This article originally appeared in the first edition of Socialist Alternative, the quarterly journal published by the Socialist Party of Ireland.

In 1915, as the horror and bloodshed of the First World War raged on in Europe, Lenin, with the assistance of his fellow Bolshevik, Grigory Zinoviev, wrote the classic pamphlet, Socialism and War. The pamphlet was not only written in the context of the war itself, but also in the context of the collapse of the Second(or Socialist) International in 1914, as the leadership of the main parties of the working class shamefully rallied behind ‘their own’ respective ruling classes in supporting it.

In the pamphlet Lenin puts forward with clarity a Marxist analysis which explores the causes of the war and the socialist opposition to war between capitalist states. A century on from its publishing, the pamphlet contains valuable lessons for the socialist left.

Pursuit of Profit

Capitalism as a system is plagued by the need for the market to continue its expansion and for new areas of investment and exploitation to be found in order to produce more profits for the capitalist class. When, as Lenin puts it, “[Capitalism] finds the old national states… too tight for it,” it must continue to expand beyond national boundaries and bring the markets and investment into the international sphere – Imperialism.

As the expansion of the markets is limited in its capacity, competition for control over the markets and ownership of the resources intensifies, and it can result in inter-imperialist war. Lenin outlines the conditions by 1914 and illustrates that , contrary to the propaganda of the capitalist class, the war was nothing other than a “war between the biggest slave-owners for reserving and fortifying slavery.”

“Capitalism has developed concentration to such a degree that whole branches of industry have been seized by syndicates, trusts and associations of capitalist billionaires, and almost the entire globe has been divided up among the lords of capital, either in the form of colonies, or by enmeshing other countries in thousands of threads of financial exploitation.”

Historically, capitalism had played a progressive role in the ending of feudalism either through revolutionary or military means, and in this context Marxists had often given support to these kinds of struggles. For example, socialists around the world expressed support for the Union’s war effort during the American Civil War, which had the principle goal of the abolition of slavery. Imperialism – that is Capitalism when fully developed – reverses this progressive trend and “from the liberator of nations that capitalism was in the struggle against feudalism, imperialist capitalism has become the greatest oppressor of nations,” developing itself into a reactionary force.

Lenin, when outlining this position in Socialism and War, is doing so with a clear intention of countering the excuses of the pro-war social-democratic parties, who had abandoned the internationalist position, where German social democrats claimed they were fighting British imperialism, and French social democrats claimed they were fighting German imperialism, and so on. There are no progressive sides in an inter-imperialist conflict, and so socialists must take up a position in uncompromising opposition to the war effort.

The arguments indeed echo many arguments had amongst some socialists today, who would in situations such as the Ukrainian or Syrian civil wars, favour either Russian or US imperialism over the other, rejecting the principle of internationalist, working class politics and taking a cynical approach of supporting this dictatorial regime, or that puppet of imperialism, against the other as a form of “lesser-evilism.”

The “Humanitarian” Intervention

“The governments and ruling classes of England, and France, and Germany, and Italy, and Austria, and Russia, pursued a policy of, plundering colonies, of oppressing other nations, of suppressing the working class movement. It is this, and only this policy that is being continued in the present war.”

The common thread throughout the history of imperialist war is the narrative fabricated by the capitalist class of the good intentions of the war effort, the necessity of the war for some greater cause. Penetrating this farcical representation of reality, Lenin exposes that, in truth, war is not carried out for humanitarian reasons, but to accelerate and pursue the further exploitation, suppression and robbery of the working class to the benefit of the capitalists. The British ruling class claimed i was seeking to defend Belgium – the genocidal colonial overlord of the Congo – from German aggression. Britain colonised and oppressed hundreds of millions of people in its Empire, and used the war as a pretext to pursue aggressively all opportunities that could result in more profits for British capitalism.

This reality hasn’t changed. The stories of the humanitarian necessity to intervene into a situation, to topple a government or support a group of rebels against another regime, is nothing other than a pretext, which capitalists have used historically, and continue to use, to pursue their own imperialist interests. Here Lenin exposes the lies still used to this day – both in excuse of atrocities of World War I and as pretext for more war and barbarism. The socialist position is clear on the issue; socialists can never support imperialist war or intervention, no matter what pretext is given for such actions.

Betrayal of Reformism

“We are most firmly convinced that in the present state of affairs, a split from the opportunists and chauvinists is the primary duty of the revolutionary.”

One of the most shocking aspects of the First World War to Lenin, and to revolutionary socialists internationally, was the absolute betrayal by reformist sections of the social-democratic parties, which ended up supporting the war effort – spearheaded primarily by the German Social Democratic Party.

To support the war effort was to go back on all previous agreements, resolutions, international associations made over the decades of building the socialist movement. Ultimately, the reformist trends within the social-democratic parties whose methods were not compatible with the radical opposition to imperialist war that socialism demands, went back on their obligations and stabbed the international working class in the back, sending millions of workers to the slaughter.

Without a Marxist revolutionary and internationalist perspective, it is not possible for a working class organisation to draw the necessary conclusions around imperialist war, and leaves us open for the betrayal and degeneration into social chauvinism that has happened historically.