Defeatism and the two Lenins

The text and history are clear: Lenin changed his position on defeatism. When will socialists catch up?

In 1915, Vladimir Lenin declared that “during a reactionary war a revolutionary class cannot but desire the defeat of its government.”¹ In less than two years, with the Bolsheviks yet to take power, Lenin explained that “under Tseretelli and Chernov we were not defeatists.”² Prima facie, the sensible explanation for these two statements would be that Lenin adopted one position, then abandoned it; but sensible is not a word I would use to describe most readings of Lenin today.

This is an eternal debate, but particularly in the context of Russia’s war with Ukraine there has been a dramatic uptick in arguments about defeatism among contemporary Leninists. Do anti-imperialists in the US have some narrow, exclusive obligation to oppose their own country’s participation in the war? Should we focus our critique on Russian militarism? Or do we have a broader obligation to oppose both? As Leninists look to the man’s writing for insight, I’d say support for the various the readings are breaking down something like this:

Let’s look at each in turn.