april thesis quotes

Russian Revolution

Extracts from lenin’s april theses (1917).

Lenin’s April Theses were actually a brief account of a speech he delivered on his return to Russia on April 3rd 1917, then summarised in writing the following day:

“1. In our attitude towards the war, which under the new government of Lvov and company unquestionably remains on Russia’s part a predatory imperialist war, owing to the capitalist nature of that government, not the slightest concession to “revolutionary defensism” is permissible. The class-conscious proletariat can give its consent to a revolutionary war, which would really justify revolutionary defensism, only on condition. One, that power passes to the proletariat and the poorest sections of the peasants aligned with the proletariat. Two, that all [territorial] annexations be renounced in deed and not in word. Three, that a complete break be effected with all capitalist interests… 2. The specific feature of the present situation in Russia is that the country is passing from the first stage of the revolution — which, owing to the insufficient class-consciousness and organisation of the proletariat, placed power in the hands of the bourgeoisie — to its second stage, which must place power in the hands of the proletariat and the poorest sections of the peasants… This peculiar situation demands of us an ability to adapt ourselves to the special conditions of Party work among unprecedentedly large masses of proletarians who have just awakened to political life. 3. No support for the Provisional Government! The utter falsity of all its promises should be made clear, particularly of those relating to the renunciation of [territorial] annexations. Exposure in place of the impermissible, illusion-breeding “demand” that this government, a government of capitalists, should cease to be an imperialist government. 4. Recognition of the fact that in most of the Soviets of Workers’ Deputies, our Party is in a minority, so far a small minority, against a bloc of all the petty-bourgeois opportunist elements – from the Popular Socialists and the Socialist-Revolutionaries down to the Organising Committee – who have yielded to the influence of the bourgeoisie and spread that influence among the proletariat. The masses must be made to see that the Soviets of Workers’ Deputies is the only possible form of revolutionary government, and that therefore our task, as long as this government yields to the influence of the bourgeoisie, is to present a patient, systematic, and persistent explanation of the errors of their tactics, an explanation especially adapted to the practical needs of the masses. As long as we are in the minority we carry on the work of criticising and exposing errors and at the same time, we preach the necessity of transferring the entire state power to the Soviets of Workers’ Deputies, so that the people may overcome their mistakes by experience. 5. No parliamentary republic! To return to a parliamentary republic from the Soviets of Workers’ Deputies would be a retrograde step… Abolition of the police, the army and the bureaucracy. The salaries of all officials, all of whom are elective and displaceable at any time, not to exceed the average wage of a competent worker. 6. The weight of emphasis in the agrarian programme to be shifted to the Soviets of Agricultural Labourers’ Deputies. Confiscation of all landed estates. Nationalisation of all lands in the country, the land to be disposed of by the local Soviets of Agricultural Labourers’ and Peasants’ Deputies. The organisation of separate Soviets of Deputies of Poor Peasants… 7. The immediate union of all banks in the country into a single national bank, and the institution of control over it by the Soviet of Workers’ Deputies. 8. It is not our immediate task to “introduce” socialism, but only to bring social production and the distribution of products at once under the control of the Soviets of Workers’ Deputies. 9. Party tasks… The immediate convocation of a Party congress. Alteration of the Party Programme, mainly on the question of imperialism and the imperialist war… Change of the party name. 10. A new International. We must take the initiative in creating a revolutionary International, an International against the social-chauvinists and against the ‘Centre’.”

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April Theses

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• Spartacus Educational - April Theses

April Theses , in Russian history, program developed by Lenin during the Russian Revolution of 1917 , calling for Soviet control of state power; the theses, published in April 1917, contributed to the July Days uprising and also to the Bolshevik coup d’etat in October 1917.

During the February Revolution two disparate bodies had replaced the imperial government—the Provisional Government and the Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies . The Socialists who dominated the Soviet interpreted the February Revolution as a bourgeois revolution and considered it appropriate for the bourgeoisie to hold power. They therefore submitted to the rule of the Provisional Government, formed by liberals from the Duma. The Soviet agreed to cooperate with the government and to advise it in the interests of workers and soldiers.

Lenin, however, viewed the two bodies as institutions representing social classes locked in the class struggle. He felt that, as one class gained dominance over the other, its governing body would crush the rival institution; thus the two could not indefinitely coexist. On the basis of this interpretation he developed his theses, in which he urged the Bolsheviks to withdraw their support from the Provisional Government and to call for immediate withdrawal from World War I and for the distribution of land among the peasantry . The Bolshevik Party was to organize workers, soldiers, and peasants and to strengthen the Soviets so that they could eventually seize power from the Provisional Government. The theses also called for the nationalization of banks and for Soviet control of the production and distribution of manufactured goods. Lenin first presented his theses to a gathering of Social Democrats and later (April 17 [April 4, old style], 1917) to a Bolshevik committee, both of which immediately rejected them. The Bolshevik newspaper Pravda published them but carefully noted that they were Lenin’s personal ideas.

Nevertheless, within a few weeks the party’s seventh all-Russian conference (May 7–12 [April 24–29, old style]) adopted the theses as its program, along with the slogan “All Power to the Soviets.” Although some Bolsheviks still had reservations about the program, the concepts contained in the theses became very popular among the workers and soldiers of Petrograd, who, using Bolshevik slogans, unsuccessfully tried to force the Soviet to take power in July. It was not until October, however, that Lenin’s party was able to begin implementation of its program and seize power from the Provisional Government in the name of the Soviets.

April Theses

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The April Theses were the directives Vladimir Lenin issued to the Bolshevik Party upon his return to Russia, following a long exile in Switzerland.

The Theses, delivered in April 1917, provided the backbone to their goals during the Russian Revolution of October 1917 (November in the Gregorian Calendar). Upon their reception fellow Bolsheviks were alarmed, believing Lenin to be out of touch with the political situation in Russia. Nevertheless, these were the ideological core of the revolution that came less than a year later.

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V. I.   Lenin

Preliminary draft of the april theses [2].

Written: Written on April 3 (16), 1917 Published: First published in 1928 in Lenin Miscellany VII . Printed from the original. Source: Lenin Collected Works , Progress Publishers, 1971 , Moscow, Volume 36 , pages  431-432 . Translated: Andrew Rothstein Transcription\Markup: R. Cymbala Public Domain: Lenin Internet Archive.   You may freely copy, distribute, display and perform this work, as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet Archive” as your source. • README

1) Attitude to the war. No concessions to “revolutionary defencism”.

2) “ The demand that the Provisional Government” should “renounce conquests”. (α) Attitude to the Provisional Government. (β) Attitude to the Soviets of Workers’ Deputies.

2  bis ) Criticism of the Soviets of Workers’ Deputies.

3) Not a parliamentary republic, but a republic of Soviets of Workers’, Agricultural Labourers’, Peasants’ and Soldiers’ Deputies.

(α) Abolition of the army, the bureaucracy and the police. (β) Salaries to officials.

4) Specifics of propaganda, agitation and organisation in the period of transition from the first stage of the revolution to the second. Maximum of legally recognised rights.

Supporters, honest, but duped by the bourgeoisie, of only “war through necessity”, “war not for conquest”, and their deception by the bourgeoisie.

5) The agrarian programme. (α) Nationalisation. (Confiscation of all landed estates.) (β) Each large-scale estate to be turned into a “model farm” under the control of a Soviet of Agricultural Labourers’ Deputies.

+ (γ) Soviets of Agricultural Labourers’ Deputies to be pivotal.

6) A single bank under the control of the Soviets of Workers’ Deputies.

6  bis) Not introduction of socialism at once , but the immediate, systematic and gradual transition of the Soviets of Workers’ Deputies to control over social production and distribution of products.

7) Congress. Change of programme and name. A new International. Creation of a revolutionary international.... [1]

[1] The MS. breaks off at this point.— Ed .

[2] Upon his arrival in Russia on April 3 (16), 1917, Lenin spoke about the new tasks facing the Bolshevik Party at a meeting of Petrograd Party workers organised that very night at the former K&shat;esinska mansion to mark his arrival. His speech was apparently based on the preliminary draft of the April Theses.

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April Theses: Lenin’s fundamental role in the Russian Revolution

Submitted by World Revolution on 2 April, 2007 - 17:08

It is 90 years since the start of the Russian revolution. More particularly, this month sees the 90th anniversary of the ‘April Theses’, announced by Lenin on his return from exile, and calling for the overthrow of Kerensky’s ‘Provisional Government’ as a first step towards the international proletarian revolution. In highlighting Lenin’s crucial role in the revolution, we are not subscribing to the ‘great man’ theory of history, but showing that the revolutionary positions he was able to defend with such clarity at that moment were an expression of something much deeper – the awakening of an entire social class to the concrete possibility of emancipating itself from capitalism and imperialist war. The following article was originally published in World Revolution 203, April 1997. It can be read in conjunction with a more developed study of the April Theses now republished on our website, ‘ The April Theses: signpost to the proletarian revolution ’.

On 4 April 1917 Lenin returned from his exile in Switzerland, arrived in Petrograd and addressed himself directly to the workers and soldiers who crowded the station in these terms: “Dear comrades, soldiers, sailors and work­ers. I am happy to greet in you the victorious Russian revolution, to greet you as the ad­vance guard of the International proletarian army... The Russian revolution achieved by you has opened a new epoch. Long live the worldwide socialist revolution!...” (Trotsky, History of the Russian Revolution ). 80 years later the bourgeoisie, its historians and media lackeys, are constantly busy main­taining the worst lies and historic distor­tions on the world proletarian revolution begun in Russia.

The ruling class’ hatred and contempt for the titanic movement of the exploited masses aims to ridicule it and to ‘show’ the futility of the communist project of the working class, its fundamental inability to bring about a new social order for the planet. The collapse of the eastern bloc has revived its class hatred. It has unleashed a gigantic campaign since then to hammer home the obvious defeat of commu­nism, identified with Stalinism, and with that the defeat of marxism, the obsolescence of the class struggle and even the idea of revolution which can only lead to terror and the Gulag. The target of this foul propaganda is the political organisation, the incarnation of the vast insurrectionary movement of 1917, the Bolshevik Party, which constantly draws all the vindictiveness of the defenders of the bourgeoisie. For all these apologists for the capitalist order, including the anarchists, whatever their apparent disagreements, it is a question of showing that Lenin and the Bol­sheviks were a band of power-hungry fanatics who did everything they could to usurp the democratic acquisitions of the February 1917 revolution (see ‘February 1917’ WR 202) and plunge Russia and the world into one of the most disastrous experiences in history.

Faced with all these unbelievable calumnies against Bolshevism, it falls to revolutionaries to re-establish the truth and reaffirm the essential point concerning the Bolshevik Party: it was not a product of Russian barbarism or backwardness, nor of deformed anarcho-ter­rorism, nor of the absolute concern for power by its leaders. Bolshevism was, in the first place, a product of the world proletariat, linked to a marxist tradition, the vanguard of the international movement to end all exploi­tation and oppression. To this end the state­ment of positions Lenin brought out on his return to Russia, known as the April Theses, gives us an excellent point of departure to refute all the various untruths on the Bolshe­vik Party, its nature, its role and its links with the proletarian masses.

The conditions of struggle on Lenin’s return to Russia in April 1917

In the previous article ( WR 202) we recalled that the working class in Russia had well and truly opened the way to the world communist revolution with the events of February 1917, overturning Tsarism, organising in soviets and showing a growing radicalisation. The insurrection resulted in a situation of dual power. The official power was the bourgeois ‘Provisional Government’, initially lead by the liberals but which later gained a more ‘socialist’ hue under the direction of Kerensky. On the other hand effective power already lay, as was well understood, in the hands of the soviets of workers’ and soldiers’ deputies. Without soviet authorisation the government had little hope of imposing its directives on the workers and soldiers. But the working class had not yet acquired the necessary political maturity to take all the power. In spite of their more and more radical actions and attitudes, the majority of the working class and behind them the peasant masses, were held back by illusions in the nature of the bourgeoisie, and by the idea that only a bourgeois democratic revolution was on the agenda in Russia. The predominance of these ideas among the masses was reflected in the domination of the soviets by Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries who did everything they could to make the soviets impotent in the face of the newly installed bourgeois regime. These parties, which had gone over, or were in the process of going over, to the bourgeoisie, tried by all means to subordinate the growing revolution­ary movement to the aims of the Provisional Government, especially in relation to the im­perialist war. In this situation, so full of dangers and promises, the Bolsheviks, who had directed the internationalist opposition to the war, were themselves in almost complete confusion at that moment, politically disorien­tated. So, “ In the ‘manifesto’ of the Bolshevik Central Committee, drawn up just after the victory of the insurrection, we read that ‘the workers of the shops and factories, and likewise the mutinied troops, must immediately elect their representatives to the Provisional Revolutionary Government’... They behaved not like the representatives of a proletarian party preparing an independent struggle for power, but like the left wing of a democracy ” ( Trotsky, History of the Russian Revolution , vol. 1, chapter XV , p.271, 1967 Sphere edi­tion). Worse still, when Stalin and Kamenev took the direction of the party in March, they moved it even further to the right. Pravda, the official organ of the party, openly adopted a defencist position on the war: “Our slogan is not the meaningless ‘down with war’... every man remains at his fighting post.” (Trotsky, p.275). The flagrant abandonment of Lenin’s position on the transformation of the imperi­alist war into a civil war caused resistance and even anger in the party and among the work­ers of Petrograd, the heart of the proletariat. But these most radical elements were not capable of offering a clear programmatic alternative to this turn to the right. The party was then drawn towards compromise and treason, under the influence of the fog of democratic euphoria which appeared after the February revolt.

The political rearmament of the Party

It fell to Lenin, then, after his return from abroad, to politically rearm the party and to put forward the decisive importance of the revolutionary direction through the April Theses: “Lenin’s theses produced the effect of an exploding bomb” (Trotsky, p. 295). The old party programme had become null and void, situated far behind the spontaneous action of the masses. The slogan to which the “Old Bolsheviks” were attached, the “demo­cratic dictatorship of workers and peasants” was henceforth an obsolete formula as Lenin put forward: “ The revolutionary democratic revolution of the proletariat and the peasants has already been achieved... ” (Lenin, Letters on tactics ). However, “ The specific feature of the present situation in Russia is that the country is passing from the first stage of the revolution - which, owing to the insufficient class consciousness and organisation of the proletariat, placed power in the hands of the bourgeoisie - to its second stage, which must place power in the hands of the proletariat and the poorest sections of the peasants. ” (Point 2 of the April Theses). Lenin was one of the first to grasp the revolutionary significance of the soviet as an organ of proletarian political power. Once again Lenin gave a lesson on the marxist method, in showing that marxism was the complete opposite of a dead dogma but a living scientific theory which must be con­stantly verified in the laboratory of social movements.

Similarly, faced with the Menshevik posi­tion according to which backward Russia was not yet ripe for socialism, Lenin argued as a true internationalist that the immediate task was not to introduce socialism in Russia (Thesis 8). If Russia, in itself, was not ready for socialism, the imperialist war had demon­strated that world capitalism as a whole was truly over-ripe. For Lenin, as for all the authentic internationalists then, the interna­tional revolution was not just a pious wish but a concrete perspective developed from the international proletarian revolt against the war - the strikes in Britain and Germany, the political demonstrations, the mutinies and fraternisations in the armed forces of several countries, and certainly the growing revolu­tionary flood in Russia itself, which revealed it. This is where the appeal for the creation of a new International at the end of the Theses came from. This perspective was going to be completely confirmed after the October insur­rection by the extension of the revolutionary wave to Italy, Hungary, Austria and above all Germany.

This new definition of the proletariat’s tasks also brought another conception of the role and function of the party. There also the “Old Bolsheviks” like Kamenev were at first re­volted by Lenin’s vision, his idea of the soviets taking power on the one hand and on the other his insistence on the class autonomy of the proletariat against the bourgeois government and the imperialist war, even if that would mean remaining for awhile in the minority and not as Kamenev would like: “ remaining with the masses of the revolutionary proletariat ”. Kamenev used the conception of “ a mass party ” to oppose Lenin’s conception of a party of determined revolutionaries, with a clear programme, united, centralised, minoritarian, capable of resisting the siren calls of the bourgeoisie and petit-bourgeoisie and illusions existing in the working class. This conception of the party has nothing to do with the Blanquist terrorist sect, that Lenin was accused of putting forward, nor even with the anarchist concep­tion submitting to the spontaneity of the masses. On the contrary there was the recognition that in a period of massive revolutionary turbu­lence, of the development of consciousness in the class, the party can no longer organise nor plan to mobilise the masses in the way of the conspiratorial associations of the 19th century. But that made the role of the party more essential than ever. Lenin came back to the vision that Rosa Luxemburg developed in her authoritative analysis of the mass strike in the period of decadence: “ If we now leave the pedantic scheme of demonstrative mass strikes artificially brought about by order of the par­ties and trade unions, and turn to the living picture of a peoples’ movement arising with elemental energy... it becomes obvious that the task of social democracy does not consist in the technical preparation and direction of mass strikes, but first and foremost in the political leadership of the whole movement. ” (Luxemburg, The Mass Strike, the Political Party and the Trade Un­ions ). All Lenin’s energy was going to be orientated towards the necessity of convincing the party of the new tasks which fell to it, in relation to the working class, the central axis of which is the development of class conscious­ness. Thesis 4 posed this clearly: “ The masses must be made to see that the Soviets of Workers’ Deputies are the only possible form of revolu­tionary government and that therefore our task is, as long as this government yields to the influence of the bourgeoisie, to present a patient, systematic and persistent explanation of the errors of their tactics, an explanation espe­cially adapted to the practical needs of the masses… we preach the necessity of transferring the entire state power to the Soviets of Workers’ Deputies. ” So this approach, this will to defend clear and precise class principles, going against the current and being in a minority, has nothing to do with purism or sectarianism. On the contrary they were based on a comprehension of the real movement which was unfolding in the class at each moment, on the capacity to give a voice and direction to the most radical elements within the proletariat. The insurrection was impossible as long as the Bolshevik’s revolutionary positions, positions maturing through­out the revolutionary process in Russia, had not consciously won over the soviets. We are a very long way from the bourgeois obscenities on the supposed putschist attitude of the Bolsheviks! As Lenin still affirmed: “ We are not charlatans. We must base ourselves only on the consciousness of the masses ” (Lenin’s second speech on his arrival in Petrograd, cited in Trotsky, p. 293).

Lenin’s mastery of the marxist method, seeing beyond the surface and appearances of events, allowed him in company with the best elements of the party, to discern the real dynamic of the movement which was un­folding before their eyes and to meet the profound desires of the masses and give them the theoretical resources to defend their positions and clarify their actions. They were also enabled to orientate them­selves against the bourgeoisie by seeing and frustrating the traps which the latter tried to set for the proletariat, as during the July days in 1917. That’s why, contrary to the Mensheviks of this time and their numerous anarchist, social democratic and councilist successors, who caricature to excess certain real errors by Lenin [1] in order to reject the proletarian character of the October 1917 revolution, we reaffirm the fundamental role played by Lenin in the rectification of the Bolshevik Party, without which the prole­tariat would not have been able to take power in October 1917. Lenin’s life-long struggle to build the revolutionary organisation is a his­toric acquisition of the workers’ movement. It has left revolutionaries today an indispensa­ble basis to build the class party, allowing them to understand what their role must be in the class as a whole. The victorious insurrec­tion of October 1917 validates Lenin’s view. The isolation of the revolution after the defeat of the revolutionary attempts in other coun­tries of Europe stopped the international dy­namic of the revolution which would have been the sole guarantee of a local victory in Russia. The soviet state encouraged the ad­vent of Stalinism, the veritable executioner of the revolution and of the Bolsheviks.

What remains essential is that during the rising tide of the revolution in Russia, the Lenin of the April Theses was never an isolated prophet, nor was he holding himself above the vulgar masses, but he was the clearest voice of the most revolutionary tendency within the proletariat, a voice which showed the way which lead to the victory of October 1917. “ In Russia the prob­lem could only be posed. It could not be solved in Russia. And in this sense, the future every­where belongs to ‘Bolshevism’. ” (Rosa Luxemburg, The Russian Revolution ). SB, March 2007.

[1] Among these great play is made by the councilists on the theory of ‘consciousness brought from outside’ developed in ‘What is to be done?’. Well, afterwards, Lenin recognised this error and amply proved in practice that he had acquired a correct vision of the process of the development of consciousness in the work­ing class.

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The significance of Lenin’s April Theses 1917

Published by marxist student on february 2, 2017 february 2, 2017.

As part of our preparation for the national In Defence of Lenin conference we republish here an article by Darall Cozens from 2007.

This month marks 90 years since Lenin returned to Russia from exile. He immediately embarked on the task of convincing not only the mass of workers, but also the Bolshevik leadership, that the tasks of the revolution were socialist, that what was needed was for power to pass to the hands of the Soviets.

Revolutions are the supreme test for revolutionary ideas, programmes and the individuals who support these ideas. Comrades who have studied revolutions in order to understand the processes taking place will be disappointed if they expect a new revolutionary situation to develop exactly like a previous one. The task is to apply the method of analysis to the concrete situation that is unfolding. Theories on how to change society are not abstract schemas or dogmas that are applied at any given moment despite the nature of the concrete situation. Unfortunately however there are so-called revolutionaries who will try to fit the situation to the schema. They fail to recognise that an analysis that was relevant at one time and place is no longer valid because the objective situation has changed.

Revolutions throw up fundamental questions. What is the nature of the revolution? Is it a revolution to establish a bourgeois capitalist democracy or a workers’ democracy? What is the balance of forces between the classes? What forces are to lead the revolution? Is it the working class supported by other socially oppressed or marginalised layers? Is it the working class in alliance with “progressive” elements of the bourgeoisie? In the modern epoch the answers seem clear-cut. Capitalism has outlived its usefulness and socialism is on the agenda. For many revolutionary leaders in February 1917 the answers were not so clear-cut, even for many Bolsheviks.

The February 1917 revolution in Russia was the “dress rehearsal” for the October Revolution. In the space of a few weeks the whole of Russian society was turned upside down. The 300-year-old Romanov dynasty came to an end with the abdication of Tsar Nicholas Second on March 3. Strikes, demonstrations and mutinies in the armed forces had brought down the government. In this revolutionary situation there arose two organs of power. On the one hand there was the Temporary Committee of the fourth Duma, a self-appointed grouping of centre-right politicians supported by the middle and upper classes. This became the Provisional Government (PG) headed by Prince Lvov. The only socialist in the PG was Alexander Kerensky who was Minister of Justice. At the same time, on February 26 and 27, elections were held to the Petrograd Soviet of Workers and Soldiers Deputies.

On March 1, the PG began to implement some overdue political and legal reforms to prepare for elections to a Constituent Assembly (CA). The reforms, which any Marxist would have supported, included civil rights such as freedom of the press, of speech, of assembly and of religion, along with the right to strike (strikes had been brutally suppressed under the Tsarist regime), as well as amnesty for political and religious prisoners, an extension of the franchise and the introduction of a secret ballot in elections for the CA. It was also agreed, jointly with the Petrograd Soviet, that a militia would be established to replace the Tsarist police and that the 250,000-strong Petrograd Garrison, the armed power behind the revolution, would not be moved out of the capital.

On the same day however that the PG was issuing these orders, the Soviet published Army Order Number 1 which stated that soldiers and sailors were to obey the orders of the PG only if the Soviet gave its approval. In addition the Order stated that soldiers and sailors were to set up their own committees to take control over weapons out of the hands of the officers. A few days later the Soviet issued Army Order Number 2 which called on soldiers and sailors to sack their commanders and elect others in their place. In addition to this power, the Soviet also had control, through its elected trade union and worker delegates, over the railways, the postal and telegraph services. The Soviet had also set up food supply committees and was publishing its own newspaper – Izvestia (The News). Similar soviets were springing up all over the country (by autumn 1917 there were more than 900)

Frederick Engels once said that in the last analysis the State consists of a body of armed men. In March 1917 there was the PG with nominal political power and the Soviet with real political power in that nothing happened without its approval and it controlled the bodies of armed men. This was a classic situation of dual power where both organs of power even met in the same place – the Tauride Palace! Why then did the Soviet not sweep aside the PG which was a remnant of the fourth Duma that had been elected on a limited franchise and had limited support? The Soviet was an elected body of about 600 delegates that had huge support amongst the working class and the armed forces.

Contradiction

Real power was in the hands of the Soviet, yet it was not taken. To understand this contradiction it is necessary to understand the nature of many of the leaders of the Soviet. This leadership had spent years preparing for a revolutionary overthrow of society and now when power was in their grasp most of them completely failed to recognise the balance of forces and the inability of capitalism to resolve any of the fundamental issues that affect the workers, soldiers and peasants. The issue of food, an end to the war and the land question could not be resolved on the basis of capitalism – and the PG was in fact a capitalist government and as such could not and should not be relied upon. The reforms it had passed were as a result of the mass pressure of the movement of workers, soldiers and peasants. If the pressure were to fade the reforms could just as easily be taken away.

The leadership of the Soviet consisted of Mensheviks, Social Revolutionaries (SRs) and Bolsheviks. The Mensheviks believed in the two-stage theory of the revolution. Firstly, the Tsarist regime would fall and a capitalist liberal democracy would be established. Then the capitalist economy would develop and so would the working class. When the working class was strong enough, it could take power in its own name. The Social Revolutionaries (SRs) drew their support from the peasantry and were divided into a right wing that supported the PG and a left wing that was drawing closer to the Bolsheviks. Many in the Bolshevik leadership were in exile or abroad, but Kamenev and Stalin had returned in March from exile in Siberia and were supporting the Soviet’s position of critical support for the PG and were also involved in talks to try and achieve reconciliation between the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks. This position seemed natural as Russia, in Lenin’s words, was now the freest of all the belligerent countries in the world after the reforms of the PG, so why not support the PG?

It was against this background that Lenin returned from exile on April 3rd, arriving at the Finland Station. He descended from the famous “sealed train” that had brought him from Switzerland to Russia passing through Germany, jumped onto an armoured car and to the surprise of many in the Bolshevik leadership declared no collaboration with the bourgeois PG, no deal with the Mensheviks and the immediate withdrawal of Russia from the imperialist war. Lenin went on to a meeting of the Bolshevik Party and he was heard in “stunned silence”. It was obvious that he was in a minority and needed to win a majority for his position. He then went on to a meeting of the Mensheviks after having given a copy of his speech to Tsereteli, the Menshevik leader. Here Lenin was met with heckling and booing.

Not party policy

His speech formed the basis of the April Theses that were published in Pravda, the Bolshevik Party newspaper, on April 7th. The Theses were not party policy but in the following weeks Lenin proved that from afar he had understood better than many of the Bolshevik leaders in Russia the feelings and aspirations of the workers and soldiers. Through a series of meetings, articles and pamphlets he achieved a majority in the Bolshevik party by the end of April. His position was vindicated as party membership rose from about 10,000 in April to half a million in October, with industrial workers making up 60% of the membership.

The growth of the Bolshevik Party was spectacular. At the beginning of March only about 40 of the 600 delegates to the Petrograd Soviet were Bolsheviks. By October they had a majority. In February the Bolsheviks only had 150 members in the Putilov factory that had 26,000 workers! By the end of March some 242 soviets had been established in Russia but only 27 had a Bolshevik majority. By October they had a majority in the Moscow Soviet and at the All Russia Congress of Soviets. Why did the Bolsheviks gain so much power so quickly and attract so many new members? The entry of Tseretelli and Skobelev from the Mensheviks and Chernov from the SRs into the PG in May certainly helped. They lost members to the Bolsheviks as the PG became increasingly isolated. The most important factor however was that the programme and policies of the Bolsheviks articulated the aspirations of the working class, the soldiers and increasingly the peasantry. This programme however would not have existed without the April Theses of Lenin.

So what did the Theses actually say? In a very short document of a few pages there were 10 important points made.

1. The war being fought is an imperialist war and a peaceful, democratic ending to the war will only be possible if capital is overthrown. With “particular thoroughness, persistence and patience” this has to be explained to the masses.

2. The unfolding revolution is passing from the first stage where power was put into the hands of the bourgeoisie to the second stage where power must be placed into the hands of the proletariat and the poorest section of the peasants.

3. No support for the provisional Government, “a government of capitalists”.

4. Recognition that the Bolsheviks were a small minority in the Soviet and therefore it was necessary for a “patient, systematic and persistent explanation” of the errors of the other parties. At the same time to preach of the need to transfer “the entire state power to the Soviets of Workers Deputies.”

5. Not a parliamentary republic but a republic of Soviets of Workers’, Agricultural Labourers’ and Peasants’ Deputies. No standing army but an armed people. Elected officials subject to recall and paid the same as a competent worker.

6. Confiscation of all landed estates and nationalisation of all lands in the country.

7. Banks to be amalgamated into a single bank under the control of the Soviet of Workers’ Deputies.

8. Social production and distribution of products under the control of the Soviets.

9. Convocation of a Party Congress. Change Party programme on the imperialist war, the state and the minimum programme. Change of name to Communist Party.

10. A new International.

These ten points laid the basis for the October Revolution which would not have been successful without the leadership of Lenin. They confirmed the inability of capitalism to take society forward and therefore the need to move to the stage of the proletarian revolution. This point brilliantly confirmed Trotsky’s Permanent Revolution. Production of wealth and finance to be in the hands of the working class through its democratic organisations. A break with the Mensheviks and the formation of a new Party to fight for power. A break too with the reformist Second International and the creation of a new (Third) International.

All of these events took place 90 years ago but the lessons have still not been learnt by many so-called revolutionaries. Capitalism can offer no future for humankind. There is only Socialism or Barbarism. There are no “progressive” capitalists. There are no two stages. The only programme is the socialist revolution under the control of the working class. The task is through “patient, persistent and systematic” explanation to prepare the forces that will change society.

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The April Theses: Lenin rearms the Bolshevik Party

Lenin’s April Theses argued that a second, socialist revolution was possible in Russia and re-oriented the Bolshevik Party to the fight for workers’ power explains Michael Douglas

One hundred years ago Russia was rocked by two revolutions in a single year. In February 1917 the bitterness felt by millions at the slaughter, poverty and profiteering brought by the First World War exploded in a mass revolutionary wave.

Starving workers rioted. Soldiers refused orders to shoot them. The Tsar, Nicolas Romanov, was forced from his throne and his Ministers arrested.

This complete political and economic disintegration forced millions of ordinary people to take the running of society into their own hands.

Democratic workers’ and soldiers councils—called Soviets—sprang up across the country. One eyewitness describes how, “It was clear to everyone that all effective workers’ organisations were at the disposal of the Soviet… It was for it to set in motion the immobilised railways, factories, the newspapers, and even to restore and safeguard the inhabitants from violence”.

In the midst of the general euphoria, Lenin returned to Russia from exile. He had behind him a quarter of a century of revolutionary activity—prison, exile, clandestine work and emigration, organising, educating and leading the Bolshevik Party. The president of the Petrograd (St Petersburg) Soviet, Chkheidza, greeted him at the Finland railway station in the name of the victorious Russian revolution, to the cheers of thousands of workers and soldiers.

Lenin shocked everyone, even his own party comrades, by immediately calling for a second revolution, “a thousand times more powerful than that of February”.

He presented a short written summary of his views the next day to a stunned Bolshevik Party conference. Published as the April Theses , this became one of the decisive documents of the revolution.

The April Theses marked a break with previous Bolshevik policy. Before February 1917, practically all Marxists believed socialist revolution was only possible in developed industrialised countries like Germany, France and Britain. Because economically backward Russia did not have the resources to provide for everyone’s needs, they said, fighting for socialism was premature.

The working class was still a small minority of society in a country dominated by peasants.

Both wings of the Russian socialist movement—Bolsheviks and the more conservative Mensheviks—considered Tsarist Russia a pre-capitalist society approaching a bourgeois capitalist revolution.

They expected this to free the country from Tsarism and transform it into a modern capitalist democracy, mirroring the experience of the French revolution of 1789.

Lenin and the Bolsheviks differed with the Mensheviks, however, in their insistence the revolution against Tsarism would be led by the working class rather than the capitalists, and on the need to build a revolutionary socialist party that fought for the political independence of the working class.

They agreed with the Mensheviks that only after a long process of capitalist development and transition through parliamentary democracy could the working class pose the question of socialism. History proved more complex.

The February revolution combined elements of both a bourgeois and socialist revolution. The masses spontaneously arose, smashed Tsarism and gained effective control of the country through the Soviets. Yet the spontaneity of the revolution was also its weakness. The revolution was young, immature—it hated Tsarism and craved for unity against it. It trusted all the forces which claimed to stand for liberty and peace. So in its early days the Soviets were dominated by Mensheviks who believed power should pass to the capitalists rather than to the working class.

Within a few days of the February revolution, the Mensheviks called on the capitalists to take over the running of the country and form a Provisional Government.

The Provisional Government was dominated by the capitalists’ party, the Cadets. It refused to distribute the land to the peasants, offered little to the workers and vowed Russia would continue fighting the First World War “to the last drop of blood”. The Provisional Government lacked the means to enforce its will and relied on the Soviets, whose leaders took it upon themselves to subordinate the revolution to the capitalist class. Lenin explained that this was a situation of “dual power”.

“This dual power is evident in the existence of two governments: one is the… actual government of the bourgeoisie… which holds in its hands all the organs of state power; the other is… the Petrograd Soviet, which holds no organs of state power, but directly rests on the support of an obvious and indisputable majority of the people, on the armed workers and soldiers.”

Permanent revolution

Only the Russian socialist Leon Trotsky had foreseen such a possibility as early as 1905, drawing on the experience of the failed revolution that year. The solution he posed became known as the “theory of permanent revolution”.

Russian society was an example of what Trotsky called combined and uneven development. Late and sporadic industrialisation sponsored by the Tsars had produced a relatively weak capitalist class subordinate to the monarchy. But also a working class concentrated in heavy industry in several cities.

It was in these factories and districts that workers were to organise and wield the weapon of the mass strike, pioneered by the Chartist movement in England, putting it at the centre of a revolution for the first time.

The experience of 1905 showed that the capitalists hated and feared the workers movement from below more than the Tsarist state above.

In the face of revolution the capitalists sided with the autocracy, and through it with the landowners. They closed ranks and crushed the uprising.

Trotsky therefore believed the workers and peasants had to drive forward in opposition to the capitalists. A revolution led by the working class would not be limited to overthrowing the Tsar, but would grow over into a socialist revolution—and so become “permanent”.

“It would be the greatest utopianism to think that the [working class], having been raised to political domination by the internal mechanism of a bourgeois revolution can, even if it so desires, limit its mission to the creation of republican-democratic conditions for the social domination of the bourgeoisie,” he wrote. Workers would fight for their own interests such as better wages, working conditions and ultimately control of the factories.

Russia’s backwardness would be a problem, but this could be overcome provided the revolution linked itself to the international workers’ movement and the fight for socialism in the rest of Europe.

Now, in 1917, with the Provisional Government determined to continue the war, with the workers and soldiers struggling against it for their own interests, and with revolutionary attitudes developing throughout Europe, Lenin independently adopted a view identical to Trotsky’s.

Old Bolshevism

Lenin’s new position was that the Provisional Government had to be opposed, and that the Bolsheviks should aim to win workers and peasants to the slogan “All power to the Soviets”. “Only a proletarian republic,” said Lenin, “backed by the rural workers and the poorest sections of the peasants and town dwellers, can secure peace, provide bread, order and freedom.”

Lenin received no support from other Bolshevik leaders. Some charged him with treachery, lunacy, anarchy and more.

They still believed after February that the revolution should limit itself to the minimum program of a democratic republic, confiscation of landed estates, and an eight hour working day—the so-called “three pillars of Bolshevism”. Lenin had to repeat again and again, “We must abandon Old Bolshevism”, the previous party orthodoxy.

Lenin’s political opponents decided he was finished—so mad did his ideas sound, and so isolated was he within his own party. Yet it took him less than a month to win around a majority of the Bolsheviks. By the end of April he had won the debate at both a major Petrograd City Conference and at the Seventh All-Russian Congress of the party. Why?

Lenin’s reputation among party members and his skill in argument were important.

But even more powerful factors were at work. The Vyborg district of Petrograd, for example, had supported the transfer of power to the Soviets since the earliest days of the February revolution. Vyborg was the most advanced and militant working class district of Petrograd, where the biggest workplaces were located.

As time went on and disillusionment with the Provisional Government and the hardships produced by the war deepened, the radicalism of Vyborg spread. An early convert to Lenin’s position, Ludmilla Stal, remarked, “In accepting the slogans of Lenin, we are now doing what life itself suggests to us.”

Trotsky’s theory of permanent revolution allowed him to successfully chart the course of the 1917 revolution. But Trotsky was a brilliant general without an army to speak of, while Lenin was the recognised leader of a great party.

As an individual, Trotsky could make his words heard but only a massive and well-disciplined party like the Bolsheviks could transform words into action.

After joining the Bolsheviks, Trotsky wrote that his earlier failure to see the need for such a party had been, “the greatest mistake of my life.”

Once the Bolsheviks embraced Lenin’s April Theses they set out to win the majority of the working class, the poor and the soldiers to their side. Lenin was successful in April because he knew how to express the program of the revolution in a few clear and simple slogans which fitted the dynamic of the struggle, and meshed with the experience and needs of the masses.

He identified with the aspirations of the oppressed and had absolute confidence in the potential of the working class to shape society in its own interests. Six months later during the October revolution the working class proved him right.

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The April Theses (The Tasks of the Proletariat in the Present Revolution)

• Soviet Power

This article contains Lenin’s famous April Theses, read by him at two meetings of the All-Russia Conference of Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies, on April 4, 1917. Published April 7, 1917 in Pravda No. 26.  Signed: N. Lenin.

I did not arrive in Petrograd until the night of April 3, and therefore at the meeting on April 4, I could, of course, deliver the report on the tasks of the revolutionary proletariat only on my own behalf, and with reservations as to insufficient preparation.

The only thing I could do to make things easier for myself—and for honest opponents—was to prepare the theses in writing . I read them out, and gave the text to Comrade Tsereteli . I read them twice very slowly: first at a meeting of Bolsheviks and then at a meeting of both Bolsheviks and Mensheviks .

I publish these personal theses of mine with only the briefest explanatory notes, which were developed in far greater detail in the report.

1) In our attitude towards the war , which under the new [provisional] government of Lvov and Co. unquestionably remains on Russia’s part a predatory imperialist war owing to the capitalist nature of that government, not the slightest concession to “revolutionary defencism” is permissible.

The class-conscious proletariat can give its consent to a revolutionary war, which would really justify revolutionary defencism, only on condition: (a) that the power pass to the proletariat and the poorest sections of the peasants aligned with the proletariat; (b) that all annexations be renounced in deed and not in word; (c) that a complete break be effected in actual fact with all capitalist interests.

In view of the undoubted honesty of those broad sections of the mass believers in revolutionary defencism who accept the war only as a necessity, and not as a means of conquest, in view of the fact that they are being deceived by the bourgeoisie, it is necessary with particular thoroughness, persistence and patience to explain their error to them, to explain the inseparable connection existing between capital and the imperialist war, and to prove that without overthrowing capital it is impossible to end the war by a truly democratic peace, a peace not imposed by violence.

The most widespread campaign for this view must be organised in the army at the front.

Fraternisation.

2) The specific feature of the present situation in Russia is that the country is passing from the first stage of the revolution—which, owing to the insufficient class-consciousness and organisation of the proletariat, placed power in the hands of the bourgeoisie—to its second stage , which must place power in the hands of the proletariat and the poorest sections of the peasants.

This transition is characterised, on the one hand, by a maximum of legally recognised rights (Russia is now the freest of all the belligerent countries in the world); on the other, by the absence of violence towards the masses, and, finally, by their unreasoning trust in the government of capitalists, those worst enemies of peace and socialism.

This peculiar situation demands of us an ability to adapt ourselves to the special conditions of Party work among unprecedentedly large masses of proletarians who have just awakened to political life.

3) No support for the Provisional Government ; the utter falsity of all its promises should be made clear, particularly of those relating to the renunciation of annexations. Exposure in place of the impermissible, illusion-breeding “demand” that this government, a government of capitalists, should cease to be an imperialist government.

4) Recognition of the fact that in most of the Soviets of Workers’ Deputies our Party is in a minority, so far a small minority, as against a bloc of all the petty-bourgeois opportunist elements, from the Popular Socialists and the Socialist-Revolutionaries down to the Organising Committee ( Chkheidze , Tsereteli , etc.), Steklov, etc., etc., who have yielded to the influence of the bourgeoisie and spread that influence among the proletariat.

The masses must be made to see that the Soviets of Workers’ Deputies are the only possible form of revolutionary government, and that therefore our task is, as long as this government yields to the influence of the bourgeoisie, to present a patient, systematic, and persistent explanation of the errors of their tactics, an explanation especially adapted to the practical needs of the masses.

As long as we are in the minority we carry on the work of criticising and exposing errors and at the same time we preach the necessity of transferring the entire state power to the Soviets of Workers’ Deputies, so that the people may overcome their mistakes by experience.

5) Not a parliamentary republic—to return to a parliamentary republic from the Soviets of Workers’ Deputies would be a retrograde step—but a republic of Soviets of Workers’, Agricultural Labourers’ and Peasants’ Deputies throughout the country, from top to bottom.

Abolition of the police, the army and the bureaucracy.

The salaries of all officials, all of whom are elective and displaceable at any time, not to exceed the average wage of a competent worker.

6) The weight of emphasis in the agrarian programme to be shifted to the Soviets of Agricultural Labourers’ Deputies.

Confiscation of all landed estates.

Nationalisation of all lands in the country, the land to be disposed of by the local Soviets of Agricultural Labourers’ and Peasants’ Deputies. The organisation of separate Soviets of Deputies of Poor Peasants. The setting up of a model farm on each of the large estates (ranging in size from 100 to 300 dessiatines , according to local and other conditions, and to the decisions of the local bodies) under the control of the Soviets of Agricultural Labourers’ Deputies and for the public account.

7) The immediate union of all banks in the country into a single national bank, and the institution of control over it by the Soviet of Workers’ Deputies.

8) It is not our immediate task to “introduce” socialism, but only to bring social production and the distribution of products at once under the control of the Soviets of Workers’ Deputies.

9) Party tasks:

(a) Immediate convocation of a Party congress;

(b) Alteration of the Party Programme, mainly:

(1) On the question of imperialism and the imperialist war,

(2) On our attitude towards the state and our demand for a “commune state”;

(3) Amendment of our out-of-date minimum programme;

(c) Change of the Party’s name.

10. A new International.

We must take the initiative in creating a revolutionary International, an International against the social-chauvinists and against the “Centre”.

In order that the reader may understand why I had especially to emphasise as a rare exception the “case” of honest opponents, I invite him to compare the above theses with the following objection by Mr. Goldenberg: Lenin, he said, “has planted the banner of civil war in the midst of revolutionary democracy” (quoted in No. 5 of Mr. Plekhanov ’s Yedinstvo ).

Isn’t it a gem?

I write, announce and elaborately explain: “In view of the undoubted honesty of those broad sections of the mass believers in revolutionary defencism ... in view of the fact that they are being deceived by the bourgeoisie, it is necessary with particular thoroughness, persistence and patience to explain their error to them....”

Yet the bourgeois gentlemen who call themselves Social-Democrats, who do not belong either to the broad sections or to the mass believers in defencism, with serene brow present my views thus: “The banner[!] of civil war” (of which there is not a word in the theses and not a word in my speech!) has been planted(!) “in the midst [!!] of revolutionary democracy...”.

What does this mean? In what way does this differ from riot-inciting agitation, from Russkaya Volya ?

I write, announce and elaborately explain: “The Soviets of Workers’ Deputies are the only possible form of revolutionary government, and therefore our task is to present a patient, systematic, and persistent explanation of the errors of their tactics, an explanation especially adapted to the practical needs of the masses.”

Yet opponents of a certain brand present my views as a call to “civil war in the midst of revolutionary democracy”!

I attacked the Provisional Government for not having appointed an early date or any date at all, for the convocation of the Constituent Assembly , and for confining itself to promises. I argued that without the Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies the convocation of the Constituent Assembly is not guaranteed and its success is impossible.

And the view is attributed to me that I am opposed to the speedy convocation of the Constituent Assembly!

I would call this “raving”, had not decades of political struggle taught me to regard honesty in opponents as a rare exception.

Mr. Plekhanov in his paper called my speech “raving”. Very good, Mr. Plekhanov! But look how awkward, uncouth and slow-witted you are in your polemics. If I delivered a raving speech for two hours, how is it that an audience of hundreds tolerated this “raving”? Further, why does your paper devote a whole column to an account of the “raving”? Inconsistent, highly inconsistent!

It is, of course, much easier to shout, abuse, and howl than to attempt to relate, to explain, to recall what Marx and Engels said in 1871, 1872 and 1875 about the experience of the Paris Commune and about the kind of state the proletariat needs. [See: The Civil War in France and Critique of the Gotha Programme ]

Ex-Marxist Mr. Plekhanov evidently does not care to recall Marxism.

I quoted the words of Rosa Luxemburg , who on August 4, 1914 , called German Social-Democracy a “stinking corpse”. And the Plekhanovs, Goldenbergs and Co. feel “offended”. On whose behalf? On behalf of the German chauvinists, because they were called chauvinists!

They have got themselves in a mess, these poor Russian social-chauvinists—socialists in word and chauvinists in deed.

Source: Marxist Internet Archive

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Primary Documents - Lenin's April Theses, April 1917

Introduction

In Russian the "Aprelskiye Tezisy", the April Theses formed a programme developed by Lenin during the 1917 Russian Revolution.  In these Lenin called for Soviet control of the state.  When published the theses contributed to the July Days rising and to the subsequent coup d'etat of October 1917, bringing the Bolsheviks to power.

Lenin's April Theses

I have outlined a few theses which I shall supply with some commentaries.  I could not, because of the lack of time, present a thorough, systematic report.  The basic question is our attitude towards the war.

The basic things confronting you as you read about Russia or observe conditions here are the triumph of defencism, the triumph of the traitors to Socialism, the deception of the masses by the bourgeoisie... The new government, like the preceding one, is imperialistic, despite the promise of a republic - it is imperialistic through and through.

In our attitude toward the war not the slightest concession must be made to "revolutionary defencism," for under the new government of Lvov & Co., owing to the capitalise nature of this government, the war on Russia's part remains a predatory imperialist war.

In view of the undoubted honesty of the mass of rank and file representatives of revolutionary defencism who accept the war only as a necessity and not as a means of conquest, in view of their being deceived by the bourgeoisie, it is necessary most thoroughly, persistently, patiently to explain to them their error, to explain the inseparable connection between capital and the imperialist war, to prove that without the overthrow of capital it is impossible to conclude the war with a really democratic, non-oppressive peace.

This view is to be widely propagated among the army units in the field...

The peculiarity of the present situation in Russia is that it represents a transition from the first stage of the revolution - which, because of the inadequate organisation and insufficient class-consciousness of the proletariat, led to the assumption of power by the bourgeoisie - to its second stage which is to place power in the hands of the proletariat and the poorest strata of the peasantry...

This peculiar situation demands of us an ability to adapt ourselves to the specific conditions of party work amidst vast masses of the proletariat just wakened to political life.

No support to the Provisional Government; exposure of the utter falsity of all its promises, particularly those relating to the renunciation of annexations.  Unmasking, instead of admitting, the illusion-breeding "demand" that this government, a government of capitalist, should cease to be imperialistic...

Recognition of the fact that in most of the Soviets of Workers' Deputies our party constitutes a minority, and a small one at that, in the face of the bloc of all the petty bourgeois opportunist elements... who have yielded to the influence of the bourgeoisie...

It must be explained to the masses that the Soviet of Workers' Deputies is the only possible form of revolutionary government and that, therefore, our task is, while this government is submitting to the influence of the bourgeoisie, to present a patient, systematic, and persistent analysis of its errors and tactics, an analysis especially adapted to the practical needs of the masses...

Not a parliamentary republic - a return to it from the Soviet of Workers' Deputies would be a step backward - but a republic of Soviets of Workers', Agricultural Labourers' and Peasants' Deputies throughout the land, from top to bottom.

Abolition of the police, the army, the bureaucracy...

All officers to be elected and to be subject to recall at any time, their salaries not to exceed the average wage of a competent worker...

In the agrarian programme, the emphasis must be shifted to the Soviets of Agricultural Labourers' Deputies.

Confiscation of private lands.

Nationalisation of all lands in the country, and management of such lands by local Soviets of Agricultural Labourers' and Peasants' Deputies.

A separate organisation of Soviets of Deputies of the poorest peasants.

Creation of model agricultural establishments out of large estates...

Immediate merger of all the banks in the country into one general national bank, over which the Soviet of Workers' Deputies should have control...

Not the "introduction" of Socialism as an immediate task, but the immediate placing of the Soviet of Workers' Deputies in control of social production and distribution of goods...

Party tasks:

• A. Immediate calling of a party convention.  
• Concerning imperialism and the imperialist war.  
• Concerning our attitude toward the state, and our demand for a 'commune state."  
• Amending our antiquated minimum programme.

Rebuilding the International. Taking the initiative in the creation of a revolutionary International, an International against the social-chauvinists and against the "centre"...

Saturday, 22 August, 2009 Michael Duffy

Observation balloons were referred to as 'sausages'. - Did you know?

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“ It’s a delusion, it’s the delirium of a madman!” –  (A. Bogdanov, Menshevik, referring to Lenin’s April Theses) By Francesco Ricci.   It is April 3, 1917 (April 16 of our calendar) when the so-called ‘sealed train’ that houses Lenin, Zinoviev, Krupskaya, Inessa Armand, Radek and others arrives at the Finland Station. To welcome him, there is a delegation from the Petrograd Soviet, led by the Menshevik Cheidze, who gives a welcoming address. Lenin turns his back on him and heads for the crowd. Trotsky writes: “ T he speech which Lenin delivered at the Finland railway station on the socialist character of the Russian revolution was a bombshell to many [Bolshevik, the editor] leaders of the party. “ [1] Lenin, once again, explains his position to 200 militants who, on the evening of April 3, hear him in Petrograd. Among them is Nicolaj Soukhanov (Menshevik Internationalist), who in his Memoirs recounts the effect that this discourse caused: “(…) it seemed that all the elements had come out of their refuges and that the spirit of universal destruction, that did not respect limits nor doubts… hover in the room… “. When Lenin finishes speaking, applauses are heard, but the Bolshevik leaders looked puzzled. Lenin pointed at the same time to a change of strategy and the necessity, to implement the new line, of destroying the overwhelming influence of the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries in the Soviets (the Bolsheviks were a small minority at that time). Coincidentally, and just the next day, a meeting had been organized to move towards the reunification of the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks… Soukhanov, who watches, writes: “ At this meeting, Lenin seemed to be the living the incarnation of splitting and the whole meaning of his discourse consisted chiefly in burying the idea of unification. “ [2] Learning with the Paris Commune Let us just take a step back. Shortly after learning of the outbreak of the February revolution, Lenin begins, from his exile in Switzerland, a battle to change radically the Party’s strategy. First, on March 6 he sent a telegram to the party: “ Our tactics: no trust in and no support of the new government; Kerensky is especially suspect; arming of the proletariat is the only guarantee; … no rapprochement with other parties. ” [3] In March, he writes the Letters From Afar (Pravda will publish only an edited one). At the heart of these later letters and fundamental texts, among which the April Theses stand out, of which we shall deal next, there is the example of the Paris Commune, which Lenin had studied again in those months while he was writing the so-called Blue Notebook (Marxism and the State), a collection of commented quotations of all the concepts expressed by Marx and Engels on the theme of the State, the work that will be the basis to write The State and the Revolution . [4] The revolution that is developing in Russia, says Lenin, is a socialist revolution. Therefore, the aim of the revolution is to “break the bourgeois state,” as the Parisian workers did, and to replace it with the dictatorship of the proletariat. That is, it is not a question of changing the ruler of the old state machine, but of destroying it and substituting an entirely new one for it. But to achieve this goal, it is necessary to affirm the complete independence of the proletariat from the bourgeoisie and the provisional government, which is a bourgeois government, although it is currently supported by the Soviets (where the Socialist-Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks have the majority). When Lenin Became a… “Trotskyist” It is not possible to appreciate in depth the changes proposed by Lenin without reminding the previous position sustained by the Bolsheviks for years. From the beginning of the century on, there were three different conceptions of the future Russian revolution [5] . The Mensheviks, in the name of a supposed “Marxist orthodoxy” (in fact, misrepresenting Marx and attributing to him a non-dialectical evolutionist conception of history), believed that Russia should go through a stage of capitalistic industrial development before the socialist revolution – after a considerable period – could succeed. Therefore, there should be a democratic revolution led by the bourgeoisie and the proletariat as a subordinate ally, which would free the country from Tsarism, where social-democracy would be the left wing of the “democratic front” led by Liberals. After centuries of capitalist development, the time for socialist revolution would come. Trotsky’s position was at the opposite pole: he believed that the national bourgeoisie was incapable of achieving democratic goals and therefore foresaw a socialist revolution, led by the proletariat that would hegemonize the poor peasants, to establish the dictatorship of the proletariat and assume, continually, the democratic and (on an international scale of an expanding revolution) the socialist tasks (expropriation of big industry, etc.). This would be possible because of the “uneven and combined development” of society and the international revolution that would allow Russia (like other underdeveloped countries) to “leap” a few steps, breaking an “evolutionary” stages scheme, that would be replaced by the “permanent revolution”. Lenin’s and the Bolsheviks’ position laid between both: the bourgeois revolution “directed to the end,” but (given the incapacity of the national bourgeoisie, tied by a thousand ties to foreign capital) led by the proletariat and the peasantry (In an “algebraic” alliance, according to Trotsky’s critique), to establish a “democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasants.” It is not the dictatorship of the proletariat, but a republic within the limits of bourgeois democracy, as a prelude to a rapid development towards the socialist revolution (its pace being dictated by the European revolution). Lenin believed, therefore, as the Mensheviks did, in a bourgeois revolution, although, unlike the Mensheviks, he managed another leadership, of workers and peasants, independent of the bourgeoisie. His program was different, too, stressing the confiscation of the land of the nobles and the Church; and a different perspective from that anticipated by the Mensheviks – there would be no centuries separating this first revolution from the successive socialist revolution. The February revolution was the confirmation (at least for those who wanted to think) that the only correct and viable conception was Trotsky’s. To guarantee the achievement of the democratic objectives (agrarian revolution, reduction of the working day, peace, the Constituent Assembly), it was necessary first to establish the dictatorship of the proletariat (supported by the poor peasants) based on the Soviets. Therefore, it was necessary to destroy the bourgeois rule, which represented an obstacle on the path to the full power of the Soviets. Lenin did not hesitate to abandon the old theory and, to great scandal of many, he began to defend, indeed, the theory that Trotsky had elaborated over ten years ago. That is why Trotsky comments: “ It is not strange that Lenin’s April Theses were condemned as Trotskyist.” [6] The Rediscovery of Dialectic in Marxism It was rightly observed by several scholars [7] that the change advocated by Lenin at the Finland station was based, from a theoretical point of view, on the study of Hegel’s Science of Logic, which Lenin began in 1914. A study he felt necessary to explain the betrayal of the Second International in World War I and to understand the complete capitulation of his masters of the past: Plekhanov and Kautsky (the latter, along with the bureaucratic deviation of the SPD, was progressively abandoning Marxism, of which he had been the “red pope” in the II International). In those months, closed in the library of Bern, Lenin discovers another Marx, decontaminated of the Feuerbachian prejudices. A dialectical Marxism (that of the Theses on Feuerbach, written by Marx in 1845), born out of the rupture with the “old materialism.” A Marxism based on the understanding of the subject-object dialectic, devoid of any causal conception, which contrasts with that mechanical determinism, which had also partially influenced him during a period (let us think about his Materialism and Empiriocriticism of 1909). It is the discovery of the true Marx, who had been distorted by his disciples and deformed by the opportunism of the Second International: the Marx who affirms “the educator must be educated” (the third Theses on Feuerbach), that is, circumstances may be altered by human action, by the class struggle, by revolutionary praxis. Lenin rediscovers Marx who claims that man makes history, even in circumstances he has not determined. In this Marx, there is no “law of historical development,” which prescribes to every people a linear evolution, no determinism. It is the rupture with the ossified Marxism of Plekhanov that, not by chance, before the October Revolution, will exclaim: “ It is the violation of all the laws of history .” It is in this crucial passage, condensed in his Philosophical Notebooks [8] that Lenin, contemplating Hegel’s books, grabs the dialectic that Marx had absorbed from Hegel and to which he had conferred a revolutionary character. Lenin should not start from scratch: he is always the only one who, since 1902, branding his vanguard party theory that brings socialism “out” of the day-to-day clash between classes, had implicitly rejected socialism understood as a mere product of the impulse of “economic laws”. In Bern, so to speak, he begins to solve a contradiction that remained in his thinking: the contradiction between the conception of the party and its program. Lenin’s Struggle to “Rearm” the Party Most of the Bolshevik leadership do not immediately understand the need for Lenin’s change. Kamenev and Stalin, the main leaders before Lenin’s arrival in Russia, remain anchored in the previous position (which they, furthermore, deformed it to the right) and believe that the Bolsheviks should provide support to the provisional government “to the extent that” it would implement certain policies; that is, it is about “pushing” the government forward. For them, the revolution lives its first stage: the “bourgeois-democratic revolution”, while the socialist one could only develop in an afterward stage. Thus, the Bolsheviks, before Lenin’s arrival, approached the Mensheviks’ positions: for example, on the question of war, the Pravda under Stalin and Kamenev repudiates the revolutionary defeatism that had characterized Bolshevism and pleases the resolution of the Social-Patriots on the war, approved by the Soviets of the Moscow region with the support of the Bolsheviks. At the party’s National Conference, which begins in Petrograd on March 27, Stalin presents the report on the government. In his report, he argues that the interim government is consolidating the revolutionary achievements and therefore the task of the soviets is to “control” and push it forward. As a logical consequence, Stalin presents a motion for merging with the Mensheviks, which is passed by 14 votes to 13. It is understandable why, once the bureaucracy consolidates its power, Stalin will censure the minutes of this Conference (published only in the 1960s). The April Theses The April Theses are undoubtedly the most important text written in the frenetic months of the Russian revolution. It is a short text: 10 theses written on five or six pages, published in the Pravda on April 7 (20, according to our calendar). Let us reread it together. Thesis 1: Rejection of the “revolutionary defensism” line of the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries, which supports the continuity of the war. Thesis 2: The bourgeoisie robbed the power of the proletariat, owing to the insufficient class-consciousness and organization of the latter; it is necessary to reverse the situation by returning power to the proletariat supported by the poor peasants. It is not a task for an indeterminate future: it is “the duty of the present moment”. Thesis 3: No (even though critical) support for the Provisional Government. On the contrary, relentless exposure of its bourgeois nature. By reversing the policy hitherto pursued by Kamenev and Stalin, it should be pointed out that the government should not be supported under conditions, it should not be “critically stimulated” because it would only mean “sowing illusions” about the (impossible) fact that a bourgeois government could reconcile the interests of the two mortal class enemies, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. This fundamental thesis deserves an observation: for Lenin, it is not a matter of obeying abstract criteria, a dogma. The fact is that supporting a bourgeois government in any way means creating obstacles to gain the proletariat’s consciousness of the need to “break” the bourgeois state machine, an inevitable step in forming a “workers’ government for the workers.” Thesis 4: Since the Bolsheviks are in “a small minority” in the soviets, as against the “opportunist elements”, it is necessary to patiently explain to the masses why they are following a wrong policy and why it is necessary to transfer “the entire state power to the Soviets.” Thesis 5: The objective is not a bourgeois parliamentary republic, but a republic of the Soviets, that is to say, the dissolution of the repressive forces, the replacement of the permanent army with the armament of the proletariat, the eligibility and revocability of all officials at any time. Thesis 6: Confiscation of all landed estates and nationalization of all lands under the control of the Soviets. Thesis 7: Union of all banks into a single national bank under the control of the Soviets. Thesis 8: To bring social production and distribution under the control of the Soviets. Thesis 9: Consistently with all this, it is necessary to immediately summon a congress and change the program and the party’s name to Communist Party . Thesis 10: The immediate creation of a new revolutionary International against the reformists and against the “Center” (Kautsky, Chkheidze, etc.). [9] Lenin dismisses the old program, summed up as the “democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry,” as “a formula that is already antiquated” and the person who speaks only of it “should be consigned to the archive of ‘Bolshevik’ pre-revolutionary antiques.” However, Stalin will revive it in the course of the Soviets bureaucratic degeneration in the coming decades, but this is another story. [10] Trotsky’s Arrival: “The Best Bolshevik” On April 12, the Pravda publishes an article by Kamenev that criticizes the April Theses stressing that they are Lenin’s personal position, not the party’s. Kamenev adds that Lenin’s line is unacceptable since he proposes the immediate transformation of the revolution into a socialist one, something that for Kamenev (and not only for him) reminds much of Trotsky’s position that the Bolsheviks had fought. In the following days, Lenin began a hard fractional battle and managed to gain the support of an important part of the working class, that, on the other hand (as the Vyborg workers, the party’s backbone), had already expressed strong criticism of the Pravda ’s policy. However, that takes time: he is not immediately successful. In his first attempt, in a Petrograd Committee session, on April 12, the Theses were voted down by 13 votes to 2 and 1 abstention. A week later, at a conference in the Petrograd region, Lenin beats Kamenev by 20 votes to 6, and 9 abstentions. Finally, at the party’s 7 th Pan-Russian Conference (Petrograd, April 24-29), Lenin’s Theses won the majority. Nonetheless, a specific resolution on the theme of the socialist “character” of the revolution secures only 71 votes out of 118 [11] : The old “complete the democratic revolution first” thought still attaches a sector of the party. Consequently, this wing of the party (most notably Kamenev, Rykov, Nogin, while Stalin in the meantime aligns with the majority) thinks that the role of the Soviets is simply to “control” the power that should remain in the hands of the provisional government. On the question of the change of the party’s name, which he proposed to set the party more clearly from the Mensheviks, Lenin gets only his own vote. It is not a simple victory, therefore, and the fact that the provisional government was approaching a first deep crisis, facing street demonstrations, certainly helped him. Above all, as Trotsky observes, [12] Lenin’s victory over the party’s right wing recalls the fact that, in addition to the wrong programmatic formula of a “democratic dictatorship,” the Bolshevik party had been preparing for fifteen years to be at the head of the proletariat in the struggle for power. In those decisive months, its membership acted unconsciously looking for another perspective and, in practice, overcoming its own leadership. Lenin would illuminate them with the April Theses. Meanwhile, on May 4 (17 in the new calendar), Trotsky also arrives in Petrograd. He had spent the first few months of the year in New York after being expelled from Spain and France. A campaign by the Petrograd Soviet releases him from prison in the Amhrest military camp, Canada, where he stayed for one month, and prompts him to come back. In the first weeks after the outbreak of the revolution, he had written a great deal of articles (mostly published in the Russian-language journal Novy Mir ) where he resumed his theory of “permanent revolution” and developed it in concrete terms: Irreconcilable opposition to the provisional government as an indispensable premise to transfer all power to the Soviets and thus to develop the socialist revolution. Trotsky begins the collaboration with Lenin, just after his arrival. It will result in the merger of the Interdistrict group [13] with the Bolsheviks. While Lenin overcomes his “centrist” program of “democratic dictatorship,” Trotsky overcomes his “centrist” critiques of the Bolshevik-type party and abandons his unitary point of view. In fact, since 1914 he has been gradually shifting his position to conclude that “ it was necessary not only an ideological struggle against Menshevism (…) but also an organizational uncompromising rupture “. [14] Thus, the “permanent revolution” ceases to be considered (at least until the beginning of the Stalinization process, in 1924) Trotsky’s only idea but turns to be the practice and patrimony of Bolshevism and the successive Communist International (1919). Trotsky, in Lenin’s assertion, is “the best Bolshevik”. An Essential Lesson for Today What position would the world left have assumed, in the hundredth anniversary of the October revolution, if they had witnessed it? For us, the answer is quite simple: the major left would have supported the Provisional Government, delivering ministers to its cabinet; another part (which we have defined as “centrist”, i.e. semi-reformist) would have given “critical” support, breeding illusions on the possibility of pushing the government to the left by means of street actions. While only a small part of the world left (certainly the IWL-FI, and who else?) would act according to Lenin’s line in that telegram: no support for the government, no rapprochement with other left parties that support the government. Are we wrong? No, and the confirmation of this comes from the mere observation of what the whole left has done in the last decades but us. It is enough to observe the policy of the Italian Communist Refoundation party in this quarter of a century: support for the two-term imperialist Prodi governments with its own minister, or the support given by the entire reformist and semi-reformist left in recent years for the Greek “left-wing” bourgeois government of Tsipras as a model to be followed. The same as the PT’s administrations in Brazil, cited as an example of the ability to govern capitalism differently, reconciling the interests of the opposite classes. Are these not the proof that all this left, if they were present in the 1917 revolution, would have been on the opposite side of Lenin? In making this observation, we should add that when we speak of the Prodi, Lula-Dilma, and Tsipras governments, we are not talking about governments born out of a revolution and supported by the soviets, like those to whom – in any case – the Bolsheviks opposed in 1917! Therefore, we must conclude that present-day reformism stands on an even lower step than that Menshevik reformism which, according to Trotsky’s famous definition, had earned the right to end up in the trash bin of history. Thus, the April Theses continue, a century later, being a scandalous text for the reformists, while they celebrate October as a glorious event of the past, emptied of its teachings. These teachings, on the contrary, we must recover, so that the working class can move, with the struggles and the revolution, toward a new October. *** Translation: Marcos Margarido. ** Notes: [1] Trotsky, The Lessons of October , www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1924/lessons/ch4.htm [2] N. Soukhanov, Le Discours de Lénine du 3 Avril 1917 , published by Cahiers du Mouvement Ouvrier , n. 27, 2005, Editor J.J. Marie. Our translation.

[3] Lenin, Telegram to the Bolsheviks Leaving for Russia , www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/mar/06.htm .

[4] To learn more of the Letters From Afar and the Paris Commune, read our recent article published on the IWL-FI website: 1871-1917: Por que os bolcheviques estudaram a Comuna de Paris para fazer a Revolução de Outubro [5] We presented this debate in a more detailed fashion in What is the theory of permanent revolution?, published in Trotskismo Oggi, n. 1, September 2011. [6] Leon Trotsky, History of the Russian Revolution, vol. I, p. 347. [7] There are a number of studies, as by Michael Löwy, including “From Hegel’s Great Logic to Petrograd’s Finland Station” in Dialectique et Révolution (Anthropos, 1973), or the more recent and interesting one (although we do not share some of its conclusions) by Kevin Anderson, Lenin, Hegel & Western Marxism: A Critical Study (University of Illinois Press, 1995). [8] V. I. Lenin, Philosophical Notebooks, in Collected Works, Volume 38. [9] V. I. Lenin, April Theses, in Collected Works, Volume 24 – www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/apr/04.htm [10] The expressions in quotation marks in this sentence are from Lenin, Letters on Tactics (Collected Works, Volume 24). [11] For a detailed analysis of the vote at the April Conference, see Marcel Liebman, La révolution russe (Marabout Université, 1967) or Jean Jacques Marie, Lenin (Balland, 2004). [12] Read Trotsky, History of the Russian Revolution, especially the chapters: “The Bolsheviks and Lenin” and “The rearming of the party,” for an overview of the question of the April Theses and the struggle in the party. [13] The Interdistrict Group or Mezhraionka, an organization of about 4,000-5,000 militants, was more like a coordination of ex-Mensheviks and ex-Bolsheviks. Ioffe, Lunacharsky, Antonov-Ovseenko, Urickij were members. To read more, see Ian D. Thatcher, The St. Petersburg / Petrograd Mezhraionka, 1913-1917: The Rise and Fall of a Movement for Social-Democratic Unity in Slavonic & East European Review, 87, 2009. [14] On this, see Leon Trotsky, “The Rearming of the Party,” in History of the Russian Revolution.

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The April Theses and The State and Revolution

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Lenin arrived in Petrograd from political exile in Switzerland on April 3 (16), 1917. In the Bolshevik organ of Pravda on April 7 (20), 1917, he published his Bolshevik Party program for a revolutionary strategy that was to prevail until the Bolshevik seizure of political power on October 25 (November 7), 1917. Formally published as The Tasks of the Proletariat in the Present Revolution , the program is popularly known as Lenin’s April Theses (henceforth referred to as the April Theses ).In Thesis (1) Lenin declared that “without overthrowing capital it is impossible to end the war by a truly democratic peace, a peace not imposed by violence.” 1 This first thesis has reference to the shift in emphasis from Great Russian chauvinism as the Tsarist motivation for Russia’s participation in the war to the Kadet capitalist profits as a bourgeois partner in Anglo-French imperialist capital. In Thesis (3) Lenin added that Bolsheviks must expose the “illusion-breeding ‘demand’ that this government, a government of capitalists, should cease to be an imperialist government.” 2 From this, Lenin argued that the Provisional Revolutionary Government must be completely deposed with the call of: “All Power to the Soviets.”

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Statesmanship and Geopolitics

The “Great War,” 1917, and Beyond

The Coming of the Dollfuss-Schuschnigg Regime and the Stages of its Development

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Davidshofer, W.J. (2014). The April Theses and The State and Revolution. In: Marxism and the Leninist Revolutionary Model. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137460295_6

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The role of leadership in revolutionary struggle – Lenin’s April Theses

Today marks the 150th brithday of Vladimir Lenin, leader of the Russian revolution and founder of the Soviet Union whose ideas served as a guide for all subsequent socialist revolutions. To honor his tremendous contributions to the cause of the working class and oppressed of the world, we are reposting this article dealing with some of his main achievements and theories.

This article was originally published on April 3, 2009. 

The 1917 Russian Revolution was the first time in history that the working class seized and held power, organizing a workers state in the interest of the vast majority of toilers rather than a rich minority elite. This great revolution actually came in two phases. The February Revolution swept away the czar (king) and the old feudal ruling class. The October Revolution overthrew the capitalist class and put Russia on the road to building socialism.

V.I. Lenin wrote the “April Theses” at a decisive moment in the aftermath of the February Revolution. They were written to give political orientation to the Bolshevik party, which led the working class in the October socialist revolution. Lenin argued that the working class couldn’t remain subordinate to the capitalist class. The working class needed a second, socialist revolution.

Pre-revolutionary Russia

Prior to the Russian Revolution, the vast majority of the population was poor peasants subsisting in the countryside. The land-owning nobility met peasant uprisings for land and food with brutal repression. Capitalist industry was developing rapidly in the cities, but Russia had not experienced a bourgeois-democratic revolution like the other European imperialist powers. All classes were denied basic democratic freedoms as the country remained in the clutches of czarist absolutism.

The country was still ruled by the extreme repression of the czar and the old feudal monarchy. The bourgeoisie—the capitalist class of factory owners and merchants—was growing, but was still politically very weak as a class.

World War I broke out in August 1914. It was the bloodiest, most destructive event the planet had ever seen. The great imperialist powers were at war in a scramble to re-divide the colonized territories around the world. Russia formed an alliance with the British and French ruling classes with the promise of securing domination of parts of the Middle East and Central Asia.

Although they were initially drawn into the war based on patriotism and “Russian pride,” the war turned out to be a catastrophe for the people. By 1917, millions of Russian workers and peasants had died in the war for this cause. Much of the country’s resources were diverted to the war. This led to food shortages and widespread hunger in the cities. All the while, the big landowners and the growing capitalist class lived in extreme decadence.

Bread, land and peace

The February Revolution of 1917 began on International Women’s Day with a strike by women workers in Petrograd. They had three simple demands: bread, land and peace. The conditions of the war and the deprivation were causing such an acute crisis—the workers couldn’t take it anymore and took to the streets.

Over a period of five days the protests grew. As the workers gained confidence and militancy, the soldiers stationed in Petrograd, who had been ordered to suppress the demonstrations, joined them. After five days they toppled the czarist government and overthrew the czar.

In the immediate aftermath of the February Revolution, the workers and soldiers established Soviets. The Soviets first appeared on the historical stage in the 1905 Russian Revolution, which although defeated, served as a dress rehearsal for the events twelve years later. Soviets were elected councils, organized by the workers and soldiers in each military unit and factory. They were the seeds of workers’ power.

‘Pressure’ or ‘overthrow’ the capitalists?

Russia’s workers and peasants were represented by three main parties, all of which identified themselves as socialists. The Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks represented two distinct wings of the Marxist working class movement, while the Socialist Revolutionaries were a peasant-based populist party.

As the czar’s government fell, the leading parties in the soviets, the Mensheviks and the SRs, turned toward the representatives of the capitalist class to take power in Russia. They believed the country needed more time to develop capitalism before being ready for socialism.

The workers were armed, mobilized and capable of seizing power. But they were not sufficiently conscious and organized to realize it.

The leadership of the Mensheviks and the SRs formed a coalition with the capitalists in a Provisional Government. The capitalists in the Provisional Government consented to work with the soviets, making promises and using leftist rhetoric to appease the workers—while agreeing to the demands of British and French capitalism that Russia not withdraw from the war.

The Bolshevik Party had been the only party in Russia that opposed the war from the outset. Other parties, even those that called themselves socialist, capitulated to the intense pro-war hysteria to support “defense of the fatherland.”

The Bolshevik Party was severely punished for its anti-war position. Party leaders, including Lenin, were exiled or imprisoned, and the party was forced into a clandestine or underground existence. While many Bolshevik party members participated in the fighting of the February Revolution, the party was too organizationally weak and politically disoriented to strike an independent course from the other left parties.

The period directly following the February Revolution was a joyous time for the workers of Russia. The workers had closed the book on 400 years of czarism, and the heavy repression of the czar was lifted. There was an overwhelming sense of excitement and optimism about the new “democratic” revolution.

The leaderships of the left parties believed they could compromise with the capitalists and “pressure” them to take good positions on the issues of land reform, workers rights, and most of all, ending the war. Even the Bolsheviks in Russia, largely cut off from their exiled leadership, initially took a position of “critical support” for the Provisional Government.

From his exile in Switzerland, Lenin was urging the other Bolshevik leaders not to collaborate with the capitalist class. He said the policy of “pressure” was delusional. “To urge that government to conclude a democratic peace is like preaching morality to brothel keepers,” he wrote. (Letter from Afar, March 12, 1917)

The April Theses

Lenin finally arrived back into the country on April 3. He brought an argument that was later called the April theses. The main tenets were:

The current situation in Russia is one of “Dual Power” between the capitalist class and the working class. Now the workers must continue the struggle to achieve a socialist revolution and overthrow the capitalists.

Despite the demands of the February Revolution, the Russian capitalists are continuing to wage an imperialist war. The position of the party must be for an end to the war and the defeat of its own capitalist class.

The party must take the position of “No Support for the Provisional Government,” and must direct its efforts toward the coming socialist revolution. It should prepare to raise the slogan: “All Power to the Soviets!”

In a country that was celebrating its newfound freedoms and a working class that was enamored with its new government, Lenin’s position was not very popular. In the first party meeting to discuss Lenin’s thesis, it was outvoted 13-2. At party conferences later in April, Lenin continued to argue his points, and by the end his position won out strongly.

The immediate interests of the working class, over which they fought the February Revolution, were bread, land and peace. Lenin knew that the Russian capitalist class could not meet these simple demands.

Lenin analyzed Russian capitalist interests in their international context. The Russian capitalists were inextricably linked to British and French imperialism. If they had any hope of becoming stronger as a class, they would never abandon their imperialist allies in World War I. Russia’s survival as a player in the imperialist arena depended on its securing colonized territory for exploitation.

The bourgeois-democratic Provisional Government could make many promises to the people, but Lenin insisted they would not pull out of the war. In addition, any steps toward land reform would have caused millions of peasant soldiers to desert the war front in order to come home and claim land. This was a reform the capitalists couldn’t afford.

The majority of the workers supported the Provisional Government in April. But Lenin’s April Theses were premised on one irrefutable conclusion: the bourgeois government would not be willing or able to withdraw from the war. The crisis of the continuing war would ultimately force the workers to take the only action that could resolve their demands—overthrowing the capitalist class and starting the socialist revolution. Lenin argued that the party should orient itself to help lead the working class to this end.

While the other socialist parties were collaborating with the capitalists and attempting to “pressure” them in a more left direction, the Bolsheviks began to organize for their overthrow.

In “The Bolshevik Revolution,” historian E.H. Carr wrote of Lenin’s ability to win over the Bolshevik party to his political position, that it was a “power resting not on rhetoric, but on clear-headed and incisive argument conveying … a unique mastery of the situation.” Lenin’s clarity of vision was based not on clairvoyance but on his ability to analyze class interests and to anticipate the potential of the working class to take power.

The April Theses is an important example of the critical role of leadership in discerning the right direction in a revolutionary situation. In April 1917, the Bolsheviks were a small minority party, but Lenin’s political reorientation rearmed the party and put it on a revolutionary footing.

In April, May and June, support for the Bolsheviks grew tremendously. By September, they had won the majority in the Soviets. And in October 1917, with the revolutionary leadership of the Bolsheviks, the workers and peasants of Russia accomplished the world’s first successful socialist revolution.

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The Development of Capitalism in Russia (1899)

• Chapter Eight
• Perhaps the profoundest cause of disagreement with the Narodniks is the difference in our fundamental views on social and economic processes. When studying the latter, the Narodnik usually draws conclusions that point to some moral; he does not regard the diverse groups of persons taking part in production as creators of various forms of life; he does not set out to present the sum-total of social and economic relationships as the result of the mutual relations between these groups, which have different interests and different historical roles.
• If the writer of these lines has succeeded in providing some material for clarifying these problems, he may regard his labours as not having been fruitless.

• Lenin, Vladimir Ilich (January–March) [1900], "Uncritical Criticism" , Collected Works , 3 , Marxists   .
• Lenin, Vladimir Ilich (July–August) [1903], "Second Congress of the RSDLP: Drafts of Minor Resolutions" , Collected Works , 6 , Marxists   .
• Lenin, Vladimir Ilich, "To the Rural Poor" , Collected Works , 6 , Marxists, p. 366   .
• “Lessons of the Commune”, in Zagranichnaya Gazeta , No. 2 (23 March 1908) , as translated by Bernard Isaacs, Collected Works , Vol. 13, p. 478.
• Reported in "'Left-Wing' Communism, An Infantile Disorder", V. I. Lenin; Selected Works (1938), vol. 10, p. 95.

The Two Tactics of Social Democracy (1905)

• "Two Tactics of Social Democracy in the Democratic Revolution"

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back (1904)

• Lenin Anthology , pp. 119
• Lenin Anthology, p. 119

Party Organization and Party Literature (1905)

• Lenin Anthology, 151
• Lenin Anthology, p. 149
• Lenin, Vladimir Ilich (13 November 1905), " Party Organisation and Party Literature ", Novaya Zhizn (Marxists) (12)   .

What is to be Done? (1902)

• Chapter One, A. "What is 'Freedom of Criticism'?", Essential Works of Lenin (1966)
• Chapter One, Section D, Essential Works of Lenin (1966)
• Chapter Three, Section D, Essential Works of Lenin (1966)
• Chapter Three, Section E, Essential Works of Lenin (1966)
• Chapter Four
• Chapter Four, Section E, Essential Lenin
• In the history of modern socialism this is a phenomenon, that the strife of the various trends within the socialist movement has from national become international.
• If democracy, in essence, means the abolition of class domination, then why should not a socialist minister charm the whole bourgeois world by orations on class collaboration?
• Those who are really convinced that they have made progress in science would not demand freedom for the new views to continue side by side with the old, but the substitution of the new views for the old.
• We are marching in a compact group along a precipitous and difficult path, firmly holding each other by the hand. We are surrounded on all sides by enemies, and we have to advance almost constantly under their fire. We have combined, by a freely adopted decision, for the purpose of fighting the enemy, and not of retreating into the neighbouring marsh, the inhabitants of which, from the very outset, have reproached us with having separated ourselves into an exclusive group and with having chosen the path of struggle instead of the path of conciliation. And now some among us begin to cry out: Let us go into the marsh! And when we begin to shame them, they retort: What backward people you are! Are you not ashamed to deny us the liberty to invite you to take a better road! Oh, yes, gentlemen! You are free not only to invite us, but to go yourselves wherever you will, even into the marsh. In fact, we think that the marsh is your proper place, and we are prepared to render you every assistance to get there. Only let go of our hands, don't clutch at us and don't besmirch the grand word freedom, for we too are “free” to go where we please, free to fight not only against the marsh, but also against those who are turning towards the marsh!
• In a country ruled by an autocracy , with a completely enslaved press, in a period of desperate political reaction in which even the tiniest outgrowth of political discontent and protest is persecuted, the theory of revolutionary Marxism suddenly forced its way into the censored literature before the government realised what had happened and the unwieldy army of censors and gendarmes discovered the new enemy and flung itself upon him.
• This fear of criticism displayed by the advocates of freedom of criticism cannot be attributed solely to craftiness. No, the majority of the Economists look with sincere resentment upon all theoretical controversies, factional disagreements, broad political questions, plans for organising revolutionaries, etc.
• History has now confronted us with an immediate task which is the most revolutionary of all the immediate tasks confronting the proletariat of any country. The fulfilment of this task, the destruction of the most powerful bulwark, not only of European, but (it may now be said) of Asiatic reaction, would make the Russian proletariat the vanguard of the international revolutionary proletariat. And we have the right to count upon acquiring this honourable title, already earned by our predecessors, the revolutionaries of the seventies, if we succeed in inspiring our movement, which is a thousand times broader and deeper, with the same devoted determination and vigour.
• To belittle the socialist ideology in any way, to turn aside from it in the slightest degree means to strengthen bourgeois ideology. There is much talk of spontaneity. But the spontaneous development of the working-class movement leads to its subordination to bourgeois ideology; for the spontaneous working-class movement is trade-unionism, and trade unionism means the ideological enslavement of the workers by the bourgeoisie. Hence, our task, the task of Social-Democracy, is to combat spontaneity, to divert the working-class movement from this spontaneous, trade-unionist striving to come under the wing of the bourgeoisie, and to bring it under the wing of revolutionary Social Democracy.
• Revolutionary Social-Democracy has always included the struggle for reforms as part of its activities. But it utilises “economic” agitation for the purpose of presenting to the government, not only demands for all sorts of measures, but also (and primarily) the demand that it cease to be an autocratic government.
• A basic condition for the necessary expansion of political agitation is the organisation of comprehensive political exposure.
• It is particularly necessary to arouse in all who participate in practical work, or are preparing to take up that work, discontent with the amateurism prevailing among us and an unshakable determination to rid ourselves of it.
• This struggle must be organised, according to “all the rules of the art”, by people who are professionally engaged in revolutionary activity.
• A newspaper is not only a collective propagandist and a collective agitator, it is also a collective organiser.

Materialism and Empirio-Criticism (1908)

• The sole "property" of matter with whose recognition philosophical materialism is bound up is the property of being an objective reality, of existing outside the mind.
• Human thought by its nature is capable of giving, and does give, absolute truth, which is compounded of a sum-total of relative truths.
• The reflection of nature in man's thought must be understood not lifelessly but in the eternal process of movement, the arising of contradictions and their solution.
• Human reason has discovered many amazing things in nature and will discover still more, and will thereby increase its power over nature.
• If the world is eternally moving and developing matter (as the Marxists think), reflected by the developing human consciousness, what is there “static” here? The point at issue is not the immutable essence of things, or an immutable consciousness, but the correspondence between the consciousness which reflects nature and the nature which is reflected by consciousness.
• Materialism is the recognition of "objects in themselves", or outside the mind; ideas and sensations are copies of images of those objects.
• Sensation is a subjective image of the objective world.
• To be a materialist is to acknowledge objective truth, which is revealed to us by our sense organs.

• In our struggle for true internationalism & against “jingo-socialism” we always quote in our press the example of the opportunist leaders of the S.P. in America, who are in favor of restrictions of the immigration of Chinese and Japanese workers (especially after the Congress of Stuttgart, 1907, & against the decisions of Stuttgart). We think that one can not be internationalist & be at the same time in favor of such restrictions. And we assert that Socialists in America, especially English Socialists, belonging to the ruling, and oppressing nation, who are not against any restrictions of immigration, against the possession of colonies (Hawaii) and for the entire freedom of colonies, that such Socialists are in reality jingoes.
• 'Yet Another Anti-Democratic Campaign', Pravda , Nos. 24 and 25 (2 and 9 September 1912)
• "The End of the Italo-Turkish War" in Pravda , No. 129 (28 September 1912) ; Collected Works , Vol. 18.
• The Results and Significance of the U.S. Presidential Elections (November 1912)
• The Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism (March 1913)
• The Three Sources and Three Constituent Parts of Marxism (March 1913)
• "Capitalism and Workers’ Immigration", in Za Pravdu No. 22 (29 October 1913) ; Collected Works , Vol. 24.
• Conspectus of Hegel’s Science of Logic — Book III : Subjective Logic or the Doctrine of the Notion (December 1914) ; Collected Works , Vol. 38, p. 85-241.
• "Right of Nations to Self-Determination", (1904), The Lenin Anthology
• Socialism and War (1914), The Lenin Anthology
• The War and Russian Social-Democracy (September 1914), The Lenin Anthology
• Can the Bolsheviks Retain State Power? , (1917)
• "Can the Bolsheviks Retain State Power?", (1917), The Lenin Anthology
• "The Question of Peace" (July–August 1915) ; Collected Works , Vol. 21, p. 293.
• "A Caricature of Marxism and Imperialist Economism" (August - October 1916) Collected Works , Vol. 23, pp. 28-76 [1]
• "The “Disarmament” Slogan" (October 1916) ; Collected Works , Vol. 23, p. 94-104.
• Letter to Inessa Armand (20 November 1916) Collected Works , Vol. 35, pp. 246-247.
• Imperialism : The Highest Stage of Capitalism (1916) .
• Letters on Tactics (April 1917) ; Collected Works , Vol. 24.
• "War and Revolution" (May 1917) , Collected Works , Vol. 24.
• "The Russian Revolution And Civil War" (29 September 1917) ; in Collected Works , Vol. 26, 1972, pp. 28-42.
• "The Tasks of the Revolution" (9 October 1917) ; Collected Works , Vol. 26, 1972, pp. 59 - 68.
• "Meeting Of The All-Russia Central Executive Committee" (4 November 1917) ; Collected Works , Vol. 26, pp. 285-293.
• Report on Land (8 November 1917) ; Collected Works , Vol. 26.
• Concluding Speech Following the Discussion On the Report of Peace (8 November 1917) ; Collected Works , Vol. 26.
• Report on Peace (8 November 1917) , Lenin's Collected Works , Vol. 26.
• “How to Organize Competition?” (Dec. 24-27, 1917) Collected Works , Volume 26, p. 404-15, Progress Publishers, first published in Pravda No. 17, January 20, 1929.
• "How to Organise Competition?" (27 December 1917) ; Collected Works , Vol. 26, pp. 411, 414.
• Will the Bolsheviks Retain Government Power? (1917); this is often misquoted as "every cook must learn to govern the state" or even "every cook can govern the state."
• The Impending Catastrophe and How to Fight It (1917).
• Third All-Russia Congress Of Soviets Of Workers, Soldiers’ And Peasants  : Report On The Activities Of The Council Of People’s Commissars" (January 1918) ; Collected Works , Vol. 26, p. 453-82.
• "Report on the Activities of the Council of People’s Commissars" (24 January 1918); Collected Works, Vol. 26, pp. 459-61.
• "Report on the Activities of the Council of People’s Commissars" (24 January 1918); Collected Works , Vol. 26, pp. 459-61.
• Report on the Activities of the Council of People’s Commissars (24 January 1918); Collected Works , Vol. 26, pp. 459-61.
• “Report on the Activities of the Council of People’s Commissars” (23-31 January 1918) , as translated by Yuri Sdobnikov and George Hanna, Collected Works , Vol. 26, pp. 459-61.
• “Meeting of the Presidium of the Petrograd Soviet With Delegates From the Food Supply Organisations" (27 January 1918) Collected Works , Vol. 26, p. 501.
• “Meeting of the Presidium of the Petrograd Soviet With Delegates From the Food Supply Organisations” (27 January 1918); Collected Works , Vol. 26, p. 503.
• Address to the Party Central Committee (14 May 1918); Collected Works , Vol. 27, pp. 365-381.
• "Left Wing' Childishness", Pravda (May 1918).
• Letter to G. F. Fyodorov, 9 August 1918. First published, but not in full, in 1938 in Bolshevik No. 2. Republished in Lenin Collected Works , Progress Publishers , 1976, Volume 35, page 349. 349 Text online at the Marxists Internet Archive .
• " Lenin's Hanging Order " (11 August 1918), an order for the execution of kulaks, as translated in The Unknown Lenin : From the Secret Archive (1996) by Richard Pipes, p. 50
• Variant translation: Hang (and make sure that the hanging takes place in full view of the people) no fewer than one hundred known landlords, rich men, bloodsuckers. ... Do it in such a fashion that for hundreds of kilometres around the people might see, tremble, know, shout: "they are strangling, and will strangle to death, the bloodsucking kulaks".
• As translated in Lenin : A Biography (2000) by Robert Service , p. 365.
• Also quoted as "Make mass searches and hold executions for found arms."
• Letter to G. F. Fyodorov, August 9, 1918, Collected Works , vol. 35. 35
• "Draft of a Telegram to all Soviets of Deputies Concerning the Worker-Peasant Alliance" (16 August 1918) ; Collected Works , Vol. 28.
• Memorandum to Nikolay Nikolayevich Krestinsky (3 or 4 September 1918) while recovering from an assassination attempt by Socialist-Revolutionary Fanni Kaplan on 30 August 1918; published in The Mitrokhin Archive: The KGB in Europe and the West (1999) Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin, p. 34.
• Telegram to Leon Trotsky (7 September 1918) as translated by Andrew Rothstein; the recovery he mentions was of the wounds he received in the assassination attempt on him a few days earlier; published in Collected Works , Vol. 35, p. 359
• As translated in The Cheka : Lenin’s Political Police (1981) by George Leggett, p. 119,
• Speech to the All-Russia Extraordinary Commission Staff (7 November 1918); Collected Works , Vol. 28, pp. 169-70
• "Reply to a Peasant’s Question" (15 February 1919) ; Collected Works , Vol. 36, p. 501.
• Anti-Jewish Pogroms (March 1919) Lenin’s Collected Works , 4th English Edition, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1972 Volume 29, p. 252-253.
• You are known among us as a protector of the arts so you must remember that, of all the arts, for us the cinema is the most important.
• Conversation with A.V.Lunacharsky (April 1919); also quoted in A Concise History of the Cinema: Before 1940 (1971) by Peter Cowie , p. 137, Complete Works of V.I.Lenin - 5th Edition - Vol. 44. - p. 579.
• The Daily Chronicle and New York Times (April 23, 1919), Paul Miliukov, Bolshevism: An International Danger , London: UK, Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2010, pp. 75-76, first published in 1920
• “Speech to the First All-Russia Congress of Workers in Education and Socialist Culture” (30 July 1919) Collected Works , Vol. 29, p. 535.
• Address to the Seventh All-Russia Congress (5 December 1919) ; Collected Works , Vol. 30.
• Address to the Seventh All-Russia Congress (5 December 1919); Collected Works , Vol. 30.
• Letter from Lenin to Gorky , Sept. 15, 1919

"The Right of Nations to Self-Determination" (1914)

"the dual power" (1917).

"The Dual Power" was published in Pravda on April 9, 1917 discussing the policy of dual political power between The Provisional Government of Alexander Kerensky centered in Moscow, and The Petrograd Soviet in the contemporary city of St. Petersberg

• Lenin Anthology , p. 301

"The Enemies of the People" (June 1917)

• The "Jacobins" of the twentieth century would not guillotine the capitalists - to follow a good example does not mean copying it. It would be enough to arrest fifty to a hundred financial magnates and bigwigs, the chief knights of embezzlement and of robbery by the banks . It would be enough to arrest them for a few weeks to expose their frauds and show all exploited people " who needs the war." Upon exposing the frauds of the banking barons, we could release them, placing the banks, the capitalist syndicates, and all the contractors "working" for the government under workers' control.

"The Foreign Policy of the Russian Revolution"

• No idea could be more erroneous or harmful than to separate foreign from domestic policy.
• Popular ignorance of foreign policy is incomparably greater than of domestic policy.
• You must side with one of the two immensely wealthy and immensely powerful groups of imperialist predators - that is how capitalist reality poses the basic issue of present-day foreign policy .

April Thesis (1917)

Published in Pravda on April 7th, months after the February Revolution, Lenin formulates what would become the Bolshevik Party's official position in regards to the Provisional Government.

• In our attitude towards the war, which under the new government of Lvov and Co. unquestionably remains on Russia's part a predatory imperialist war owing to the capitalist nature of that government, not the slightest concession to “ revolutionary defencism ” is permissible.
• In view of the undoubted honesty of those broad sections of the mass believers in revolutionary defencism who accept the war only as a necessity, and not as a means of conquest, in view of the fact that they are being deceived by the bourgeoisie, it is necessary with particular thoroughness, persistence and patience to explain their error to them, and to prove that without overthrowing capital it is impossible to end the war by a truly democratic peace.
• The masses must be made to see that the Soviets of Workers' Deputies are the only possible form of revolutionary government.
• Not a parliamentary republic —to return to a parliamentary republic from the Soviets of Workers’ Deputies would be a retrograde step—but a republic of Soviets.
• Abolition of the police , the army and the bureaucracy . The salaries of all officials, all of whom are elective and displaceable at any time, not to exceed the average wage of a competent worker.
• It is not our immediate task to “introduce” socialism, but only to bring social production and the distribution of products at once under the control of the Soviets of Workers' Deputies.
• It is, of course, much easier to shout, abuse, and howl than to attempt to relate, to explain.

Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism (1917)

• Chapter One
• Chapter Two
• Chapter Three
• Chapter Four, "The Export of Capital"
• Chapter Six
• Chapter Seven
• The war of 1914-18 was imperialist (that is, an annexationist, predatory, war of plunder) on the part of both sides; it was a war for the division of the world, for the partition and repartition of colonies and spheres of influence of finance capital.
• When nine-tenths of Africa had been seized (by 1900), when the whole world had been divided up, there was inevitably ushered in the era of monopoly possession of colonies and, consequently, of particularly intense struggle for the division and the redivision of the world.
• Modern monopolist capitalism on a world-wide scale — imperialist wars are absolutely inevitable under such an economic system , as long as private property in the means of production exists.
• Monopolies, oligarchy , the striving for domination and not for freedom, the exploitation of an increasing number of small or weak nations by a handful of the richest or most powerful nations — all these have given birth to those distinctive characteristics of imperialism which compel us to define it as parasitic or decaying capitalism.
• The Lenin Anthology , p. 268

The State and Revolution (1917)

• 1.1, Essential Works of Lenin (1966)
• 1.1, Essential Workers of Lenin (1966)
• 1.1, The Lenin Anthology
• 1.2, Essential Works of Lenin (1966)
• 1.3: The State as an Instrument for the Exploitation of The Oppressed Class, Essential Works of Lenin (1966)
• § 1.4, "The Withering Away of the State and Violent Revolution", Essential Works of Lenin (1966)
• 2.1, "The Eve of The Revolution", Essential Works of Lenin (1966)
• 2.2, Essential Works of Lenin (1966)
• 3.3, Essential Works of Lenin (1966)
• 3.2, Essential Works of Lenin (1966)
• § 3.4, Essential Works of Lenin (1966), pp. 307-308
• Ch. 4 : Supplementary Explanations by Engels
• While the State exists, there can be no freedom. When there is freedom there will be no State.
• Ch. 5 Lenin, Vladmir Illych (1917). "2. The Transition from Capitalism to Communism" . The State and Revolution . Marxists.org . Retrieved on 17 January 2015 .  
• 5.2, Essential Works of Lenin (1966)
• 5.4, Essential Works of Lenin (1966)
• It is still necessary to suppress the bourgeoisie and crush its resistance.
• Ch. 5 Lenin, Vladmir Illych (1917). The State and Revolution . "Marx grasped this essence of capitalist democracy splendidly when, in analyzing the experience of the Commune, he said that the oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class shall represent and repress them in parliament!"  
• The Essential Lenin , p.312
• The Lenin Anthology , p.379
• Lenin Anthology , p. 380
• 'Lenin Anthology , p. 380
• Marxism: Essential Writings , "The State and Revolution"

• Quoted in La Tribuna by Nicola Bombacci on 30 December 1920
• "Resolution on Party Unity" (May, 1921)
• Introducing the New Economic Plan, (March, 1921)
• "New Times and Old Mistakes in a New Guise",(August, 1921)
• Admidst the colossal ruin of the country and the exhaustion of the forces of the proletariat, by a series of almost superhuman efforts, we are tackling the most difficult job: laying the foundations for really existing socialist economy, for the regular exchange of commodities (or, more correctly, exchange of products) between industry and agriculture.
• "Communism and New Economic Policy",(April 1921)
• Retreat is a difficult matter, especially for revolutionaries who are accustomed to advance; especially when they have been accustomed to advance with enormous success for several years; especially if they are surrounded by revolutionaries in other countries who are longing for the time when they can launch an offensive.
• Interview with Karl Wiegand (18 February 1920); Collected Works , 4th English Edition, Vol. 30.
• Left-Wing Communism, An Infantile Disorder (April - May 1920) .
• “The Role and Functions of the Trade Unions under the New Economic Policy”, LCW, 33, p. 184. Decision Of The C.C., R.C.P.(B.), January 12, 1922. Published in Pravda No. 12, January 17, 1922; Lenin’s Collected Works , 2nd English Edition, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1965, Volume 33, pages 188–196.
• New External and Internal Position and the Problems of the Party (1920); as quoted in The Soviet Power : The Socialist Sixth Of The World (1940) by Hewlett Johnson.
• As quoted in The Life of Benito Mussolini , Margherita Sarfatti , London: UK. Thornton Butterworth, Ltd., 1926, p. 261, remarks made at the end of 1920. [2]
• Speech delivered at the Fourth All-Russia Congress of Garment Workers (6 February 1920) ; Collected Works , Vol. 32, pp. 112-119.
• "The Importance of Gold Now and After the Complete Victory of Socialism" (5 November 1921) , Collected Works , Vol. 33, p. 113.
• “On the Significance of Militant Materialism” , (12 March 1922)
• Letter to Comrade Molotov for the Politburo (19 March 1922)
• Variant translation:
• As translated in The Unknown Lenin : From the Secret Archive (1996) edited by Richard Pipes, pp. 152-4
• As quoted in Revolutionary Fascism , Erik Norling, Lisbon, Finis Mundi Press (2011) p. 28. Lenin express this to Nicola Bombacci during a reception in the Kremlin.
• Letter to Comrade Molotov for the Politburo (19 March 1922).
• Letter to Joseph Stalin (May 27, 1922), Marxists Internet Archive. Also quoted in The Riddle of Armand Hammer (1981)
• Speech (27 May 1922).
• As quoted in Stalin : A Biography (2004) by Robert Service, p. 183.
• Letter to the Congress (January 4, 1923)
• Letter to Joseph Stalin (March 5, 1923), Marxists Internet Archive.

"Left-Wing" Communism: An Infantile Disorder (1920)

• CH. 2 An Essential Condition of the Bolsheviks' Success
• CH 5, "Left Wing Communism in Germany. The Leaders, the Party, the Class, the Mass"
• CH 10, The Lenin Anthology
• Concluding paragraph, Ch. 10. The Lenin Anthology
• For any truth, if overdone (as Dietzgen Senior put it), if exaggerated, or if carried beyond the limits of its applicability, can be reduced to absurdity.

Collected Works

• Collected Works , Vol. 5, pp. 25–30.
• Lenin᾿s Collected Works, Vol. 2, pp. 491–534
• Collected Works , Vol. 5, pp. 347–530
• Collected Works , Vol. 7, pp. 43–56
• Collected Works , Vol. 7, pp. 92–103.
• Collected Works ,Vol. 10, pp. 44–49.
• Collected Works , Vol. 10, pp. 83–87.
• "Lessons of the Moscow Uprising" Collected Works , Vol. 11, p. 174.
• "Lessons of the Commune" , Collected Works , Vol. 13.
• Collected Works , Vol. 14, pp. 17–362.
• Collected Works , Vol. 15, pp. 191–201.
• Collected Works , Vol. 15, p. 229.
• Collected Works , Vol. 18, pp. 163–169.
• Collected Works , Vol. 18, pp. 435–436.
• Collected Works , Vol. 18, p. 543–544.
• Collected Works , Vol. 20, pp. 393–454.
• Collected Works , Vol. 21, pp. 158–164.
• Collected Works , Vol. 21, p 341.
• Collected Works , Vol. 22, pp. 305–319.
• Collected Works , Vol. 22, pp. 320–360.
• Collected Works , Vol. 23, pp. 28–76.
• Collected Works , Vol. 24, pp. 38–41.
• Collected Works , Vol. 24, pp. 42–54.
• Collected Works , Vol. 24, pp. 398–421.
• Collected Works , Vol. 24, p. 455–480.
• Collected Works , Vol. 25, p. 381–492.
• Collected Works , Vol. 26, pp. 22–27.
• Collected Works , Vol. 26, p. 107.
• Collected Works , Vol. 26, pp. 304–308.
• Collected Works , Vol. 26, pp. 379–383.
• Collected Works , Vol. 26, pp. 453–482.
• Collected Works , Vol. 27, pp. 159–63.
• Collected Works , Vol. 27, pp. 383–387.
• Collected Works , Vol. 28, p. 98.
• Collected Works , Vol. 28, pp. 113–126.
• Collected Works , Vol. 28, p. 62–75.
• Collected Works , Vol. 28, pp. 180–182.
• Collected Works , Vol. 29, pp. 141–225.
• Collected Works , Vol. 29, p. 172.
• Collected Works , Vol. 29, p. 252–53.
• Collected Works , Vol. 29, p. 436–455.
• Collected Works , Vol. 30, pp. 52–62.
• Collected Works , Vol. 30, pp. 107–117.
• Collected Works , Vol. 30, p. 494.
• Collected Works , Vol. 30, p. 502–15, Third All-Russia Trade Union Congress
• Collected Works , Vol. 31.
• Collected Works , Vol. 31, pp. 152–64.
• Collected Works , Vol. 31, pp. 213–63.
• Collected Works , Vol. 31, pp. 267–69.
• Collected Works , 4th English Edition, Vol. 31, pp. 438–59.
• Collected Works , Vol. 32, p.  94.
• Collected Works , Vol. 32, pp. 504–9.
• Collected Works , Vol. 33, pp. 227–36.
• Collected Works , Vol. 38, pp. 357–61
• Collected Works , Vol. 41, pp. 262–66
• Collected Works , Vol. 41.
• Collected Works , Vol. 42, pp. 94–95.

Attributions

• Quoted from a "Speech to followers" by Ost-Information (Berlin), No. 81 (4 December 1920); as quoted in The Foreign Policies of Soviet Russia (1924) by A. L. O. Dennis, p. 154.
• From a personal conversation, quoted from memory by Maxim Gorky in "V.I. Lenin" (1924)
• As quoted in Pan-Sovietism: The Issue Before America and the World, Bruce Campbell Hopper , Boston and New York, Houghton Mifflin Company (1931) p. 87
• As quoted in Woman's Place by Florence Becker, in New International , Vol. 2 No. 5 (August 1935), pp.175-176; also in Woman in Soviet Russia (1935) by Fannina W. Halle.
• As quoted in Soviet Communism : A New Civilization? (1936) by Sidney & Beatrice Webb
• The Guillotine At Work : Twenty Years of Terror In Russia (1940) by Grigoriĭ Petrovich Maksimov, p. 38.
• Reported by I. U. Annenkov in an article entitled, "Remembrances of Lenin", Novyi Zhurnal/New Review (September 1961), p. 147.
• Statements attributed to Lenin in "Communists: The Battle over the Tomb" in TIME (24 April 1964) .
• Statement after the October Revolution of 1917, as quoted in "Communists: The Battle over the Tomb" in TIME (24 April 1964).
• Attributed in "Communists: The Battle over the Tomb" in TIME (24 April 1964).
• Quote from Max Eastman , Reflections on the Failure of Socialism , Devin-Adair (1981) p. 87
• As quoted in A Fate Worse than Debt (1988) Susan George.
• Nikola" here is St. Nickolas' Day, as quoted in Autopsy for an Empire (1998) by Dmitri Volkogonov, p. 74.
• As quoted in Lenin: Life and Legacy (1994) by Dmitri Volkogonov , p. 203.
• As quoted in Tasks of Revolutionary Army Contingents, Collected Works, Vol. 9 , pages. 420-24.
• As quoted in Lessons of the Moscow Uprising, Collected Works, Vol. 11 , page 174.
• As quoted in Lessons of the Commune, Collected Works, Vol. 13 , page 478.
• As quoted in The Military Programme of the Proletarian Revolution, Collected Works, Vol. 23 , pages 78-9.
• As quoted in How to Organise Competition? Collected Works, Vol. 26 , pages. 411, 414.
• As quoted in Report on the Activities of the Council of People’s Commissars, Collected Works, Vol. 26 , pages 459-61.
• As quoted in Meeting of the Presidium of the Petrograd Soviet With Delegates From the Food Supply Organisations, Collected Works, Vol. 26 , page 501.
• As quoted in George Leggett, The Cheka: Lenin’s Political Police (1981), page 57.
• As quoted in Richard Pipes, The Unknown Lenin: From the Secret Archive (1996), page 46.
• As quoted in George Leggett, The Cheka: Lenin’s Political Police (1981), page 103.
• As quoted in Richard Pipes, The Unknown Lenin: From the Secret Archive (1996), page 50.
• As quoted in Comrade Workers, Forward To The Last, Decisive Fight! Collected Works, Vol. 28, pages 53-7.
• As quoted in George Leggett, The Cheka: Lenin’s Political Police (1981), p. 119.
• As quoted in The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky (1972), p. 11.
• As quoted in Speech All-Russia Extraordinary Commission Staff, Collected Works, Vol. 28 , pp. 169-70.
• As quoted in Dmitri Volkogonov, Lenin: Life and Legacy (1994), p. 201.
• As quoted in Speech to the First All-Russia Congress of Workers in Education and Socialist Culture, Collected Works, Vol. 29 , p. 535).
• As quoted in Dmitri Volkogonov, Lenin: Life and Legacy (1994), p. 203.
• As quoted in Richard Pipes, The Unknown Lenin: From the Secret Archive (1996), p. 69.
• As quoted in Richard Pipes, The Unknown Lenin: From the Secret Archive (1996), p. 77.
• "Fight at the fall of the old and the Fight for the New", Lenin Anthology
• As quoted in Richard Pipes, The Unknown Lenin: From the Secret Archive (1996), pp. 152-4.
• As quoted in Dorothy Healey, California Red: A Life in the American Communist Party (1993), p. 81.
• Variant: "When the train of history makes a sharp turn, said Lenin, the passengers who do not have a good grip on their seats are thrown off." Whittaker Chambers, The Revolt of the Intellectuals , TIME magazine, January 6, 1941.
• As quoted by Tariq Ali in The Dilemmas of Lenin , in response to a officer asking "Why are you causing trouble, young man? You're breaking your head against a wall."
• As quoted by Clara Zetkin in "Lenin on the Women’s Question", My Memorandum Book , 1920.
• As quoted in S. D. Mstislavskii (1925), Memoirs . [3]

Misattributed

• Was falsely attributed to Lenin by Michael Ellman, The Role of Leadership Perceptions and of Intent in the Soviet Famine of 1931-1934, Europe-Asia Studies, September 2005, page 823
• According to barrypopik.com , There is no evidence Lenin ever said this. It more likely comes from a book by Rajani Palme Dutt , Fascism and Social Revolution: A Study of the Economics and Politics of the Last Stages of Capitalism in Decay (1935). This quote was cited as being from Lenin in print in 1968.
• John Quincy Adams , letter to Hugh Nelson (28 April 1823)
• Parke Godwin, "Annexation" (February 1854)
• According to the book, "They Never Said It", p. 64, there is no evidence Lenin ever said this. Lenin was supposed to have made his observation to one of his close associates, Grigori Zinoviev, not long after a meeting of the Politburo in the early 1920s, but there is no evidence that he ever did. Experts on the Soviet Union reject the rope quote as spurious.
• Mao Zedong , "On Practice" (1937)
• John Maynard Keynes , paraphrase of Lenin Interview
• Fabricated quote from The Voluntary Way is the American Way (1949) by PR firm Whitaker and Baxter. According to The Heart of Power by David Blumenthal and James Morone (pp. 91-92) Whitaker and Baxter published a fifteen-page pamphlet of questions and answers entitled The Voluntary Way is the American Way , which, deep in the Q&A, concocted a quotation from Lenin: Q: Would socialized medicine lead to socialization of other phases of American life? A: Lenin thought so. He declared: socialized medicine is the keystone to the arch of the socialist state. Senator Murray asked the Library of Congress to track down the quote and, as expected, they found nothing like it—most scholars assume Whitaker and Baxter dreamed it up.
• Alternate form: "Socialized medicine is a keystone to the establishment of a socialist state."
• Not found in Lenin's Collected Works . Began to surface on the internet in the mid-1990s.

Quotes about Lenin

• Angelica Balabanoff My Life As a Rebel (1938)
• Cristina Beltrán , The trouble with unity : Latino politics and the creation of identity (2010)
• Alexander Berkman , The Bolshevik Myth
• Bertolt Brecht "Cantata on the Day of Lenin’s Death" [1] [2]
• Alain Brossat and Sylvia Klingberg, Revolutionary Yiddishland: A History of Jewish Radicalism (2016)
• Fidel Castro , Speech (22 April 1970)
• Fidel Castro , Speech (22 December 1972)
• Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, 1960.
• Noam Chomsky , Speech on “Lenin, Trotsky and Socialism & the Soviet Union”, (March 15, 1989) [4]
• Noam Chomsky , Speech on “Lenin, Trotsky and Socialism & the Soviet Union”, (March 15, 1989) [5]
• Winston Churchill , On Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, in the House of Commons, November 5, 1919 as cited in Churchill by Himself (2008), Ed. Langworth, PublicAffairs, p. 355.
• Robert Conquest , as quoted in Hitch 22: A Memoir by Christopher Hitchens (2011)
• Angela Davis : An Autobiography (2022)
• Eugene V. Debs , The Day of the People (1918)
• Asrat Destu, Ethiopian revolutionary, as quoted by Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin (2006). The Mitrokhin Archive II: The KGB and the World , pp. 467-8)
• Miguel Díaz-Canel , Tweet , 22 April 2020
• Albert Einstein , as quoted in Einstein and the Generations of Science (p.25) by Lewis Samuel Feuerl.
• Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin , Anarchism and the Black Revolution (1993)
• Elizabeth Gurley Flynn , The Rebel Girl: An Autobiography, My First Life (1955)
• Clive Foss, The Tyrants: 2500 Years of Absolute Power and Corruption , London: Quercus Publishing, 2006, ISBN 1905204965 , p. 124
• Foster, William Z (December 1939), " Lenin and Stalin as Mass Leaders ", The Communist (Marxists) XVIII (12)   .
• John Lewis Gaddis , The Cold War: A New History (2006), p. 87
• Gellately, Robert (2007), Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler: The Age of Social Catastrophe   .
• Joseph Goebbels , as quoted in The New York Times , “HITLERITE RIOT IN BERLIN: Beer Glasses Fly When Speaker Compares Hitler and Lenin,” (Nov. 28, 1925) p. 4
• Emma Goldman , My Disillusionment in Russia
• "Lenin, Vladimir Il’yich" , Great Soviet Encyclopedia , The free dictionary, 1979   .
• A. James Gregor , Giovanni Gentile: Philosopher of Fascism , Transaction Press (1924) p. 45
• Hardt, Michael ; Negri, Antonio (2004), Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire   .
• Pete Hegseth , Modern Warriors (New York: Broadside Books, 2020), p. 26-27
• Ho Chi Minh , "Lenin and the East" (1926)
• Minh, Ho Chi (1967), Ho Chi Minh on Revolution, Selected Writings, 1920-66   .
• Hoffer, Eric (1976), In Our Time   .
• Eric Hoffer , Before the Sabbath , Harper & Row 1979, p. 104
• Langston Hughes , "'Ballads of Lenin"' (1933) [3]
• Tony Judt , in Tony Judt and Timothy Snyder, Thinking the twentieth century (2012), Ch. 3: Familial Socialism: Political Marxist
• Fanni Kaplan , in a statement during her interrogation after an assassination attempt on Lenin, as quoted in Shub, David (1976), Lenin: A Biography , p. 362   .
• John Maynard Keynes , The Economic Consequences of the Peace , Chap. VI: “Europe After The Treaty,” New York: NY, Harcourt, Brace and Howe, 1920, p. 235
• Alexandra Kollontai , "A Giant Mind, A Giant Will"
• Peter Kropotkin , in a letter to Lenin (21 December 1920); as quoted in Woodcock, George ; Avakumovic, Ivan (1990), Peter Kropotkin: From Prince to Rebel , p. 426   .
• Peter Kropotkin , as quoted in Peter Kropotkin: From Prince to Rebel (1990) by George Woodcock and Ivan Avakumovic, p. 407.
• Nadezhda Krupskaya "Lenin on Communist Morality"
• Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn , writing under the pen name Francis Stewart Campbell (1943), Menace of the Herd, or, Procrustes at Large , Milwaukee, WI: The Bruce Publishing Company, pp. 35-36
• David Lloyd George , War Memoirs: Volume II (1938), p. 1887
• Benito Mussolini , as quoted in Megaro, Gaudens (1938), Mussolini in the Making , p. 326   .
• Jawaharlal Nehru , Soviet Russia: Some Random Sketches and Impressions (1949) Writing about a visit to Lenin's mummy in Moscow. Quoted from S.R.Goel, Genesis and Growth of Nehruism, Vol I.
• Nehru, Glimpses of World History (1949). Quoted from S.R.Goel, Genesis and Growth of Nehruism, Vol I.
• Tillie Olsen , Interview with The Progressive Magazine (1999)
• George Orwell , ‘Second Thoughts on James Burnham’, Polemic , No. 3 (May 1946), quoted in Sonia Orwell and Ian Angus (eds.), The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell. Volume IV: In Front of Your Nose, 1945–1950 (1968), p. 168
• Anton Pannekoek , Lenin as Philosopher
• Ronald Reagan , " Remarks at the Annual Convention of Concerned Women for America ", 25 September, 1987
• Paul Robeson , "To You Beloved Comrade" (April 1953)
• Romain Rolland , as quoted in Fülöp-Miller, René (1930), Lenin and Gandhi , p. 102   .
• As quoted in Through the Eyes of Foreigners, 1917–1932 , 1932, p. 222   .

• Russell, Bertrand (1920), The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism   .
• Bertrand Russell , "Eminent Men I Have Known", Unpopular Essays (1950)
• Bertrand Russell , Interview with David Susskind (10 June 1962), pp. 52–53
• Robert Service, Comrades! A History of World Communism (2007), p. 63
• Simon Sebag Montefiore , Young Stalin (2007)
• Nina Simone , as quoted in Party Music: The Inside Story of the Black Panthers' Band and How Black , Rickey Vincent, ISBN ISBN 9781613744956
• Martin Sixsmith , Russia: A 1,000-Year Chronicle of the Wild East (2011)
• Nur Muhammad Taraki , as quoted by Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin (2006). The Mitrokhin Archive II: The KGB and the World , p. 389)
• Trotsky, Leon (1925), Lenin , Marxists   .
• Sun Yat-sen in a 1924 response to Lenin's death, as quoted in Manfred, Albert Zakharovich (1974), A Short History of the World , 2   ; also in Lenin: A Biography , Moscow: Progress, 1983   .

Nadezhda Krupskaya "Lenin as a Man"

• Lenin was a revolutionary Marxist and collectivist to the depths of his being. All his life and work was devoted to one great goal--the struggle for the triumph of socialism. This left its imprint on all his thoughts and feelings. He had none of the pettiness, petty envy, anger, revengefulness and vanity so much to be found in small-property-minded individualists.
• Lenin fought, he put questions sharply; in argument he introduced nothing personal but approached questions from the point of view of the matter in question, and, because of this, comrades were not usually offended at his sharp manner. He observed people closely, listened to what they had to say, tried to grasp the essential point, and so he was able, out of a number of insignificant points, to catch the nature of the person, he was able to approach people with remarkable sensitivity, to find in them all that was good and of value and could be put to the service of the common cause.
• Not everyone can learn from life, from other people. Ilyich knew how to. He never used artifice or diplomacy in dealing with people, never hoodwinked them, and people sensed his sincerity and candour.
• The family or group clannishness so characteristic of the old days was alien to Ilyich. He never separated the personal from the social. With him it was all merged into one. He could never have loved a woman whose views differed from his own, who was not his comrade in work.
• Lenin tried to get as close as he could to the masses and he was able to do so. Association with workers gave him a very great deal. It gave him a real understanding of the tasks of the struggle of the proletariat at every stage.

External links

• TIME 100: V.I. Lenin by David Remnick, (13 April 1998)
• Lenin Internet Archive Biography
• Marxists.org Lenin Internet Archive
• Marx2Mao.org - Lenin Internet Library
• Article on Lenin written by Trotsky for the Encyclopedia Britannica
• Reminiscences of Lenin by N. K. Krupskaya
• Impressions of Soviet Russia   by John Dewey
• Information on Lenin's Grave
• The Lenin Museum in Tampere, Finland
• Lenin and the First Communist Revolutions
• Mirrors of Moscow: Nikolai Lenin by Louise Bryant
• Nicolai Lenin : His Life and Work by G. Zinovieff
• "The Personality and Power of Nikolai Lenin" from Raymond Robins' Own Story by William Hard (1920)
• Statues and portraits of Lenin
• "The Ghosts of Lenin Abound" in The Moscow News Weekly (15 January 2009)
• Lenin's speech (video) - Lenin speech with subtitles
• Lenin in color
• The Development of Capitalism in Russia
• What is to be Done?
• One Step Forward, Two Steps Back
• Reply by N. Lenin to Rosa Luxemburg
• Two Tactics of Social-Democracy in the Democratic Revolution
• Materialism and Empirio-Criticism
• The Right of Nations to Self-Determination
• Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism
• The State and Revolution
• How to Organise Competition?
• The April Theses
• The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky
• Left-Wing Communism : An Infantile Disorder
• Lenin's Testament
• Lenin's last letter to Stalin

• ↑ https://challenge-magazine.org/2020/05/06/poetry-corner-a-few-poems-for-lenins-birthday/
• ↑ https://cornucopiados.blogspot.com/2008/10/cantata-on-day-of-lenins-death-cita.html
• ↑ https://www.struggle-la-lucha.org/2020/04/21/langston-hughes-two-poems-about-lenin/

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