October 19, 1921
Dear comrades!
Judging by the fragmentary information that reaches our newspapers about the growth of the communist movement in Poland, judging (still more) by the reports of some of the most prominent Polish comrades, a revolution is maturing in Poland.
A workers’ revolution is maturing: complete collapse of the PPS* (Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks in Russian; the Second and Two-and-a-Half Internationals, in European terms). The trade unions, one after another, are going over to the Communists. Growth of demonstrations, etc. The impending and inevitable financial collapse. A gigantic failure of bourgeois democracy (and of the petty bourgeoisie) in Poland with the agrarian reform, a failure that has matured, is inevitable, and is inevitably pushing the majority of the rural population—all the poorest part of the peasantry—towards the Communists.
In connection with the financial collapse and the shameless plundering of Poland by Entente capital (France and other countries), a practical exposure of great-power and national illusions is taking place—an exposure that is graphic, tangible to the masses, to the ordinary worker, to the ordinary peasant.
If all this is so, then the revolution (Soviet) in Poland must soon be victorious. If this is so, we must not allow the government and the bourgeoisie to stifle the revolution by bloodily suppressing a premature uprising.

* PPS — Polish Socialist Party. — Ed.

LETTER TO POLISH COMMUNISTS
Do not succumb to provocation. Wait for the full wave to rise: it will sweep everything away and give the communists victory.
If the bourgeoisie kills 100-300 people, that will not ruin the cause. But if, by provoking a massacre, it succeeds in killing 10-30 thousand workers, that could delay the revolution even for several years.
If the government considers it important to hold elections to the Sejm, then efforts must be directed towards ensuring that the Sejm is won by the wave of workers’ revolution and peasant discontent.
Do not walk into the provocation.
At all costs, nurture the revolution until the fruit is fully ripe. The victory of Soviet power from within Poland is a gigantic international victory. If, as I see it, Soviet power has now achieved a 20-30% international victory, then with the victory of Soviet power from within Poland, the international victory of the communist revolution will be 40-50%, perhaps even 51%. For Poland neighbours Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and a Soviet Poland will undermine the entire regime built upon the Versailles peace.
That is why the Polish communists bear a world responsibility: to hold the helm of their ship steadily; not to succumb to provocation.
Is it worth responding to the beating of Dombal by Daszyński and Co.? If we are to respond, it must be by beating Daszyński without gunfire, without wounding, only thus. This might be worthwhile if it results in the workers successfully teaching the insolent man a lesson, raising their spirits, at the cost (imprisonment or execution) of 5-10 workers. But perhaps even this is not worthwhile: might it be more useful for agitation among the peasants that our Dombal was brutally beaten? Perhaps this will better turn the sympathies of backward peasants towards us than would a pummeling of Daszyński? One must weigh this more carefully.
With communist greetings, Lenin
First published April 22, 1962 in the newspaper Pravda No. 112

Printed from the manuscript