The war found Lenin in Poronin. On false denunciation he was arrested by the Austrian authorities and imprisoned in the city of Novy Targ. After his release Lenin went to Bern. Then he writes the article "the Tasks of revolutionary social-democracy in the European war", "the Position and tasks of the socialist international", "About national pride of great Russians" and others, which reveals the fundamental attitude of the Bolsheviks to imperialist war; it clearly shows the predatory nature and causes of the first world war, formulated the tasks of social democracy.
At the dacha in the town of Ozerki near Petrograd in November 1914 at the all-Russian meeting discussed Lenin's policy documents on the tactics of the Bolsheviks during the war. The Manifesto of the Central Committee of the RSDLP "War and Russian social democracy"was announced. It gives a truly Marxist assessment of the outbreak of war as imperialist, aggressive, unjust. The whole world heard Lenin's courageous appeal-to turn the imperialist war into a civil war. It was, in fact, a call for a proletarian revolution. In the Manifesto, Lenin formulated the slogan of the defeat of "his" government in the imperialist war:"...from the point of view of the working class and the working masses of all the peoples of Russia, the least evil would be the defeat of the tsarist monarchy," which would undoubtedly facilitate the victory of the people over tsarism. The tactics of defeating his government in the war was aimed at turning it into a war of the oppressed against the oppressors, led ultimately to the victory of the revolution. In the Manifesto, Lenin appealed to the revolutionary Marxist parties to create, instead of the failed II international, an opportunist-free III international.
Members of the Bolshevik faction of the fourth state Duma who actively opposed the imperialist war were arrested in November 1914 and tried in February 1915. Here are some Bolsheviks-deputies of the IV state Duma-G. I. Petrovsky, F. N. Samoilov, M. K. Muranov, A. E. Badaev, N. R. Shagov - in exile. In the article " what proved the trial of the RSDLP faction?"Lenin shows that the class slogans of the Bolsheviks reached the broadest masses thanks to the court.
The war was a severe test for the political parties, a test of their devotion, not in words but in deeds, to the interests of the working class, to the cause of the socialist revolution.
In the works "Opportunism and the collapse of the second international", "True internationalists: Kautsky, Axelrod, Martov", " what next?Lenin exposed international opportunism, social chauvinism and centrism, the treacherous actions of the opportunists, their shameful dealings with the bourgeoisie. In the works of that time Lenin noted that with the outbreak of war II international actually ceased to exist as an international Association of socialist parties, he broke up into separate social-chauvinist organizations, closed with his national bourgeoisie. Lenin pointed out that opportunism, as an organized tool of the bourgeoisie within the working-class movement, had become the main enemy of the proletariat. Opportunists, wrote Lenin in " what next?"presented in the exhibition, these are the bourgeois enemies of the proletarian revolution, who in peacetime conduct their work secretly, huddling inside the workers' parties, and in times of crisis are open allies of the entire United bourgeoisie. And as a conclusion: "the Unity of the proletariat is its greatest weapon in the struggle for the socialist revolution."
The true nature and purpose of the world war Lenin revealed in the works "Proclamation of war", "Socialism and war". In them he developed the Marxist doctrine of wars, of the attitude of the socialists towards them, emphasizing the inevitable connection of wars with the class struggle of the proletariat. Defining their attitude to wars from class positions, Marxist-Leninists recognize the progressiveness and legitimacy of national liberation, revolutionary wars for the overthrow of the bourgeoisie, the victory of the socialist revolution.
In February of 1915 in Berne on the initiative of V. I. Lenin prohodit of the conference of the foreign sections of the RSDLP. The order of the day and the proceedings of the conference were published in the Social Democrat on 29 March 1915. The Berne conference, which had all-party significance, developed a platform for rallying all truly revolutionary internationalists in the international labour movement, and determined concrete measures for turning the imperialist war into a civil war.
In determining the policy of the revolutionary Marxist party in relation to the war, the Bolsheviks did not confine themselves to the promotion of tactical slogans - they launched active illegal revolutionary work among the workers, in the army, in the Navy. In a letter to Lenin A. G. Shlyapnikov, Commissioner of the Central Committee, in particular, said:"...the work of our party has now become 100 times more difficult. And yet we will lead her! Pravda has educated thousands of conscientious workers, of whom, in spite of all difficulties, a collective of leaders - the Russian Central Committee of the party-will be selected again."
In the article "Several theses" Lenin gives brief answers to the fundamental questions of the revolutionary movement and defines the tasks of the proletarian party in Russia in the conditions of war. To the question what the party of the proletariat would do if the revolution put it in power in the present war, Lenin writes:"..we would offer peace to all belligerents on condition of the liberation of the colonies and of all dependent, oppressed, and inferior peoples." Thus, in the most difficult conditions of wartime, the party led by Lenin fulfilled its international duty and showed all the workers ' parties how to fight for the interests of the working class and the working masses.
The Bolshevik party headed By V. I. Lenin developed activities to unite the international proletariat. Task time was the creation III, Communist international. Lenin maintained an active correspondence on this subject with the left socialists of Bulgaria, Holland, Sweden, Norway, and other countries.
In the struggle of the Bolsheviks for the creation of the third, Communist international, the international socialist conferences in Zimmerwald and kyntal (Switzerland) are of great importance. The first international socialist conference was held here on August 23-26, 1915. Lenin took an active part in its work. The Manifesto adopted by the conference, with its main demand for the struggle for peace, suffered from inconsistency and lack of agreement, but Lenin considered it possible to sign this Manifesto, assessing it as "a step forward to the real struggle against opportunism, to break and split with it...". The conference showed that the basic ideas of the Marxists of Russia are increasingly understood by the socialists of the West.
Further strengthening of the revolutionary left took place at the second international socialist conference, which opened in April 1916 in the village of Kintal. In the center of the discussion were the proposals of the Bolshevik Central Committee, in which the problems of peace were put in direct connection with the problems of the socialist revolution.
The conference did not accept the calls of the Bolsheviks to turn the imperialist war into a civil war, to defeat "their" governments in the war, to create the third international. But it contributed to the further consolidation of the internationalists on the ideological basis of Marxism-Leninism, was a further step forward in accelerating the break with the social-chauvinists.
In Bern and Zurich, Lenin and Krupskaya lived for more than three years. Living conditions were difficult. The main means of subsistence of the family were literary earnings, and political anti-war articles and books were very difficult to publish. Lenin wrote: "about myself personally I will tell that earnings are necessary. Otherwise directly prickle, it-it!! The cost is diabolical, and there is nothing to live with." They lived very modestly, contented with simple clothes and furnishings.
At the beginning of 1916 Lenin and Krupskaya moved from Bern to Zurich and settled in the family of the shoemaker Kammerer, where they lived until April 1917. The apartment was "international". Two rooms were occupied by the owners, one by the wife of a German soldier and his children, another by an Italian, a third by Austrian actors, and a fourth by the Russians, Lenin and Krupskaya. By decision of the Zurich municipal Council, a memorial plaque was placed on the facade of this house under the Windows of the room that Lenin rented: "here from February 21, 1916 to April 2, 1917, lived LENIN, the leader of the Russian revolution."
Along with the practical leadership of the revolutionary movement during the imperialist war, Lenin conducted intensive theoretical work. He wrote the work "Imperialism as the highest stage of capitalism" - the result of a huge scientific work. Preparing the book, Lenin deeply and comprehensively studied a huge factual material. In the process, he made extracts from 148 books and 232 articles.
The preparatory materials, later published under the title "Notebooks on imperialism" and comprising about 800 book pages, reveal the laboratory of Lenin's research, his approach to the material under study.
Lenin began work on a book on imperialism in early 1916. In the Preface to the Russian edition of the book, marked April 26, 1917, Lenin warns the reader that it is written in Aesopian language,"...to which the tsarist government was forced to resort all the revolutionaries when they took up the pen to "legal" products." When the book was republished in French and German in 1920, Lenin wrote a Preface ending with the words: "Imperialism is the eve of the social revolution of the proletariat." In this work for the first time the deep scientific analysis of economic essence of imperialism as the special, highest and last stage of capitalism in which imperialism is defined as monopolistic and at the same time as parasitic, decaying, dying capitalism is given. Lenin reveals the conditions of its demise, the necessity and inevitability of replacing capitalism with socialism.