V. I. Lenin

Letter to Sylvia Pankhurst [1]

To Comrade Sylvia Pankhurst, London

August 28, 1919

Dear Comrade, I received your letter of July 16, 1919, only yesterday. I am
extremely grateful to you for the information about Britain and
will try to fulfil your request, i.e., reply to your question.

I have no doubt at all that many workers who are among the best,
most honest and sincerely revolutionary members of the proletariat are enemies of parliamentarism and of any
participation in Parliament. The older capitalist culture and
bourgeois democracy in any country, the more understandable this
is, since the bourgeoisie in old parliamentary countries has
excellently mastered the art of hypocrisy and of fooling the
people in a thousand ways, passing off bourgeois parliamentarism
as “democracy in general” or as “pure democracy” and so on, cunningly concealing the million
threads which bind Parliament to the stock exchange and the
capitalists, utilising a venal mercenary press and exercising
the power of money, the power of capital in every way.

There is no doubt that the Communist International and the
Communist Parties of the various countries would be making an
irreparable mistake if they repulsed those workers who stand for
Soviet power, but who are against participation in the parliamentary struggle. If we take the problem in its general
form, theoretically, then it is this very programme, i.e., the
struggle for Soviet power, for the Soviet republic, which is
able to unite, and today must certainly unite, all sincere,
honest revolutionaries from among the workers. Very many
anarchist workers are now becoming sincere supporters of Soviet
power, and that being so, it proves them to be our best comrades
and friends, the best of revolutionaries, who have been enemies
of Marxism only through misunderstanding, or, more correctly,
not through misunderstanding but because the official socialism
prevailing in the epoch of the Second International (1889-1914)
betrayed Marxism, lapsed into opportunism, perverted
Marx’s revolutionary teachings in general and his teachings on the lessons of the Paris Commune of 1871 in
particular. I have written in detail about this in my book
The State and Revolution and will therefore not dwell further on the problem.

What if in a certain country those who are Communists by their
convictions and their readiness to carry on revolutionary work,
sincere partisans of Soviet power (the “Soviet system”, as non-Russians sometimes call it), cannot unite
owing to disagreement over participation in Parliament?

I should consider such disagreement immaterial at present, since
the struggle for Soviet power is the political struggle of the
proletariat in its highest, most class-conscious, most revolutionary form. It is better to be with the revolutionary
workers when they are mistaken over some partial or secondary
question than with the “official” socialists or
Social-Democrats, if the latter are not sincere, firm revolutionaries, and are unwilling or unable to conduct
revolutionary work among the working masses, but pursue correct
tactics in regard to that partial question. And the question of
parliamentarism is now a partial, secondary question. Rosa
Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht were, in my opinion, correct when
they defended participation in the elections to the German
bourgeois parliament, to the constituent National Assembly, at
the January 1919 Conference of the Spartacists in Berlin,
against the majority at the Conference. [2] But, of course, they were still more correct when they preferred
remaining with the Communist Party, which was making a partial
mistake, to siding with the direct traitors to socialism, like
Scheidemann and his party, or with those servile souls,
doctrinaires, cowards, spineless accomplices of the bourgeoisie,
and reformists in practice, such as Kautsky, Haase, Däumig
and all this “party” of German “Independents”.

I am personally convinced that to renounce participation in the
parliamentary elections is a mistake on the part of the
revolutionary workers of Britain, but better to make that
mistake than to delay the formation of a big workers’
Communist Party in Britain out of all the trends and elements,
listed by you, which sympathise with Bolshevism and sincerely
support the Soviet Republic. If, for example, among the B.S.P.
there were sincere Bolsheviks who refused, because of differences over participation in Parliament, to merge at once
in a Communist Party with trends 4, 6 and 7, then these
Bolsheviks, in my opinion, would be making a mistake a thousand
times greater than the mistaken refusal to participate in
elections to the British bourgeois parliament. In saying this I
naturally assume that trends 4, 6 and 7, taken together, are
really connected with the mass of the workers, and are not merely small intellectual groups, as is often the
case in Britain. In this respect particular importance probably
attaches to the Workers Committees and Shop Stewards, [These words are in English in the original. —Editor ] which, one should
imagine, are closely connected with the masses.

Unbreakable ties with the mass of the workers, the ability to
agitate unceasingly among them, to participate in every strike,
to respond to every demand of the masses—this is the chief
thing for a Communist Party, especially in such a country as
Britain, where until now (as incidentally is the case in all
imperialist countries) participation in the socialist movement,
and the labour movement generally, has been confined chiefly to
a thin top crust of workers, the labour aristocracy, most of
whom are thoroughly and hopelessly spoiled by reformism and are
held back by bourgeois and imperialist prejudices. Without a
struggle against this stratum, without the destruction of every
trace of its prestige among the workers, without convincing the
masses of the utter bourgeois corruption of this stratum, there
can be no question of a serious communist workers’ movement. This applies to Britain, France, America and
Germany.

Those working-class revolutionaries who make parliamentarism the
centre of their attacks are quite right inasmuch as these
attacks serve to express their denial in principle of bourgeois
parliamentarism and bourgeois democracy. Soviet power, the
Soviet republic—this is what the workers’ revolution has put in place of bourgeois democracy, this is the form of
transition from capitalism to socialism, the form of the
dictatorship of the proletariat. And criticism of parliamentarism is not only legitimate and necessary, as giving
the case for the transition to Soviet power, but is quite
correct, as being the recognition of the historically conditional and limited character of parliamentarism, its
connection with capitalism and capitalism alone, of its
progressive character as compared with the Middle Ages, and of
its reactionary character as compared with Soviet power.

But the critics of parliamentarism in Europe and America, when
they are anarchists or anarcho-syndicalists, are very often
wrong insofar as they reject all participation in elections and parliamentary activity. Here they simply show
their lack of revolutionary experience. We Russians, who have
lived through two great revolutions in the twentieth century,
are well aware what importance parliamentarism can have, and
actually does have during a revolutionary period in general and
in the very midst of a revolution in particular. Bourgeois parliaments must be abolished and replaced
by Soviet bodies. There is no doubt about that. There is no
doubt now, after the experience of Russia, Hungary, Germany and
other countries, that this absolutely must take place during a proletarian revolution. Therefore, systematically to
prepare the working masses for this, to explain to them in
advance the importance of Soviet power, to conduct propaganda
and agitation for it—all this is the absolute duty of the worker who wants to be a revolutionary in deeds. But
we Russians fulfilled that task , operating in the parliamentary arena, too. In the tsarist, fake,
landowners’ Duma our representatives knew how to carry on
revolutionary and republican propaganda. In just the same way
Soviet propaganda can and must be carried on in and from within bourgeois parliaments.

Perhaps that will not be easy to achieve at once in this or that
parliamentary country. But that is another question. Steps must
be taken to ensure that these correct tactics are mastered by
the revolutionary workers in all countries. And if the workers’ party is really revolutionary , if it is
really a workers’ party (that is, connected with the masses, with the majority of the working people, with the
rank and file of the proletariat and not merely with its top crust), if it is really a party , i.e., a
firmly, effectively knit organisation of the revolutionary vanguard , which knows how to carry on revolutionary work
among the masses by all possible means, then such a party will
surely be able to keep its own parliamentarians in hand, to make of them real revolutionary propagandists, such as
Karl Liebknecht was, and not opportunists, not those who corrupt
the proletariat with bourgeois methods, bourgeois customs,
bourgeois ideas or bourgeois poverty of ideas.

If that failed to be achieved in Britain at once, if, in
addition, no union of the supporters of Soviet power proved
possible in Britain because of a difference over parliamentarism
and only because of that, then I should consider a good step
forward to complete unity the immediate formation of two Communist Parties, i.e., two parties which stand
for the transition from bourgeois parliamentarism to Soviet
power. Let one of these parties recognise participation in the
bourgeois parliament, and the other reject it; this disagreement
is now so immaterial that the most reasonable thing would be not
to split over it. But even the joint existence of two such
parties would be immense progress as compared with the present
situation, would most likely be a transition to complete unity
and the speedy victory of communism.

Soviet power in Russia has not only shown by the experience of
almost two years that the dictatorship of the proletariat is
possible even in a peasant country and is capable, by creating a strong army (the best proof that organisation and
order prevail), of holding out in unbelievably, exceptionally
difficult conditions.

Soviet power has done more: it has already achieved a moral
victory throughout the world, for the working masses everywhere, although they get only tiny fragments of the truth
about Soviet power, although they hear thousands and millions of
false reports about Soviet power, are already in favour of Soviet power. It is already understood by the proletariat
of the whole world that this power is the power of the working
people, that it alone is salvation from capitalism, from the
yoke of capital, from wars between the imperialists, that it
leads to lasting peace.

That is why defeats of individual Soviet republics by the
imperialists are possible, but it is impossible to conquer the
world Soviet movement of the proletariat.

With communist greetings,

N. Lenin

P.S.—The following cutting from the Russian press will give you an example of our information about Britain:

“London, 25.8 (via Beloostrov). The London correspondent
of the Copenhagen paper Berlingske Tidende wires on
August 3rd concerning the Bolshevik movement in Britain:
“The strikes which have occurred in the last few days and
the recent revelations have shaken the confidence of the British
in the immunity of their country to Bolshevism. At present the
press is vigorously discussing this question, and the government
is making every effort to establish that a “conspiracy” has existed for quite a long time and
has had for its aim neither more nor less than the overthrow of
the existing system. The British police have arrested a
revolutionary bureau which, according to the press had both
money and arms at its disposal. The Times publishes the
contents of certain documents found on the arrested men. They
contain a complete revolutionary programme, according to which
the entire bourgeoisie are to be disarmed; arms and ammunition
are to be obtained for Soviets of Workers’ and Red Army
Deputies and a Red Army formed; all government posts are to be
filled by workers. Furthermore, it was planned to set up a
revolutionary tribunal for political criminals and persons
guilty of cruelly treating prisoners. All foodstuffs were to be
confiscated. Parliament and other organs of public government
were to be dissolved and revolutionary Soviets created in their
place. The working day was to be lowered to six hours and the
minimum weekly wage raised to £7. All state and other debts were
to be annulled. All banks, industrial and commercial enterprises
and means of transport were to be declared nationalised.”

If this is true, then I must offer the British imperialists and
capitalists, in the shape of their organ, the richest newspaper
in the world, The Times , my respectful gratitude and thanks for their excellent propaganda in behalf of
Bolshevism. Carry on in the same spirit, gentlemen of The Times , you are splendidly leading Britain to the victory of
Bolshevism!

Endnotes

[1] [See Glossary entry ]

[2] This refers to the Inaugural Congress of the Communist Party of Germany, held in Berlin from December 30, 1918 to January 1, 1919. Despite the speeches by Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg proposing participation in the elections to the National Assembly, the Congress, by a majority vote (62 against 23) adopted the decision not to participate in the election campaign.