58. In those cases where it is a question of conflict between capitalist countries, the proletariat of any one of them refuses categorically to sacrifice its historic interests, which in the final analysis coincide with the interests of the nation and humanity, for the sake of the military victory of the bourgeoisie. Lenin’s formula, “defeat is the lesser evil,” means not defeat of one’s country is the lesser evil as compared with the defeat of the enemy country but that a military defeat resulting from the growth of the revolutionary movement is infinitely more beneficial to the proletariat and to the whole people than military victory assured by “civil peace.” Karl Liebknecht gave an unsurpassed formula of proletarian policy in time of war: “The chief enemy of the people is in its own country.” The victorious proletarian revolution not only will rectify the evils caused by defeat but also will create the final guarantee against future wars and defeats. This dialectical attitude toward war is the most important element of revolutionary training and therefore also of the struggle against war.

59. The transformation of imperialist war into civil war is that general strategic task to which the whole work of a proletarian party during war should be subordinated. The consequences of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71 as well as of the imperialist slaughter of 1914-18 (Paris Commune, the February and October revolutions in Russia, revolutions in Germany and Austria-Hungary, insurrections in a number of warring countries) testify irrefutably that a modern war between capitalist nations carries with it a war of classes within each of the nations, and that the task of a revolutionary party consists in preparing in this latter war the victory of the proletariat.

60. The experience of the years 1914-18 demonstrates, at the same time, that the slogan of peace is in no way contradictory to the strategic formula of “defeatism”; on the contrary, it develops a tremendous revolutionary force, especially in a case of a protracted war. The slogan of peace has a pacifist, that is, lying, stupefying, enfeebling character only when democratic and other politicians juggle with it; when priests offer up prayers for the speediest cessation of the slaughter; when “lovers of humanity,” among them also social patriots, tearfully urge the governments to make peace quickly on “the basis of justice.” But the slogan of peace has nothing in common with pacifism when it emanates from working-class quarters and trenches, intertwining itself with the slogan of fraternization of the soldiers of the hostile armies and uniting the oppressed against the oppressors. The revolutionary struggle for peace, which takes on ever-wider and bolder forms, is the surest means of “turning the imperialist war into a civil war.”