Lenin’s speech at the International Mass Congress in Bern:
Comrades! The European War has been raging for more than a year and six months. Every month and every day the war drags on, the workers know more clearly that the Zimmerwald Declaration is true: "Defend the Motherland" and so on The words and phrases are just deceptive words of capitalists. Now people see it more clearly day by day. This is a war between capitalists and big robbers. What they are fighting for is just who can get more stolen goods, plunder more countries, and ravage and enslave more peoples.
These words may not sound credible, especially to Swiss comrades, but they are true. In our Russia, not only the bloody tsarist government, not only the capitalists, but also some so-called Or the socialists in the past also said that Russia was conducting a "war of self-defense" and that what Russia opposed was nothing more than German aggression. In fact, the whole world knows that the tsarist government has oppressed more than 100 million people of other ethnic groups in Russia for several decades. Russia has also implemented a predatory policy against China, Persia, Armenia and Galicia for several decades. . Neither Russia, Germany nor any other powerful country has the right to talk about "wars of self-defense"; all powerful countries engage in imperialist and capitalist wars, and they are all bandit wars and oppression of weak and small nations and other nations. The wars are all wars that guarantee the profits of the capitalists, allowing capital to exchange the appalling suffering of the masses and the blood shed by the proletariat for billions of pure gold income.
Four years earlier, in November 1912, when it became clear that war was approaching, representatives of socialists from all over the world met in Basel at the International Congress of Socialists. At that time, there was no doubt that the future war would be a war between great powers and big bandits, and the governments and capitalist classes of each powerful country should bear the blame for the war. The Basel Declaration, unanimously adopted by socialist parties around the world, openly stated this truth. The Basel Declaration did not mention a "war of self-defense" or "defense of the motherland". It attacks the governments and bourgeoisie of all powerful countries without exception. It openly stated that war is a heinous crime, and workers regard shooting each other as a crime. The tragedy of war and the anger of workers against this tragedy will inevitably lead to proletarian revolution.
The war actually broke out later, and everyone saw that the Basel Declaration’s assessment of the nature of the war was correct. However, instead of unanimously supporting the Basel resolutions, socialist and workers' organizations split. Now we have all seen how socialist organizations and workers' organizations in various countries around the world are divided into two camps. A small group of people, those leaders, officials, and bureaucrats, betrayed socialism and sided with the governments of various countries. Another group of people, including the conscious workers, continued to gather strength to fight against the war and realize the proletarian revolution.
The views of the latter group of people are also reflected in the Zimmerwald Declaration.
In our Russia, as soon as the war began, the workers’ representatives in the Duma launched a resolute revolutionary struggle against the war and the tsarist monarchy. The five workers' representatives, Petrovsky, Badayev, Muranov, Shagov and Samoylov, widely issued a revolutionary call against the war and worked hard to carry out revolutionary agitation. The tsarist government ordered the arrest of the five representatives, and the court sentenced them to lifelong exile in Siberia. These leaders of the Russian working class have been tortured in Siberia for several months, but their cause has not been destroyed, and conscious workers throughout Russia are continuing their work in the same direction.
Comrades! Here you heard speeches from representatives of various countries on how workers should carry out their revolutionary struggle against the war. I just want to give you an example from the richest and most powerful country, the United States. The capitalists in this country are now making huge profits because of Europe. They also encouraged war. They said that the United States should also prepare to enter the war and extract hundreds of millions of gold dollars from the people to purchase new and endless armaments. Some socialists in the United States also responded to this deceptive and criminal call. But I want to read to you a passage written by Comrade Eugene Debuz, the most prestigious leader of American socialists and the presidential candidate of the United States Socialist Party.
In the American "Appeal to Reason" on September 11, 1915, he said: "I am not a soldier of the capitalists, but a revolutionary of the proletariat. , I am not a soldier of the plutocrats' regular army, but a soldier of the people's irregular army. I firmly refuse to fight for the interests of the capitalist class, but there is one kind of war that I wholeheartedly support, and that is for social revolution. If the ruling class urgently needs a war, then I am determined to participate in this kind of war.”
This is the case with Comrade Eugene Debuz, the beloved leader of the American workers and the American Bebel. Speaking to American workers.
Comrades, this shows us that the working class in various countries is really gathering strength. The disasters and sufferings suffered by the people in the war are unimaginable, but we should not and have no reason to be pessimistic about the future.
The millions of people who died in the war and as a result of the war did not die in vain.
Millions of people are starving, and millions of people are sacrificing their lives in the trenches. Not only are they suffering, but they are also gathering strength, thinking about the real reasons for the war, and tempering their will. They have become more and more aware of the revolution. The clearer the understanding. In all the countries of the world, mass dissatisfaction is growing, and agitation, strikes, demonstrations, and protests against the war are becoming more intense. For us this is a guarantee that the proletarian revolution against capitalism will definitely come after the European War.