Comrades, our conference is meeting as the first conference of a proletarian party under conditions not only of the Russian, but also of a mounting international revolution. The time is approaching when the assertion of the founders of scientific socialism and the unanimous foresight of the socialists gathered at the Basle Congress—that world war inevitably leads to revolution—is being borne out everywhere.

In the nineteenth century, observing the proletarian movement of different countries and examining the possible prospects of social revolution, Marx and Engels repeatedly said that the roles of these countries would be apportioned, in general, proportionately, in accordance with the national historical peculiarities of each. They expressed this idea, to formulate it briefly, as follows: the French worker will begin, the German will finish.

To the lot of the Russian proletariat has fallen the great honour of beginning, but it must not forget that its movement and revolution constitute only a part of the world revolutionary proletarian movement, which, for example, in Germany, is mounting from day to day more and more powerfully. Only from this point of view can we define our tasks.

I declare the All-Russia Conference open and request that we proceed to elect a presidium.

A brief account was published on May 12 (April 29), 1917, in *Sotsial-Demokrat* No. 43

First published in full in 1921 in the Collected Works of N. Lenin (V. Ulyanov), Vol. XIV, Part II

Printed from the typewritten copy of the minutes