MIA > Archive > Boudin > Socialism and War
The six lectures contained in the volume which is herewith offered to the public at large were first delivered at Arlington Hall, New York City, on the six Thursdays beginning with Thursday, November 17, 1914. It was intended from the first that they should not only be delivered orally, but published in book form so as to give them a larger audience. Owing to some untoward incidents, however, the work of publication was delayed; so that their appearance in print will occur almost exactly one year after the oral delivery of the first lecture.
It seemed to me at first that this long delay between delivery and publication made it necessary to undertake some revision, in order to notice some developments or incidents which have taken place, or have become known, since the lectures were prepared about a year ago. But on further consideration I decided to leave these lectures substantially as originally prepared for oral delivery, as nothing has transpired during this year to change my views on the subjects presented or shed any great additional light upon them, with one exception which will be noted further below.
The lectures as printed in this volume are not, however, in quite the same form as when delivered orally. Nor is the substance exactly identical. The exigencies of oral delivery sometimes made it necessary to treat the different points touched upon in the lecture in a different order from that originally intended, and to occasionally leave some points untouched upon, when the lecture became too long for delivery in the lecture room. The lectures as here presented are, therefore, not in the form in which they were delivered, but rather in the form in which they were intended to be delivered; the substance remaining the same, except for the omissions in the oral delivery but included in the present volume.
Except in one instance where I have deviated both from the original intentions as well as from the delivered lecture, so as to leave out from the book something that I had treated orally. This omission relates to the last lecture. As originally prepared, and as delivered orally, it contained a somewhat extended review of the attitude taken by the Socialists in the different warring countries to the war. I have decided to leave this review from the present volume, partly because I did not want to burden it with too much controversial matter; although I have taken great care to make my own attitude to the subject clear, and therefore furnished the criterion by which I believe the action of the socialists in the different countries should be judged. Another circumstance which weighed with me in making the change is the fact that the subsequent developments along this line were such that, under the new circumstances, my original treatment of the subject seemed to me inadequate. It seemed to me best, therefore, to leave this particular branch of my original subject for separate, and I hope adequate, treatment later on.
L. B. Boudin
New York, October 17, 1915.
Last updated on 20 October 2022