ABSTRACT
The resistance movement gathered momentum during 1915; Social Democratic locals and particularly the youth were restive under the patriotic policy of the party leadership. The increasing resistance of the German workers to the war had to be considered by all forces involved in the conflict. Bismarck had created a German parliament on the Western model, but governmental power was vested in the Bundesrat, the council of princes, who continued to rule Germany with semifeudal prerogatives. Organized labor in Germany had only two possibilities: an immediate audacious decision to resist the war policy, which would have led to an underground fight and the temporary loss of all party and union property, or qualified cooperation with the Imperial government. The world war, which for Lenin was an immediately imminent prospect, was the basic premise of reality, to which all policies had to be adjusted.
