Written: Written before May 7 (20), 1917
Published:
First published in 1925 in Lenin Miscellany IV.
Published according to the manuscript.
Source:
Lenin
Collected Works,
Progress Publishers,
1964,
Moscow,
Volume 24,
pages 354-356.
Translated: Isaacs Bernard
Transcription\Markup:
B. Baggins and D. Walters
Public Domain:
Lenin Internet Archive
1999
(2005).
You may freely copy, distribute,
display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
Archive” as your source.
(1) Our Deputy must be unconditionally opposed to the present predatory imperialist war. This war is waged by the capitalists of all countries—Russia, Germany, Britain, etc.—for profits, and the subjugation of the weak nations.
(2) So long as a capitalist government is at the head of the Russian nation, there must be no support for the government, which is carrying on a predatory war—not by a single kopek!
(3) Our Deputy must stand for the immediate publication of the secret predatory treaties (relating to the subjugation of Persia, the partition of Turkey, Austria, etc.), which ex Tsar Nicholas concluded with the capitalists of Britain, France, etc.
(4) Our Deputy must stand for the immediate abrogation of all these treaties. The Russian people, the workers and the peasants, do not wish to oppress and will not oppress any nation; they do not wish to and will not hold by force within the boundaries of Russia a single non-Russian (non-Great-Russian) nation. Freedom for all the peoples, a fraternal union of the workers and peasants of all nationalities!
(5) Our Deputy must stand for the Russian Government offering openly, immediately and unconditionally, without equivocation and without the least delay, terms of peace to all the belligerent countries on the basis of freedom for all the oppressed or underprivileged nationalities without exception.
This means that the Great Russians shall not forcibly retain either Poland, or Kurland, or Ukraine, or Finland, or Armenia, or any other nation. The Great Russians offer a fraternal union to all the nations and propose the formation of a common state by voluntary consent of each individual people, and under no circumstances by means of violence, direct or indirect. The Great Russians, under the terms of such a peace, undertake immediately to withdraw their troops from Galicia, from Armenia, and from Persia, and to allow these nations and all other nations without exception freely to decide whether they wish to live as a separate state, or in union with whomsoever they please.
Germany, by the terms of such a peace, must not only relinquish all the territories she has seized since the beginning of the war, but also release the peoples she is keeping by force within the boundaries of Germany, namely, the Danes (Schleswig), the French (part of Alsace and Lorraine), the Poles (Poznan), etc. Germany must undertake immediately, and simultaneously with Russia, to withdraw her troops from all the regions she has seized, as well as from all the regions mentioned above, and allow each nation to decide freely, by a popular vote, whether it wishes to live as a separate state, or in union with whomsoever, it pleases. Germany must unconditionally and unequivocally relinquish all her colonies, for colonies are oppressed peoples.
Britain, by the terms of such a peace, must relinquish, immediately and unconditionally, not only the territories she has seized from others (the German colonies in Africa, etc., the Turkish lands, Mesopotamia, etc.), but all her own colonies as well. Britain, like Russia and Germany, must immediately withdraw her troops from all the territories she has seized, from her colonies, and also from Ireland, and let each nation decide by a free vote whether it wants to live as a separate state, or in union with whomsoever it wishes.
And so on: all the belligerent countries, without exception, must receive an offer to conclude an immediate peace on these clearly defined terms. The capitalists of all countries should no longer deceive the peoples by promising “peace without annexations” while holding on to their own annexed territories and continuing the war in order to wrest from the enemy “his own” annexed territories.
(6) Our Deputy must not give any support, or vote for any loan, or give a kopek of the people’s money to any government that does not solemnly undertake immediately to offer to all the nations these terms for an immediate peace and to publish this offer within two days for everybody’s information.
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