Russian Diplomacy. The Blue Book on The Eastern Question. Montenegro. Karl Marx

Russian Diplomacy. 
The Blue Book on The Eastern Question. 
Montenegro.[415]

Karl Marx

London, Friday, Feb. 10, 1854

At the time when the treaty of neutrality was concluded between Denmark and Sweden, I stated my conviction, contrary to the current opinion in England and France, that it was not by any means to be looked upon as a triumph of the Western Powers, and that the pretended protest of Russia against that treaty was nothing but a feint[a]. The Scandinavian papers, and The Times' correspondent, quoting from them, are now unanimous in recording the same opinion, declaring the whole treaty to be the work of Russia.

The propositions submitted by Count Orloff to the Vienna Conference, and rejected by them, were as follows:

1. Renewal of the old treaties.
2. Protectorate of Russia over the Greek Christians of Turkey.
3. Expulsion of all political refugees from the Ottoman Empire.
4. Refusal to admit the mediation of any other Power, and to negotiate otherwise than directly with a Turkish Envoy, to be sent to St. Petersburg.

On the latter point Count Orloff declared his readiness to compromise, but the Conference refused. Why did the Conference refuse? Or why did the Emperor of Russia refuse the last terms of the Conference? The propositions are the same on both sides. The renewal of the old treaties had been stipulated, the Russian
Protectorate admitted with only a modification in the form; and, as the last point had been abandoned by Russia herself, the Austrian demand for the expulsion of the refugees[416] could not have been the cause of a rupture between Russia and the West. It is evident, then, that the position of the Emperor of Russia is
now such as to prevent him from accepting any terms at the hands of England and France, and that he must bring Turkey to his feet either with or without the chance of a European war.

In military circles the latter is now regarded as inevitable, and the preparations for it are going on in every quarter. Admiral Bruat has already left Brest for Algiers, where he is to embark 10,000 men, and sixteen English regiments stationed in Ireland are ordered to hold themselves ready to go to Constantinople. The
expedition can only have a twofold object: either to coerce the Turks into submission to Russia, as Mr. Urquhart announces, or to carry on the war against Russia, in real earnest. In both cases the fate of the Turks is equally certain. Once more handed over to Russia, not indeed directly, but to her dissolving agencies,
the power of the Ottoman Empire would soon be reduced, like that of the Lower Empire, to the precincts of the capital. Taken under the absolute tutorship of France and England the sovereignty of the Ottomans over their European estates would be no less at an end.

If we are to take the war into our hands, observes The Times, we must have the control over all the operations.

In this case, then, the Turkish Ministry would be placed under the direct administration of the Western Ambassadors, the Turkish War Office under the War Offices of England and France, and the Turkish armies under the command of French and English Generals. The Turkish Empire, in its ancient conditions of
existence, has ceased to be.

After his complete "failure" at Vienna, Count Orloff is now gone back to St. Petersburg "with the assurance of the Austrian and Prussian neutrality, under all circumstances." On the other hand, the telegraph reports from Vienna that a change has taken place in the Turkish Ministry, the Seraskier and Kapudan Pasha[b]
having resigned. The Times cannot understand how the war party could have been defeated at the very time that France and England were going to war. For my part, if the news be true, I can very well understand the "god-sent" occurrence as the work of the English Coalition representative at Constantinople, whom we
find so repeatedly regretting, in his blue-book dispatches, that

 "he could hardly yet go so far in his pressure on the Turkish Cabinet as it might be desirable."

The blue books begin with dispatches relating to the demands put forward on the part of France with respect to the Holy Shrines demands not wholly borne out by the ancient capitulations[417], and ostensibly made with the view to enforce the supremacy of the Latin over the Greek Church. I am far from participating in
the opinion of Mr. Urquhart, according to which the Czar had, by secret influences at Paris, seduced Bonaparte to rush into this quarrel in order to afford Russia a pretext for interfering herself in behalf of the privileges of the Greek Catholics. It is well known that Bonaparte wanted to buy, coûte que coûte[c], the support of the Catholic party, which he regarded from the very first as the main condition for the success of his usurpation. Bonaparte was fully aware of the ascendancy of the Catholic Church over the peasant population of France, and the peasantry were to make him Emperor in spite of the bourgeoisie and in spite of the proletariat. M. de Falloux, the Jesuit, was the most influential member of the first ministry he formed, and of which Odilon Barrot, the soi-disant Voltairian, was the nominal head. The first resolution adopted by this ministry, on the very day after the inauguration of Bonaparte as President, was the famous expedition
against the Roman Republic. M. de Montalembert, the chief of the Jesuit party, was his most active tool in preparing the overthrow of the parliamentary régime and the coup d'état of the 2d December. In 1850, the Univers, the official organ of the Jesuit party, called day after day on the French Government to take active
steps for the protection of the interests of the Latin Church in the East. Anxious to cajole and win over the Pope[d], and to be crowned by him, Bonaparte had reasons to accept the challenge and make himself appear the "most Catholic"[418] Emperor of France. The Bonapartist usurpation, there-fore, is the true origin of the present Eastern complication. It is true that Bonaparte wisely withdrew his pretensions as soon as he perceived the Emperor Nicholas ready to make them the pretext for excluding him from the conclave of Europe, and Russia was, as usual, eager to utilise the events which she had not the power to create, as Mr. Urquhart imagines. But it remains a most curious phenomenon in history, that the present crisis of the Ottoman Empire has been produced by .the same conflict between the Latin and Greek Churches which once gave rise to the foundation of that Empire in Europe.

It is not my intention to investigate the whole contents of the "Rights and Privileges of the Latin and Greek Churches," before having considered a most important incident entirely suppressed in these blue books, viz.: The Austro-Turkish quarrel about Montenegro[419]. The necessity to previously treat this affair is the
more urgent, as it will establish the existence of a concerted plan between Russia and Austria for the subversion and division of the Turkish Empire, and as the very fact of England's putting the subsequent negotiations between the Court of St. Petersburg and the Porte into the hands of Austria, cannot fail to throw a most curious light on the conduct of the English Cabinet throughout this Eastern question. In the absence of any official documents on the Montenegro affair, I refer to a book, which has only just been published on this subject, and is entitled the Handbook of the Eastern Question, by L. F. Simpson.[e]

The Turkish fortress of Zabljak (on the frontiers of Montenegro and Albania) was stormed by a band of Montenegrins in December, 1852. It is remembered that Omer Pasha was ordered by the Porte to repel the aggressors. The Sublime Porte declared the whole coast of Albania in a state of blockade, a measure which
apparently could be directed only against Austria and her navy, and which indicated the conviction of the Turkish Ministry that Austria had provoked the Montenegrin revolt.

The following article, under date of Vienna, Dec. 29, 1852, appeared then in the Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung

"If Austria wished to assist the Montenegrins, the blockade could not prevent it. If the Montenegrins descended from their mountains, Austria could provide them with arms and ammunition by Cattaro, in spite of the presence of the Turkish fleet in the Adriatic. Austria does not approve either of the present incursion of the Montenegrins, nor of the revolution which is on the eve of breaking out in Herzegovina and Bosnia among the Christians. She has constantly protested against the persecutions of the Christians, and that in the name of humanity; Austria is obliged to observe neutrality toward the Eastern Church. The last news from Jerusalem will have shown how fiercely religious hatred burned there. The agents of Austria must, therefore, exert all their efforts to maintain peace between the Greek Christians and the Latin Christians of the Empire."

From this article we glean, firstly, that coming revolutions of the Turkish Christians were anticipated as certain, that the way for the Russian complaints concerning the oppression of the Greek Church was paved by Austria, and that the religious complication about the Holy Shrines was expected to give occasion for
Austria's "neutrality."

In the same month a note was addressed to the Porte by Russia, who offered her mediation in Montenegro, which was declined on the ground that the Sultan[f] was able himself to uphold his own rights. Here we see Russia operating exactly as she did at the time of the Greek revolution[420] first offering to protect the

Sultan against his subjects, with the view of protecting afterward his subjects against the Sultan, if her assistance should not be accepted.

The fact that there existed a concert between Russia and Austria for the occupation of the Principalities, even at this early time, may be gleaned from another extract from the Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung, of 30th December, 1852:

"Russia, which has only recently acknowledged the independence of Montenegro, can scarcely remain an idle spectator of events. Moreover, commercial letters and travelers from Moldavia and Wallachia, mention that from Volhynia down to the mouth of the Pruth, the country swarms with Russian troops, and that reenforcements are continually arriving."

Simultaneously the Vienna journals announced that an Austrian army of observation was assembling on the Austro-Turkish frontiers.

On Dec. 6, 1852, Lord Stanley interpellated Lord Malmesbury with respect to the affairs of Montenegro, and Bonaparte's noble friend made the following declaration:

"The noble lord intimated his desire to ask whether any change had recently taken place in the political relations of that wild country bordering on Albania, called Montenegro. I believe that no change whatever has taken place with respect to its political relations. The chief of that country[g] bears a double title; he is head of the Greek Church in that country, and he is also the temporal sovereign. But with respect to his ecclesiastical position he is under the jurisdiction of the Emperor of Russia, who is considered to be the head of the whole Greek Church. The chief of Montenegro has been" (as I believe all his ancestors were before him) "accustomed to receive from the sanction and recognition of the Emperor his Episcopal jurisdiction and titles. With respect to the independence of that country, whatever the opinion of different persons may be as to the advantage of such a position, the fact is that Montenegro has been an independent country for something like 150 years, and though various attempts have been made by the Porte to bring it into subjection, those attempts have failed one after another, and the country is in the same position now that it was some 200 years ago."

In this speech Lord Malmesbury, the then Tory Secretary for Foreign Affairs, quietly dissects the Ottoman Empire by separating from it a country that had ever belonged to it, recognising at the same time the Emperor of Russia's spiritual pretensions over subjects of the Porte. What are we to say of these two sets of
Oligarchs, except that they rival each other in imbecility?

The Porte was, of course, seriously alarmed at this speech of a British Minister, and there appeared, shortly afterward, in an English newspaper the following letter from Constantinople, dated Jan. 5, 1853:

"The Porte has experienced the greatest irritation owing to Lord Malmesbury's declaration in the House of Lords that Montenegro was independent. He thus played into the hands of Russia and Austria, by which England will lose that influence and confidence which she has hitherto enjoyed. In the first article of the treaty of Sistova, concluded between the Porte and Austria in 1791 (to which treaty England, Holland, and Russia were mediating parties), it is expressly stipulated that an amnesty should be granted to the subjects of both Powers who had taken part against their rightful sovereigns, viz.: the Servians, Montenegrins, Moldavians and Wallachians, named as rebel subjects of the Porte. The Montenegrins who reside in Constantinople, of whom there are 2,000 to 3,000, pay the haratch or capitation-tax, and in judicial procedure with subjects of other Powers at Constantinople, the Montenegrins are always considered and treated as Turkish subjects without objection."

In the beginning of January, 1853, the Austrian Government sent Baron Kellner von Köllenstein, an aide-de-camp of the Emperor[h], to Cattaro to watch the course of events, while Mr. d'Ozeroff, the Russian Envoy at Constantinople, handed in a protest to the Divan against the concessions made to the Latins in the
question of the Holy Shrines. At the end of January, Count Leiningen arrived at Constantinople, and was admitted on the 3d February, to a private audience with the Sultan, to whom he delivered a letter from the Austrian Emperor. The Porte refused to comply with his demands, and Count Leiningen thereupon gave in
an ultimatum, allowing the Porte four days to answer. The Porte immediately placed itself under the protection of England and France, which did not protect her, while Count Leiningen refused their mediation. On Feb. 15, he had obtained everything he had asked for (with the exception of Art., III) and his ultimatum was accepted. It contained the following articles:

"I. Immediate evacuation of Montenegro and the establishment of the status quo ante bellum.

"II. A declaration by which the Porte is to engage herself to maintain the status quo of the territories of Kleck and Suttorina, and to recognize the mare clausum in favor of Austria.

"III. A strict inquiry to take place concerning the acts of Mussulman fanaticism committed against the Christians of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

"IV. Removal of all the political refugees and renegades at present in the provinces adjoining the Austrian frontiers.

"V. Indemnity of 200,000 florins to certain Austrian merchants, whose contracts had been arbitrarily annulled, and the maintenance of those contracts for all the time they were agreed on.

"VI. Indemnity of 56,000 florins to a merchant whose ship and cargo had been unjustly confiscated.

"VII. Establishment of numerous consulates in Bosnia, Servia, Herzegovina and all over Rumelia.

"VIII. Disavowal of the conduct maintained in 1850, in the affair of the refugees."

Before acceding to this ultimatum, the Ottoman Porte, as Mr. Simpson states, addressed a note to the Ambassadors of England and France, demanding a promise from them of positive assistance in the event of a war with Austria. "The two Ministers not being able to pledge themselves in a definite manner," the

Turkish Government yielded to the energetic proceedings of Count Leiningen.

On February 28th, Count Leiningen arrived at Vienna, and Prince Menchikoff at Constantinople. On the 3d of March, Lord John Russell had the impudence to declare, in answer to an interpellation of Lord Dudley Stuart, that

"In answer to representations made to the Austrian Government, assurances had been given that the latter held the same views as the English Government on the subject; and, though he could not state the precise terms of the arrangement that had been made, the intervention of France and England had been successful, and he trusted the late differences were now over. The course adopted by England had been to give Turkey such advice as 'would maintain her honor and her independence.... For his own part, he thought that on grounds of right, of international law, of faith toward our ally, and also on grounds of general policy and expediency, the maintenance of the integrity and independence of Turkey was a great and ruling point of the foreign policy of England." 
========================================== end
Written on February 10, 1854 
Reproduced from the New-York Daily Tribune 
First published in the New-York Daily Tribune, No. 4013, February 27, 1854: 
reprinted in the New-York Semi-Weekly Tribune, No. 914, February 28, 
and the New-York Weekly Tribune, No. 651, March 4, 1854 
Signed: Karl Marx
Source: http://marxengels.public-archive.net/en
Highlights: Author
Re Published by ENB 13-01-2014

THE BRITISH LIBERALS AND IRELAND

மேற்கோள்:

V. I. Lenin

THE BRITISH LIBERALS AND IRELAND

Karl Marx, who had been living in London for over fifteen years, followed the struggle of the Irish with great interest and sympathy. He wrote to Frederick Engels on November 2, 1867: "I have done my best to bring about this demonstration of the English workers in favour of Fenianism* (* அயர்லாந்து தேசியவாதம்). . . . I used to think the separation of Ireland from England impossible. I now think it inevitable, although after the separation there may come federation. . . ." Reverting to the same subject in a letter dated November 30th of the same year, Marx wrote: "The question now is, what shall we advise the English workers? In my opinion they must make the
repeal of the Union [the abolition of the union with Ireland] (in short, the affair of 1783, only democratised and adapted to the conditions of the time) an article of their pronunziamento. This is the only legal and therefore only possible form of Irish emancipation which can be admitted in the programme of an English [workers'] party."[89] And Marx went on to show that what the Irish needed was Home Rule and independence of Britain, an agrarian revolution and tariffs against Britain.

Such was the programme proposed to the British workers by Marx, in the interests of Irish freedom, of accelerating the social development and freedom of the British workers; because the British workers could not become free so long as they helped to keep another nation in slavery (or even allowed it)

From V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, 4th English Edition,  Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1964 Vol. 20, Full Article pp. 148-51. Above Quotation page 150 Source: From Marx to Mao

Alas! Owing to a number of special historical causes, the British workers of the last third of the nineteenth century proved dependent upon the Liberals, impregnated with the spirit of liberal-labour policy. They proved to be, not at the head of nations and classes fighting for liberty, but in the wake of the contemptible
lackeys of the money-bags, the British Liberals.

From V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, 4th English Edition,  Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1964 Vol. 20, pp. 148-51.  page 150 Source: From Marx to Mao

. . . I used to think the separation of Ireland from England impossible. I now think it inevitable, although after the separation there may come federation. . . British workers could not become free so long as they helped to keep another nation in slavery (or even allowed it).
Karl Marx to Frederick Engels on November 2, 1867:
========================================================
V. I. Lenin
THE BRITISH LIBERALS AND IRELAND
Put Pravdy No. 34  March 12, 1914
Published according to the text in Put Pravdy
From V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, 4th English Edition,  Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1964
Vol. 20, pp. 148-51.
Translated from the Russian by Bernard Isaacs and Joe Fineberg Edited by Julius Katzer
Prepared © for the Internet by David J. Romagnolo, djr@marx2mao.org (July 2003)
 page 148
========================================================
ஆவணம்:

 THE BRITISH LIBERALS AND IRELAND


    What is taking place today in the British Parliament in connection with the Bill on Irish Home Rule is of exceptional interest as far as class relationships and elucidation of the national and the agrarian problems are concerned

    For centuries England has enslaved Ireland, condemned the Irish peasants to unparalleled misery and gradual extinction from starvation, driven them off the land and compelled hundreds of thousands and even millions of them to leave their native country and emigrate to America. At the beginning of the nineteenth
century, Ireland had a population of five and a half millions; today the population is only four and one-third millions. Ireland has become depopulated. Over five million Irish emigrated to America in the course of the nineteenth century, so that there are now more Irish in the United States than there are in Ireland!

    The appalling destitution and sufferings of the Irish peasantry are an instructive example of the lengths to which the landowners and the liberal bourgeoisie of a "dominant" nation will go. Britain owes her "brilliant" economic development and the "prosperity" of her industry and commerce largely to her treatment of the

Irish peasantry, which recalls the misdeeds of the Russian serf-owner Saltychikha.[88]

    While Britain "flourished", Ireland moved towards extinction and remained an undeveloped, semi-barbarous, purely agrarian country, a land of poverty-stricken tenant farmers. But much as the "enlightened and liberal" British bourgeoisie desired to perpetuate Ireland's enslavement and poverty, reform inevitably
approached, the more so that the revolutionary eruptions of the Irish people's fight for liberty and land became more and more ominous. The year 1861 saw

 page 149

the formation of the Irish revolutionary organisation of Fenians. Irish settlers in America gave it every assistance.

    With the formation, in 1868, of the government of Gladstone -- that hero of the liberal bourgeoisie and obtuse philistines -- the era of reform in Ireland set in, an era which has dragged on very nicely till the present day, i.e., just under half a century. Oh, the wise statesmen of the liberal bourgeoisie are very well able
to "make haste slowly" in the matter of reform!

    Karl Marx, who had been living in London for over fifteen years, followed the struggle of the Irish with great interest and sympathy. He wrote to Frederick Engels on November 2, 1867: "I have done my best to bring about this demonstration of the English workers in favour of Fenianism. . . . I used to think the
separation of Ireland from England impossible. I now think it inevitable, although after the separation there may come federation. . . ." Reverting to the same subject in a letter dated November 30th of the same year, Marx wrote: "The question now is, what shall we advise the English workers? In my opinion they must
make the repeal of the Union [the abolition of the union with Ireland] (in short, the affair of 1783, only democratised and adapted to the conditions of the time) an article of their pronunziamento. This is the only legal and therefore only possible form of Irish emancipation which can be admitted in the programme of an

English [workers'] party."[89] And Marx went on to show that what the Irish needed was Home Rule and independence of Britain, an agrarian revolution and tariffs against Britain.

    Such was the programme proposed to the British workers by Marx, in the interests of Irish freedom, of accelerating the social development and freedom of the British workers; because the British workers could not become free so long as they helped to keep another nation in slavery (or even allowed it)

    Alas! Owing to a number of special historical causes, the British workers of the last third of the nineteenth century proved dependent upon the Liberals, impregnated with the spirit of liberal-labour policy. They proved to be, not at the head of nations and classes fighting for liberty, but in

 page 150

the wake of the contemptible lackeys of the money-bags, the British Liberals.

    And the Liberals have for half a century been dragging out Ireland's liberation, which has not been completed to this day! It was not until the twentieth century that the Irish peasant began to turn from a tenant farmer into a freeholder, but the Liberals have imposed upon him a system of land purchase at a "fair" price !

He has paid, and will continue to pay for many years, millions upon millions to the British landlords as a reward for their having robbed him for centuries and reduced him to a state of chronic starvation. The British liberal bourgeois has made the Irish peasant thank the landlord for this in hard cash. . . .

    A Home Rule Bill for Ireland is now going through Parliament. But in Ireland there is the Northern province of Ulster, which is inhabited partly by English-born Protestants as distinct from the Catholic Irish. Well then, the British Conservatives, led by Carson, the British version of our Black-Hundred landlord

Purishkevich, have raised a frightful outcry against Irish Home Rule. This, they say, means subjecting Ulstermen to an alien people of alien creed! Lord Carson has threatened rebellion, and has organised gangs of reactionary armed thugs for this purpose.

    An empty threat, of course. There can be no question of a rebellion by a handful of hoodlums. Nor could there be any question of an Irish Parliament (whose powers are determined by British law) "oppressing" the Protestants.

    It is simply a question of the reactionary landlords trying to scare the Liberals.

    And the Liberals are losing their nerve, bowing to the reactionaries, making concessions to them, offering to conduct a referendum in Ulster and put off reform for Ulster for six years!

    The haggling between the Liberals and the reactionaries continues. Reform can wait: the Irish have waited half a century; they can wait a little longer; you can't very well "offend" the landlords!

    Of course, if the Liberals appealed to the people of Britain, to the proletariat, Carson's reactionary gangs would melt away immediately and disappear. The peaceful and full achievement of freedom by Ireland would be guaranteed,

 page 151

    But is it conceivable that the liberal bourgeois will turn to the proletariat for aid against the landlords? Why, the Liberals in Britain are also lackeys of the money-bags, capable only of cringing to the Carsons.
=============================================
 From Marx to Mao
Lenin Collection Reading Guide Notes on the Text Below
page 583
NOTES
 [88] Saltychikha (Saltykova, D. I.) (1730-1801) -- a landowner, notorious for her brutal treatment of her serfs. She was responsible for the death of 139 peasants. The name Saltychikha became a synonym for bestial treatment of the peasants by the feudalist squirearchy.    [p. 148]
[89] See Marx and Engels, Selected Correspondence, Moscow, 1955, p. 236.    [p. 149]

THE EUROPEAN WAR AND INTERNATIONAL SOCIALISM

THE EUROPEAN WAR
AND INTERNATIONAL SOCIALISM


    To the socialist it is not the horrors of war that are the hardest to endure -- we are always for "santa guerra di tutti gli oppressi per la conquista delle loro patrie! "[*] -- but the horrors of the treachery shown by the leaders of present day socialism, the horrors of the collapse of the present-day International.

    Is it not treachery to Social-Democracy when we see the German socialists' amazing change of front (after Germany's declaration of war); the false phrases about a war of liberation against tsarism; forgetfulness of German imperialism, forgetfulness of the rape of Serbia; the bourgeois interests involved in the war
against Britain, etc., etc.? Chauvinist patriots vote for the Budget!

    Have the socialists of France and Belgium not shown the same kind of treachery? They are excellent at exposing German imperialism, but, unfortunately they are amazingly purblind with regard to British, French, and particularly the barbarous Russian imperialism. They fail to see the disgraceful fact that, for decades
on end, the French bourgeoisie have been paying out thousands of millions for the hire of the Black-Hundred gangs of Russian tsarism, and that the latter has been crushing the non-Russian majority in our country, robbing Po]and, oppressing the Great Russian workers and peasants, and so on.

    At such a time, the socialist feels refreshed when he reads of the bitter truth so courageously and straightforwardly told by Avanti! [7] to Südekum,[8] the truth that paper

    * "a holy war of all the oppressed, for the conquest of their own fatherland!" --Ed.
page 21

told the German socialists, namely, that they are imperialists, i.e., chauvinists. One feels even more refreshed on reading the article by Zibordi (Avanti!, Sept. 2) exposing not only the German and the Austrian brands of chauvinism (which is to the advantage of the Italian bourgeoisie), but also the French, an article which shows that this war is a war of the bourgeoisie of all lands!

    Avanti!'s stand and the Zibordi article -- [as well as the resolution of the group of revolutionary Social-Democrats (at a recent conference in a Scandinavian country)[*] ] -- shows us what is right and what is wrong in the usual phrase about the collapse of the International. This phrase is reiterated with malicious relish by  the bourgeois and the opportunists (riformisti di destra** ), and with bitterness by socialists (Volksrecht [9] in Zurich, and Bremer Bürger-Zeitung [10]. There is a great deal of truth in the phrase! The downfall of the leaders and of most of the parties in the present-day International is a fact. (Compare Vorwärts,[11] Wiener

Arbeiter-Zeitung [12] and Hamburger Echo [13] versus l'Humanité,[14] and the appeals of the Belgian and the French socialists versus the "reply" of the German Vorstand.[15]) The masses have not yet spoken out!

    However, Zibordi is a thousand times right in saying that it is not a matter of "dottrina è sbagliata ", or of the "rimedio " of socialism being "errato ", but "semplicemente non erano in dose bastante ", "gli altri socialisti non sono 'abbastanza socialisti '". ***

    It is not socialism that has collapsed, in the shape of the present-day European International, but an insufficient socialism, i.e., opportunism and reformism. It is this "tendency" -- which exists everywhere, in all countries, and has found such vivid expression in Bissolati and Co. in Italy -- that has collapsed, for it has for years been teaching forgetfulness of the class struggle, etc., etc. -- from the resolution. [16]

    * See pp. 15-19 of this volume. --Ed.  [Transcriber's Note: See Lenin's "The Tasks of Revolutionary Social-Democracy in the European War". -- DJR]
    ** the reformists of the Right. --Ed.
    *** . . . it is not a matter of "theory being wrong", or of the "remedy" of socialism being "wrong" but "simply of its not being available in sufficient doses" and of "certain socialists not being 'sufficiently socialist'". --Ed.
page 22

    Zibordi is right when he sees the European socialists' main guilt in "cercano nobilitare con postumi motivi la loro incapacità a prevenire, la loro necessità di partecipare al macello ", in the fact that they "preferisce fingere di fare per amore ciò ch'è [European socialism]* costretto a fare per forza ", that the socialists
"solidarizzarono ciascuno con la propria nazione, col Governo borghese della propria rulzione . . . in una misura da formare una delusione per noi [also in all socialists who are not opportunists] e un compiacimento per tutti i non socialisti d'Italia "** (and not of Italy alone, but of all countries; cf., for instance, with
Russian liberalism).

    Even given the total incapacità and impotence of the European socialists, the behaviour of their leaders reveals treachery and baseness: the workers have been driven into the slaughter, while their leaders vote in favour and join governments ! Even with their total impotence, they should have voted against, should
not have joined their governments and uttered chauvinistic infamies; should not have shown solidarity with their "nation", and should not have defended their "own" bourgeoisie, they should have unmasked its vileness.

    Everywhere there is the bourgeoisie and the imperialists, everywhere the ignoble preparations for carnage; if Russian tsarism is particularly infamous and barbarous (and more reactionary than all the rest), then German imperialism too is monarchist: its aims are feudal and dynastic, and its gross bourgeoisie are less
free than the French. The Russian Social-Democrats were right in saying that to them the defeat of tsarism was the lesser evil, for their immediate enemy was, first and foremost, Great-Russian

    * Interpolations in square brackets (within passages quoted by Lenin) have been introduced by Lenin, unless otherwise indicated. --Ed.
    ** . . . their attempts to backdate their justification, with plausible excuses, both of their inability to prevent the carnage and their need to take part in the latter", . . . they "prefer to create the semblance of doing voluntarily [European socialism] what they are forced to do of necessity", that the socialists have "lined up
with their own particular nation, with the latter's bourgeois government . . . in a measure capable of engendering disappointment in us [also in all socialists who are not opportunists] and delight all non-socialists in Italy". --Ed.
page 23

chauvinism, but that in each country the socialists (who are not opportunists) ought to see their main enemy in their "own" ("home-made") chauvinism.

    Is it true, however, that the "incapacità " is so very absolute? Is that so? Fucilare ?[*] Heldentod [**] and a miserable death? All this in vantagglo di un altra patria?[***] Not always!! The initiative was possible and even obligatory. Illegal propaganda and civil war would be more honest, and obligatory for socialists (this
is what the Russian socialists are calling for).

    For Instance, they take comfort in the illusion that the war will end and things will settle down. .. But no! For the collapse of the present-day (1889-1914) International not to turn into the collapse of socialism, for the masses not to turn away, and to prevent the domination of anarchism and syndicalism (just as shamefully

[as] in France), the truth must be looked in the face. Whoever wins, Europe is threatened by the growth of chauvinism, by "revenge-seeking ". etc. Militarism, whether German or Great Russian, fosters counter-chauvinism and the like.

    It is our duty to draw the conclusion of the complete collapse of the opportunism, the reformism, so impressively proclaimed in Italy (and so decisively rejected by the Italian comrades[17] and ****

    N. B. insert : the contemptuous and scornful attitude of Die Neue Zeit [18] towards the Italian socialists and Avanti! : petty concessions to opportunism! "The golden mean." [The so-called "Centre" = lackeys of the opportunists.]

    * Shoot down? --Ed.
    ** A hero's death. --Ed.
    *** For the sake of another country? --Ed.
    **** The manuscript breaks off here. The next two sentences are marginal notes. --Ed.
==========================================================
From Marx to Mao
Lenin Collection
Reading Guide Notes on the Text Below
page 458
NOTES

 [7] Avanti! -- a daily and central organ of the Italian Socialist Party, was founded in December 1896. During the First World War its policy was not consistently internationalist, and it failed to break with the reformists. At present [i.e., 1964 -- DJR] Avanti! is the central organ of the Italian Communist Party.    [p. 20]

  [8] Südekum, Albert -- a German Social-Democrat, who was an extreme social-chauvinist during the First World War. His name has come to denote social-chauvinism.    [p. 20]

  [9] Volksrecht (The People's Right ) -- a Swiss Social-Democratic daily, published in Zurich since 1898. During the First World War it published articles by Left Zimmerwaldists, including Lenin's articles "Twelve Brief Theses on H. Greulich's Defence of Fatherland Defence", "The Tasks of the Russian Social-Democratic 

Labour Party in the Russian Revolution" and "Tricks of the Republican Chauvinists".    [p. 21]

  [10] Bremer Bürger-Zeitung -- a daily published by the Bremen Social-Democrats from 1890 to 1919. In 1914-15 it was actually the organ of the Left Social-Democrats, and in 1916 it was taken over by the social-chauvinists.    [p. 21]

  [11] Vorwärts -- a daily, central organ of the German Social-Democrats, published in Berlin from 1876 by Wilhelm Liebknecht and other editors. Through this newspaper Engels fought against all manifestations of opportunism. In the latter half of the 1890s, following Engels's death, the newspaper systematically 

published articles

page 459

by opportunists, who had become dominant among German Social-Democrats and in the Second International. During the First World War (1914-18) the paper pursued a social-chauvinist policy, and after the October Socialist Revolution it became a mouthpiece of anti-Soviet propaganda. It ceased publication in 1933.   

 [p. 21]

  [12] Wiener Arbeiter-Zeitung -- a daily newspaper, central organ of the Austrian Social-Democratic Party, published in Vienna from 1889. During the First World War it took a social-chauvinist stand, Lenin describing it as the newspaper of "Vienna betrayers of socialism". Suppressed in 1934, it resumed publication in 

1945 as the central organ of the Austrian Socialist Party.    [p. 21]

  [13] Hamburger Echo -- German Social-Democratic daily newspaper published from 1887; took a social-chauvinist stand during the First World War.    [p. 21]

  [14] l'Humanité -- a daily founded by Jean Jaur&eagrave;s in 1904 as the organ of the French Socialist Party. During the First World War the news paper became a mouthpiece of the extreme Right wing of the French Socialist Party, and pursued a social-chauvinist policy. Shortly after the split in the Socialist Party at 

the Tours Congress in December 1920, and the formation of the Communist Party, it became the organ of the Communist Party.    [p. 21]

  [15] The reference is to the appeal addressed to the German people by the French and Belgian delegations to the International Socialist Bureau, and published in l'Humanité on September 6, 1914. It accused the German Government of pursuing predatory designs and the German troops of perpetrating atrocities in 

the occupied areas. Vorwärts of September 10, 1964 [undoubtedly, 1914 --DJR] carried a protest by the German Social-Democratic Party's Executive against this appeal. This started off a press polemic between French and German social-chauvinists, each side seeking to justify its own government's participation in 

the war and put the blame on the other side.    [p. 21]

  [16] Lenin is referring to the resolution adopted by the Bolshevik group at its meeting in Berne, August 24-26 (September 6-8) 1914 (see this volume, pp. 15-19).    [p. 21]

  [17] Ever since its foundation in 1892, a sharp ideological struggle was conducted in the Italian Socialist Party between the opportunist and revolutionary wings, which differed on the question of the Party's policy and tactics. Under pressure from the Lefts, the most outspoken reformists (Bonomi, Bissolati), who 

supported the war and advocated collaboration with the government and the bourgeoisie, were expelled from the Party at its congress in Reggio Emilia in 1912. After the outbreak of the war, and before Italy's entry into it, the Party took an anti-war stand under the slogan: "Against the war, for neutrality!" In December 

1914, the Party expelled a group of renegades (Mussolini and others) who defended the imperialist

page 460

policy of the bourgeoisie and favoured Italy's participation in the war. The Italian Socialists met in a joint conference with the Swiss Socialists at Lugano (1914) and took an active part in the international socialist conferences in Zimmerwald (1915) and Kienthal (1916). On the whole however, the Italian Socialist Party 

followed a Centrist policy. With Italy's entry into the war in May 1915, the Party renounced its anti-war stand and issued a slogan "neither participate in the war, nor sabotage it", which in practice meant support for the war.    [p. 23]

  [18] Die Neue Zeit (New Times ) -- theoretical journal of the German Social-Democratic Party published in Stuttgart from 1883 to 1923. Until October 1917 it was edited by Karl Kautsky and afterwards by Heinrich Cunow. Several works by Marx and Engels were first published in it. Engels helped the journal with advice, 

frequently criticising it for its deviations from Marxism. In the latter half of the nineties, following Engels's death, it systematically published articles by revisionists, including a series of Bernstein's articles called "Problems of Socialism", which launched a revisionist crusade against Marxism. During the First World War 

Die Neue Zeit held a Centrist position, which in practice supported social-chauvinists.    [p. 23]
============================
V. I. Lenin
THE EUROPEAN WAR AND INTERNATIONAL SOCIALISM
Written in late August-September 1914
 First published on August 1, 1929, in Pravda No. 174

Published according to the manuscript
From V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, 4th English Edition, 
Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1964

Vol. 21 pp. 20-23.

Translated from the Russian Edited by Bernard Isaacs

Prepared © for the Internet by David J. Romagnolo, djr@marx2mao.org (July 1999)

page 20
============================================

WAR AND RUSSIAN SOCIAL-DEMOCRACY V.I.LENIN

V. I. Lenin

WAR AND RUSSIAN SOCIAL-DEMOCRACY


    The European war, which the governments and the bourgeois parties of all countries have been preparing for decades, has broken out. The growth of armaments, the extreme intensification of the struggle for markets in the latest -- the imperialist -- stage of capitalist development in the advanced countries, and the
dynastic interests of the more backward East-European monarchies were inevitably bound to bring about this war, and have done so. Seizure of territory and subjugation of other nations, the ruining of competing nations and the plunder of their wealth, distracting the attention of the working masses from the internal
political crises in Russia, Germany, Britain and other countries, disuniting and nationalist stultification of the workers, and the extermination of their vanguard so as to weaken the revolutionary movement of the proletariat -- these comprise the sole actual content, importance and significance of the present war.

    It is primarily on Social-Democracy that the duty rests of revealing the true meaning of the war, and of ruthlessly exposing the falsehood, sophistry and "patriotic" phrasemongering spread by the ruling classes, the landowners and the bourgeoisie, in defence of the war.

    One group of belligerent nations is headed by the German bourgeoisie. It is hoodwinking the working class and the toiling masses by asserting that this is a war in defence of the fatherland, freedom and civilisation, for the liberation of the peoples oppressed by tsarism, and for the destruction of reactionary tsarism.

In actual fact, however, this bourgeoisie, which servilely grovels to the Prussian Junkers, headed by Wilhelm II, has always been a most faithful ally of tsarism, and an enemy of the revolutionary movement of Russia's workers and peasants. In fact, whatever the outcome of the war, this bourgeoisie will together with the

page 28

Junkers, exert every effort to support the tsarist monarchy against a revolution in Russia.

    In fact, the German bourgeoisie has launched a robber campaign against Serbia, with the object of subjugating her and throttling the national revolution of the Southern Slavs, at the same time sending the bulk of its military forces against the freer countries, Belgium and France, so as to plunder richer competitors. In

fact, the German bourgeoisie, which has been spreading the fable that it is waging a war of defence, chose the moment it thought most favourable for war, making use of its latest improvements in military matériel and forestalling the rearmament already planned and decided upon by Russia and France.

    The other group of belligerent nations is headed by the British and the French bourgeoisie, who are hoodwinking the working class and the toiling masses by asserting that they are waging a war for the defence of their countries, for freedom and civilisation and against German militarism and despotism. In actual fact,

this bourgeoisie has long been spending thousands of millions to hire the troops of Russian tsarism, the most reactionary and barbarous monarchy in Europe, and prepare them for an attack on Germany.

    In fact, the struggle of the British and the French bourgeoisie is aimed at the seizure of the German colonies, and the ruining of a rival nation, whose economic development has been more rapid. In pursuit of this noble aim, the "advanced" "democratic" nations are helping the savage tsarist regime to still more
throttle Poland, the Ukraine, etc., and more thoroughly crush the revolution in Russia.

    Neither group of belligerents is inferior to the other in spoiliation, atrocities and the boundless brutality of war; however, to hoodwink the proletariat and distract its attention from the only genuine war of liberation, namely, a civil war against the bourgeoisie both of its "own" and of "foreign" countries -- to achieve so
lofty an aim -- the bourgeoisie of each country is trying, with the help of false phrases about patriotism, to extol the significance of its "own" national war, asserting that it is out to defeat the enemy, not for plunder and the seizure of territory, but for the "liberation" of all other peoples except its own.

page 29

    But the harder the governments and the bourgeoisie of all countries try to disunite the workers and pit them against one another, and the more savagely they enforce, for this lofty aim, martial law and the military censorship (measures which even now, in wartime, are applied against the "internal" foe more harshly than
against the external), the more pressingly is it the duty of the class-conscious proletariat to defend its class solidarity, its internationalism, and its socialist convictions against the unbridled chauvinism of the "patriotic" bourgeois cliques in all countries. If class-conscious workers were to give up this aim, this would mean
renunciation of their aspirations for freedom and democracy, to say nothing of their socialist aspirations.

    It is with a feeling of the most bitter disappointment that we have to record that the socialist parties of the leading European countries have failed to discharge this duty, the behaviour of these parties' leaders, particularly in Germany, bordering on downright betrayal of the cause of socialism. At this time of supreme
and historic importance, most of the leaders of the present Socialist International, the Second (1889-1914), are trying to substitute nationalism for socialism. As a result of their behaviour, the workers' parties of these countries did not oppose the governments' criminal conduct, but called upon the working class to
identify its position with that of the imperialist governments. The leaders of the International committed an act of treachery against socialism by voting for war credits, by reiterating the chauvinist ("patriotic") slogans of the bourgeoisie of their "own" countries, by justifying and defending the war, by joining the bourgeois
governments of the belligerent countries, and so on and so forth. The most influential socialist leaders and the most influential organs of the socialist press of present-day Europe hold views that are chauvinist, bourgeois and liberal, and in no way socialist. The responsibility for thus disgracing socialism falls primarily
on the German Social-Democrats, who were the strongest and most influential party in the Second International. But neither can one justify the French socialists, who have accepted ministerial posts in the government of that very bourgeoisie which betrayed its country and allied itself with Bismarck so as to crush the Commune.

page 30

    The German and the Austrian Social-Democrats are at tempting to justify their support for the war by arguing that they are thereby fighting against Russian tsarism. We Russian Social-Democrats declare that we consider such justification sheer sophistry. In our country the revolutionary movement against tsarism has
again assumed tremendous proportions during the past few years. This movement has always been headed by the working class of Russia. The political strikes of the last few years, which have involved millions of workers, have had as their slogan the overthrow of tsarism and the establishment of a democratic
 republic. During his visit to Nicholas II on the very eve of the war, Poincaré, President of the French Republic, could see for himself, in the streets of St. Petersburg, barricades put up by Russian workers. The Russian proletariat has not flinched from any sacrifice to rid humanity of the disgrace of the tsarist monarchy.

We must, however, say that if there is anything that, under certain conditions, can delay the downfall of tsarism, anything that can help tsarism in its struggle against the whole of Russia's democracy, then that is the present war, which has placed the purses of the British, the French and the Russian bourgeois at the
disposal of tsarism, to further the latter's reactionary aims. If there is anything that can hinder the revolutionary struggle of the Russia's working class against tsarism, then that is the behaviour of the German and the Austrian Social-Democratic leaders, which the chauvinist press of Russia is continually holding up to us as an example.

    Even assuming that German Social-Democracy was so weak that it was compelled to refrain from all revolutionary action, it should not have joined the chauvinist camp, or taken steps which gave the Italian socialists reason to say that the German Social-Democratic leaders were dishonouring the banner of the
proletarian International.

    Our Party, the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party, has made, and will continue to make great sacrifices in connection with the war. The whole of our working-class legal press has been suppressed. Most working-class associations have been disbanded, and a large number of our comrades have been
arrested and exiled. Yet our parliamentary representatives -- the Russian Social-Democratic Labour

page 31

group in the Duma -- considered it their imperative socialist duty not to vote for the war credits, and even to walk out of the Duma, so as to express their protest the more energetically; they considered it their duty to brand the European governments' policy as imperialist. Though the tsar's government has increased its
tyranny tenfold, the Social-Democratic workers of Russia are already publishing their first illegal manifestos against the war, thus doing their duty to democracy and to the International.

    While the collapse of the Second International has given rise to a sense of burning shame in revolutionary Social-Democrats -- as represented by the minority of German Social-Democrats and the finest Social-Democrats in the neutral countries; while socialists in both Britain and France have been speaking up
against the chauvinism of most Social-Democratic parties; while the opportunists, as represented, for instance, by the German Sozialistische Monatshefte, which have long held a national-liberal stand, are with good reason celebrating their victory over European socialism -- the worst possible service is being rendered to the proletariat by those who vacillate between opportunism and revolutionary Social-Democracy (like the "Centre" in the German Social-Democratic Party), by those who are trying to hush up the collapse of the Second International or to disguise it with diplomatic phrases.

    On the contrary, this collapse must be frankly recognised and its causes understood, so as to make it possible to build up a new and more lasting socialist unity of the workers of all countries.

    The opportunists have wrecked the decisions of the Stuttgart, Copenhagen and Basle congresses,[19] which made it binding on socialists of all countries to combat chauvinism in all and any conditions, made it binding on socialists to reply to any war begun by the bourgeoisie and governments, with intensified

propaganda of civil war and social revolution. The collapse of the Second International is the collapse of opportunism, which developed from the features of a now bygone (and so-called "peaceful") period of history, and in recent years has some practically to dominate the International. The opportunist have long been preparing the ground for this collapse by denying the socialist

page 32

revolution and substituting bourgeois reformism in its stead; by rejecting the class struggle with its inevitable conversion at certain moments into civil war, and by preaching class collaboration; by preaching bourgeois chauvinism under the guise of patriotism and the defence of the fatherland, and ignoring or rejecting
the fundamental truth of socialism, long ago set forth in the Communist Manifesto, that the workingmen have no country; by confining themselves, in the struggle against militarism, to a sentimental, philistine point of view, instead of recognising the need for a revolutionary war by the proletarians of all countries, against
the bourgeoisie of all countries; by making a fetish of the necessary utilisation of bourgeois parliamentarianism and bourgeois legality, and forgetting that illegal forms of organisation and propaganda are imperative at times of crises. The natural "appendage" to opportunism -- one that is just as bourgeois and hostile to
the proletarian, i.e., the Marxist, point of view -- namely, the anarcho-syndicalist trend, has been marked by a no less shamefully smug reiteration of the slogans of chauvinism, during the present crisis.

    The aims of socialism at the present time cannot be fulfilled, and real international unity of the workers cannot be achieved, without a decisive break with opportunism, and without explaining its inevitable fiasco to the masses.

    It must be the primary task of Social-Democrats in every country to combat that country's chauvinism. In Russia this chauvinism has overcome the bourgeois liberals (the "Constitutional-Democrats"), and part of the Narodniks -- down to the Socialist-Revolutionaries[20] and the "Right" Social-Democrats. (In particular,

the chauvinist utterances of E. Smirnov, P. Maslov and G. Plekhanov, for example, should be branded; they have been taken up and widely used by the bourgeois "patriotic" press.)

    In the present situation, it is impossible to determine, from the standpoint of the international proletariat, the defeat of which of the two groups of belligerent nations would be the lesser evil for socialism. But to us Russian Social-Democrats there cannot be the slightest doubt that, from the standpoint of the working
class and of the toiling masses of all the nations of Russia, the defeat of the tsarist

page 33

monarchy, the most reactionary and barbarous of governments, which is oppressing the largest number of nations and the greatest mass of the population of Europe and Asia, would be the lesser evil.

    The formation of a republican United States of Europe should be the immediate political slogan of Europe's Social-Democrats. In contrast with the bourgeoisie, which is ready to "promise" anything in order to draw the proletariat into the mainstream of chauvinism, the Social-Democrats will explain that this slogan is absolutely false and meaningless without the revolutionary overthrow of the German, the Austrian and the Russian monarchies.

    Since Russia is most backward and has not yet completed its bourgeois revolution, it still remains the task of Social-Democrats in that country to achieve the three fundamental conditions for consistent democratic reform, viz., a democratic republic (with complete equality and self-determination for all nations),
confiscation of the landed estates, and an eight-hour working day. But in all the advanced countries the war has placed on the order of the day the slogan of socialist revolution, a slogan that is the more urgent, the more heavily the burden of war presses upon the shoulders of the proletariat, and the more active its
future role must become in the re-creation of Europe, after the horrors of the present "patriotic" barbarism in conditions of the tremendous technological progress of large-scale capitalism. The bourgeoisie's use of wartime laws to gag the proletariat makes it imperative for the latter to create illegal forms of agitation and

organisation. Let the opportunists "preserve" the legal organisations at the price of treachery to their convictions -- revolutionary Social-Democrats will utilise the organisational experience and links of the working class so as to create illegal forms of struggle for socialism, forms appropriate to a period of crisis, and to unite the workers, not with the chauvinist bourgeoisie of their respective countries, but with the workers of all countries. The proletarian International has not gone under and will not go under. Notwithstanding all obstacles, the masses of the workers will create a new International. Opportunism's present triumph will be short-lived. The greater the sacrifices imposed by the war the clearer will it become to the mass of the workers

page 34

that the opportunists have betrayed the workers' cause and that the weapons must be turned against the government and the bourgeoisie of each country.

    The conversion of the present imperialist war into a civil war is the only correct proletarian slogan, one that follows from the experience of the Commune, and outlined in the Basle resolution (1912); it bas been dictated by all the conditions of an imperialist war between highly developed bourgeois countries. However
difficult that transformation may seem at any given moment, socialists will never relinquish systematic, persistent and undeviating preparatory work in this direction now that war has become a fact.

    It is only along this path that the proletariat will be able to shake off its dependence on the chauvinist bourgeoisie, and, in one form or another and more or less rapidly, take decisivo steps towards genuine freedom for the nations and towards socialism.

    Long live the international fraternity of the workers against the chauvinism and patriotism of the bourgeoisie of all countries!

    Long live a proletarian International, freed from opportunism!

Central Committee
of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party

===================================
From Marx to Mao
Lenin Collection Reading Guide Notes on the Text Below
page 453
NOTES
 [19] The Stuttgart Congress of the Second International was held on August 18-24, 1907. The R.S.D.L.P. delegation consisted of 37 members, the Bolshevik delegates including Lenin, Lunacharsky and Litvinov.

    The Congress conducted its main work in committees set up to draft resolutions for the plenary meetings. Lenin worked on the committee which drafted a resolution on "Militarism and International Conflicts". Lenin and Rosa Luxemburg introduced into Bebel's draft the historic amendment on the duty of the socialists 

to use the war-created crisis to arouse the masses for the overthrow of capitalism. The amendment was adopted by the Congress (concerning the Congress, see Lenin's articles "The International Socialist Congress in Stuttgart" in Volume 13 of the present edition, pp. 75-81 and 82-93).  [Transcriber's Note: To distinguish these two articles having the same title, I have simply appended a "[a]" and a "[b]" to the titles: "The International Socialist Congress in Stuttgart [a]" and "The International Socialist Congress in Stuttgart [b]". -- DJR]

    The Copenhagen Congress of the Second International was held between August 28 and September 3, 1910, the R.S.D.L.P: being represented by Lenin, Plekhanov, Lunacharsky, Kollontai, Pokrovsky and others. The Congress appointed, several committees for preliminary discussion and drafting of resolutions on the agenda items. Lenin worked on the co-operative committee.

    The Congress's resolution "The Struggle Against Militarism and War" confirmed the Stuttgart Congress's resolution on "Militarism and International Conflicts" and listed the demands to be advanced by the socialist parliamentary deputies: (a) all conflicts between states to be unfailingly submitted for settlement by international courts of arbitration, (b) general disarmament; (c) abolition of secret diplomacy; (d) autonomy for all nations and their protection against military attacks and oppression.

page 461

The Basle Congress of the Second International was held on November 24-25, 1912. It was the extraordinary congress called in connection with the Balkan War and the imminent European war. The Congress adopted a manifesto emphasising the imperialist nature of the approaching world war, and called on the socialists of all countries to wage a vigorous struggle against war. (The Basle Manifesto is discussed on pp. 208-17, 307-08 in this volume.) [Transcriber's Note: See, respectively, Lenin's "The Collapse of the Second International", sections I and II, and Socialism and War, the section entitled "The Basel Manifesto". -- 

DJR]    [p. 31]

  [20] Socialist-Revolutionaries -- a petty-bourgeois party in Russia, founded at the end of 1901 and the beginning of 1902 as a result of the union of various Narodnik groups and circles (Union of Socialist Revolutionaries, the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, etc.). The newspaper Revolutsionnaya Rossiya (Revolutionary Russia ) (1900-05) and the journal Vestnik Russkoi Revolutsii (Herald of the Russian Revolution ) (1901-05) became its official organs. The Socialist-Revolutionaries did not recognise the class differences between the proletariat and the petty proprietors, glossed over the class contradictions within the peasantry, and rejected the proletariat's leading role in the revolution. The Socialist-Revolutionaries' views were an eclectic mixture of the ideas of Narodism and revisionism; they tried, as Lenin put it, to patch up "the rents in the Narodnik ideas with bits of fashionable opportunist 'criticism' of Marxism" (see present edition, Vol. 9, p. 

310). [Transcriber's Note: See Lenin's "Socialism and the Peasantry". -- DJR] 
    The Bolshevik Party exposed the Socialist-Revolutionaries' attempts to masquerade as socialists, conducted a determined struggle against the Socialist-Revolutionaries for influence over the peasantry, and showed how dangerous their tactic of individual terrorism was to the working-class movement. At the same time the Bolsheviks were prepared, on definite conditions, to enter into temporary agreements with the Socialist-Revolutionaries in the struggle against tsarism. As early as the first Russian revolution (1905-07), the Right wing of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party broke away and formed the legal Popular-Socialist Party, whose outlook was close to that of the Cadets, the Left wing forming the semi-anarchist league of Maximalists. In the period of reaction between 1907 and 1910, the Socialist-Revolutionary Party suffered a complete ideological and organisational breakdown. During the First World War most of its members took a social-chauvinist position.    [p. 32]
=================
WAR AND RUSSIAN  SOCIAL-DEMOCRACY
Written prior to September 28 (October 11), 1914

Published on November 1, 1914
in Sotsial-Demokrat No. 33
Published according to the newspaper text, checked against the manuscript
From V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, 4th English Edition,
Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1964

Vol. 21, pp. 25-32.
Translated from the Russian Edited by Julius Katzer
Prepared © for the Internet by David J. Romagnolo, djr@marx2mao.org (December 1998)
page 27

Lenin's Speech On Affiliation To The British Labour Party

Lenin's Speech On Affiliation To The British Labour Party

The Second Congress Of The Communist International
July 19-August 7, 1920

Comrades, Comrade Gallacher began his speech by expressing regret at our having been compelled to listen here for the hundredth and the thousandth time to sentences that Comrade McLaine and other British comrades have reiterated a thousand times in speeches, newspapers and magazines.

I think there is no need for regret. The old International used the method of referring such questions for decision to the individual parties in the countries concerned. That was a grave error. We may not be fully familiar with the conditions in one country or another, but in this case we are dealing with the principles
underlying a Communist Party’s tactics. That is very important and, in the name of the Third International, we must herewith clearly state the communist point of view.

First of all, I should like to mention a slight inaccuracy on the part of Comrade McLaine, which cannot be agreed to. He called the Labour Party the political organisation of the trade union movement, and later repeated the statement when he said that the Labour Party is “the political expression of the workers organised in trade unions”.

I have met the same view several times in the paper of the British Socialist Party. It is erroneous, and is partly the cause of the opposition, fully justified in some measure, coming from the British revolutionary workers. Indeed, the concepts “political department of the trade unions “ or “political expression” of the trade
union movement, are erroneous. Of course, most of the Labour Party’s members are workingmen.

However, whether or not a party is really a political party of the workers does not depend solely upon a membership of workers but also upon the men that lead it, and the content of its actions and its political tactics. Only this latter determines whether we really have before us a political party of the proletariat.

Regarded from this, the only correct, point of view, the Labour Party is a thoroughly bourgeois party, because, although made up of workers, it is led by reactionaries, and the worst kind of reactionaries at that, who act quite in the spirit of the bourgeoisie. It is an organisation of the bourgeoisie, which exists to systematically dupe the workers with the aid of the British Noskes and Scheidemanns.

Regarded from this, the only correct, point of view, the Labour Party is a thoroughly bourgeois party, because, although made up of workers, it is led by reactionaries, and the worst kind of reactionaries at that, who act quite in the spirit of the bourgeoisie. It is an organisation of the bourgeoisie, which exists to
systematically dupe the workers with the aid of the British Noskes and Scheidemanns.

We have also heard another point of view, defended by Comrade Sylvia Pankhurst and Comrade Gallacher, who have voiced their opinion in the matter. What was the substance of the speeches delivered by Gallacher and many of his friends? They have told us that they are insufficiently linked with the masses.

But take the instance of the British Socialist Party, they went on. It is still less linked with the masses and it is a very weak party. Comrade Gallacher has told us here how he and his comrades have organised, and done so really splendidly, the revolutionary movement in Glasgow, in Scotland, how in their wartime tactics they manoeuvred skillfully, how they gave able support to the petty-bourgeois pacifists Ramsay MacDonald and Snowden when they came to Glasgow, and used this support to organise a mass movement against the war.

It is our aim to integrate this new and excellent revolutionary movement—represented here by Comrade Gallacher and his friends—into a Communist Party with genuinely communist, i.e., Marxist tactics. That is our task today.

On the one hand, the British Socialist Party is too weak and incapable of properly carrying on agitation among the masses; on the other hand, we have the younger revolutionary elements so well represented here by Comrade Gallacher, who, although in touch with the masses, are not a political party, and in this sense
are even weaker than the British Socialist Party and are totally unable to organise their political work.

Under these circumstances, we must express our frank opinion on the correct tactics. When, in speaking of the British Socialist Party, Comrade Gallacher said that it is “hopelessly reformist”, he was undoubtedly exaggerating.

But the general tenor and content of all the resolutions we have adopted here show with absolute clarity that we demand a change, in this spirit, in the tactics of the British Socialist Party; the only correct tactics of Gallacher’s friends will consist in their joining the Communist Party without delay, so as to modify its tactics
in the spirit of the resolutions adopted here.

If you have so many supporters that you are able to organise mass meetings in Glasgow, it will not be difficult for you to bring more than ten thousand new members into the Party. The latest Conference of the British Socialist Party, held in London three or four days ago, decided to assume the name of the Communist

Party and introduced into its programme a clause providing for participation in parliamentary elections and affiliation to the Labour Party.

Ten thousand organised members were represented at the Conference. It will therefore not be at all difficult for the Scottish comrades to bring into this “Communist Party of Great Britain” more than ten thousand revolutionary workers who are better versed in the art of working among the masses, and thus to modify the
old tactics of the British Socialist Party in the sense of better agitation and more revolutionary action.

In the commission, Comrade Sylvia Pankhurst pointed out several times that Britain needed “Lefts”. I, of course, replied that this was absolutely true, but that one must not overdo this “Leftism”. Furthermore she said that they were better pioneers, but for the moment were rather noisy. I do not take this in a bad sense,
but rather in a good one, namely, that they are better able to carry on revolutionary agitation.

We do and should value this. We expressed this in all our resolutions, for we always emphasise that we can consider a party to be a workers’ party only when it is really linked up with the masses and fights against the old and quite corrupt leaders, against both the Right-wing chauvinists and those who, like the Right

Independents in Germany, take up an intermediate position. We have asserted and reiterated this a dozen times and more in all our resolutions, which means that we demand a transformation of the old party, in the sense of bringing it closer to the masses.

Sylvia Pankhurst also asked: “Is it possible for a Communist Party to join another political party which still belongs to the Second International?”

She replied that it was not. It should, however, be borne in mind that the British Labour Party is in a very special position: it is a highly original type of party, or rather, it is not at all a party in the ordinary sense of the word. It is made up of members of all trade unions, and has a membership of about four million, and
allows sufficient freedom to all affiliated political parties. It thus includes a vast number of British workers who follow the lead of the worst bourgeois elements, the social-traitors, who are even worse than Scheidemann, Noske and similar people.

At the same time, however, the Labour Party has let the British Socialist Party into its ranks, permitting it to have its own press organs, in which members of the selfsame Labour Party can freely and openly declare that the party leaders are social-traitors. Comrade McLaine has cited quotations from such statements by
the British Socialist Party.

I, too, can certify that I have seen in The Call, organ of the British Socialist Party, statements that the Labour Party leaders are social-patriots and social-traitors. This shows that a party affiliated to the Labour Party is able, not only to severely criticise but openly and specifically to mention the old leaders by name, and
call them social-traitors.

This is a very original situation: a party which unites enormous masses of workers, so that it might seem a political party, is nevertheless obliged to grant its members complete latitude. Comrade McLaine has told us here that, at the Labour Party Conference, the British Scheidemanns were obliged to openly raise the
question of affiliation to the Third International, and that all party branches and sections were obliged to discuss the matter. In such circumstances, it would be a mistake not to join this party.

In a private talk, Comrade Pankhurst said to me: “If we are real revolutionaries and join the Labour Party, these gentlemen will expel us.”

But that would not be bad at all. Our resolution says that we favour affiliation insofar as the Labour Party permits sufficient freedom of criticism. On that point we are absolutely consistent.

Comrade McLaine has emphasised that the conditions now prevailing in Britain are such that, should it so desire, a political party may remain a revolutionary workers’ party even if it is connected with a special kind of labour organisation of four million members, which is half trade union and half political and is headed
by bourgeois leaders.

 In such circumstances it would be highly erroneous for the best revolutionary elements not to do everything possible to remain in such a party. Let the Thomases and other social-traitors, whom you have called by that name, expel you. That will have an excellent effect upon the mass of the British workers.

The comrades have emphasised that the labour aristocracy is stronger in Britain than in any other country. That is true. After all, the labour aristocracy has existed in Britain, not for decades but for centuries.

The British bourgeoisie, which has had far more experience—democratic experience—than that of any other country, has been able to buy workers over and to create among them a sizable stratum, greater than in any other country, but one that is not so great compared with the masses of the workers. This stratum is
thoroughly imbued with bourgeois prejudices and pursues a definitely bourgeois reformist policy.

In Ireland, for instance, there are two hundred thousand British soldiers who are applying ferocious terror methods to suppress the Irish. The British Socialists are not conducting any revolutionary propaganda among these soldiers, though our resolutions clearly state that we can accept into the Communist International
only those British parties that conduct genuinely revolutionary propaganda among the British workers and soldiers. I emphasise that we have heard no objections to this either here or in the commissions.

Comrades Gallacher and Sylvia Pankhurst cannot deny that. They cannot refute the fact that, in the ranks of the Labour Party, the British Socialist Party enjoys sufficient freedom to write that certain leaders of the Labour Party are traitors; that these old leaders represent the interests of the bourgeoisie; that they are
agents of the bourgeoisie in the working-class movement.

They cannot deny all this because it is the absolute truth. When Communists enjoy such freedom it is their duty to join the Labour Party if they take due account of the experience of revolutionaries in all countries, not only of the Russian revolution (for here we are not at a Russian congress but at one that is international).

Comrade Gallacher has said ironically that in the present instance we are under the influence of the British Socialist Party.

That is not true; it is the experience of all revolutions in all countries that has convinced us. We think that we must say that to the masses. The British Communist Party must retain the freedom necessary to expose and criticise the betrayers of the working class, who are much more powerful in Britain than in any other
country. That is readily understandable.

Comrade Gallacher is wrong in asserting that by advocating affiliation to the Labour Party we shall repel the best elements among the British workers. We must test this by experience. We are convinced that all the resolutions and decisions that will be adopted by our Congress will be published in all British
revolutionary socialist newspapers and that all the branches and sections will be able to discuss them.

The entire content of our resolutions shows with crystal clarity that we are representatives of working-class revolutionary tactics in all countries and that our aim is to fight against the old reformism and opportunism. The events reveal that our tactics are indeed defeating the old reformism.

In that case the finest revolutionary elements in the working class, who are dissatisfied with the slow progress being made—and progress in Britain will perhaps be slower than in other countries—will all come over to us. Progress is slow because the British bourgeoisie are in a position to create better conditions for
the labour aristocracy and thereby to retard the revolutionary movement in Britain.

That is why the British comrades should strive, not only to revolutionise the masses—they are doing that splendidly (as Comrade Gallacher has shown), but must at the same time strive to create a real working-class political party. Comrade Gallacher and Comrade Sylvia Pankhurst, who have both spoken here, do not as yet belong to a revolutionary Communist Party.

That excellent proletarian organisation, the Shop Stewards’ movement, has not yet joined a political party. If you organise politically you will find that our tactics are based on a correct understanding of political developments in the past decades, and that a real revolutionary party can be created only when it absorbs the best elements of the revolutionary class and uses every opportunity to fight the reactionary leaders, wherever they show themselves.

If the British Communist Party starts by acting in a revolutionary manner in the Labour Party, and if the Hendersons are obliged to expel this Party, that will be a great victory for the communist and revolutionary working class movement in Britain.

Lenin 1920
============

JUDAS TROTSKY'S BLUSH OF SHAME

JUDAS TROTSKY'S BLUSH OF SHAME

V. I. Lenin

At the Plenary Meeting Judas Trotsky made a big show of fighting liquidationism and otzovism. He vowed and swore that he was true to the Party. He was given a subsidy.

    After the Meeting the Central Committee grew weaker, the Vperyod group grew stronger and acquired funds. The liquidators strengthened their position and in Nasha Zarya [26] spat in the face of the illegal Party, before Stolypin's very eyes.

    Judas expelled the representative of the Central Committee from Pravda and began to write liquidationist articles in Vorwärts.[27] In defiance of the direct decision of the School Commission[28] appointed by the Plenary Meeting to the effect that no Party lecturer may go to the Vperyod factional school, Judas

Trotsky did go and discussed a plan for a conference with the Vperyod group. This plan has now been published by the Vperyod group in a leaflet.

    And it is this Judas who beats his hreast and loudly professes his loyalty to the Party, claiming that he did not grovel before the Vperyod group and the liquidators.

    Such is Judas Trotsky's blush of shame.
=================================================
Written after January 2 (15), 1911 First published on January 21 1932, in Pravda, No. 21
Published according to the manuscript From V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, 4th English Edition,
Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1968 First printing 1963 Second printing 1968 Vol. 17, p. 45.
Translated from the Russian by Dora Cox Edited by George Hanna
Prepared © for the Internet by David J. Romagnolo, djr@marx2mao.org (June 1998)
page 45
================================================

THE TASKS OF REVOLUTIONARY SOCIAL-DEMOCRACY IN THE EUROPEAN WAR[1]

THE TASKS

OF REVOLUTIONARY SOCIAL-DEMOCRACY

 IN THE EUROPEAN WAR[1]

THE RUSSIAN SOCIAL-DEMOCRATS
ON THE EUROPEAN WAR

Reports have reached us from most reliable sources, regarding a conference recently held by leaders of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party, on the question of the European war. The conference was not of a wholly official nature, since the Central Committee of the R.S.D.L.P. has as yet been unable to gather, as a result of the numerous arrests and unprecedented persecution by the tsarist government. We do, however, have precise information that the conference gave expression to views held by the most influential circles of the R.S.D.L.P.

The conference adopted the following resolution, whose full text we are quoting below as a document:

RESOLUTION OF A GROUP OF SOCIAL-DEMOCRATS

    1. The European and world war has the clearly defined character of a bourgeois, imperialist and dynastic war. A struggle for markets and for freedom to loot foreign countries, a striving to suppress the revolutionary movement of the proletariat and democracy in the individual countries, a desire to deceive, disunite, and slaughter the proletarians of all countries by setting the wage slaves of one nation

page 16

against those of another so as to benefit the bourgeoisie -- these are the only real content and significance of the war.

    2. The conduct of the leaders of the German Social-Democratic Party, the strongest and the most influential in the Second International (1889-1914), a party which has voted for war credits and repeated the bourgeois-chauvinist phrases of the Prussian Junkers and the bourgeoisie, is sheer betrayal of socialism. Under no circumstances can the conduct of the leaders of the German Social-Democratic Party be condoned, even if we assume that the party was absolutely weak and had temporarily to bow to the will of the bourgeois majority of the nation. This party has in fact adopted a national-liberal policy.

    3. The conduct of the Belgian and French Social-Democratic party leaders, who have betrayed socialism by entering bourgeois governments,[2] is just as reprehensible.

    4. The betrayal of socialism by most leaders of the Second International (1889-1914) signifies the ideological and political bankruptcy of the International. This collapse has been mainly caused by the actual prevalence in it of petty-bourgeois opportunism, the bourgeois nature and the danger of which have long been indicated by the finest representatives of the revolutionary proletariat of all countries. The opportunists had long been preparing to wreck the Second International by denying the socialist revolution and substituting bourgeois reformism in its stead, by rejecting the class struggle with its inevitable conversion at certain moments into civil war, and by preaching class collaboration; by preaching bourgeois chauvinism under the guise of patriotism and the defence of the fatherland, and ignoring or rejecting the fundamental truth of socialism, long ago set forth in the Communist Manifesto, that the workingmen have no country; by confining themselves, in the struggle against militarism, to a sentimental philistine point of view, instead of recognising the need for a revolutionary war by the proletarians of all countries, against the bourgeoisie of all countries; by making a fetish of the necessary utilisation of bourgeois parliamentarianism and bourgeois legality, and forgetting that illegal forms

page 17

of organisation and agitation are imperative at times of crises. One of the organs of international opportunism, Sozialistische Monatshefte,[3] which has long taken a national liberal stand, is very properly celebrating its victory over European socialism. The so-called Centre of the German and other Social-Democratic parties has in actual fact faint heartedly capitulated to the opportunists. It must be the task of the future International resolutely and irrevocably to rid itself of this bourgeois trend in socialism.

    5. With reference to the bourgeois and chauvinist sophisms being used by the bourgeois parties and the governments of the two chief rival nations of the Continent -- the German and the French -- to fool the masses most effectively, and being copied by both the overt and covert socialist opportunists, who are slavishly following in the wake of the bourgeoisie, one must particularly note and brand the following:

    When the German bourgeois refer to the defence of the fatherland and to the struggle against tsarism, and insist on the freedom of cultural and national development, they are lying, because it has always been the policy of Prussian Junkerdom, headed by Wilhelm II, and the big bourgeoisie of Germany, to defend the tsarist monarchy; whatever the outcome of the war, they are sure to try to bolster it. They are lying because, in actual fact, the Austrian bourgeoisie have launched a robber campaign against Serbia, and the German bourgeoisie are oppressing Danes, Poles, and Frenchmen (in Alsace-Lorraine); they are waging a war of aggression against Belgium and France so as to loot the richer and freer countries; they have organised an offensive at a moment which seemed best for the use of the latest improvements in military matériel, and on the eve of the introduction of the so-called big military programme in Russia.

    Similarly, when the French bourgeois refer to the defence of the fatherland, etc., they are lying, because in actual fact they are defending countries that are backward in capitalist technology and are developing more slowly, and because they spend thousands of millions to hire Russian tsarism's Black-Hundred[4] gangs for a war of aggression, i.e., the looting of Austrian and German lands.

page 18

    Neither of the two belligerent groups of nations is second to the other in cruelty and atrocities in warfare.

    6. It is the first and foremost task of Russian Social-Democrats to wage a ruthless and all-out struggle against Great-Russian and tsarist-monarchist chauvinism, and against the sophisms used by the Russian liberals, Cadets,[5] a section of the Narodniks, and other bourgeois parties, in defence of that chauvinism. From the viewpoint of the working class and the toiling masses of all the peoples of Russia, the defeat of the tsarist monarchy and its army, which oppress Poland, the Ukraine, and many other peoples of Russia, and foment hatred among the peoples so as to increase Great-Russian oppression of the other nationalities, and consolidate the reactionary and barbarous government of the tsar's monarchy, would be the lesser evil by far.

    7. The following must now be the slogans of Social-Democracy:

    First, all-embracing propaganda, involving the army and the theatre of hostilities as well, for the socialist revolution and the need to use weapons, not against their brothers, the wage slaves in other countries, but against the reactionary and bourgeois governments and parties of all countries; the urgent necessity of organising illegal nuclei and groups in the armies of all nations, to conduct such propaganda. in all languages; a merciless struggle against the chauvinism and "patriotism" of the philistines and bourgeoisie of all countries without exception. In the struggle against the leaders of the present International, who have betrayed socialism, it is imperative to appeal to the revolutionary consciousness of the working masses, who bear the entire burden of the war and are in most cases hostile to opportunism and chauvinism.

    Secondly, as an immediate slogan, propaganda for republics in (Germany, Poland, Russia, and other countries, and for the transforming of all the separate states of Europe into a republican United States of Europe.[6]

    Thirdly and particularly, a struggle against the tsarist monarchy and Great-Russian, Pan-Slavist chauvinism, and advocacy of a revolution in Russia, as well as of the liberation of and self-determination for nationalities oppressed by Russia, coupled with the immediate slogans of a demo-

page 19

cratic republic, the confiscation of the landed estates, and an eight-hour working day.


A group of Social-Democrats,
members of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party

From Marx to Mao Lenin Collection Reading Guide Notes on the Text
Below

page 457

NOTES

[1] These theses on the war were drawn up by Lenin not later than August 24 (September 6), 1914 after he had come to Berne from Poronin (Galicia). They were discussed at a meeting of the Bolshevik group in Berne on August 24-26 (September 6-8). Approved by the group, the theses were circulated among Bolshevik groups abroad. To throw the police off the scent, the copy of the theses made out by N. K. Krupskaya, carried the inscription: "Copy of the manifesto issued in Denmark." 

    The theses were smuggled into Russia for discussion by the Russian section of the Central Committee, Party organisations and the Bolshevik Duma group. 

    Through Swiss Social-Democrats the theses were submitted to the conference of the Swiss and Italian Socialists held in Lugano on September 27, 1914. Many of the ideas contained in the theses were incorporated in the conference's resolution. 

    On learning of the approval of the theses in Russia, Lenin used them as a basis for writing the manifesto of the R.S.D.L.P. Central Committee "The War and Russian Social-Democracy" (see this volume, pp. 25-34).

    The introduction to the theses ("The Russian Social-Democrats on the European War", which was written on a separate sheet) was discovered only later, and was first published in the 4th Russian edition of Lenin's Collected Works.    [p. 15]

  [2] Among those who joined the bourgeois government of Belgium was Vandervelde, and in France Jules Guesde, Marcel Sembat and Albert Thomas.    [p. 16]

  [3] Sozialistische Monatshefte (Socialist Monthly ) -- the principal organ of the German opportunists, and one of the organs of international opportunism. It was published in Berlin from 1897 to 1933. During the First World War it took a social-chauvinist stand.    [p. 17]

  [4] The Black Hundreds -- monarchist gangs formed by the tsarist police to fight the revolutionary movement. They murdered revolutionaries, assaulted progressive intellectuals and organised pogroms.    [p. 17]

  [5] Cadets -- members of the Constitutional-Democratic Party, the leading party of the liberal-monarchist bourgeoisie in Russia. Founded in 1905, the party represented the bourgeoisie, Zemstvo

page 458

landowner leaders and bourgeois intellectuals. Prominent among its members were Milyukov, Muromtsev, Maklakov, Shingaryov, Struve, and Rodichev. 

    The Cadets were active in Russia's war preparations. They stood solidly behind the tsarist government's predatory designs, hoping to batten on war contracts, strengthen the bourgeoisie's positions, and suppress the revolutionary movement in the country. 

    With the outbreak of the war the Cadets advanced the slogan of "War to the victorious end!" When, in 1915, the tsarist forces suffered a defeat at the front, which led to the aggravation of the revolutionary crisis, the Cadet members of the State Duma, headed by Milyukov, and the other representatives of the bourgeoisie and the landowners formed a "Progressist" bloc aimed at checking the revolution, preserving the monarchy and bringing the war to a "victorious end". The Cadets actively helped to set up war-industries committees.    [p. 18]

  [6] See Lenin's articles "On the Slogan for a United States of Europe" and "On the Slogan for a United States of Europe. Editorial Comment by Sotsial-Demokrat on the Manifesto on War Issued by the Central Committee of the R.S.D.L.P." (see this volume, pp. 339-43, 344).    [p. 18]

From Marx to Mao Lenin Collection Reading Guide