V. I.

Lenin

Letters From Afar

LETTERS FROM AFAR

FIRST Letter

The First Stage of the First
Revolution [1]

The first revolution engendered by the imperialist world
war has broken out. The first revolution but certainly not the last.

Judging by the scanty information available in Switzer land, the first
stage of this first revolution, namely, of the Russian revolution
of March 1, 1917, has ended. This first stage of our revolution will
certainly not be the last.

How could such a “miracle” have happened, that in only eight
days—the period indicated by Mr. Milyukov in his boastful telegram to all
Russia’s representatives abroad—a monarchy collapsed that had maintained
itself for centuries, and that in spite of everything had managed to
maintain itself throughout the three years of the tremendous, nation-wide
class battles of 1905–07?

There are no miracles in nature or history, but every abrupt turn in
history, and this applies to every revolution, presents such a wealth of
content, unfolds such unexpected and specific combinations of forms of
struggle and alignment of forces of the contestants, that to the lay mind
there is much that must appear miraculous.

The combination of a number of factors of world-historic importance was
required for the tsarist monarchy to have collapsed in a few days. We shall
mention the chief of them.

Without the tremendous class battles and the revolutionary energy
displayed by the Russian proletariat during the three years 1905–07, the
second revolution could not possibly have been so rapid in the sense that
its initial stage was completed in a few days. The first revolution (1905) deeply ploughed the
soil, uprooted age-old prejudices, awakened millions of workers and tens of
millions of peasants to political life and political struggle and revealed
to each other—and to the world—all classes (and all the
principal parties) of Russian society in their true character and in the
true alignment of their interests, their forces, their modes of action, and
their immediate and ultimate aims. This first revolution, and the
succeeding period of counter-revolution (1907–14), laid bare the very
essence of the tsarist monarchy, brought it to the “utmost limit”,
exposed all the rottenness and infamy, the cynicism and corruption of the
tsar’s clique, dominated by that monster, Rasputin. It exposed all the
bestiality of the Romanov family—those pogrom-mongers who drenched Russia
in the blood of Jews, workers and revolutionaries, those
landlords , “first among peers”, who own millions of dessiatines of land and are prepared to stoop to any brutality, to any
crime, to ruin and strangle any number of citizens in order to preserve the
“sacred right of property” for themselves and their class .

Without the Revolution of 1905–07 and the counter-revolution of
1907–14, there could not have been that clear “self determination” of
all classes of the Russian people and of the nations inhabiting Russia,
that determination of the relation of these classes to each other and to
the tsarist monarchy, which manifested itself during the eight days of the
February-March Revolution of 1917. This eight-day revolution was
“performed”, if we may use a metaphorical expression, as though after a
dozen major and minor rehearsals; the “actors” knew each other, their
parts, their places and their setting in every detail, through and through,
down to every more or less important shade of political trend and mode of
action.

For the first great Revolution of 1905, which the Guchkovs and
Milyukovs and their hangers-on denounced as a “great rebellion”, led
after the lapse of twelve years, to the “brilliant”, the “glorious”
Revolution of 1917—the Guchkovs and Milyukovs have proclaimed it
“glorious” because it has put them in power ( for the time being ). But this required a great, mighty and all-powerful “stage
manager”, capable, on the one hand, of vastly accelerating the course of
world

history, and, on the other, of engendering world-wide crises of
unparalleled intensity—economic, political, national and
international. Apart from an extraordinary acceleration of world history,
it was also necessary that history make particularly abrupt turns, in order
that at one such turn the filthy and blood-stained cart of the Romanov
monarchy should be overturned at one stroke .

This all-powerful “stage manager”, this mighty accelerator was the
imperialist world war.

That it is a world war is now indisputable, for the United States and
China are already half-involved today, and will be fully involved tomorrow.

That it is an imperialist war on both sides is now likewise
indisputable. Only the capitalists and their hangers-on, the
social-patriots and social-chauvinists, or—if instead of general critical
definitions we use political names familiar in Russia—only the Guchkovs
and Lvovs, Milyukovs and Shingaryovs on the one hand, and only the
Gvozdyovs, Potresovs, Chkhenkelis, Kerenskys and Chkheidzes on the other,
can deny or gloss over this fact. Both the German and the
Anglo-French bourgeoisie are waging the war for the plunder of foreign
countries and the strangling of small nations, for financial world
supremacy and the division and redivision of colonies, and in order to save
the tottering capitalist regime by misleading and dividing the workers of
the various countries.

The imperialist war was bound, with objective inevitability, immensely
to accelerate and intensify to an unprecedented degree the class struggle
of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie; it was bound to turn into a
civil war between the hostile classes.

This transformation has been started by the February–March
Revolution of 1917, the first stage of which has been marked, firstly, by a
joint blow at tsarism struck by two forces: one, the whole of bourgeois and
landlord Russia, with all her unconscious hangers-on and all her conscious
leaders, the British and French ambassadors and capitalists, and the other,
the Soviet of Workers’ Deputies , which has begun to win over the
soldiers’ and peasants’ deputies. [2]

These three political camps, these three fundamental political
forces—(1) the tsarist monarchy, the head of the feudal landlords, of the old bureaucracy and the military caste;
(2) bourgeois and landlord-Octobrist-Cadet Russia, behind which trailed the
petty bourgeoisie (of which Kerensky and Chkheidze are the principal
representatives); (3) the Soviet of Workers’ Deputies, which is seeking to make the entire
proletariat and the entire mass of the poorest part of the population its
allies—these three fundamental political forces fully and
clearly revealed themselves even in the eight days of the “first stage”
and even to an observer so remote from the scene of events as the present
writer, who is obliged to content himself with the meagre foreign press
dispatches.

But before dealing with this in greater detail, I must return to the
part of my letter devoted to a factor of prime importance, namely, the
imperialist world war.

The war shackled the belligerent powers, the belligerent groups of
capitalists, the “bosses” of the capitalist system, the slave-owners of
the capitalist slave system, to each other with chains of iron . One bloody clot —such is the social and political life
of the present moment in history.

The socialists who deserted to the bourgeoisie on the outbreak of the
war—all these Davids and Scheidemanns in Germany and the Plekhanovs,
Potresovs, Gvozdyovs and Co. in Russia—clamoured loud and long against
the “illusions” of the revolutionaries, against the “illusions” of the
Basle Manifesto, against the “farcical dream” of turning the imperialist
war into a civil war. They sang praises in every key to the strength,
tenacity and adaptability allegedly revealed by capitalism—they, who had
aided the capitalists to “adapt”, tame, mislead and divide the working
classes of the various countries!

But “he who laughs last laughs best”. The bourgeoisie has been unable
to delay for long the revolutionary crisis engendered by the war. That
crisis is growing with irresistible force in all countries, beginning with
Germany, which, according to an observer who recently visited that country,
is suffering “brilliantly organised famine”, and ending with England and
France, where famine is also looming, but where organisation is
far less “brilliant”.

It was natural that the revolutionary crisis should have broken out
first of all in tsarist Russia, where the disorganisation was most
appalling and the proletariat most revolutionary (not by virtue of any special qualities, but because of the living
traditions of 1905). This crisis was precipitated by the series of
extremely severe defeats sustained by Russia and her allies. They shook up
the old machinery of government and the old order and roused the anger of
all classes of the population against them; they embittered the
army, wiped out a very large part of the old commanding personnel, composed
of die-hard aristocrats and exceptionally corrupt bureaucratic elements,
and replaced it by a young, fresh, mainly bourgeois, commoner,
petty-bourgeois personnel. Those who, grovelling to the bourgeoisie or
simply lacking backbone, howled and wailed about “defeatism”, are now
faced by the fact of the historical connection between the defeat of the
most backward and barbarous tsarist monarchy and the beginning of
the revolutionary conflagration.

But while the defeats early in the war were a negative factor that
precipitated the upheaval, the connection between Anglo-French
finance capital, Anglo-French imperialism, and Russian Octobrist-Cadet
capital was a factor that hastened this crisis by the direct
organisation of a plot against Nicholas Romanov.

This highly important aspect of the situation is, for obvious reasons,
hushed up by the Anglo-French press and maliciously emphasised by the
German. We Marxists must soberly face the truth and not allow ourselves to
be confused either by the lies, the official sugary diplomatic and
ministerial lies, of the first group of imperialist belligerents, or by the
sniggering and smirking of their financial and military rivals of the other
belligerent group. The whole course of events in the February-March
Revolution clearly shows that the British and French embassies, with their
agents and “connections”, who had long been making the most desperate
efforts to prevent “separate” agreements and a separate peace between
Nicholas II (and last, we hope, and we will endeavour to make him that) and
Wilhelm II, directly organised a plot in conjunction with the Octobrists
and Cadets, in conjunction with a section of the generals and army and
St. Petersburg garrison officers, with the express object of
deposing Nicholas Romanov.

Let us not harbour any illusions. Let us not make the mistake of those
who—like certain O.C. supporters or Mensheviks who are oscillating between Gvozdyov-Potresov policy and internationalism
and only too often slip into petty-bourgeois pacifism—are now ready to
extol “agreement” between the workers’ party and the Cadets, “support”
of the latter by the former, etc. In conformity with the old (and by no
means Marxist) doctrine that they have learned by rote, they are trying to
veil the plot of the Anglo-French imperialists and the Guchkovs and
Milyukovs aimed at deposing the “chief warrior”, Nicholas Romanov, and
putting more energetic, fresh and more capable warriors in his
place.

That the revolution succeeded so quickly and—seemingly, at the first
superficial glance—so radically, is only due to the fact that, as a
result of an extremely unique historical situation, absolutely dissimilar currents, absolutely heterogeneous class interests,
absolutely contrary political and social strivings have
merged , and in a strikingly “harmonious” manner. Namely, the
conspiracy of the Anglo-French imperialists, who impelled Milyukov, Guchkov
and Co. to seize power for the purpose of continuing the imperialist war , for the purpose of conducting the war still more ferociously and
obstinately, for the purpose of slaughtering fresh millions of
Russian workers and peasants in order that the Guchkovs might obtain
Constantinople, the French capitalists Syria, the British capitalists
Mesopotamia, and so on. This on the one hand. On the other, there was a
profound proletarian and mass popular movement of a revolutionary character
(a movement of the entire poorest section of the population of town and
country) for bread , for peace , for real freedom .

It would simply be foolish to speak of the revolutionary proletariat of
Russia “supporting” the Cadet-Octobrist imperialism, which has been
“patched up” with English money and is as abominable as tsarist
imperialism. The revolutionary workers were destroying, have already
destroyed to a considerable degree and will destroy to its foundations the
infamous tsarist monarchy . They are neither elated nor dismayed by
the fact that at certain brief and exceptional historical conjunctures
they were aided by the struggle of Buchanan, Guchkov, Milyukov and
Co. to replace one monarch by another monarch , also preferably a Romanov!

Such, and only such, is the way the situation developed. Such, and only
such, is the view that can be taken by a politician who does not fear the truth, who soberly weighs the balance of social
forces in the revolution, who appraises every “current situation” not
only from the standpoint of all its present, current peculiarities, but
also from the standpoint of the more fundamental motivations, the deeper
interest-relationship of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, both in
Russia and throughout the world.

The workers of Petrograd, like the workers of the whole of Russia,
self-sacrificingly fought the tsarist monarchy—fought for freedom, land
for the peasants, and for peace , against the imperialist
slaughter. To continue and intensify that slaughter, Anglo-French
imperialist capital hatched Court intrigues, conspired with the officers of
the Guards, incited and encouraged the Guchkovs and Milyukovs, and fixed up
a complete new government , which in fact did seize power
immediately the proletarian struggle had struck the first blows at tsarism.

This new government, in which Lvov and Guchkov of the Octobrists and
Peaceful Renovation
Party, [3] yesterday’s abettors of Stolypin the Hangman, control
really important posts, vital posts, decisive posts, the army and
the bureaucracy—this government, in which Milyukov and the other
Cadets [4] are more than anything decorations, a signboard—they are
there to deliver sentimental professorial speeches—and in which the
Trudovik [5] Kerensky is a balalaika on which they play to deceive the
workers and peasants—this government is not a fortuitous assemblage of
persons.

They are representatives of the new class that has risen to political
power in Russia, the class of capitalist land lords and bourgeoisie which
has long been ruling our country economically, and which during
the Revolution of 1905–07, the counter-revolutionary period of 1907–14,
and finally—and with especial rapidity—the war period of 1914–17, was
quick to organise itself politically, taking over control of the local
government bodies, public education, congresses of various types, the Duma,
the war industries committees, etc. This new class was already “almost
completely” in power by 1917, and therefore it needed only the
first blows to bring tsarism to the ground and clear the way for the
bourgeoisie. The imperialist war, which required an incredible exertion of
effort, so accelerated the course of backward

Russia s development that we have “at one blow” ( seemingly at
one blow) caught up with Italy, England, and almost with
France. We have obtained a “coalition”, a “national” (i.e., adapted for
carrying on the imperialist slaughter and for fooling the people)
“parliamentary” government.

Side by side with this government—which as regards the present war is but the agent of the billion-dollar “firm”
“England and France”—there has arisen the chief, unofficial, as yet
undeveloped and comparatively weak workers’ government , which
expresses the interests of the proletariat and of the entire poor section
of the urban and rural population. This is the Soviet of Workers’ Deputies in Petrograd, which is seeking connections with the soldiers
and peasants, and also with the agricultural workers, with the latter
particularly and primarily, of course, more than with the peasants.

Such is the actual political situation, which we must first
endeavour to define with the greatest possible objective precision, in
order that Marxist tactics may he based upon the only possible solid
foundation—the foundation of facts .

The tsarist monarchy has been smashed, but not finally destroyed.

The Octobrist-Cadet bourgeois government, which wants to fight the
imperialist war “to a finish”, and which in reality is the agent of the
financial firm “England and France”, is obliged to promise the
people the maximum of liberties and sops compatible with the maintenance of
its power over the people and the possibility of continuing the imperialist
slaughter.

The Soviet of Workers’ Deputies is an organisation of the workers, the
embryo of a workers’ government, the representative of the interests of the
entire mass of the poor section of the population, i.e., of
nine-tenths of the population, which is striving for peace, bread
and freedom .

The conflict of these three forces determines the situation that has
now arisen, a situation that is transitional from the first stage
of the revolution to the second.

The antagonism between the first and second force is not
profound, it is temporary, the result solely of the present
conjuncture of circumstances, of the abrupt turn of events in the
imperialist war. The whole of the new government is monarchist,
for Kerensky’s verbal republicanism simply cannot be taken seriously, is not worthy of a statesman and,
objectively , is political chicanery. The new government, which has
not dealt the tsarist monarchy the final blow, has already begun to strike a bargain with the landlord Romanov Dynasty. The bourgeoisie of
the Octobrist-Cadet type needs a monarchy to serve as the head of
the bureaucracy and the army in order to protect the privileges of capital
against the working people.

He who says that the workers must support the new government
in the interests of the struggle against tsarist reaction (and apparently
this is being said by the Potresovs, Gvozdvovs. Chkhenkelis and also, all
evasiveness notwithstanding, by Chkheidze ) is a traitor
to the workers, a traitor to the cause of the proletariat, to the cause of
peace and freedom. For actually, precisely this new government is
already bound hand and foot by imperialist capital, by the
imperialist policy of war and plunder, has already begun
to strike bargain (without consulting the people!) with the dynasty, is already working to restore the tsarist monarchy , is already soliciting
the candidature of Mikhail Romanov as the new kinglet, is already taking
measures to prop up the throne, to substitute for the legitimate (lawful,
ruling by virtue of the old law) monarchy a Bonapartist, plebiscite
monarchy (ruling by virtue of a fraudulent plebiscite).

No, if there is to lie a real struggle against the tsarist monarchy, if
freedom is to be guaranteed in fact and not merely in words, in the glib
promises of Milyukov and Kerensky, the workers must not support
the new government; the government must “support” the workers! For the
only guarantee of freedom and of the complete destruction of
tsarism lies in arming the proletariat , in strengthening,
extending and developing the role, significance and power of the Soviet of
Workers’ Deputies.

All the rest is mere phrase-mongering and lies, self-deception on the
part of the politicians of the liberal and radical camp, fraudulent
trickery.

Help, or at least do not hinder, the arming of the workers, and freedom
in Russia will be invincible, the monarchy irrestorable, the republic
secure.

Otherwise the Guchkovs and Milyukovs will restore the monarchy and
grant none , absolutely none of the “liberties” they promised. All bourgeois politicians in all bourgeois
revolutions “fed” the people and fooled the workers with promises.

Ours is a bourgeois revolution, therefore , the workers must
support the bourgeoisie, say the Potresovs, Gvozdyovs and Chkheidzes, as
Plekhanov said yesterday.

Ours is a bourgeois revolution, we Marxists say, therefore the
workers must open the eyes of the people to the deception practised by the
bourgeois politicians, teach them to put no faith in words, to depend
entirely on their own strength, their own organisation,
their own unity, and their own weapons .

The government of the Octobrists and Cadets, of the Guchkovs and
Milyukovs, cannot , even if it sincerely wanted to (only infants
can think that Guchkov and Lvov are sincere), cannot give the
people either peace, bread, or freedom .

It cannot give peace because it is a war government, a government for
the continuation of the imperialist slaughter, a government of
plunder , out to plunder Armenia, Galicia and Turkey, annex
Constantinople, reconquer Poland, Courland, Lithuania, etc. It is a
government bound hand and foot by Anglo-French imperialist capital. Russian
capital is merely a branch of the world-wide “firm” which manipulates
hundreds of billions of rubles and is called “England and
France”.

It cannot give bread because it is a bourgeois government. At best , it can give the people “brilliantly organised famine”, as
Germany has done. But the people will not accept famine. They will learn,
and probably very soon, that there is bread and that it can be obtained,
but only by methods that do not respect the sanctity of capital and landownership .

It cannot give freedom because it is a landlord and capitalist
government which fears the people and has already begun to strike
a bargain with the Romanov dynasty.

The tactical problems of our immediate attitude towards this government
will be dealt with in another article. In it, we shall explain the
peculiarity of the present situation, which is a transition from
the first stage of the revolution to the second, and why the slogan, the
“task of the day”, at this moment must he: Workers, you hare performed miracles of proletarian heroism, the heroism of the people, in the civil war against tsarism. You must perform miracles of organisation, organisation of the proletariat and of the whole people, to prepare the way for your victory in the second stage of the revolution .

Confining ourselves for the present to an analysis of the
class struggle and the alignment of class forces at this stage of the
revolution, we have still to put the question: who are the proletariat’s
allies in this revolution?

It has two allies: first, the broad mass of the semi-proletarian and partly also of the small-peasant population, who
number scores of millions and constitute the overwhelming majority of the
population of Russia. For this mass peace, bread, freedom and land are
essential It is inevitable that to a certain extent this mass will
be under the influence of the bourgeoisie, particularly of the petty
bourgeoisie, to which it is most akin in its conditions of life,
vacillating between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. The cruel lessons
of war, and they will be the more cruel the more vigorously the
war is prosecuted by Guchkov, Lvov, Milyukov and Co., will
inevitably push this mass towards the proletariat, compel it to
follow the proletariat. We must now take advantage of the relative freedom
of the new order and of the Soviets of Workers’ Deputies to
enlighten and organise this mass first of all and above
all. Soviets of Peasants’ Deputies and Soviets of Agricultural
Workers—that is one of our most urgent tasks. In this connection we shall
strive not only for the agricultural workers to establish their own
separate Soviets, but also for the propertyless and poorest peasants to
organise separately from the well-to-do peasants. The special
tasks and special forms of organisation urgently needed at the present time
will be dealt with in the next letter.

Second, the ally of the Russian proletariat is the proletariat of all
the belligerent countries and of all countries in general. At present this
ally is to a large degree repressed by the war, and all too often the
European social-chauvinists speak in its name—men who, like Plekhanov,
Gvozdyov and Potresov in Russia, have deserted to the bourgeoisie. But the
liberation of the proletariat from their influence has progressed with
every month of the imperialist war, and the Russian revolution will
inevitably immensely hasten this process.

With these two allies, the proletariat, utilising the peculiarities of the present transition situation, can and will
proceed, first, to the achievement of a democratic republic and complete
victory of the peasantry over the landlords, instead of the
Guchkov-Milyukov semi-monarchy, and then to socialism , which alone
can give the war-weary people peace, bread and freedom .

N. Lenin