V. I.

Lenin

First All-Russia Congress of Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies

JUNE 3–24 (JUNE 6–JULY 7), 1917

1

Speech On The Attitude Towards The Provisional Government
June 4 (17)

Comrades, in the brief time at my disposal, I can dwell—and
I think this best—only on the main questions of principle
raised by the Executive Committee rapporteur and by subsequent
speakers.

The first and fundamental issue before us was: what is this assembly we are attending, what are these Soviets now
gathered at the All-Russia Congress, and what is this revolutionary democracy that people here speak so much about to
conceal their utter misunderstanding and complete repudiation of
it? To talk about revolutionary democracy at the All-Russia
Congress of Soviets and obscure this institution’s character,
its class composition and its role in the revolution—not to
say a word about this and yet lay claim to the title of
democrats really is peculiar. They map out a programme to us for
a bourgeois parliamentary republic, the sort of programme that
has existed all over Western Europe; they map out a programme to
us for reforms which are now recognised by all bourgeois
governments, including our own, and yet they talk to us about
revolutionary democracy. Whom are they talking to? To the
Soviets. But I ask you, is there a country in Europe, a
bourgeois, democratic, republican country, where anything like
these Soviets exists? You have to admit there isn’t. Nowhere is
there, nor can there be, a similar institution because you must
have one or the other: either a bourgeois government with “plans” for reforms like those just mapped out to us and
proposed dozens of times in every country but remaining on
paper, or the institution to which they are now referring, the new type of “government” created by the
revolution, examples of which can be found only at a time of greatest revolutionary upsurge,
as in France, 1792 and 1871, or in Russia, 1905. The Soviets are
an institution which does not exist in any ordinary bourgeois-parliamentary state and cannot exist side by side with
a bourgeois government. They are the new, more democratic type
of state which we in our Party resolutions call a peasant-proletarian democratic republic, with power belonging
solely to the Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies. People
are wrong in thinking that this is a theoretical issue. They are
wrong in pretending that it can be evaded and in protesting that
at present certain institutions exist side by side with the
Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies. Yes, they do exist
side by side. But this is what breeds countless misunderstandings, conflicts and friction. And this is why the
original upswing, the original advance, of the Russian revolution is giving way to stagnation and to those steps
backwards which we can now see in our coalition government ,
in its entire home and foreign policy, in connection with preparations for an imperialist offensive.

One or the other: either the usual bourgeois government, in
which case the peasants’, workers’, soldiers’ and other Soviets
are useless and will either be broken up by the generals, the
counter-revolutionary generals, who keep a hold on the armed
forces and pay no heed to Minister Kerensky’s fancy speeches, or
they will die an inglorious death. They have no other choice. They can neither retreat nor stand still. They can exist
only by advancing. This is a type of state not invented by the
Russians but advanced by the revolution because the revolution
can win in no other way. Within the All-Russia Congress,
friction and the struggle of parties for power are inevitable. But this will be the elimination of possible
mistakes and illusions through the political experience of the
masses themselves ( commotion ), and not through the reports of Ministers who refer to what they said yesterday, what
they will write tomorrow and what they will promise the day
after tomorrow. This, comrades, is ridiculous from the point of
view of the institution created by the Russian revolution and
now faced with the question: to be or not to be? The Soviets
cannot continue to exist as they do now. Grown people, workers
and peasants, are made to meet, adopt resolutions and listen to
reports that cannot be subjected to any documentary verification! This kind of institution is a transition to a
republic which will establish a stable power without a police
and a standing army, not in words alone but in action, a power
which cannot yet exist in Western Europe and without which the
Russian revolution cannot win in the sense of victory over the
landowners and over imperialism.

Without this power there can be no question of our gaining such
a victory by ourselves. And the deeper we go into the programme
recommended to us here, and into the facts with which we are
confronted, the more glaringly the fundamental contradiction
stands out. We are told by the rapporteur and by other speakers
that the first Provisional Government was a bad one! But when the Bolsheviks, those
wretched Bolsheviks, said, "No support for and no confidence in
this government", how often we were accused of “anarchism”! Now
everybody says that the previous government was a bad one. But
how does the coalition government with its near socialist
Ministers differ from the previous one? Haven’t we had enough
talk about programmes and drafts? Haven’t we had enough of them?
Isn’t it time to get down to business? A month has passed since
May 6 when the coalition government was formed. Look at the
facts, look at the ruin prevailing in Russia and other countries
involved in the imperialist war. What is the reason for the
ruin? The predatory nature of the capitalists. There’s your real
anarchy. And this is admitted in statements published, not in
our newspaper, not in any Bolshevik newspaper—Heaven forbid!—but in the ministerial Rabochaya Gazeta which has reported that industrial coal prices
were raised by the “revolutionary” government!! The coalition government hasn’t changed a thing in this respect. We
are asked whether socialism can be introduced in Russia, and
whether, generally speaking, radical changes can be made at
once. That is all empty talk comrades. The doctrine of Marx and
Engels, as they always explained, says: "Our doctrine is not a
dogma, but a guide to action.” [1] Nowhere in the world is there pure
capitalism developing into pure socialism, nor can there be in
war-time. But there is something in between, something new and
unprecedented, because hundreds of millions of people who have
been involved in the criminal war among the capitalists are
losing their lives. It is not a question of promising reforms—that is mere talk. It is a question of taking the
step we now need.

If you want to talk of " revolutionary " democracy, then
you must distinguish this concept from reformist democracy under a capitalist Ministry, because it is high time
to stop talking about "revolutionary democracy", handing out
mutual congratulations on "revolutionary democracy", and get on
with a class definition, as we have been taught by
Marxism, and by scientific socialism generally. It is being
proposed that we should pass to reformist democracy under a
capitalist Ministry. That may be all well and good from the
standpoint of the usual West-European models. A number of
countries, however, are today on the brink of destruction, and
we can clearly see the practical measures said to be too
complicated to carry out easily, and in need of special
elaboration, according to the previous speaker, the Minister of
Posts and Telegraphs. He said there was no political party in
Russia expressing its readiness to assume full power. I reply:
"Yes, there is. No party can refuse this, and our Party
certainly doesn’t. It is ready to take over full power at any
moment." ( Applause and laughter. ) You can laugh as much
as you please, but if the Minister confronts us with this
question side by side with a party of the Right, he will receive
a suitable reply. No party can refuse this. And at a time when
liberty still prevails, when threats of arrest and exile to
Siberia—threats from the counter-revolutionaries with whom
our near socialist Ministers are sharing government—are
still no more than threats, every party says: give us your
confidence and we shall give you our programme.

This programme was given by our conference on
April 29. [2] Unfortunately, it is being ignored and not taken as a guide. It seems to need a
popular exposition. I shall try to give the Minister of Posts
and Telegraphs a popular exposition of our resolution and our
programme. With regard to the economic crisis, our programme is
immediately—it need not be put off—to demand the publication of all the fabulous profits—running as high as
500 and 800 per cent—which the capitalists are making on
war supplies, and not as capitalists in the open market under
“pure” capitalism. This is where workers’ control really is
necessary and possible. This is a measure which, if you call
yourselves “revolutionary” democrats, you should carry out in
the name of the Congress, a measure which can be carried out
overnight. It is not socialism. It is opening the people’s eyes
to the real anarchy and the real playing with imperialism, the
playing with the property of the people, with the hundreds of
thousands of lives that tomorrow will be lost because we
continue to throttle Greece. Make the profits of the capitalists
public, arrest fifty or a hundred of the biggest millionaires. Just keep them in custody for a few weeks, if only
in the same privileged conditions in which Nicholas Romanov is
being held, for the simple purpose of making them reveal the
hidden springs, the fraudulent practices, the filth and greed
which even under the new government are costing our country
thousands and millions every day. That is the chief cause of
anarchy and ruin. That is why we say that everything remains as
of old, that the coalition government hasn’t changed a thing and
has only added a heap of declarations, of pompous statements. However sincere people may be, however sincerely
they may wish the working people well, things have not changed— the same class remains in power. The
policy they are pursuing is not a democratic policy.

You talk to us about "democratisation of the central and local
power". Don’t you know that these words are a novelty only in
Russia, and that elsewhere dozens of near-socialist Ministers
have given their countries similar promises? What are they worth
when we are faced by the real, concrete fact that while the
population elects the authorities locally, the elementary
principles of democracy are violated by the centre claiming the
right to appoint or confirm the local authorities? The capitalists continue to plunder the people’s property. The
imperialist war continues. And yet we are promised reforms,
reforms and more reforms, which cannot be accomplished at all
under these circumstances, because the war crushes and determines everything. Why do you disagree with those who say
the war is not being waged over capitalist profits?
What is the criterion? It is, first of all, which class is in
power, which class continues to be the master, which class
continues to make hundreds of thousands of millions from banking
and financial operations. It is the same capitalist class and
the war therefore continues to be imperialist. Neither the first
Provisional Government nor the government with the near-socialist Ministers has changed anything. The secret
treaties remain secret. Russia is fighting for the Straits,
fighting to continue Lyakhov’s policy in Persia, and so on.

I know you don’t want this, that most of you don’t want it, and
that the Ministers don’t want it, because no one can want it,
for it means the slaughter of hundreds of millions of people. But take the offensive which the Milyukovs and Maklakovs
are now talking about so much. They know full well what that
means. They know it is linked with the question of power, with
the question of revolution. We are told we must distinguish
between political and strategic issues. It is ridiculous to
raise this question at all. The Cadets perfectly understand that the point at issue is a political
one.

It is slander to say the revolutionary struggle for peace that
has begun from below might lead to a separate peace treaty. The
first step we should take if we had power would be to arrest the
biggest capitalists and cut all the threads of their intrigues. Without this, all talk about peace without
annexations and indemnities is utterly meaningless. Our second
step would be to declare to all people over the head of their
governments that we regard all capitalists as robbers—Tereshchenko, who is not a bit better than
Milyukov, just a little less stupid, the French capitalists, the
British capitalists, and all the rest.

Your own
Izvestia has got into a muddle and proposes to keep the status quo instead of peace without annexations and
indemnities. Our idea of peace "without annexations" is
different. Even the Peasant Congress comes nearer the truth when it speaks of a
“federal” republic, thereby expressing the idea that the Russian
republic does not want to oppress any nation, either in the new
or in the old way, and does not want to force any nation, either
Finland or the Ukraine, with both of whom the War Minister is
trying so hard to find fault and with whom impermissible and
intolerable conflicts are being created. We want a single and
undivided republic of Russia with a firm government. But a firm
government can be secured only by the voluntary agreement of all
people concerned. "Revolutionary democracy" are big words, but
they are being applied to a government that by its petty
fault-finding is complicating the problem of the Ukraine and
Finland, which do not even want to secede. They only say, "Don’t
postpone the application of the elementary principles of
democracy until the Constituent Assembly!”

A peace treaty without annexations and indemnities cannot be
concluded until you have renounced your own annexations. It is
ridiculous, a comedy, every worker in Europe is laughing at us,
saying: You talk very eloquently and call on the people to
overthrow the bankers, but you send your own bankers into the
Ministry. Arrest them, expose their tricks, get to know the
hidden springs! But that you don’t do although you have powerful
organisations which cannot be resisted. You have gone through
1905 and 1917. You know that revolution is not made to order,
that revolutions in other countries were made by the hard and
bloody method of insurrection, and in Russia there is no group,
no class, that would resist the power of the Soviets. In Russia,
this revolution can, by way of exception, be a peaceful
one. Were this revolution to propose peace to all peoples today
or tomorrow, by breaking with all the capitalist classes, both
France and Germany, their people, that is, would accept very
soon, because these countries are perishing, because Germany’s
position is hopeless, because she cannot save herself, and
because France—( Chairman : "Your time is up.")

I shall finish in half a minute. ( Commotion ; requests from the audience that the speaker continue ;
protests and applause. )

( Chairman : "I inform the Congress that the Steering
Committee proposes the speaker’s time be extended. Any objections? The majority are in favour of an extension.")

I stopped at the point that if the revolutionary democrats in
Russia were democrats in fact and not merely in words, they
would further the revolution and not compromise with the
capitalists, not talk about peace without annexations and
indemnities but abolish annexations by Russia, and declare in so
many words that they consider all annexations criminal and
predatory. It would then be possible to avert the imperialist
offensive which is threatening death to thousands and millions
of people over the partitioning of Persia and the Balkans. The
way to peace would then be open, not an easy way—we do not
say it is easy—and one which does not preclude a truly revolutionary war.

We do not put this question as Bazarov does in today’s Novaya Zhizn . [3] All we say is that Russia has been placed in
such a position that at the end of the imperialist war her tasks
are easier than might have been expected. And her geographical
position is such that any power would have a hard job on its
hands if it risked using capital and its predatory interests and
risked rising against the Russian working class and the
semi-proletariat associated with it, i.e., the poor peasants. Germany is on the brink of defeat, and since the war
was joined by the United States, which wants to swallow up
Mexico and which tomorrow will probably start fighting Japan,
Germany’s position has become hopeless, and she will be
destroyed. France, who suffers more than the others because of
her geographical position and whose state of exhaustion is
reaching the limit—this country, while not starving as much
as Germany, has lost infinitely more people than Germany. Now if
the first step were to restrict the profits of the Russian
capitalists and deprive them of all possibility of raking in
hundreds of millions in profits, if you were to propose to all
nations a peace treaty directed against the capitalists of all
countries and openly declare that you will not enter into any
negotiations or relations with the German capitalists and with
those who abet them directly or indirectly or are involved with
them, and that you refuse to speak with the French and British
capitalists, then you would be acting to condemn them in the
eyes of the workers. You would not regard it as a victory that a
passport has been issued to
MacDonald , [4] a man who has never waged a revolutionary struggle against
capital and who is being allowed to come because he has never
expressed the ideas, principles, practice or experience of the
revolutionary struggle against the British capitalists, a
struggle for which our Comrade MacLean and hundreds of other British socialists are in prison, and for
which our Comrade Liebknecht is confined to a convict prison because he said, "German
soldiers, fire on your Kaiser!”

Wouldn’t it be more proper to consign the imperialist capitalists to that penal servitude which most of the
Provisional Government members in an expressly reconstituted

Third Duma—I don’t know, incidentally, whether it is the
Third or the Fourth Duma—are daily preparing for us and
promising us and about which the Ministry of Justice is already
drafting new Bills? MacLean and Liebknecht—those are the
names of socialists who are putting the idea of a revolutionary
struggle against imperialism into practice. That is what we must
say to all governments if we want to fight for peace. We must
condemn them before their people. You will then put all the
imperialist governments in a difficult position. But now you
have complicated your own position by addressing your Peace Manifesto of March 14 to the people and saying, "Overthrow
your tsars, your kings and your bankers!" while we who possess
an organisation unprecedentedly rich in number, experience and
material strength, the Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’
Deputies, join a bloc with our bankers, institute a coalition,
near-socialist government, and draft the kind of reforms that
have been drafted in Europe for decades. People there in Europe
laugh at this kind of peace struggle. There they will understand
it only when the Soviets take power and act in a revolutionary
way.

Only one country in the world can at the moment take steps to
stop the imperialist war on a class scale, in the face of the
capitalists and without a bloody revolution. Only one country
can do it, and that country is Russia. And she will remain the
only one as long as the Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’
Deputies exists. The Soviet cannot exist long side by side with
the ordinary type of Provisional Government, and will remain
what it is only until the offensive is taken. The offensive will
be a turning-point in the whole policy of the Russian revolution, that is, it will be a transition from waiting, from
paving the way for peace by means of a revolutionary uprising
from below, to the resumption of the war. The path that opened
up was transition from fraternisation on one front to fraternisation on every front, from spontaneous fraternisation,
such as the exchange of a crust of bread with a hungry German
worker for a penknife—which is punishable by penal servitude—to conscious fraternisation.

When we take power into our own hands, we shall curb the
capitalists, and then the war will not be the kind of war that is being waged now, because the nature of a war is determined by what class wages it, not by what is written on
paper. You can write on paper anything you like. But as long as
the capitalist class has a majority in the government the war
will remain an imperialist war no matter what you write, no
matter how eloquent you are, no matter how many near-socialist
Ministers you have. Everyone knows that, and everyone can see
it. And the cases of Albania, Greece and
Persia [5] have shown this so clearly and graphically that I am surprised everyone is
attacking our written declaration about the offensive, [6] and no one
says a word about specific cases! It is easy to promise Bills,
but specific measures are being postponed time and again. It is
easy to write a declaration about peace without annexations, but
the Albanian, Greek and Persian events took place after
the coalition Ministry was formed. After all, it was Dyelo Naroda , [7] not an organ of our Party, but a government
organ, a ministerial organ, which said that it is Russian
democracy that is being subjected to this humiliation, and that
Greece is being strangled. And this very same Milyukov, whom you
imagine to be heaven knows who, although he is just an ordinary
member of his party—Tereshchenko in no way differs from
him—wrote that the pressure exerted on Greece came from
Allied diplomats. The war remains an imperialist war, and
however much you may desire peace, however sincere your sympathy
for the working people and your desire for peace—I am fully
convinced that by and large it must be sincere—you are powerless, because the war can only be ended by taking the
revolution further. When the revolution began in Russia, a
revolutionary struggle for peace from below also began. If you
were to take power into your hands, if power were to pass to the
revolutionary organisations to be used for combating the Russian
capitalists, then the working people of some countries would
believe you and you could propose peace. Then our peace would be
ensured at least from two sides, by the two nations who are
being bled white and whose cause is hopeless—Germany and
France. And if circumstances then obliged us to wage a revolutionary war—no one knows, and we do not rule out the
possibility—we should say: "We are not pacifists, we do not
renounce war when the revolutionary class is in power and has
actually deprived the capitalists of the opportunity to
influence things in any way, to exacerbate the economic
dislocation which enables them to make hundreds of millions."
The revolutionary government would explain to absolutely every
nation that every nation must be free, and that just as the
German nation must not fight to retain Alsace and Lorraine, so
the French nation must not fight for its colonies. For, while
France is fighting for her colonies, Russia has Khiva and
Bokhara, which are also something like colonies. Then the
division of colonies will begin. And how are they to be divided?
On what basis? According to strength. But strength has changed. The capitalists are in a situation where their only way
out is war. When you take over revolutionary power, you will
have a revolutionary way of securing peace, namely, by addressing a revolutionary appeal to all nations and explaining
your tactics by your own example. Then the way to peace secured
by revolutionary means will be open to you, and you will most
probably be able to avert the deaths of hundreds of thousands of
people. Then you may be certain that the German and French
people will declare in your favour. As for the British, American
and Japanese capitalists, even if they wanted a war against the
revolutionary working class—whose strength will grow tenfold once the capitalists have been curbed and put down and
control has passed into the hands of the working class—even
if the American, British and Japanese capitalists wanted a war,
the chances would be a hundred to one against them being able to
wage it. For peace to be ensured, you will only have to declare
that you are not pacifists, that you will defend your republic,
your workers’, proletarian democracy, against the German, French
and other capitalists.

That is why we attached such fundamental importance to our
declaration about the offensive. The time has come for a radical
turn in the whole history of the Russian revolution. When the
Russian revolution began it was assisted by the imperialist
bourgeoisie of Britain who imagined Russia to be something like
China or India. Yet, side by side with a government in which the
landowners and capitalists now have a majority, the Soviets
arose, a representative institution unparalleled and unprecedented anywhere in the world in strength, an institution
which you are killing by taking part in a coalition Ministry of
the bourgeoisie. In reality, the Russian revolution has made the
revolutionary struggle from below against the capitalist
governments welcome every where, in all countries, with three
times as much sympathy as before. The question is one of advance
or retreat. No one can stand still during a revolution. That is
why the offensive is a turn in the Russian revolution, in the
political and economic rather than the strategic sense. An
offensive now means the continuation of the imperialist
slaughter and the death of more hundreds of thousands, of
millions of people—objectively, irrespective of the will or
awareness of this or that Minister, with the aim of strangling
Persia and other weak nations. Power transferred to the
revolutionary proletariat, supported by the poor peasants, means
a transition to revolutionary struggle for peace in the surest
and most painless forms ever known to mankind, a transition to a
state of affairs under which the power and victory of the
revolutionary workers will be ensured in Russia and throughout
the world. ( Applause from part of the audience. )

| First published in Pravda Nos. 82 and 83, June 28 and 29 (15 and 16), 1917 | |
| --- | --- |
| Published according to the Pravda text checked with the verbatim report edited by Lenin | |

II

Speech On The War June 9 (22)

Comrades, allow me, by way of an introduction to an analysis of
the war issue, to remind you of two passages in the Manifesto to
all countries published by the Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and
Soldiers’ Deputies on March 14. "The time has come," said the
Manifesto, "to begin a resolute struggle against the predatory
designs of the governments of all countries. The time has come
for the people to take the decision on war and peace into their
own hands." Another passage in the Manifesto, addressed to the
workers of the Austro-German coalition, reads: "Refuse to serve
as tools of conquest and violence in the hands of kings,
landowners and bankers." These are the two passages that have
been repeated in different wordings in dozens, hundreds and, I
should even imagine, thousands of resolutions by Russia’s
workers and peasants.

I am sure these two passages show best of all the contradictory
and hopelessly complicated position in which the revolutionary
workers and peasants find themselves owing to the present policy
of the Mensheviks and
Narodniks . [8]
On the one hand, they support the war. On the other, they belong
to classes which have no interest in the predatory designs of
the government of any country, and they cannot help saying
so. This psychology and ideology, much as it may be vague, is
unusually deep-rooted in every worker and peasant. It is
realisation that the war is being waged because of the predatory
designs of the governments of all countries. But, together with
this, it is very vaguely understood, or even not understood at
all, that a government, whatever its form, expresses the
interests of definite classes and that, therefore, to contrast
the government to the people, as the first passage I quoted
does, is an awful theoretical muddle, utter political helplessness, and means condemning yourself and the whole of
your policy to the shakiest and most unstable position and
trend. By exactly the same token, the closing words in the
second passage I have quoted—that excellent call, "Refuse
to serve as tools of conquest and violence in the hands of
kings, landowners and bankers"—are splendid. Only including
your own, because if you Russian workers and peasants turn to
the workers and peasants of Austria and Germany, whose governments and ruling classes are waging the same kind of
predatory war of plunder as the Russian capitalists and bankers,
and as those of Britain and France—if you say: "Refuse to
serve as tools in the hands of your bankers" but admit your own
bankers into the Ministry and give them a seat next to socialist
Ministers, you are reducing all your appeals to nothing, and in
fact you are refuting your whole policy. Your excellent
aspirations or wishes might just as well not exist, for you are
helping Russia to wage the very same imperialist war, the very
same predatory war. You are coming into conflict with the masses
you represent, because these masses will never adopt the
capitalist point of view, openly expressed by Milyukov, Maklakov
and others, who say: "No idea could be more criminal than that
the war is being waged in the interests of capital.”

I wonder whether that idea is criminal. I have no doubt that
from the point of view of those who half-exist today and will
perhaps no longer exist tomorrow, the idea actually is criminal. But it is the only correct idea. It alone expresses
our conception of this war. It alone expresses the interests of
the oppressed classes as a struggle against their oppressors. And when we say the war is capitalist and predatory,
we must have no illusions—there is not the slightest hint
that the crimes of individuals, of individual kings, could have
provoked this kind of war.

Imperialism is a definite stage in the development of world
capital. Capitalism, which has been developing for decades,
created a situation in which a small group of immensely rich
countries—there are no more than four: Britain, France,
Germany and the U.S.A.—amassed wealth amounting to hundreds
of thousands of millions, and concentrated vast power in the
hands of the big banks and big capitalists—there are only a
couple or half a dozen of them at most in each of these
countries—immense power encompassing the whole world, and
literally divided the whole globe territorially by setting up
colonies. These powers had colonies in every country of the
world. They re-divided the globe among themselves economically
as well, because concessions, and the threads of finance
capital, penetrated into every single part of the globe. This is
the basis for annexations. Annexations are not a figment of the
imagination. They did not arrive because people who loved
liberty unexpectedly became reactionaries. Annexations are
nothing but a political expression and political form of the
domination of giant banks that has arisen inevitably from
capitalism, through no one’s fault, because shares are the basis
of banks and because the accumulation of shares is the basis of
imperialism. And the big banks, which dominate the whole world
through hundreds and thousands of millions in capital and link
entire industries with capitalist and monopoly alliances—that is where we have imperialism, which has
split the whole world into three groups of immensely rich
plunderers.

One group—the first, which is closer to us in
Europe—is headed by Britain, and the other two, by Germany
and the U.S.A. The other accomplices are compelled to help while
capitalist relations persist. Therefore, if you have a clear
idea of the essence of the matter, which every oppressed person
realises instinctively and which every Russian worker and the
vast majority of peasants realise instinctively—if you have
a clear idea of it, you will see how laughable is the idea of
fighting the war with words, manifestos, leaflets and socialist
congresses. It is laughable because the banks are still
omnipotent no matter how many declarations you issue, no matter
how many political revolutions you carry out—you have overthrown Nicholas Romanov in Russia and have to some extent
made her a republic; Russia has taken a gigantic stride forward,
and may be said to have overtaken, almost overnight, France,
which in different conditions required a hundred years to do as
much and yet remained a capitalist country. And the capitalists
are still there. They have lost some ground. They did so in 1905
as well, but did that undermine their strength? While this may
be new to Russians, in Europe every revolution showed that with
every upswing of the revolutionary movement the workers achieved
something more than they had before, but capitalist power
remained. The struggle against the imperialist war is impossible
unless it is a struggle waged by the revolutionary classes
against the ruling classes on a world scale. It is not a
question of landowners in general. There are landowners in
Russia and they play a greater role in Russia than in any other
country but they are not the class which brought imperialism
into being. It is a question of the capitalist class led by the
biggest finance magnates and banks, and there will be no way out
of this war until this class, which dominates the oppressed
workers allied with the poor peasants, the semi-proletarians, as
our programme calls them, until this class is overthrown. The
illusion that you can unite the working people of the world by
leaflets and appeals to other nations can only come from the
narrow Russian outlook, ignorant of how the press in Western
Europe, where the workers and peasants are used to political
revolutions and have seen dozens of them, laughs at such phrases
and appeals. They don’t know that the mass of workers has
actually risen in Russia, where most of the workers are
absolutely sincere in their faith and condemn the predatory
designs of the capitalists of every country and want to see the
people freed from the bankers. But they, the Europeans, cannot
understand why you, who have an organisation which no one else
on earth has, the Soviets of Workers’, Peasants’ and Soldiers’
Deputies, which are armed—why you make Ministers of your
socialists. After all, you are handing power to the bankers. People abroad accuse you not only of
naïveté—this is not the worst—Europeans can no longer understand naïveté in politics, they cannot
understand that there are tens of millions of people in Russia
who are stirring to life for the first time, and that people in
Russia know nothing of the link between the classes and the
government, of the link between the government and war. War is a
continuation of bourgeois politics, nothing else. The ruling
class shapes the country’s policy in war-time as well. War is
politics from beginning to end. It is pursuit of the same old
aims by these classes using a different method. That is why,
when you write in your workers’ and peasants’ appeals “overthrow
your bankers", every politically-conscious worker in a European
country either laughs at you or cries bitterly over you, saying
to himself: "What can we do since people there have overthrown a
half-savage idiot and monster of a monarch, the kind we did away
with a long time ago—this is the only crime we have committed—and now, with their ’near-socialist’ Ministers,
they back the Russian bankers?!”

The bankers remain in power. They pursue a foreign policy
through an imperialist war, fully supporting the treaties
concluded by Nicholas II in Russia. This is particularly evident
in our country. All the principles of Russia’s imperialist
foreign policy were predetermined not by the present day
capitalists, but by the previous government and Nicholas Romanov
whom we have overthrown. He concluded those treaties, they
remain secret, and the capitalists cannot publish them because
they are capitalists. But no worker or peasant can see his way
clear of this tangle because he tells himself: "Since we call
for the overthrow of the capitalists in other countries, we must
first of all get rid of our own bankers, otherwise nobody will
believe in us and nobody will take us seriously. People will say
we are naïve Russian savages who put on paper words that are
excellent in themselves but lack political substance, or, worse
still, they will think us hypocrites. You would see these things
in the foreign press if that press, every shade of it, passed
freely into Russia across the frontier instead of being stopped
by the British and French authorities at Tornea. You would see
from a mere selection of quotations from foreign newspapers the
glaring contradiction in which you find yourselves. You would
see how incredibly ridiculous and erroneous is this idea of
fighting the war with socialist-conferences, with agreements
with the socialists at congresses. Had imperialism been the
fault or crime of individuals, socialism could remain socialism. Imperialism is the final stage of capitalism’s
development, a stage at which it has gone as far as to divide
the whole world, and two gigantic groups are locked in a
life-and-death struggle. You must serve one group or the other,
or overthrow both groups. There is no other way. When you reject
a separate peace treaty, saying you don’t want to serve the
German imperialists, you are perfectly right, and that is why
we, too, are against a separate peace treaty. Yet in effect, and
in

spite of yourselves, you continue to serve the Anglo-French
imperialists, who have predatory designs of the kind that the
Russian capitalists have translated into treaties with the aid
of Nicholas Romanov. We do not know the texts of those treaties,
but anyone who has followed political writing and has glanced
through at least one book on economics or diplomacy must be
familiar with the content of the treaties. Moreover, as far as I
can remember, Milyukov wrote in his books about those treaties
and promises that they would plunder Galicia, the Straits and
Armenia, retain what they had annexed earlier and get plenty of
other territories. Everyone knows that, but still the treaties
are kept secret, and we are told that if we annul them it will
mean breaking with our Allies.

With regard to a separate peace treaty, I have already said
there can be no separate peace treaty for us, and our Party
resolution leaves not the slightest room for doubt that we
reject it as we reject all agreement with the capitalists. To
us, a separate peace treaty means coming to terms with the
German plunderers, because they are plundering in the same way
as the others. Coming to terms with Russian capital within the
Russian Provisional Government is the same kind of separate
peace treaty. The tsarist treaties remain, and they, too, help
to plunder and strangle other peoples. When it is said, "Peace
without annexations and indemnities", as every worker and every
peasant in Russia should say because life teaches him so,
because he has no interest in bank profits and because he wants
to live, I reply: Your leaders in the present Soviet of Workers’
and Soldiers’ Deputies from the Narodnik and Menshevik parties
have become tangled up in that slogan. They have said in their
Izvestia that it means retaining the status quo , that is, the pre-war state of affairs, going back to
what existed before the war. Isn’t that capitalist peace? And
what capitalist peace, too! Since you are putting forward that
slogan, you must remember that the course of events may bring
your parties to power. That is possible during a revolution, and
you will have to do what you say. But if you propose peace
without annexations now, the Germans will accept and the British
will not, because the British capitalists have not lost an inch
of territory but have grabbed plenty in every part of the world. The Germans grabbed a lot too, but they also lost a lot,
and not only lost a lot but found themselves up against the
U.S.A., a most formidable enemy. If you who propose peace
without annexations mean retaining the status quo , you
are drifting into a situation in which your proposal will
produce a separate peace treaty with the capitalists, because,
if you propose that, the German capitalists, being faced by the
U.S.A. and Italy with whom they signed treaties in the past,
will say: "We shall accept that peace treaty without annexations. It will not be a defeat for us, it will be victory
over the U.S.A. and Italy." Objectively, you are drifting into
the same kind of separate peace treaty with the capitalists
which you accuse us of, because fundamentally you are not
breaking—in your policy, in reality, in your practical moves—with those bankers expressing imperialist domination
all over the world whom you and your “socialist” Ministers
support in the Provisional Government.

You are thereby creating a contradictory and precarious
situation for yourselves in which the masses misunderstand
you. The masses, who have no interest in annexations, say: "We
refuse to fight for any capitalist’s sake." When we are told
that this sort of policy can be ended by means of congresses and
agreements among the socialists of the world, we reply: "It
probably could, if only imperialism were the handiwork of
individual criminals; but imperialism is an outgrowth of world
capitalism with which the working-class movement is connected.”

Imperialism’s victory is the beginning of an inevitable,
unavoidable split of the socialists of all countries into two
camps. Anyone who keeps on talking about the socialists as an
integral body, as something that can be integral, is deceiving
himself and others. The entire course of the war, the two and a
half years of it, has been leading to this split—ever since
the Basle Manifesto , signed unanimously, which said that imperialist
capitalism was at the root of this war. The Basle Manifesto does
not say a word about "defence of the fatherland". No other
manifesto could have been written before the war, just as today
no socialist would propose writing a manifesto about "defence of
the fatherland" in the war between Japan and the U.S.A., in
which it is not a matter of risking his own skin, his own
capitalists and his own Ministers. Draft a resolution for
international congresses! You know that war between Japan and
the U.S.A. is a foregone conclusion. This war has been brewing
for decades. It is no accident. Tactics do not depend on who
fires the first shot. That is ridiculous. You know very well
that Japanese and U.S. capitalism are equally predatory. There
will be talk about "defence of the fatherland" on both sides. It
will be a crime or an indication of terrible weakness due to the
“defence” of the interests of our capitalist enemies. That is
why we say that socialism has been split irrevocably. The
socialists have completely departed from socialism—or rather, those who have deserted to their government, their
bankers and their capitalists, no matter what they may say
against them and however much they may condemn them. Condemnation is beside the point. Sometimes, however,
condemnation of the Germans’ backing for their capitalists
covers up defence of the same “sin” by the Russians! If you
accuse the German social-chauvinists, i.e., people who are
socialists in words—many of them may well be socialists at
heart—but chauvinists in fact, people who actually defend
the dirty, selfish and predatory German capitalists rather than
the German people, then don’t defend the British, French and
Russian capitalists. The German social-chauvinists are no worse
than those in our Ministry who continue the policy of secret
treaties, of plunder, and cover this up with pious wishes in
which there is much that is kind, and which I admit are
absolutely sincere from the point of view of the masses, but in
which I do not and cannot see a single word of political
truth. It is merely your wish, while the war remains as
imperialist and is being waged for the same secret treaties as
ever! You are calling on other peoples to overthrow the bankers,
yet you are backing your own! When you spoke of peace, you did
not say what peace. No one answered us when we pointed out the
glaring contradiction in a peace treaty on the basis of the
status quo. In your resolution, speaking of peace without annexations, you cannot say that it will not mean
retaining the status quo. You cannot say that it will mean retaining the status quo , that is, restoration of
the pre-war state of affairs. What will it be, then? Taking the
German colonies away from Britain? Try that through peaceful
agreements! Everyone will laugh at you. Try to take away from
Japan, without a revolution, Kiaochow or the Pacific islands she
has grabbed!

You have got yourselves mixed up in hopeless contradictions. When we say "without annexations", we mean that
this slogan is only a subordinate part of the struggle against
world imperialism. We say we want to liberate all peoples and
begin with our own. You talk of war against annexations and of
peace without annexations, but in Russia you continue the policy
of annexations. That’s simply ridiculous. You and your government, your new Ministers, actually continue the policy of
annexations in regard to Finland and the Ukraine. You find fault
with the Ukrainian congress and, through your Ministers,
prohibit its sittings. [9] Isn’t that annexation? It amounts to a
mockery of the rights of a nationality which was tormented by
the tsars because its children wanted to speak their mother
tongue. That means being afraid of separate republics. From the
point of view of the workers and peasants, there is nothing
terrible about that. Let Russia be a union of free republics. The workers and peasants will not fight to prevent
that. Let every nation be free, and first of all let all the
nationalities with which you are making the revolution in Russia
be free. By not taking that step, you are condemning yourselves
to being "revolutionary democrats" in words while your entire
policy is in fact counter-revolutionary.

Your foreign policy is anti-democratic and counter-revolutionary. A revolutionary policy may mean you have
to wage a revolutionary war. But that is not inevitable. This
point has been dealt with at length by the main speaker, and
lately by the newspapers as well. I should very much like to
dwell on this point.

What is the practical way out of this war as we see it? We say:
the way out of this war lies only through revolution. Support
the revolution of the classes oppressed by the capitalists,
overthrow the capitalist class in your country and thereby set
an example to other countries. That alone is socialism. That
alone means fighting the war. Everything else is empty promises,
phrase-mongering or pious wishes. Socialism has been split all
over the world. You continue to confuse things by associating
with socialists who back their governments. You forget that in
Britain and Germany, the true socialists, who express the
socialism of the masses, are isolated and have been thrown into
gaol. Yet they alone express the interests of the proletarian
movement. But what if in Russia the oppressed class found itself
in power? When asked how we shall break out of the war by
ourselves, we answer: you cannot break out of it by yourself. All our Party resolutions and all speakers at our
public meetings call it absurd to say you can break out of this
war by yourself. This war involves hundreds of millions of
people and hundreds of thousands of millions in capital. The
only way out is the transfer of power to the revolutionary class
which must really break imperialism, its financial, banking and
annexationist threads. Until this happens nothing will have been
done. The revolution was limited to your getting, in place of
tsarism and imperialism, a near-republic which is imperialist
through and through and which cannot treat Finland and the
Ukraine democratically, i.e., without being afraid of division,
even through revolutionary worker and peasant representatives.

It is untrue to say that we are seeking a separate peace
treaty. We say: No separate peace treaty with any capitalists,
least of all with the Russian capitalists. But the Provisional
Government has a separate peace treaty with the Russian
capitalists. Down with that separate peace treaty!
( Applause. ) We recognise no separate peace treaty with
the German capitalists and we shall not enter into any negotiations. Nor must there be a separate peace treaty with the
British and French imperialists. We are told that to break with
them would mean coming to terms with the German imperialists. That is not true. We must break with them
immediately because it is an alliance for plunder. It is said
that the treaties cannot be published because that would mean
showing up the whole of our government and the whole of our
policy in the eyes of every worker and peasant. If we were to
publish these treaties and plainly tell the Russian workers and
peasants at meetings, especially in every remote hamlet: "What
you are now fighting for is the Straits, and because they want
to keep Armenia," they would all say: "We want no such war."
( The Chairman : "Your time is up." Voices : "Let him speak.") I ask for ten minutes more. ( Voices : "Let
him speak.")

I say that this contrast—"either with the British or with
the German imperialists"—is wrong. It implies that if we
make peace with the German imperialists we must fight the
British, and vice versa. This contrasting suits those who are
not breaking with their capitalists and bankers, and who accept
any alliance with them. But it doesn’t suit us. We speak of our
defending the alliance with the oppressed class, with the
oppressed people. Remain loyal to this alliance, and then you
will be revolutionary democrats. It’s no easy task. This task
will not let you forget that under certain circumstances we
shall be unable to do without a revolutionary war. No revolutionary class can rule out revolutionary war, or it will
doom itself to ridiculous pacifism. We are not Tolstoyans. If
the revolutionary class takes power, if its state keeps no
annexed territories, and if no power is left to the banks and
big capital, which is not easy to do in Russia, then that class
will be waging a revolutionary war in reality and not merely in
words. You cannot rule out this kind of war. That would mean
succumbing to the Tolstoyan philosophy and to philistinism,
forgetting the whole of Marxist science and the experience of
all European revolutions.

You cannot pull Russia alone out of the war. But she is winning
more and more great allies who do not believe you now because
your attitude is contradictory or naïve, and because you
advise other peoples to "end annexations" while introducing them
in your own country. You tell other peoples to overthrow the
bankers. Yet you do not overthrow your own. Try another
policy. Publish the treaties and show them up in front of every
worker and peasant and at public meetings Say: No peace with the
German capitalists, and a complete break with the Anglo-French
capitalists. Let the British get out of Turkey and stop fighting
for Baghdad. Let them get out of India and Egypt. We refuse to
fight for the retention of booty that has been seized, just as
we shall not put an ounce of energy into helping the German
plunderers to keep their booty. If you do that—so far you
have only talked about it, and in politics words are not
credited, which is just as well—if you do that, and talk about it, then the allies you now have will show what
they can do. Think of the mood of every oppressed worker and
peasant. They sympathise with you and regret that you are so
weak you leave the bankers alone even though you have arms. It
is the oppressed workers of the world that are your allies. It
will be just what the revolution of 1905 showed in practice. It
was tremendously weak at first. But what is its international
effect? How did that policy, and the history of 1905, shape the
foreign policy of the Russian revolution? Today you are
conducting the Russian revolution’s whole foreign policy with
the capitalists. Yet 1905 showed what the Russian revolution’s
foreign policy should be like. It is an indisputable fact that
October 17, 1905, [10] was followed by mass unrest and barricade-building in the streets of Vienna and Prague. After
1905 came 1908 in Turkey, 1909 in Persia and 1910 in
China. [11] If, instead of compromising with the capitalists, you call on the truly
revolutionary democrats, the working class, the oppressed, you
will have as allies the oppressed classes instead of the
oppressors, and the nationalities which are now being rent to
pieces instead of the nationalities in which the oppressing
classes now temporarily predominate.

We have been reminded of the German front where the only change
we proposed is the unrestricted dissemination of our appeals
written in Russian on one side of the sheet and German on the
reverse. In them we say: The capitalists of both countries are
robbers. To get them out of the way would be merely a step
towards peace. But there are other fronts. I don’t know how
strong our army is on the Turkish front. Let us assume it is
roughly three million strong. It would be better if that army,
which is now kept in Armenia and is carrying out annexations
that you tolerate while preaching peace without annexations to
other peoples, although you have strength and authority—if
that army adopted this programme, and if it made Armenia an
independent Armenian republic and gave her the money which the
financiers of Britain and France take from us.

It is said that we cannot do without the financial support of
Britain and France. But this support “supports” us like the rope
supporting a hanged man. Let the Russian revolutionary class
say: down with that support, I refuse to recognise debts
contracted with the French and British capitalists, and I call
for a general revolt against the capitalists. No peace treaty
with the German capitalists and no alliance with the British and
French! If this policy were actually pursued, our army fighting
the Turks could be released and sent to other fronts, because
all Asian peoples would see that the Russian people do not
merely proclaim peace without annexations on the basis of
self-determination but that the Russian worker and peasant are
in fact placing themselves at the head of all oppressed
nationalities, and that with them, the struggle against
imperialism is not a pious wish nor a high-flown ministerial
phrase but a matter of vital concern to the revolution.

As we stand now, a revolutionary war may threaten us, but this
war is not bound to take place, since the British imperialists
will hardly be able to wage war against us if you act as a
practical example to the peoples surrounding Russia. Prove that
you are liberating the Armenian republic and reaching agreement
with the Soviets of Workers’ and Peasants’ Deputies in every
country, that you are for a free republic, and then the Russian
revolution’s foreign policy will become really revolutionary and
really democratic. At present it is that only in words. In
reality it is counter-revolutionary, because you are bound hand
and foot by the Anglo-French imperialists and refuse to say so
openly, you are afraid to admit it. Instead of issuing that
appeal "to overthrow foreign bankers", you would have done
better to tell the Russian people, the workers and peasants, in
so many words: "We are too weak, we cannot throw off the tyranny
of the Anglo-French imperialists, we are their slaves and are
therefore fighting." It would have been a bitter truth that
would have been of revolutionary significance. It would actually
have brought this predatory war closer to its end. That means a
thousand times more than an agreement with the French and
British social-chauvinists, than the convening of congresses
which they would agree to attend, than the continuation of this
policy by which you are actually afraid to break with the
imperialists of one country while remaining the allies of
another. You can draw on the support of the oppressed classes of
Europe, of the oppressed people of the weaker countries which
Russia strangled under the tsars and which she is still
strangling now, as she is strangling Armenia. With their
support, you can bring freedom by helping their workers’ and
peasants’ committees. You would put yourselves at the head of
all the oppressed classes, all oppressed peoples, in the war
against the German and British imperialists, who cannot join
forces against you because they are locked in a life-and-death
struggle against each other, and because they are in a hopeless
position, in which the Russian revolution’s foreign policy, a
sincere and real alliance with the oppressed classes, the
oppressed peoples, can be successful it has 99 chances in 100 of
being successful!

Recently we read in our Moscow Party newspaper a letter from a
peasant commenting on our programme. I should like to bring my
speech to a close with a brief quotation from that letter,
showing what a peasant makes of our programme. The letter was
printed in No. 59 of Sotsial-Demokrat ,our
Moscow Party newspaper, and was reprinted in Pravda
No. 68. [12] “ We must," says the letter, "press the bourgeoisie harder to
make them burst at the seams. Then the war will be over. But
things will turn out badly if we don’t press the bourgeoisie
hard enough." ( Applause. )

| First published in Pravda Nos. 95, 96 and 97, July 13, 14 and 15 (June 30, July 1 and 2), 1917 | |
| --- | --- |
| Published according to the Pravda text checked with the verbatim report edited by Lenin | |

---
Notes:
[1]

K. Marx and F. Engels, Selected Correspondence , Moscow, 1965,
p. 395.

[2]
Lenin is referring to the resolutions of the Seventh (April)
All-Russia Conference of the R.S.D.L.P.(B.), held in Petrograd from
April 24 to 29 (May 7–12), 1917 (see The C.P.S.U. in Resolutions and Decisions of Congresses, Conferences and Plenary Meetings of the C.C. , 7th ed., Part I, 1954, pp. 332–53 [in Russian]).

[3]
Novaya Zhizn (New Life)—a daily newspaper of a Menshevik trend
published by a group of Social-Democrats who called themselves
“internationalists”. The group comprised the Mensheviks who
supported Martov, and certain intellectuals with semi-Menshevik
leanings. It vacillated continuously between the conciliators and
the Bolsheviks.

Novaya Zhizn appeared in Petrograd from April 1917. After
the October Revolution it adopted a hostile attitude to the Soviet
state. It was closed down in July 1918.

[4]
Lenin has in mind the British Government issuing a passport
to Ramsay MacDonald, the British Independent Labour Party
leader, who was invited to Russia by the Executive Committee
of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies. The
trip was frustrated by the British Seamen’s Union, which refused
to man the ship in which MacDonald was to sail to Russia.

[5]
In June 1917 Italy overran Albania and proclaimed her independence under Italy’s virtual protectorate.

In Greece, a coup d’état was carried out under the pressure of
Britain and France. By launching an economic blockade that caused
a terrible famine, and by occupying a number of Greek provinces,
the Allies forced King Constantine to abdicate, and put Venizelos,
their adherent, in power. Greece was dragged into the war on the
side of the Entente, contrary to the will of the vast majority of
her people.

During the First World War Persia (Iran) was occupied by
British and Russian troops. By early 1917 Persia, having lost all
independence, was occupied by the Russians in the north and the
British in the south.

Provisional Government diplomats backed all these acts of
imperialist tyranny.

[6]
Reference is to the declaration which the bureau of the Bolshevik
group and the bureau of the united internationalist Social–
Democrats made at the First All-Russia Congress of Soviets. They
demanded that the Congress first of all discuss the offensive at the front
for which the Provisional Government was preparing. The
declaration pointed out that the offensive was being imposed by the
magnates of the imperialist Allies and that the Russian
counter-revolutionaries expected thereby to concentrate power in the hands
of the military-diplomatic and capitalist groups, and to deliver
a blow to the revolutionary fight for peace and to the positions
gained by the Russian democrats. The declaration warned the
working class, the armed forces and the peasants of the danger
threatening the country, and called on the Congress to immediately repel
the counter-revolutionaries’ onslaught.

The Congress rejected the proposal made by the bureau of the
R.S.D.L.P.(B.) group.

[7]
Dyelo Naroda (People’s Cause)—an S.R. daily published in
Petrograd between March 1917 and Juno 1918. It changed its title several
times. It adopted a defencist and conciliatory stand and supported
the bourgeois Provisional Government. Its publication was resumed
in Samara in October 1918 (three issues were brought out) and in

Moscow in March 1919 (ten issues). The paper was closed down the
same year for its counter-revolutionary trend.

[8]
Lenin described as Narodniks three petty-bourgeois parties of
a Narodnik type: the Trudoviks, Socialist-Revolutionaries and
Popular Socialists.

[9]
Allusion is to the prohibition of the All-Ukraine Army Congress
by Kerensky, the Provisional Government’s War Minister. Despite
the ban, the Congress sat from June 5–12 (18–25), 1917, in Kiev.
It was attended by some 2,000 delegates. It passed the “Universal
Act” on the autonomy of the Ukraine, published by the Ukrainian
Central Rada.

The counter-revolutionary policies of the Provisional
Government and the Menshevik and S.R. parties towards the Ukraine were
denounced by Lenin in the articles “The Ukraine” and “The Ukraine
and the Defeat of the Ruling Parties of Russia” (see pp. 91–92 and
99–102 of this volume).

[10]
Reference is to the tsar’s Manifesto of October 17, 1905, promising
“civil liberties” and a “legislative” Duma. The Manifesto was
a concession wrested from the tsarist regime by the revolution.
The autocracy wanted to gain time, split the revolutionary forces,
foil the All-Russia Strike and crush the revolution. The Bolsheviks
exposed this political manoeuvre. On October 18 (31), 1905, the
C.C. R.S.D.L.P. issued the appeal “To the Russian People”
revealing the spurious character of the tsar’s Manifesto and calling on
the working people to continue their revolutionary struggle.

[11]
The Russian revolution of 1905–07 gave rise to revolutionary
movements among the peoples of the East. In 1908 a bourgeois revolution
broke out in Turkey. In 1900 there was a bourgeois revolution
in Persia, resulting in the overthrow of the shah in 1909. The year
1910 saw the rise of a revolutionary movement in China against
the feudal lords and foreign imperialists. The movement led to
a revolution, and to the establishment of a bourgeois republic
in December 1911.

[12]
Pravda (The Truth)—a Bolshevik daily newspaper published
legally. Its first issue appeared in St. Petersburg on April 22 (May 5),
1912.

Lenin, who guided Pravda ideologically, contributed to the
paper almost daily. He gave recommendations to its editors with
a view to making it a militant revolutionary paper.

A substantial part of the Party’s organising work was done
through Pravda , Conferences with representatives of local Party
cells were held in its offices, which also received information on
Party work in factories and passed on directives of the Party’s
Central and Petrograd Committees.

Pravda was doggedly persecuted by the police and was closed
down on July 8 (21), 1914.

It did not resume publication until after the February bourgeois-democratic revoluion of 1917. =

From March 5 (18), 1917, onwards it was brought out as a paper of the Central and Petrograd
Committees of the R.S.D.L.P.

Upon his arrival in Petrograd Lenin joined the editorial board,
and Pravda launched a campaign for his plan to bring about the
development of the bourgeois-democratic revolution into a socialist
revolution.

From July to October 1917 the paper, being persecuted by the
counter-revolutionary Provisional Government, had to change its
title more than once. It appeared as Listok “Pravdy”, Proletary, Rabochy and Rabochy Put . Since the victory of the October Socialist
Revolution it has been published—beginning with October 27
(November 9), 1917—under its original title, Pravda .

Pravda holds a prominent place in the history of the Bolshevik
press. The generation of advanced workers it educated played
an outstanding part in the October Revolution and in socialist
construction. Pravda was the first mass paper of the working class to
be published legally. It marked a new stage in the development
of the press of Russia’s working class and the world proletariat.

The day when the first issue of Pravda appeared has been
celebrated as the workers’ Press Day ever since 1914.