V. I. Lenin

The Itch [1]

The itch is a painful disease. And when people are seized by the itch of revolutionary
phrase-making the mere sight of this disease causes intolerable suffering.

Truths that are simple, clear, comprehensible, obvious and apparently indisputable to all
who belong to the working people are distorted by those suffering from the above mentioned
kind of itch. Often this distortion arises from the best, the noblest and loftiest impulses,
“merely” owing to a failure to digest well-known theoretical truths or a
childishly crude, schoolboyishly slavish repetition of them irrelevantly (people don’t
know “what’s what”). But the itch does not cease to be harmful on that
account.

What, for example, could be more conclusive and clear than the following truth: a
government that gave Soviet power, land, workers’ control and peace to a
people tortured by three years of predatory war would be invincible? Peace is the chief
thing. If, after conscientious efforts to obtain a general and just peace, it turned
out in actual fact that it was impossible to obtain this at the present time, every peasant would understand that one would have to adopt not a general peace, but a separate and unjust peace. Every peasant, even the most ignorant and illiterate, would understand this and appreciate a government that gave him even such a peace.

Bolsheviks must have been stricken by the vile itch of phrase-making to forget this and
evoke the peasants’ most legitimate dissatisfaction with them when this itch has led to
a new war being launched by predatory Germany against overtired Russia! The ludicrous and
pitiful “theoretical” trivialities and sophistries under which this itch is
disguised I have pointed out in an article entitled “ The Revolutionary Phrase ” (Pravda, February 21 [81). I would not be recalling
this if the same itch had not cropped up today (what catching disease!) in a new place.

To explain how this has happened, I shall cite first of all little example, quite simply
and clearly, without any “theory”-if the itch claims to be “theory”
it is intolerable and without erudite words or anything that the masses cannot understand.

Let us suppose Kalyayey [2] , in order to kill a tyrant and monster, acquires a revolver from
an absolute villain, a scoundrel and robber, by promising him bread, money and vodka for the
service rendered.

Can one condemn Kalyayev for his “deal with a robber” for the sake of
obtaining a deadly weapon? Every sensible person will answer “no”. If there is
nowhere else for Kalyayev to get a revolver, and if his intention is really an honourable one
(the killing of a tyrant, not killing for plunder), then he should not be reproached but
commended for acquiring a revolver in this way.

But if a robber, in order to commit murder for the sake of plunder, acquires a revolver
from another robber in return for money, vodka or bread, can one compare (not to speak of
identifying) such a “deal with a robber” with the deal made by
Kalyayev?

No, everyone who is not out of his mind or infected by the itch will agree that one
cannot. Any peasant who saw an “intellectual” disavowing such an obvious truth by
means of phrase-making would say: you, sir, ought not to be managing the state but should
join the company of wordy buffoons or should simply put yourself in a steam bath and get rid
of the itch.

If Kerensky, a representative of the ruling class of the bourgeoisie, i.e., the
exploiters, makes a deal with the Anglo-French exploiters to get arms and potatoes from them
and at the same time conceals from the people the treaties which promise (if successful) to
give one robber Armenia, Galicia and Constantinople, and another robber Baghdad, Syria and so
forth, is it difficult to understand that this deal is a predatory, swindling, vile deal on
the part of Kerensky and his friends?

No, this is not difficult to understand. Any peasant, even the most ignorant and
illiterate, will understand it.

But if a representative of the exploited, oppressed class, after this class has overthrown
the exploiters, and published and annulled all the secret and annexationist treaties, is
subjected to a bandit attack by the imperialists of Germany, can he be condemned for making a
“deal” with the Anglo-French robbers, for obtaining arms and potatoes from them
in return for money or timber, etc.? Can one find such a deal dishonourable, disgraceful,
dirty?

No, one cannot. Every sensible man will understand this and will ridicule as silly fools
those who with a “lordly” and learned mien undertake to prove that “the
masses will not understand” the difference between the robber war of the imperialist
Kerensky (and his dishonourable deals with robbers for a division of jointly stolen spoils)
and the Kalyayev deal of the Bolshevik Government with the Anglo-French robbers in order to
get arms and potatoes to repel the German robber.

Every sensible man will say: to obtain weapons by purchase from a robber for the purpose
of robbery is disgusting and villainous, but to buy weapons from the same robber for the
purpose of a just war against an aggressor is something quite legitimate. Only mincing young
ladies and affected youths who have “read books” and derived nothing but
affectation from them can see something “dirty” in it. Apart from people of that
category only those who have contracted the itch can fall into such an
“error”.

But will the German worker understand the difference between Kerensky’s purchase of
weapons from the Anglo-French robbers for the purpose of annexing Constantinople from the
Turks, Galicia from the Austrians and Eastern Prussia from the Germans—and the
Bolsheviks’ purchase of weapons from the same robbers for the purpose of repelling
Wilhelm when he has moved troops against socialist Russia which proposed an honourable and
just peace to all, against Russia which has declared an end to the war?

It must be supposed that the German worker will “understand” this, firstly
because he is intelligent and educated, and secondly because he is used to a neat and
cultured life, and suffers neither from the Russian itch in general, nor from the itch of
revolutionary phrase-making in particular.

Is there a difference between killing for the purpose of robbery and the killing of an
aggressor?

Is there a difference between a war of two groups of plunderers for a division of spoils
and a just war for liberation from the attack of a plunderer against a people that has
overthrown the plunderers?

Does not the appraisal whether I act well or badly in acquiring weapons from a robber
depend on the end and object of these weapons? On their use for a war that is base and
dishonorable or for one that is just and honourable?

Ugh! The itch is a nasty disease. And hard is the occupation of a man who has to give a
steam bath to those infected with it ....

P.S. The North Americans in their war of liberation against England at the end of the
eighteenth century got help from Spain and France, who were her competitors and just as much
colonial robbers as England. It is said that there were “Left Bolsheviks” to be
found who contemplated writing a “learned work” on the “dirty deal”
of these Americans ....

Endnotes

[1] This article was written by Lenin
in connection with the opposition, expressed by the “Left Communists” at a
meeting of the Central Committee of the R.S.D.L.P.(B.) on February 22, 1918, to acquiring
arms and food supplies from Britain and France for purposes of defence against the German
imperialists. When the Council of People's Commissars discussed the question on February 21,
the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries opposed the use of aid from the Allies and the following
resolution was passed: “In view of the disagreement concerning the negotiations with
the Allied Powers for supplying the country with food and military equipment the meetings
hall be adjourned for the groups to consult among themselves.”

Lenin was not present at the discussion of this question in the Central
Committee on February 22, but he sent the following statement: “To the Central
Committee of the R.S.D.L.P. Please include my vote in favour of accepting potatoes and arms
from the bandits of Anglo-French imperialism.” By 6 votes to 5 the Central Committee
passed a resolution in which it acknowledged that It was permissible for the purpose of
arming and providing the revolutionary army with the necessary supplies to acquire such
supplies from the governments of capitalist countries, while maintaining complete
independence in foreign policy.

After the vote Bukharin tendered his resignation from the Central Committee
and the editorship of Pravda. In addition, eleven “Left Communists”—Lomov
(Oppokov), Uritsky, Bukharin, Bubnov, Pyatakov and others-submitted a statement to the
Central Committee charging the Central Committee with capitulating to the international
bourgeoisie, and stating that they would conduct extensive agitation against the policy of
the Central Committee.

The same day the question of obtaining arms and food supplies from the Allied
Powers was again discussed, this time by the Council of People’s Commissars, which
decided in favour of obtaining them.

[2] Kalyayev. I. P, (1877-1905)—a
member of the combat group of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, took part in a number of
terroristic acts, On February 4 (17). In 1905 he assassinated the Governor-General of Moscow,
the Grand Duke S. A. Romanov, uncle of Nicholas ll. He was executed at Schüsselburg on
May 10 (23).