Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

“ The war aroused the masses, awakened them by unheard of horrors and sufferings. The war has given impetus to history and now the world is speeding along with the speed of a locomotive. History is now being independently made by millions and tens of millions of people. Capitalism has now become ripe for Socialism.
Thus, if Russia now moves—and it cannot be denied that she does move from a "Tilsit" peace to national awakening and to a great war for the fatherland, the outlet of such an awakening leads not to the bourgeois state but to an international Socialist revolution. ”

“ You, gentlemen, who talk so much about the "average worker," as a matter of fact, rather insult the workers by your desire to talk down to them, to stoop to them when discussing labour politics or labour organisation. Talk about serious things in a serious manner; leave pedagogics to the pedagogues, and not to politicians and to organisers! Are there not advanced people, "average people," and "masses," among the intelligentsia? Does not every one recognise that popular literature is required for the intelligentsia and is not such literature written? ”

“ But the Commune is inevitable in Russia, if our bloc does not take power, if the situation remains as it has done from May 6 to August 31. The spirit of every workman, of every revolutionary soldier will without fail turn towards the Commune, he will believe in it, he will attempt to achieve it. The people, he will say to himself, is perishing; war, famine, ruin are decimating its ranks more and more seriously as each day goes by. Only the Commune can save us. Let us sacrifice ourselves, let us all die if need be, but long live the Commune! ”

“ But never as yet and nowhere have the small peasants of a large country been under the influence of a proletarian State! Never as yet and nowhere have the small peasants proceeded to engage in an open class struggle between the poor and the rich among them, to a civil war among them, with the propagandist, political, economic and military assistance of the poor by a proletarian State authority! Never as yet and nowhere has such an enrichment taken place of speculators and profiteers simultaneously with the utter ruin of the masses of the peasantry as the result of a war. ”

“ The Communist should penetrate into the humblest taverns, should find his way into the unions, societies, and chance gatherings of the common people and talk with them, not learnedly, nor too much after the parliamentary fashion. He should not for a moment think of a "place" in parliament; his only object should be everywhere to awaken the minds of the people, to attract the masses, to trip the bourgeoisie up on their own words, utilizing the apparatus created by them, the election contests arranged by them, the appeals to the whole people issued by them, to preach Bolshevism to the masses. ”

“ The war, more than anything else, has served to open the eyes of the workers, to tear the false veil from bourgeois democracy, and to reveal to the people the whole abyss of war-time speculation and profiteering. In the name of freedom and equality the bourgeoisie has conducted this war; in the name of freedom and equality the purveyors of war-munitions have become incredibly rich. ”

“ The existence of a political crisis cannot be denied: not one of the governments was sure of the morrow; not one of them felt secure against financial collapse, or loss of territory, or even expulsion―as instance the Belgian Government―from its own country. The Governments to-day live on the top of a volcano and they all appeal to the self-activity and heroism of the masses. The political regime of the whole of Europe rocks on its foundations, and he must be blind who would deny that we have entered a period of great social upheavals. ”

“ We, Rabocheye Dyelo, place the mass labour movement as the cornerstone (and printed in heavy type!) ; we warn all and sundry against belittling the significance of the spontaneous movement; we desire to give the economic struggle itself, itself, itself, a political character; we desire to maintain close and organic contact with the proletarian struggle! And yet we are told that we are preparing the ground for converting the labour movement into an instrument of bourgeois democracy! ”

“ If we do not possess all the means of struggle, we may suffer a heavy—at times even a decisive—defeat, if the changes in the situation of other classes which are beyond our control should make the order the day that form of activity in which we are especially weak. Possessing all the means of struggle, we surely conquer, once we represent the interests of the truly foremost, truly revolutionary class, even though circumstances may not permit us to use all the weapons most dangerous to our enemy, weapons which the more quickly deal him deadly blows. ”

“ In order that there may be a real struggle against Czarism and its restoration, in order that the newly-won freedom may really be secured, and not exist simply in words and in the promises of rhetorical "liberals," it is necessary not that the workers should support the government, but that the government should support the workers! The only guarantee of liberty and of a complete abolition of Czarism is the arming of the proletariat, the strengthening, broadening, and development of the role and power of the Soviets of Workers and Soldiers. ”

“ Within the country we are passing through a period of slow constructive work and of merciless rigor, of a long and persistent struggle of the proletarian discipline with the threatening petty bourgeois dissoluteness and anarchy. Such, in short, are the distinctive features of the present stage in the Socialist revolution. Such is the link in the historical chain of events which we must now grasp with all our strength to come out with honor, before we pass to the next link—which draws us by its glory, by the glory of the victories of the international proletarian revolution. ”

“ It is untrue that the war is a purely Imperialist war, that at the commencement of the war the choice lay between Imperialism and Socialism, or that the Socialist Parties and the proletarian masses of Germany, France, and in many respects even of England, threw themselves headlong into the arms of imperialism at the mere beck and call of a handful of Parliamentarians, thus betraying Socialism and bringing about a collapse unparalleled in history. ”

“ But it is important that one should realize how infinitely mendacious is the usual capitalist representation of Socialism as something lifeless, petrified, fixed once for all. In reality, it is only with Socialism that there will commence a rapid, genuine, real mass advance, in which first the majority and then the whole of the population will take part—an advance in all domains of social and individual life.
Democracy is a form of the State—one of the varieties of the State; and, consequently, like every State, it stands as an organized, systematic application of force against mankind. ”

“ And these capitalist exploiters will necessarily be followed by a wide stream of the petty bourgeoisie, as to whom decades of historical experience of all countries bear witness that are constantly oscillating and hesitating, to-day following the proletariat, and to-morrow taking fright at the difficulties of the revolution, succumbing with panic after the first defeat or semi-defeat of the workers, giving way to "nerves," whining, running hither and thither, deserting from one camp to another—just like our Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries! ”

“ We carry on the struggle against the labor aristocracy in the name of the working masses, in order to gain them over to our side; and we do battle against the opportunist and social-chauvinist leaders in order to achieve the same object. To forget this most elementary and self-evident truth would be stupid. But the German “Left” Communists commit just this stupidity when, because of the reactionary and counter-revolutionary heads of the Trade Unions, they jump, by some inexplicable mental process, to the conclusion that it is necessary to abandon these organizations altogether! ”

“ Intelligent workers know perfectly well that the monarchists are working hand in glove with the bourgeoisie, and that the decisive victory of the proletariat (which the petit-bourgeois do not believe in which the capitalists fear; which some avowed revolutionaries wish for, in the hope that the Bolsheviks will not be able to keep power) —this victory, they know, will definitely annihilate the monarchists. And they know that the Bolsheviks will maintain power and will be able to use it for the greatest good of war-weary and war-shattered humanity. ”

“ To this extent, therefore, a form of State is still necessary, which, whilst maintaining the public ownership of the means of production, preserves the equality of labor, and equality in the distribution of the products. The State is withering away in so far as there are no longer any capitalists, any classes, and consequently, any class whatever to suppress. But the State is not yet dead altogether, since there still remains the protection of "bourgeois law," which sanctifies actual inequality. For the complete extinction of the State complete communism is necessary. ”