V. I. Lenin

Address To The Second All-Russia Congress Of Communist Organisations Of

The Peoples Of The East [1]

November 22, 1919

Comrades, I am very glad of the opportunity to greet this Congress of Communist comrades representing Moslem
organisations of the East, and to say a few words about the
situation now obtaining in Russia and throughout the world. The
subject of my address is current affairs, and it seems to me that
the most essential aspects of this question at present are the
attitude of the peoples of the East to imperialism, and the
revolutionary movement among those peoples. It is self-evident
that this revolutionary movement of the peoples of the East can
now develop effectively, can reach a successful issue, only in
direct association with the revolutionary struggle of our Soviet
Republic against international imperialism. Owing to a number of
circumstances, among them the backwardness of Russia and her vast
area, and the fact that she constitutes a frontier between Europe
and Asia, between the West and the East, we had to bear the whole
brunt-and we regard that as a great honour of being the pioneers
of the world struggle against imperialism. Consequently, the whole
course of development in the immediate future presages a still
broader and more strenuous struggle against international
imperialism, arid will inevitably be linked with the struggle of
the Soviet Republic against the forces of united imperialism-of
Germany, France, Britain and the U.S.A.

As regards the military aspect of the matter, you know how favourable our situation now is
on all the fronts. I shall not dwell in detail on this question; I
shall only say that the Civil War which was forced upon us by
international imperialism has in two years inflicted incalculable
hardship upon the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic,
and imposed upon the peasants and workers a burden so intolerable
that it often seemed they would not be able to endure it. But at
the same time, because of its brute violence, because of the
ruthlessly brutal onslaught of our so-called allies, turned wild
beasts, who robbed us even before the socialist revolution, this
war has performed a miracle and turned people weary of fighting
and seemingly incapable of bearing another war into warriors who
have not only withstood the war for two years but are bringing it
to a victorious end. The victories we are now gaining over
Kolchak, Yudenich and Denikin signify the advent of a new phase in
the history of the struggle of world imperialism against the
countries and nations which have risen up to fight for their
emancipation. In this respect, the two years of our Civil War have
fully confirmed what has long been known to historythat the
character of a war and its success depend chiefly upon the
internal regime of the country that goes to war, that war is a
reflection of the internal policy conducted by the given country
before the war. All this is inevitably reflected in the
prosecution of a war.

Which class waged the war, and is continuing to wage it, is a
very important question. Only due to our Civil War being waged by
workers and peasants who have emancipated themselves, and to its
being a continuation of the political struggle for the emancipation of the working people from the capitalists of their
own country and of the whole world-only thanks to this were people
to be found in such a backward country as Russia, worn out as she
was by four years of imperialist war, who were strong-willed
enough to carry on that war during two years of incredible and
unparalleled hardship and difficulty.

This was very strikingly illustrated in the history of the
Civil War in the case of Kolchak. Kolchak was an enemy who had the
assistance of all the world’s strongest powers; he had a
railway which was protected by some hundred thousand foreign
troops, including the finest troops of the world imperialists,
such as the Japanese, for example, who had been trained for the
imperialist war, but took practically no part in it and therefore
suffered little; Kolchak had the backing of the Siberian peasants,
who were the most prosperous and had never known serfdom, and
therefore, naturally, were farthest of all from communism. It
seemed that Kolchak was an invincible force, because his troops
were the advance guard of international imperialism. To this day,
Japanese and Czechoslovak troops and the troops of a number of
other imperialist nations are operating in Siberia. Nevertheless,
the more than a year’s experience of Kolchak’s rule over Siberia and her vast natural resources, which was at first
supported by the socialist parties of the Second International, by
the Mensheviks and the Socialist Revolutionaries, who set up the
Constituent Assembly Committee front, and which therefore, under
these conditions, from the standpoint of the man in the street and
of the ordinary course ofhistory, appeared to be firm and
invincible that experience actually revealed the following. The
farther Kolchak advanced into the heart of Russia, the more he
wore himself out, and in the end we have witnessed Soviet
Russia’s complete triumph over Kolchak. Here we undoubtedly
have practical proof that the united forces of workers and
peasants who have been emancipated from the capitalist yoke can
perform real miracles. Here we have practical proof that when a
revolutionary war really does attract and interest the working and
oppressed people, when it makes them conscious that they are
fighting the exploiters-such a revolutionary war engenders the
strength and ability to perform miracles.

I think that what the Red Army has accomplished, its struggle,
and the history of its victory, will be of colossal, epochal
significance for all the peoples of the East. It will show them
that, weak as they may be, and invincible as may seem the power of
the European oppressors, who in the struggle employ all the
marvels of technology and of the military art-nevertheless, a
revolutionary war waged by oppressed peoples, if it really
succeeds in arousing the millions of working and exploited people,
harbours such potentialities, such miracles, that the emancipation
of the peoples of the East is now quite practicable, from the
standpoint not only of the prospects of the international
revolution, but also of the direct military experience acquired in
Asia, in Siberia, the experience of the Soviet Republic, which has
suffered the armed invasion of all the powerful imperialist
countries.

Furthermore, the experience of the Civil War in Russia has
shown us and the Communists of all countries that, in the crucible
of civil war, the development of revolutionary enthusiasm is
accompanied by a powerful inner cohesion. War tests all the
economic and organisational forces of a nation. In the final
analysis, infinitely hard as the war has been for the workers and
peasants, who are suffering famine and cold, it may be said on the
basis of these two years’ experience that we are winning and
will continue to win, because we have a hinterland, and a strong
one, because, despite famine and cold, the peasants and workers
stand together, have grown strong, and answer every heavy blow
with a greater cohesion of their forces and increased economic
might. And it is this alone that has made possible the victories
over Kolchak, Yudenich and their allies, the strongest powers in
the world. The past two years have shown, on the one hand, that a
revolutionary war can be developed, and, on the other, that the
Soviet system is growing stronger under the heavy blows of the
foreign invasion, the aim of which is to destroy quickly the
revolutionary centre, the republic of workers and peasants who
have dared to declare war on international imperialism. But
instead of destroying the workers and peasants of Russia, these
heavy blows have served to harden them.

That is the chief lesson, the chief content of the present
period. We are on the eve of decisive victories over Denikin, the
last enemy left on our soil. We feel strong and may reiterate a
thousand times over that we are not mistaken when we say that
internally the Republic has become consolidated, and that we shall
emerge from the war against Denikin very much stronger and better
prepared for the task of erecting the socialist edifice-to which
we have been able to devote all too little time and energy during
the Civil War, but to which, now that we are setting foot on a
free road, we shall undoubtedly be able to devote ourselves
entirely.

In Western Europe we see the decay of imperialism. You know
that a year ago it seemed even to the German socialists, and to
the vast majority of socialists-who did not understand the state
of affairs-that what was in progress was a struggle of two world
imperialist groups, and they believed that this struggle
constituted the whole of history, that there was no force capable
of producing anything else. It seemed to them that even socialists
had no alternative but to join sides with one of the groups of
powerful world predators. That is how it seemed at the close of
October 1918. But we find that in the year that has since elapsed
world history has witnessed unparalleled events, profound and
far-reaching events, and these have opened the eyes of many
socialists who during the imperialist war were patriots and
justified their conduct on the plea that they were faced with an
enemy; they justified their alliance with the British and French
imperialists on the grounds that these were supposedly bringing
delivery from German imperialism. See how many illusions were
shattered by that war! We are witnessing the decay of German
imperialism, a decay which has led not only to a republican, but
even to a socialist revolution. You know that in Germany today the
class struggle has become still more acute and that civil war is
drawing nearer and nearer-a war of the German proletariat against
the German imperialists, who have adopted republican colours, but
who remain imperialists.

Everyone knows that the social revolution is maturing in
Western Europe by leaps and bounds, and that the same thing is
happening in America and in Britain, the countries ostensibly
representing culture and civilisation, victors over the Huns, the
German imperialists. Yet when it came to the Treaty of Versailles,
everyone saw that it was a hundred times more rapacious than the
Treaty of B rest which the German robbers forced upon us, and that
it was the heaviest blow the capitalists and imperialists of those
luckless victor countries could possibly have struck at
themselves. The Treaty of Versailles opened the eyes of the people
of the victor nations, and showed that in the case of Britain and
France, even though they are democratic states, we have before us
not representatives of culture and civilisation, but countries
ruled by imperialist predators The internal struggle among these
predators is developing so swiftly that we may rejoice in the
knowledge that the Treaty of Versailles is only a seeming victory
for the jubilant imperialists, and that in reality it signifies
the bankruptcy of the entire imperialist world and the resolute
abandonment by the working people of those socialists who during
the war allied themselves with the representatives of decaying
imperialism and defended one of the groups of belligerent
predators. The eyes of the working people have been opened because
the Treaty of Versailles was a rapacious peace and showed that
France and Britain had actually fought Germany in order to
strengthen their rule over the colonies and to enhance their
imperialist might. That internal struggle grows broader as time
goes on. Today I saw a wireless message from London dated November
21, in which American journalists—men who cannot be suspected of sympathising with revolutionaries—say that in
France an unprecedented outburst of hatred towards the Americans
is to be observed, because the Americans refuse to ratify the
Treaty of Versailles.

Britain and France are victors, but they are up to their ears
in debt to America, who has decided that the French and the
British may consider themselves victors as much as they like, but
that she is going to skim the cream and exact usurious interest
for her assistance during the war; and the guarantee of this is to
be the American Navy which is now being built and is overtaking
the British Navy in size. And the crudeness of the
Americans’ rapacious imperialism may be seen from the fact
that American agents are buying white slaves, women and girls, and
shipping them to America for the development of prostitution. Just
think, free, cultured America supplying white slaves for brothels!
Conflicts with American agents are occurring in Poland and
Belgium. That is a tiny illustration of what is taking place on a
vast scale in every little country which received assistance from
the Entente. Take Poland, for instance. You find American agents
and profiteers going there and buying up all the wealth of Poland,
who boasts that she is now an independent power. Poland is being
bought up by American agents. There is not a factory or branch of
industry which is not in the pockets of the Americans. The
Americans have become so brazen that they are beginning to enslave
that “great and free victor”, France, who was formerly a country of usurers, but is now deep in debt to America, because
she has lost her economic strength, and has not enough grain or
coal of her own and cannot develop her material resources on a
large scale, while America insists that the tribute be paid
unreservedly and in full. It is thus becoming increasingly
apparent that France, Britain and other powerful countries are
economically bankrupt. In the French elections the Clericats have
gained the upper hand. The French people, who were deceived into
devoting all their strength supposedly to the defence of freedom
and democracy against Germany, have now been rewarded with an
interminable debt, with the sneers of the rapacious American
imperialists and, or, top of it, with a Clerical majority
consisting of representatives of the most savage reaction.

The situation all over the world has become immeasurably more
complicated. Our victory over Kolchak and Yudenich, those lackeys
of international capital, is a big one; but far bigger, though not
so evident, is the victory we are gaining on an international
scale. That victory consists in the internal decay of imperialism,
which is unable to send its troops against us. The Entente tried
it, but to no purpose, because its troops become demoralised when
they contact our troops and acquaint themselves with our Russian
Soviet Constitution, translated into their languages. Despite the
influence of the leaders of putrid socialism, our Constitution
will always win the sympathy of the working people. The word
“Soviet” is now understood by everybody, and the
Soviet Constitution has been translated into all languages and is
known to every worker. He knows that it is the constitution of
working people, the political system of working people who are
calling for victory over international capital, that it is a
triumph we have achieved over the international imperialists. This
victory of ours has had its repercussions in all imperialist
countries, since we have deprived them of their own troops, won
them over, deprived them of the possibility of using those troops
against Soviet Russia.

They tried to wage war with the troops of other countries-Finland, Poland, and Latvia-but nothing came of
it. British Minister Churchill, speaking in the House of Commons
several weeks ago, boasted-and it was cabled all over the
world-that a campaign of fourteen nations against Soviet Russia
had been organised, and that this would result in victory over
Russia by the New Year. And it is true that many nations
participated in it-Finland, the Ukraine, Poland, Georgia, as well
as the Czechoslovaks, the Japanese, the French, the British, and
the Germans. But we know what came of it! We know that the
Estonians left Yudenich’s forces in the lurch; and now a
fierce controversy is going on in the press because the Estonians
do not want to help him, while Finland, much as her bourgeoisie
wanted it, has not assisted Yudenich either. Thus the second
attempt to attack us has likewise failed. The first stage was the
dispatch by the Entente of its own troops, equipped according to
all the rules of military technique, so that it seemed they would
defeat the Soviet Republic. They have already withdrawn from the
Caucasus, Archangel and the Crimea; they still remain in Murmansk,
as the Czechoslovaks do in Siberia, but only as isolated
groups. The first attempt of the Entente to defeat us with its own
forces ended in victory for us. The second attempt consisted in
launching against us nations which re our neighbours, and which
are entirely dependent financially on the Entente, and in trying
to force them to crush us, as a nest of socialism. But that
attempt, too, ended in failure: it turned out that not one of
these little countries is capable of waging such a war. What is
more, hatred of the Entente has taken firm root in every little
country. If Finland did not set out to capture Petrograd when
Yudenich had already captured Krasnoye Solo, it was because she
hesitated, realising that she could live independently side by
side with Soviet Russia, but could not live in peace with the
Entente. All little nations have felt that. It is felt in Finland,
Lithuania, Estonia, and Poland, where chauvinism is rampant, but
where there is hatred of the Entente, which is expanding its
exploitation in those countries. And now, accurately assessing the
course of developments, we may say without exaggeration that not
only the first, but also the second stage of the international war
against the Soviet Republic has failed. All that remains for us to
do now is to defeat Denikin’s forces, and they are already
half-defeated, Such is the present Russian and international situation, which
I have summarised briefly in my address. Permit me, in conclusion,
to say something about the situation that is developing in respect
of the nationalities of the East. You are representatives of the
communist organisations and Communist Parties of various Eastern
peoples. I must say that the Russian Bolsheviks have succeeded in
forcing a breach in the old imperialism, in undertaking the
exceedingly difficult, but also exceedingly noble task of blazing
new paths of revolution, whereas you, the representatives of the
working people of the East, have before you a task that is still
greater and newer. It is becoming quite clear that the socialist
revolution which is impending for the whole world will not be
merely the victory of the proletariat of each country over its own
bourgeoisie. That would be possible if revolutions came easily and
swiftly. We know that the imperialists will not allow this, that
all countries are armed against their domestic Bolshevism and that
their one thought is how to defeat Bolshevism at home. That is why
in every country a civil war is brewing in which the old socialist
compromisers are enlisted on the side of the bourgeoisie. Hence,
the socialist revolution will not be solely, or chiefly, a
struggle of the revolutionary proletarians in each country against
their bourgeoisie-no, it will be a struggle of all the imperialist-oppressed colonies and countries, of all dependent
countries, against international imperialism. Characterising the
approach of the world social revolution in the Party Programme we
adopted last March, we said that the civil war of the working
people against the imperialists and exploiters in all the advanced
countries is beginning to be combined with national wars against
international imperialism. That is confirmed by the course of the
revolution, and will be more and more confirmed as time goes
on. It will be the same in the East.

We know that in the East the masses will rise as independent
participants, as builders of a new life, because hundreds of
millions of the people belong to dependent, underprivileged
nations, which until now have been objects of international
imperialist policy, and have only existed as material to fertilise
capitalist culture and civilisation. And when they talk of handing
out mandates for colonies, we know very well that it means handing
out mandates for spoliation and plunder-handing out to an
insignificant section of the world’s population the right to
exploit the majority of the population of the globe. That
majority, which up till then had been completely outside the orbit
of historical progress, because it could not constitute an
independent revolutionary force, ceased, as we know, to play such
a passive role at the beginning of the twentieth century. We know
that 1905 was followed by revolutions in Turkey, Persia and China,
and that a revolutionary movement developed in India. The
imperialist war likewise contributed to the growth of the
revolutionary movement, because the European imperialists had to
enlist whole colonial regiments in their struggle. The imperialist
war aroused the East also and drew its peoples into international
politics. Britain and France armed colonial peoples and helped
them to familiarise themselves with military technique and
up-todate machines. That knowledge they will use against the
imperialist gentry. The period of the awakening of the East in the
contemporary revolution is being succeeded by a period in which
all the Eastern peoples will participate in deciding the destiny
of the whole world, so as not to be simply objects of the
enrichment of others. The peoples of the East are becoming alive
to the need for practical action, the need for every nation to
take part in shaping the destiny of all mankind.

That is why I think that in the history of the development of
the world revolution-which, judging by its beginning, will
continue for many years and will demand much effort-that in the
revolutionary struggle, in the revolutionary movement you will be
called upon to play a big part and to merge with our struggle
against international imperialism. Your participation in the
international revolution will confront you with a complicated and
difficult task, the accomplishment of which will serve as the
foundation for our common success, because here the majority of
the people for the first time begin to act independently and will
be an active factor in the fight to overthrow international
imperialism.

Most of the Eastern peoples are in a worse position than the
most backward country in Europe-Russia. But in our struggle
against feudal survivals and capitalism, we succeeded in uniting
the peasants and workers of Russia; and it was because the peasants and workers united against
capitalism and feudalism that our victory was so easy. Here
contact with the peoples of the East is particularly important,
because the majority of the Eastern peoples are typical
representatives of the working people-not workers who have
passed through the school of capitalist factories, but typical
representatives of the working and exploited peasant masses who
are victims of medieval oppression. The Russian revolution
showed how the proletarians, after defeating capitalism and
uniting with the vast diffuse mass of working peasants, rose up
victoriously against medieval oppression. Our Soviet Republic
must now muster all the awakening peoples of the East and,
together with them, wage a struggle against international
imperialism.

In this respect you are confronted with a task which has not
previously confronted the Communists of the world: relying upon
the general theory and practice of communism, you must adapt
yourselves to specific conditions such as do not exist in the
European countries; you must be able to apply that theory and
practice to conditions in which the bulk of the population are
peasants, and in which the task is to wage a struggle against
medieval survivals and not against capitalism. That is a difficult
and specific task, but a very thankful one, because masses that
have taken no part in the struggle up to now are being drawn into
it, and also because the organisation of communist cells in the
East gives you an opportunity to maintain the closest contact with
the Third International. You must find specific forms for this
alliance of the foremost proletarians of the world with the
labouring and exploited masses of the East whose conditions are in
many cases medieval. We have accomplished on a small scale in our
country what you will do on a big scale and in big countries. And
that latter task you will, I hope, perform with success. Thanks to
the communist organisations in the East, of which you here are the
represelitatives, you have contact with the advanced revolutionary
proletariat. Your task is to continue to ensure that communist
propaganda is carried on in every country in a language the people
understand.

It is self-evident that final victory can be won only by the
proletariat of all the advanced countries of the world, and we,
the Russians, are beginning the work which the British, French or
German proletariat will consolidate. But we see that they will not
be victorious without the aid of the working people of all the
oppressed colonial nations, first and foremost, of Eastern
nations. We must realise that the transition to communism cannot
be accomplished by the vanguard alone. The task is to arouse the
working masses to revolutionary activity, to independent action
and to organisation, regardless of the level they have reached; to
translate the true communist doctrine, which was intended for the
Communists of the more advanced countries, into the language of
every people; to carry out those practical tasks which must be
carried out immediately, and to join the proletarians of other
countries in a common struggle.

Such are the problems whose solution you will not find in any
communist book, but will find in the common struggle begun by
Russia. You will have to tackle that problem and solve it through
your own independent experience. In that you will be assisted, on
the one hand, by close alliance with the vanguard of the working
people of other countries, and, on the other, by ability to find
the right approach to the peoples of the East whom you here
represent. You will have to base yourselves on the bourgeois
nationalism which is awakening, and must awaken, among those
peoples, and which has its historical justification. At the same
time, you must find your way to the working and exploited masses
of every country and tell them in a language they understand that
their only hope of emancipation lies in the victory of the
international revolution, and that the international proletariat
is the only ally of all the hundreds of millions of the working
and exploited peoples of the East.

Such is the immense task which confronts you, and which, thanks
to the era of revolution and the growth of the revolutionary
movement-of that there can be no doubt-will, by the joint efforts
of the communist organisations of the East, be successfully
accomplished and crowned by complete victory over international
imperialism.

Endnotes

[1]
This Congress was held in Moscow from November 22 to December 3,
1919, on the initiative of the Central Bureau of Communist
Organisations of the Peoples of the East at the CC., B.C.P.(B.). On the eve of the Congress, November 21, a preliminary
meeting of the Central Committee members with a group of delegates
was held with Lenin presiding. The Congress was attended by 71
delegates with the right to vote and by 11 delegates with voice
but no vote. On the opening day of the Congress, November 22,
Lenin delivered a report on the current situation. The resolution
adopted on his report was submitted to the presidium “for
concretisation and drafting of the chief theses that should serve
as a basis for work in the East”. The Congress heard the
report on the work of the Central Bureau of Communist
Organisations of the Peoples of the East, reports from the
localities, the reports of the Central Moslem War Collegium,
Central Moslem Commissariat of the People’s Commissariat of
Nationalities; it discussed the national question of the Bashkirs
and Tatars and heard reports of sections on state organisation and
Party work, on work among women in the East and among the youth,
etc. The Congress outlined the tasks of the Party and the
government in the East, and elected a new Central Bureau of
Communist Organisations of the Peoples of the East