The Junius Pamphlet¶
Core Argument¶
In his July 1916 analysis of an illegally circulated German Social-Democratic pamphlet, Lenin welcomes its exposure of the imperialist character of the 1914-16 war and its refutation of claims that this was a war of national liberation. While acknowledging that the pamphlet contains nothing fundamentally new for Russian Marxists, Lenin identifies two serious errors that demand correction.
The first error is the pamphlet's failure to link social-chauvinism to its theoretical roots in opportunism, and its complete silence on Kautskyism. This represents both a theoretical and practical mistake, for Kautskyite opportunism—concealed beneath pacifist phrases—is more dangerous than avowed social-imperialism, as it impedes the final break with traitors to socialism and bolsters their influence.
The second error is the claim that "national wars are no longer possible" under imperialism. Lenin argues this is theoretically unsound and politically harmful. National wars can transform into imperialist wars and vice versa; national wars by colonies and semi-colonies remain inevitable and progressive; and even in Europe, national wars remain possible under certain conditions, such as revolution in a great power. To deny all possibility of national wars amounts to European chauvinism in practice.
Lenin insists that Marxism requires concrete historical analysis of each war. The 1914-16 war is imperialist because it continues the imperialist policy that preceded it—England, France and Russia fight to keep seized colonies, Germany to take them. In such a war, 'defence of the fatherland' is deception. The correct slogan is not disarmament, which springs from the reactionary petty-bourgeois illusion that small states can hold aloof from world battles, but arming the proletariat to defeat its own bourgeoisie.
Junius errs further by attempting to oppose the imperialist war with a national programme. In 1793 and 1848, national wars were progressive because the objective task was bourgeois-democratic revolution. Today, progress can only be towards socialism, so the imperialist war can only be opposed by civil war against the bourgeoisie. Junius applies Marxist dialectics only halfway, afraid of following revolutionary slogans to their logical conclusion.
The pamphlet concludes by sharpening the division between the Zimmerwald Left and Right. Europe is in a revolutionary situation; reformist pacifism is irreconcilable with revolutionary Marxism. The duty of revolutionaries is to exploit this situation to urge revolution and proletarian conquest of power, while utilising reforms only in the course of struggle. The war can end only in an imperialist peace unless transformed into civil war for socialism.