Proposals Submitted by the Central Committee of the RSDLP to the Second Socialist Conference at Kienthal¶
Core Argument¶
Proposals Submitted by the Central Committee of the RSDLP to the Second Socialist Conference at Kienthal
In this submission to the Kienthal conference, the Central Committee of the RSDLP advances a rigorous critique of the pacifist illusions then prevalent within the international socialist movement. The core argument is that any peace concluded under imperialist conditions merely registers a temporary shift in the balance of military force; a genuinely democratic peace is impossible without the revolutionary overthrow of the capitalist order. The Committee therefore denounces the slogan of a ‘democratic peace’ as a deception that obscures the bourgeoisie’s continued pursuit of imperialist policy. This position, identified as ‘Kautskyite’ and associated with figures such as Chkheidze, Treves, and Longuet, is charged with reinforcing the subjugation of the working class by dressing imperialist war aims in socialist language.
The document offers a precise definition of annexation as the seizure of territory against the will of its population, linking this directly to the principle of national self-determination. Socialists are called upon to demand unconditional freedom of secession for colonies oppressed by their own state. The positive slogan for revolutionary struggle is the repudiation of state debts, while revolutionary action requires threatening one’s own government with military defeat and constructing illegal organisations and an underground press. Socialist members of parliament must actively aid this clandestine work.
A notable polemic concerns the international socialist movement itself. The Committee declares that a split is already an accomplished fact; socialists must explain the necessity of breaking with those who pursue bourgeois policy under a socialist banner. Within the Russian context, the slogans ‘peace without annexations’ and ‘independence for Poland’ are exposed as serving tsarism by camouflaging its war aims. Russian Social-Democrats must oppose war over Poland and support the right of nations oppressed by Russia—specifically Ukraine and Finland—to secede. However, support is to be extended only to those elements in each country working directly for proletarian revolution, not to bourgeois nationalists. The Octobrists, or League of October Seventeenth, are identified as a counter-revolutionary party composed of big merchants, industrialists, and large landowners operating capitalist estates, representing the class enemy within Russia itself.