p Here is what Lenin said about the First World War and about its impact on the construction of the new society in the USSR:

p “For many years prior to the war the socialists of all countries pointed out, and solemnly declared at their congresses, that not only would a war between advanced countries be an enormous crime, that not only would such a war, a war for the partition of the colonies and the division of the spoils of the capitalists, involve a complete rupture with the latest achievements of civilisation and culture, but that it might, that, in fact, it inevitably would, undermine the very foundations of human society. Because it is the first time in history that the most powerful achievements of technology have been applied on such a scale, so destructively and with such energy, for the annihilation of millions of human lives. When all means of production are being thus devoted to the service of war, we see that the most gloomy prophecies are being fulfilled, and that more and more countries are falling a prey to retrogression, starvation and a complete decline of all the productive forces.”  [229•1 

p Consequently, Lenin held that the First World War could undermine the very existence of human society. Is it right, therefore, to say that world war is a favourable factor for the creation of a new and much more progressive society throughout the world? Of course, not. Lenin stressed that it was the first time in history that the most powerful achievements of technology had been applied on such a scale, so destructively and with such energy for military purposes. The danger presented by such war to the very foundations of human society springs from the fact that all the productive means are turned to destruction. The only result could be retrogression, starvation and a complete decline of all the productive forces. One must realise that the CPSU and the world communist movement start from Lenin’s ideas in assessing the danger of another world war.

p If that was Lenin’s assessment of the most powerful achievements of technology during the First World War, what could one say about the danger presented by the new thermonuclear weapons? Only what the CPSU and the other fraternal Marxist-Leninist parties have been saying. The powerful achievements of technology have been multiplied a hundredfold, increasing accordingly the danger of undermining the very foundations of the existence of human society. War is bound to result in degradation, starvation and a complete decline of the productive forces.

p Let us now consider what the First World War gave Russia, and what the experience of revolution in Russia was in this respect, as described 230 by Lenin. Of course, the First World War accelerated the collapse of capitalism in Russia and caused a most profound political, nationwide crisis. Here is how Lenin assessed the role of war in this context referring to Engels as he did so:

p “I am therefore led to recall how justified Engels, one of the great founders of scientific socialism, was, when in 1887, thirty years before the Russian revolution, he wrote that a European war would not only result, as he expressed it, in crowns falling from crowned heads by the dozen without anybody being there to pick them up, but that this war would also lead to the brutalisation, degradation and retrogression of the whole of Europe; and that, on the other hand, war would result either in the domination of the working class or in the creation of the conditions which would render its domination indispensable. On this occasion the co-founder of Marxism expressed himself with extreme caution, for he clearly saw that if history took this course, the result would be the collapse of capitalism and the extension of socialism, and that a more painful and severe transition period, greater want and a severer crisis, disruptive of all productive forces, could not be imagined."  [230•2 

p Thus, the First World War led to the collapse of capitalism in Russia and resulted in a profound nationwide crisis. But to stop there would be to distort Lenin’s idea. Lenin stressed that even then, in the 1914-1918 period, it was impossible to imagine a more painful and arduous transition to socialism. One can imagine the transition to socialism after a third world war, following the use of even mightier achievements of technology—thermonuclear weapons.

p About the First World War, whose destructive consequences were only a small fraction of the possible consequences of a third world war, Lenin wrote: “We are now facing the most elementary task of human society—to vanquish famine, or at least to mitigate at once the direct famine, the agonising famine which has afflicted both our two principal cities and numerous districts of agricultural Russia."  [230•3  Consequently, we began by tackling the most elementary task of human society. That is, in effect, Lenin’s assessment of the impact of the First World War on the construction of the new society in Russia.

p Lenin’s key precept is to take the historical approach to the question of wars, “from the standpoint of Marx’s dialectical materialism".  [230•4  In fighting both Right-wing and “Left”-wing opportunists, Lenin stressed that the historical conditions tend to change so that the question of wars could be tackled only in the light of the historical situation. He wrote indignant, sarcastic articles against the Russian Mensheviks and German 231 opportunists because they kept prattling about wars, refusing to realise that a new historical period had opened.

p Lenin stressed that the opportunists failed to see that in the past there had been “no modern imperialism, no mature objective conditions for socialism, and no mass socialist parties in any of the belligerent countries...".  [231•5  Those were the factors which Lenin indicates in the first place in his study of the distinctions between the historical situation during the First World War and that of the preceding period. Thus, when dealing with wars, one must start from an analysis of the historical stage at which society finds itself. But one should also consider the development of the productive forces and technology, including the possibility of its application for the destruction of men.

p Lenin, the great scientist, who analysed the economy and politics of the final stage of capitalism, saw the cause of imperialist wars as lying in the fact that the imperialists had undivided domination of the world, which they had shared out among themselves, and were now in the process of fighting for its redivision. That is the economic basis of wars under imperialism.

p Lenin wrote about the First World War: “The objective conditions for socialism have fully matured, and the present war is a war of the capitalists for privileges and monopolies that might delay the downfall of capitalism."  [231•6  Thus, with the aid of wars, the imperialists would like to delay the collapse of capitalism and slow down the historical process, which inevitably leads to the supplanting of capitalism by a new, socialist system. Lenin taught the working class how to fight this strategy of the imperialists.

p How did Lenin consider the question of peace, the struggle for lasting peace in the imperialist epoch, before the victory of the socialist revolution in Russia?

p Opposing the deceit of the people by means of pacifist catchwords, Lenin showed mankind the true path to peace. He taught the working class that “the benefits they expect from peace cannot be obtained without a series of revolutions".  [231•7  He opposed the illusion that “the existing governments, the present-day master classes, are capable—without being ‘taught’ a lesson (or rather without being eliminated) by a series of revolutions—of granting a peace in any way satisfactory to democracy and the working class".  [231•8 

p Why did Lenin write about a series of revolutions, which alone could work a fundamental change in the world situation and create the conditions for the benefits of peace the masses were looking to? The 232 country in which the socialist revolution won out would undoubtedly be subjected to intervention by the capitalist states. To such intervention the people, who had taken over and were responsible for their country’s destiny, would respond with a just, defensive war. Lenin wrote that the “victory of socialism in one country does not at one stroke eliminate all war in general".  [232•9  That is a thing of the future, the result of a series of revolutions.

Theorists who take a hostile attitude to Marxism want to conceal the fact that the CPSU starts from these very propositions of Lenin’s. A series of revolutions has now taken place, eliminating capitalism over a vast expanse of the globe. The imperialists still in power in the rest of the world have also been learning in their own way. Even the most diehard representatives of imperialism seem to realise that the time has gone for good when international relations were an arena for arbitrary acts by the imperialists, aggressors and invaders. The mighty world socialist system, as Lenin anticipated, is capable of exerting a decisive influence on world politics, and it is working to exert such influence in favour of peace throughout the world.