V. I. Lenin

Speech At A Meeting In Presnya District

On The Anniversary Of

The December Uprising, 1905

December 19, 1919

Comrades, we are gathered here today to celebrate the anniversary of the December uprising in Moscow and the battle
that took place in Presnya District fourteen years ago.

Comrades, the insurrection in Moscow was one of the greatest movements by
Russian worker revolutionaries and although it could not have been
a success at that time it was nevertheless of tremendous
significance. It is only today, when we have before us a picture
of the many years of historical preparatory work for the Russian
revolution, that we can properly appreciate the significance of
the December uprising in 1905 and of the battles that the workers
of Red Presnya then fought against the forces of tsarism. Comrades, we now see clearly how insignificant the forces
of the Russian workers then were; and we see that the sacrifices
made at that time have been repaid a hundredfold.

I must say, however, that in December 1905, tsarism had to
muster all its forces in order to suppress the still weak,
embryonic revolt of the workers. The Moscow organisation of our
Party has recently published two collections of reminiscences of
the December insurrection, the events in Presnya, and about the
way the weak underground Party organisation of that time prepared
the insurrection and about the tremendous enthusiasm with which
not only factory workers, but all the working people of Moscow
supported it. Among these newly published articles there is a
particularly interesting one by a gendarme and police officer
which admits that the revolutionaries in December 1905 still did
not know how weak they, the supporters of tsarism, were at that
time. “If the blow struck by the revolutionaries had been a
little more powerful and had lasted a little longer,” admits
this servant of the tsar, “we should not have been able to
hold out, with the disorder that was beginning to make itself felt
among us.” This admission, made by a member of the secret
police, is especially interesting; it shows that the sacrifices
made by the workers of Presnya in the cause of freedom and the
emancipation of the workers were not made in vain, that even then
their heroic example demonstrated the strength of the working
class to all enemies and at the same time ignited those millions
of sparks that later, in a long and toilsome manner, over a period
of many years, burst into flame and produced the victorious
revolution.

After 1905 the working-class movement in Russia experienced the
most difficult and bloody period of its history. Tsarism showed
unprecedented brutality in dealing with the heroes who revolted in
Moscow in 1905. After the suppression of the Moscow uprising the
working class of Russia made several more attempts to rise to the
level of a mass struggle. In the spring of 1906 there were mass
strikes and the beginnings of a peasant movement; in 1907 another
attempt was made these attempts, however, could only slow down the
forces of reaction but were unable to check them. And long years
passed during which the movement was forced to hide in the
underground, when hundreds and thousands of the sons of the
working class perished on the gallows, in prisons, in exile and in
penal colonies.

Then we saw that in 1910, 1911 and 1912 the working class again
began to muster its forces and we saw how, after the Lena massacre
in April 1912, a wave of powerful mass strikes began to rise which
spread from one end of the country to the other and gave tsarism
such a jolt that by the summer of 1914 events went as far as
barricades in Petrograd; it is possible that one of the reasons
accelerating the tsarist government’s desperate decision to
start the war was their hope of crushing the revolutionary
movement in that way. Instead of crushing it, however, the war was
the cause of the revolutionary movement spreading to all advanced
countries.

As we can see clearly enough, the four-year war was carried on
by predators, not only by German but also by British and French
imperialism, for the purpose of plunder. When the Germans, in
1918, imposed the plundering Treaty of Brest-Litovsk upon us, there was no end to the shouts
disapproving of that treaty in France and Britain, and when a year
later, in that same year of 1918, Germany was defeated and the
German Empire collapsed, the French and British capitalists then
imposed the Treaty of Versailles on conquered Germany; this is now an example of
measures still more brutal, more violent, than we had at
Brest-Litovsk.

We now see how, week by week, the eyes of hundreds, thousands
and millions of workers in France, Britain and America are being
opened; they were duped and were assured that they were fighting a
war against German imperialism and they have now seen that
millions of people were killed and maimed in that war. And for
what? For the enrichment of an insignificant handful of
millionaires who since the war have become multimillionaires and
who have brought all countries to the brink of ruin.

Comrades, we are living in difficult times insofar as concerns
the misfortunes that have overtaken the industrial, especially the
urban, workers. You know how difficult this situation is and how
hungry and cold our working class is. And we also know that not
only backward Russia who was torn by war for four years and after
that has had for another two years to pursue a war imposed on her
with the help of Britain and France-Russia was not the only
country that has been ruined, but the most advanced and wealthy
countries, the victor countries such as, for instance, France and
the U.S.A., have also been brought to the brink of ruin. They are
experiencing a coal crisis, they have to curtail the railway
services because their industry and transport were crushed and
ruined to an unparalleled degree by four years of war. Huge
productive forces were destroyed in that imperialist war and we
see as a result that the road which the Russian working class
showed all workers, showed the whole world as far back as 1905
when it revolted against tsarism, the path which was followed by
the Russian working class when it overthrew the bourgeoisie—that path is now attracting the attention and
winning the sympathy of workers of all, even the most advanced,
countries.

I have already said, comrades, that this winter we have to
endure unparalleled hardships and calamities. We say to ourselves,
however, that we shall stand firm to the end, because the best of
the workers, the most politically conscious workers and peasants,
have, despite all calamities and hardships, been helping us,
helping us by forming the Red Army which is bringing us to final
victory. We know that now that Kolchak’s forces have been
completely routed and the recent revolts in Siberia have seemingly
deprived the remnants of Kolchak’s army of the possibility
of joining up with Denikin , and now that huge military forces have been captured at
Novo-Nikolayevsk, there is obviously no longer Kolchak’s
army. In the South, where Denikin was able to boast of his
successes, we now see the steadily growing offensive of our Red
Army. You know that Kiev, Poltava and Kharkov have been captured
and our advance on the Donets Basin, the source of coal supplies,
is proceeding at an extremely rapid rate.

We therefore see, comrades, that all those terrible misfortunes
which the working class has borne for the sake of our full victory
over capital, all the sacrifices that have been made are now
bringing good results. We see that capitalists abroad who have,
until now, been handing out millions of rubles and every kind of
war materiel, first to Kolchak, and then to Yudenich and Denikin,
are now beginning to hesitate.

You know that they cut Russia off from other countries by the
iron ring of the blockade and you know that they did not let our
representatives go to other countries. You know that Comrade
Litvinov, one of the revolutionaries who fought with the
Bolsheviks against tsarism even before 1905, was our Ambassador to
Great Britain and that there was not a workers’ meeting that
did not greet him with such applause and with such stormy protests
against their own government, that the British went to the trouble
of deporting him. Today, those people who hate Litvinov so
heartily have given him permission to go to Copenhagen, and not
merely permission, but also the means (Comrade Litvinov arrived
there on a British cruiser). We also know that every day of
Comrade Litvinov’s stay in Copenhagen is an ever greater
victory for Russia. Workers’ representatives and the correspondents of thousands of bourgeois newspapers are constantly
approaching him for an explanation of the change that has taken
place. We know that the change has come because the Western
bourgeoisie can no longer keep up the blockade and help the
Russian counter-revolutionary generals with millions of rubles
because the working class of each of those rich and advanced
countries will not let them.

Perhaps the most vivid expression of the turn that has come in
the politics of the European countries is the voting of the
deputies in the Italian chamber which we know of from the report
sent by wireless from France to America and picked up by our
wireless station. The report was this. When the question of Russia
was discussed in the Italian chamber, and when the socialists
proposed the immediate recognition of the Soviet Republic, a
hundred voted for and two hundred against the proposal; that means
that only the workers were in favour of recognising the Soviet
Republic and all the bourgeois deputies rejected it. After that,
however, the Italian chamber passed a unanimous motion to the
effect that the Italian Government approach the allies with a view
to stop the blockade altogether and put an end to all intervention
in Russian affairs. That was a decision adopted by a chamber that
consists to the extent of two thirds, if not three-quarters, of
landowners and capitalists, that was adopted in one of the victor
countries and that was adopted simply under pressure from the
working-class movement.

The decision shows clearly that a real turning-point in
international politics is approaching arid that the tremendous
inner forces of the working-class movement of every country have
actually brought about what we have always hoped for, which we
told the workers of Russia would happen, and for the sake of
which, we told them, it was worth while struggling and making
heavy sacrifices, that the sacrifices would have to be made, so
that the troubles and torments, the hunger and cold that we are
suffering from will not have been in vain. In this way we are not
merely saving Russia, we are winning the sympathy and support of
millions and millions of workers of other countries with every
week of struggle. That is why today, when we remember our comrades
who fell, the heroes of Red Presnya, the memory of them gives us
greater enthusiasm and firm resolution to bring victory near.

Despite all difficulties and all sacrifices we shall go forward
ourselves and will lead the workers of all countries to full
victory over capital. (Applause.)