Socialism and War¶
Core Argument¶
In his 1915 pamphlet Socialism and War, Lenin delineates the Marxist position on the conflict then engulfing Europe, insisting that socialists must analyse each war historically rather than condemn war abstractly. Wars between 1789 and 1871 had been bourgeois-progressive, serving national liberation against feudalism; socialists could legitimately support such wars as defensive in a progressive sense. The present war, however, is an imperialist war—the highest stage of capitalism. Since 1876, six Great Powers had seized 25 million square kilometres of colonies, enslaving 523 million people. Capitalism had become reactionary, oppressing nations rather than liberating them. Invoking Clausewitz, Lenin argues that war merely continues pre-war politics by violent means: the Entente's professed concern for Belgium is a pretext for colonial plunder, while tsarist Russia fights to seize Galicia and crush domestic revolution.
The war exposed the Second International's collapse, as most Social-Democratic parties betrayed the 1912 Basel Manifesto by supporting their own bourgeoisie. This social-chauvinism—advocating "defence of the fatherland" in an imperialist war—represents opportunism's culmination, rooted in a privileged worker stratum sharing imperialist spoils. Kautskyism is particularly pernicious: a verbal Marxism stripped of revolutionary content, reconciling chauvinism with sham leftist concessions. The correct slogan is to convert imperialist war into civil war, following the Basel Manifesto's reference to the Paris Commune. Fraternisation in the trenches demonstrates revolutionary internationalism's potential.
Lenin distinguishes revolutionary Marxism from pacifism: demanding peace without revolution deceives workers. Socialists must champion national self-determination, including secession, especially in oppressor nations. A revolutionary class must wish its own government's defeat in a reactionary war. In Russia, the proletariat alone proved immune to chauvinism, due to the 1912–14 revolutionary upswing when strikes exceeded two million. The underground RSDLP maintained internationalism, its Duma deputies conducting anti-war propaganda until arrest and exile. The International must not be restored through mutual amnesty among chauvinists; a new Marxist International must be built against opportunism. The Bolsheviks had already split from their opportunists at the 1912 Prague conference; Trotsky's subsequent attempt at reunification failed. Revolutionary Marxists must rally internationally, raising the call for mass revolutionary action to convert imperialist wars into civil wars for emancipation.