Internationalist–defencist schism instance of debate
Division
The 'defencist' camp included many venerable figures of European socialism: Jules Guesde and Édouard Vaillant in France, Gustav Noske and Friedrich Ebert in Germany, Georgi Plekhanov and Ekaterina Breshkovskaia among the Russians. Leaders of the anti-war 'Internationalist' camp included Jean Jaurès (who was murdered for his anti-war stance in 1914), Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, and later also Karl Kautsky and Eduard Bernstein, in Germany, Iulii Martov, Vladimir Lenin, Viktor Chernov and Mark Natanson among the Russians. The anti-war socialists held two international conferences at Zimmerwald and Kienthal in Switzerland in 1915 and 1916.
The defencist–internationalist schism did not necessarily coincide with earlier, pre-existing splits, such as that between reformists and revolutionaries, Revisionists and orthodox Marxists, Bolsheviks and Mensheviks, etc. For example, Guesde and Vaillant in France had belonged to the intransigent, revolutionary left of the Socialist Party, and in 1914, anti-war sentiment was strongest on the far left. Yet both of these veterans were ardent supporters of the French war effort, while the old reformist leader Jaurès opposed the war. Likewise, Kautsky and Bernstein had been on opposite sides during the Revisionism controversy of the 1890s, Kautsky defending orthodox Marxism and Bernstein being the principal exponent of Revisionism; they both joined the anti-war faction. Meanwhile, the left wing Marxists Paul Lensch, Heinrich Cunow and Konrad Haenisch went on to form the Lensch-Cunow-Haenisch group, which argued that the First World War was a revolutionary war against the liberal capitalism of the Triple Entente.
'Defencism' and 'Internationalism' were broad categories; within each camp, there were further differences and divisions. Out-and-out 'Social Patriots' who supported their countries' war efforts unconditionally, including territorial ambitions, were fairly rare, though they included some of the most prominent representatives of the pre-war socialist movement: people like Henry Hyndman, Plekhanov and Guesde. More common was an attitude of conditional support for the war, approving a 'defensive' war but rejecting annexations and indemnities. A special case arose in Russia in 1917: After the February Revolution, several Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries (SRs) who had previously been Internationalists and Zimmerwaldists now favoured 'revolutionary defencism' – continued war effort in defence of the revolution. This was the case with Mensheviks like Fedor Dan and Irakli Tsereteli, SRs like Avram Gots and Nikolai Avksentiev and Trudoviks like Alexander Kerensky. In 1917 some Bolsheviks took also this position, before Lenin returned to Russia and successfully opposed this view. On the Internationalist side, too, there were divisions. Most Internationalists favoured passive resistance to the war and called for an international peace agreement, 'without annexations or indemnities'. Jaurès, Kautsky, Bernstein, Martov and Chernov belonged to this camp; so, at first, did the Bolshevik Lev Kamenev. A minority led by Lenin advocated 'revolutionary defeatism': instead of seeking a peace agreement that would restore the status quo ante, socialists should seek to convert the 'imperialist war' into a revolutionary 'civil war', with each socialist party working for the defeat of its own country.Effects by country
The schism caused splits in many European socialist parties. In France, the split between socialists and communists did not occur until 1920. In Germany, the Independent Social-Democrats (USPD) formally separated from the majority Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) in 1917, and the more radical Spartacist League formed the nucleus of the post-war German Communist Party (KPD). Italy was a special case: whereas, in most European socialist parties, Defencists predominated (at least at the beginning of the war), in Italy, the majority of the members and most of the leaders of the Socialist Party, from reformists to radicals, were against Italy's entry into the war, while a minority, led by the former Maximalist and future fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, campaigned for Italian intervention and was expelled from the party for it. Only the Serbian socialists remained fairly uniformly anti-war.Sources and links
The Defencist/Internationalist split over World War I is discussed in virtually all histories of socialism, communism, anarchism, particular socialist parties or the biographies of socialist personalities then living.Lenin, V.I., The Tasks of the Proletariat in Our Revolution (1917) contains a critique of Revolutionary Defencism, online at: http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/tasks/ch05.htm.
Lenin, V.I., The Revolution of 1917: From the March Revolution to the July Days. New York, 1929.
Gorter, H., Der Imperialismus, der Weltkrieg, und die Sozialdemokratie. Amsterdam, 1915.
Braunthal, J., Geschichte der Internationale. Dietz, 1963.
Cole, G.D.H., Communism and Social Democracy, 1914–1931. Two parts. London, 1958.
'The Second International.'
type of example of manifestation of representation of