[Marxism] Socialist Policy in World War Two

[T]

“On The Defeat Of One’s Own Government In The Imperialist War”
“A Revolutionary Class In A Reactionary War Cannot But Wish For The Defeat Of Its Government”

July 26, 1915: On The Defeat of One’s Own Government in the Imperialist War, By Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov: Sotsial-Demokrat No. 43 [Excerpts]

A revolutionary class in a reactionary war cannot but “wish for the defeat of its government.” 

This is an axiom.  It is disputed only by the conscious partisans or the helpless satellites of the social-chauvinists. 

[T]o the latter belong Trotsky and Bukvoyed; in Germany, Kautsky.  To wish Russia’s defeat, Trotsky says, is “an uncalled-for and unjustifiable political concession to the methodology of social-patriotism which substitutes for the revolutionary struggle against the war and the conditions that cause war, an orientation along the lines of the lesser evil, an orientation which, under given conditions, is perfectly arbitrary” (Nashe Slovo, No. 105.)  This is an example of the inflated phraseology with which Trotsky always justifies opportunism. 

“A revolutionary struggle against the war” is an empty and meaningless exclamation, the like of which the heroes of the Second International are past masters in making, unless it means revolutionary actions against one's own government in times of war. 

A little reasoning suffices to make this clear. 

When we say revolutionary actions in war time against one's own government, we indisputably mean not only the wish for its defeat, but practical actions leading towards such defeat. 

In using phrases to avoid the issue, Trotsky has lost his way amidst very simple surroundings.  It seems to him that to wish Russia's defeat means to wish Germany's victory. (Bukvoyed and Semkovsky express more directly this “thought,” or rather, thoughtlessness, which they have in common with Trotsky.) In this Trotsky also repeats the “methodology of social-patriotism”! 

To help people that do not know how to think, the Berne resolution (Sotsial-Demokrat, No. 40) made it clear that in all imperialist countries the proletariat must now wish the defeat of its government.

Revolution in war time is civil war. 

Transformation of war between governments into civil war is, on the one hand, facilitated by military reverses (“defeats”) of the governments; on the other hand, it is impossible to strive in practice towards such a transformation without at the same time working towards military defeat. 

The “slogan” of defeat is so vehemently repudiated by the chauvinists for the very reason that this slogan alone means a consistent appeal to revolutionary action against one's own government in war time. 

Without such action, millions of the most revolutionary phrases concerning “war against war and conditions, etc.” are not worth a penny. 

The tsarist government was perfectly right when it asserted that the propaganda of the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Fraction was the only example in the International of not only parliamentary opposition but of real revolutionary propaganda in the masses against their government, that this propaganda weakened the military power of Russia and aided its defeat. 

This is a fact.  It is not clever to hide from it. 

The opponents of the defeat slogan are simply afraid of themselves when they do not wish to realize the most obvious fact of the inseparable connection between revolutionary propaganda against the government and actions leading to its defeat. 

An understanding concerning revolutionary actions within even one single country, not to speak of a number of countries, can be realized only by the force of the example of earnest revolutionary actions, by their being launched, by their development. 

It is impossible, however, to launch them without wishing the government defeat, and without contributing to such a defeat. 

The change from imperialist war to civil war cannot be “made,” as it is impossible to “make” a revolution - it grows out of the multiplicity of diverse phenomena, phases, traits, characteristics, consequences of the imperialist war. 

Such growth is impossible without a series of military reverses and defeats of those governments which receive blows from their own oppressed classes.

The only policy of a real, not verbal, breaking of “civil peace,” of accepting the class struggle, is for the proletariat to take advantage of the difficulties of the government and its bourgeoisie with the aim of overthrowing them. 

This, however, cannot be achieved, it cannot be striven at, without wishing the defeat of one's own government, without contributing to such a defeat.

When, before the war, the Italian Social-Democrats raised the question of a mass strike, the bourgeoisie replied, undoubtedly correctly from its standpoint, that this would be high treason, and that they would be dealt with as traitors. 

This is true, and it is also true that fraternization in the trenches is high treason. 

A proletarian cannot help deal his government a class blow; he cannot reach out (in practice) a hand to his brother, the proletarian of the “foreign” country which is at war with us, without committing “high treason,” without contributing to the defeat, the dismemberment of “his” imperialist “great” power. 

Let us look at the question from one more angle. 

The war cannot but call forth among the masses the most stormy feelings which destroy the usual sluggishness of mass psychology.  Without adjustment to these new stormy feelings, revolutionary tactics are impossible. 

What are the main currents of these stormy feelings? 

(1) Horror and despair.  Hence the growth of religious feelings.  Once more the churches are full, the reactionaries rejoice. “Wherever there are sufferings, there is religion,” says the arch-reactionary, Barres. 

He is right, too. 

(2) Hatred for the “enemy,” a feeling carefully fanned by the bourgeoisie (more than by the priests) and of economic and political value only to the bourgeoisie. 

(3) Hatred for one's own government and one's bourgeoisie - a feeling of all class-conscious workers who understand, on the one hand, that war is “a continuation of politics” on the part of imperialism, which they meet by “continuing” their hatred for their class enemy; on the other hand, that “war against war” is a silly phrase if it does not mean revolution against their own government. 

It is impossible to arouse hatred against one's own government and one's bourgeoisie without wishing their defeat, and it is impossible to be non-hypocritical opponent of “civil” (class) “peace” without arousing hatred towards one's own government and bourgeoisie!!!





-----Original Message-----
>From: Mark Lause <markalause at gmail.com>
>Sent: Jul 1, 2009 9:26 PM
>To: Thomas F Barton <thomasfbarton at earthlink.net>
>Subject: Re: [Marxism] Socialist Policy in World War Two
>
>Perhaps I was being too obtuse.  What I meant by separating the
>Pacific war from the European war didn't have to do with our analysis
>of the forces at work in one place as opposed to those in another.
>
>It was much more practical and, in part, simply a rhetorical point....
>
>Do you specify if you're buying or selling war bonds that they should
>be used for one and not the other?  Or if you volunteer or get
>drafted, do you specify that you're doing it for one and not the
>other?   How do you resist one and support the other?
>
>This is a bit like the "progressives" who think they can separate the
>Iraq occupation from "the good war" in Afghanistan.  Even assuming
>that such an analysis is correct, what does it mean in the real world?
>
>ML
>
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