The war with Poland, or more precisely, the July-August campaign, fundamentally altered the international political situation.

The Polish attack on us was preceded by an episode characteristic of the international relations that had become established at that time. When we proposed peace to Poland in January—extremely advantageous for her, very disadvantageous for us—the diplomats of all countries understood it in their own way: "the Bolsheviks are making excessive concessions—which means they are excessively weak." Once again was confirmed the truth that bourgeois diplomacy is incapable of understanding the methods of our new diplomacy of open, direct declarations. Therefore our proposals gave rise only to an explosion of wild chauvinism in Poland, France, and other countries and pushed Poland into an attack. Poland first seized Kiev, then our troops countered and approached Warsaw; then came a turning point, and we retreated more than a hundred versts backward.

The decidedly grave situation that resulted from this, however, is by no means a straightforward defeat for us. We cruelly deceived the diplomats' calculations about our weakness and proved that Poland cannot defeat us, while we were and are not far from victory over Poland. Furthermore, we still have a hundred versts of conquered territory. Finally, our advance toward Warsaw had such a mighty effect on Western Europe and the entire world situation that it completely disrupted the balance of contending internal and external political forces.

The approach of our army to Warsaw indisputably proved that somewhere nearby lay the center of the entire system of world imperialism, resting on the Versailles Treaty. Poland, the last bulwark against the Bolsheviks, entirely in the hands of the Entente, is so powerful a factor in this system that when the Red Army placed this bulwark under threat, the entire system wavered. The Soviet Republic was becoming a factor of paramount importance in international politics.

In the new situation that arose, there came to light first of all a fact of enormous significance—that the bourgeoisie of countries living under the oppression of the Entente—and such countries constitute 70 percent of all humanity on earth—is rather on our side. We had seen before how small states, which found themselves in a hard position under the tutelage of the Entente (Estonia, Georgia, and others), which hang their Bolsheviks, conclude peace with us against her wishes. Now this manifested itself with particular force in all corners of the globe. With the approach of our troops to Warsaw, all of Germany was in ferment. There appeared a picture such as could have been observed in Russia in 1905, when the Black Hundreds raised up and summoned to political life vast, most backward layers of the peasantry, who today marched against the Bolsheviks, but tomorrow demanded all the land from the landowners. And in Germany we saw such an unnatural bloc of Black Hundreds with Bolsheviks. There appeared a strange type of Black Hundreds revolutionary, similar to that undeveloped country boy from East Prussia who, as I read the other day in some German non-Bolshevik newspaper, says that Wilhelm will have to be restored because there is no order, but that one must follow the Bolsheviks.

Another consequence of our presence near Warsaw was a mighty effect on the revolutionary movement in Europe, especially in England. If we did not manage to reach the industrial proletariat of Poland (and this is one of the chief causes of our defeat), which was beyond the Vistula and in Warsaw, we did reach the English proletariat and raised its movement to an unprecedented height, to a completely new stage of revolution. When the English government presented us with an ultimatum, it turned out that one had first to ask about this the English workers. And these workers, of whose leaders nine-tenths are vicious Mensheviks, answered with the formation of the "Committee of Action"{111}.

The English press was alarmed and cried out that this was "dual power." And it was right. England found itself in that stage of political relations which existed in Russia after February 1917, when the Soviets were forced to control every step of the bourgeois government. The "Committee of Action" is a union of all workers without distinction of party, similar to our All-Russian Central Executive Committee in those times when Gotz, Dan, and others ruled there—such a union that competes with the government and in which Mensheviks are forced to act half like Bolsheviks. And just as our Mensheviks eventually became confused and helped bring the masses to us, so the Mensheviks of the "Committee of Action" are forced by the irresistible course of events to clear the path for the English worker masses toward Bolshevik revolution. The English Mensheviks, according to the testimony of competent persons, already feel themselves like a government and are preparing to take the place of the bourgeois one in the near future. This will be a further stage in the general process of English proletarian revolution.

These enormous shifts in the English workers' movement are exerting a mighty effect on the world workers' movement and in the first place on the workers' movement in France.

Such are the results of our latest Polish campaign in international politics and of the relations taking shape in Western Europe.

Now before us stands the question of war and peace with Poland. We wish to avoid a difficult winter campaign for us and again propose to Poland a peace advantageous for her, disadvantageous for us. But it is possible that the bourgeois diplomats, out of old habit, will again interpret our open declaration as a sign of weakness. In all probability, the winter campaign is predetermined by them. And here we must clarify the conditions under which we shall have to enter the probable new period of war.

Our defeat caused certain changes in Western Europe and united against us diverse elements hostile to us. But we have more than once seen arrayed against us even more powerful formations and attitudes, which, however, did not decide the issue.

We have against us a bloc of Poland, France, and Wrangel, on whom France is placing her bet. However, this bloc suffers from the old disease—the irreconcilability of its elements, the fear that the petty bourgeoisie of Poland nourishes toward Black Hundreds Russia and toward its typical representative—Wrangel. Poland—petty bourgeois, patriotic, parties of the PPS, the People's movement, wealthy peasants—wants peace. Representatives of these parties spoke in Minsk: "We know that it was not the Entente that saved Warsaw and Poland—it could not save us—but it was saved by our patriotic upsurge." These lessons are not forgotten. The Poles see clearly that they will emerge from the war completely ruined financially. For war must be paid for, and France recognizes "sacred private property." Representatives of the petty bourgeois parties know that even before the war the situation in Poland was on the eve of crisis, that war brings further ruin, and therefore they prefer peace. This chance we wish to use by offering Poland peace.

There was also revealed an extraordinarily important new factor: the change in the social composition of the Polish army. We defeated Kolchak and Denikin only after the social composition of their armies changed, when the firm cadres dissolved in the mobilized peasant mass. This process is now occurring in the Polish army, into which the government was forced to conscript older categories of peasants and workers who had experienced the more brutal imperialist war. This army now consists no longer of boys who could easily be "worked on," but of adults who cannot be taught anything whatsoever. Poland has already passed that threshold beyond which was assured for her first maximum victory, then maximum defeat.

If a winter campaign is destined for us, we shall win—there is no doubt of this, despite exhaustion and fatigue. Our economic situation guarantees this. It has improved considerably. We have acquired, compared with the past, a firm economic base. If in 1917–1918 we gathered 30 million puds of grain, in 1918–1919—110 million puds, in 1919–1920—260 million puds, then in the coming year we expect to gather up to 400 million puds. These are no longer the figures we were struggling with in the hungry years. We shall no longer regard with such horror the multicolored papers that fly about in billions and now clearly reveal themselves to be fragments, scraps of the old bourgeois garment.

We have over one hundred million puds of oil. The Donets Basin already gives us 20–30 million puds of coal per month. The situation with firewood has improved considerably. And in the past year we existed on firewood alone, without oil and without coal.

All this gives us the right to say that if we unite our forces and exert them, victory will be ours.

*Pravda* No. 216 and *Izvestia of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee* No. 216, September 29, 1920

Printed according to the text of the newspaper *Pravda*