V. I. Lenin

Source: ru:LS/v2;es:MT
Translated: machine translation (DeepSeek) from the Russian; AI-translated.

Dear Friend,
I arrived home late last night from a lecture tour and found your letter. A very warm greeting to you, and through you to all our Russian friends!
The reply to Vandervelde¹) was handed in for translation yesterday and I have not yet seen the text. I will write about it as soon as I do.
In my opinion, the most important thing now is a consistent and organised struggle against the chauvinism that has seized the whole bourgeoisie and the majority of the opportunist (and those who make their peace with opportunism—tel² Mr. Kautsky!) socialists. And to accomplish the tasks of this struggle, we must first of all fight the chauvinism of our own country—concretely, in our case, the gentlemen à la³ Maslov⁴) and Smirnov⁵) (see *Russkiye Vedomosti* and *Russkoye Slovo*), whose “works” I have read, or the gentlemen Sokolov⁶), Meshkovsky⁷), Nikitin⁸) and others, whom you have seen or heard.
Plekhanov, as you have probably already been told, has become a French chauvinist. The Liquidators are apparently in a state of disarray*). Alexinsky, they say, is a Francophile. Kossovsky (a Bundist, a Right-winger—I heard his lecture) is a Germanophile**). It looks as though the “middle line” of the whole “Brussels bloc” of the Liquidator gentlemen with Alexinsky and Plekhanov will be to adapt themselves to Kautsky, who is now more harmful than anyone else⁹). So dangerous and vile is his sophistry, which covers up the filth of the opportunists (in the *Neue Zeit*) with the smoothest and most slicked-down phrases. The opportunists are an open evil. The German “Centre” with Kautsky at its head is a concealed evil, diplomatically painted over, befogging the eyes, minds and consciences of the workers, and therefore the most dangerous. Our task now is an unconditional and open struggle against international opportunism and its concealers (Kautsky). This we shall do in the Central Organ, which we shall soon bring out (probably two pages). We must now support with all our might the legitimate hatred of class-conscious workers for the filthy behaviour of the Germans, and draw from this hatred the political conclusion of a struggle against opportunism and every concession to it.
This is an international task.
It falls on us, and on no one else. We cannot retreat from it.
The slogan of a “simple” restoration of the International is wrong (for the danger of a rotten conciliatory resolution along the lines of Kautsky-Vandervelde is very, very great!). The slogan of “peace” is wrong. The slogan must be the transformation of the national war into a civil war. (This transformation may be a long one, it may require and will require a number of preliminary conditions, but all work must be conducted along the lines of precisely such a transformation, in its spirit and direction.) Not sabotage of the war, not isolated, individual actions in that spirit, but mass propaganda (not only among “civilians”) leading to the transformation of the war into a civil war.
In Russia, chauvinism hides behind phrases about “belle France”, about “beautiful France” and unhappy Belgium (and the Ukraine? etc.) or behind the “popular” hatred of the Germans (and of “Kaiserism”). Therefore our absolute duty is to combat these sophisms. And for the struggle to proceed along a precise and clear line, a unifying slogan is needed. This slogan is: for us Russians, from the standpoint of the interests of the working masses and the working class of Russia, there can be not the slightest, absolutely no doubt that the least evil now and immediately would be the defeat of tsarism in this war. For tsarism is a hundred times worse than Kaiserism. Not sabotage of the war, but a struggle against chauvinism and the direction of all propaganda and agitation towards the international unification (rapprochement, solidarity, agreement *selon les circonstances* [according to circumstances]) of the proletariat for the purposes of civil war. It would be wrong both to call for individual acts of shooting at officers, etc., and to allow arguments like “we do not want to help Kaiserism”.
The first is a deviation towards anarchism, the second towards opportunism.
We must prepare for a mass (or at least collective) action in the army of more than one nation, and conduct all propaganda and agitation work in this direction.
The direction of the work (persistent, systematic, perhaps long) in the spirit of transforming the national war into a civil war—that is the whole essence.
The moment of this transformation is a different question, as yet unclear.
We must let this moment mature and “hasten its maturing” systematically.
I will stop here for now.
I will write often. You write more often too.
Give a more detailed account of the leaflet of the St. Petersburg Committee¹²).
More details about the voices and opinions of the Russians.
The correlation of forces of the “factions” in St. Petersburg?
That is, have the Liquidators grown stronger against us?
To what extent?
Is Dan at liberty? His position? And Chirkin¹³), Bulkin¹⁴) and Co.?
More details.
To whom exactly, and from whom, did you send those 300 rubles?
I firmly shake your hand. Yours, Lenin.
The slogan of peace, in my opinion, is wrong at the present moment. It is a philistine, priestly slogan.
The proletarian slogan must be: civil war.
Objectively—from the radical change in the situation in Europe, such a slogan flows for the epoch of mass war.
The same slogan flows from the Basle resolution¹⁵).
We cannot either “promise” civil war or “decree” it, but we are obliged to conduct work—if necessary, for a very long time—in this direction. From the article in the Central Organ¹⁶) you will see the details.
For now I am only outlining the main points of the position, so that we may come to a good understanding.

¹) The reply to Vandervelde was sent by our Bolshevik R.S.D.L.P. Fraction in the Fourth State Duma in response to his telegram, with which he appealed to the Russian socialists in the first days of the war, calling on them to moderate the revolutionary struggle against tsarism. The reply was composed in an internationalist spirit, indicating an unyielding determination to continue the struggle against tsarism.
²) Such.
³) Of the type.
⁴) P. P. Maslov.
⁵) E. A. Smirnov.
⁶) A. A. Sokolov.
⁷) I. P. Meshkovsky.
⁸) A. M. Nikitin.
⁹) *Neue Zeit*.
¹⁰) N. V. Antonov and others.
¹¹) *Golos*.
¹²) The St. Petersburg Committee of the R.S.D.L.P.
¹³) M. A. Chirkin.
¹⁴) F. A. Bulkin.
¹⁵) The Basle resolution of the International Socialist Congress, 1912.
¹⁶) *Sotsial-Demokrat*.