Vladimir Lenin

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The moderates in the Council are tangled and paralyzed in the coils of pseudo-Marxism: Russia's primitive capitalist development is not yet prepared for Socialism, therefore the bourgeoisie must rule, a theory completely neglecting the fact that the coming of Socialism consists of a process of struggles in which the detemining factor is the matuarity and class power of the proletariat. While indulging in this speculative theory, the moderates ignored the fact that the proletariat, and not the bourgeoisie, had made the Revolution; that the bourgeoisie were inimical to the Revolution ”

“ All power must pass to the soviets—this is clear. It must similarly be indisputable for all Bolsheviks that the revolutionary proletarian power (or the Bolshevik power, which is now absolutely the same thing) is assured of the most ardent sympathy and the unreserved support of the whole of the workers and exploited masses throughout the world, particularly in the belligerent countries, and above all amongst the Russian peasant class. These truths are too well known and have been demonstrated for too long to make it worth while to dwell on them. ”

“ From the bourgeois-democratic point of view, the revolutionary peasants in Russia could go no farther: there can be nothing “more ideal” from this point of view, nothing “more radical” (from this same point of view) than nationalisation of the land and equal land tenure. It was the Bolsheviks, and only the Bolsheviks, who, thanks only to the victory of the proletarian revolution, helped the peasants to carry the bourgeois-democratic revolution really to its conclusion. And only in this way did they do the utmost to facilitate and accelerate the transition to the socialist revolution. ”

“ The Soviets are the direct organisation of the working and exploited people themselves, which helps them to organise and administer their own state in every possible way. And in this it is the vanguard of the working and exploited people, the urban proletariat, that enjoys the advantage of being best united by the large enterprises; it is easier for it than for all others to elect and exercise control over those elected. The Soviet form of organisation automatically helps to unite all the working and exploited people around their vanguard, the proletariat. ”

“ We must prove worthy of this, the most difficult (and the most promising) problem of the Socialist revolution. We must not fail to see that, besides the ability to convince the masses and to win in civil war, our success depends on our ability to organize. This is the most difficult problem. It means the organization of the economic foundations of life for millions of people on a new basis. And it is the most promising problem, for only after its solution shall we be able to say that Russia has become not only a Soviet, but a Socialist republic. ”

“ Only the November Revolution, only the victory of the working class in the towns, only the authority of the Soviets, made it possible really to free the whole of Russia, from end to end, from the mischievous heritage of our former serfdom—from the economic exploitation of the peasantry by the landowning bourgeoisie, whose yoke pressed impartially on all peasants without distinction. ”

“ I am deeply convinced that the Soviets of Soldiers,' Workmen's and Peasants' Delegates will realize the independence of the mass of the people much more rapidly and much more adequately than a parliamentary republic. They will, in a better way, and more practically and correctly, decide what steps could be and should be taken towards Socialism. Control of the banks, centralization of all the banks into one, this is not Socialism yet, but a step towards Socialism. ”

“ History has played off this joke: in Russia, in 1905, Soviets were born: in February-October, 1917, they were tampered with by the Mensheviks, who went bankrupt because of their inability to understand the role and significance of the Soviets, and, now that the idea of Soviets has come to life the world over, spreading itself with tremendous rapidity among the proletariat of all countries, the old heroes of the Second International are also everywhere going bankrupt, because, like our Mensheviks, they are unable to understand the true role and significance of Soviets. ”

“ A quick change in the mood of the masses is not only possible but becomes more and more probable—a change similar to that connected with "Father Gapon's movement" in Russia at the beginning of 1905, when from backward proletarian strata in a few months, and sometimes weeks, grew an army millions strong, which followed the revolutionary vanguard of the proletariat. It is impossible to know or say whether a mighty revolutionary movement will develop soon after this war or in the course of it, but one thing is certain—nothing but work in this direction deserves to be called Socialist work. ”

“ It is precisely by this isolation that we have won the sympathies of the people. It is by it that we have won the soviets, without which the insurrection could not have been either sure or speedy. Now, let us profit by the fact that we have won the soviets, by also passing, ourselves, into the ranks of hesitation. What a magnificent fate for Bolshevism!
The whole policy of the Liber-Dans and the Tchernovs, as well as that of the S.R.'s and left-wing Mensheviks has been composed of nothing but hesitations. The masses are moving towards the Left. ”

“ Let us admit that the Social Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks continue in their eternal falterings, that they do not give over the power to the Soviets, do not overthrow Kerensky; that they re-establish, in a scarcely different form, the old compromise with the bourgeoisie (discarding, for example, the Cadets for the Kornilovians "without party") , that they do not substitute the existing machinery of power for the Soviet machinery, that they make no peace proposals, that they do not break with imperialism or confiscate the estates of the big proprietors. ”

“ For a time the peasants, and particularly the soldiers, who were mostly peasants, accepted the leadership of the Social-Revolutionary moderates; but as the Revolution developed its antagonisms and awoke to political consciousness the great mass of agricultural workers, the Social-Revolutionary Party split, and the Social-Revolutionists of the Left accepted the Bolshevik program. But at this stage, and for months after, the Social-Revolutionists and their petty bourgeois policy constituted the real governing force in Russia. ”

“ Indirect elections to non-local Soviets make it easier to hold congresses of Soviets, they make the entire apparatus less costly, more flexible, more accessible to the workers and peasants at a time when life is seething and it is necessary to be able very quickly to recall one’s local deputy or to delegate him to a general congress of Soviets.
Proletarian democracy is a million times more democratic than any bourgeois democracy; Soviet power is a million times more democratic than the most democratic bourgeois republic. ”

“ On the one hand, they declare the Soviet rule simply something absurd and anarchically wild, carefully avoiding all our historical comparisons and theoretical proofs that the Soviets are a higher form of democracy; nay, more, the beginning of a Socialist form of democracy. On the other hand, they demand of us a higher democracy than the bourgeois and argue: individual dictatorship is absolutely incompatible with your Bolshevist (i. e. Socialist, not bourgeois) democratic principles, with the Soviet democratic principles. ”

“ Russia will become such, provided she frees herself of all dejection and phrase-mongering; provided she strains her every nerve and every muscle; provided she comes to understand that salvation is possible only on the road of the international Socialist revolution, which we have chosen. To move forward along this road, not becoming dejected in case of defeats; to lay, stone after stone, the firm foundation of a Socialist society; to work tirelessly to create discipline and self-discipline ”

“ The bourgeois revolution was crowned with success, inasmuch as Russia became a democratic republic with a government consisting of Cadets, Mensheviki and Social-Revolutionists. But, in the course of three years the war has driven us thirty years ahead, has made compulsory military service universal in Europe, has led to a forced monopolization of industry and brought the most developed nations to hunger and unparalleled destruction, forcing them to take definite steps toward Socialism. ”

“ We have done well to abolish in Russia the bourgeois law fraternity, but it is reviving here under the cover of Soviet "legal defenders." In the case of the Soviet engineers, the Soviet teachers, and the privileged (i.e., the better skilled and better paid) working men at the Soviet factories, we observe a constant revival of absolutely all the negative traits peculiar to the bourgeois parliamentarism. It is only by dint of constant, untiring, long and stubborn struggle of proletarian organization and discipline that we can gradually conquer this evil. ”

“ A greater lack of sense and more harm to the revolution than this attitude of the “Left” revolutionaries cannot be imagined. Why, if we in Russia, after two and a half years of incredible victories over the Russian bourgeoisie and the Entente, had demanded that entrance into the Trade Unions must be conditional upon the “acceptance of the dictatorship,” we should have committed a stupid act, impaired our influence over the masses, and helped the Mensheviks. ”

“ It will be supported in the carrying out of the programme explained above by the poor ranks of the peasant class, but it may be extremely bitter and bloody, and cost the lives of tens of thousands of big proprietors and capitalists as well as of the officers who side with them. The proletariat will shrink from no sacrifice that will assure the safety of the revolution, a safety which can only be secured by the carrying out of the above programme. But it will sustain the Soviets by every means in its power if they grasp this last chance to secure the peaceful development of the revolution. ”

“ This transition is characterized by the maximum of "legality" (Russia now is the freest of all the belligerent nations of the world) , by the absence of violence of the masses, and, finally, by the masses' trustful, unconscious attitude towards the government of capitalists, the worst enemies of peace and Socialism.
This peculiarity demands of us the ability to adapt ourselves to certain conditions of partisan work among the broad masses of the proletariat, who have only now awakened to political life. ”

“ He who abandons this point of view is not a Socialist, and if a German, under Wilhelm, or a Frenchman, under Clemenceau, says: "I am justified, and, indeed, it is my duty as a Socialist to defend my country if it is invaded by an enemy"; he reasons not as a Socialist, not as an Internationalist, not as a revolutionary proletarian, but as a bourgeois nationalist. ”

“ We have successfully solved the second problem of the revolution; to awaken and arouse the downtrodden social classes which were oppressed by the exploiters and which only after November 7, 1917, have obtained the freedom to overthrow them and to begin to take stock and to regulate their lives in their own way. The "meeting holding" of the most oppressed and downtrodden, of the least trained toiling masses, their joining the Bolsheviks, their creating Soviet organizations everywhere—this is the second great stage of the revolution. ”

“ All Socialists, and among them their leader Marx, have set up as their goal the destruction of the power of the State. If this goal is not achieved, true democracy, i. e., equality and freedom, are not attainable. But the only practicable means to this goal is the soviet or proletarian democracy, for it sets out forthwith to prepare the complete atrophy of all State machinery by enlisting the mass-organizations of the working-people in permanent and unconditioned participation in the state-administration. ”