The Frontier of Loyalty: Political Exiles in the Age of the Nation-State

The Government's Defeat Is the Nation's Victory

134 The Frontier of Loyalty independence from the host government (if indeed any independence is possible); their relationship with the host government and the home country; their need to maintain a reputation as loyalists despite the awkwardness of residing in the host nation; and the ambivalence of genuine concern for their compatriots on the war front combined with a desire to defeat the home regime. Both Britain and Russia used exile groups to enhance their own political goals, but the degree of exploitation differed drastically. Britain allowed freedom to German exile groups on its territory even while imprisoning German refugees. The German communists in Moscow, on the other hand, were compelled to follow Soviet goals absolutely. The Government's Defeat Is the Nation's Victory The least evil would be the defeat of the Tsarist monarchy and its armies. -Lenin, Seven Theses on the War The idea that the government's defeat is the nation's victory was introduced by Lenin during the Russo-Japanese conflict. While millions of Russian citizens were called by the czarist government in February 1904 to fight and perhaps to die in the Far East, Lenin, the leader of the Bolsheviks in exile, firmly supported the Japanese. According to Lenin, Japan served the cause of Russian liberty. Georgi Plekhanov; Lenin's close collaborator in exile, joined hands at the International Socialist Congress at Amsterdam in 1904 with Sen Katayama , the Japanese socialist leader, in a demonstration of international working-class solidarity in the midst of a war between their governments.IS In January 1905, when the Japanese had finally won at Port Arthur, Lenin declared: "The proletariat has every reason to rejoice. The military goal of Japan is in the main attained.... The Russian people has won by the defeat of absolutism. The capitulation of Port Arthur is the prologue to the capitulation of Tsarism.... It brings us nearer to the moment of a great new war, the people's war against absolutism!'19 Lenin's 1904 antiwar posture continued to influence Russia's future ruler throughout World War I. While the Mensheviks, Lenin's perennial rivals in exile, split into two factions-supporters and opponents of czarist war efforts-Lenin persisted in willing his country 's defeat. He urged his Bolshevik followers in the Russian Duma to declare that, from the standpoint of the Russian working class and the toiling masses of all Russia, defeat would be the "lesser catastro- -Lenin, Seven Theses on the War 134 The Frontier of Loyalty independence from the host government (if indeed any independence is possible); their relationship with the host government and the home country; their need to maintain a reputation as loyalists despite the awkwardness of residing in the host nation; and the ambivalence of genuine concern for their compatriots on the war front combined with a desire to defeat the home regime. Both Britain and Russia used exile groups to enhance their own political goals, but the degree of exploitation differed drastically. Britain allowed freedom to German exile groups on its territory even while imprisoning German refugees. The German communists in Moscow, on the other hand, were compelled to follow Soviet goals absolutely. The Government's Defeat Is the Nation's Victory The least evil would be the defeat of the Tsarist monarchy and its armies. The idea that the government's defeat is the nation's victory was introduced by Lenin during the Russo-Japanese conflict. While millions of Russian citizens were called by the czarist government in February 1904 to fight and perhaps to die in the Far East, Lenin, the leader of the Bolsheviks in exile, firmly supported the Japanese. According to Lenin, Japan served the cause of Russian liberty. Georgi Plekhanov, Lenin's close collaborator in exile, joined hands at the International Socialist Congress at Amsterdam in 1904 with Sen Katayama , the Japanese socialist leader, in a demonstration of international working-class solidarity in the midst of a war between their governments.IS In January 1905, when the Japanese had finally won at Port Arthur, Lenin declared: "The proletariat has every reason to rejoice. The military goal of Japan is in the main attained.... The Russian people has won by the defeat of absolutism. The capitulation of Port Arthur is the prologue to the capitulation of Tsarism.... It brings us nearer to the moment of a great new war, the people's war against absolutism."19 Lenin's 1904 antiwar posture continued to influence Russia's future ruler throughout World War...