Defence of Neutrality

#PUBLICATION NOTE

This edition of Defence of Neutrality has been prepared and revised for digital publication by the Institute of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism under the Central Committee of the Communist Party in Switzerland on the basis of the edition published in the Collected Works of Lenin, Fourth English Edition, Volume 23, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1964.

#INTRODUCTION NOTE

This is an article written by Comrade Nikolaj Lenin in Zurich, Switzerland in January 1917. It was first published in 1931 in Lenin Miscellany, Volume 27.

#Workers and oppressed people of the world, unite!

#DEFENCE OF NEUTRALITY

#Nikolaj Lenin

#January 1917

#★

Acceptance of the proposition that the present war is imperialist, that is, a war between the two big freebooters for world domination and plunder, does not yet prove that we should reject defence of the Swiss homeland. We, Swiss, are defending our neutrality; we have stationed troops on our boundaries for the express purpose of avoiding participation in this robber war!

This is the argument of the social-patriots, the Grütlians, both within the Social-Democratic Party and outside it.

It is based on the following tacitly accepted or dexterously manipulated premises.

Uncritical repetition of what the bourgeoisie says, and what it has to say, to maintain its class domination.

Complete trust in the bourgeoisie and complete distrust in the proletariat.

Disregard of the real, rather than imaginary, international situation resulting from the imperialist pattern of European relations and the imperialist «tie-up» of the Swiss capitalist class.

Did not the Romanian and the Bulgarian bourgeoisie give the most solemn assurances, over a period of many months, that their military preparations were dictated «solely» by the need to safeguard their neutrality?

Is there any serious, scientific basis for drawing a fundamental distinction, on this issue, between the bourgeoisies of the aforementioned countries and that of Switzerland?

Certainly not. The Romanian and the Bulgarian bourgeoisie, we are told, are notoriously obsessed by a lust for conquest and annexation, and this does not apply to the Swiss bourgeoisie. But that cannot be considered a fundamental distinction. Imperialist interests are manifested, as everyone knows, not only in territorial, but also in financial acquisitions. It should be borne in mind that the Swiss bourgeoisie exports capital, no less than CHF 3'000'000'000 a year, that is, imperialistically exploits backward nations. That is a fact, and another fact is that Swiss banking capital is intimately associated and intertwined with the banking capital of the Great Powers, that the Swiss tourism industry, and so on, represent a permanent division of imperialist wealth between the Great Powers and Switzerland. Moreover, Switzerland has reached a much higher level of capitalist development than Romania and Bulgaria. There can be no question whatsoever of a popular «national» movement in Switzerland; that period in its historical development ended many centuries ago. This cannot be said of either of the Balkan States referred to above.

It therefore befits the bourgeois to try to instil in the people, in the exploited, faith in the bourgeoisie of their own country and use plausible phrases to conceal the realities of its imperialist policies.

Something quite different, however, is expected of Socialists, namely: merciless exposure that leaves no room for illusions about the real policies of their «own» bourgeoisie. And continuation of these real policies by the Swiss bourgeoisie, such as selling the nation to one of the imperialist coalitions of States, is much more probable and much more «natural» (that is, more in conformity with the nature of this bourgeoisie) than defence of democracy in the true sense of the word, which would be contrary to its profit interests.

«To each their own»: let the Grütlians, as servants and agents of the bourgeoisie, deceive the people with phrases about «defending neutrality».

Socialists, on the other hand, as fighters against the bourgeoisie, must open the people's eyes to the very real danger, proved by the whole history of Swiss bourgeois politics, of being sold by their «own» bourgeoisie!