LENIN
How to oppose an unjust war
Excerpted from a presentation by Greg Butterfield at a
Workers World Party class on "The Leninist Party and the
Struggle Against Imperialist War."
The Leninist view of how to fight against imperialist war
remains one of the most controversial and defining
characteristics of the communist movement, because it means
standing up to the capitalist class at the moment its fangs are
bared.
Why do we think it's important to study what Lenin wrote and
did during World War I, almost 90 years ago?
There are two good reasons. First, Lenin's Marxist analysis
of war shows how capitalism in its highest stage, imperialism,
has an insatiable thirst for new markets and bigger profits
that drives it to war. That hasn't changed.
And second, Lenin successfully used this working-class
understanding of war to help bring about the socialist
revolution in Russia.
In the pamphlet "Socialism and War," Lenin called the war
that had just broken out in Europe "a war between the biggest
slaveholders for the maintenance and consolidation of
slavery."
Differentiating the communist position from the pacifists,
who condemn all wars equally, Lenin said, "We understand that
wars cannot be abolished until classes are abolished and
socialism is created."
He defined as just wars "civil wars, i.e., wars waged by an
oppressed class against the oppressor class," and wars of
national liberation by oppressed countries.
"If tomorrow, Morocco were to declare war on France, India
on England, Persia or China on Russia, and so forth," he wrote,
"those would be 'just,' 'defensive' wars, irrespective of who
attacked first; and every socialist would sympathize with the
victory of the oppressed, dependent, unequal states against the
oppressing, slave-owning, predatory 'Great' Powers."
Communists "of the oppressor countries should recognize and
champion the oppressed nation's right to self-determination,"
Lenin wrote. "The socialist of a ruling country who does not
stand for that right is a chauvinist."
Revolutionary defeatism
"The defeat of one's own capitalist government is the lesser
evil in the struggle against the war," he wrote. "A
revolutionary class cannot but wish for the defeat of its
government in a reactionary war, and cannot fail to see that
the latter's military reverses must facilitate its
overthrow."
Lenin's thoroughly internationalist perspective is called
revolutionary defeatism.
Instead of using the war as an excuse to pull back from the
class struggle, Lenin and his co-thinkers argued that it was
exactly the time to step up the struggle against
capitalism.
It would be a hard road, especially during the first wave of
patriotic propaganda. But as the war dragged on and the death
and suffering mounted, more workers would turn against the
government and capitalism, he argued.
This is the origin of the famous communist slogan, "Turn the
imperialist war into civil war."
Some people misunderstand what Lenin meant by this. They
think it means you have to show up at the very first
demonstration against the war with signs reading "Turn the
imperialist war into civil war." We wish!
In fact, Lenin argues in his pamphlet that communists should
give strong support to all manifestations for peace. As we have
seen recently, this is often the first step by the workers,
youths and others toward anti-war consciousness.
All five Bolshevik deputies in the Duma, or parliament, took
a strong anti-war stand, and the Czar exiled them to hard labor
in Siberia. Factory workers passed anti-war resolutions.
Strikes and demonstrations were organized. Agitation was
conducted in the army, and fraternization with enemy troops was
encouraged.
Because of their correct analysis of the war and their
determination to continue and deepen the class struggle, the
Bolsheviks were ready when mass anger at the war boiled over.
In February 1917, the Russian people rose up and overthrew the
Czar. Several months later, after a new pro-capitalist
government showed it would continue the war, Lenin and the
Bolsheviks led a successful workers' and peasants' revolution
for socialism.
The new Soviet government's first act was to call on all
countries to end the World War and renounce all annexations and
occupations. It guaranteed the right of self-determination for
all the peoples and nations oppressed by Russian
capitalism.
Reprinted from the Nov. 29, 2001, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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