V. I. Lenin

Plans for an Article “Revolution and War”^{1}

Revolution and War

Written: Written between July 15 and 18 (28 and 31), 1914
Published: First published in 1961 in Vol. 25 of the Fifth Russian edition of the Collected Works. Printed from the original.
Source: Lenin Collected Works, Progress Publishers, 1977, Moscow, Volume 41, pages 335-336.
Translated: Yuri Sdobnikov
Transcription\Markup: R. Cymbala
Copyleft: V. I. Lenin Internet Archive (www.marxists.org) © 2004 Permission is granted to copy and/or distribute this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.  

1. I. α) July days in 1914 vs. January 1905
   1. 1. gonfalons—barricades
   2. 2. Gapon—illegal Social-Democratic organisation
   3. 3. current slogan—three pillars
   4. 4. naive attitude—persistent struggle
   5. 5. organised finale
      with definite slogan.
      {{
      Kievskaya Mysl{2}
      Russkoye Slovo. }}
2. II. Strike and armed uprising slogan
   (the fool L. V. in Plekhanov’s newspaper).
3. III. War of Austria and Serbia vs.
   European war.
4. IV. Militarism, imperialism.
   Guns go off themselves.
   Struggle against war
   resolution of Jaurès vs. Guesde
   experience of workers in Russia.
   Best war against war: revolution.

2

1. 1. July days vs. January 9.
2. 2. Political crisis
   {{
   October
   April 22
   Rasputin
   famine.
3. 3. Growth of movement and spread of slogans.
4. 4. Discarded liquidationism and little groups abroad.
5. 5. War of Austria and Serbia.
 
6. 6. Imperialism and militarism.
7. 7. War against war.
8. 8. World situation and tasks of proletariat in Russia.

Notes

{1} These plans reveal the content of the article “Revolution and War”, which Lenin planned to write for No. 33 of the Party’s C.O., the newspaper Sotsial-Demokrat. The plans were written in July 1914, after the outbreak of war between Austria and Serbia.

The revolutionary crisis coming to a head in Russia on the eve of the war was most evident in July 1914, a period Lenin compared with January 1905, pointing to the growth of a massive revolutionary movement, led by the illegal proletarian party, the growth of slogans providing ideological unity for the Party’s propaganda and agitation. The revolutionary struggle was conducted under the slogans for an eight-hour working day, confiscation of landed estates and a democratic republic.

The plans show that the powerful growth of the revolutionary movement in Russia was seen by Lenin in the context of the inter national situation, and that in his article “Revolution and War” he intended to deal with the tasks facing the proletariat of Russia in connection with the world situation. p. 335

{2} Kievskaya Mysl (Kiev Thought)—a bourgeois-democratic daily published in Kiev from 1906 to 1918. Until 1915, it had illustrated weekly supplements; from 1917, it had morning and evening editions. p. 335