On the formation and essence of Lenin’s program against imperialist war

 

A Pamphlet by Michael Pröbsting, Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT), June 2026, www.thecommunists.net

 

 

 

Contents

 

Introduction

 

1.           Marx and Engels: the origin of the concept of defeatism

 

2.           Orthodox Marxists and the Second International about defeatism in reactionary wars

 

The Congresses in 1907 and 1912

 

3.           Lenin’s elaboration of the doctrine of defeatism between 1904 and 1914

 

The Russo-Japanese war

 

The Stuttgart Congress

 

At the Beginning of World War

 

4.           The three pillars of revolutionary defeatism

 

The main enemy is at home

 

The defeat of one’s own bourgeoisie is the lesser evil

 

Transformation of the imperialist war into civil war

 

5.           Discussing various objections

 

Supporting the victory of the imperialist rival?

 

Inverted social-imperialists

 

Advancing defeat of the imperialist bourgeoisie via sabotage?

 

Does revolutionary defencism result in “campism”?

 

Did Lenin later abandon the strategy of revolutionary defeatism?

 

Pacifism versus the strategy of civil war

 

Draper’s myth about Lenin’s confusion

 

6.           Excurse: Trotsky’s mistaken criticism of Lenin’s policy of defeatism in 1914-16

 

Defeatism – a concession to the “political methodology of social patriotism”?

 

The slogan of “peace”

 

7.           The origin of the term “defeatism” and its acceptance by the Bolsheviks

 

8.           The strategy of revolutionary defeatism in the programmatic documents of the Third and Fourth International

 

The Left Opposition in 1926-27

 

The Communist International in the 1920s

 

Trotsky and the Fourth International

 

9.           Revolutionary defeatism and its application today

 

Inter-imperialist conflicts

 

Imperialist wars against semi-colonial countries and oppressed peoples

 

Liberation wars against national oppression and dictatorships

 

Wars with combined or dual character

 

Conflicts between semi-colonial states

 

10.         Concluding remarks

 

 

 

 

* * * * *

 

 

Introduction

 

 

 

Revolutionary defeatism is a well-known term for the program of struggle against imperialist, or more generally, reactionary wars. Its basic content can be summarized in the three slogans which Lenin and the Bolsheviks outlined at the beginning of World War I:

 

* The main enemy is at home

 

* The defeat of one’s own bourgeoisie is the lesser evil

 

* Transformation of the imperialist war into civil war

 

These slogans basically mean that the workers and oppressed must not side with “their” imperialist state in a conflict with other countries. They must not support “their” ruling class (nor any other imperialist bourgeoisie) but rather desire their defeat as this would enhance the possibilities for their revolutionary overthrow by the working class. As war is a time of violence, socialists do not answer war with pacifist sermons but with utilising the armament of the population to turn the guns around against the ruling class. [1]

 

While these slogans were initially met with outright hostility not only by the social-chauvinist supporters of the war but also by the majority of anti-war socialists, such ideas were the pillars of the Bolsheviks’ anti-war program – the party which became the dominant force in the Russian workers movement, took power in October 1917 and went ahead to found the Third, Communist International in 1919. Later, Trotsky’s Left Opposition against the Stalinist bureaucracy and the Fourth International continued the struggle against imperialist war on the basis of this platform.

 

Basically, there exist two forms of revolutionary defeatism. In a conflict between imperialist powers (e.g. World War I, the conflict between the Axis Powers and the Western Allies in World War II, the Global Trade War today), Marxists take a position of dual defeatism, i.e. they equally oppose both camps.

 

Things are different in a conflict between an imperialist respectively reactionary power and a semi-colonial country or an oppressed people (e.g. Japan’s war against China in 1937-45, Britain’s war against Argentina in 1982, America’s wars in the Middle East since 2001, Israels wars since its foundation in 1948, Russia’s wars against Chechnya and its invasion of Ukraine in 2022). In such conflicts, Marxists take a defeatist position only in regard to the first camp but a position of support for the latter (revolutionary defencism).

 

Such differentiation has important consequences in the field of tactics. In an inter-imperialist conflict in which one has to take a dual defeatist position, Marxists oppose any practical measures in support of the reactionary war, but they do not take active steps to aid the enemy, to sabotage the war efforts, etc. However, in conflicts where a semi-colonial country or an oppressed nation wages a just war of national defence, Marxists have the duty to support their war efforts by any means necessary.

 

While the term “revolutionary defeatism” has become most renown in the context of inter-imperialist conflicts like World War I, its principles apply also to other types of conflicts like wars between semi-colonial states or civil wars. There can be conflicts between capitalist semi-colonies which are reactionary on both sides and in which Marxists take a dual defeatist position (e.g. India vs Pakistan or between Iraq and Iran in 1981-88). However, there can also be conflicts between semi-colonies where one side wages a just war which Marxists must support. For example, the RCIT defended Yemen against the invasion by Saudi Arabia and the UAE in 2015 or Afghanistan against Pakistan in 2025/26. Likewise, there can be civil wars which are reactionary on both sides (e.g. the current conflict in Sudan or the war in Tigray/Ethiopia) as well as wars which are progressive on one side (e.g. the Republican camp in the Spain 1936-39 or the rebels against Assad in Syria 2011-24).

 

In the following essay we will outline the historic origins of the doctrine of defeatism, its full elaboration by the Bolsheviks in the early period of World War I and the meaning of its three main elements. Likewise, we will trace the origin and the establishment of the very term “revolutionary defeatism”. Furthermore, we shall discuss various objections which have been raised against Lenin’s concept and outline the actuality of this doctrine for wars in the current historic period. As we did already publish a number of works on this issue, we will limit the elaboration of some of the arguments and refer in such cases to the relevant RCIT documents.

1. Marx and Engels: the origin of the concept of defeatism

 

 

 

While the term “revolutionary defeatism” or “defeatism” only originated during World War I, its main ideas existed already before. It is well known that in the time of the Roman Empire, the slaves and the poor peasants often refused to rally to the defence of “their” country but either stayed neutral or even sympathised with the “barbaric” invaders. Historians of that time report about wars were the oppressed welcomed the intruding Teutons, Vandals, etc. as they deeply despised their own rulers. A similar process took place when the first two Muslim Caliphates (Rashidun and Umayyad) swiftly expanded in the 7^th and 8^th century into the Middle East, Europe and Asia. Likewise, there were a number of cases throughout the history of feudalism where the ruling class could not mobilise their subjects for the defence of “their” fatherland.

 

While Marx and Engels did not use the term “defeatism” in their writings on wars, they applied its logic on several occasions. At the beginning of the war between Austria and Prussia in 1866, the two founders of scientific socialism sided with Austria as they desired the defeat of the reactionary Bismarck regime in Prussia which they considered as the main obstacle for the revolutionary unification of the German nation. Such wrote Engels in a letter to his friend:

 

“Even though all those who bear any responsibility for this war – if it comes to that – deserve hanging, and I would with equal impartiality gladly extend that to the Austrians as well, yet I would most of all like to see the Prussians soundly thrashed. Then there are 2 possibilities: 1. the Austrians will dictate the peace in Berlin within a fortnight, and direct intervention from abroad will thereby be avoided, but at the same time the present regime in Berlin will be made impossible, and there will be another movement which will disavow the specific nature of the Prussian regime right from the outset; or 2. there will be a sudden change in Berlin before the Austrians arrive, in which case the new movement will also get under way.” ^[2]

 

They took a similar approach in the wars against the Russian Empire because they considered the Tsarist autocracy as the main enemy of the workers movement and democracy both in Russia as well as in Europe. Hence, they hoped that a defeat for the Tsar would encourage the revolutionary movement in Russia. During the Russo-Turkish War (1877-78), Marx wrote to Wilhelm Liebknecht – a key leader of the German socialists at that time:

 

“We are most decidely espousing the Turkish cause and for 2 reasons: (…) 2. because the defeat of the Russians would have greatly expedited social revolution in Russia, of which all the elements are present in abundant measure, and hence radical change throughout Europe.” ^[3]

 

A practical confirmation for the defeatist strategy was the resounding victory of Germany against France in 1870 and the resulting dissolution of the regime of Louis Bonaparte III. This collapse opened a revolutionary process which led to the creation of the Paris Commune in March 1871 – the first working-class revolution in history. In a letter to Marx written in the first period of that war, Engels pointed already to positive consequences of a French defeat for the French workers.

 

“If Germany wins, French Bonapartism will at any rate be smashed, the endless row about the establishment of German unity will at last be over, the German workers will be able to organise on a national scale quite different from that prevailing hitherto, and the French workers, whatever sort of government may succeed this one, are certain to have a freer field than under Bonapartism.” ^[4]

 

In summary, Marx and Engels recognized the correlation between war and revolution and, consequently, advocated the defeat of a reactionary state in order to advance the liberation struggle of the popular masses in that country.

 

 

2. Orthodox Marxists and the Second International about defeatism in reactionary wars

 

 

 

The orthodox Marxists in the Second International continued to advocate the strategy of defeatism in reactionary wars. As mentioned above, Marx and Engels called for the defeat of Prussia in its war with Austria in 1866 in order to weaken the Hohenzollern monarchy which strove for a reactionary solution of Germany’s national unification. Their collaborators in Germany fully supported such a policy as part of their struggle for a revolutionary democratic solution of the national question. August Bebel, the historic leader of German social democracy before World War I, wrote in his autobiography about the party’s approach to the war in 1866:

 

“Liebknecht and I have often in later years been asked what we thought would have happened had Austria been victorious. It is in all truth sad enough that there was only that alternative – that to side with the one Power meant to side against the other – but that could not be helped. My personal opinion is that for a people which is not free defeat is rather favourable than otherwise to its internal development. Victories result in a Government the reverse of democratic in type, haughty and exacting in quality, while reverses force the Government to approach the people and to win its goodwill. Thus it was in Prussia after 1806-7, in Austria after 1860, in France after 1870, and in Russia after the Japanese victories of 1904. The Russian Revolution would never have broken out except for the Russian losses. A few victories on the part of the Tsar’s troops would have made it impossible for years to come. And although the Revolution failed, old Russia disappeared for ever just as old Prussia disappeared after 1847-9.” ^[5]

 

As we can see, Bebel generalised from this experience in 1866 and recognised, referring to other conflicts, that the defeat of the ruling class in a reactionary war weakens it and advances the conditions for the liberation struggle of the working class and the oppressed masses.

 

During the height of the conflict between England and Russia over Afghanistan in 1885, the French Marxist leader Jules Guesde took a position of dual defeatism, i.e. advocating the defeat on both sides of the conflict. In an article entitled “Long Live War”, he characterized Britain and Russia as “equally oppressive, although in different ways”. Guesde explained that war was a “fertiliser of progress“ which could result in “a working class 1789“, i.e. a proletarian version of the Great French Revolution. He argued that whichever of the two governments is defeated, it will be a good thing “for us”, i.e. for socialism.

 

“Russia’s defeat would mean the end of Tsarism, the political liberation of Russia. (…) And the first result, the inevitable result of a political revolution in Petersburg will be the liberation of the German workers. (…) Britain’s defeat would have no less advantageous consequences. (…) it could liberate Ireland from the state of siege (…) while Sudan – and consequently Egypt – could liberate itself (…). Soon after the first misfortunate of England, the separation of the biggest and most exploited colonies would begin … ” [6]

 

The Bolshevik leader Grigori Zinoviev would later summarise Guesde’s approach as follows: “The war between England and Russia could accelerate the solution, the end of the bourgeois social order. But – whose victory and whose defeat is desirable? England or Russia? I wish for the defeat of both.” [7]

 

 

 

The Congresses in 1907 and 1912

 

 

 

The acceleration of inter-imperialist rivalry in the years before 1914 alerted the socialist workers movement to the danger of a major war between the Great Powers. Hence, the Second International discussed its anti-militarist strategy at their congresses in Stuttgart in 1907 and in Basel in 1912. At that time, the opportunist camp had already become a major force within the International. The revisionist wing, whose most prominent theoretician was Eduard Bernstein, advocated a reformist strategy aimed at the gradual and peaceful transformation of capitalism, a strategy which included the participation in bourgeois governments and the defence of the (imperialist) fatherland in wars. Furthermore, the opportunist wing advocated a “socialist colonial policy” which effectively endorsed a “civilised” form of imperialist control and subjugation of the oppressed peoples. [8]

 

However, the proletarian rank and file membership of the social democratic parties strongly opposed the imperialist war-drive of the ruling classes. Given such pressure from below, the orthodox Marxists were still able to push through the adoption of resolutions which not only took a clear stance against militarism and war, but which also referred to the revolutionary consequences of a governments’ defeat in a reactionary conflict.

 

“Actually, since the International Congress at Brussels, the proletariat, while struggling indefatigably against militarism by refusing all means for naval and military armaments and by endeavoring to democratize military organization, has resorted with increasing emphasis and success to the most diverse forms of action so as to prevent the outbreak of wars or to put a stop to them, as well as to utilize the disturbances of society caused by war for the emancipation of the working class. This was evidenced by (…) the heroic, self-sacrificing struggle of the socialist workers and peasants of Russia and Poland waged against the war unleashed by Tsarism and then for its early termination, and also for the purpose of utilizing the national crisis for the liberation of the working class. (…) If a war threatens to break out, it is the duty of the working class and of its parliamentary representatives in the countries involved, supported by the consolidating activity of the International [Socialist] Bureau, to exert every effort to prevent the outbreak of war by means they consider most effective, which naturally vary according to the accentuation of the class struggle and of the general political situation. Should war break out none the less, it is their duty to intervene in favor of its speedy termination and to do all in their power to utilize the economic and political crisis caused by the war to rouse the peoples and thereby to hasten the abolition of capitalist class rule.” [9]

 

The Basel Congress confirmed the above-mentioned paragraphs about threatening with revolutionary upheavals as consequences of imperialist wars and concretely referred to the Paris Commune 1871 and the Russian Revolution in 1905-07 as examples for such consequences.

 

“The Congress notes that the entire Socialist International is at one on these principles of foreign policy. It invites the workers of all countries to oppose the power of the international solidarity of the proletariat to capitalist imperialism. It warns the ruling classes of all states not to increase by bellicose actions the misery of the masses which has been caused by the capitalist method of production. It emphatically demands peace. Let the governments be mindful of the fact that, with European conditions and the attitude of the working class as they are, they cannot let loose a war without causing danger to themselves. Let them recall that the Franco-German War was followed by the revolutionary outbreak of the Commune, that the Russo-Japanese War set in motion the revolutionary forces of the peoples in the Russian Empire, and that competitive military and naval armaments have accentuated in an unprecedented fashion the class antagonisms in England and on the continent and have unchained vast strikes. It would be sheer madness for the governments not to realize that the very thought of the monstrosity of a world war would inevitably call forth the indignation and the revolt of the working class.” [10]

 

Of course, the vast majority of leaderships of the social democratic parties did not stand up to these words when the imperialist war broke out in 1914. Instead of opposing they rather became social-chauvinists and supported their reactionary governments. Instead of working towards defeat of imperialism, they rather rallied the workers to support the reactionary war goals of their ruling classes. However, as the above-mentioned quotes from the congress resolutions in 1907 and 1912 show, it was them betraying the official doctrine of the Second International, betraying the desire of the masses to utilise the war for advancing the class struggle against the bourgeoisie. These resolutions, reflecting the anti-militarist and anti-imperialist sentiment of socialist workers, were the basis on which Lenin and the Bolsheviks could draw on when they elaborated the doctrine of revolutionary defeatism at the beginning of World War I.

 

 

3. Lenin’s elaboration of the doctrine of defeatism between 1904 and 1914

 

 

 

While the Bolsheviks fully elaborated the program of revolutionary defeatism in 1914/15, they had already developed key elements of this strategy during the war between Russia and Japan in 1904-05. More precisely, one can say that Lenin mapped out the doctrine of defeatism in three stages.

 

 

 

The Russo-Japanese war

 

 

 

The first stage was Lenin’s advocacy of defeat for Tsarist Russia in the Russo-Japanese war. This war ended with a defeat for Russia and triggered the first Russian Revolution in 1905-07 – a historic event which fully confirmed the defeatist perspective of the Bolsheviks.

 

Already before the beginning of the revolutionary uprising in January 1905, Lenin emphasized the connection between war and revolution: “[W]e must recognise the great revolutionary role of the historic war in which the Russian worker is an involuntary participant.” ^[11]

 

“Military disaster is inevitable, and together with it discontent, unrest, and indignation will inevitably increase tenfold. We must prepare for that moment with the utmost energy. At that moment, one of the outbreaks which are recurring, now here, now there, with such growing frequency, will develop into a tremendous popular movement. At that moment the proletariat will rise and take its stand at the head of the insurrection to win freedom for the entire people and to secure for the working class the possibility of waging the open and broad struggle for socialism, a struggle enriched by the whole experience of Europe.” [12]

 

As a consequence, the Bolsheviks advocated a defeatist position, i.e. they stood for the defeat of their “own” reactionary government.

 

“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. This cause has been greatly advanced by the military debacle which has struck terror in the hearts of all the European guardians of the existing order.” ^[13]

 

“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. This cause has been greatly advanced by the military debacle which has struck terror in the hearts of all the European guardians of the existing order. The revolutionary proletariat must carry on a ceaseless agitation against war, always keeping in mind, however, that wars are inevitable as long as class rule exists. Trite phrases about peace à la Jaurès are of no use to the oppressed class, which is not responsible for a bourgeois war between two bourgeois nations, which is doing all it can to overthrow every bourgeoisie, which knows the enormity of the people’s sufferings even in time of “peaceful” capitalist exploitation. (...) It was the Russian autocracy and not the Russian people that started this colonial war, which has turned into a war between the old and the new bourgeois worlds. It is the autocratic regime and not the Russian people that has suffered ignoble defeat. The Russian people has gained from the defeat of the autocracy. The capitulation of Port Arthur is the prologue to the capitulation of tsarism. The war is not ended yet by far, but every step towards its continuation increases immeasurably the unrest and discontent among the Russian people, brings nearer the hour of a new great war, the war of the people against the autocracy, the war of the proletariat for liberty.” [14]

 

 

 

The Stuttgart Congress

 

 

 

The Stuttgart Congress of the Second International in 1907 and Lenin’s processing of its lessons marked the second stage. At this congress, Lenin, together with Rosa Luxemburg, internationalised the doctrine of defeatism, tested in the Russian field. It was these two orthodox Marxists, together with Julius Martov, who had drafted the above-quoted paragraphs about the connection of war and revolution as amendments for the draft resolution on militarism and war. In his review of the congress, Lenin wrote:

 

“That is why Rosa Luxemburg and the Russian Social- Democratic delegates moved their amendments to Bebel’s resolution. These amendments (1) stated that militarism is the chief weapon of class oppression; (2) pointed out the need for propaganda among the youth; (3) stressed that Social-Democrats should not only try to prevent war from breaking out or to secure the speediest termination of wars that have already begun, but should utilise the crisis created by the war to hasten the overthrow of the bourgeoisie.“ ^[15]

 

The Stuttgart Congress was an important experience for Lenin also because it showed him how strong the opportunist wing had already become in the German (and French) party. This was revealed in the debate on colonialism – the majority of Western European delegates supported a “socialist” version of colonialism – but also in the debate about war. Leading representatives of the German party, including its historic leader August Bebel, supported the idea to defend “their” imperialist fatherland against foreign aggression. One year after the congress, Lenin critically noted in an article on militarism:

 

“On the question of how Social-Democrats should behave if war is declared, the majority of the German Social-Democrats, headed by Bebel and Vollmar, hold rigidly to the view that the Social-Democrats must defend their country against aggression, and that they are bound to take part in a “defensive” war. This proposition led Vollmar to declare at Stuttgart that “all our love for humanity cannot prevent us being good Germans”, while the Social-Democratic deputy Noske proclaimed in the Reichstag that, in the event of war against Germany, “the Social-Democrats will not lag behind bourgeois parties and will shoulder their rifles”. From this Noske had to make only one more step to declare that “we want Germany to be armed as much as possible”. (…) It is obvious that on this question (just as in discussing “patriotism”) it is not the defensive or offensive character of the war, but the interests of the class struggle of the proletariat, or—to put it better—the interests of the international movement of the proletariat—that represent the sole criterion for considering and deciding the attitude of the Social-Democrats to any particular event in international relations.“ ^[16]

 

Hence, for the Bolsheviks the Stuttgart Congress marked the internationalisation of the fundamental principles of defeatism. Likewise, they recognised that in order to understand the character of a given war in Europe the question was not which side started it but rather what was the class character of the states involved in it and what were their war goals.

 

 

 

At the Beginning of World War

 

 

 

The beginning of World War I marked the third and final stage of Lenin’s elaboration of the doctrine of defeatism. Already in the first days of the war between the Great Powers in August 1914, Lenin deepened and generalised the revolutionary program against imperialism and militarism. According to the memoirs of the Russian Bolshevik G. L. Shklovsky, Lenin proclaimed at the moment of his arrival in Swiss in early September (he had been arrested by the Austrian authorities at the beginning of the war but was released and deported two weeks later): “He is not a socialist who does not, in times of imperialist war, desire the defeat of his own country.“ ^[17]

 

This statement indicated already the core idea of Lenin’s approach: that revolutionaries must advance the struggle against the imperialist wars through the methods of the class struggle and utilize the crisis caused by the war for the revolutionary overthrow of their own bourgeoisie. Hence the unequivocal stance for the defeat of one’s own government in the war.

 

“The standpoint of social-chauvinism is shared equally by both advocates of victory for their governments in the present war and by advocates of the slogan of “neither victory nor defeat”. 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. Only a bourgeois who believes that a war started by governments must necessarily end as a war between governments, and wants it to end as such, can regard as “ridiculous” and “absurd” the idea that the socialists of all the belligerent countries should express their wish that all their “own” governments should be defeated. On the contrary, it is a statement of this kind that would be in keeping with the innermost thoughts of every class-conscious worker, and be in line with our activities for the conversion of the imperialist war into a civil war.“ ^[18]

 

Hence, Lenin was crystal clear that socialists must not identify in any way with the imperialist state and must not view its defeat as a defeat of the working class. In one of his first articles during the war, he approvingly quoted the Italian Marxists who proclaimed their defeatist position at the beginning of the world war and stated that the only just war is the war of the oppressed to take power: “We are always for ‘santa guerra di tutti gli oppressi per la conquista delle loro patrie!’” (a holy war of all the oppressed, for the conquest of their own fatherland!” [19]

 

This approach was combined with the struggle for the socialist revolution. Hence the central slogan of the Bolsheviks was “civil war”.

 

“The conversion of the present imperialist war into a civil war is the only correct proletarian slogan, one that follows from the experience of the Commune, and outlined in the Basle resolution (1912); it has been dictated by all the conditions of an imperialist war between highly developed bourgeois countries. However difficult that transformation may seem at any given moment, socialists will never relinquish systematic, persistent and undeviating preparatory work in this direction now that war has become a fact.“ ^[20]

 

Lenin advocated this strategy not only for Russia but for all countries involved in the imperialist war.

 

“This is really the crux of the whole question. “Internal struggle which has been brought up to boiling point” is civil war. Kolb is right when he says that the tactics of the Left lead to this; he is right when he says that they mean the “military weakening” of Germany, i.e., desiring and aiding its defeat, defeatism. Kolb is wrong only—only!—in that he refuses to see the international character of these tactics of the Left. For it is possible “to bring the internal struggle up to boiling point”, “weaken the military power” of the imperialist bourgeoisie and (by virtue of this, in connection with it, by means of it) transform the imperialist war into civil war in all the belligerent countries. This is the crux of the whole matter.” ^[21]

 

“If we call on the masses to fight against their governments, “regardless of the military position of the given country”, we thereby not only repudiate the admissibility of “defending the country”, as a principle, in the present war, but admit the desirability of defeat for every bourgeois government in order to transform its defeat into revolution.“ ^[22]

 

The Bolsheviks concretized such strategy in the following way:

 

“The following should be indicated as the first steps towards converting the present imperialist war into a civil war: (1) an absolute refusal to vote for war credits, and resignation from bourgeois governments; (2) a complete break with the policy of a class truce (bloc national, Burgfrieden); (3) formation of an underground organisation wherever the governments and the bourgeoisie abolish constitutional liberties by introducing martial law; (4) support for fraternisation between soldiers of the belligerent nations, in the trenches and on battlefields in general; (5) support for every kind of revolutionary mass action by the proletariat in general.“ ^[23]

 

The Bolsheviks were fully conscious of the fact that the imperialist war inevitably provokes objective explosive situations which could be utilized to advance the class struggle: “The war has undoubtedly created a most acute crisis and has immeasurably increased the distress of the masses. The reactionary nature of this war, and the unblushing lies told by the bourgeoisie of all countries to conceal their predatory aims with “national” ideology are, on the basis of an objectively revolutionary situation, inevitably creating revolutionary moods among the masses. It is our duty to help the masses become conscious of these moods, deepen them and give them shape. This task finds correct expression only in the slogan: convert the imperialist war into a civil war; all consistently waged class struggles in wartime and all seriously conducted “mass action” tactics inevitably lead to this. It is impossible to foretell whether a powerful revolutionary movement will flare-up in connection with, during or after the first or the second imperialist war of the Great Powers; in any case it is our bounden duty to work systematically and unswervingly in this direction.“ [24]

4. The three pillars of revolutionary defeatism

 

 

 

Let us now elaborate in more detail the meaning of the three key slogans of Lenin’s defeatism – the main enemy is at home, the defeat of one’s own bourgeoisie is the lesser evil and the transformation of the imperialist war into civil war. As we will show, these three slogans – which summarise the revolutionary program in imperialist respectively reactionary wars – are interlinked and constitute an organic whole.

 

 

 

The main enemy is at home

 

 

 

Actually, the slogan “The main enemy is at home” was not coined by the Bolsheviks but by the German revolutionary Karl Liebknecht who used it in a leaflet from May 1915 on Italy’s entry into the war. [25] However, the slogan was soon adopted by the Bolsheviks and their international allies in the anti-war movement – the Zimmerwald Left. It has multiple meanings.

 

First, it represents a fundamental rupture with imperialist chauvinism and the idea of having a common fatherland with the bourgeoise. Nationalism claims that Germans, French, etc. workers have more in common with their own ruling class than with their brothers and sisters from other nations. The slogan “the main enemy is at home” cuts through such confusing chauvinism, turns the attention of workers against their own rulers and creates the fundament for cross-border solidarity of the proletariat.

 

Thereby, this slogan attacks the fundamental idea of the existence of a cross-class fatherland and points out that there exist, so to say, “two fatherlands” – the fatherland of the oppressed and the fatherland of the oppressors. Hence, as we pointed out somewhere else, the fatherland is currently not ours but “theirs”, i.e. the fatherland of the bourgeoisie. The workers must first overthrow the ruling class and take power – only then will it be their fatherland which deserves to be defended. [26] But today, “fatherland” means the imperialist state – the enemy of the working class.

 

 

 

The defeat of one’s own bourgeoisie is the lesser evil

 

 

 

From the first slogan follows the second – the defeat of one’s own bourgeoisie is the lesser evil. If the main enemy is at home, its defeat is to be highly welcome. Why? Because a defeat weakens the ruling class, confuses its ranks and causes divisions, and destroys its prestige in the eyes of the public opinion. Hence, a defeat of one’s own bourgeoisie improves the conditions for the liberation struggle of the working class. As history has shown repeatedly, a defeat of the ruling class in a war can result in a revolutionary situation and the overthrow of the government.

 

Furthermore, this slogan is a radical rupture with the ideology of imperialist chauvinism as it refuses to protect the imperialist fatherland against the “foreign enemy”. Any desire to defend the imperialist fatherland against “foreigners” reflects an opportunistic adaptation to social-chauvinism.

 

Likewise, the slogan reflects the radical statement that socialists refuse to lend any protection for the class enemy, even if the imperialist fatherland is “in danger”. In other words, this slogan is an important instrument for the political education of the working class.

 

 

 

Transformation of the imperialist war into civil war

 

 

 

Friedrich Engels and V.I. Lenin were big admirers of the Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz of the early 19^th century, who emphasized that war and politics are not separate fields but rather that war is part of politics. He summarized the essence of any military conflict by the famous words: “War is a mere continuation of policy by other means.” ^[27]

 

Hence, the nature of war is fundamentally political, and the character of a given war can only be understood by analysing the political interests of the leading actors respectively the classes behind them.

 

If war is a mere continuation of policy by other means, imperialist war is continuation of imperialist policy by other means. Consequently, a war led by the bourgeoisie of an imperialist state is always an imperialist war, i.e. a war which the working class must intransigently oppose with the program of revolutionary defeatism.

 

Likewise, imperialist peace, i.e. a peace concluded between the rulers of the rivalling imperialist powers, is also continuation of imperialist policy by other means. The working class must never advocate or support such imperialist peace.

 

War means the militarisation of policy. If war is the militarisation of the bourgeoisie’s policy, the working class must also militarise its policy. This means that the class struggle must take military forms. The slogan of the transformation of the imperialist war into civil war expresses exactly this fact.

 

Furthermore, this slogan reflects the spirit of “proletarian militarism” (Trotsky) that the working class is not longing for peace but longing for revolution which means civil war as the ruling class will never voluntarily give up its power.

 

 

5. Discussing various objections

 

 

 

As mentioned above, the Bolshevik’s policy of defeatism represented only a small minority even within the Zimmerwald movement during World War I – as the anti-war socialists were called after the place of their first conference in autumn 1915. For most left-reformist and centrist opponents of the imperialist war, the slogans of “defeat of one’s own bourgeoisie as the lesser evil” and the “transformation of the imperialist war into civil war” sounded much too radical and “sectarian”. While the Bolsheviks remained a minority among anti-war socialists, they succeed to build an international grouping around their program – the Zimmerwald Left. ^[28]

 

 

 

Supporting the victory of the imperialist rival?

 

 

 

One of the earliest criticisms of the Bolshevik’s anti-war program was that if socialists characterise the defeat of one’s own bourgeoisie as the lesser evil, it would automatically mean that they support the rivalling imperialist power. However, their program of defeatism in World War I was never limited to Russia but was rather applied to all participating states. Already in their very first manifesto, published on 1 November 1914, they stated that the strategy to transform the imperialist war into civil war applies to all participating countries.

 

“The conversion of the present imperialist war into a civil war is the only correct proletarian slogan, one that follows from the experience of the Commune, and outlined in the Basle resolution (1912); it has been dictated by all the conditions of an imperialist war between highly developed bourgeois countries. However difficult that transformation may seem at any given moment, socialists will never relinquish systematic, persistent and undeviating preparatory work in this direction now that war has become a fact.“ ^[29]

 

Advocating the defeat of Russia in WWI did not mean that the Bolsheviks considered a defeat for Russia as better than a defeat for Germany. It rather meant the following:

 

a) for revolutionaries in Russia a defeat for Russia is preferable to its victory or a stalemate because defeat weakens the main enemy in their country;

 

b) revolutionaries in all imperialist countries participating in a reactionary war have to advocate the defeat of “their” ruling class.

 

c) revolutionaries stand in fundamental class opposition against “their” imperialist state and reject it so intransigently that they want to see it defeated in the war; it reflects their defeatist opposition against any steps which could support the efforts of “their” imperialist fatherland.

 

Hence, the policy of defeatism was one which Marxists in all participating imperialist countries had to apply. It is not a global judgement of Marxists which imperialist power they prefer to win. It is rather a statement of Marxists that they work towards weakening and ultimately overthrowing the ruling class in each and every imperialist country and that, in order to advance such a process, they welcome the defeat of “their” fatherland. The Bolsheviks made this clear in a series of statements published during the war.

 

“The standpoint of social-chauvinism is shared equally by both advocates of victory for their governments in the present war and by advocates of the slogan of “neither victory nor defeat”. 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. Only a bourgeois who believes that a war started by governments must necessarily end as a war between governments, and wants it to end as such, can regard as “ridiculous” and “absurd” the idea that the socialists of all the belligerent countries should express their wish that all their “own” governments should be defeated. On the contrary, it is a statement of this kind that would be in keeping with the innermost thoughts of every class-conscious worker, and be in line with our activities for the conversion of the imperialist war into a civil war.“ ^[30]

 

“This is really the crux of the whole question. “Internal struggle which has been brought up to boiling point” is civil war. Kolb is right when he says that the tactics of the Left lead to this; he is right when he says that they mean the “military weakening” of Germany, i.e., desiring and aiding its defeat, defeatism. Kolb is wrong only – only! – in that he refuses to see the international character of these tactics of the Left. For it is possible “to bring the internal struggle up to boiling point”, “weaken the military power” of the imperialist bourgeoisie and (by virtue of this, in connection with it, by means of it) transform the imperialist war into civil war in all the belligerent countries. This is the crux of the whole matter.” ^[31]

 

One of those who criticized the Bolsheviks for their defeatism in 1915/16 was Leon Trotsky who still had not freed himself at that time from all elements of centrist confusion.

 

“The phrase-bandying Trotsky has completely lost his bearings on a simple issue. It seems to him that to desire Russia’s defeat means desiring the victory of Germany. (…) But Trotsky regards this as the “methodology of social-patriotism”! To help people that are unable to think for themselves, the Berne resolution (…) made it clear that in all imperialist countries the proletariat must now desire the defeat of its own government. Bukvoyed and Trotsky preferred to avoid this truth, while Semkovsky (an opportunist who is more useful to the working class than all the others, thanks to his naïvely frank reiteration of bourgeois wisdom) blurted out the following: “This is nonsense, because either Germany or Russia can win”.” ^[32]

 

In replying to their critics, Grigory Zinoviev, Lenin’s closest collaborator in that period, answered in the theoretical journal of the Bolsheviks that they are “pan-defeatists”, i.e. defeatists not only in one but in all imperialist countries!

 

“But if the socialists of all countries were to wish for the defeat of their government, who would then win? That would just lead to a kind of ‘pandefeatism’! This argument is systematically repeated against us. (…) Whichever of the vile imperialist behemoths may fall in the predatory war of 1914/16, this will be the breach through which the proletarian revolution will enter – this is how a revolutionary socialist of our time must argue. And therefore, he cannot help but be a ‘pandefeatist.’“ ^[33]

 

 

 

Inverted social-imperialists

 

 

 

While Lenin’s concept of defeatism had nothing to do with support for another imperialist power, there has always existed a reactionary variant of “defeatism”. Basically, patriotism is related to class interests. The working class in imperialist countries has no reason to be patriotic as long as it remains oppressed and exploited in “their” fatherland. Likewise, when the ruling class loses power, it stops being patriotic and support the nation’s enemies. Think about the nobility after the French Revolution in 1789 which sided with the coalition of foreign monarchies, hoping that they would bring them back to power and privileges. Likewise did the Russian bourgeoisie – with the reformist Mensheviks and Social-Revolutionaries in tow – support the imperialist powers when they invaded the country to destroy the new Soviet power after the October Revolution in 1917.

 

In the 1930s fascist sectors of the French bourgeoise and middle class did hope that Hitler would invade their country and, when he did so, supported the occupation in 1940-44. On the other hand, German and Italian social democrats and Stalinists became defeatists after the fascists had kicked them out, turning them into supporters of British and French imperialism. The Fourth International said about such people:

 

“The German Stalinists in emigration have become inverted social-patriots, transforming themselves from nationalist champions against the Versailles Peace Treaty to defenders of the status quo created by this very same treaty. It follows from the present position of the German Stalinist that they will transform themselves into real social-patriots as soon as the fascist dictatorship in Germany is replaces by another type of bourgeois regime.” ^[34]

 

Today, we see similar phenomena. Ultra-right-wing forces in the U.S. and Europe see Russia as a cradle of “conservative values” and support it against their fatherland. Likewise, there are various Stalinist and left-populist forces in Western countries which view China and Russia as “socialist” respectively as “anti-imperialist” powers. By denying the imperialist nature of these powers and by referring to the slogan “the main enemy is at home”, they justify their support for China and Russia in the global struggle for domination. ^[35] The more cynical among them might even recognise the imperialist character of China and Russia but justify their such support for these powers on the basis of the principle “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”.

 

In some way, such “socialist” forces are defeatists … but they are not anti-imperialist defeatists. They sympathise not with their “own” imperialist power but rather with another one. This is not one iota better! These people are not revolutionary defeatists but rather pro-imperialist “defeatists” or inverted social-imperialists. Such forces must be fought by authentic Marxists no less energetically than “normal” social-chauvinists.

 

 

 

Advancing defeat of the imperialist bourgeoisie via sabotage?

 

 

 

Another criticism against the policy of defeatism is that the Bolsheviks would advocate means of sabotage in order to advance the defeat of “their” bourgeoise. As we did explain in the introduction to this essay, there exist two forms of revolutionary defeatism – the policy in an inter-imperialist or reactionary war on both sides and the policy in a war in which one camp wages a progressive war, a just war of national defence.

 

In the first case – a reactionary war on both sides – Marxists advance the policy of class struggle irrespective of the negative consequences of such for their “own” bourgeoise, they advocate the fraternisation between the soldiers of both camps, etc. However, it would be completely wrong to undertake any steps of direct practical aid for the opposing reactionary camp like sabotage etc. Lenin said this explicitly in one of his articles.

 

“Wartime revolutionary action against one’s own government indubitably means, not only desiring its defeat, but really facilitating such a defeat. (“Discerning reader”: note that this does not mean “blowing up bridges”, organizing unsuccessful strikes in the war industries, and in general helping the government defeat the revolutionaries.)” ^[36]

 

Things are different in conflicts where one camp wages a progressive war of liberation against a reactionary enemy. In such a case, Marxists operating in the reactionary camp are obliged to do everything possible to practically aid the progressive camp. [37]

 

 

 

Does revolutionary defencism result in “campism”?

 

 

 

We will deal with this question here only briefly as we dedicated a recently published article to this issue. ^[38] As we noted in this article, the category of “campism”, which has become modern in recent time, is somehow unfortunate since it suggests that it would be wrong in itself to support one camp in a conflict. Naturally, this is nonsense because Marxists have the duty to support a camp when it wages a progressive war. In World War II, socialists defended the USSR against Nazi-Germany and China against Japanese imperialism. In recent times, Marxists had (and still have) to side with the oppressed peoples in the Middle East against the American-Zionist aggression or with Chechnya and Ukraine against Russia.

 

A rejection of “campism” is only correct in conflicts with a reactionary character on both sides like wars between imperialist powers in World War I and II or the current conflict between the U.S. and China or between the European Union and Russia. The same applies to those conflicts between capitalist semi-colonies which are reactionary on both sides.

 

At the same time, it is crucial to differentiate between military and political support. Marxists must always side with the progressive (i.e. anti-imperialist, pro-liberation) camp in a given conflict and support its practical and military efforts to defeat the enemy. This is why we raise in such conflicts slogans in defence of or for the military victory of the Palestinian resistance, Iran or Ukraine. At the same time, we always refuse to lend political support to the leadership of such struggles – be it Hamas, the Mullah regime or Zelensky.

 

Opponents have often criticised the RCIT for making such a differentiation between military and political support. However, this is a very simple and clear question. Given the crisis of revolutionary leadership, nearly all struggles of the working class and oppressed peoples are led today by non-revolutionary forces. Larger strikes of workers are usually controlled by reformist trade union bureaucrats, armed liberation struggles by petty-bourgeois nationalists and Islamists and the military defence of semi-colonial countries by bourgeois regimes. Marxists must not trust any of these forces and they have to warn the masses against their wrong strategy, their narrow interests, etc.

 

But only a blind sectarian could say that it does not matter if such a struggle ends victorious or semi-victorious for the masses, for the semi-colonial country or not. If the working class can stop the closure of an enterprise or force the government to withdraw tax hikes, if the masses can overthrow a dictator or at least enforce some democratic reforms, if a semi-colonial country can avoid imperialist occupation or force it to lift sanctions – all these are important victories which Marxists strongly welcome. Hence, support for such struggles, even under a non-revolutionary leadership, is not only legitimate but obligatory. Leon Trotsky explained this issue in the “Transitional Program”, the founding document of the Fourth International in 1938.

 

“But not all countries of the world are imperialist countries. On the contrary, the majority are victims of imperialism. Some of the colonial or semi colonial countries will undoubtedly attempt to utilize the war in order to east off the yoke of slavery. Their war will be not imperialist but liberating. It will be the duty of the international proletariat to aid the oppressed countries in their war against oppressors. The same duty applies in regard to aiding the USSR, or whatever other workers’ government might arise before the war or during the war. The defeat of every imperialist government in the struggle with the workers’ state or with a colonial country is the lesser evil.

 

The workers of imperialist countries, however, cannot help an anti-imperialist country through their own government, no matter what might be the diplomatic and military relations between the two countries at a given moment. If the governments find themselves in a temporary and, by the very essence of the matter, unreliable alliance, then the proletariat of the imperialist country continues to remain in class opposition to its own government and supports the non-imperialist “ally” through its own methods, i.e., through the methods of the international class struggle (agitation in favour of a workers’ state and of a colonial country not only against their enemies but also against their perfidious allies). [See our remark on this in the footnote below, Ed.]

 

In supporting the colonial country or the USSR in a war, the proletariat does not in the slightest degree solidarize either with the bourgeois government of the colonial country or with the Thermidorian bureaucracy of the USSR. On the contrary, it maintains full political independence from the one as from the other. Giving aid in a just and progressive war, the revolutionary proletariat wins the sympathy of the workers in the colonies and in the USSR, strengthens there the authority and influence of the Fourth International, and increases its ability to help overthrow the bourgeois government in the colonial country, the reactionary bureaucracy in the USSR.” ^[39]

 

 

 

Did Lenin later abandon the strategy of revolutionary defeatism?

 

 

 

Various revisionist intellectuals – starting from Hal Draper to Ted Grant and Alan Woods – have claimed that Lenin would have abandoned the strategy of revolutionary defeatism after the Russian Revolution in 1917. Again, we will deal with this question here only very briefly as we have written on this issue on several occasions. ^[40]

 

As we did show in these works, such claim by the revisionists is utter nonsense and rather reflects their desire to make peace with opportunist social-patriotic forces in their country. It is no accident that figures like Hal Draper opportunistically adapted to Zionism and Third Camp reformism in the U.S. in the 1950s and 1960s – he was part of the group led by Max Shachtman which split from the Fourth International in 1940 because they refused to defend the Soviet Union against imperialism; or that the organisation of Grant and Woods (CWI/IMT) spent more than more a century within social democratic or bourgeois-populist parties. [41]

 

Contrary to their claims, Lenin did uphold the program of defeatism after 1917 and referred to the October Revolution (and other revolutionary situations in Europe at the end of World War I) as confirmation of their advocacy to transform the imperialist war into civil war. In his well-known book on “Left-Wing’ Communism”, he wrote:

 

“The party which entered into a compromise with the German imperialists by signing the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk had been evolving its internationalism in practice ever since the end of 1914. It was not afraid to call for the defeat of the tsarist monarchy and to condemn “defence of country” in a war between two imperialist robbers.” ^[42]

 

During the peace negotiations in Brest-Litovsk, Lenin explained:

 

“It is said that the German Social-Democratic opponents of the war have now become “defeatists” and are requesting us not to yield to German imperialism. But we recognised defeatism only in respect of one’s own imperialist bourgeoisie, and we always discountenanced victory over an alien imperialism, victory attained in formal or actual alliance with a “friendly” imperialism, as a method impermissible in principle and generally wrong.“ ^[43]

 

And in one of his last contributions, giving instructions for communist delegates at an international anti-war congress in December 1922, Lenin suggested, among others, that “it is necessary to explain what “defence of the fatherland” means. Second, in connection with this, it is necessary to explain what ‘defeatism’ means. Lastly, we must explain that the only possible method of combating war is to preserve existing, and to form new, illegal organisations in which all revolutionaries taking part in a war carry on prolonged anti-war activities – all this must be brought into the forefront.” ^[44]

 

Furthermore, as we will show below, Lenin’s closest collaborators, who later led the Left Opposition against the Stalinist counterrevolution as well as the Communist International in the 1920s, explicitly defended the strategy of defeatism against imperialist wars. The same is true for Trotsky’s Fourth International in the 1930s and 1940s.

 

 

 

Pacifism versus the strategy of civil war

 

 

 

Another criticism which has been raised against the program of defeatism is that it advocates a “militarist” strategy against imperialist war instead of raising the idea of peace – a slogan which would much better relate to the wish of the masses. However, such criticism is completely utopian. You want peace? Great, which peace? A peace under a reactionary government or foreign occupation? No, you want a just, democratic peace? But this is only possible when the masses bring down the war-mongers via revolutionary class struggle. This means that they turn the guns against the ruling class which, in turn, means in periods of war that the transformation of the imperialist war into civil war.

 

Lenin and Zinoviev noted in their pamphlet “Socialism and War” on this issue:

 

“The temper of the masses in favour of peace often expresses the beginning of protest, anger and a realisation of the reactionary nature of the war. It is the duty of all Social- Democrats to utilise that temper. They will take a most ardent part in any movement and in any demonstration motivated by that sentiment, but they will not deceive the people with admitting the idea that a peace without annexations, without oppression of nations, without plunder, and without the embryo of new wars among the present governments and ruling classes, is possible in the absence of a revolutionary movement. Such deception of the people would merely mean playing into the hands of the secret diplomacy of the belligerent governments and facilitating their counterrevolutionary plans. Whoever wants a lasting and democratic peace must stand for civil war against the governments and the bourgeoisie.“ ^[45]

 

The call for peace without explicitly naming the means with which it can be achieved is not only utopian, but it also serves the ruling class. Because the governments will say that they are also in favour of peace – peace under their conditions, under continuation of their rule, of course. Agitating for peace without calling for the soldiers to turn the guns around, without calling the masses to rise up and the bring down the government, such agitation is just grist to the mill of the ruling class and their attempts to lull the consciousness of the masses.

 

Calling for peace without linking it to the revolutionary insurrection of the working class is objectively an appeal to the ruling class to end the war and to continue their rule, i.e. the same system of capitalist domination which is the cause of all these devastating wars and destruction. In other words, such pacifist propaganda serves the continuation of a system which, by its very nature, can not be peaceful and necessarily spawns more wars.

 

Related to this, such reformist propaganda for peace objectively orientates the working class towards an alliance with “pacifist” sectors of the bourgeoisie respectively with (at least temporarily) “pacifist” Great Powers. If the goal is peace under any conditions, it is only natural to look for forces among the ruling class which share such a desire.

 

Revolutionaries have the responsibility to explain that without struggle, the working class can never achieve its goals. In times of wars, the class struggle must ultimately take military forms, i.e. civil war to bring down the bourgeoisie. Grigory Zinoviev once formulated this idea quite pointedly:

 

“’Die Friedensidee zum Mittelpunkt’ – 'The idea of peace at the heart of our slogans’! Now they say that – after the first pan-European imperialist war has broken out! This is what you have learned from events!

 

“’Nicht Friedensidee, sondern Bürgerkriegsidee’ – not the idea of peace, but the idea of civil war – this is what we are tempted to shout at these great utopians who promise such a meager utopia. Not the idea of peace, but the idea of civil war, citizen Adler! This will be the central point of our program.

 

The problem is not that we failed to sufficiently preach the idea of peace before the war; it is that we did not preach the idea of class struggle, of civil war, enough or seriously enough. Because in wartime, the recognition of class struggle without a recognition of civil war is empty verbiage; it is hypocrisy; it is deceiving the workers.” [46]

 

 

 

Draper’s myth about Lenin’s confusion

 

 

 

The above-mentioned Hal Draper was one of the firsts to falsely claim that the Bolsheviks did not only drop their strategy of defeatism after 1916 but that it was also a confused theory in itself. In a lengthy essay published in 1953/54 – called “The Myth of Lenin’s ‘Revolutionary Defeatism’” – he states that Lenin’s strategy would have had four different meanings which contradicted each other.

 

“By this time, March 1915, we have the four formulas of “defeatism” created out of the attempt to meet the insoluble contradictions without solving them. Before going ahead, let us summarize them:

 

No.1: The special Russian position: defeat of Russia by Germany is the “lesser evil”.

 

No.2: The objective statement that “defeat facilitates revolution”.

 

No.3: The slogan: wish defeat in every country.

 

No.4: Do not halt before the risk of defeat.” [47]

 

In fact, it was not Lenin but rather Draper who got confused. Leaving aside some factual errors, distortions or useless hairsplitting, he ignored that there always have been two variations of defeatism, as we elaborated above. In one case, socialists take a side in a conflict and, consequently, are defeatist in one country but defensist in the other. The second case is a conflict where socialists support neither one nor the other camp (dual defeatism). In both cases, socialists refuse to defend “their” fatherland, but the practical consequences are not the identical.

 

Furthermore, Draper ignored that the “lesser evil” slogan which Lenin used in World War I was not a specific slogan for Russia only, but an element of an international strategy applied to all imperialist countries. In addition, he also fails to understand that this formula was a political statement of rupture with chauvinism in each imperialist country, not a statement of supporting a rival imperialist power. Basically, Draper ignores that the supposed contradictions of Lenin’s defeatism are in reality different, complementary elements of a total strategy.

 

Of course, such confusion should not come as a surprise since Draper was a supporter of Israel’s wars of oppression already in 1948 – at that time he published an article “How to Defend Israel” – which resulted in massacres and the collective expulsion of the Palestinian people from their homeland (“Nakba”). [48] Likewise, he became an American Third-Camp theorist who refused to consistently fight against imperialism by defending the USSR against Nazi-Germany in World War II and later, in the period of the Cold War, against NATO. Opponents of consistent defeatism are hardly qualified to understand Lenin’s doctrine!

 

 

6. Excurse: Trotsky’s mistaken criticism of Lenin’s policy of defeatism in 1914-16

 

 

 

Trotsky was an outstanding Marxist leader already in the period before 1917. He played an important role during the first revolution in 1905-07 as the chairman of the workers soviet in Petersburg. In addition, he was the originator – together with Parvus – of the theory of permanent revolution which explains that the working class must take power and move towards expropriating the bourgeoisie in order to complete the democratic revolution (agrarian revolution, national liberation, consistent democracy). [49]

 

However, before the February Revolution in 1917 Trotsky had failed to understand the crucial importance of building a revolutionary party with iron discipline which is united on the basis of a common strategy and the struggle against all forms of reformism and centrism. He considered this as “sectarianism” – a criticism which reflected a certain tendency of opportunist fatalism, i.e. hoping that the objective process of class struggle would replace the necessity of intransigent fighting for a clear strategy and demarcating from revisionist deviations. As a result, Trotsky sometimes collaborated with the Bolsheviks but often opposed them and was involved in various blocs with opportunist factions directed against them. [50]

 

These differences resulted in repeated clashes between Trotsky and the Bolsheviks, including in the first two years of World War I. In that period, Trotsky had two main criticisms of the Bolsheviks’ policy. First, while Trotsky resolutely opposed the social-chauvinist defenders of the imperialist fatherland, he wavered in sharply attacking and breaking with the social-pacifists, i.e. those who did not openly advocate the defence of the fatherland but also opposed the policy of defeatism and of decisive rupture with the social-chauvinists (e.g. Kautsky, the anti-war Mensheviks). In the end, this was a continuation of Trotsky’s above-mentioned previous conciliatory policy. Nevertheless, one has to say that he gradually moved to the left under the pressure of reality (the failure of social-pacifism became more and more obvious) as well as of the unrelenting criticism of the Bolsheviks. By spring 1917, Trotsky had overcome this weakness and was prepared to join the Bolsheviks. [51]

 

Given the subject of this essay, we will not deal with Trotsky’s failures in combatting social-pacifism but rather focus on his second main weakness (which, however, is related to the first one). We are talking about his criticism of the Bolshevik program of defeatism.

 

 

 

Defeatism – a concession to the “political methodology of social patriotism”?

 

 

 

Trotsky’s differences with Lenin’s strategy against the imperialist war can be divided in two areas. First, he rejected the Bolshevik’s slogan that the defeat of one’s own imperialist bourgeoisie is the lesser evil which he denounced as a “concession in principle to the political methodology of social patriotism.”

 

“I cannot possibly agree with your view, now concretized in a resolution, that the defeat of Russia is the “lesser evil.” This uncalled for and unjustified position represents a concession in principle to the political methodology of social patriotism, which substitutes an orientation, extremely arbitrary under present circumstances, toward a “lesser evil” in place of the revolutionary struggle against the war and the conditions that generated it.” ^[52]

 

In another article, Trotsky argued that calling the defeat of one’s own bourgeoise as the lesser evil would mean advocating the strengthening of the rivalling imperialist power:

 

“At that time our party was unalterably against war. It never entered our heads to link our political hopes, whether revolutionary or reformist, to tsarism’s military misfortunes. (…) resorting to the knife is expedient. If we refused to speculate upon war and the defeats it could bring, this was not for national or humanitarian reasons but for revolutionary political considerations, both international and internal. Other things being equal, a defeat that shatters one state structure implies the corresponding strengthening of that of its opponent. And we do not know of any European social and state organism which it would be in the interest of the European proletariat to strengthen. At the same time, we do not assign to Russia the role of the state chosen to have its interests subordinated to those of the development of other European peoples. It is hardly necessary to dwell on this aspect of the question, which has been adequately clarified in the columns of our paper. But even within the narrow framework of the prospects for national development, Russian Social Democracy could not link its political plans to the revolutionizing effect of military catastrophe.” ^[53]

 

Furthermore, Trotsky stated that defeat would not only weaken the ruling class but could also disorganise the working class and its combat power.

 

“Thus, a revolutionary party that feels a firm class foundation under its feet and is sure of its future cannot see the road of defeat as the road of its political success. Defeats disorganize and demoralize the ruling reaction, but at the same time war disorganizes the whole of social life, and above all the working class. (…) Finally, a revolution which grows out of a defeat inherits an economic life utterly disordered by war, exhausted state finances, and extremely strained international relations. (…) Beyond a certain point, exhaustion can be so great as to suppress energy and paralyze the will. Despair, passivity, and moral disintegration set in. The link between defeats and revolution is not mechanical but dialectical in character. (…) But it would be a childish delusion to conclude on the basis of a false interpretation of the Russo-Japanese “experience” that military defeats automatically have a revolutionizing effect on the masses. The gigantic dimensions of the present war — with its indefinitely prolonged character — may for a long period clip the wings of all social development, and consequently, first and foremost, that of the revolutionary movement of the proletariat. This shows the need to struggle to end the war as soon as possible. The revolution is not interested in a further accumulation of defeats. On the contrary, the struggle for peace is dictated to us by revolutionary self-preservation.” ^[54]

 

Trotsky also argued that the slogan of lesser evil would provide a pretext for the social-chauvinist demagogues.

 

“[T]he paradoxical and internally contradictory formula “the defeat of Russia is the lesser evil,” creates difficulties for our German cothinkers and does not enrich but rather hampers our agitation. It has provided the social patriotic demagogues with a most important weapon in their struggle against our common banner. Such an exaggeration of revolutionary slogans is all the more dangerous since Sotsial-Demokrat [the central organ of the Bolsheviks at that time, Ed.] is quick to turn these formulas into the absolute test of internationalism.” ^[55]

 

It is, of course, true that the social-chauvinists will try to exploit and distort such slogans. But they often do so with all kinds of slogans. However, this must not stop Marxists from educating the proletarian vanguard in adopting an intransigent internationalist position against their own imperialist bourgeoisie. Furthermore, history has shown that the brutal experience of senseless imperialist war will aid undermining the bond of cross-class patriotism and opening the masses for revolutionary slogans.

 

Trotsky’s critique was wrong in several respects. First, as we explained above, the slogan of defeat as the lesser evil was not limited to a single country in an inter-imperialist conflict, based on an assessment that this or that imperialist state would be worse than its rival. It was rather an internationalist tactic which had to be applied in all countries involved in such imperialist war. Hence, it was a tactic applied against not only one but against all imperialist bourgeoisie. Hence, it was a “pan-defeatist” tactic, as Zinoviev said.

 

Related to this, it was not a tactic of aiding an imperialist rival but rather of intransigent political opposition against one own’s ruling class, an intransigence which would not be limited by the “danger” of its defeat in such war. Effectively Trotsky made inappropriate concessions to the social-pacifist policy of “neither victory nor defeat”.

 

Trotsky’s criticism of Lenin’s defeatism ignores the following: if socialists in all imperialist countries participating in a reactionary war advocate class struggle, view their own ruling class as “the main enemy” and work towards their defeat, will this strengthen or weaken the bourgeoisie? Will this bring the war to conclusion rather sooner or later? Is it not evident that such an internationalist policy will advance the class struggle against the capitalist class in all countries and bring closer the moment of transforming the imperialist war into civil war, i.e. creating the precondition for authentic peace?! On the other hand, what will be the consequences if socialists in all imperialist countries support “their” fatherland or take a neutral position á la “neither victory nor defeat”? Will it not strengthen the ruling class in all imperialist countries?!

 

Trotsky’s argument that a defeat would not only weaken the ruling class but also the proletariat is no more valid. Nobody claims that a defeat of an imperialist bourgeoisie will guarantee a revolutionary uprising of the working class. But history has repeatedly demonstrated that such defeat improves the conditions for a proletarian insurrection – from France’s defeat and the Paris Commune in 1871, Russia’s defeat against Japan and the revolution in 1905-07, the October Revolution in 1917 as a result of Russia’s defeats in WWI, the revolutionary crisis in Germany, Hungary and Austria in 1918/19, the revolutionary crisis in Italy 1943-45, etc.

 

 

 

The slogan of “peace”

 

 

 

The second major difference which Trotsky had with the Bolsheviks concerning their anti-war policy was the slogan of peace. Such he wrote in an Open Letter to them in 1915:

 

“Thus I cannot reconcile myself to the vagueness and evasiveness of your position on the question of mobilizing the proletariat under the slogan of the struggle for peace. It is under this slogan that the working masses are now in fact coming back to their senses politically, and the revolutionary forces of socialism are rallying in all countries. Under this slogan an attempt to restore the international ties of the Socialist proletariat is now being made.” ^[56]

 

One year later, when he had already moved closer to the Bolsheviks, he still criticized them for not sufficiently advocating the slogan of peace:

 

“In the camp of the Russian internationalists we find first of all the Sotsial-Demokrat group. It has been our lot, time and again, to point out those traits of this organization which, not to detract from its role as a weighty revolutionary factor in the present time of crisis, prevent it at this moment from including all the revolutionary elements of the movement. From the very beginning of the war Sotsial-Demokrat showed hostility to the slogan of the struggle for peace. But experience shows that the mobilization of proletarian opposition everywhere has taken place and is taking place precisely under this slogan. Only on this basis can revolutionary internationalists today successfully carry out their work. The formula of civil war expresses in an essentially correct way the inevitable exacerbation of all forms of class struggle in the coming period. But they counterpose it to the struggle for peace, which causes the formula to hang in mid-air and lose its meaning for the period we are living through.” ^[57]

 

As we did show above, the Bolsheviks were not opposed to the peace slogan in principle. However, they insisted that such a slogan must not be raised in isolation but in relation to revolutionary mass actions. Such they stated in a resolution at their conference in Berne in spring 1915:

 

“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.” ^[58]

 

The slogan of peace in itself is not revolutionary or even progressive. It just means to stop the fighting and to freeze under “peaceful” conditions the current state of division of the world between the imperialist robbers. It means to reestablish the pre-war conditions of oppression of the masses by the bourgeoise. Clausewitz’s saying that “war is a mere continuation of policy by other means” can be extended to “peace is a mere continuation of war by other means.”

 

Marxists must not raise slogans which play into the hand of the ruling class. Calling the ruling class to stop fighting does not strengthen the position of the working class at all and allows the bourgeoisie to continue dictating political developments.

 

Furthermore, the peace slogan turns away the proletariat’s attention from seeking an armed, military solution to imperialist war, i.e. to turn their guns around and to overthrow the ruling class. Putting the peace slogan in such a way opens the doors to pacifism.

 

This does not mean that the peace slogan has no place in the revolutionary program against war. Trotsky was correct to emphasise its potential role in mobilising the masses. However, in order to do no harm and to avoid its exploitation by bourgeois-pacifists, one must combine such slogan with slogans to mobilise and to arm the masses, to turn the guns around and to transform the imperialist war into civil war.

7. The origin of the term “defeatism” and its acceptance by the Bolsheviks

 

 

 

It is not without interest to look at the origins of the term “defeatism” or “revolutionary defeatism” and how it was applied later. As we explained above, the three pillars of the defeatist strategy – “the main enemy is at home”, “the defeat of one’s own bourgeoisie is the lesser evil” and “transformation of the imperialist war into civil war” – were elaborated by Lenin in the first months of World War I. The term defeatism, however, did not originate with the Bolsheviks. It was rather invented by its opponents.

 

The most right-wing current of Russian social democracy, led by Grigori Plekhanov and Grigori Alexinsky, took an openly social-patriotic position of supporting the Entente – France, Britain and Russia – against the Central Powers. They argued that a victory of German imperialism would be the bigger evil. [59]

 

“Those of us who do not share the desperate desire for a German victory (in the name of the Russian Revolution) are often accused by our friendly critics of opportunism in the face of Tsarism. (…) We do not believe that it is possible to cure an evil by another and still greater evil, that the wounds caused by Tsarism can be cured by the blows of German Imperialism.” [60]

 

They denounced that “Lenin expresses the hope that Russia will be defeated.” Quoting from the Bolshevik’s theses on the war – “the defeat of the Tsarist monarchy and the Tsar's troops in the present war would be the lesser evil from the point of view of the Russian proletariat” – they called such a position a “nefarious idea” and added:

 

“Happily, the Russian workers in whose name these irresponsible persons profess to speak are not of the same opinion. On the contrary, it may be asserted that the Russian working-classes are resolutely in favour of the defence of Russia and her victory.” ^[61]

 

It was Plekhanov and Alexinsky who invented the term “defeatism” for the Bolshevik’s strategy.

 

“Events in Russia have completely endorsed our position, which the social-patriot donkeys (from Alexinsky to Chkheidze) have christened defeatism.“ ^[62]

 

“…both accuse the revolutionary Social-Democrats of “defeatism”, to use the pet expression of Plekhanov’s followers.“ ^[63]

 

The Bolsheviks were not offended by such a term and publicly stated that, yes indeed, we are defeatists. See for example the above-mentioned quote from Lenin’s article “Wilhelm Kolb and Georgy Plekhanov”. In their theoretical journal Sbornik Sotsial-Demokrata, the Bolsheviks published a long essay in 1916 with the title “’Defeatism’ then and now” from which we quoted above. The author, Grigory Zinoviev, shows that revolutionary defeatism was the only correct approach of Russian revolutionaries both in the Russo-Japanese War 1904/05 as well as in World War I. He concluded this article by stating unambiguously:

 

“It is impossible to be a consistent internationalist in the imperialist war 1914-16 without being a ‘defeatist’.” ^[64]

8. The strategy of revolutionary defeatism in the programmatic documents of the Third and Fourth International

 

 

 

Contrary to the claims of various revisionists, revolutionary defeatism was not a “confused program” which the Bolsheviks gave up after 1916. In fact, the communists did uphold this strategy in numerous documents of the Third and later the Fourth International. Already at its founding congress in March 1919, the Communist International stated in a resolution: “This tendency remained loyal to the interests of the working class and proclaimed from the beginning of the war the slogan: ‘transform the imperialist war into a civil war.’ This current has now constituted itself as the Third International.”[65]

 

However, the term “defeatism” was more systematically used by the communists only in the 1920s. This was true for Trotsky and the Left Opposition as well as for official documents of the Comintern (which increasingly came under control of the Stalinist bureaucracy). There were basically two reasons for this. First, as mentioned above, the term “defeatism” was not invented by the Bolsheviks themselves but rather by their opponents. Secondly, in the immediate years after 1918, the danger of another imperialist world war was less acute and, therefore, it was only later that the Comintern dealt with this issue in more detail.

 

 

 

The Left Opposition in 1926-27

 

 

 

In 1926, Trotsky and two other leaders of Left Opposition (Zinoviev and Yevdokimov), wrote in a statement:

 

“What is meant by the term defeatism? In the whole past history of the party, defeatism was understood to mean desiring the defeat of one’s own government in a war with an external enemy and contributing to such a defeat by methods of internal revolutionary struggle. This referred of course to the attitude of the proletariat towards the capitalist state.“ ^[66]

 

In another document, the Left Opposition stated:

 

“All honest workers in capitalist countries should actively contribute to the defeat of “their own“ governments.” ^[67]

 

In its platform of 1927 – the most important programmatic document of the Left Opposition before it was crushed by the Stalinist bureaucracy – the authentic communists explained the meaning of the defeatist strategy as follows:

 

“Even now all of our work ought to proceed under these slogans: (1) Down with the war of the imperialists against the state of the proletarian dictatorship; (2) Transformation of the imperialist war into a civil war in all states attacking the Soviet Union; (3) Defeat all bourgeois states making war on the Soviet Union. All honest proletarians in the capitalist countries ought to actively work for the defeat of “their own” government; (4) All foreign soldiers who do not wish to help the slave-owners of “their own” countries should go over to the Red Army. The Soviet Union is the fatherland of all workers; (5) The slogan “Defence of the Fatherland” would be a false disguise serving the interests of imperialism in all bourgeois countries, except the colonial and semi-colonial countries that are carrying on a national revolutionary war against the imperialists. In the Soviet Union the slogan “Defence of the Fatherland” is correct, because we are defending a socialist fatherland and the base of the world working class movement.” ^[68]

 

 

 

The Communist International in the 1920s

 

 

 

Under the pressure of increasing danger of a new imperialist war as well as of the criticism of the Left Opposition, the official Comintern also adopted resolutions which formally adhered to the Leninist program on this issue. In the following we will give a few examples. In substantial theses, adopted in May 1927, the Comintern’s Executive Committee wrote:

 

“Lenin's attitude to war determines communist party tactics for an entire historical epoch, the epoch of imperialist war. Slogans such as 'War on war', 'Turn imperialist war into civil war', or 'For the defeat of one s own bourgeois government in an imperialist war', are even today classic examples of genuine revolutionary internationalism. It is one of the merits of Leninism that it deals with questions of war in terms of their concrete historical conditioning. It defines three types of war: (a) wars fought between imperialist States; (b) national-revolutionary wars, and wars of colonial peoples against imperialism (China); (c) wars of the capitalist counterrevolution against the proletarian revolution and against the countries in which socialism is being built. (…)

 

Consequently there are better possibilities for the fight against war now than there were in 1914-18. Communist parties are therefore required:

 

(a) In imperialist war par excellence, waged against China and (prospectively) against the Soviet Union; the workers in the capitalist countries waging this war must, as in all imperialist wars, be defeatists in regard to their own capitalist governments.

 

(b) In an ordinary imperialist war the workers must be in favour of the defeat of their own government; still more, in the imperialist and counter-revolutionary war against the Chinese revolution (represented today by Wuhan) or against the Soviet Union, they must fight actively for the victory of the working masses of China and the Soviet Union.” [69]

 

The same approach was repeated in a special resolution on imperialist war, adopted at the VI. Comintern Congress in 1928:

 

“This Marxian analysis of wars serves as the basis upon which the proletariat determines the position, in principle and in tactics, towards these various types of wars. The proletariat fights against the wars between imperialist states with a programme of defeatism and the transformation of the war into a civil war against the bourgeoisie. The same position, in principle, is taken by the proletariat in imperialist countries in the event of a war of oppression waged by the imperialists against national revolutionary movements, above all against the colonial peoples and in the event of imperialism waging an open-counter-revolutionary war against the land of the proletarian dictatorship. The proletariat however supports and conducts national revolutionary wars and socialist wars against imperialism, and organises for the defence of national revolutions and of the countries of the proletarian dictatorship.” [70]

 

The resolution explained such approach as follows:

 

“The political programme of the Communists in an imperialist war is the programme worked out and applied by the Bolshevik Party under the leadership of Lenin in its heroic struggle against the last imperialist war. The main points of this programme may be summarised as follows:

 

a) The rejection of imperialist “national defence” in this war. To enlighten the workers and peasants as to its reactionary character. Strongly to combat all tendencies in the labour movement which openly, or covertly, justify this war.

 

b) Defeatism, i.e. to work for the defeat of the home imperialist government in this war.

 

c) Genuine internationalism, i.e. not “international” phrases and formal “agreements”, but revolutionary defeatist work to be earned on by the proletariat in all the belligerent countries, for the overthrow of their home bourgeoisie.

 

d) To transform the war between imperialist States into proletarian civil war against the bourgeoisie, for the purpose of establishing the dictatorship of the proletariat and Socialism —this transformation to be achieved by means of revolutionary mass action in the rear, and fraternisation at the front.

 

e) A “democratic” or “just” peace cannot result from an imperialist war without the overthrow of the bourgeoisie and the seizure of power by the proletariat in the most important belligerent Stales. Therefore, “peace” cannot be the central slogan during imperialist war; the central slogan must be “proletarian revolution”. It is the bounden duty of Communists strongly to combat all peace phrasemongering; for a certain moment in the war, this can be utilised by the bourgeoisie as an extremely important ideological weapon to prevent the imperialist war from being transformed into civil war.” ^[71]

 

When the Comintern fully degenerated and became a reformist force in the mid-1930s (popular front policy, Stalin-Laval Pact), it also dropped the program of revolutionary defeatism and adopted a social-chauvinist policy. The Stalinist bureaucracy created an alliance with French imperialism, and the French communists dropped their opposition against their “own” bourgeoisie. Gone were the declarations of intransigent opposition against imperialist war, and the Stalinists supported the bourgeois government, voted for the imperialist military budget and defended France’s colonial possessions.

 

 

 

Trotsky and the Fourth International

 

 

 

In contrast, Trotsky and the Fourth International continued to defend the principles of anti-imperialism and revolutionary defeatism. By the way, to our knowledge it was the Trotskyists who established the term “revolutionary defeatism” while this policy was known before simply as “defeatism”. We assume the reason for this was to differentiate it from reformist distortions as the German social democrats and Stalinists has also become defeatists after 1933 and supported French and British imperialism against Nazi-Germany.

 

In its programmatic document “War and the Fourth International”, published in 1934, the Trotskyists stated in a chapter with the subtitle “’Defeatism’ and Imperialist War”:

 

“In those cases where it is a question of conflict between capitalist countries, the proletariat of any one of them refuses categorically to sacrifice its historic interests, which in the final analysis coincide with the interests of the nation and humanity, for the sake of the military victory of the bourgeoisie. Lenin’s formula, “defeat is the lesser evil,” means not defeat of one’s country is the lesser evil as compared with the defeat of the enemy country but that a military defeat resulting from the growth of the revolutionary movement is infinitely more beneficial to the proletariat and to the whole people than military victory assured by “civil peace.” Karl Liebknecht gave an unsurpassed formula of proletarian policy in time of war: “The chief enemy of the people is in its own country.” The victorious proletarian revolution not only will rectify the evils caused by defeat but also will create the final guarantee against future wars and defeats. This dialectical attitude toward war is the most important element of revolutionary training and therefore also of the struggle against war. The transformation of imperialist war into civil war is that general strategic task to which the whole work of a proletarian party during war should be subordinated.” ^[72]

 

The famous “Transitional Program“, adopted at the founding congress of the Fourth International in 1938, confirmed Lenin’s policy of revolutionary defeatism:

 

“Imperialist war is the continuation and sharpening of the predatory politics of the bourgeoisie. The struggle of the proletariat against war is the continuation and sharpening of its class struggle. The beginning of war alters the situation and partially the means of struggle between the classes, but not the aim and basic course. The imperialist bourgeoisie dominates the world. In its basic character the approaching war will therefore be an imperialist war. The fundamental content of the politics of the international proletariat will consequently be a struggle against imperialism and its war. In this struggle the basic principle is: “the chief enemy is in your own country” or “the defeat of your own (imperialist) government is the lesser evil.” ^[73]

 

A few months before the beginning of World War II, Trotsky defended the principles of defeatism in a debate with some critics.

 

“Defeatism is the class policy of the proletariat, which even during a war sees the main enemy at home, within its particular imperialist country. Patriotism, on the other hand, is a policy that locates the main enemy outside one’s own country. The idea of defeatism signifies in reality the following: conducting an irreconcilable revolutionary struggle against one’s own bourgeoisie as the main enemy, without being deterred by the fact that this struggle may result in the defeat of one’s own government; given a revolutionary movement the defeat of one’s own government is a lesser evil. Lenin did not say, nor did he wish to say, anything else. There cannot even be talk of any other kind of “aid” to defeat. Should revolutionary defeatism be renounced in relation to non-fascist countries? Herein is the crux of the question; upon this issue, revolutionary internationalism stands or falls.” ^[74]

 

Such an approach was explained in more detail by Rudol Klement, the Fourth International’s Secretary before he was murdered by the Stalinist GPU in 1938, in a special article on this issue. Trotsky praised it as “an excellent article on defeatism”. ^[75]

 

“War is only the continuation of politics by other means. Hence the proletariat must continue its class struggle in wartime, among other things with the new means which the bourgeoisie hands him. It can and must utilise the weakening of its “own” bourgeoisie in the imperialist countries in order relentlessly to prepare and to carry out its social revolution in connection with the military defeat engendered by the war, and to seize the power. This tactic, known as revolutionary defeatism, is one of the strongest levers of the proletarian world revolution in our epoch, and therewith of historical progress.” ^[76]

 

“Only, where the struggle is imperialistic only on one side, and a war of liberation of non-imperialist nations or of a socialist country against existing or threatening imperialist oppression on the other, as well as in civil wars between the classes or between democracy and fascism – the international proletariat cannot and should not apply the same tactic to both sides. Recognising the progressive character of this war of liberation it must fight decisively against the main enemy, reactionary imperialism (or else against the reactionary camp, in the case of a civil war), that is, fight for the victory of the socially (or politically) oppressed or about-to-be oppressed: USSR, colonial and semi-colonial countries like Abyssinia or China, or Republican Spain, etc.” ^[77]

 

“In the application of revolutionary defeatism against the imperialist bourgeoisie and its state there can be no fundamental difference, regardless of whether the latter is “friendly” or hostile to the cause supported by the proletariat, whether it is in – treacherous – alliance with the allies of the proletariat (Stalin, the bourgeoisie of the semi-colonial counties, the colonial peoples, anti-fascist liberalism), or is conducting a war against them. The methods of revolutionary defeatism remain unaltered: revolutionary propaganda, irreconcilable opposition to the regime, the class struggle from its purely economic up to its highest political form (the armed uprising), fraternisation of the troops, transformation of the war into the civil war.” ^[78]

 

“It is otherwise – so far as the outward form of its struggle goes – with the proletariat of the imperialisms engaged in a direct struggle against the progressive cause. In addition to its struggle for the revolution, it is its duty to engage in military sabotage for the benefit of the “enemy” – the enemy of its bourgeoisie but its own ally. As a means of revolutionary defeatism in the struggle between imperialist countries, military sabotage, like individual terror, is completely worthless. Without replacing the social revolution, or even advancing it by a hair’s breadth, it would only help one imperialism against another, mislead the vanguard, sow illusions among the masses and thus facilitate the game of the imperialists. On the other hand, military sabotage is imperiously imposed as an immediate measure in defense of the camp that is fighting imperialism and is consequently progressive. As such, it is understood by the masses, welcomed and furthered. The defeat of one’s “own” country here becomes not a lesser evil that is taken into the bargain (a lesser evil than the “victory” bought by civil peace and the abandonment of the revolution), but the direct and immediate goal, the task of the proletarian struggle The defeat of one’s “own” country would, in this case, be no evil at all, or an evil much more easily taken into the bargain for it would signify the common victory of the people liberated from the existing or threatening imperialist yoke and of the proletariat of its enemy, over the common overlord – imperialist capital. Such a victory would be a powerful point of departure for the international proletarian revolution, not least of all in the “friendly” imperialist countries.” ^[79]

 

In summary, we see that the strategy of revolutionary defeatism became a key element of the communist’s policy which was official endorsed in its programmatic documents.

9. Revolutionary defeatism and its application today

 

 

 

While we currently don’t live in a period of world war, the relevance of the doctrine of revolutionary defeatism has not diminished. This is because a) we are in a historic period of accelerating inter-imperialist rivalry (trade war, sanctions, etc.) and if the working class does not overthrow the ruling class of the Great Powers in time, we are heading towards World War III; b) we have seen a number of imperialist wars against semi-colonial countries and oppressed peoples; c) there are also various conflicts between semi-colonial countries. Again, we will limit ourselves to a brief overview and refer to our relevant documents where we deal with these issues in more detail.

 

 

 

Inter-imperialist conflicts

 

 

 

The rivalry between Great Powers has massively accelerated in the current historic period which began with the Great Recession in 2008 and which is characterised by the decline of the U.S. as well as the emergence of new imperialist powers – in particular China [80] and Russia. ^[81] As a result, the period of globalisation came to an end and was replaced by global trade war, protectionism and sanctions. ^[82] In parallel we see massive armament and militarist threats between the Great Powers.

 

The most important examples of this are the trade wars which the U.S. has launched against its rising adversaries (respectively the counter measures of its rivals), the increasing tensions between the U.S. and Japan versus China ^[83] as well as between Western Europe (and the U.S. before the Trump Administration) against Russia.

 

In such conflicts, revolutionaries must take a position of dual defeatism, i.e. opposing all imperialist powers. This means, as we stated in a special RCIT resolution in 2018:

 

“In cases of conflicts between imperialist states, the RCIT calls workers and popular organizations around the world to act decisively on the basis of the principles of international working class solidarity. This means that they must not support either camp. They must refuse to side with their own ruling class as well as with that of the opposing imperialist camp: Down with all imperialist Great Powers – whether the US, EU, Japan, China or Russia! Socialists totally reject any chauvinist propaganda of the ruling class. Instead of supporting their “own” ruling class, they propagate irreconcilable class struggle (following the famous phrase of Karl Liebknecht in World War I “The main enemy is at home”). This strategy implies in the case of war, as formulated by Lenin and the Bolshevik Party in 1914, that revolutionaries strive for the “transformation of the imperialist war into civil war”, i.e. the advance of the proletariats’ struggle for power under the conditions of war. In the same spirit, we advocate the transformation of the Global Trade War into domestic political class struggle against the ruling elite. Such a program is the only way to unite the international working class on an internationalist basis and to break any “patriotic” unity of workers with “their” imperialist bourgeoisie as well as their lackeys inside the workers movement. The program of revolutionary defeatism is not a program which starts to be relevant only once a war breaks out (if one begins fighting for it only by then, it will be too late) but one which has to be implemented from now on. (…)

 

i) Socialists resolutely oppose all forms of imperialist chauvinism which is wiping up hatred of one people against the other. Such jingoism is aimed at poisoning the consciousness of the working people. Hence, they must launch a determined campaign against any form of political or ideological support for any Great Power – be it their own imperialist bourgeoisie or a foreign one.

 

ii) It is the duty of socialists to oppose all kind of sanctions and measures of trade wars against imperialist rivals.

 

iii) Likewise, they have to struggle against all forms of militarism, armament and wars between Great Power rivals.

 

iv) Where working class organizations have representatives in parliamentary bodies, they are obligated to vote against all such chauvinist measures. However, the crucial area of class struggle is not the parliament but workplaces, neighborhoods, schools, universities and barracks. It is here where socialists have to distribute their propaganda and to agitate for class struggle actions (e.g. demonstrations, strikes up to general strikes, uprisings, etc. – according to conditions and relation of forces).

 

v) It is of utmost importance for revolutionaries to advocate cross-border joint statements and activities of socialists, trade unions as well as other workers and popular mass organizations of the respective imperialist countries involved in the conflict. Such measures can be a strong signal of concrete internationalist working class solidarity!” [84]

 

 

 

Imperialist wars against semi-colonial countries and oppressed peoples

 

 

 

There has also been an increasing number of imperialist wars against semi-colonial countries and oppressed peoples in the first quarter of this century. As examples we refer to America’s wars in Afghanistan, ^[85] Iraq ^[86] and Iran, ^[87] Russia’s two wars against Chechnya ^[88] and against Ukraine as well as its military intervention in Syria and Israel’s wars in the Middle East. ^[89]

 

To quote again from our thesis from 2018:

 

“In cases of conflicts between the imperialist bourgeoisie and oppressed people, the RCIT calls workers and popular organizations around the world to act decisively in the spirit of revolutionary anti-imperialism and working class internationalism. They must unconditionally support the oppressed people against the imperialist aggressors and fight for the defeat of the latter. They must apply the anti-imperialist united front tactic – this means siding with the forces representing these oppressed people without giving political support to their respective leaderships (usually petty bourgeois nationalists or Islamists; sometimes even semi-colonial bourgeois states). Socialists in the imperialist countries are obligated to fight merciless against the social-chauvinist supporters of the Great Power privileges as well as against the cowardly centrists who abstain from actively supporting the struggle of the oppressed. Socialists support the Anti-Imperialist Patriotism of the oppressed and help them to develop a socialist, internationalist consciousness. Only on the basis of such a program will it be possible for socialists to create the conditions for trust and unity of the workers and poor peasants of the oppressed people with the progressive workers in the imperialist countries. Only on such a fundament will it be possible to unite the international working class on an internationalist basis.

 

This means, more concretely, that the RCIT advocates the following tactics:

 

i) In cases of imperialist non-military aggression against semi-colonial countries (e.g. sanctions against North Korea, Iran, Zimbabwe, Venezuela etc.), socialists must unconditionally oppose it and support measures to undermine, break and, if possible, stop it. While we fight for a world without nuclear weapons, we strongly reject any imperialist aggression against semi-colonial country which possess (or strives to possess) nuclear weapons.

 

ii) In cases of imperialist wars and occupations of semi-colonial countries (e.g. US in Afghanistan since 2001, in Iraq since 2003, France in Mali since 2013, Russia in Syria since 2015, Israeli settler state occupying Palestine), socialists call for the defeat of the imperialist aggressors and the military victory of the forces representing the oppressed people. The same tactic is required in cases of aggressions by proxy armies for the Great Powers (e.g. AU forces in Somalia, G5 forces in the Sahel countries in West Africa)

 

iii) Likewise, socialists unconditionally oppose the oppression of national minorities and fully support the right of national self-determination of oppressed people (e.g. the Chechen and other Caucasian people in Russia, the Uyghurs and Tibetans in China, Catalonia in Spain). This means supporting all their national, democratic and cultural rights, including the right to have an independent state if they wish so. Likewise we support local self-government for ethnic minorities like the Roma, the Native Americans in the U.S., etc.

 

iv) In the same spirit, socialists defend migrants and refugees against national oppression and racist discrimination. Such defense includes the struggle for full equality for migrants (use of native language, citizen rights, equal wages; full solidarity with Muslim migrants against Islamophobic racism, etc.). We also call for a united front in order to physically defend migrants and refugees against racist attacks (self-defense groups, etc.). It also means to fight against racist immigration control in imperialist states and to defend ‘Open Borders’ for refugees. Actual examples for such issues are Trump’s mass deportations of migrants and his “Muslim Ban”, the EU’s racist Frontex regime in the Mediterranean Sea and on the Balkans, Russia’s discrimination against people from the Caucasus and Central Asia, etc.).

 

v) The strategic goal is to free the working class of the oppressed people from any dominance by bourgeois or petty-bourgeois forces and to advance its independent organization. Only on the basis of such political and organizational independence will the working class be able to lead the other classes and layers of the oppressed people towards liberation from the yoke of imperialism and capitalism.

 

vi) To advance the struggle for these goals, socialists have to agitate in workplaces, neighborhoods, the schools, universities and in the trenches. They will support all practical actions which help to advance the struggle of the oppressed to defeat the imperialist aggressors. Such activities embrace all forms of class struggle (e.g. demonstrations, strikes up to general strikes, uprisings, participating in wars, etc. – according to conditions and relation of forces). It also includes practical actions which sabotage the aggressions of the imperialist masters (selected strikes against the imperialist war machinery, collective refusal to do work serving the oppression, helping refugees to overcome the barbaric walls of the imperialist fortresses, etc.). Furthermore, socialists should conduct political agitation among the rank and files soldiers of the imperialist armies in order to undermine the reactionary control of the generals, to advance mass desertion as well as fraternization with the “enemy”, etc. We defend the right of oppressed people to get military and other material aid from other states (incl. imperialist states) as long as it does not lead to political subordination to these states. A negative example for this is the petty-bourgeois Kurdish YPG in Syria which became proxies of US imperialism. Workers in such states must support and not block such material aid for the liberation struggle.

 

vii) There have been rare cases in recent history where the United Nations (or individual states) – under the pressure of progressive mass movements – have formally imposed sanctions on particularly reactionary powers (e.g. sanctions against the South African Apartheid state before 1994). Today many Muslim states have imposed sanctions on the imperialist Israeli state. We critically support such sanctions imposed by semi-colonial countries while pointing out their limitations. In case of imperialist states imposing such sanctions we are aware that these are not the same as reactionary sanctions of imperialist states against rivals or against insubordinate semi-colonies. However, as Marxists we advocate workers and popular sanctions against such reactionary forces like the Zionist state. This means workers actions to stop trade and military aid for Israel, consumer boycott, etc. Hence we critically support the BDS campaign against Israel despite its limitations.

 

viii) Likewise, revolutionaries advocate cross-border joint statements and activities of socialists, trade unions as well as other workers and popular mass organizations of the respective imperialist and semi-colonial countries.

 

 

 

Liberation wars against national oppression and dictatorships

 

 

 

We basically take the same approach in liberation wars within a given state, i.e. struggles against national oppression or dictatorship. Of course, there can be civil wars which are reactionary on both sides, e.g. the conflict in Sudan since 2023 ^[90] or in Ethiopia in the Tigray Region 2020-22. [91] But there exist also a number of liberation wars, e.g. in Burma/Myanmar since the coup in 2021 ^[92] or in Syria in 2011-24. ^[93]

 

In the latter type of conflicts, revolutionaries side, on the basis of the above-outlined principles, with the oppressed people and take a defeatist approach towards the oppressor.

 

 

 

Wars with combined or dual character

 

 

 

There exist also wars with a combined or dual character. These are conflicts which integrate both the element of a liberation struggle as well as of a reactionary war. The task of Marxists is to concretely study such conflicts and to identify the dominant respectively the subordinated element in such a war and the relationship between the two. [94]

 

As recent examples for such we refer to the Ukraine War which started in 2022. This is a just war of national defence on the side of Ukraine and an imperialist war of aggression by Russia. Hence, the RCIT and other authentic revolutionaries have taken the side of Ukraine in this conflict. ^[95] However, while we support the right of Ukraine to get weapons from wherever possible, we do not support Western sanctions against Russia (or vice versa). As mentioned above, in the conflict between imperialist powers we take a dual defeatist position. A similar situation existed in Libya in 2011 where we supported the popular uprising against the Gaddafi dictatorship but opposed the (limited) military intervention of NATO air force. ^[96]

 

Such a combined or dual tactic was already envisaged by Lenin in his debate with advocates of “imperialist economism” who denied the progressive character of national liberation wars in the epoch of imperialism.

 

“Britain and France fought the Seven Years’ War for the possession of colonies. In other words, they waged an imperialist war (which is possible on the basis of slavery and primitive capitalism as well as on the basis of modern highly developed capitalism). France suffered defeat and lost some of her colonies. Several years later there began the national liberation war of the North American States against Britain alone. France and Spain, then in possession of some parts of the present United States, concluded a friendship treaty with the States in rebellion against Britain. This they did out of hostility to Britain, i.e., in their own imperialist interests. French troops fought the British on the side of the American forces. What we have here is a national liberation war in which imperialist rivalry is an auxiliary element, one that has no serious importance. This is the very opposite to what we see in the war of 1914-16 (the national element in the Austro-Serbian War is of no serious importance compared with the all-determining element of imperialist rivalry). It would be absurd, therefore, to apply the concept imperialism indiscriminately and conclude that national wars are “impossible”. A national liberation war, waged, for example, by an alliance of Persia, India and China against one or more of the imperialist powers, is both possible and probable, for it would follow from the national liberation movements in these countries. The transformation of such a war into an imperialist war between the present-day imperialist powers would depend upon very many concrete factors, the emergence of which it would be ridiculous to guarantee.” ^[97]

 

 

 

Conflicts between semi-colonial states

 

 

 

As imperialism has evolved in the past 100 years, colonies have largely been replaced with semi-colonies, i.e. states which are formally independent but which remain subordinated within the imperialist world order and which are super-exploited by imperialist monopolies. Against the background of decline of the capitalist system, we see an increasing number of conflicts between the ruling class of such semi-colonial states.

 

All other things being equal, socialists can not support either side in such a conflict between two semi-colonial capitalist states. However, as we elaborated in a special pamphlet on this issue, Marxists have to study concretely the essence of such a conflict as other factors – imperialist manipulations, national oppression, etc. – can play a major role.

 

“In order to understand the character of a military conflict one must analyse which class is waging the war and what are its goals. When it comes to conflicts involving semi-colonial countries, one has to look what is its place within the chain of the imperialist world order. To which degree does this state play a role in enforcing the imperialist world order, oppressing other nationalities; to which degree is it an obstacle for the interests of this or that Great Power. For these reasons, conflicts between semi-colonial states can be conflated both with conflicts with this or that imperialist power; and, at the same time, it can be intermixed with liberation struggles of national minorities, democratic movements, etc.

 

While conflicts between imperialist powers are always reactionary on both sides, this is not necessarily the case in conflicts between semi-colonial countries. The reason is the contradictory position of the semi-colonial bourgeoisie as it is under massive pressure from above (the imperialist monopolies and powers) as well as from below (the popular masses).

 

The ruling class of semi-colonial countries can therefore wage reactionary as well as progressive wars. The latter is the case when it is in conflict with an imperialist power. However, given the fact that conflicts between semi-colonial countries are often intertwined with the interests of imperialist powers or with democratic and national liberation struggles, it is also possible that a semi-colonial country wages a progressive war against another semi-colony.” [98]

 

Examples for conflicts between semi-colonies which are reactionary on both sides are the wars between Indian and Pakistan, the border conflict between Thailand and Cambodia in 2025, [99] the brief military conflict between Iran and Pakistan in 2025, ^[100] or the looming wars in East Africa. ^[101] Examples for conflicts between semi-colonies in which one camp pursues an objectively progressive struggle are Yemen’s resistance against the Saudi-UAE invasion since 2015 ^[102] or Afghanistan’s defence against Pakistan’s aggression. ^[103]

 

Depending on the question if such a conflict is reactionary on both sides or a liberation war on one side, Marxists take a dual defeatist position respectively a defensist position in the camp waging a progressive struggle.

 

 

10. Concluding remarks

 

 

 

It is only natural that wars are becoming a defining feature of the current historic period given the decline of capitalism and the acceleration of the contradictions between classes and states. In fact, we are heading towards more and bigger wars, ultimately towards another world war if the working class does not stop the ruling class in time.

 

Hence, Marxists can not find a correct orientation in such a tumultuous world situation without possessing an analytical instrument to understand the essence of the different types of wars as well as a program which combines the position towards such wars with the perspective of anti-imperialism and socialist revolution. Trotsky once noted: “The best criterion of the tendencies of a given organization is its attitude in practice, in action, toward national defence and toward colonies.” ^[104] And indeed, given the fact that war and revolution are the most explosive expression of the antagonisms of the capitalist class society, such events are also the most decisive test for any socialist organisation.

 

Lenin’s program of revolutionary defeatism and its varying applications to different types of wars remains the only correct program in relation to imperialist and reactionary wars. We categorically refuse all those revisionist arguments which claim that this strategy would be wrong, outdated or self-contradictory. It reflects Trotsky’s political transformation to become an outstanding Bolshevik leader who was capable to defend and apply the teachings of Lenin that he adopted the program of revolutionary defeatism in the 1920s and 1930s.

 

Of course, this does not mean that it would be sufficient to memorise Lenin’s formula and to mechanically employ it to all kinds of wars. No, Marxists must understand the method behind this strategy and apply it according to the concrete character of a given war. This, in turn, requires a concrete analysis of each war which takes into account the specific class character of the forces participating in it. This necessitates, furthermore, a correct analysis of modern imperialism which recognises the changes and developments which have taken place in the past decades (the transformation of most colonies into semi-colonies, the emergence of new imperialist powers like China and Russia, etc.). [105]

 

Since its foundation, the RCIT has undertaken such an analysis of the imperialist world system and its changes in the 21^st century and we also concretised and applied the program of revolutionary defeatism to the different wars in the past decades. We are convinced these contributions are indispensable in order to build a new World Party of Socialist Revolution capable of leading the workers vanguard in the coming years and decades of explosive struggles between the classes and states.