The Militant is printing these excerpts in response to questions by readers on revolutionists’ stance toward imperialist wars, including the U.S.-led assault on Iraq. Trotsky draws on the writings of V.I. Lenin--the central leader of the Bolshevik Party, which led workers and peasants to take power in the 1917 Russian Revolution. The quotes in the article are from Lenin’s writings.

Trotsky was a leader of the Russian Revolution and the Bolshevik Party. From the mid-1920s, following Lenin’s death, he led the opposition to the bureaucratic counterrevolution in the Soviet Union personified by Joseph Stalin. Trotsky played a leading part in the international fight to restore continuity with Lenin’s political course and the program for world revolution developed by the Communist International under Lenin’s guidance--the program that to this day continues to underlie the work of communists in every country--until his murder by one of Stalin’s thugs in Mexico in 1940. In September 1938 he joined other revolutionaries in founding the Fourth International. Copyright © 1969, 1974 by Pathfinder Press, reprinted by permission. Subheadings are by the Militant.
 

The formation of national states on the European continent occupied an entire epoch which began approximately with the Great French Revolution and concluded with the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71. During these dramatic decades the wars were predominantly of a national character. War waged for the creation or defense of national states necessary for the development of productive forces and of culture possessed during this period a profoundly progressive historical character. Revolutionists not only could but were obliged to support national wars politically.  
 
Imperialist wars to divide world
From 1871 to 1914 European capitalism, on the foundation of national states, not only flowered but outlived itself by becoming transformed into monopoly or imperialist capitalism. "Imperialism is that stage of capitalism when the latter, after fulfilling everything in its power, begins to decline." The cause for decline lies in this, that the productive forces are fettered by the framework of private property as well as by the boundaries of the national state. Imperialism seeks to divide and redivide the world. In place of national wars there come imperialist wars. They are utterly reactionary in character and are an expression of the impasse, stagnation, and decay of monopoly capital.

The world, however, still remains very heterogeneous. The coercive imperialism of advanced nations is able to exist only because backward nations, oppressed nationalities, colonial and semicolonial countries, remain on our planet. The struggle of the oppressed peoples for... national independence is doubly progressive because, on the one side, this prepares more favorable conditions for their own development, while, on the other side, this deals blows to imperialism. That, in particular, is the reason why, in the struggle between a civilized, imperialist, democratic republic and a backward, barbaric monarchy in a colonial country, the socialists are completely on the side of the oppressed country notwithstanding its monarchy and against the oppressor country notwithstanding its "democracy."

Imperialism camouflages its own peculiar aims--seizure of colonies, markets, sources of raw material, spheres of influence--with such ideas as "safeguarding peace against the aggressors," "defense of the fatherland," "defense of democracy," etc. These ideas are false through and through. It is the duty of every socialist not to support them but, on the contrary, to unmask them before the people....

The objective historical meaning of the war is of decisive importance for the proletariat: What class is conducting it? and for the sake of what? This is decisive, and not the subterfuges of diplomacy by means of which the enemy can always be successfully portrayed to the people as an aggressor. A political superstructure of one kind or another cannot change the reactionary economic foundation of imperialism. On the contrary, it is the foundation that subordinates the superstructure to itself. "In our day...it is silly even to think of a progressive bourgeoisie, a progressive bourgeois movement. All bourgeois ‘democracy’...has become reactionary." This appraisal of imperialist "democracy" constitutes the cornerstone of the entire Leninist conception....

In the very first days of September 1914, Lenin was already characterizing the content of the war for each of the imperialist countries and for all the groupings as follows: "The struggle for markets and for plundering foreign lands, the eagerness to head off the revolutionary movement of the proletariat and to crush democracy within each country, the urge to deceive, divide, and crush the proletarians of all countries, to incite the wage slaves of one nation against the wage slaves of another nation for the profits of the bourgeoisie--that is the only real content and meaning of the war..."  
 
‘National unity’ supports reaction
The policy of "national unity" during wartime means, even more than in peacetime, support for reaction and the perpetuation of imperialist barbarism. Denying such support--the elementary duty of a socialist--is, however, only the negative or passive side of internationalism. This alone is not enough. The task of the party of the proletariat is "comprehensive propaganda, applying to both the army and the theater of war, for a socialist revolution and the need to direct the weapons not against our brothers, the wage slaves of other countries, but against the reactionary and bourgeois governments and parties of all countries.

"There is an absolute need for the organization of illegal cells and groups in the armies of all countries for such propaganda in all languages. The struggle against the chauvinism and ‘patriotism’ of the philistines and the bourgeoisie of all countries without exception is relentless."

But a revolutionary struggle in time of war can lead to the defeat of one’s own government. This conclusion did not frighten Lenin. "In every country the struggle against one’s own government, which is conducting an imperialist war, must not stop short of revolutionary agitation for the defeat of that country." This is precisely what the line of the so-called theory of "defeatism" involves. Unscrupulous enemies have tried to interpret this to mean that Lenin supposedly approved of collaboration with foreign imperialism in order to defeat national reaction. In fact, what he was talking about was a parallel struggle by the workers of each country against their own imperialism, as their primary and most immediate enemy....

It is impossible to fight against imperialist war by sighing for peace after the fashion of the pacifists. "One of the ways of fooling the working class is pacifism and the abstract propaganda of peace. Under capitalism, especially in its imperialist stage, wars are inevitable." A peace concluded by imperialists would only be a breathing spell before a new war. Only a revolutionary mass struggle against war and against imperialism, which breeds war, can secure a real peace. "Without a number of revolutions the so-called democratic peace is a middle class utopia."

The struggle against the narcotic and debilitating illusions of pacifism enters as the most important element into Lenin’s doctrine. He rejected with especial hostility the demand for "disarmament as obviously utopian under capitalism."

"The oppressed class that does not try to learn how to use arms and try to have them in its possession--such an oppressed class would deserve to be treated as no more than slaves." And further: "....Only after the proletariat has disarmed the bourgeoisie can it consign all weapons to the scrap heap without betraying its world-historical mission." This leads to the conclusion that Lenin draws in dozens of articles: "The slogan ‘peace’ is wrong. The slogan must be to turn the national war into a civil war."  
 
Social chauvinism and its roots
Most of the labor parties in the advanced capitalist countries turned out on the side of their respective bourgeoisies during the war. Lenin named this tendency as social chauvinism: socialism in words, chauvinism in deeds. The betrayal of internationalism did not fall from the skies but came as an inevitable continuation and development of the policies of reformist adaptation. "The ideological-political content of opportunism and of social chauvinism is one and the same: class collaboration instead of class struggle, support of one’s ‘own’ government when it is in difficulties instead of utilizing these difficulties for the revolution."

The period of capitalist prosperity immediately prior to the last war--from 1909 to 1913--tied the upper layers of the proletariat very closely with imperialism. From the superprofits obtained by the imperialist bourgeoisie from colonies and from backward countries in general, juicy crumbs fell to the lot of the labor aristocracy and the labor bureaucracy. In consequence, their patriotism was dictated by direct self-interest in the policies of imperialism. During the war, which laid bare all social relations, "the opportunists and chauvinists were invested with a gigantic power because of their alliance with the bourgeoisie, with the government and with the general staffs...."

After giving a sociological and political appraisal of the labor bureaucracy of the Second International, Lenin did not halt midway. "Unity with opportunists is the alliance of workers with their ‘own’ national bourgeoisie and signifies a split in the ranks of the international revolutionary working class." Hence flows the conclusion that internationalists must break with the social chauvinists. "It is impossible to fulfill the tasks of socialism at the present time, it is impossible to achieve a genuine international fusion of workers without decisively breaking with opportunism..." as well as with centrism, "this bourgeois tendency in socialism." The very name of the party must be changed. "Isn’t it better to cast aside the name of ‘Social Democrats,’ which has been smeared and degraded, and to return to the old Marxist name of Communists?" It is time to break with the Second International and to build the Third.  
 
 
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