V. I.

Lenin

Interview Given to The Correspondent of Folkets Dagblad Politiken

July 1, 1918 [1]

Your correspondent talked today with Lenin concerning the
situation in Russia and the general situation in Europe. Lenin emphasised
that a revolution is always born in travail. A country making a revolution
on its own will always find itself in a serious position. But the situation
is difficult everywhere, not only in Russia. There is said to be anarchy in
Russia, but that is the fruit of four years of war, and not of the
Bolshevik regime. The few remaining weeks until the new harvest will be the
most difficult. The harvest promises to be a good one. The
counter-revolution is trying its hardest to take advantage of the present
situation. The counter-revolution consists of rich peasants and officers,
but without foreign support they are powerless. In the towns where the
counter-revolutionaries had won, they remained in power only a few days, if
not a few hours. The assassination of Volodarsky, organised by the Right
Socialist-Revolutionaries, really reveals the weakness of the
counter-revolutionaries. The history of the Russian revolution shows that a
party always resorts to individual terror when it does not enjoy the
support of the masses.

*     * *
Opposition within the Bolshevik Party against the peace of Brest has
subsided, says Lenin. Bukharin, Radek and the rest are taking part in the
work again. Peace is necessary in order to prevent the Germans from seizing the whole of Russia and
strangling the revolution. As regards the measures taken against the
anarchists, these are due to the fact that the anarchists had been arming
and some of them had been joining up with patently bandit elements. The
anarchists who are dedicated to an ideal have already been released and
their big daily Anarkhia is coming out as usual. [2]

Amid all these difficulties, industry is being organised. The owners of
the enterprises are still sabotaging on a broad scale, but the workers are
taking the management of the enterprises into their own hands.

Referring to the Czechoslovak revolt, Lenin expressed confidence that
it would be suppressed by the Soviet troops, although it was dragging
out.

*     * *
The Germans in the Ukraine are in a very difficult plight. They are
receiving no grain whatever from the peasants. The peasants are arming and
attacking the German soldiers in large groups wherever they are met
with. This movement is spreading. Owing to the German occupation Bolshevism
in the Ukraine has become a sort of national movement. It is rallying
around it people who would not hear of Bolshevism before that. If the
Germans occupied Russia, the result would be the same. The Germans need
peace. It is significant that in the Ukraine the Germans want peace more
than the Ukrainians themselves do. The same applies to Turkey. The Germans
have concluded an advantageous agreement with the Ukrainian Rada despite
the fact that people in the Ukraine have always criticised the peace of
Brest. Now the Germans are helping to fight the Bolsheviks in the
Caucasus.

*     * *
We in Russia now have to wait for the revolutionary movement to develop
in Europe. The war party in Germany today is so strong that it speaks with
contempt of the government in Berlin. Resistance to imperialism, however,
is growing even in bourgeois circles. Sooner or later things everywhere will lead to political and social collapse. The present
situation is unstable, but a better order of things cannot be created
merely with the aid of war and bloodshed.

---
Notes:
[1]
The interview with Lenin was reported to the newspaper the same day by
a special telegram, but for technical reasons it was received late and was
not published until July 4, 1918. Following this, a summary of the
interview was published on July 6 in Leipziger Volkszeitung
No. 155.

Folkets Dagblad Politiken—newspaper of the Swedish Left
Social-Democrats, was published in Stockholm from April 1916 (up to
November 1917 it was called Politiken). In 1921 it became the
organ of the Communist Party of Sweden; after the split in the party in
October 1929 the newspaper passed into the hands of the party’s Right
wing. Publication ceased in May 1945.

[2]
This refers to the disarming of the anarchists by the security forces
in Moscow on the night of April 12, 1918. This measure was necessitated by
the fact that the various groups of anarchists served as a screen for
counter-revolutionary and criminal elements who terrorised the population
by their raids and robberies and took refuge in the villas which the
anarchists had seized. The anarchists in Petrograd, who failed to comply
with the demand for the surrender of firearms, were disarmed on April 23,
1918.

Anarkhia (Anarchy)—an anarchist literary and socio-economic
newspaper published in Moscow from September 1917 to July 1918; by order of
the Vecheka it was closed down on April 43; publication was resumed on
April 21, 1918.