V. I. Lenin

To the Russian Proletariat {1}

Thewar is on. The Japanese have already inflicted a series
of defeats on the Russian troops, and the tsarist government is now
straining every nerve to avenge itself for these defeats. Military
districts are being mobilised one after another, and tens of thousands of
soldiers are being hastily dispatched to the Far East; desperate efforts
are being made abroad to secure another loan, and contractors have been
promised bonuses running to thousands of rubles a day for accelerating the
works required by the war department. The people’s every fibre is put to
the greatest strain because the struggle that has been started is no
trifling matter; it is a struggle against a 50-million-strong people who
are splendidly armed, splendidly prepared for the war, and who are fighting
for the conditions which they believe to be urgently necessary for free
national development. This is going to be a struggle by a despotic and back
ward government against a people that is politically free and is rapidly
progressing in culture. The war against the sickly Turkey in 1877 and 1878,
which exacted such a high price from the Russian people, was negligible when compared to the war now
started.

Whatin that case is at issue in the life-and-death struggle now being waged by
the Russian workers and peasants against the Japanese? The issue is
“Yellow Russia”, the issue is Manchuria and Korea, the new lands
seized by the Russian Government. It had promised all the other powers to
preserve the inviolability of China, it had promised to return Manchuria to
China not later than October 8, 1903, and it had failed to honour its
promise. The tsarist government had so run away with itself in its policy of
military adventures and plunder of its neighbours that it found no strength to
go back. In “Yellow Russia” it has built fortifications and ports,
it has laid a railway line and has concentrated tens of thousands of troops.

Buthow do the Russian people benefit from these new lands whose acquisition has
cost so much blood and sacrifice and is bound to cost even more? For the Russian
worker and peasant the war holds out the prospect of fresh calamities, the loss
of a host of human lives, the ruin of a mass of families, and more burdens and
taxes. The Russian army leadership and the tsarist government believe that the
war holds out the promise of military glory. The Russian merchant and the
millionaire-industrialist think the war is necessary to secure new marketing
outlets for their goods and new ports in an unrestricted ice-free sea for the
development of Russian trade. You can’t sell much at home to the starving
muzhik and the unemployed worker, you must look for marketing outlets in foreign
lands! The riches of the Russian bourgeoisie have been created by the
impoverishment and the ruin of the Russian workers—and so now, in order
to multiply these riches, the workers must shed their blood to give the Russian bourgeoisie
a free hand in conquering and enslaving the Chinese and the Korean
working man.

Thiscriminal war, which holds in store immense calamities for the working
people, has been engendered by the interests of the greedy bourgeoisie, the
interests of capital, which is prepared to sell and ruin its own country in its
drive for profit. This hazardous gamble involving the blood and property of
Russian citizens is the result of the policy of a despotic government which tramples all human rights and keeps its people in
servitude. In response to the wild war-cries, in response to the
“patriotic” flag-waving by the flunkeys of the money-bag and the
lackeys of the police-whip, the class-conscious Social-Democratic proletariat
must come forward and demand with tenfold energy: “Down with the
autocracy!”, “Let a people’s constituent assembly be convened!”

Thetsarist government has plunged so deep into this reckless military gamble
that it has at stake a great deal too much. Even in the event of success, the
war against Japan threatens total exhaustion of the people’s forces—with
the results of the victory being absolutely negligible, for the other
powers will prevent Russia from enjoying the fruits of victory as they prevented
Japan from doing so in
1895. {2} In the event of defeat, the war will lead above
all to the collapse of the entire government system based on popular
ignorance and deprivation, on oppression and violence.

Theywho sow the wind shall reap the whirlwind!

Longlive the fraternal union of the proletarians of all countries fighting for
complete liberation from the yoke of international capital! Long live Japanese
Social-Democracy protesting against the war! Down with the ignominious and
predatory tsarist autocracy!

Central Committee of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party

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Notes:
{1}
This was written by Lenin a week after the outbreak of the Russo
Japanese War and was circulated to the Party committees in a number of
cities in Russia with instructions to have it immediately reprinted and
spread. N. K. Krupskaya informed I. Kh. Lalayants, L. B. Krasin and
L. M. Knipovich about the dispatch of the leaflet in her letters on
February 3 (18) and 4 (17), 1904 (Archives of the

Institute of Marxism-Leninism of the C.P.S.U. Central Committee and
Lenin Miscellany X , pp. 323, 324). On February 16 (29), 1904, she
wrote to R. S. Zemlyachka and L. Y. Galperin: “Stank (V.I. Lenin.— Ed .) has written a leaflet about the war; it was
not distributed here, and was sent for reprinting in Tomsk, Moscow, Odessa,
St. Petersburg, Samara, Saratov, Nizhny Novgorod and Yekaterinoslav”
(Central State Historical Archives in Moscow). At the library of the
Institute of Marxism-Leninism there are many copies of the
R.S.D.L.P. Central Committee’s leaflet “To the Russian Proletariat”:
there are copies bearing the seal of the R.S.D.L.P. Central Committee, the
seals of the Moscow and Yekaterinoslav committees of the R.S.D.L.P.; the
leaflet was reprinted and distributed by the Nizhny Novgorod (7,700
copies), Tver and Saratov committees, and by students in Kiev. In addition,
it was reprinted in Iskra No. 61 on March 5 (18), 1904.

p. 111

{2}
Following the Sino-Japanese War (1894–95), the 1895 Treaty of
Shimonoseki forced China to cede the Liaotung Peninsula and the islands of
Penghuletao (Pescadores) and Taiwan to Japan, to undertake to pay an
indemnity of 200 million hang (subsequently increased to 230 million hang)
and to grant Japan a number of economic privileges. Fearful of Japan’s
growing strength, Russia, France and Germany issued a protest over the
Treaty of Shimonoseki and this forced Japan to abandon the idea of annexing
the Liaotung Peninsula.

p. 113