VI Lenin

The second anniversary of the Soviet power is a fitting occasion for us to review what has, in general, been
accomplished during this period, and to probe into the significance and aims of the revolution which we
accomplished.

The bourgeoisie and its supporters accuse us of violating
democracy. We maintain that the Soviet revolution has given an
unprecedented stimulus to the development of democracy both in
depth and breadth, of democracy, moreover, distinctly for the
toiling masses, who had been oppressed under capitalism;
consequently, of democracy for the vast majority of the people,
of socialist democracy (for the toilers) as distinguished from
bourgeois democracy (for the exploiters, the capitalists, the
rich).

Who is right?

To probe deeply into this question and to understand it well will mean studying the experience of these two
years and being better prepared to further follow up this
experience.

The position of women furnishes a particularly graphic elucidation of the difference between bourgeois and socialist
democracy, it furnishes a particularly graphic answer to the
question posed.

In no bourgeois republic (i.e., where there is private ownership of the land, factories, works, shares, etc.), be it
even the most democratic republic, nowhere in the world, not even
in the most advanced country, have women gained a position of
complete equality. And this, notwithstanding the fact that more
than one and a quarter centuries have elapsed since the Great
French (bourgeois-democratic) Revolution.

In words, bourgeois democracy promises equality and liberty. In
fact, not a single bourgeois republic, not even the most advanced
one, has given the feminine half of the human race either full
legal equality with men or freedom from the guardianship and
oppression of men.

Bourgeois democracy is democracy of pompous phrases, solemn
words, exuberant promises and the high-sounding slogans of
freedom and equality. But, in fact, it screens the non-freedom
and inferiority of women, the non-freedom and inferiority of the
toilers and exploited.

Soviet, or socialist, democracy sweeps aside the pompous,
bullying, words, declares ruthless war on the hypocrisy of the
"democrats", the landlords, capitalists or well-fed peasants who
are making money by selling their surplus bread to hungry workers
at profiteering prices.

Down with this contemptible fraud! There cannot be, nor is
there nor will there ever be "equality" between the oppressed and
the oppressors, between the exploited and the exploiters. There
cannot be, nor is there nor will there ever be real "freedom" as
long as there is no freedom for women from the privileges which
the law grants to men, as long as there is no freedom for the
workers from the yoke of capital, and no freedom for the toiling
peasants from the yoke of the capitalists, landlords and
merchants.

Let the liars and hypocrites, the dull-witted and blind, the
bourgeois and their supporters hoodwink the people with talk
about freedom in general, about equality in general, about
democracy in general.

We say to the workers and peasants: Tear the masks from the
faces of these liars, open the eyes of these blind ones. Ask
them:

“Equality between what sex and what other sex?

“Between what nation and what other nation?

“Between what class and what other class?

“Freedom from what yoke, or from the yoke of what class?
Freedom for what class?”

Whoever speaks of politics, of democracy, of liberty, of
equality, of socialism, and does not at the same time ask these questions, does not put them in the foreground,
does not fight against concealing, hushing up and glossing over
these questions, is one of the worst enemies of the toilers, is a
wolf in sheep's clothing, is a bitter opponent of the workers and
peasants, is a servant of the landlords, tsars, capitalists.

In the course of two years Soviet power in one of the most
backward countries of Europe did more to emancipate women and to
make their status equal to that of the "strong" sex than all the
advanced, enlightened, "democratic" republics of the world did in
the course of 130 years.

Enlightenment, culture, civilisation, liberty--in all capitalist, bourgeois republics of the world all these fine words
are combined with extremely infamous, disgustingly filthy and
brutally coarse laws in which woman is treated as an inferior
being, laws dealing with marriage rights and divorce, with the
inferior status of a child born out of wedlock as compared with
that of a "legitimate" child, laws granting privileges to men,
laws that are humiliating and insulting to women.

The yoke of capital, the tyranny of "sacred private property",
the despotism of philistine stupidity, the greed of petty
proprietors --these are the things that prevented the most
democratic bourgeois republics from infringing upon those filthy
and infamous laws.

The Soviet Republic, the republic of workers and peasants,
promptly wiped out these laws and left not a stone in the
structure of bourgeois fraud and bourgeois hypocrisy.

Down with this fraud! Down with the liars who are talking of
freedom and equality for all, while there is an oppressed sex, while there are oppressor classes, while there is
private ownership of capital, of shares, while there are the
well-fed with their surplus of bread who keep the hungry in
bondage. Not freedom for all, not equality for all, but a
fight against the oppressors and exploiters, the abolition of every possibility of oppression and
exploitation-that is our slogan!

Freedom and equality for the oppressed sex!

Freedom and equality for the workers, for the toiling peasants!

A fight against the oppressors, a fight against the capitalists, a fight against the profiteering kulaks!

That is our fighting slogan, that is our proletarian truth, the
truth of the struggle against capital, the truth which we flung
in the face of the world of capital with its honeyed, hypocritical, pompous phrases about freedom and equality in general, about freedom and equality for all.

And for the very reason that we have torn down the mask of this
hypocrisy, that we are introducing with revolutionary energy
freedom and equality for the oppressed and for the toilers,
against the oppressors, against the capitalists, against the
kulaks--for this very reason the Soviet government has become so
dear to the hearts of workers of the whole world.

It is for this very reason that, on the second anniversary of
the Soviet power, the: sympathies of the masses of the workers,
the sympathies of the oppressed and exploited in every country of
the world, are with us.

It is for this very reason that, on this second anniversary of
the Soviet power, despite hunger and cold, despite all our
tribulations, which have been caused by the imperialists'
invasion of the Russian Soviet Republic, we are full of firm faith
in the justice of our cause, of firm Faith in the inevitable
victory of Soviet power all over the world.