The formation of Leninism, as Marxism of the era of imperialism and proletarian revolutions, is inextricably linked with the question of war and peace. Imperialism gives rise to wars and crises, which inevitably create conditions for proletarian revolutions. Proletarian internationalism and the Leninist approach to the question of war and peace allow the Communist Party to turn the preconditions of the revolution into the revolution itself. The question of this section of the Lenin Seminar is one of the keys to correct revolutionary politics.

Leninism divides wars into liberation wars (colonial uprisings, socialist revolutions), defensive wars (wars of dependent countries against imperialist aggression) and unjust wars (imperialist attacks and inter-imperialist wars). Leninism points to the inevitability of wars under capitalism.

The first basis for Lenin’s position was the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905, during which Russia tried to colonize Asia in the common imperialist manner, but suffered military defeats from Japanese weapons. In those years, Lenin formulated a position on the attitude towards the aggressive colonial war led by “his” imperialism. In his article “The Fall of Port Arthur,” dedicated to one of Japan’s great victories in that war, Lenin writes: “Indeed, the European bourgeoisie has cause for alarm. The proletariat has cause for rejoicing. The disaster that has overtaken our mortal enemy not only signifies the approach of freedom in Russia, it also presages a new revolutionary upsurge of the European proletariat”¹ Lenin connects the revolutionary defeat of Russia with the future revolution in Russia and the subsequent victory of the revolution throughout Europe.

Wars in the era of imperialism necessarily lead to a political crisis: “But the military collapse suffered by the autocracy takes on even greater significance as a sign of the collapse of our entire political system. ... Wars today are fought by peoples; this now brings out more strikingly than ever a great attribute of war, namely, that it opens the eyes of millions to the disparity between the people and the government, which heretofore was evident only to a small class-conscious minority.”² Lenin wrote: “The military debacle, therefore, could not but precipitate a profound political crisis.”³

In this work, Lenin attacks the pacifist illusions of petty-bourgeois socialists: “And now it [the Socialist-Revolutionary pacifist “Revolutionary Russia”] has ended up with platitudes about the unreasonableness of “speculating” (?!) on a victory of the Japanese bourgeoisie and about war being a calamity ‘regardless of whether’ it ends in the victory or the defeat of the autocracy. No. The cause of Russian freedom and of the struggle of the Russian (and the world) proletariat for socialism depends to a very large extent on the military defeats of the autocracy.”⁴

At the end of the article, Lenin directly points to the victory of the workers owing to the military defeat of the imperialists: “The Russian people has gained from the defeat of the autocracy. The capitulation of Port Arthur is the prologue to the capitulation of tsarism.”⁵Defeat in the war initiated the revolution of 1905–1907.

The First World War was the most important for the formulation of the theory of war and peace. Then the socialists split into three factions – defeatist internationalists (the minority of socialists in the world), social-pacifists and social-chauvinists. Almost all socialists of the 2nd International supported the bourgeoisie.

In his book “Socialism and War”⁶ and other works of that period, Lenin attacks social-chauvinists (that is, defenders of their own bourgeoisie) and social-pacifists (opponents of the defeat of “their imperialism” and supporters of the abstract world). In the Manifesto of the Central Committee of the RSDLP, “The War and Russian Social Democracy”, Lenin, after listing the characteristic features and specific crimes of both blocs, points out their identical hostility towards the workers: “Neither group of belligerents is inferior to the other in spoiliation, atrocities and the boundless brutality of war….”⁷ Lenin defines the duty of the proletarian party as follows: “the duty of the class-conscious proletariat to defend its class solidarity, its internationalism, and its socialist convictions against the unbridled chauvinism of the ‘patriotic’ bourgeois cliques in all countries.”⁸

Lenin pointed out the importance of the struggle against the chauvinism of one’s own imperialists and for the defeat of one’s own imperialism: “It must be the primary task of Social-Democrats in every country to combat that country’s chauvinism. … But to us Russian Social-Democrats there cannot be the slightest doubt that, from the standpoint of the working class and of the toiling masses of all the nations of Russia, the defeat of the tsarist monarchy … would be the lesser evil.”⁹ Lenin pointed out in this article: “The conversion of the present imperialist war into a civil war is the only correct proletarian slogan….”¹⁰ He pointed out the importance for the communists of the fight against revisionists and opportunists in their struggle during the world war and on the eve of the socialist revolution: “The aims of socialism at the present time cannot be fulfilled, and real international unity of the workers cannot be achieved, without a decisive break with opportunism, and without explaining its inevitable fiasco to the masses.”¹¹

Lenin pointed out the importance of fighting hidden chauvinists – social-pacifists who do not put forward slogans for the defeat of imperialism and for civil war: “Pacifism, the preaching of peace in the abstract, is one of the means of duping the working class. Under capitalism, particularly in its imperialist stage, wars are inevitable. … At the present time, the propaganda of peace unaccompanied by a call for revolutionary mass action can only sow illusions and demoralise the proletariat, for it makes the proletariat believe that the bourgeoisie is humane, and turns it into a plaything in the hands of the secret diplomacy of the belligerent countries. In particular, the idea of a so-called democratic peace being possible without a series of revolutions is profoundly erroneous.”¹²

The correct positions of the defeatists and supporters of turning imperialist wars into civil wars led to the victory of the October Revolution in Russia and to revolutions in a number of European countries. A similar position of proletarian internationalists allowed guerrilla wars to flare up in Europe during the Second World War in the struggle for the defeat of “their government of France” and other Western imperialist countries. And then it permitted victory through the position of defeating the fascist imperialist bloc at the hands of the national liberation movements and socialist movements of Europe and Asia and the socialist Soviet Union.

Today there is a fascist and colonial aggression of Russia against the people of Ukraine. We consider it our duty to fight for the military defeat of Russia and the revolution in our country. Ukraine’s victory in a defensive war will lead to a revolutionary crisis in our country and in a number of countries if the struggle of the peoples of Russia and Europe is a joint struggle and based on the failures of the imperialists. We consider it important to fight against chauvinists in all countries. We consider it our duty to fight against Russian social-chauvinism, against any support for Russia in the war. An important international task of the communists is to split world revisionism, which partly advocates pacifism. It is necessary to separate the pacifists from the open chauvinists, and then revolutionize the pacifists, transferring them to Leninist positions.

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1 “The Fall of Port Arthur”, 1905, Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 8, p. 48

2ibid., p. 50

3ibid., p. 52

4ibid., p. 53

5ibid.

6Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 21, pp. 295–338

7“The War and Russian Social-Democracy”, 1914, Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 21, p. 28

8ibid., p. 29

9ibid., pp. 32f.

10ibid., p. 34

11ibid., p. 32

12“The Conference of the R.S.D.L.P. Groups Abroad,“ Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 21, pp. 162 and 163