V. I.

Lenin

1922

TO COMRADES BUKHARIN, ZINOVIEV AND MOLOTOV (FOR MEMBERS OF THE POLITICAL BUREAU)

On the subject of yesterday’s report from Hanover that the International Federation of Metalworkers is raising the
question of struggle against war and has adopted a resolution to respond to war with a
strike, [1] I suggest the following:

1. That a number of articles be printed in Pravda and
Izvestia , giving a reminder of the fate of the Basle
Manifesto and a detailed explanation of all the childishness
or all the social-treachery, now being repeated by the metal-workers.

2. That at the next enlarged meeting of the Executive
Committee of the Comintern there be put on the agenda the
question of struggle against war, and that circumstantial
resolutions be adopted explaining that only a ready and
experienced revolutionary party, with a good illegal machinery, can successfully wage a struggle against war, and
that the means of struggle is not a strike against war, but
the formation of revolutionary groups in the warring armies and their preparation for the carrying out of a
revolution.

February 4, 1922

Lenin

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Notes:
[1]
A reference to the following telegram published in Pravda and
Izvestia on February 3, 1922: “Hanover, January 31 (Radio).
The International Metalworkers’ Federation has proposed to the
Commission for the Convocation of an International Workers’
Congress due to open in Rome on April 21, that a general strike of
the organised workers should be declared in the event of the
outbreak of war. The Metalworkers’ Federation has elected a special
commission for the vigorous propaganda of its proposal.” =

This decision was taken by the Vienna conference of the Executive
Committee of the International Metalworkers’ Federation, which
was affiliated to the reformist Amsterdam International of Trade
Unions. The latter existed from 1919 to 1945.