V. I. Lenin

On the Tenth Anniversary of Pravda

It is ten years since Pravda, the legal—legal even under tsarist law—Bolshevik daily paper, was
founded. This decade was preceded by, approximately, another decade: nine
years (1903-12) since the emergence of Bolshevism, or thirteen years
(1900-12), if we count from the founding in 1900 of the
“Bolshevik-oriented” old Iskra . [1]

The tenth anniversary of a Bolshevik daily published in Russia .... Only
ten years have elapsed! But measured in terms of our struggle and movement
they are equal to a hundred years. For the pace of social development in the
past five years has been positively staggering if we apply the old yardstick
of European philistines like the heroes of the Second and Two-and-a-Half
Internationals. These civilised philistines are accustomed to regard as
“natural” a situation in which hundreds of millions of people
(over a thousand million, to be exact) in the colonies and in semi-dependent
and poor countries tolerate the treatment meted out to Indians or Chinese,
tolerate incredible exploitation, and outright depredation, and hunger, and
violence, and humiliation, all in order that “civilised” men
might “freely”, “democratically”, according to “parliamentary procedure”, decide whether the booty should be
divided up peacefully, or whether ten million or so must be done to death in
this division of the imperialist booty, yesterday between Germany and
Britain, tomorrow between Japan and the U.S.A. (with France and Britain
participating in one form or another).

The basic reason for this tremendous acceleration of world development is
that new hundreds of millions of people have been drawn into it. The old
bourgeois and imperialist Europe, which was accustomed to look upon itself
as the centre of the universe, rotted and burst like a putrid ulcer in the
first imperialist holocaust. No matter bow the Spenglers and all the
enlightened philistines, who are capable of admiring (or even studying)
Spengler, may lament it, this decline of the old Europe is but an episode in
the history of the downfall of the world bourgeoisie, oversatiated by
imperialist rapine and the oppression of the majority of the world’s
population.

That majority has now awakened and has begun a movement which even the
“mightiest” powers cannot stem. They stand no chance. For the
present “victors” in the first imperialist slaughter have not
the strength to defeat smalltiny, I might say—Ireland, nor can they
emerge victoriotis from the confusion in currency and finance issues that
reigns in their own midst. Meanwhile, India and China are seething. They
represent over 700 million people, and together with the neighbouring Asian
countries, that are in all ways similar to them, over half of the
world’s inhabitants. Inexorably and with mounting momentum they are
approaching their 1905, with the essential and important difference that in
1905 the revolution in Russia could still proceed (at any rate at the
beginning) in isolation, that is, without other countries being immediately
drawn in. But the revolutions that are maturing in India and China are being
drawn into—have already been drawn into—the revolutionary
struggle, the revolutionary movement, the world revolution.

The tenth anniversary of Pravda, the legal Bolshevik daily, is a
clearly defined marker of this great acceleration of the greatest world
revolution. In 1906-07, it seemed that the tsarist government had completely
crushed the revolution. A few years later the Bolshevik Party was
able— in a different form, by a different method —to penetrate into the very citadel of the enemy and daily,
“legally”, proceed with its work of undermining the accursed
tsarist and landowner autocracy from within. A few more years passed, and
the proletarian revolution, organised by Bolshevism, triumphed.

Some ten or so revolutionaries shared in the founding of the old
Iskra in 1900, and only about forty attended the birth of
Bolshevism at the illegal congresses in Brussels and London in 1903. [2]

In 1912-13, when the legal Bolshevik Pravda came into being it
had the support of hundreds of thousands of workers, who by their modest
contributions [3] were able to overcome both the oppression of
tsarism and the competition of the Mensheviks, those petty-bourgeois
traitors to socialism.

In November 1917, nine million electors out of a total of thirty-six
million voted for the Bolsheviks in the elections 10 the Constituent
Assembly. But if we take the actual struggle, and not merely the elections,
at the close of October and in November 1917, the Bolsheviks had the support
of the majority of the proletariat and class-conscious peasantry,
as represented by the majority of the delegates at the Second All-Russia
Congress of Soviets, and by the majority of the most active and politically
conscious section of the working people, namely, the twelve-million-strong
army of that day.

These few figures illustrating the “acceleration” of the
world revolutionary movement in the past twenty years give a very small and
very incomplete picture. They afford only a very approximate idea of the
history of no more than 150 million people, whereas in these twenty years
the revolution has developed into an invincible force in countries with a
total population of over a thousand million (the whole of Asia, not to
forget South Africa, which recently reminded the world of its claim to
human and not slavish existence, and by methods which were not
altogether “parliamentary”).

Some infant Spenglers—I apologise for the expressionmay conclude
(every variety of nonsense can he expected from the “clever”
leaders of the Second and Two-and-a Half Internationals) that this estimate
of the revolutionary forces fails to take into account the European and
American proletariat. These “clever” leaders always argue as if
the fact that birth comes nine months after conception necessarily means
that the exact hour and minute of birth can be defined beforehand, also the
position of the infant during delivery, the condition of the mother and the
exact degree of pain and danger both will suffer. Very “clever”!
These

gentry cannot for the life of them understand that from the point of
view of the development of the international revolution the transition from
Chartism to Henderson’s servility to the bourgeoisie, or the
transition from Varlin to Renaudel, from Wilhelm Liebknecht and Bebel to
Sudekum, Scheidemanu and Noske, can only be likened to an automobile passing
from a smooth highway stretching for hundreds of miles to
a dirty stinking puddle of a few yards in length on that highway.

Men are the makers of history. But the Chartists, the Varlins and the
Liebknechts applied their minds and hearts to it. The leaders of the Second
and Two-and-a-Half Internationals apply other parts of the anatomy: they
fertilise the ground for the appearance of new Chartists, new Varlins and
new Liebknechts.

At this most difficult moment it would be most harmful for
revolutionaries to indulge in self-deception. Though Bolshevism has
become an international force, though in all the civilised and
advanced countries new Chartists, new Varlins, new Liebknechts have been
born, and are growing up as legal (just as legal as our Pravda was
under the tsars ten years ago) Communist Parties, nonetheless, for the time
being, the international bourgeoisie still remains incomparably stronger
than its class enemy. This bourgeoisie, which has done everything in its
power to hamper the birth of proletarian power in Russia and to multiply
tenfold the dangers and suffering attending its birth, is still in a
position to condemn millions and tens of millions to torment and death
through its whiteguard and imperialist wars, etc. That is something
we must not forget. And we must skilfully adapt our tactics to this
specific situation. The bourgeoisie is still able freely to torment, torture
and kill. But it cannot halt the inevitable and—from the standpoint of
world history—not far distant triumph of the revolutionary
proletariat.

May 2, 1922

Endnotes

[1]
Iskra (old) was the first Russian illegal Marxist newspaper. Founded by Lenin in 1900, it played the decisive role in the
formation of a revolutionary Marxist party of the working class of
Russia. Soon after the Second Party Congress (1903), control of the
newspaper was seized by Mensheviks. With the publication of its 52nd issue
Iskra ceased to be an organ of revolutionary Marxism.

[2] Lenin
refers to the Second Congress of the R.S.D.L.P., which was held on July
17-August 10 (July 30-August 23), 1903. The first thirteen sessions took
place in Brussels. Owing to police persecution, the Congress was moved to
London.

[3] Here Lenin
means the cash collections that were undertaken by workers for their
newspaper Pravda.