Lenin CW-Vol. 23.pdf - From Marx to Mao

THESES ON ATTITUDE TOWARDS WAR151effective means of liberating the masses from the horror ofhigh prices and hunger. It is being brought nearer asa result of the crisis that has gripped the whole of Europe.It is absolutely necessary for the complete elimination ofmilitarism and war.The Party declares that all bourgeois pacifist and socialistpacifist phrases against militarism and war that failto accept this goal and the revolutionary means of achievingit, are illusions or lies and can only have the effect ofdiverting the working class from any serious struggle againstthe foundations of capitalism.Without ceasing its fight to improve the position ofthe wage-slaves, the Party calls upon the working class andits representatives to put on the order of the day propagandafor an immediate socialist revolution in Switzerland. Thisshould be done through mass agitation, speeches in Parliament,legislative proposals, etc., proving the need toreplace the bourgeois government by a proletarian governmentrelying on the support of the mass of the propertylesspopulation, and explaining the imperative need for suchmeasures as expropriation of the banks and big industries,repeal of all indirect taxes, introduction of a single directtax with revolutionary-high tax-rates for big incomes, etc.Written in Germanin early December 1916First published in 1931in Lenin Miscellany XVIIPublished according tothe manuscriptTranslated from the German