This volume is a collection of Lenin’s writings on the crucial question of the position of revolutionary Marxists towards war and, more specifically, in relation to the First World War.

When the war broke out in 1914, the Socialist International betrayed its own anti-war resolutions and gave wholehearted support to the imperialist slaughter.

Lenin started a battle, against the stream, to defend the working-class principles of internationalism, explaining that the war was an imperialist one and therefore the main enemy of the workers was at home. War eventually gave way to revolution and ultimately to the foundation of a new, Communist International.

Lenin’s writings on the struggle against the imperialist war are a vital resource for revolutionary acrivists today.

This is the first of a series of thematic collections of Lenin’s writings by Wellred Books, published to mark the centenary of his death in 2024.