V. I. Lenin

Letter to the British Workers [1]

Comrades:

First of all permit me to thank you for sending your delegation here to acquaint themselves with Soviet
Russia. When your delegation suggested to me that I should send a
letter through them to the British workers and perhaps also
proposals to the British Government, I replied that I gratefully
accepted the first suggestion but that I must address myself to
the government, not through a workers’ delegation but directly, on behalf of our government, through Comrade
Chicherin. We have on very many occasions addressed ourselves this
way to the British Government, making the most formal and solemn
proposals to start peace talks. All our representatives—Comrade Litvinov, Comrade Krasin and the
rest—are unceasingly continuing to make these proposals. The
British Government stubbornly refuses to accept them. It is not
surprising, therefore, that I desired to speak to the delegates of
the British workers exclusively as delegates of the workers, not
as a representative of the government of Soviet Russia, but simply
as a Communist.

I was not surprised to find that several members of your
delegation hold a standpoint, not of the working class but of the
bourgeoisie, of the exploiting class: in all capitalist countries
the imperialist war fully revealed an old ulcer, namely, the
desertion of the majority of the workers’ parliamentary and
trade union leaders to the side of the bourgeoisie. On the false
pretext of “defence of country” they were actually defending the predatory interests of either of the two groups of
robbers of the entire world—the Anglo-American-French group,
or the German group; they entered into an alliance with the
bourgeoisie, against the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat; they covered up this treachery with sentimental
petty-bourgeois reformist and pacifist phrases about peaceful
evolution, constitutional methods, democracy, etc. This is what
happened in all countries; it is not surprising that in Britain
this state of affairs has also been reflected in the composition
of your delegation.

Members of your delegation, Shaw and Guest—obviously surprised and hurt by my statement that Britain, notwithstanding
our peace proposals and notwithstanding the declarations of her
government, is continuing her intervention, waging war against us
and helping Wrangel in the Crimea and whiteguard
Poland—asked me whether I had proof of this, and whether I
could show how many trainloads of military supplies Britain had
provided Poland with, etc. I replied that, to obtain the secret
treaties of the British Government, it was necessary to overthrow
it in a revolutionary manner and to seize all its foreign policy
documents in the same way as we did in 1917. Any educated man,
anybody sincerely interested in politics, was aware even prior to
our revolution that the tsar had secret treaties with the
predatory governments of Britain, France, America, Italy and Japan
concerning the division of the spoils, concerning Constantinople,
Galicia, Armenia, Syria, Mesopotamia, etc. Only liars and
hypocrites (excluding, of course, absolutely ignorant, backward
and illiterate people) could deny this, or pretend not to know of
this. However, without a revolution, we could never have obtained
the secret documents of the predatory governments of the
capitalist class. Those leaders or representatives of the British
proletariat—whether they are members of Parliament, trade
union leaders, journalists, or others—who pretend ignorance
of the secret treaties between Britain, France, America, Italy,
Japan and Poland concerning the plunder of other countries,
concerning the division of the spoils, and who do not wage a
revolutionary struggle in order to expose these treaties, are
merely once again showing that they are faithful servants of the
capitalists. We have known this for a long time; we are exposing
this in our own country and in all other countries of the
world. The visit to Russia of a delegation of the British workers
will hasten the exposure of such leaders in Britain too.

I had a conversation with your delegation on Wednesday, May
26. On the following day telegrams arrived stating that Bonar Law
had admitted in the British Parliament that military aid had been
given to Poland in October “for defence against
Russia” (of course only for defence, and only in October!
There are still “influential labour leaders” in
Britain who are helping the capitalists to dupe the workers!), but
the New Statesman , the most moderate of moderate petty-bourgeois newspapers or journals, wrote of tanks being
supplied to Poland, which were more powerful than those used
against the Germans during the war. After this, can one refrain
from ridiculing such “leaders” of the British workers that ask with an air of injured innocence whether there is any
“proof” that Britain is fighting against Russia and is helping Poland and the whiteguards in the Crimea?

Members of the delegation asked me which I considered more
important: the formation in Britain of a consistently revolutionary Communist Party, or obtaining the immediate aid of
the masses of the workers in Britain for the cause of peace with
Russia. I replied that this is a matter of one’s convictions. Sincere supporters of the emancipation of the workers
from the yoke of capital cannot possibly be opposed to the
formation of a Communist Party, which alone is capable of training
the workers in a non-bourgeois and non-petty-bourgeois manner, and
is alone capable of genuinely exposing, ridiculing and disgracing
“leaders” who can doubt whether Britain is helping
Poland, etc. There is no need to fear the Communists will be too
numerous in Britain, because there is not even a small Communist
Party there. But if anyone continues to remain in intellectual
slavery to the bourgeoisie, and continues to share petty-bourgeois
prejudices about “democracy “ ( bourgeois democracy), pacifism, etc., then of course such people would only
do more harm to the proletariat if they took it into their heads
to call themselves Communists, and affiliate to the Third
International. All that these people are capable of doing is to
pass sentimental “resolutions” against intervention couched exclusively in philistine phrases. In a certain sense
these resolutions are also useful, namely, in the sense that the
old “leaders” (adherents of bourgeois democracy, of peaceful methods, etc., etc.) will make themselves ridiculous in
the eyes of the masses, and the more they pass empty, non-committal resolutions unaccompanied by revolutionary action,
the sooner will they expose themselves. Let each man stick to his
job: let the Communists work directly through their Party,
awakening the revolutionary consciousness of the workers. Let
those who supported the “defence of country” during the imperialist war for the partitioning of the world,
“defence” of the secret treaty between the British capitalists and the tsar to plunder Turkey, let those who
“do not see” that Britain is helping Poland and the whiteguards in Russia—let such people hasten to increase the
number of their “peace resolutions” to the point of becoming ridiculous; the more they do that, the sooner will they
meet with the fate of Kerensky, the Mensheviks and the
Socialist-Revolutionaries in Russia.

Several members of your delegation questioned me with surprise
about the Red terror, about the absence of freedom of the press in
Russia, of freedom of assembly, about our persecution of
Mensheviks and pro-Menshevik workers, etc. My reply was that the
real cause of the terror is the British imperialists and their
“allies", who practised and are still practising a White
terror in Finland and in Hungary, in India and in Ireland, who
have been supporting Yudenich, Kolchak, Denikin, Pilsudski and
Wrangel. Our Red terror is a defence of the working class against
the exploiters, the crushing of resistance from the exploiters
with whom the Socialist-Revolutionaries, the Mensheviks and an
insignificant number of pro-Menshevik workers have sided. Freedom
of the press and assembly under bourgeois democracy is freedom for
the wealthy to conspire against the working people, freedom for
the capitalists to bribe and buy up the press. I have explained
this in newspaper articles so often that I have derived no
pleasure in repeating myself.

Two days after my talk with your delegation, the news papers
reported that, besides the arrests of Monatte and Loriot in
France, Sylvia Pankhurst had been arrested in Britain. This is the
best possible reply the British Government could give to a
question that the non-Communist British labour “leaders",
who are captives to bourgeois prejudices, are afraid even to ask,
namely, which class the terror is directed against—the oppressed and exploited, or the oppressors and exploiters? Is it a
question of the “freedom” of the capitalists to rob, deceive and dupe the working people, or of the
“freedom” of the toilers from the yoke of the capitalists, the speculators and the property-owners? Comrade
Sylvia Pankhurst represents the interests of hundreds upon
hundreds of millions of people that are oppressed by the British
and other capitalists. That is why she is subjected to a White
terror, has been deprived of liberty, etc. The labour “leaders” who pursue a non-Communist policy are 99 per
cent representatives of the bourgeoisie, of its deceit, its
prejudices.

In conclusion, I want to thank you once again, comrades, for
having sent your delegation here. Despite the hostility of many of
the delegates towards the Soviet system and the dictatorship of
the proletariat, and although many of them are in the grip of
bourgeois prejudices, their acquaintance with Soviet Russia will
inevitably accelerate the collapse of capitalism throughout the
world.

N. Lenin

30.5.1920

Endnotes

[1]
“Letter to the British Workers” was published on June 17, 1920, in Pravda , Izvestia , Kommuniitichesky Trud , and Gudok ; on the same day it was published in Britain in The Call , the weekly of the British Socialist Party. On June 19, the letter was published in The Workers’ Dreadnought , organ of the Workers’ Socialist Federation of England and in the journal The Russia Outlook , and on June 22, in the Labour The Daily Herald. Later the “Letter to the British Workers” was repeatedly published both in Russia and abroad. —Editor.