V. I. Lenin

Report Delivered at a Moscow Gubernia Conference of Factory Committees, July 23, 1918 ( Lenin's appearance in the conference hall was greeted with loud applause ,
which continued for several minutes .)
These past few days have been marked by an extreme aggravation
of the affairs of the Soviet Republic, caused both by the
country's position internationally and by the counter-revolutionary plots and the food crisis which is
closely connected with them.

Allow me to dwell on the international situation. The Russian
revolution is only one of the contingents of the international
socialist army, on the action of which the success and triumph
of our revolution depends.
This is a fact which none of us lose sight of.
We likewise bear in mind that the vanguard role of the Russian
proletariat in the work working-class movement is not due to the
economic development of the country. On the contrary, it is the
backwardness of Russia, the inability of what is called our
native bourgeoisie to cope with the enormous problems connected
with the war and its cessation that have led the proletariat to
seize political power and establish its own class dictatorship.

Aware of the isolation of its revolution, the Russian proletariat clearly realises that an essential condition and
prime requisite for its victory is the united action of the
workers of the whole world, or of several capitalistically
advanced countries. But the Russian proletariat knows perfectly
well that it has both avowed and unavowed friends in every
country. For example, there is no country where the prisons are
not crammed with internationalists who sympathise with Soviet
Russia; there is no country where revolutionary socialist
thought has not found expression in either the open or underground press. And therefore, knowing our true friends, we
refuse to come to any understanding with the Mensheviks, who
supported Kerensky and his offensive.
Very significant in this latter connection is a letter (small in
size but distinctly internationalist in substance) from the
internationalist Rosa Luxemburg, which appeared in the British
paper the Workers' Dreadnought on the subject of the June offensive. Rosa Luxemburg holds that
the internationalism of the Great Russian Revolution was
undermined by Kerensky's offensive and by the sanction and
approval given to it by the First All-Russia Congress of
Soviets. This offensive of revolutionary Russia retarded the
development of the revolution in the West, and it was only the
dictatorship of the proletariat, its assumption of the entire
power, that led to the frustration of the secret treaties and
the exposure of their predatory, imperialist character, and,
hence, to the acceleration of revolutionary developments in
Europe. An equally powerful influence in awakening and developing
proletarian energies in the West was exercised by our appeal to
all the nations for the conclusion of a democratic peace without
annexations or indemnities. All these revolutionary acts opened the eyes of the workers of the whole world, and no efforts on the part of the bourgeois and
renegade socialist groups will succeed in obscuring their
awakened class consciousness. The reception given to Kerensky by
the British workers shows this quote clearly. The attraction
exercised by the Russian revolution found expression in the
first action of the German workers on a grand scale since the
outbreak of the war, when they reacted to the Brest negotiations
by a gigantic strike in Berlin and other industrial centres. This action of the proletariat in a country doped by
the fumes of nationalism and intoxicated with the poison of
chauvinism is a fact of cardinal importance and marks a turn of
sentiment among the German proletariat.

We cannot say what course the revolutionary movement in Germany
will take. One thing is certain, and that is the existence of a
tremendous revolutionary force there that must by iron necessity
make its presence felt. There is no reason to blame the German
workers for not making a revolution. One might with equal
justice have blamed the Russian workers for not manufacturing a
revolution during the ten years 1907-1917. But that, we know,
would be wrong. Revolutions are not made to order, they cannot
be timed for any particular moment; they mature in a process of
historical development and break out at a moment determined by a
whole complex of internal and external causes. That moment is
close at hand and is bound to come, inevitably and unavoidably. It was easier for us to start the revolution, but it
is extremely difficult to continue it and consummate it. It is
terribly difficult to make a revolution in such a highly
developed country as Germany, with its splendidly organised
bourgeoisie, but all the easier will it be to triumphantly
consummate the socialist revolution once it flares up and
spreads in the advanced capitalist countries of Europe.

There is no reason to blame us for concluding the Brest
Treaty--humiliating, distressful and brutal though it is--or to
regard it as a complete renunciation of our ideals and an act of
allegiance to German imperialism. It is characteristic that
these accusations come from the bourgeois circles and compromiser-socialists, who in the Ukraine, Finland and the
Caucasus (the Mensheviks) are today greeting the German Junkers
with open arms. Similar accusations are showered upon our heads
by the empty-headed Left Socialist-Revolutionaries. We are
perfectly aware of the distressful nature of the Brest
Treaty. We are also aware that under this brutal treaty we shall
have to pay Germany about 6,000,000,000 rubles, according to the
calculations of our economic delegation now in Berlin. The
situation is undoubtedly a hard one, but a way out can and must
be found by the joint efforts of the proletariat and the poor
peasants. And the mad attempt of the Left
Socialist-Revolutionaries to embroil us in war by assassinating
Mirbach is not the way to escape from the Brest Treaty. On the
contrary, this act of folly played into the hands of the German
war parties, whose position, naturally, is bound to be weakened
by the growth of defeatism not only among the German workers,
but also among the bourgeoisie. For now, after the Brest peace,
it is clear and obvious to everybody that Germany is waging a
predatory war for definitely imperialist aims.

The food situation in Soviet Russia, surrounded as she is on all
sides by imperialist plunderers and with ever alert counter-revolutionaries with the country supporting them, is
very grave.

The attention of the working class must be directed to combating
famine, the bourgeoisie's most effective means of fighting the
proletarian dictatorship. But one thing we must take as our
fundamental precept: in combating famine, we will categorically
renounce the bourgeois methods of struggle, the method of
starving the masses in the interests of the money-bags and
parasites, and will resort to purely socialist methods. And
these consist in introducing a grain monopoly and establishing
fixed prices in the interests of the workers.

The bourgeoisie and its followers, the compromiser-socialists,
are advocating freedom of trade and the abolition of the fixed
prices. But freedom of trade has already displayed its fruits in
a number of cities. No sooner were the bourgeoisie in power than
the price of grain increased several times over, and as a result
that commodity disappeared from the market; it was hidden away
by the kulaks in the hope of a further rise of prices.

The most desperate enemy of the proletariat and Soviet Russia is
famine. But in its efforts to vanquish it, the proletariat comes
into collision with the rural bourgeoisie, which, far from
having any interest in putting an end to the famine, derives
advantage from it for its own group and class. The proletariat
must bear this in mind and, in alliance iwth the starving
peasant poor, must start a desperate and uncompromising struggle
against the rural kulaks. With the same purpose in view, the
organisation of food detachments already begun should be
continued, and at the head of them should be placed honest
Communists who enjoy the confidence of the Party and trade union
organisations. Only then will the food problem be solved and the
cause of the revolution saved.