As The 100th Anniversary Of World War I Enters Its Second Year-The Anti-War Resistance Begins- Lenin

As The 100^th Anniversary Of World War I Enters Its Second Year-The Anti-War Resistance Begins-  Lenin 

The events leading up to World War I (known as the Great War before the world got clogged up with expansive wars in need of other numbers and names and reflecting too in that period before World War II a certain sense of “pride” in having participated in such an epic adventure even if it did mow down the flower of European youth from all classes) from the massive military armament of almost all the capitalist and imperialist parties in Europe and elsewhere in order to stake their claims to their unimpeded share of the world’s resources had all the earmarks of a bloodbath early on once the industrial-sized carnage set in with the stalemated fronts (as foretold by the blood-letting in the American Civil War and the various “small” wars in Asia, Africa, and, uh, Europe in the mid to late 19^th century once war production on a mass scale followed in the train of other industrial production). Also trampled underfoot in the opposing trenches, or rather thrown in the nearest trash bin of the their respective parliamentary buildings were the supposedly eternal pledges against war in defense of one’s own capitalist-imperialist  nation-state against the working masses and their allies of other countries by most of the Social-Democrats and other militant leftist formations (Anarchists, Syndicalists and their various off-shoots)representing the historic interest of the international working-class to stop those imperialist capitalist powers and their hangers-on in their tracks at the approach of war were decisive for 20^th century history. All those beautifully written statements and resolutions that clogged up the international conferences with feelings of solidarity were some much ill-fated wind once bullet one came out of gun one.

Other than isolated groups and individuals, mostly like Lenin and Trotsky in exile or jail, and mostly in the weaker lesser capitalistically developed countries of Europe the blood lust got the better of most of the working class and its allies as young men rushed to the recruiting stations to “do their duty” and prove their manhood. (When the first international conference of anti-war socialists occurred in Switzerland in 1915 one wag pointed out that they could all fit in one tram [bus].) Almost all parties assuming that the damn thing would be over by Christmas and everyone could go back to the eternal expressions of international working-class solidarity after the smoke had settled (and the simple white-crossed graves dug). You see, and the logic is beautiful on this one, that big mail-drop of a Socialist International, was built for peace-time but once the cannon roared then the “big tent” needed to be folded for the duration. Jesus.  

Decisive as well as we head down the slope to the first months of the second year of the war although shrouded in obscurity early in the war in exile was the soon to be towering figure of one Vladimir Lenin (a necessary nom de guerre in the hell broth days of the Czar’s Okhrana ready to send one and all to the Siberian frosts and that moniker business, that nom de guerre not a bad idea in today’s NSA-driven frenzy to know all, to peep at all), leader of the small Russian Bolshevik Party ( a Social-Democratic Party in name anyway adhering to the Second International under the sway of the powerful German party although not for long because “Long Live The Communist International,”  a new revolutionary international, would become the order of the day in the not distant future), architect of the theory of the “vanguard party” building off of many revolutionary experiences in Russia and Europe in the 19^th century (including forbears Marx and Engels), and author of an important, important to the future communist world perspective, study on the monopolizing tendencies of world imperialism, the ending of the age of “progressive” capitalism (in the Marxist sense of the term progressive in a historical materialist sense that capitalism was progressive against feudalism and other older economic models which turned into its opposite at this dividing point in history), and the hard fact that it was a drag on the possibilities of human progress and needed to be replaced by the establishment of the socialist order. But that is the wave of the future as 1914 turns to 1915 in the sinkhole trenches of Europe that are already a death trap for the flower of the European youth.  

Lenin also has a "peace" plan, a peace plan of sorts, a way out of the stinking trench warfare stalemate eating up the youth of the Eurasian landmass. Do what should have been done from the beginning, do what all the proclamations from all the beautifully-worded socialist manifestos called on the international working-class to do. Not a simple task by any means especially in that first year when almost everybody on all sides thought a little blood-letting would be good for the soul, the individual national soul, and in any case the damn thing would be over by Christmas and everybody could start producing those beautifully worded-manifestos against war again. (That by Christmas peace “scare” turned out to be a minute “truce” from below by English and German soldiers hungry for the old certainties banning the barbed wire and stinking trenches for a short reprieve in the trench fronts in France and played soccer before returning to drawn guns-a story made into song and which is today used as an example of what the lower ranks could do-if they would only turn the guns around. Damn those English and German soldiers never did turn the damn things around until too late and with not enough resolve and the whole world has suffered from that lack of resolve ever since.)

Lenin’s hard-headed proposition: turn the bloody world war among nations into a class war to drive out the war-mongers and bring some peace to the blood-soaked lands. But that advanced thinking is merely the wave of the future as the rat and rain-infested sinkhole trenches of Europe were already churning away in the first year as a death trap for the flower of the European youth.   

The ability to inflict industrial-sized slaughter and mayhem on a massive scale first portended toward the end of the American Civil War once the Northern industrial might tipped the scales their way as did the various German-induced wars attempting to create one nation-state out of various satraps almost could not be avoided in the early 20^th century once the armaments race got serious, and the technology seemed to grow exponentially with each new turn in the war machine. The land war, the war carried out by the “grunts,” by the “cannon fodder” of many nations was only the tip of the iceberg and probably except for the increased cannon-power and range and the increased rapidity of the machine-guns would be carried out by the norms of the last wars. However the race for naval supremacy, or the race to take a big kink out of British supremacy, went on unimpeded as Germany tried to break-out into the Atlantic world and even Japan, Jesus, Japan tried to gain a big hold in the Asia seas.

The deeply disturbing submarine warfare wreaking havoc on commerce on the seas, the use of armed aircraft and other such technological innovations of war only added to the frenzy. We can hundred years ahead, look back and see where talk of “stabs in the back” by the losers and ultimately an armistice rather than decisive victory on the blood-drenched fields of Europe would lead to more blood-letting but it was not clear, or nobody was talking about it much, or, better, doing much about calling a halt before they began the damn thing among all those “civilized” nations who went into the abyss in July of 1914. Sadly the list of those who would not do anything, anything concrete, besides paper manifestos issued at international conferences, included the great bulk of the official European labor movement which in theory was committed to stopping the madness.

A few voices, voices like Karl Liebknecht (who against the party majority bloc voting scheme finally voted against the Kaiser’s war budget, went to the streets to get rousing anti-war speeches listened to in the workers’ districts, lost his parliamentary immunity and wound up honorably in the Kaiser’s  prisons) and Rosa Luxemburg ( the rose of the revolution also honorably prison bound) in Germany, Lenin and Trotsky in Russia (both exiled at the outbreak of war and just in time as being on “the planet without a passport” was then as now, dangerous to the lives of left-wing revolutionaries), some anti-war anarchists like Monette in France and here in America “Big Bill” Haywood (who eventually would controversially flee to Russia to avoid jail for his opposition to American entry into war), many of his IWW (Industrial Workers Of the World) comrades and the stalwart Eugene V. Debs (who also went to jail, “Club Fed” for speaking the truth about American war aims in a famous Cleveland speech and, fittingly, ran for president in 1920 out of his Atlanta Penitentiary jail cell),  were raised and one hundred years later those voices have a place of honor in this space.

Those voices, many of them in exile, or in the deportations centers, were being clamped down as well when the various imperialist governments began closing their doors to political refugees when they were committed to clapping down on their own anti-war citizens. As we have seen in our own times, most recently in America in the period before the “shock and awe” of the decimation of Iraq in 2002 and early 2003 the government, most governments, are able to build a war frenzy out of whole cloth. Even my old anti-war amigo from my hometown who after I got out of the American Army during the Vietnam War marched with me in countless rallies and parades trying to stop the madness got caught in the bogus information madness and supported Bush’s “paper war” although not paper for the benighted Iraqi masses ever since (and plenty of other “wise” heads from our generation of ’68 made that sea-change turn with him).

At those times, and in my lifetime the period after 9/11 when we tried in vain to stop the Afghan war in its tracks is illustrative, to be a vocal anti-warrior is a dicey business. A time to keep your head down a little, to speak softly and wait for the fever to subside and to be ready to begin the anti-war fight another day. “Be ready to fight” the operative words.

So imagine in the hot summer of 1914 when every nationality in Europe felt its prerogatives threatened how the fevered masses, including the beguiled working-classes bred on peace talk without substance, would not listen to the calls against the slaughter. Yes, one hundred years later is not too long or too late to honor those ardent anti-war voices as the mass mobilizations began in the countdown to war, began four years of bloody trenches and death.                  

Over the next period as we continue the long night of the 100^th anniversary of World War I and beyond I will under this headline post various documents, manifestos and cultural expressions from that time in order to give a sense of what the lead up to that war looked like, the struggle against its outbreak before the first frenzied shots were fired, the forlorn struggle during and the massive struggles after it in places like Russia, Germany, Hungary, Bulgaria, and the hodge-podge colonies all over the world map, in order to create a newer world out of the shambles of the battlefields.     

The European War and
International Socialism

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Written: Written in late August–September 1914
Published: First published on August 1, 1929, in Pravda No. 174. Published according to the manuscript.
Source: Lenin Collected Works, Progress Publishers, [197[4]], Moscow, Volume 21, pages 20-24.
Translated:
Transcription\Markup: D. Walters and R. Cymbala
Public Domain: Lenin Internet Archive 2002 (2005). You may freely copy, distribute, display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet Archive” as your source.
Other Formats:   Text • README

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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!”^[1] —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!^[11] to Südekum,^[12] the truth that paper   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)^[2] ]—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^[3] ), and with bitterness by socialists (Volksrecht^[13] in Zurich, and Bremer Bürger-Zeitung^[14]). 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,^[15] Wiener Arbeiter-Zeitung^[16] and Hamburger Echo^[17] versus l’Humanité,^[18] and the appeals of the Belgian and the French socialists versus the “reply ”of the German Vorstand.^[19]) 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’”.^[4]
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.^[20]

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]^[5] 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”^[6] (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   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?^[7] Heldentod^[8] and a miserable death? All this in vantagglo di un altra patria?^[9] 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^[21] and^[10] N. B. insert: the contemptuous and scornful attitude of Die Neue Zeit^[22] towards the Italian socialists and Avanti!: petty concessions to opportunism! “The golden mean.”
[[BOX-ENDS:
The so-called “Centre ”= lackeys of the opportunists. ]]

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Notes

[1] “a holy war of all the oppressed, for the conquest of their own fatherland!”—Ed.

[2] See pp. 15-19 of this volume: The Tasks of Revolutionary Social-Democracy in the European War—Editor —Lenin

[3] the reformists of the Right.—Ed.

[4] … 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.

[5] Interpolations in square brackets (within passages quoted by Lenin) have been introduced by Lenin, unless otherwise indicated.—Ed.

[6] … 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.

[7] Shoot down?—Ed.

[8] A hero’s death.—Ed.

[9] For the sake of another country?—Ed.

[10] The manuscript breaks off here. The next two sentences are marginal notes.—Ed.

[11] 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 Avanti! is the central organ of the Italian Democratic Left Party.

[12] 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.

[13] 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”.

[14] 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.

[15] 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   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.

[16] 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.

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

[18] l’Humanité—a daily founded by Jean Jaurès 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.

[19] 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, 1914 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.

[20] 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).

[21] 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   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.

[22] 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. [See also Glossary entry which also contains related links]