V. I.

Lenin

The Fall of Port Arthur [1] “Port Arthur has surrendered.

“This event is one of the greatest events in modern history. These four
words, flashed yesterday to all parts of the civilised world, create a crushing
impression, the impression of an overwhelming and appalling catastrophe, a
disaster that beggars description. The moral power of a mighty empire is
crumbling, the prestige of a young race is waning before it has had the chance
to prove itself. Sentence has been passed upon an entire political
system. A long chain of asserted claims has been broken and mighty efforts have been
frustrated. True, the fall of Port Arthur had long been predicted, and for a
long time people had sought to dismiss it in a few words and to find consolation
in ready-made phrases. But the hard, brutal fact shatters all conventional
lies. The significance of the disaster cannot be underrated now. For the first
time the old world has been humiliated by an irreparable defeat dealt it by the
new world, a world mysterious, and, to all appearances, adolescent, which was
only yesterday won to civilisation.”

Thus writes a respectable European bourgeois newspaper under the direct impact
of the event. Admittedly, it has done more than merely express in trenchant
words the sentiments of the entire European bourgeoisie. Through the words of
this newspaper speaks the true class instinct of the bourgeoisie of the old
world, which is perturbed by the victories of the new bourgeois world and
alarmed by the collapse of Russia’s military power, which for a long time had
been considered the bulwark of European reaction. Small wonder that even the
European bourgeoisie, which has taken no part in the war, feels humiliated and
depressed. It had grown so accustomed to identify Russia’s moral strength with the military strength of the
gendarme of Europe. In its eyes the prestige of the young Russian race was
inseparably bound up with that of tsarism, that unshakable authority,
which strongly safeguarded the existing “order of things”. Small wonder that the disaster which has overtaken the
rulers and commanders of Russia seems “appalling” to the whole
European bourgeoisie. This disaster implies a tremendous acceleration of
world wide capitalist development, a quickening of history’s pace; and the
bourgeoisie knows only too well from bitter experience that this means
the acceleration of the social revolution of the proletariat. The
bourgeoisie of Western Europe fell so secure in the atmosphere of
long-lasting stagnation, under the wing of the “mighty
Empire”, and now suddenly some “mysterious, adolescent”
power dares to disturb this stagnation and shatter this pillar.

Indeed, the European bourgeoisie has cause for alarm. The proletariat has cause
for rejoicing. The disaster that has overtaken our mortal enemy not only
signifies the approach of freedom in Russia, it also presages a new
revolutionary upsurge of the European proletariat.

But why and to what extent is the fall of Port Arthur really an historic
disaster?

The first thing that strikes the eye is the effect of this event on the trend of
the war. The main objective of the Japanese in this war has been
attained. Advancing, progressive Asia has dealt backward and reactionary Europe
an irreparable blow. Ten years ago this reactionary Europe, with Russia in the
lead, was perturbed by the defeat of China at the hands of young Japan, and it
united to rob Japan of the best fruits of her victory. Europe was protecting
the established relations and privileges of the old world, its prerogative to
exploit the Asian peoples—a prerogative held from time immemorial and sanctified by the usage of centuries. The recovery of Port Arthur by Japan is a blow
struck at the whole of reactionary Europe. Russia held Port Arthur for six years
and spent hundreds of millions of rubles on the building of strategic railways,
harbours,and new towns, on fortifying a stronghold which the en tire mass of
European newspapers, bribed by Russia and fawning on Russia, declared to be
impregnable. Military commentators write that Port Arthur was as strong as six
Sevastopols.

And behold, little Japan,hitherto despised by all, captures this
stronghold in eight months, when it took England and France together a whole
year to capture Sevastopol. The military blow is irreparable. The question of
supremacy on the seas, the main and vital issue of the present war, has been
settled. The Russian Pacific fleet, which at the outset was certainly not
weaker, if actually not stronger, than the Japanese fleet, has been completely
destroyed. The very base for naval operations has been lost, and the only thing
left for Rozhdestvensky’s naval squadron is to turn back shamefully after a
useless expenditure of more millions, after the great victory of his formidable
battleships over the English fishing smacks. It is believed that Russia’s loss
in naval tonnage alone amounts to 300,000,000 rubles. More important, however,
is the loss of some ten thousand of the navy’s best men, and the loss of an
entire army. Many European papers are now trying to minimise the importance of
these losses, and their efforts to do so lead them to such ridiculous assertions
as that Kuropatkin is now “relieved”, “freed” of his worries over Port Arthur! Russia’s military forces have also been relieved of an
entire army. According to the latest English reports, no fewer than 48,000 men have been taken prisoner, and there is no telling how many thousands
more were killed in the battles of Kinchow and at the fortress itself. The
Japanese are in complete possession of the Liaotung Peninsula; they have
acquired a base of operations of incalculable importance for exerting pressure
on Korea, China, and Manchuria; they have released for action against Kuropatkin
a battle-tried army of from 80,000 to 100,000 strong, reinforced by formidable
heavy artillery which, when brought up to the Shaho River, will give them an
overwhelming superiority over the main Russian forces.

According to reports in the foreign press, the autocratic government has decided
to continue the war at all costs, and to send Kuropathin 200,000 more men. It is
highly probable that the war will drag on for a long time, but its hopelessness
is already apparent, and all delays will only aggravate the innumerable
calamities which the Russian people are suffering because they still tolerate
the yoke of the autocracy on their neck. As it is, the Japanese have reinforced
their troops after every big battle in less time and in greater numbers than the Russians. And now that they have achieved complete supremacy on the
sea and have utterly annihilated one of Russia’s armies, they will be able
to send twice as many reinforcements as the Russians. As it is, the
Japanese beat the Russian generals time and again, although the bulk of
their best artillery was engaged in siege warfare. Now they have achieved
complete concentration of their forces, while the Russians have to fear
for Vladivostok, as well as for Sakhalin. The Japanese have occupied the
best and most populated part of Manchuria, where they can maintain an
army at the expense of the conquered territory and with the help of China,
whereas the Russians have to depend more and more upon supplies
transported from Russia, and it will soon be impossible for Kuropatkin to
increase his army any further, in view of the impossibility of bringing up
sufficient sup plies.

But the military debacle which the autocracy has suffered has deeper
implications; it signifies the collapse of our entire political system. The days
when wars were fought by mercenaries or by representatives of a caste
half-isolated from the people have gone for ever. Wars today are fought by
peoples; even Kuropatkin, according to Nemirovich-Danchenko, has begun to
realise that this is the truth and not a mere copy-book motto. Wars today are
fought by peoples; this now brings out more strikingly than ever a great
attribute of war, namely, that it opens the eyes of millions to the disparity
between the people and the government, which heretofore was evident only to a
small class-conscious minority. The criticism of the autocracy by all
progressive Russians, by the Russian Social-Democrats, by the Russian
proletariat, has now been confirmed in the criticism by Japanese arms, con firmed in such wise that the impossibility of living under the autocracy is felt more and more even by those who do not know what autocracy means, even
by those who do know, but yet would maintain it with all their soul. The
incompatibility of the autocracy with the interests of social development, with
the interests of the entire people (apart from a handful of bureaucrats and
bigwigs), became evident as soon as the people actually had to pay for the
autocracy with their life blood. Its foolish and criminal colonial adventure has
landed the autocracy in an impasse, from which the people can extricate themselves only by their own efforts and only at the cost of destroying
tsarism.

The fall of Port Arthur is a great historic outcome of tsarism’s crimes, which
began to reveal themselves at the outset of the war, and which will now reveal
themselves more and more extensively and unrestrainedly. After us the deluge!
argued all the big and little Alexeyevs, [2] scarcely thinking or
believing that the deluge would actually come. The generals and
commanders-in-chief proved themselves incompetent non entities. In the expert
opinion of an English military observer (in The Times ), the whole
story of the 1904 campaign was one of criminal neglect of the elementary
principles of naval and military strategy. The civil and military bureaucracy
proved as parasitic and venal now as in the days of serfdom. The officers proved
uneducated, undeveloped, and untrained. They were not in close touch with the
soldiers, nor did they enjoy their confidence. The ignorance, illiteracy, and
backwardness of the peasant masses became appallingly obvious when they came up
against a progressive nation in modern warfare, which requires high-quality
manpower as imperatively as does modern technique. Success in modern war fare
is impossible without intelligent soldiers and sailors who possess
initiative. No amount of endurance or physical strength, no herding of men into
solid ranks for mass actions can guarantee superiority in an age of quick-firing
small arms and quick-firing cannon, when naval battles are fought with the aid
of intricate mechanisms and land actions are fought in extended order. The
military might of autocratic Russia has proved to be a sham. Tsarism has proved
to be a hindrance to the organisation of up-to-date efficient warfare, that very
business to which tsarism dedicated itself so whole heartedly, of which it was
so proud, and for which it offered such colossal sacrifices in defiance to all
opposition on the part of the people. A whited sepulchre is what tsarism has
proved to be in the field of external defence, which was its favourite
speciality, so to say. Events have corroborated the opinion of those foreigners
who laughed upon seeing hundreds of millions squandered on the purchase and
building of splendid warships, and who declared that those expenditures were
useless if no one knew how to manipulate such modern vessels, if there were no
people with the necessary technical knowledge to utilise the latest achievements of military engineering. Both the
navy and the fortress, the field fortifications and the army proved to
be antiquated and utterly useless.

Never before has the military organisation of a country had such a close bearing
on its entire economic and cultural system. The military debacle, therefore,
could not but precipitate a profound political crisis. Here again, as so often
in history,the war between an advanced and a backward country has played a great
revolutionary role. And the class-conscious proletariat, an implacable enemy of
war— this inevitable and inseverable concomitant of all class rule in
general—can not shut its eyes to the revolutionary task which the Japanese
bourgeoisie, by its crushing defeat of the Russian autocracy, is carrying
out. The proletariat is hostile to every bourgeoisie and to all manifestations
of the bourgeois system, but this hostility does not relieve it of the duty of
distinguishing between the historically progressive and the reactionary representatives of the bourgeoisie. It is quite understandable, therefore,that the
most consistent and staunch representatives of revolutionary international
Social-Democracy, such as Jules Guesde in France and Hyndman in England,
unequivocally expressed their sympathy with Japan, which is routing the Russian
autocracy. Here in Russia, of course, some socialists were found to have muddled
ideas on this question, too. Revolutsionnaya Rossiya [3] rebuked Guesde and Hyndman, saying that a socialist could only be in
favour of a workers’ Japan, a people’s Japan, and not of a bourgeois
Japan. This rebuke is as absurd as blaming a socialist for admitting the
progressive nature of the free-trade bourgeoisie as compared with the
protectionist bourgeoisie. Guesde and Hyndman did not defend the Japanese
bourgeoisie or Japanese imperialism; they correctly noted in this conflict
between two bourgeois countries the historically progressive role of one of
them. The muddle-headedness of the “Socialists-Revolutionaries”
was, of course, an inevitable result of the failure on the part of our radical
intelligentsia to understand the class point of view and historical
materialism. Neither could the new Iskra help showing muddled
thinking. It had quite a lot to say at first about peace at any price. It then
made haste to “correct itself”, when Jaurès showed plainly whose
interests, those of the progressive or those of the reactionary bourgeoisie, would be
served by a quasi-socialist campaign for peace in general. And now it has ended
up with platitudes about the unreasonableness of “speculating” (?!)
on a victory of the Japanese bourgeoisie and about war being a calamity
“regard less of whether” it ends in the victory or the defeat of the
autocracy.

No. The cause of Russian freedom and of the struggle of the Russian (and the
world) proletariat for socialism depends to a very large extent on the military
defeats of the autocracy. This cause has been greatly advanced by the military
debacle which has struck terror in the hearts of all the European guardians of
the existing order. The revolutionary proletariat must carry on a ceaseless
agitation against war, always keeping in mind, however, that wars are
inevitable as long as class rule exists. Trite phrases about peace
à la
Jaurès are of no use to the oppressed class, which is not responsible for a
bourgeois war between two bourgeois nations, which is doing all it can to
overthrow every bourgeoisie, which knows the enormity of the people’s sufferings
even in time of “peaceful” capitalist exploitation. While
struggling against free competition, we cannot, however, forget its progressive
character in comparison with the semi-feudal system. While struggling against
every war and every bourgeoisie, we must draw a clear line in our agitational
work between the progressive bourgeoisie and the feudal autocracy; we must
recognise the great revolutionary role of the historic war in which the Russian
worker is an involuntary participant.

It was the Russian autocracy and not the Russian people that started this
colonial war, which has turned into a war between the old and the new bourgeois
worlds. It is the autocratic regime and not the Russian people that has suffered ignoble defeat. The Russian people has gained from the defeat of the
autocracy. The capitulation of Port Arthur is the prologue to the capitulation
of tsarism. The war is not ended yet by far, but every step towards its
continuation increases immeasurably the unrest and discontent among the Russian
people, brings nearer the hour of a new great war, the war of the people
against the autocracy, the war of the proletariat for liberty. There is good
reason for the concern shown by that most sedate and sober European bourgeoisie,
which would heartily sympathise with the granting of liberal concessions by the Russian
autocracy, but which stands in mortal fear of a Russian revolution, as the
prologue to a European revolution.

“There is a deep-rooted opinion,” writes one such sober organ of the
German bourgeoisie, “that it is absolutely impossible for a revolution to
break out in Russia. Every kind of argument is used to support this view: the
inertness of the Russian peasantry, its faith in the tsar, its dependence on the
clergy; the extreme elements among the discontented, it is claimed, constitute a
mere handful, who can organise putsches and terrorist attempts, but are
absolutely incapable of calling forth a general popular uprising. The broad mass
of the discontented, we are told, lack organisation, arms, and— most
important of all—the determination to risk their lives. As for the Russian
intellectual, he is usually revolutionary-minded only until about the age of
thirty, after which he settles down comfortably in some cushy government job,
and thus most of the hotheads undergo a metamorphosis and become run-of-the-mill
officials.” But now, the newspaper continues, there are many indications of a
big change. The revolutionaries are not the only ones now who speak about a
revolution in Russia; the topic is even in the mouths of such
“unenthusiastic” and solid pillars of law and order as Prince
Trubetskoi, whose letter to the Minister of the Interior is now being reprinted
by the entire European press. “There is evidently real ground for the
fear of a revolution in Russia. True, no one believes that the Russian peasants
will take up their pitchforks and go forward to fight for a constitution. But,
then, are revolutions made in villages? In modern his tory the big cities long
ago became the vehicles of the revolutionary movement. And in Russia it is the
cities that are in ferment, from north to south and from east to west. No one
will venture to predict the outcome, but it is an incontrovertible fact that
the number of people who consider a revolution in Russia impossible is
diminishing day by day. And if a serious revolutionary outbreak does occur, it
is more than doubtful whether the autocracy, weakened by the war in the Far
East, will be able to cope with it.”

Yes, the autocracy is weakened. The most sceptical of the sceptics are beginning
to believe in the revolution.

General belief in revolution is already the beginning of revolution. The
government itself, by its military adventure, is seeing to its continuation. The
Russian proletariat will see to it that the serious revolutionary onset is
sustained and extended.

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Notes:
[1]
Preparatory materials for the article “The Fall of
Port Arthur”— several variants of a plan for the article, numerous
jottings from the foreign press, etc—were published in Lenin Miscellany V , 1929, pp. 57-59, Lenin Miscellany XVI , 1931,
pp. 37-42, Lenin Miscellany XX VI , 1934, pp. 242-51.

[2]
Alexeyev, Y. 1.—admiral, from 1903 the tsar’s viceroy in the
Far East.

[3]
Revolutstonnaya Rossiya (Revolutionary
Russia)—newspaper of the Socialists-Revolutionaries, published from the
end of 1900 to 1905; from January 1902 the central organ of the Party of
Socialists-Revolutionaries.