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Mandate to Deputies of the Soviet Elected at Factories and Regiments

Marxist Theory · 2026-05-13

Core Argument

This document is not an analytical article but a political mandate drafted by Lenin in May 1917, intended for workers' deputies elected to the Soviets from factories and regiments. Its central thesis is that the First World War is an imperialist war for profit and conquest, waged by the capitalists of all belligerent nations, and that no support — financial or political — should be given to any government continuing that war. The mandate demands an immediate, open, and unconditional offer of peace to all belligerents, based on the complete liberation of all oppressed and colonised peoples, including the colonies of the Entente powers. The argument is that only a break with the logic of imperialism — not a "peace without annexations" that preserves each power's own conquests — can end the slaughter.

Theoretical Grounding

The mandate is a direct application of the Marxist theory of imperialism developed by Lenin in the period immediately preceding it. It draws on the understanding that modern war under capitalism is not an accident of diplomacy but a necessary expression of the rivalry between monopoly capitalist states for markets, raw materials, and spheres of influence. The document is also grounded in the Leninist position on the national question: the right of nations to self-determination, including secession, is not a concession to bourgeois nationalism but a democratic demand that must be championed by the revolutionary proletariat in order to break the chains of national oppression and build international working-class solidarity. The insistence that Britain must relinquish all its colonies, and not merely those seized from Germany, is a clear rejection of the social-chauvinist position that sought to distinguish between "good" and "bad" empires. The mandate sits squarely within the Bolshevik tradition of revolutionary defeatism and the struggle against the Second International's capitulation to imperialist war in 1914.

Conjunctural Relevance

The mandate was drafted in the immediate aftermath of the February Revolution, at a moment of dual power when the Petrograd Soviet — dominated by Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries — was supporting the Provisional Government and its continuation of the war. The conjuncture was defined by the contradiction between the masses' desire for peace and the leadership of the Soviet's willingness to accept the imperialist framework. Lenin's intervention was aimed at providing a clear, class-based alternative to the "revolutionary defencism" that argued Russia must continue the war to defend the revolution. The mandate's relevance today lies in its demonstration that a consistent anti-war position must oppose one's own ruling class and its imperialist interests, not merely those of the enemy. In the context of the current conjuncture — with NATO expansion, the war in Ukraine, and great-power rivalry intensifying — the mandate serves as a reminder that a Marxist position cannot be reduced to pacifism or calls for negotiation that leave imperialist structures intact.

Where the Argument Continues

This document is a fragment of a much larger political and theoretical intervention. It should be read alongside Lenin's Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (1916), which provides the economic analysis underpinning the mandate's claims. The argument continues in Lenin's April Theses (1917), which laid out the strategic perspective for the Bolsheviks in the new conjuncture, and in his subsequent writings on the state and revolution. Within the In Defence of Marxism corpus, the theoretical tradition is developed in articles analysing the imperialist character of modern wars, the critique of "humanitarian intervention," and the political tasks of revolutionaries in periods of inter-imperialist rivalry. The broader Marxist tradition continues in Trotsky's writings on the war and the transition period, and in the ongoing debates within the international Marxist movement about the character of the current epoch.

Connections

  • Lenin, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism — the theoretical foundation for the mandate's analysis of the war.
  • Lenin, The April Theses — the strategic document that frames the mandate's political intervention.
  • Lenin, The State and Revolution — the theoretical elaboration of the state form that the mandate's deputies would need to smash.
  • Trotsky, The War and the International — a contemporary analysis of the Second International's collapse.
  • In Defence of Marxism articles on the Ukraine war and NATO — modern applications of the same method to the current conjuncture.

Key Quotes

  1. "Our Deputy must be unconditionally opposed to the present predatory imperialist war. This war is waged by the capitalists of all countries—Russia, Germany, Britain, etc.—for profits, and the subjugation of the weak nations."

  2. "The Great Russians offer a fraternal union to all the nations and propose the formation of a common state by voluntary consent of each individual people, and under no circumstances by means of violence, direct or indirect."

  3. "Britain, by the terms of such a peace, must relinquish, immediately and unconditionally, not only the territories she has seized from others... but all her own colonies as well."

  4. "The capitalists of all countries should no longer deceive the peoples by promising 'peace without annexations' while holding on to their own annexed territories and continuing the war in order to wrest from the enemy 'his own' annexed territories."

  5. "Our Deputy must not give any support, or vote for any loan, or give a kopek of the people's money to any government that does not solemnly undertake immediately to offer to all the nations these terms for an immediate peace."