it may be, lies extraordinarily deep in almost every worker and peasant. It is the consciousness that the war is being waged because of the annexationist strivings of the governments of all countries. But alongside this there is an extremely vague understanding, or even a complete lack of understanding, that the government, whatever its form, expresses the interests of definite classes; that therefore to counterpose government and people, as the first quotation I cited does, is the most enormous theoretical confusion, the most enormous political helplessness, a condemnation of oneself and one's entire policy to the shakiest, most unstable position and conduct. And likewise the concluding words of the second quotation I read—this superb appeal: "refuse to serve as an instrument of conquest and violence in the hands of kings, landowners and bankers"—is splendid, but only if directed at your own as well! For if you, Russian workers and peasants, turn to the workers and peasants of Austria and Germany, whose governments and ruling classes are waging the same brigandish and plundering war as the Russian capitalists, with the help of Nicholas Romanov, as the English and French—if you say: "refuse to serve as an instrument in the hands of your bankers," while you yourselves allow your own bankers into the ministry and seat them with socialist ministers, you turn all your appeals into nothing, you in fact refute your entire policy. In deed, it is as if your excellent strivings or desires never existed, for you are helping Russia conduct the same imperialist war, the same annexationist war. You come into contradiction with the very masses you represent, because those masses will never take the standpoint of the capitalists, openly expressed by Milyukov, Maklakov and others, who say: "there is no more criminal idea than that the war is being waged in the interests of capital."

I do not know whether this idea is criminal. I have no doubt that from the standpoint of those who today semi-exist and tomorrow may not exist at all, this idea is criminal. But it is the only correct one, it alone expresses our understanding of this war, it alone expresses the interests of the oppressed classes as a struggle against the oppressors; and when we say that the war is capitalist, annexationist, one must not harbor illusions: there is not a trace of the notion that crimes of individual persons, of individual kings, could have provoked such a war.

Imperialism is a definite stage in the development of world capital; capitalism, prepared over decades, came down to this: a small group of gigantically wealthy countries—no more than four: England, France, Germany and America—accumulated wealth in such quantities, measured in hundreds of billions, accumulated such power in the hands of major banks and large capitalists—their number is two or half a dozen at most in each of these countries—into such a gigantic force which has seized the whole world, which has literally divided the entire terrestrial globe in the territorial sense, in the sense of colonies. The colonies of these powers have encountered each other in all countries of the globe. These states have divided it between themselves both territorially and economically, for there is not a single piece of land on earth which has not been penetrated by concessions, not been penetrated by the threads of financial capital. Here are the foundations of annexations. Annexations are not an invention; they did not arise because people who were lovers of freedom suddenly transformed themselves into reactionaries. Annexations are nothing other than the political expression and political form of the dominion of gigantic banks, which flowed from capitalism inevitably, through no one's fault, because shares are the foundation of banks, and the accumulation of shares is the foundation of imperialism. And the major banks which dominate the entire world with hundreds of billions of capital and unite entire branches of industry with the syndicates of capitalists and monopolists—that is what imperialism is, which has split the entire world into three groups of gigantically wealthy predators.

At the head of one, the first group, which is closer to us in Europe, stands England; at the head of the other two are Germany and America; all the remaining helpers are forced to aid so long as capitalist relations hold. Therefore, if you clearly picture to yourselves this essence of the matter, which instinctively every oppressed person recognizes, which instinctively every Russian worker and peasant in the vast majority recognize, if you clearly picture it to yourselves, then you will understand how ridiculous are ideas about combating war by means of words, manifestoes, proclamations, socialist conferences. They are ridiculous because no matter how many such declarations you issue, no matter how many political upheavals you carry out—you have overthrown Nicholas Romanov in Russia, you have in some degree become a republic; Russia has taken a gigantic step forward, perhaps has almost caught up with France, which under other conditions took a hundred years for this and remained a capitalist country—the banks remain all-powerful. The capitalists remain. If they were somewhat pushed back, they were also somewhat pushed back in 1905, but did this undermine them? If this is new to Russians, then in Europe every revolution has shown that with every rise of the revolutionary wave workers win a bit more, but the power of the capitalists remains power. The struggle against imperialist war is impossible except as a struggle of revolutionary classes against the ruling classes on a world scale. It is not the landowners in general, although there are landowners in Russia and they play a bigger role in Russia than anywhere else, but it is not the class that created imperialism. It is the class of capitalists, which is headed by the largest financial magnates and banks, and as long as this class—dominant over oppressed proletarians and their allies the poorest peasants—semi-proletarians as they are called in our program—as long as this class has not been overthrown, there is no way out of this war. And to harbor such illusions that you can unite the toilers of all countries through proclamations, appeals to other peoples, is possible only from a limited Russian point of view, unaware of how the Western European press, where workers and peasants have grown accustomed to political upheavals, have seen dozens of them, how it laughs at such phrases and appeals. They do not know that in Russia there has truly risen a mass of workers who absolutely, in their majority, sincerely believe and condemn the annexationist strivings of capitalists of all countries and desire the liberation of peoples from bankers. But they, the Europeans, do not understand why you, having such organizations as no people in the world has—such as Soviets of workers, peasants and soldiers' deputies, which are armed—you send your socialists into the ministry. You are still giving power to these bankers. Abroad you are accused not only of naiveté—that would be nothing—Europeans have forgotten how to understand naiveté in politics, have forgotten that in Russia there are tens of millions of people who for the first time are awakening to life, that in Russia they do not know what the connection of classes with government is, what the connection of government with war is. War is the continuation of bourgeois policy and nothing more. The class which dominates determines policy both in war. War through and through is politics, the continuation of the implementation of those same goals by these classes by other means. Therefore, when you write in your appeals to workers and peasants: "overthrow your bankers,"—every conscious worker in a European country either laughs at you or weeps bitterly and says to himself: "what can we do if there they overthrew a semi-savage idiot and monster of a monarch, such as we got rid of long ago—in this consists all our crime—and now they are supporting Russian bankers with their "almost socialist" ministers?!" The bankers remain in power, conduct foreign policy through imperialist war, fully supporting the treaties that were concluded in Russia by Nicholas the Second. This is especially clear for us. All the foundations of Russian foreign imperialist policy were predetermined not by the present capitalists but by the former government with Nicholas Romanov, whom we overthrew. He concluded these treaties, they remain secret, the capitalists cannot publish them because they are capitalists. But no worker and peasant can understand this confusion, because he says to himself: if we are calling on overthrowing capitalists in other countries, then first of all—away with our bankers! Otherwise no one will believe us and no one will take us seriously; they will say—you are naive Russian savages who write magnificent words but which have no political content, or they will think something even worse, that you are hypocrites. You could encounter such things in the foreign press if it freely passed through the Russian border, and were not detained at Tornio by English and French authorities. From a collection of quotations from foreign newspapers alone you would be convinced what a glaring contradiction you have fallen into, you would be convinced how incredibly ridiculous and erroneous is this idea of combating this war through socialist conferences, through agreements with socialists at congresses. If imperialism were the fault or crime of individual persons, then socialism could remain socialism. Imperialism is the final stage in the development of capitalism, when it has reached the point of dividing the entire world and two gigantic groups have locked in mortal combat. Either serve one or the other, or overthrow both these groups—there is no other path. When you make excuses about not making a separate peace by saying we do not want to serve German imperialism—this is completely correct, that is why we too are against a separate peace. But you are in fact, against your will, continuing to serve Anglo-French imperialism with the same annexationist, plundering strivings which Russian capitalists, with the help of Nicholas Romanov, have put into treaties. We do not know the text of these treaties, but everyone who has followed political literature, everyone who has looked through even one book on economics and diplomacy, knows the content of these treaties. Even Milyukov, as far as I recall, wrote in his books about these treaties and promises, that they will rob Galicia, will rob the Straits, Armenia, will preserve old annexations and will get a heap of others. Everyone knows this, and yet the treaties continue to be hidden, and we are told that if you annul them—this means a rupture with the allies.

On the question of a separate peace I have already said that a separate peace cannot be for us, and according to our party resolution there is not a shadow of doubt that we reject it like any agreement with capitalists. For us a separate peace is an agreement with German brigands, for they plunder just like others. But such a separate peace is an agreement with Russian capital in the Russian Provisional Government. The tsarist treaties remain, they too plunder and strangle other peoples. When people say: "peace without annexations and indemnities," as every Russian worker and peasant should say, because life teaches him this, because he has no interest in bank profits, because he wants to live—I answer them that your leaders of the present Soviet of workers and soldiers' deputies from the Populist and Menshevik parties are confused about this slogan. They said in their "Izvestia" that this means status quo, i.e., the pre-war situation—return to what was before the war. Is that not a capitalist peace? And what a capitalist peace at that! If you advance such a slogan, know that the course of events may bring your parties to power; in a revolution this is possible; you will have to do what you say, and if you now propose peace without annexations, the Germans will accept it and the English will not, because English capitalists have not lost a single inch of land, but have plundered in all corners of the world. The Germans have plundered a great deal, but have also lost much, and not only have lost much but face America, the most gigantic enemy. If you who propose peace without annexations understand it as status quo, you are sliding toward that in which your proposal comes out to a separate peace with capitalists, for if you propose this, then German capitalists, seeing America and Italy before them, with which they previously concluded treaties, will say: "yes, we will accept this peace without annexations. It is not a defeat for us, it is a victory against America and Italy." You objectively slide toward that separate peace with capitalists of which you accuse us, because you do not break with those bankers—as exponents of imperialist dominion throughout the world—whom you and your "socialist" ministers support in the Provisional Government.

By this you create for yourselves that contradictory and unstable position in which the masses do not understand you so. The masses, having no interest in annexations, say: we do not want to war for any capitalists. When we are told that such a policy can be ended by congresses and agreements of socialists of all countries, we say: be imperialism the work of individual criminals—perhaps; but imperialism is the development of world capitalism, with which the workers' movement is connected.

The victory of imperialism is the beginning of the inevitable, unavoidable split of socialists into two camps in all countries. Whoever now continues to speak of socialists as something whole, as something that can be whole, deceives himself and others. The entire course of war, all two and a half years of war, has caused this split—from the time when the Basel Manifesto, which was signed unanimously, said that this war is on the basis of imperialist capitalism. In it, in the Basel Manifesto, there is not one word about "defence of the fatherland." One could not write any other manifesto before the war—just as now no socialist would propose writing a manifesto about "defence of the fatherland" in a war between Japan and America, when it is not one's own skin at stake, not one's own capitalists and not one's own ministers. Write a resolution for international congresses! You know that the war between Japan and America is already prepared, it has been prepared over decades, it is not accidental; tactics do not depend on who fires first. This is absurd. You know perfectly well that Japanese and American capitalism are equally brigandish. About "defence of the fatherland" both sides will speak; this will be either criminal or it will be terrible weakness caused by "defence" of the interests of our capitalist enemies. That is why we say that socialism has split irreparably. Socialists have wholly abandoned socialism—precisely those who have gone over to the side of their government or their bankers, their capitalists, however much they may protest against them, however much they may condemn them. The matter is not in condemnation. But sometimes condemnation of the fact that Germans support their capitalists covers up defence of the same "sin" on the part of the Russians! If you accuse German social-chauvinists, i.e., people who are socialists in words—perhaps many of them are socialists in their hearts—but in fact are chauvinists, in fact defend not the German people but defend dirty, selfish and brigandish German capitalists, then do not defend English and French and Russian capitalists. German social-chauvinists are no worse than those who in our ministry continue the same policy of secret treaties, plunder, and cover this with kind, innocent wishes, in which there is much that is good, from the standpoint of the masses I recognize absolute sincerity, but in which I do not recognize and cannot recognize a single word of political truth. It is only your wish, while war continues to remain just as imperialist and for the same secret treaties! You call upon other peoples to overthrow bankers, but you support your own! Speaking of peace, you have not said what kind of peace. Regarding peace on the basis of status quo, no one has answered us when we pointed out this glaring contradiction. You will not be able to say in your resolution, in which you speak of peace without annexations, that this is not status quo. You cannot say that this is status quo, i.e., a restoration of the pre-war situation. So what then? Take German colonies from England? Try it with peaceful agreements! Everyone will laugh at you. Try taking the plundered Kiao-Chow and Pacific islands from Japan without a revolution!

You are tangled in contradictions without escape. And when we say: "without annexations," we mean that for us this slogan is only a subordinate part of the struggle against worldwide imperialism. We say that we want to liberate all peoples and to begin with our own. You speak of war against annexations and peace without annexations, while in Russia you continue a policy of annexations internally. This is something unheard of. You and your government, your new ministers are in fact continuing a policy of annexations toward Finland and Ukraine. You are nitpicking at the Ukrainian congress, you are forbidding its meetings through your ministers.{108} Is this not annexation? This is a policy that represents an outrage against the rights of nationalities that suffered torments from the tsars because their children want to speak in their native language. This means being afraid of separate republics. From the standpoint of workers and peasants this is not frightening. Let Russia be a union of free republics. To prevent this, the workers and peasants' masses will not wage war. Let every people be freed; first let all the nationalities liberated with which you are making revolution in Russia. Without such a step you condemn yourselves to being "revolutionary democracy" in words while your entire policy in fact is counter-revolutionary.

Your foreign policy is anti-democratic and counter-revolutionary, while revolutionary policy could put you in a position of necessity of revolutionary war. But this is not obligatory. We have dwelt on this point a great deal, and both the speaker and the press have recently given it attention. I should very much like to dwell on this point.

How do we practically envisage a way out of this war? We say: the way out of this war is only through revolution. Support the revolution of the classes oppressed by capitalists, overthrow the capitalist class in your own country and thereby give an example to other countries. Only in this is socialism. Only in this is the struggle against war. Everything else is promises or phrases, or innocent good wishes. Socialism has split in all countries of the world. You continue to be confused, keeping company with those socialists who support their government, and you forget that in England and Germany the real socialists, who express the socialism of the masses, remain isolated and sit in prisons. But they alone express the interests of the proletarian movement. But what if in Russia the oppressed class took power? When we are told: how will you break out alone from the war?—we answer: you cannot break out alone. Every resolution of our party, every speech of our meeting orator says that it would be absurd to break out alone from this war. Hundreds of millions of people, hundreds of billions of capital are tangled up in this war. There is no other way to get out of it except by the transfer of power to the revolutionary class, which is obligated in fact to break—imperialism, i.e., the financial, banking and annexationist threads. Until this is actually done, nothing is done. The upheaval was limited to this: that instead of tsarism and imperialism you have received what is almost an imperialist republic through and through, which even in the person of representatives of revolutionary workers and peasants does not know how to conduct itself democratically with Finland and Ukraine, i.e., does not fear separation.

When they say that we are striving for a separate peace, this is a lie. We say: no separate peace with any capitalists, first of all with Russian ones. The Provisional Government has a separate peace with Russian capitalists. Down with this separate peace! (Applause.) No separate peace with German capitalists do we recognize and into no negotiations shall we enter, but neither any separate peace with English and French imperialists. We are told that to break with them means to enter into agreement with German imperialists. This is false. One must break with them immediately, for this is a union of plunder. They say one cannot publish the treaties because this would be a shaming of all our government, all our policy before the eyes of every worker and every peasant. If these treaties were published and one were to say clearly at meetings to Russian workers and Russian peasants, especially in every remote village: here is what you are now fighting for, because of the Straits, because of preserving Armenia—then everyone would say: such a war we do not want. (Chairman: "Your time is up." Voices: "We request...") Another ten minutes. (Voices: "We request...")

I say that this counterposition is false: "either with English imperialists or with German ones." If peace with Germans, then that means war with English, and vice versa. This counterposition is welcome for those who do not break with their capitalists and bankers, who admit any sort of alliance with them. This is not welcome for us. We speak of defense by us of alliance with the oppressed class, with oppressed peoples. Remain true to such an alliance—then you will be revolutionary democracy. This task is not easy. This task does not allow forgetting that under certain conditions we cannot do without revolutionary war. No revolutionary class can renounce revolutionary war, for otherwise it condemns itself to ridiculous pacifism. We are not Tolstoyans. If the revolutionary class takes power, if in its state there remain no annexations, if there will be no power of banks and large capital—which is not easy in Russia—then such a class will conduct revolutionary war not in words but in fact. One cannot renounce this war. This means falling into Tolyanism, into philistinism, forgetting all the science of Marxism, the experience of all European revolutions.

Russia cannot be struck from the war alone. But it has gigantic allies growing, who now do not believe you precisely because your position is contradictory or naive, precisely because to other peoples you advise: "down with annexations," while you introduce them at home. To other peoples you say: overthrow bankers. But your own you do not overthrow. Try a different policy. Publish the treaties and shame them before every worker and peasant at meetings. Say: no peace with German capitalists and a complete break with Anglo-French capitalists. Let the English get out of Turkey and not wage war for Baghdad. Let them get out of India and Egypt. We do not want to wage war so that plundered spoils be preserved, just as we will not expend a single atom of our energy so that German brigands preserve their spoils. If you do this—and you have only spoken of it, in politics words are not believed and they do well not to believe them—if you not only say this but do it, then those allies which you now have will manifest themselves. Look at the disposition of every oppressed worker and peasant; they sympathize and are distressed that you are so weak, that having weapons, you leave the bankers. Your allies are the oppressed workers of all countries. It will be what the revolution of 1905 showed in fact. When it began, it was terribly weak. But what was its international result? How did the foreign policy of the Russian revolution take shape from this policy, from the history of 1905? Now you are conducting the foreign policy of the Russian revolution entirely with capitalists. But 1905 showed what the foreign policy of the Russian revolution should be. An indisputable fact is that after October 17, 1905, mass street disturbances and barricade construction began in Vienna and Prague. After 1905 came 1908 in Turkey, 1909 in Persia and 1910 in China. If you truly appeal to revolutionary democracy, to the working class, to the oppressed, and do not compromise with capitalists, then your allies will be not the oppressive classes but the oppressed, not the nationalities in which the oppressive classes now temporarily predominate, but the nationalities who are now being torn to pieces. We are reminded here of the German front, on which none of us has proposed anything except free distribution of our appeals, written on one side in Russian, on the other in German. It says there: capitalists of both countries are brigands. Their removal is only a step toward peace. But there are other fronts. On the Turkish front there is our army, of whose numbers I am not aware. Let us say approximately 3 million there. If this army, which is now held in Armenia and commits annexations which you tolerate while preaching to other peoples peace without annexations, although you have force and power, if this army went over to this program, if it made Armenia an independent Armenian republic, and gave to them the money which financiers of England and France take from us, that would be better.

They say that without financial support from England and France we cannot do without it. But this support "supports" as a rope supports a hanged man. Let the Russian revolutionary class say: away with this support, I do not recognize debts concluded with French and English capitalists, I call for the uprising of all against capitalists. No peace with German capitalists and no alliance with English and French! If this policy is conducted in fact, our Turkish army could free itself and return to other fronts, because all the peoples of Asia would see that the Russian people proclaims peace without annexations on the basis of self-determination of nations not in words only but that the Russian worker and peasant in fact stands at the head of all oppressed peoples, that the struggle for him with imperialism is not an empty wish and not a parade ministry phrase but the vital interest of revolution.

Our position is such that revolutionary war may threaten us, but it is not obligatory to occur, because English imperialists can hardly wage war against us if you turn to the peoples surrounding all of Russia with your practical example. Prove that you are liberating the Armenian republic, that you are entering into agreement with the Soviets of workers and peasants' deputies in every country, that you stand for a free republic; then the foreign policy of the Russian revolution would become in fact revolutionary, in fact democratic. Now it is such only in words; in fact it is counter-revolutionary, because you are tied to Anglo-French imperialism and do not want openly to say this, you are afraid to admit it. It would be better if, instead of this appeal to "overthrow other peoples' bankers," you said directly to the Russian people, to workers and peasants: "we are too weak, we cannot throw off the yoke of Anglo-French imperialists from ourselves, we are their slaves, that is why we are fighting." This would be a bitter truth; it would have revolutionary significance; it would in fact hasten the approach of the end of this plundering war. That is what is a thousand times more significant than agreement with French and English social-chauvinists, than the convening of congresses which they will attend, than the continuation of this policy when you in fact fear to break with the imperialists of one country while remaining allies of another. You can rely on the oppressed classes of European countries, on the oppressed peoples of weaker countries, which Russia strangled under the tsars, which Russia is strangling now as it does Armenia; relying on them, you can give freedom, helping their workers' and peasants' committees, you could stand at the head of all oppressed classes, all oppressed peoples in the war against German and English imperialism, which cannot unite against you because they are in mortal combat with each other, because they are in an irremediable difficult position; when the foreign policy of the Russian revolution, sincere alliance in fact with oppressed classes, oppressed peoples, can have success—99 chances out of 100 that it will have success!

Recently in our party's Moscow newspaper we encountered a letter from a peasant explaining our program. I will permit myself to conclude my speech with a brief quotation from this letter expressing how a peasant understood our program. This letter is cited in No. 59 of our party's Moscow newspaper "Sotsial-Demokrat"{109} and reprinted in No. 68 of "Pravda": "One needs to press harder on the bourgeoisie so that it bursts at all the seams. Then the war will end. But if we do not press so hard on the bourgeoisie, things will go badly." (Applause.)

"Pravda" No. 95, 96 and 97; July 13 (June 30), 14 (July 1) and 15 (July 2), 1917.

Printed from the text of "Pravda," verified with the stenographic record corrected by V. I. Lenin