The question of when to support an imperfect faction and to what extent is perhaps the biggest political question of the modern day. “Faction” here should be understood to mean both parties and organizations, as well as states. Many people have assumptions about what he believed and argued for, but these are sometimes based on incomplete readings of his work, or just picked up from osmosis from other people discussing it.
Obviously, Lenin’s perspective is not dogma, and not necessarily applicable to modern day conditions. However, I consider his analysis insightful, and it is rather nuanced and complex at times, which is why I consider a deep analysis like this to be important.
The way I’ve framed the question is very broad, so I have broken it down into more specific cases:
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Should socialists participate in bourgeois elections?
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Should socialists support the “lesser evil” or “underdog” in geopolitical affairs?
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Should socialists support bourgeois-led national liberation movements?
Due to length, my analysis will be posted in the comments.
[NB: Not all the quotes I cite are continuous, but I have made a good faith effort to represent his positions accurately to the best of my understanding, without cherry picking or proof-texting.]
1. Should socialists participate in bourgeois elections?
This question is answered in “Left”-wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder. In this work, Lenin rebukes the German communists for refusing to participate in elections.
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Parliamentarianism is of course “politically obsolete” to the Communists in Germany; but—and that is the whole point—we must not regard what is obsolete to us as something obsolete to a class, to the masses. Here again we find that the “Lefts” do not know how to reason, do not know how to act as the party of a class, as the party of the masses. You must not sink to the level of the masses, to the level of the backward strata of the class. That is incontestable. You must tell them the bitter truth. You are in duty bound to call their bourgeois-democratic and parliamentary prejudices what they are—prejudices. But at the same time you must soberly follow the actual state of the class-consciousness and preparedness of the entire class (not only of its communist vanguard), and of all the working people (not only of their advanced elements).
Even if only a fairly large minority of the industrial workers, and not “millions” and “legions”, follow the lead of the Catholic clergy—and a similar minority of rural workers follow the landowners and kulaks (Grossbauern)—it undoubtedly signifies that parliamentarianism in Germany has not yet politically outlived itself, that participation in parliamentary elections and in the struggle on the parliamentary rostrum is obligatory on the party of the revolutionary proletariat specifically for the purpose of educating the backward strata of its own class, and for the purpose of awakening and enlightening the undeveloped, downtrodden and ignorant rural masses. Whilst you lack the strength to do away with bourgeois parliaments and every other type of reactionary institution, you must work within them because it is there that you will still find workers who are duped by the priests and stultified by the conditions of rural life; otherwise you risk turning into nothing but windbags.
We can see in this section that while Lenin generally calls for participation in bourgeois elections, he does so with two stipulations. First, it should be done “while you lack the strength to do away with” them, which is to say, while the masses still support such systems. Second, you must do so while “telling them the bitter truth,” with the whole purpose of that participation being to “educate the backwards strata of it’s own class.” In cases where you are not able to speak freely, this can change the analysis.
Supporting this, we can look at Should We Boycott the State Duma?
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We cannot at present derive any advantage for the Party from the elections. There is no freedom to carry on agitation. The party of the working class is outlawed; its representatives are imprisoned without trial; its news papers have been closed and its meetings prohibited. The Party cannot legally unfurl its banner at the elections, it cannot publicly nominate its representatives without betraying them to the police. In this situation, our work of agitation and organization is far better served by making revolutionary use of meetings without taking part in the elections than by taking part in meetings for legal elections.
The Mensheviks argue that Social-Democrats in all countries take part in parliaments, even in bad parliaments. This argument is false. We, too, will take full part in a parliament. But the Mensheviks themselves realize that the Duma is not a parliament; they themselves refuse to go into it. They say that the masses of the workers are weary and wish to rest by participating in legal elections. But the Party cannot and must not base its tactics on the temporary weariness of certain centres.
The distinction between a “bad parliament” and the Duma, which he denounces as a “police fraud,” (in today’s terms, a “honeypot”), is whether it is legal to conduct agitation, to challenge the legitimacy of the body and to call for revolutionary change. Socialists should not fear the possibility of being “tainted” by participating in a flawed institution, but should be mindful of what such participation requires, and whether it means that the party line will be compromised. To abandon the truth for the sake of winning elections is, of course, opportunism, and if abandoning the truth is required to even participate in elections, then those elections should be rejected.
2. Should socialists support the “lesser evil” or “underdog” in geopolitical affairs?
Lenin writes in Socialism and War:
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Picture to yourselves a slave-owner who owned 100 slaves warring against a slave-owner who owned 200 slaves for a more “just” distribution of slaves. Clearly, the application of the term “defensive” war, or war “for the defence of the fatherland” in such a case would be historically false, and in practice would be sheer deception of the common people, of philistines, of ignorant people, by the astute slaveowners. Precisely in this way are the present-day imperialist bourgeoisie deceiving the peoples by means of "national ideology and the term “defence of the fatherland” in the present war between slave-owners for fortifying and strengthening slavery.
From the standpoint of bourgeois justice and national freedom (or the right of nations to existence), Germany would be absolutely right as against England and France, for she has been “done out” of colonies, her enemies are oppressing an immeasurably far larger number of nations than she is, and the Slavs who are oppressed by her ally Austria undoubtedly enjoy far more freedom than those in tsarist Russia, that real “prison of nations.” But Germany is fighting not for the liberation, but for the oppression of nations. It is not the business of Socialists to help the younger and stronger robber (Germany) to rob the older and overgorged robbers. Socialists must take advantage of the struggle between the robbers to overthrow them all.
Here, Lenin rejects the argument that Germany should be supported in it’s fight against Britain and France, regardless of the fact that Germany possessed fewer colonies than the others, because Germany was not fighting to free those colonies but rather to claim them for itself.
I have sometimes seen similar “lesser evil” arguments used to argue in favor of Russia in the modern day. But it should be understood that this particular line is inconsistent with Lenin’s stances. Yes, we can today see how much of the world is dominated by the US and NATO as compared to Russia, but if (mind the if) it is conceded that Russia is fighting merely to acquire resource colonies for itself, then it would be in a similar position to Germany in WWI, and should not be supported, critically or otherwise, from a Leninist perspective.
However, we must also look at (what I consider to be one of his best and most important works) The Defeat of One’s Own Government in the Imperialist War:
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During a reactionary war a revolutionary class cannot but desire the defeat of its government.
This is axiomatic, and disputed only by conscious partisans or helpless satellites of the social-chauvinists. Among the former, for instance, is Semkovsky of the Organising Committee (No. 2 of its Izvestia), and among the latter, Trotsky and Bukvoyed, and Kautsky in Germany. To desire Russia’s defeat, Trotsky writes, is “an uncalled-for and absolutely unjustifiable concession to the political methodology of social-patriotism, which would replace the revolutionary struggle against the war and the conditions causing it, with an orientation—highly arbitrary in the present conditions—towards the lesser evil”
This is an instance of high-flown phraseology with which Trotsky always justifies opportunism. A “revolutionary struggle against the war” is merely an empty and meaning less exclamation, something at which the heroes of the Second International excel, unless it means revolutionary action against one’s own government even in wartime. One has only to do some thinking in order to understand this. Wartime revolutionary action against one’s own government indubitably means, not only desiring its defeat, but really facilitating such a defeat. (“Discerning reader”: note that this does not mean “blowing up bridges”, organising unsuccessful strikes in the war industries, and ·in general helping the government defeat the revolutionaries.)
The phrase-bandying Trotsky has completely lost his bearings on a simple issue. It seems to him that to desire Russia’s defeat means desiring the victory of Germany. (Bukvoyed and Semkovsky give more direct expression to the “thought”, or rather want of thought, which they share with Trotsky.) But Trotsky regards this as the “methodology of social-patriotism”! To help people that are unable to think for themselves, the Berne resolution (Sotsial Demokrat No. 40) made it clear, that in all imperialist countries the proletariat must now desire the defeat of its own government. Bukvoyed and Trotsky preferred to avoid this truth, while Semkovsky (an opportunist who is more useful to the working class than all the others, thanks to his naively frank reiteration of bourgeois wisdom) blurted out the following: “This is nonsense, because either Germany or Russia can win”
Take the example of the Paris Commune. France was defeated by Germany but the workers were defeated by Bismarck and Thiers! Had Bukvoyed and Trotsky done a little thinking, they would have realised that they have adopted the viewpoint on the war held by governments and the bourgeoisie, i.e., that they cringe to the “political methodology of social-patriotism”, to use Trotsky’s pretentious language.
Here, Lenin once again rejects the idea of supporting the “lesser evil” by rejecting Trotsky’s framing of his position in that way. Rather, Lenin calls for the proletariat of all belligerent countries to conduct revolutionary actions against their own governments.
Lenin concedes the fact that such revolutionary actions will benefit Germany, but this is merely a side effect. To view the conflict merely in terms of which nation comes out ahead is to engage in “the political methodology of social-patriotism.” Rather, we should consider class struggle to be the foremost and most important conflict, and the conflict between the imperialist powers to be bourgeois infighting, in which whoever comes out on top is not all that important. To avoid and denounce revolutionary action out of concern of giving Germany an advantage is not remaining neutral, rather, it is taking the side of Russia, and saying that we must be so invested in Russia’s victory that we must put aside our own priorities and form a class truce to protect it.
But Lenin makes a very a clear distinction between taking actions that may benefit Germany, and being ambivalent to who wins, compared to actually supporting Germany, critically or otherwise. He points out the example of the Paris Commune, which weakened France in a war against Germany, but was then attacked by Germany and defeated. While both were fighting the French state, neither set aside class conflict in order to do so. To look at the Paris Commune as being merely “fifth columnists” of Germany would be plainly ridiculous, rather, it was its own side.
3. Should socialists support bourgeois-led national liberation movements?
A Caricature of Marxism and Imperialist Economism flows fairly naturally from the previous point.
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Marxism makes that analysis and says: if the “substance” of a war is, for example, the overthrow of alien oppression (which was especially typical of Europe in 1789–1871), then such a war is progressive as far as the oppressed state or nation is concerned. If, however, the “substance” of a war is redivision of colonies, division of booty, plunder of foreign lands (and such is the war of 1914–16), then all talk of defending the fatherland is “sheer deception of the people”.
How, then, can we disclose and define the “substance” of a war? War is the continuation of policy. Consequently, we must examine the policy pursued prior to the war, the policy that led to and brought about the war. If it was an imperialist policy, i.e., one designed to safeguard the interests of finance capital and rob and oppress colonies and foreign countries, then the war stemming from that policy is imperialist. If it was a national liberation policy, i.e., one expressive of the mass movement against national oppression, then the war stemming from that policy is a war of national liberation.
The philistine does not realize that war is “the continuation of policy”, and consequently limits himself to the formula that “the enemy has attacked us”, “the enemy has invaded my country”, without stopping to think what issues are at stake in the war, which classes are waging it, and with what political objects. Kievsky stoops right down to the level of such a philistine when he declares that Belgium has been occupied by the Germans, and hence, from the point of view of self-determination, the “Belgian social-patriots are right”, or: the Germans have occupied part of France, hence, “Guesde can be satisfied”, for “what is involved is territory populated by his nation” (and not by an alien nation).
For the philistine the important thing is where the armies stand, who is winning at the moment. For the Marxist the important thing is what issues are at stake in this war, during which first one, then the other army may be on top.
In the previous text, Lenin argues that those who refuse to call for revolutionary actions against their own governments in WWI, but rather called for “neither victory nor defeat” were essentially taking the same stance as “the defense of the fatherland,” and accepting the framing that fighting the war was necessary to protect the nation, to guard against defeat. After this critique, Kievsky argued that the same logic should apply to bourgeois-led national liberation movements, that to support them is to support “the defense of the fatherland.”
Lenin repudiates this misunderstanding. The problem with “the defense of the fatherland” slogan is not that it is always wrong to “defend the fatherland,” but rather that WWI was not actually about defending the fatherland, rather, it was about the control of various colonies. Therefore, while it is unjustifiable to adopt a position of “the defense of the fatherland” in WWI, this does not mean that we must always reject any course of action that happens to defend somebody’s fatherland.
With this misunderstanding cleared up, Lenin presents the method by which we should understand conflicts: by viewing them as a continuation of policy, and by looking, on a case-by-case basis, at what dispute prior to the conflict led to the war. This does not mean looking at “who started it,” as he says in Socialism and War (cited in this text):
For example, if tomorrow, Morocco were to declare war on France, India on England, Persia or China on Russia, and so forth, those would be “just,” “defensive” wars, irrespective of who attacked first; and every Socialist would sympathize with the victory of the oppressed, dependent, unequal states against the oppressing, slaveowning, predatory “great” powers.
Instead of looking at conflicts in terms of who’s the aggressor and who’s the defender, we should look at things in terms of class, and in terms of oppressor and oppressed. Imperialist powers do not have the right to defend their sovereignty; after all, if they did, then revolution would be unjustified.
From chapter 5 of the same work:
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In real life the International is composed of workers divided into oppressor and oppressed nations. If its action is to be monistic, its propaganda must not be the same for both. That is how we should regard the matter in the light of real (not Dühringian) “monism”, Marxist materialism.
An example? We cited the example of Norway (in the legal press over two years ago!), and no one has challenged it. In this concrete case taken from life, the action of the Norwegian and Swedish workers was “monistic”, unified, inter nationalist only because and insofar as the Swedish workers unconditionally championed Norway’s freedom to secede, while the Norwegian workers raised the question of secession only conditionally. Had the Swedish workers not supported Norway’s freedom of secession unconditionally, they would have been chauvinists, accomplices of the chauvinist Swedish landlords, who wanted to “keep” Norway by force, by war. Had the Norwegian workers not raised the question of secession conditionally, i.e., allowing even Social-Democratic Party members to conduct propaganda and vote against secession, they would have failed in their internationalist duty and would have sunk to narrow, bourgeois Norwegian nationalism. Why? Because the, secession was being effected by the bourgeoisie, not by the proletariat! Because the Norwegian bourgeoisie (as every other) always strives to drive a wedge between the workers of its own and an “alien” country!
Here, Lenin makes a remarkable point. He argues that real international solidarity requires unity of action, but not necessarily unity of rhetoric. Specifically, in the case of Norway seeking independence from Sweden, he argues that Swedish socialists, those of the oppressor nation, were correct in giving unconditional support to Norway’s right to secede, that, if they had been critical of the movement and imposed conditions, then they would have been chauvinists. On the other hand, Norwegian socialists were correct to be critical and skeptical of the movement, on the basis that it was a bourgeois-led movement.
One way to think of this is two people bumping into each other on the street. If they both apologize, then there’s no conflict, even though they’re taking different stances on who’s at fault. On the other hand, if they try to arrive at a unified line on whose fault it really was, then there may be more conflict.
Lenin notes, here and in many other works, that there should be no inherent preference for large or small nations, for breaking apart or coming together, but that such questions should be considered in terms of how to best unite the proletariat and advance socialist goals. Secession movements can be used by the bourgeoisie to “drive a wedge” between people, however, this wedge only becomes stronger when such movements are opposed by the dominant group. You might say, “if you love someone, let them free,” the hope being that they will choose voluntarily to remain united.
Later, from the same chapter:
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Why must “we” “actively resist” suppression of a national uprising? P. Kievsky advances only one reason: “…we shall thereby be combating imperialism, our mortal enemy.” All the strength of this argument lies in the strong word “mortal”. And this is in keeping with his penchant for strong words instead of strong arguments—high-sounding phrases like “driving a stake into the quivering body of the bourgeoisie” and similar Alexinsky flourishes.
But this Kievsky argument is wrong. Imperialism is as much our “mortal” enemy as is capitalism. That is so. No Marxist will forget, however, that capitalism is progressive compared with feudalism, and that imperialism is progressive compared with pre-monopoly capitalism. Hence, it is not every struggle against imperialism that we should support. We will not support a struggle of the reactionary classes against imperialism; we will not support an uprising of the reactionary classes against imperialism and capitalism.
Here, Lenin provides one more condition for supporting a national liberation movement: it must not be a struggle “of the reactionary classes against imperialism and capitalism.” This phrasing can generate confusion, as imperialism and capitalism are often thought of as being reactionary. But he provides the context that “capitalism is progressive compared with feudalism,” meaning, the “reactionary classes” he’s discussing are classes which aim to return to a feudal system, such as the aristocracy, as distinct from the bourgeoisie.
To sum up, when looking at secession or an imperfect national liberation movement, or whether a nation should be defended, we should consider the following questions:
A. Is the conflict actually about national liberation, or it really about something else?
B. Will it start WWIII?
C. Is the movement not merely flawed, but reactionary, even relative to capitalism?
D. Am I in a position to critique the movement, without engaging in chauvinism?