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

396 NOTES7071727374Was exposed by the Social-Democratic press, which demanded hisdismissal from the service, but the military command confined itselfto a reprimand. p. 138The Olten resolution on the war question was adopted by the emergencycongress of the Swiss Social-Democratic Party at Olten, February10-11, 1906. p. 144Grütli-Verein—a bourgeois reformist organisation founded in Switzerlandin 1838, long before the organisation of the Swiss Social-Democratic Party. The name derives from the sixteenth-centuryUnion of Grütlians (conspirators), who rose against Austrian rule.In 1901 the Grütli-Verein affiliated with the Social-DemocraticParty but remained organisationally independent. Its newspaper,Grütlianer, followed a bourgeois-nationalist policy. In the FirstWorld War the Grütli-Verein took up an extreme chauvinist positionand became the mainstay of the Right-wing social-chauvinists.This led the Zurich Congress of the Social-Democratic Party (November1916) to declare that membership in the Grütli-Verein wasincompatible with membership in the party. p. 146These theses and several other items in this volume (“PrinciplesInvolved in the War Issue”; “An Open Letter to Charles Naine”;“Twelve Brief Theses on H. Greulich’s Defence of Fatherland Defence”;“Imaginary or Real Marsh?”; “Proposed Amendments to theResolution on the War Issue”; “The Story of One Short Period inthe Life of One Socialist Party”) were written in connection with thediscussion of the war issue in the Swiss Social-Democratic Party.In August 1916 the party Executive decided to call an emergencycongress for February 11-12, 1917 to discuss the war issue. The ZurichCongress (November 4-5, 1916) endorsed that decision and appointeda commission to draw up draft resolutions for the emergencycongress.The commission framed two drafts: the majority draft, based onGrimm’s Centrist theses, published in July 1916, and the minoritysocial-chauvinist draft which called on Social-Democrats to “defendthe fatherland” in the event of Switzerland entering the war.Lenin, who was closely associated with the Swiss Left, was wellinformed of the commission’s activities. His “Theses on the Attitudeof the Swiss Social-Democratic Party Towards the War” were writtento help the Swiss Left. Lenin drew up several variants anddrafts, devoting special attention to practical proposals, beforeworking out the final text. p. 149See Marx and Engels, Selected Works, Vol. I, Moscow, 1962, pp.549-50. p. 154Schweizerische Metallarbeiter-Zeitung (Swiss Metalworkers’ Gazette)—aweekly paper founded in Berne in 1902; adopted a socialchauvinistposition during the First World War. p. 155