Social-Chauvinism

Social-Chauvinism is a term created by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, the Bolshevik leader to criticise those in the Second International who supported their countries involvement in World War I. Lenin viewed such support as deviating away from the socialist ideal of international solidarity of the proletariat, and in his eyes those who supported such were devaluing the notion of social-democracy.

Lenin first came up with the term in his 1915 pamphlet, Socialism and War where he was particularly critical of figures such as the German Social-Democrat, Kautsky. At this stage Lenin and the Bolsheviks still called themselves Social-Democrats, they still being members of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, but Lenin's view that the Second International had failed devalued the term for him somewhat.

Lenin set out the objective that the Bolsheviks should seek a name change for their party in his April Theses of 1917 and eventaully they evolved into the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.