Die Gleichheit, 1914, No. 23, August 5, 1914.
First item “War against War” is a quotation from the resolution of the Stuttgart Congress[1]—if a war threatens to break out, the International Socialist Bureau shall be convened and all means shall be applied to prevent war. If nonetheless war should break out, then etc.
Second article: “Proletarian Women, Be Prepared!
Written after war was declared on Serbia, but before the European war.
Austria believes that Russia, etc., will hardly be able to fight. The article speaks of Austrian “imperialism”, its “crime”. “It [Austrian imperialism] fights solely for the interests of the reactionary Habsburg dynasty, to satisfy the lust for gold and power of the unfeeling and unscrupulous big landowners and big capitalists”....
The German newspapers “unscrupulously” call for war....
“That must never be allowed to happen. The German proletarians—men and women—must prove by their action that they have awakened, that they have matured for freedom” ....
The German Government says it wants peace. “But the people have learnt that the government leaders’ tongues are forked like those of snakes.”
The bourgeoisie is chauvinistic, and
“Only the proletariat will oppose its broad breast to the approaching disaster of a world war”....
In Russia, the struggle of the proletariat more than anything else holds back war.
“Let us not be less resolute or weaker than they are” (=the Russian workers).
“Let us not lose a minute’s time. War is at the door.... Come out from the factories and workshops, from the huts and garrets, in a mass protest”....
“The exploited masses are strong enough to bear the entire edifice of the present-day order on their shoulders.... Will they prove too weak, shrink from privations, be afraid of danger and death, when the fight for peace and freedom calls? Will they allow free passage to a militarism which has just been branded before the widest public opinion as the brutal executioner of their sons and brothers?”
For the working class, brotherhood of peoples is no “empty delusion”, but a matter of vital importance, the “solidarity of the exploited of all nations”.
“It [this solidarity] must prevent proletarians raising weapons of death against proletarians. It must inspire in the masses the determination to use all available weapons in the war against war. If the proletarian masses oppose the fury of world war with their all-conquering strength, this will be a battle won in their struggle for emancipation. The revolutionary energy and passion of their struggle will mean persecution. There will be danger, there will be sacrifices. But should that daunt us? There are moments in the life of individuals and of nations when it is only possible to win by staking everything. Such a moment has come. Proletarian women, be prepared!” (p. 354).
End of article
And in the “Political Survey”
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(p. 363). “The revolutionary forces of the prole- tarian masses in the countries of Western Europe are to a large extent still dormant, but they are there, and it is precisely the torch of war that can awaken them.” |
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(revolution exists in embryo not only in Russia, but also “in other European countries”....)
This is followed by an item on the increase of strikes and barricades in Russia
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and ten lines on the Brussels conference of July 16-18, 1914; unity will assist the movement.... |
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[1] The resolution of the Stuttgart Congress of the Second International (August 1907) on “Militarism and International Conflicts”, in the drafting of which Lenin took part, branded militarism as one of the chief instruments of class oppression and stressed that SocialDemocrats should exert every effort not only to prevent war, or bring it to an end if it breaks out, but also to take advantage of the crisis it creates so as to hasten the overthrow of the capitalist class. See Lenin’s articles “The International Socialist Congress in Stuttgart” (present edition, Vol. 13, pp. 75-81, 82-93).
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