V.I. Lenin

Socialism and War

The Attitude of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party Towards the War [1]

(1915)

Written in July-August 1915.
Published in pamphlet form in the autumn of 1915 by the editorial board of the newspaper Sotsial-Demokrat, Geneva.
Republished in the pamphlet Lenin on War and Peace, Foreign Languages Press, Peking 1970, pp.1-57.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for REDS – Die Roten.

Preface to the First (Foreign) Edition

Preface to the Second Edition

1. The principles of socialism and the War of 1914-1915

The attitude of socialists towards wars

Historical types of wars in modern times

The difference between aggressive and defensive war

The present war is an imperialist war

War between the biggest slave-owners for preserving and fortifying slavery

“War is the continuation of politics by other” (i.e., violent) “means”

The example of Belgium

What is Russia fighting for?

What is social-chauvinism?

The Basle Manifesto

False references to Marx and Engels

The collapse of the Second International

Social-chauvinism is consummated opportunism

Unity with the oportunists means alliance between the workers and “their” national bourgeoisie and splitting the international revolutionary working class

“Kautskyism”

The Marxists’ slogan is the slogan of revolutionary Social-Democracy

The example shown by the fraternisation in the trenches

The importance of an underground organisation

Concerning defeat of “one’s own” government in the imperialist war

Pacifism and the peace slogan

The right of nations to self-determination

2. Classes and Parties in Russia

The bourgeoisie and the war

The working class and the war

The Russian Social-Democratic Labour Group in the State Duma and the war

3. The restoration of the International

The method of the social-chauvinists and of the “centre”

The state of affairs among the opposition

The Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party and the Third International

4. The history of the split and the present state of Social-Democracy in Russia

The “Economists” and the old Iskra (1894-1903)

Menshevism and Bolshevism (1903-1908)

Marxism and liquidationism (1908-1914)

Marxism and social-chauvinism (1914-1915)

The present state of affairs in Russian Social-Democracy

Our party’s tasks

Note

1. The pamphlet Socialism and War was published in German in September 1915 and distributed among the delegates to the Zimmerwald Socialist Conference. In 1916 it was published in French.

Top of the page

Last updated on 10.9.2002