As The 100th
Anniversary Of World War I Enters Its Second Year-The Anti-War Resistance
Begins-
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 19th 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 20th
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 19th 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 20th
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 100th 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 First Step
Published: Sotsial-Demokrat No. 45–46, October 11, 1915. Published according to the text in Sotsial-Demokrat.
Source: Lenin Collected Works, Progress Publishers, [197[4]], Moscow, Volume 21, pages 383-388.
Translated:
Transcription\Markup: D. Walters and R. Cymbala
Public Domain: Lenin Internet Archive 2003 (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
Source: Lenin Collected Works, Progress Publishers, [197[4]], Moscow, Volume 21, pages 383-388.
Translated:
Transcription\Markup: D. Walters and R. Cymbala
Public Domain: Lenin Internet Archive 2003 (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
The development of the international socialist movement is slow during the tremendous crisis created by the war. Yet it is moving towards a break with opportunism and social-chauvinism, as was clearly shown by the International Socialist Conference held at Zimmerwald, Switzerland, between September 5 and 8, 1915.
For a whole year, the socialists of the warring and the neutral countries vacillated and temporised. Afraid to admit to themselves the gravity of the crisis, they did not wish to look reality in the face, and kept deferring in a thousand ways the inevitable break with the opportunism and Kautskyism prevalent in the official parties of Western Europe. However, the analysis of events which we gave a year ago in the Manifesto of the Central Committee (Sotsial Demokrat No. 33)[1] has proved correct; the events have borne out its correctness. They took a course that resulted in the first International Socialist Conference being attended by representatives of the protesting elements of the minorities in Germany, France, Sweden, and Norway, who acted against the decisions of the official parties, i.e., in fact acted schismatically.
The work of the Conference was summed up in a manifesto and a resolution expressing sympathy with the arrested and the persecuted. Both documents appear in this issue of Sotsial-Demokrat. By nineteen votes to twelve, the Conference refused to submit to a committee the draft resolution proposed by us and other revolutionary Marxists; our draft manifesto was passed on to the committee together with two others, for a joint manifesto to be drawn up. The reader will find elsewhere in this issue our two drafts; a comparison of the latter with the manifesto adopted clearly shows that a number of fundamental ideas of revolutionary Marxism were adopted.
In practice, the manifesto signifies a step towards an ideological and practical break with opportunism and social-chauvinism. At the same time, the manifesto, as any analysis will show, contains inconsistencies, and does not say everything that should be said.
The manifesto calls the war imperialist and emphasises two features of imperialism: the striving of the capitalists of every nation for profits and the exploitation of others, and the striving of the Great Powers to partition the world and “enslave” weaker nations. The manifesto repeats the most essential things that should be said of the imperialist nature of the war, and were said in our resolution. In this respect, the manifesto merely popularises our resolution. Popularisation is undoubtedly a useful thing. However, if we want clear thinking in the working class and attach importance to systematic and unflagging propaganda, we must accurately and fully define the principles to be popularised. If that is not done, we risk repeating the error, the fault of the Second International which led to its collapse, viz., we shall be leaving room for ambiguity and misinterpretations. Is it, for instance, possible to deny the signal importance of the idea, expressed in our resolution, that the objective conditions are mature for socialism? The “popular” exposition of the manifesto omitted this idea; failure has attended the attempt to combine, in one document, a clear and precise resolution based on principle, and an appeal.
“The capitalists of all countries ... claim that the war serves to defend the fatherland.... They are lying...”, the manifesto continues. Here again, this forthright statement that the fundamental idea of opportunism in the present war—the “defence-of-the-fatherland” idea—is a lie, is a repetition of the kernel of the revolutionary Marxists’ resolution. Again, the manifesto regrettably fails to say everything that should be said; it is half-hearted, afraid to speak the whole truth. After a year of war, who today is not aware of the actual damage caused to socialism, not only by the capitalist press repeating and endorsing the capitalists’ lies (it is its business as a capitalist press to repeat the capitalists’ lies), but also by the greater part of the socialist press doing so? Who does not know that European socialism’s greatest crisis has been brought about not by the “capitalists’ lies”, but by the lies of Guesde, Hyndman, Vandervelde, Plekhanov and Kautsky ? Who does not know that the lies spoken by such leaders suddenly revealed all the strength of the opportunism that swept them away at the decisive moment?
Let us take a look at what has come about: To make the masses see things in a clearer light, the manifesto says that in the present war the defence of the fatherland idea is a capitalist lie. The European masses, however, are not illiterate, and almost all who have read the manifesto have heard, and still hear that same lie from hundreds of socialist papers, journals, and pamphlets, echoing them after Plekhanov, Hyndman, Kautsky and Co. What will the readers of the manifesto think? What thoughts will arise in them after this display of timidity by the authors of the manifesto? Disregard the capitalists’ lie about the defence of the fatherland, the manifesto tells the workers. Well and good. Practically all of them will say or think: the capitalists’ lie has long stopped bothering us, but the lie of Kautsky and Co. ...
The manifesto goes on to repeat another important idea in our resolution, viz., that the socialist parties and the workers’ organisations of the various countries “have flouted obligations stemming from the decisions of the Stuttgart, Copenhagen and Basle congresses”; that the International Socialist Bureau too has failed to do its duty ; that this failure to do its duty consisted in voting for war credits, joining governments, recognising “a class truce” (submission to which the manifesto calls slavish ; in other words, it accuses Guesde, Plekhanov, Kautsky and Co. of substituting for propaganda of socialism the propaganda of slavish ideas).
Is it consistent, we shall ask, to speak, in a “popular” manifesto, of the failure of a number of parties to do their duty (it is common knowledge that the reference is to the strongest parties and the workers’ organisations in the most advanced countries: Britain, France and Germany), without giving any explanation of this startling and unprecedented fact? The greater part of the socialist parties and the International Socialist Bureau itself have failed to do their duty! What is this—an accident and the failure of individuals, or the turning-point of an entire epoch? If it is the former, and we circulate that idea among the masses, it is tantamount to our renouncing the fundamentals of socialist doctrine. If it is the latter, how can we fail to say so forthright? We are facing a moment of historic significance—the collapse of the International as a whole, a turning point of an entire epoch—and yet we are afraid to tell the masses that the whole truth must be sought for and found, and that we must do our thinking to the very end. It is preposterous and ridiculous to suppose that the International Socialist Bureau and a number of parties could have collapsed, without linking up this event with the long history of the origin, the growth, the maturing and over-maturity of the general European opportunist movement, with its deep economic roots—deep, not in the sense that it is intimately linked with the masses, but in the sense that it is connected with a certain stratum of society.
Passing on to the “struggle for peace”, the manifesto states that: “This struggle is a struggle for freedom, the brotherhood of peoples, and socialism”. It goes on to explain that in wartime the workers make sacrifices “in the service of the ruling classes”, whereas they must learn to make sacrifices “for their own cause” (doubly underscored in the manifesto), “for the sacred aims of socialism”. The resolution which expresses sympathy with arrested and persecuted fighters says that “the Conference solemnly undertakes to honour the living and the dead by emulating their example” and that its aim will be to “arouse the revolutionary spirit in the international proletariat”.
All these ideas are a reiteration of our resolution’s fundamental idea that a struggle for peace without a revolutionary struggle is a hollow and false phrase, and that a revolutionary struggle for socialism is the only way to put an end to the horror of war. But here too we find inconsistency, timidity, and a failure to say everything that ought to be said: it calls upon the masses to emulate the example of the revolutionary fighters; it declares that the five members of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Duma group who have been sentenced to exile in Siberia have carried on “the glorious revolutionary tradition of Russia”; it proclaims the necessity of “arousing the revolutionary spirit”, but it does not specify forthright and clearly the revolutionary methods of struggle.
Was our Central Committee right in signing this manifesto, with all its inconsistency and timidity? We think it was. Our non-agreement, the non-agreement, not only of our Central Committee but of the entire international Left-wing section of the Conference, which stands by the principles of revolutionary Marxism, is openly expressed both in a special resolution, a separate draft manifesto, and a separate declaration on the vote for a compromise manifesto. We did not conceal a jot of our views, slogans, or tactics. A German edition of our pamphlet, Socialism and War[2] was handed out at the Conference. We have spread, are spreading, and shall continue to spread our views with no less energy than the manifesto will. It is a fact that this manifesto is a step forward towards a real struggle against opportunism, towards a rupture with it. It would be sectarianism to refuse to take this step forward together with the minority of German, French, Swedish, Norwegian, and Swiss socialists, when we retain full freedom and full opportunity to criticise inconsistency and to work for greater things.[3] It would be poor war tactics to refuse to adhere to the mounting international protest movement against social-chauvinism just because this movement is slow, because it takes “only” a single step forward and because it is ready and willing to take a step backward tomorrow and make peace with the old International Socialist Bureau. Its readiness to make peace with the opportunists is so far merely wishful thinking. Will the opportunists agree to a peace? Is peace objectively possible between trends that are dividing more and more deeply—social-chauvinism and Kautskyism on the one hand, and on the other, revolutionary internationalist Marxism? We consider it impossible, and we shall continue our line, encouraged as we are by its success at the Conference of September 5-8.
The success of our line is beyond doubt. Compare the facts: In September 1914, our Central Committee’s Manifesto seemed almost isolated. In March 1915, an international women’s conference adopted a miserable pacifist resolution, which was blindly followed by the Organising Committee. In September 1915, we rallied in a whole group of the international Left wing. We came out with our own tactics, voiced a number of our fundamental ideas in a joint manifesto, and took part in the formation of an I.S.C. (International Socialist Committee), i.e., a practically new International Socialist Bureau, against the wishes of the old one, and on the basis of a manifesto that openly condemns the tactics of the latter.
The workers of Russia, whose overwhelming majority followed our Party and its Central Committee even in the years 1912-14, will now, from the experience of the international socialist movement, see that our tactics are being confirmed in a wider area, and that our fundamental ideas are shared by an ever growing and finer part of the proletarian International.
Notes
[3] We are not frightened by the fact that the Organising Committee and the Social-Revolutionaries signed the manifesto diplomatically, retaining all their links with—and all their attachment to Nasha Zarya, Rubanovich, and the July 1915 Conference of the Popular Socialists and the Social-Revolutionaries in Russia.[4] We have means enough to combat corrupt diplomacy and unmask it. It is more and more unmasking itself. Nasha Zarya and Chkheidze’s group are helping us unmask Axelrod and Co. —Lenin
[4] The Conference of the Popular Socialists and the Socialist-Revolutionaries in Russia met in July 1915 in Petrograd. The Conference discussed the question of the attitude towards the war and adopted a resolution which called for active participation in the war on the side of tsarism.
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