Lenin debates the slogan of a United States of Europe

Lenin opposed cultural autonomy as a substitute for political equality and argued for a right to secede. His intervention addressed national movements inside the empire, while its class-first...

As the war expanded, Lenin condemned the major socialist parties that supported their governments’ war efforts. His call to turn the imperialist war into a struggle against ruling classes was...

Lenin argued that genuine Russian working-class pride required rejecting the oppression of other peoples. The essay is an explicit critique of chauvinism from within the dominant nation, and it can be...

Lenin examined the collapse of international socialist solidarity after leading parties backed their states in World War I. His response pressed for a new international, while other anti-war...

The essay condemned socialist leaders who supported wartime governments and argued that imperialist rivalry had exposed their reformism. It connects anti-war politics with Lenin’s analysis of...

Lenin’s notebooks from intensive reading of Hegel, especially the Science of Logic, show a renewed engagement with dialectics during the war. They are working notes rather than a finished treatise and...

Socialists from neutral and belligerent countries met to oppose the war. Lenin’s more radical position was a minority within the conference, showing that anti-war internationalism contained...

Lenin drafted Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, analyzing monopoly, finance capital, and colonial rivalry. The work connected European class politics to imperial extraction, though its...

In essays on the national question, Lenin defended the right of nations to secede while arguing for working-class internationalism. This framework challenged Great Russian chauvinism in principle;...

In his 1916 essays, Lenin argued that socialists in oppressor nations had a duty to defend the right of oppressed nations to secede. This principled distinction challenged empire but remained tied...