Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

Social-Chauvinists and Internationalists

Published: Pravda No. 44, May 12 (April 29), 1917. Published according to the text in Pravda.
Source: Lenin Collected Works, Progress Publishers, 1964, Moscow, Volume 24, pages 324-325.
Translated: Isaacs Bernard
Transcription\Markup: B. Baggins and D. Walters
Public Domain: Lenin Internet Archive 1999 (2005). You may freely copy, distribute, display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet Archive” as your source.

By betraying socialism and going over to the side of “their own” capitalists, the social-chauvinists have naturally split up in conformity with the capitalist groupings in the war. The split itself, just as naturally, is a temporary one. Plekhanov refuses to confer with Scheidemann, but that does not prevent him from defending the “International” of the social-chauvinists, which has betrayed socialism. In other words, Plekhanov is for a split with the Scheidemanns during the time the capitalists, whose agents they both are, are split up among themselves. Plekhanov is for unity with the Scheidemanns when the “masters” (i.e., the capitalists of both countries) are reconciled. There is no denying a certain consistency in Plekhanov’s position—the consistency of betrayal of socialism, the consistency of willing and faithful service to the capitalists.

No wonder the representatives of the international socialist “Centre” (Kautsky and others), being as they are in favour of “unity” with the social-chauvinists in general, agree to the conference organised by that agent of Scheidemann—Brogbjerg, or themselves organise (like the Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet) an international “socialist” conference together with the Scheidemanns and Plekhanovs. No wonder our Russian representatives of the “Centre”, through their mouthpiece Rabochaya Gazeta, are so angered at our Party’s refusal to attend Borgbjerg’s conference.

Yesterday evening we received a telegram from our Stockholm correspondent:

“Haase, Longuet attending conference. ‘Spartacus’ refused.”

The name "Spartacus" or “Internationale” is used in Germany for the group to which Karl Liebknecht belongs.

There has been a great hullabaloo lately, raised by people who are particularly interested in upsetting the apple-cart, about the Liebknecht group having supposedly united with the Kautskyites in a new Independent Social-Democratic Party of Germany.^[1] As a matter of fact, the Liebknecht group is only affiliated to the Kautskyites as an independent organisation and merely entered into a temporary and qualified bloc against the social-chauvinists.

The telegram quoted above is one more confirmation of this fact, When things came to a practical point and a clear and definite answer had to be given immediately on the question of making common cause with Scheidemann and his agents, the alliance between Liebknecht’s group and the Kautsky group crumbled at once.

Some comrades feared that our resolution concerning Borgbjerg would “isolate” us.

No, comrades! It isolates us from the waverers. There is only one way of helping waverers, and that is by ceasing to be a waverer yourself.

The correctness of our resolution against Borgbjerg has been strikingly, fully and speedily confirmed by events. The Kautskyites of Germany (Haase) and France (Longuet) are still wavering. They have agreed to confer with the social- chauvinists and cannot make up their minds to dissociate themselves from them.

In taking upon itself the initiative in bringing about such a cleavage, our Party has already started to rally the elements of a Third International. The fact that our tactics coincide with those of the Liebknecht group is no accident. It is a step towards the inchoate Third International.

Notes

[1] The centrist Independent Social-Democratic Party of Germany was formed in April 1917 at the inaugural congress in Gotha amid an atmosphere of revolutionary enthusiasm stimulated by the February bourgeois-democratic revolution in Russia. The opportunist leadership of the German Social-Democratic Party was losing the confidence of the rank and file, and the party was faced with the threat of the Left elements breaking away from it. To prevent a split and the formation of a revolutionary party of the working class the Centrist leaders made an attempt to form a so-called “independent” party by means of which they could maintain their influence upon the masses. Behind a screen of Centrist phraseology the “Independents” preached unity with the social-chauvinists and sank to renunciation of the class struggle. The bulk of the party was made up of the Kautskian organisation Arbeitsgemeinschaft—the “Labour Group” in the Reichstag.

For a time the Spartacus group was associated with the party of “Independents” as an affiliated group, which preserved its organisational and political independence, and continued its illegal work and struggle to free the Social-Democratic workers from the influence of the Centrist leaders. In 1918 the Spartacus League left the Independent Social-Democratic Party and formed the core of the newly founded Communist Party of Germany.

At its congress in Halle in October 1920 a split occurred in the Independent Social-Democratic Party of Germany. In December 1920 many of the “Independents” joined the Communist Party of Germany. The Rights formed a separate party and adopted the old name of Independent Social-Democratic Party of Germany. This party existed up to 1922.