"During a reactionary war a revolutionary class cannot but desire the defeat of its government", Lenin 1915 -- Daily LIFT #93

"During a reactionary war a revolutionary class cannot but desire the defeat of its government", Lenin 1915 -- Daily LIFT #93

"During a reactionary war a revolutionary class cannot but desire the defeat of its government...

...A revolution in wartime means civil war; the conversion of a war between governments into a civil war is, on the one hand, facilitated by military reverses ("defeats") of governments; on the other hand, one cannot actually strive for such a conversion without thereby facilitating defeat.

The reason why the chauvinists...repudiate the defeat “slogan” is that this slogan alone implies a consistent call for revolutionary action against one’s own government in wartime. Without such action, millions of ultra-revolutionary phrases such as a war against “the war and the conditions, etc." are not worth a brass farthing...

...Those who stand for the “neither-victory-nor-defeat” slogan are in fact on the side of the bourgeoisie and the opportunists, for they do not believe in the possibility of international revolutionary action by the working class against their own governments, and do not wish to help develop such action, which, though undoubtedly difficult, is the only task worthy of a proletarian, the only socialist task." - Lenin, The Defeat of One’s Own Government in the Imperialist War, 1915