Comrades, allow me now to present to you the events that have unfolded before our very eyes in Hungary.

As is well known, until the end of March of this year, "Kerenskyism" with all its charms held sway there. When then, on March 21, a Soviet power suddenly formed there, and moreover the Mensheviks there agreed to support this power, one could think that a new era had begun in socialism… But now recent events have shown us that the social-conciliationists have not changed one bit. Apparently, what has now happened in Hungary repeats on a large scale what happened recently before our very eyes in Baku{53}.

Comrade Lenin recalls in vivid imagery the tragic history of the Baku proletariat, when its social-traitors turned to the English command for help and behind the backs of the workers entered into a secret agreement with Western imperialists. The speaker draws an analogy between this Baku tragedy and the present coup d'état in Hungary, speaks of a radiogram from which we learn that the Romanians have already entered red Budapest.

Further, Comrade Lenin compares the situation of Hungary and Soviet Russia and, having briefly reminded us of all our temporary setbacks, speaks of what saved and saves us — the vastness of our territory, whereas Hungary is too small to stand against all its enemies. Turning then to the question of conciliationists in general, the speaker touches upon our Russian socialist conciliationist parties and declares:

– If the conciliationists of Russia committed an error under Kerensky, in the course of six months of practical work, why was this error not corrected by them under Kolchakism in Siberia?

But the fact is that the Denikinists also sing to us about the Constituent Assembly, counterrevolution nowhere appears openly, and we therefore say: no temporary setbacks, such as the recent events in Hungary, will shake us. There is no way out of all these misfortunes except revolution, and there remains only one true means — the dictatorship of the proletariat. We say: every new defeat of the Red Army only tempers it, makes it most steadfast and conscious, for the workers and peasants have now understood through bloody experience what the rule of the bourgeoisie and conciliationists brings us. The dying beast of world capital makes its last efforts, but it will still perish! (Stormy applause.)

Published August 8, 1919 in the newspaper "Evening News of the Moscow Soviet" No. 312

Printed from the newspaper text