Lenin: A Biography Prepared By the Marx-Engels-Lenin Institute, Moscow (Marx-Engels-Lenin Institute)

Published by Authority of "Soviet War News"

Lenin: A Biography Prepared By the Marx-Engels-Lenin Institute, Moscow
Author	Marx-Engels-Lenin Institute
Publisher	HUTCHINSON & CO. (Publishers) LTD
First published	1943 London Press Department of the Soviet Embassy in London
Type	Book

I

Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Lenin), the founder of Bolshevism and of the first socialist state in the world was born on April 22 (April 10, Old Style), 1870, in Simbirsk, now called Ulyanovsk, on the Volga.

His father, Ilya Nikolayevich, came from a lower middle class family in Astrakhan. After graduating from high school and the Kazan University he, for fourteen years, taught mathematics and physics in Penza and Nizhni-Novogorod, now called Gorky. Beginning with 1869 he served first as Inspector and later as Director of Elementary Schools in the Simbirsk Gubernia. For his long service he was elevated to the rank of the nobility. Ilya Nikolayevich was a typical representative of the cultured, progressive Russian, who devoted himself entirely to the cause of popular education. Diligent, persevering, and exacting towards himself and others, he placed the interests of his work above all else. He tried to cultivate the same qualities in his children. He died on January 12, 1886.

Lenin's mother, Maria Alexandrovna Blank, was the daughter of a physician. She was a woman of outstanding ability, well educated, highly cultured, had a fine intellect, and was distinguished for her strength of will and firmness of character. She was familiar with Russian and foreign literature, spoke French, German and English, and was very fond of music. She devoted herself entirely to the upbringing of her children, striving to rear them as honest and educated men and women, pursuing high ideals.

The Ulyanovs had six children, three boys: Alexander, Vladimir and Dmitri, and three girls: Anna, Maria and Olga. All of them subsequently became revolutionaries. Alexander, the eldest son, joined the Narodnaya Volya (People's Freedom) Party. The others, except Olga, who died at an early age, became Bolsheviks.

As a child, Lenin was of a lively temperament and already showed promise of talent. At five years of age he was already able to read. On reaching the age of nine, he entered the first form at the Simbirsk High School. Thanks to his exceptional abilities and diligence in his studies he made excellent progress, and passed from form to form with the highest honours. On graduating from High School he had a good knowledge of Latin, Greek, French and German. He was also well up in history and literature, and was particularly fond of books in which the heroes were men of firm and indomitable character.

Lenin spent his childhood and youth on the Volga, in the Simbirsk, Kazan and Samara Gubernias. These were typical peasant gubernias, which afforded him opportunities of observing peasant life: the poverty and ignorance, the inhuman slavery and brutal exploitation that prevailed in the rural districts. He constantly came into contact with working people. He saw that, besides the Russian working people, the numerous, other nationalities, such as the Chuirash, Mordvins, Tatars, and others, were also cruelly oppressed. While still a youth he burned with indignation at the oppression of the toilers and of the subject nationalities.

The period of Lenin's school days and youth was one of the most gloomy in the history of Russia. Subsequently, Lenin referred to these years as the period of "unbridled, incredibly senseless and brutal reaction:" Tsarism triumphed after crushing the revolutionary movement of the 'seventies. After the assassination of Alexander II by members of the Narodnaya Volya Party in 1881, the autocratic government hastened to nullify even the half-hearted reforms of the 'sixties. The peasants were placed entirely in the power of the Zemsky Nachalniks, who were appointed from among the nobility. Not only the democratic, but almost the entire Liberal press was gagged. Reaction raged even in the schools. The Ministry for Public Education or, as Lenin subsequently called it, "the Ministry for Public Obscuration," tried to train the students to become servile henchmen of the autocracy. Unbridled tyranny of the tsarist government; utter lack of rights and unprecedented oppression of the workers and peasants; monstrous oppression of the subject nationalities, and the cowardice and disgusting servility of the Liberals towards the reactionaries—such was the picture of Russian life a that time.

At an early age Lenin began to interest himself in the life going on around him and listened attentively to the political conversations of his elders. He read a great deal, and already in his early youth was familiar with the works of the best revolutionary-democratic publicists in Russia. At the age of fourteen or fifteen he read Chernyshevsky's novel, What Is To Be Done?, which made a powerful impression upon him. He also read the works of Dobrolyubov, Pisarev, and other literature which at that time were "taboo." He was very familiar with the democratic poets of the Nekrassov period.

Young Lenin was greatly influenced by his eldest brother, Alexander. The two were great chums. Alexander was a serious, thoughtful lad, very self-disciplined, and imbued with a high sense of duty. He studied physics and mathematics at the St. Petersburg University and spent his summer vacations at home. During the vacations of 1885 and 1886 he brought home with him a copy of Marx's Capital, which Lenin began to read.

Lenin's opposition to the entire social and political system prevailing in tsarist Russia began to crystallize quite early in life. When still a student in the upper form of the High School, he was already revolutionary minded, and this was even reflected in his school work. For example, one day the Head Master of the school returned to Lenin an essay he had written and said to him in a tone of displeasure: "Who are these oppressed classes you write about here? Why do you write such stuff?"

The year 1887 marked the turning point in Lenin's life. In that year he irrevocably took the path of revolution.

At the beginning of that year great sorrow befell the Ulyanov family. On March I, Alexander Ulyanov, Lenin's eldest brother, was arrested in St. Petersburg for complicity in the plot against the life of Alexander III.

Anna, Lenin's eldest sister, who was also a student in St. Petersburg, was arrested at the same time.

V. V. Kashkadamova, an intimate friend of the Ulyanov family, relates that on receiving the news of Alexander's arrest in St. Petersburg, she went to Simbirsk to see Lenin at the High School he attended—he was then in the eight and last form—to consult with him as to how to prepare Maria Alexandrovna, Lenin's mother, for the sad news. She showed him the letter she had received from St. Petersburg. After reading it Lenin remained silent for a long time, his brows drawn tight in a deep frown. "It was no longer a carefree and boisterous youth that sat before me," she writes in her reminiscences, "but a grown-up man, pondering deeply over a grave question."

"That is a serious business," he said. "It may end badly for Sasha."

All the efforts of Maria Alexandrovna to save the life of her eldest son proved fruitless. He was executed in the Schlüsselburg Fortress on May 8, 1887.

As soon as the news of Alexander Ulyanov's arrest reached Simbirsk, Liberal "society" in that town began to shun the Ulyanov family. Even close acquaintances ceased to visit them. This evidence of widespread cowardice made a deep impression upon young Lenin; it taught him what the high-flown chatter of the Liberals was really worth.

The death of his brother was an important factor in deciding Lenin to take the path of revolution. But much as he admired his brother's heroism, he, already at that time, considered that terrorist methods of fighting the autocracy were mistaken and that the goal could not be reached that way. When he first learned that Alexander belonged to a terrorist organization, he said: "No, we shall not take this road. This is not the road to follow." Lenin graduated from the High School, winning the highest prize, the Gold Medal. On August 13, 1887, he entered the Kazan University to study law.

In Kazan, Lenin soon established contact with revolutionaries and joined a students' circle of "an extremely pernicious trend," as the Okhrana, the tsarist secret police, described it. In student circles, Lenin was an outstanding figure. He was revolutionary minded, energetic, well-read and expounded his views with great force and conviction. While at the University he was kept under special surveillance by the Gendarmerie and the University authorities.

The tsarist government tried to fill the University Chairs only with reactionary professors, and all student organizations were severely persecuted. The students were kept under strict surveillance; all student circles and societies, even mutual aid societies, were suspected of pursuing subversive objects. Students who gave utterance to opinions of an oppositional character were kept for varying terms in solitary confinement in the punishment cells at the University. This police persecution evoked sharp protests. The immediate cause of the student unrest in 1997 was the enforcement of the so-called "University Regulations of 1884." At the end of November, 1887, disorders broke out in the Moscow University and quickly spread to the universities in the provinces. On December 4, 1887, disorders broke out at the Kazan University. Lenin took a most active part in the conferences at which preparations for the demonstrations were made and also in the actual demonstrations. The tsarist authorities at once resorted to a series of reprisals. That very night Lenin was arrested at his lodgings, as were a number of other active members and organizers of the revolutionary student movement.

On the way to prison the constable who was escorting Lenin said to him: "Why are you making all this trouble, young man? Can't you see you are up against a wall?"

"A wall, yes, but a rotten one," answered Lenin. "It only wants a push, and it will collapse."

While in prison the students, happening to be together, discussed with each other what they intended to do when they were released. One of them asked Lenin: "Well, Ulyanov, what do you intend to do?" Lenin replied that there was only one road before him—the road of the revolutionary struggle.

On December 5, 1887, Lenin was expelled from the University and two days later was deported to the village of of Kokushkino, in the Kazan Gubernia, and placed under secret police surveillance. He went to live with his sister, Anna, who had been sentenced to exile in Siberia, but whose sentence had been commuted to open police surveillance.

Thus, Lenin received his revolutionary baptism in his first conflict with the tsarist autocracy at the age of seventeen. From that time onwards he devoted his whole life to the struggle against the autocracy and capitalism, to the struggle for the emancipation of the working people from oppression and exploitation.

The Okhrana noted the beginning of young Lenin's revolutionary career in its own way. The Gendarmerie, in their report to the Governor of Kazan, stated that the deportee to Kokushkino, Lenin, "had taken an active part in the organization of the revolutionary student youth of Kazan." From December 27, 1887, onwards, Lenin was kept under the constant secret surveillance of plain-clothes police, and the Gendarmerie kept a close watch on the whole Ulyanov family. Every step that Lenin took was immediately reported to the Department of Police.

Lenin spent about a year in this tiny, out-of-the-way village. He read a great deal, and diligently improved his education. Already at that time he revealed ability to engage in systematic studies according to a definite plan, and at this early age had already developed an enormous capacity for work.

Early in October, 1888, Lenin received permission to return to Kazan, where his mother then lived with the younger children, but he was refused readmission to the University. He filed an application for permission to go abroad to continue his education, but the Department of Police ordered the Governor of Kazan "not to issue him a passport for foreign travel."

In Kazan, Lenin made the acquaintance of members of different illegal revolutionary circles in which the works of Marx, in the original as well as translations, and also Plekhanov's polemical writings against the Narodniks, especially his essays, Our Disagreements, were read and heatedly discussed. The police reports, based on the information of the spies who kept Lenin under surveillance, stated that "he (Lenin) is pursuing a pernicious trend" and is "associating with suspicious persons."

In the autumn of 1888, Lenin began seriously to study Marx's Capital. That work left an indelible impression upon his mind. In her reminiscences of Lenin, his sister Anna related that "he spoke to me with great ardour and enthusiasm about the fundamental theories of Marx and the new horizon it opened up for him. . . . He seemed to radiate firm faith, which infected his listeners. Already at that time he was able to speak in a way that held and convinced one. And already at that time he could not refrain from sharing with others the enthusiasm he felt after studying something new and finding a new path. Nor could he refrain from enlisting adherents. Very soon he found such adherents among the revolutionary minded young people of Kazan, who were also studying Marxism."

Lenin joined one of the Marxist circles organized in Kazan by N. E. Fedoseyev, who later, in 1898, met with a tragic end while in exile, in Siberia. Lenin studied very hard during the months he attended Fedoseyev's circle grappling with the theory of Marxism.

In those days Marxism hewed a path for itself in Russia with great difficulty. Narodism still exercized enormous influence over the revolutionary minded intelligentsia, and this was the main obstacle to the spread of Marxism. Describing the generation of revolutionaries of the 'eighties Lenin wrote:

"Many of them began their revolutionary thinking as Narodnaya Volyaists. Nearly all of them in their early youth enthusiastically worshipped the terrorist heroes. It was a great wrench to abandon the captivating impressions of these heroic traditions, and it was accompanied by the breaking off of personal relationships with people who were determined to remain loyal to Narodnaya Volya and for whom the young Social-Democrats had profound respect. The struggle compelled them to educate themselves, to read the illegal literature of all tendencies. . . ."

There were very few adherents of the tenets of Marxism in Russia at that time. Lenin was one of the first of these Russian Marxists. While still a youth, he realized that Narodism was on the wrong track and that terroristic methods of fighting tsarism were futile and harmful. His acute, enquiring and sober mind enabled him to see that Marxism was a powerful weapon which ensured victory in the struggle against the prevailing system of political despotism and brutal exploitation of the masses of the people.

The revival of revolutionary activities in Kazan disturbed the Gendarmerie. In July 1889, Fedoseyev was arrested. The circle to which Lenin belonged was also discovered and its members arrested. By a happy chance, Lenin on this occasion avoided arrest, which would have had more serious consequences for him that his first arrest. It happened in this way. On May 3, 1889, two months before the wholesale arrests of the members of Fedoseyev's circles, Lenin with his family went to live in the Samara Gubernia. At first, they lived at a farm near the village of Alakayevka, fifty versts from Samara; but in the autumn of 1889 they moved to the city of Samara. Here, too, the gendarmes and the Warden of the Kazan Education Area, kept a close watch over Lenin and his entire family.

Lenin arrived in Samara a convinced Marxist.

At that time Samara was one of the strongholds of Narodism. Among the exiles and those under surveillance—numbering about forth, according to the police records of that time—the adherents of Narodism, opponents of Marxism who did not understand the laws of social development. They also denied that the working class was to play the leading role in the revolutionary movement and looked to the advent of Socialism as something to come through the village communities.

At the time of Lenin's arrival in Samara there were several circles of revolutionary minded youth in that city. One of the most prominent of these was that conducted by A. P. Sklyarenko. This circle studied historical, economic and philosophical questions, and also the peasant question. In general, it followed the Narodnik trend. Sklyarenko also had connections with workers, especially with railwaymen. Influenced by Lenin, who introduced the members of the circle to the tents of Marxism, Sklyarenko soon abandoned his Narodnik views and became a Marxist.

In Sklyarenko's circle, as well as in other secret revolutionary youth circles, Lenin read papers on Marxism and in criticism of Narodism. Among these was a paper criticizing the book by the well-known Narodnik V. V. (V. P. Vorontsov), The Destiny of Capitalism in Russia; a paper on the works of the Narodniks Mikhailovsky and Yuzhakov; a paper on the book An Outline of Our Post-Reform Social Economy by the Narodnik Nikolai-on (N. F. Danielson), and also a paper on Marx's Poverty of Philosophy. In these papers, and in the debates and discussions that followed, Lenin, already at that time, astonished his audiences by his profound knowledge of Marxism. The members of the Samara circles reported in their letters that in Samara there was a student under police surveillance named Ulyanov who was distinguished for his breadth of mind and erudition.

While in Samara, Lenin continued diligently to study the works of Marx and Engels, mainly in German and French, as very few of these books were then available in Russian. Lenin himself translated into Russia the Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels. This translation was read in manuscript in the Samara circles; it was subsequently destroyed during a police raid.

Lenin also studied the history of the Russian revolutionary movement and discussed this subject with the most prominent members of the Narodnaya Volya who came to live in Samara after returning from exile. He abhorred the bookish and abstract acceptance of the Marxian theory, and never regarded Marxism as a lifeless dogma. To him it was always a living guide to revolutionary action.

At the age of twenty, while continuing to propagate the tenets of Marx and Engels, he began to make a thorough study of the economic and political development of Russia. He diligently waded through the economic researches of the Narodniks and verified and independently examined all the factual material on the basis of which the Narodniks had built up their fallacious conclusions. He took up statistics and studied a vast amount of material on the economic conditions of Russia, especially the Zemstvo statistics, which, as he wrote at the time, "provide a vast amount of most detailed material on the economic conditions of the peasantry."

While studying the theoretical side of peasant husbandry, Lenin tested his conclusions by practical experience, by direct contact with peasant life. During the five summer seasons he spent in Alakayevka (1889-93), he often conversed with the peasants and closely studied their everyday life. At his request Sklyarenko made a statistical survey of three Volosts in the Samara Uyezd, and Lenin himself drew up the questionnaire for this.

Lenin formulated the deductions he drew from his deep and careful study of Russian economics in a splendid essay entitled "New Economic Changes in Peasant Life," which he wrote in the spring of 1893. This is the first of Lenin's literary production that have come down to us. In this essay he made a critical review of V. Postnikov's book, South Russian Peasant Husbandry, which was written on the basis of the Zemstvo statistics and the author's own investigations in the Ekaterinoslav, Kherson and Taurida Gubernias. Lenin had a high opinion of Postnikov's book in which, on the basis of a wealth of factual material, the author proved that a process of differentiation was going on among the Russian peasantry; but he rejected the author's Liberal-Narodnik deductions and proposals. This essay reveals how profoundly young Lenin independently applied the Marxian method in analysing the most intricate problems of Russian life.

In his correspondence of that period, Lenin formulated the propositions he deduced in this essay as follows:

"The propositions expounded here serve me as the basis for much more important and more far-reaching deductions that have been drawn in the essay itself. It seems to me that the process of disintegration going on among our small producers (the peasants and village handicraftsmen) is the main and fundamental fact which explains urban and large-scale capitalism in this country, which shatters the myth about peasant husbandry being an exceptional economic system (actually it is part and parcel of the bourgeois system, except that it is much more encumbered with feudal fetters), and compels us to regard the so-called "workers" not as a small group placed in exceptional conditions, but merely as the upper stratum of that vast mass of peasants who already gain their livelihood more by the sale of their labour power than by their own hubandry."

Lenin wanted to have this essay published in one of the legal, Liberal-Narodnik magazines, but the editors refused to accept it as it was directed against Narodism. It was kept filed for thirty years and brought to light and published only in 1923.

In the autumn of 1889 Lenin applied for permission to take his examinations for the Law Degree at some higher educational institution. On the margin of one of his applications, Delyanov, the Minister of Education, wrote: "Make enquiries about him of the Warden and Department of Police." In reply to this enquiry, Durnovo, Chief of the Department of Police, stated: "During his residence in Kazan, Ulyanov was observed to be in communication with politically unreliable persons, some of whom now have proceedings pending against them on the charge of committing offences against the states." Lenin's application was rejected. The tsarist government decided not to allow him to enter the University as he was "politically unreliable." It was not until the spring of 1890 that he was at last permitted to take his examinations for the Law Degree at the St. Petersburg University. At the end of August 1890, he went to St. Petersburg to obtain all the particulars about the examinations. On returning to Samara he began to work very hard to prepare for the examinations, while, however, continuing to study Marxism.

Lenin, then twenty years of age, was confronted with the task of mastering in the short space of one year the whole of a four-year university course. Furthermore, the application to go before the Examination Board had to be accompanied by a written treatise on Criminal Law. At the examination it was necessary to submit a written essay on a given theme, and then to answer questions on the dogma and history of Roman Law, Civil Law and Jurisprudence, Commercial Law and Jurisprudence, Criminal Law and Jurisprudence, the history of Russian Law, Ecclesiastical Law, Constitutional Law, International Law, Police Law, Political Economy, Statistics, Financial Law, General Law, and the history of the Philosophy of Law. To master all these subjects it was necessary seriously to wade through a vast amount of special literature.

Describing how Lenin worked in preparation for his examinations, his sister, Anna, writes as follows:

"Many people at the time were amazed at the fact that though he had been expelled from the University, he, in a matter of one year, without outside assistance, and without passing any of the yearly or half-yearly examinations, succeeded in preparing so well that he passed his exams together with his class. He achieved this as a result of his splendid talents as well as of his enormous capacity for work."

Lenin worked tirelessly in Samara in the winter, and at the farm in Alakayevka in the summer. His sister, Anna, relates that in Alakayevka "he erected for himself a study, secluded in a thick lime tree grove. . . . There he went every morning after breakfast with a pile of books under his arm, as punctually as if a stern teacher were waiting for him, and worked there in complete seclusion until dinner time, at 3 p.m.

"None of us entered that grove for fear of disturbing him.

"Having finished his morning studies he, after dinner, would return to the same nook with a book on social questions. I remember him reading in German, Engels' Conditions of the Working Class in England. Later on he would go for a stroll, bathe, and after supper . . . Volodya would again be poring over a book."

Lenin passed his examinations with honours at the St. Petersburg university at two sessions, in the spring and in the autumn of 1891. Out of 33 students sitting for examination, he was the only one to receive highest marks on all subjects. The Examination Board of the Faculty of Law awarded him a Diploma of the First Degree.

While taking his examinations in the spring Lenin suffered a second great bereavement. His younger sister, Olga, who was a student at the Higher Women's Courses in St. Petersburg, died of typhoid fever. Lenin was very fond of Olga, who was eighteen months his junior. Shortly before his sister's death he had called his mother to St. Petersburg; and he accompanied her when she returned to Samara after his sister's death.

While in St. Petersburg for his examinations, Lenin met a number of Marxists, from whom he obtained Marxian literature in Russian and German. This he took with him to Samara.

In January 1892 Lenin was admitted to the bar, and in March he began to act as a barrister at the Samara Circuit Court. His clients were mainly poor peasants, Russian and Tatar, who were suffering frightfully from the famine that prevailed in the Volga that year. His first client was prosecuted on the charge of having "used blasphemous language against God, the Holy Virgin, the Holy Trinity, His Majesty, the Emperor, and his heir, by saying that His Majesty was not ruling justly." Although engaging in legal practice, he continued his intense theoretical studies, conducted Marxist Social-Democratic circles, and read papers on various subjects.

Lenin lived in Samara for over four years. Here his Marxian views became finally crystallized, and here he fought his first battles against the Narodniks. His studies of Russian economics and history, and the papers he read in the circles of Samara, subsequently served as the basis of some of his works, including the celebrated book What the "Friends of the People" Are, And How They Fight the Social-Democrats? Around Lenin was formed the first circle of Samara Marxists, which exercized considerable influence on the revolutionary youth. Lenin established contacts with the Marxists in Nizhni-Novgorod, Vladimir and St. Petersburg, and corresponded with Fedoseyev, who was then in prison in Vladimir. In those remote years, when the Marxist movement in Russia was only just in the stage of inception, the Volga region became one of the main centres of the propagation of Marxism, thanks to the activities of Lenin and Fedoseyev.

The propaganda of the ideas of Marxism in the Samara circles and the debates with the Narodniks did not satisfy Lenin, however. He found life very dull in provincial Samara, which was far removed from the centres of the proletarian movement and of the political struggle. He was eager to go right among the industrial proletariat. His mood at that time is well depicted in a note in which his sister Anna jotted down the impression made on him by one of Chekhov's stories, Ward No. 6, which he first read in the winter of 1892-93. He said: "When I finished reading that story last night I felt so awful that I could not remain in my room; I had to get up and walk out. I felt as though I were locked up in Ward No. 6." He was burning with eagerness to plunge into the arena of the broad revolutionary struggle.

In the middle of August 1893, Lenin left Samara for St. Petersburg. On the way he stopped at Nizhni-Novgorod, where, at a Marxist circle, he read a paper criticizing Narodism.

On August 31, 1893, he arrived in St. Petersburg, the political hub of Russia.

II

Lenin arrived in St. Petersburg on the eve of the flood tide of the mass working-class movement.

Ten years had elapsed since the "Emancipation of Labour Group," headed by Plekhanov, had begun to propagate Marxism in Russia and had taken the first step towards establishing contact with the working-class movement. The development of capitalism in Russia during this period had led to the growth of the working class and to the spread of the working-class movement. Marxist propaganda, though conducted on a small scale, had nevertheless borne fruit. The first workingmen Marxists had appeared in Russia. But the Marxist circles were still very loosely connected with the mass working-class movement. Later on Lenin referred tot he end of the 'eighties and beginning of the 'nineties as the period of the "difficult growth" of the Social-Democratic movement. Few could perceive that the conditions had matured for the next big step forward—the merging of Socialism with the working-class movement. Few realized that the time had arrived to amalgamate the disconnected Marxist circles and to form an organization that would be bound by common objects and methods of struggle, to arm it with a Marxist program, and make it the political leader of the working class.

Immediately on his arrival in St. Petersburg Lenin set to work to carry out this historical task. He was then only twenty-three years old, but he was already a fully moulded, well educated, revolutionary Marxist, devoted body and soul to the working class.

At the time several revolutionary and opposition youth circles were functioning in St. Petersburg. Lenin at once established contact with one of them. This was a remnant of the Social-Democratic organization led by Brusnev, which had survived the débâcle of 1892. It was a secluded group of Marxists who had contacts only with individual advanced workers, among whom it conducted propaganda of a very abstract character, divorced from the political life of the country. Equally abstract and divorced from living reality was the study of Marxism in the circle conducted by the St. Petersburg Social-Democrats. The members of the circle quite rightly described the effect of Lenin's appearance in St. Petersburg in the autumn of 1893 as that of "a thunderstorm with life-giving after effects." Lenin set out to turn the St. Petersburg group of Social-Democrats to the path of practical political activity among the masses. A determining factor in this was his celebrated paper on "The So-Called Question of Markets," criticizing Hermann Krassin, a member of the St. Petersburg group of Social-Democrats, which he read in the autumn of 1893. This manuscript was deemed to be irretrievably lost, and it was not until 1937, forty-four years later, that it was found and published.

Why was the question of markets so assiduously discussed in Marxist circles that time? Because the Narodniks asserted that capitalism, by ruining the rural districts, was causing the home market to shrink. From this they drew the conclusion that there was no market for capitalism in Russia, nor would there ever be one. Consequently, capitalism could not develop in Russia; its appearance was quite accidental, and therefore, the appearance of the proletariat must also be regarded as accidental.

The controversy over the question of markets was therefore close linked up with the question of the destiny of capitalism in Russia. The primary object of the discussion of this question in the Marxist circles was to prepare the Marxists for the struggle against the Narodniks.

In this paper Lenin gave his celebrated outline of the course of development of capitalism. He traced the historical process of evolution of natural economy into commodity production, the process of disintegration of simple commodity production, and its evolution into capitalist production.

He severely criticized Krassin for having, in a lecture on the subject of the markets which he had delivered, confined himself to schematic reflections on the development of capitalism "in general," divorced from the concrete forms and character of the development of capitalism in Russia. He also criticized him for having emphasized only the progressive side of capitalism, criticized him for ignoring the contradictions of capitalism, the growing poverty and ruin of the masses of the working people under capitalism, and the class interests of the proletariat. He pointed out that the Marxists should not be concerned about markets for the bourgeoisie, but about organizing the working class and about developing and consolidating the mass working-class movement in Russia. He at once discovered in Krassin's views the rudiments of "Legal Marxism," which was then only just making its appearance, i.e., the attempt of the bourgeois intelligentsia to utilize Marxism in the struggle against Narodism in order to glorify and fortify capitalism.

Shattering the Narodnik theory that capitalism could not develop in Russia because of the alleged absence of a market, Lenin demanded that he debate on this question should be shifted "from the sphere of fruitless speculation about 'what is possible' and 'what should be' to the sphere of reality." He gave a Marxist explanation of "how the Russian economic system is taking shape, and why it is taking this shape and no other." He proved on the basis of concrete facts and a multitude of statistics covering many Gubernias in Russia, that the peasantry, both rich and poor, were gradually resorting to the market. From this he drew the conclusion that "we have before us a living organic process, the process of development of commodity production and growth of capitalism." He proved that capitalism had already become "the main background of the economic life of Russia."

Lenin's utterances created a powerful impression on the Marxists in St. Petersburg, for he placed a powerful weapon in their hands in the fight against Narodism, and showed how the Narodniks should be combated.

N. K. Krupskaya relates how the Marxists of that time were astonished by Lenin's utterances. "Our new Marxist friend," she writes, "treated this question of markets in a very concrete manner, he linked it up with the interests of the masses, and in his whole approach one sensed just that live Marxism, which takes phenomena in their concrete surroundings and in their development." The members of the circles at which Lenin spoke subsequently recalled that Lenin amazed them by his extraordinary ability to apply Marxism to what were at that time the burning questions of Russian life.

Lenin became the acknowledged leader of the St. Petersburg Social-Democrats, due, as the History of the C.P.S.U.(B.) says, to his "extraordinarily profound knowledge of Marx, his ability to apply Marxism to the economic and political situation of Russia at that time, his ardent and unshakeable belief in the victory of the workers' cause, and his outstanding talent as an organizer."

Narodism still barred the road to the formation of a Social-Democratic Party. Plekhanov and his Emancipation of Labour Group had done a great deal to spread the tenets of Marxism, had struck a telling blow at the fallacious views of Narodism and had shaken its influence upon the revolutionary intelligentsia. But the ideological defeat of Narodism was as yet by no means complete. The task of utterly routing Narodism as the enemy of Marxism fell to the lot of Lenin.

In January 1894, Lenin visited his relatives in Moscow, where he stayed for two or three weeks. At that time a Medical Congress was in progress there at which many representatives of the Liberal and Radical intelligentsia were present. The Narodniks took this opportunity to arrange a secret gathering, at which the then well-known Liberal Narodnik author, V. V. (Vorontsov) delivered a lecture. Lenin, who by chance happened to be present at this gathering, took part in the debate and subjected the lecture to such withering criticism that it became evident to all present that the laurels of the debate had been gained by the young Marxist.

Lenin's sister, Anna, who was present at this gathering, describes the scene as follows: "Audacious and determined, with all the ardour of youth and strength of conviction, but also armed with knowledge, he began to demolish the theories of the Narodniks, leaving no stone of them standing on another. The attitude of hostility towards this 'audacious youth' gradually gave way to an attitude which, if no less hostile, was at all events more respectful. The majority began to regard him as a formidable opponent. . . . The condescension with which he was treated and the scientific arguments levelled against him . . . did not disturb my brother. He took backed his arguments with scientific data and statistics, and attacked his opponent with still greater irony and vigour. . . . All those present, especially the young members of the audience, listened to him with the closest attention. The Narodnik began to climb down, his speech became more halting, and finally he subsided.

The Marxist section of the young people present was triumphant."

It so happened that a police spy had managed to gain admission to this gathering, and he reported the whole course of the debate to his superiors. Evidently he informed them that a local Marxist had preceded Lenin in the discussion, for the Chief Constable of Moscow stated in his report to the Department of Police that Vorontsov "silenced this Marxist by his arguments, and the defence of the latter's views was taken up by a certain Ulyanov (said to be the brother of the one who was hanged), who conducted this defence in a manner which showed that he had the subject at his finger tips."

Represented by young Lenin, the new Marxist trend met the old, obsolete Narodnik trend in open battle and emerged victorious. Lenin's speech at this gathering became the talk of revolutionary circles.

But verbal controversies and lecture in opposition to individual Narodniks were not enough. It was necessary to rout Narodism as a trend; and this task was all the more urgent for the reason that at the end of 1893, the Narodniks, especially N. K. Mikhailovsky, an author who exercized considerable influence at that time, launched a campaign against Marxism in their legal magazine Russkoye Bogatstvo (Russian Wealth).

During the spring and summer of 1894, Lenin wrote his celebrated book What the "Friends of the People" Are And How They Fight the Social-Democrats?

In this book Lenin tore the mask from the Liberal Narodniks and exposed these "friends of the people," as they called themselves, in their true colours. He showed that they were actually fighting the people, that they had long ago deserted the revolutionary struggle and were advocating conciliation with the tsarist government. He proved that the degeneration of Narodism was inevitable and revealed the true nature of the Liberal Narodniks as the champions of the interests of the kulaks, i.e., the rural bourgeoisie. The theoretical views of the Narodniks were reactionary and their political platform was anti-revolutionary, he said. The real friends of the people were the Marxists, whose aim was to abolish the tyranny of landlordism and capitalism, and to abolish tsarism.

But What the Friends of the People Are? was something more than a critique of Narodism. It was the manifesto of the nascent revolutionary Marxist party in Russia. In this work Lenin expounded the principles of the Marxist world outlook. With amazing precision he traced the historical course of development of the working class of Russia and formulated the main tasks of the Russian Marxists.

Lenin asserted that the working class entered the lists against capitalism as the sole representative of all the exploited working people of Russia. The immediate task of this class in its march towards its ultimate goal of overthrowing the capitalist system and of building communist society was to overthrow the autocracy. In the struggle against the autocracy the proletariat could not rely on the bourgeoisie, for the latter would inevitably enter into an alliance with the forces of reaction against the working-class movement. The ally of the working class was the peasantry. Thus, already in the 'nineties, in one of the first books he wrote, Lenin advocated a revolutionary alliance between the workers and peasants as the principal means of overthrowing tsarism, the landlords and the bourgeoisie.

The struggle of the working class in alliance with the peasantry could be successful, said Lenin, only if a fundamental task of the Russian Marxists was carried out, viz., to unite the disconnected Marxists circles and form a single, socialist workers' party. "We must decide," said Lenin, "what is the most suitable form of organization for the conditions we have to work under, in order to spread the ideas of Social-Democracy and unite the workers into a political force."

The book ends with the following prophetic forecast of the historical course of development of the Russian working class.

"It is on the working class that the Social-Democrats concentrate all their attention and all their activities. When the advanced representatives of this class have mastered the ideas of scientific Socialism, the idea of the historical role of the Russian workers, when these ideas become widespread and when durable organizations arise among the workers which will transform their present sporadic economic war into a conscious class struggle, the Russian workers will rise at the head of all the democratic elements, overthrow absolutism and lead the Russian proletariat (side by side with the proletariat of all countries) along the straight road of the open political struggle to the victorious Communist revolution."

These words came true in Lenin's own lifetime.

The historical importance of What the Friends of the People Are? lies in the fact that in it Lenin, after demolishing the theories of Narodism and formulating the tasks of the Russian Marxists, "correctly pointed out to the working class its path of struggle, defined its role as the foremost revolutionary force in society, and that of the peasantry as the ally of the working class."

This brilliant work of Lenin's was secretly printed on a hectograph in only a few score of copies. Nevertheless, it became known to most of the Social-Democrats then active in Russia. In Tiflis it was read by young Stalin, who had only just joined the revolutionary movement.

While combating Narodism, Lenin attacked the temporary "fellow travellers" who had attached themselves to Marxism, the so-called "Legal Marxists," who were, in fact, bourgeois Liberals. These "Legal Marxists" tried to take advantage of the campaign against Narodism to subject the working-class movement to the interests of the bourgeoisie. They tried to extract from Marxism its revolutionary core and to convert it into bourgeois reformism. In later years these "fellow travellers" became Constitutional-Democrats, and during the Civil War out-and-out Whiteguards.

It required Lenin's amazing power of penetration to enable one to see at the very inception of "Legal Marxism" that its representatives were bourgeois Liberals. He launched his campaign against the "Legal Marxists" by attacking its foremost exponent, Peter Struve, who had proposed that the Russian Marxists should admit that they "lack culture and go to learn from capitalism." In the autumn of 1894, at a private gathering of St. Petersburg Marxists at which representatives of "Legal Marxism" were present, he read a paper entitled "The Reflection of Marxism in Bourgeois Literature" in which he strongly and emphatically denounced Struve's views and exposed the Liberal bourgeois nature of the "Legal Marxists." He said that the latter were bourgeois democrats who, having renounced Narodism and now opposing it, had passed from Narodnik, petty-bourgeois (or peasant) Socialism, not to proletarian Socialism, but to bourgeois Liberalism.

At that time, however, Lenin deemed it possible to form a temporary bloc with the "Legal Marxists" with a view to utilizing them in the fight against the Narodniks. This bloc strikingly revealed the main feature of the line Lenin pursued in all his subsequent political blocs and agreements, viz., insistence that the proletariat should maintain complete ideological, political and organizational independence and enjoy complete freedom to criticize its temporary and unreliable allies. As a result of this agreement a volume of essays appeared in the spring of 1895 entitled Materials for a Characterization of Our Economic Development, containing contributions by Lenin, Plekhanov, Struve and others. The tsarist censorship, deceived by the inoffensive title of this book, allowed it to be printed; but it soon realized what its true nature was an the government issued a special order to confiscate it and consign it to the flames, a rare and extreme measure for those days. Only a hundred copies of the book were saved, and these were circulated among the Social-Democratic circles and groups. A copy came into the hands of Stalin, on whom Lenin's essay entitled "The Economic Content of Narodism and its Critique in Mr. Struve's Book," and signed K. Tulin, created a profound impression. A comrade who was intimate with Stalin at that time relates that after reading this essay Stalin said: "I must meet him (i.e., Lenin) at all costs."

Lenin's essay was the principal item in the volume. In it he subjected the sociological and economic views of Narodism to exhaustive criticism and expounded his own views on the economic development of Russia. In many respects it was a synopsis of Lenin's later works on economics, especially of his book The Development of Capitalism in Russia. While criticizing Narodism Lenin also pointed to the democratic elements in the Narodnik program which expressed the interests of the urban and rural petty bourgeoisie in the period of the bourgeois democratic revolution. This served as a theoretical basis of the Bolsheviks' tactics towards the democratic social strata and parties during the first Russian Revolution.

In this essay Lenin also subjected "Legal Marxism" to a thorough critical analysis, and, in particular, emphasized Struve's renunciation of the fundamental tenet of Marxism, namely the socialist revolution and the proletarian dictatorship. The main flaw in the theories of Struve and of the other "Legal Marxists," said Lenin, was their bourgeois objectivism, which led them to justify and eulogize capitalism and attempt to tone down class antagonisms, whereas genuine Marxist materialists boldly exposed these antagonisms and sided with the revolutionary class, the proletariat. "Materialism," wrote Lenin, "includes partisanship, so to speak, which makes it obligatory for everyone, in appraising events, frankly and openly to take the standpoint of a definite social group."

Thus, several years before the revisionists had made their appearance in Western Europe, before the appearance of "Bernsteinism," Lenin determinedly resisted the first attempts to distort Marxism in Russia. In the struggle against the Narodniks and the "Legal Marxists," Lenin trained the Marxist cadres in Russia, and laid down the tradition of relentless ideological opposition to the slightest distortion of Marxism.

While working out the revolutionary program of the Russian Marxists and waging his campaign against Narodism and "Legal Marxism," Lenin also carried on intense organizational activity in building up the Party. He established contacts with advanced workers in St. Petersburg and strove to train them as organizers of the future party. He had talks with the workers and read Capital with some of them. In the autumn of 1894, he began to conduct propaganda in workers' circles in Nevskaya Zastava district, where a number of large factories and works were situated. He also began to conduct workers' circles on the Petersburg Side, and later he conducted a circle among the dockworkers on Vassilevsky Ostrov.

In the winter of 1894, Lenin made the acquaintance of Nadezhda Konstantinovna, a teacher at a Sunday night school for adults in the Nevskaya Zastava district. From that time onward, N. K. Krupskaya became Lenin's life-long companion and comrade in revolutionary activities.

The moving spirit of the workers' circle at the Semyannikov Works (now known as the Lenin Works) was I.V. Babushkin, a devoted Leninist, one of the most outstanding leaders of the Social-Democratic Party, who was brutally shot by a punitive expedition in Siberia in 1906. Babushkin was greatly attached to Lenin, who regarded him as the "pride of the Party" and one of its most devoted and staunchest sons. This is Babushkin's description of how Lenin taught Marxism at his circle:

"The lecturer explained this science to us extempore, without notes, and often he tried to provoke us to raise objections to what he had said, or to start a discussion. He would then get the disputants to argue the issue out among themselves. This made the lessons very lively and interesting. . . . We were all very pleased with them and always admired our teacher's ability."

Lenin won the love of the advanced workers who attended the circles. All the workers who came in contact with him in St. Petersburg unanimously declared that they regarded him as "one of themselves." He spoke very plainly and simply on the most serious questions—the theories of Marx, the foundations of bourgeois society, and the economic and political state of Russia. Subjects which were usually regarded as abstruse were easily understood by the workers, who listened to Lenin as if they had long been familiar with them, as things they felt very distinctly, but could not express in words. The ability to speak clearly and simply on the most intricate theoretical problems was one of Lenin's distinguishing qualities.

Lenin gave a new turn to the work of the study circles. He linked up the propaganda of Marxism with the study of the conditions prevailing in Russia. Babushkin relates that "the lecturer gave us papers containing a list of questions, to answer which we had to be observant and closely familiar with factory life." While educating the advanced workers Lenin at the same time tried to study the conditions of the factory workers, the system of payment, fines, and the method of fixing wage rates, and with this in view he encouraged the workers to tell him about the conditions that prevailed at their factories, what they were dissatisfied with, and so forth. N. K. Krupskaya tells us that "Vladimir Ilyich enquired into the minutest details affecting the workers' conditions and tried to piece them together to form a picture of the lives of the workers as a while and thus find the points that would be enable him to approach the workers with his revolutionary propaganda."

At the very outset of his activities in St. Petersburg Lenin was of the opinion that it was not enough to conduct propaganda in study circles which embraced only a thin stratum of advanced workers. It was necessary, he urged, to conduct agitational work among the broad masses of workers. He raised this question most emphatically at his very first meetings with the St. Petersburg Social-Democrats.

Lenin's own experience of propaganda work in the circles still further convinced him that it was necessary to pass from this type of activity to extensive political agitation on current questions with a view to protecting the immediate interests of the working class. This method was first applied during the unrest at the Semyannikov Works at the end of 1894. The systematic delays in the payment of wages at these works at last caused an outburst of indignation among the workers. Their perfectly legitimate demands were satisfied, but a number of them were arrested and deported from St. Petersburg.

Lenin considered that it was necessary to react immediately to these events. He drew up a leaflet which was discussed at the workers' circle, after which several copies of it were written out by hand and circulated at the works. Babushkin took an active part in writing and circulating this leaflet, which was well received by the workers. This first agitational leaflet issued by the St. Petersburg Social-Democrats marked the beginning of a change in all their activities.

The turn towards mass political agitation was of decisive significance not only for St. Petersburg, but for the subsequent development of the working-class movement throughout Russia.

In February 1895, unrest broke out among the workers employed at the New Port. Under Lenin's guidance, the St. Petersburg Social-Democrats issued a leaflet bearing the heading "What the Dock Workers Should Try to Attain" and containing a list of the demands which the dockers were recommended to advance. The leaflet had a profound effect upon the workers. The port authorities were compelled to yield. This victory had important consequences. As a result of it the prestige and influence of the Social-Democrats grew immensely. These leaflets became extremely popular among the workers, who looked forward to them and paid serious attention to their contents.

No less popular among the workers was a pamphlet written by Lenin, entitled An Explanation of the Law Concerning Fines Levied on the Workers in the Factories. It was printed at a secret printing plant, but got up to look like a legal pamphlet. Lenin was particularly pleased to write this pamphlet for the ordinary working-class reader. "There is nothing that I would like more, and nothing I have dreamed about more, than the opportunity to write for the workers," he wrote subsequently, when he was in exile. Written in a style that the workers could understand the pamphlet showed how the tsarist government and the factory owners were exploiting the workers, and how the proletariat, guided by the workers' party, should fight their exploiters.

Thus, under Lenin's guidance, the historic turn was made from the propaganda of Marxism at small circles of advanced workers to political agitation among the broad masses of the workers. As a result of the agitation conducted by the revolutionary Social-Democrats under Lenin's guidance, the movement of the St. Petersburg workers grew and ushered in a new period in the history of the working class of Russia.

Only ten years had elapsed since the famous strike at the Morozov Cotton Mills in 1885, a strike of immense importance in the history of the working-class movement. As Lenin said later, the incipient movement of the St. Petersburg workers, and especially the famous strikes conducted by revolutionary Marxists in 1896, "ushered in the era of the steadily rising working-class movement—that most mighty factor of our entire revolution."

At this crucial moment Lenin vigorously attacked those who tried to confine agitation exclusively to economic questions, who wanted to restrict the workers' struggle solely to an economic struggle against the employers—and for that reason were know as "Economists." Lenin was obliged to take up the fight against the first symptoms of "Economism" as early as the beginning of 1895, at a conference held in St. Petersburg of representatives of the Social-Democratic groups in St. Petersburg, Moscow, Kiev and Vilna, at which the questions of initiating work of agitation on a wide scale and of establishing close contact with the Emancipation of Labour Group, were discussed. At this conference two lines became revealed—the revolutionary and the opportunist. As a result, no agreement could be reached on the question of choosing a delegate to establish contact with the Emancipation of Labour Group in Switzerland. Consequently, two persons were sent. The St. Petersburg Social-Democrats chose Lenin as their delegate.

Lenin's journey was delayed for over a month because he fell ill with pneumonia. While still convalescent he studied Vol. III of Capital, which had just come out in German.

On April 25, 1895, Lenin left for Switzerland, and there, for the first time, he met Plekhanov. He reached an understanding with Plekhanov and other members of the Emancipation of Labour group regarding the conduct of joint activity, and discussed with them a number of questions of principle concerning policy and organization. The Emancipation of Labour Group accepted Lenin's proposal to issue a series of popular publications for workers as circumstances permitted. One such occasional magazine was issued, entitled Rabotnik (The Worker) for which Lenin arranged the sending of articles and correspondence from Russia.

During the negotiations it was revealed that disagreements existed between Lenin and Plekhanov on certain questions of principle. After reading Lenin's essays in criticism of Struve, Plekhanov expressed opposition to Lenin's tactics towards the Liberals, remarking: "You turn your backs on the Liberals, we turn our faces towards them." Plekhanov underrated the role and importance of the peasantry as the ally of the proletariat, and regarded the Liberal bourgeoisie as the driving force of the impending bourgeois-democratic revolution in Russia. Disagreements on theory were also revealed on a number of questions pertaining to historical materialism.

Lenin stayed in Switzerland for about six weeks and then spent over two months in Paris and Berlin, where he closely studied the working-class movement, attended workers' meetings and familiarized himself with the life and conditions of the West European workers. In a letter to his mother he wrote: "I am not at all keen about seeing the Berlin Sehenswürdigkeiten In fact, I feel rather indifferent about them, and in most cases I see them by chance. I prefer gadding about at popular gatherings and entertainments to visiting museums, theatres, arcades, etc."

While Lenin was abroad Engels was seriously ill, and so he was unable to see him. In Paris he met Paul Lafargue, the prominent French Socialist and so-in-law of Marx.

Engels died in August 1895, towards the end of Lenin's stay abroad. Lenin wrote an obituary notice entitled "Frederick Engels," which was published unsigned in the magazine Rabonik, issue No. 1-2. This short article is the best of what exists in international literature on the life and activities of the companion of Marx and one of the founders of revolutionary Marxism, Frederick Engels.

Lenin took advantage of his stay abroad to study those works of Marx and Engels which were not available in Russia. He also worked very diligently in the public libraries.

He returned to Russia on September 7, 1895. The gendarmes at the frontier had received strict instructions to examine Lenin's luggage very thoroughly, but they got nothing for their pains. Lenin's trunk had a double bottom in which he safely got through the Marxian literature which he carried. He adroitly evaded the police and before going to St. Petersburg he spent twenty-two days travelling about Russia. He visited Vilna, where he made arrangements for smuggling Marxist literature into Russia, and then visited Moscow and Orekhovo-Zuyevo, where he established contacts with the local Social-Democrats.

Lenin felt very acutely the disparity between the grandeur of the tasks that confronted the working class of Russia and the lack of cohesion and the amateurish methods of the Social-Democratic organizations of that time. A workers' Marxist party did not yet exist. In 1902, in his book What Is To Be Done?, he described what he felt at that time, as follows:

"I used to work in a circle that set itself great and all-embracing tasks; and every member of that circle suffered to the point of torture from the realization that we were proving ourselves to be amateurs at a moment in history when we might have been able to say, paraphrasing a well-known epigram: 'Give us an organization of revolutionaries, and we shall overturn the whole of Russia!'"

Lenin had set to work to grapple with the task of consolidating and enlarging the Social-Democratic organization in Russia from the very first moment he began his activities in St. Petersburg. On his return to Russia he took up this task with greater energy than ever. He visited the working-class districts nearly every day, conducting meetings and conferences, conversing with the workers and giving instructions to the members of the Social-Democratic organization. He amalgamated all the Marxist workers' circles then existing in St. Petersburg—there were about twenty of them—into one organization, which became known as the League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class. He thus paved the way for the formation of the revolutionary Marxist party.

Lenin based the activities of the League of Struggle on the principles of centralism and strict discipline. The League was headed by a central group, but the direct control of all activities was exercized by five members of this group, headed by Lenin, who was at the same time the editor of the League's publications. The organization was split up into districts, and each district group had an organizer, who was chosen from among the most advanced and class-conscious of the workers and served to maintain connection between the district groups and factories. There were also organizers in the factories who kept the groups informed about what went on in the factories and distributed literature. In all the larger factories, workers' circles were formed, at which, in addition to the theory of Marxism, current political questions were discussed. Actually, these circles served as Social-Democratic cells in the factories.

The League of Struggle, led by Lenin, was closely connected with the mass working-class movement. Lenin closely watched the state of affairs at the factories and kept himself informed about the sentiments of the workers. When unrest began at Thornton's Textile Mills, he carefully collected all the information he could about the workers' conditions, about fines, and so forth. He was familiar with the piece rates down to the minutest detail, and even know the particulars about the different kinds of cloth. This thorough knowledge of the conditions and feelings of the workers enabled him to exercize concrete leadership of the strike movement.

The League of Struggle led a well organized strike at Thornton's Mills. On November 5, 1895, the League issued a leaflet, entitled "The Weavers' Demands," which had such a profound effect upon the workers that next day they came out on strike. Several days later a second leaflet, written by Lenin, was issued, addressed to the strikers at Thornton's. This leaflet exposed Thornton's policy of reducing piece rates not all at once, but gradually, by attacking one section of the workers at a time. It explained that the workers could improve their conditions only by their united, common efforts. The strike was successful, and this gave a powerful impetus to the strike movement in St. Petersburg.

Every such leaflet, in which the economic demands of the workers were linked with political demands, roused the fighting spirit of the workers. It conducted a number of other strikes, but its influence was felt with particular force in the summer of 1896, when a big textile strike broke out in St. Petersburg.

Guided by Lenin, the League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class was the first body in Russia to unite Socialism with the working-class movement, to combine the workers' struggle for their economic demands with the political struggle against tsarism. Subsequently, Lenin wrote: "It was the agitation conducted in 1894-95 and the strikes of 1895-96, and this alone that established firm and continuous connection between the Social-Democrats and the mass working-class movement." The St. Petersburg League of Struggle gave a powerful impetus to the amalgamation of the workers' circles in other towns and regions in Russia into similar leagues.

Lenin was of the opinion that the activities of the League, confined as they were to St. Petersburg, were not at all adequate; he had far wider aims. He considered that the League should become the basis of a party, and was very keen to link up the Social-Democrats in the different towns of Russia. During the preceding two years much had been done in this direction. The League already had connections with the Social-Democratic organizations in Moscow, Kiev, Vladimir, Yarslavl, Ivanovo-Voznesensk, Orekhovo-Zuyevo, Nizhni-Novgorod, Samara, Saratov, Orel, Tver, Minsk and Vilna. These connections had to be extended and strengthened. This was to be achieved by means of a newspaper, which would formulate the immediate objects, and ultimate aims of the struggle of the working class. The first issue of such a newspaper bearing the title Rabocheye Dyelo (The Workers' Cause) was already prepared for the press.

For the first number of this paper Lenin wrote three articles: the leading article, entitled "To the Russian Workers," an obituary notice on Frederick Engels, and an article, entitled "What Are Our Ministers Thinking About?" The leading article dealt with the historical mission of the working class in Russia, and primarily with the struggle for political liberty. In addition to these articles, report of the movement in Yaroslavl, Ivanovo-Voznesensk, Vilna and Byelostok, and a review of the strike movement in St. Petersburg, had also been prepared for this number.

But Lenin was prevented from carrying out his plan at that time. The tsarist government, realizing that he was a very dangerous enemy, had set a close watch on his revolutionary activities. On the night of December 8, 1895, the gendarmes swooped down on the League and arrested a large number of its members, including its organizer and leader, V. I. Lenin.

The workers reacted to the arrest of Lenin and other members of the League by themselves drawing up and distributing in the factories a leaflet containing vigorous political demands.

The period of over two years that Lenin had spent in St. Petersburg was an extremely important one in his life. During this period he mixed with the workers, and this served him as a school of revolutionary activity and of revolutionary craftsmanship. Here, for the first time in Russia, he began to link up the socialist movement with the general working-class movement and formed the League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class, which was the embryo of the first revolutionary party to base itself on the working-class movement. The revolutionary experience he acquired in the St. Petersburg League of Struggle served him in good stead in his subsequent activities in forming the Marxist Party in Russia. In St. Petersburg, Lenin led the proletariat in its first revolutionary clashes with its class enemies, and he trained the working class to be ready for its decisive assault upon the autocracy and the bourgeoisie. Here, too, Lenin waged a relentless campaign against Narodism, "Legal Marxism" and the first symptoms of "Economism." In the course of this struggle Lenin trained and organized a compact group of men and women who shared his views and became his associates in the struggle and the builders of the Bolshevik Party.

At the end of the nineteenth century important changes were taking place in every sphere of social life. The capitalist world had entered a new era, the era of imperialism. The question of how the proletarian party should be organized and questions concerning the strategy and tactics of the working-class struggle presented themselves in a new light. Russia became the hub of the revolutionary movement. Here a great popular revolution was maturing.

It was at this juncture that Vladimir Ilyich Lenin stepped into the arena, holding aloft the militant banner of Marx and Engels, the banner of revolutionary Marxism.

III

Lenin spent fourteen months in prison, but even here he continued his seething activity. His day's work was strictly mapped out, and he worked every hour of the day. From behind his prison bars he found ways and means of guiding the organization he had formed. He wrote letters and leaflets. He even wrote a pamphlet, entitled Strikes and a Drafted of and Commentary on the Program of the Social-Democratic Party, and succeeded in getting them out of jail. In this first draft of the Party program, Lenin formulated the fundamental aims and objects of the proletarian class struggle as follows: overthrow of the autocracy, the winning of political liberties, the capture of power by the proletariat and the organization of socialist production. He also dealt at length with the agrarian problem.

Lenin succeeded in getting his letters and pamphlets out of jail by writing them in milk between the lines of the pages of books which he was allowed to receive from outside and return. To avoid detection when writing, he made small milk inkwells of bread, which, at any sign of danger, he put into his mouth and swallowed. "To-day I swallowed six ink-wells," he relates humorously in one of his letters.

The pamphlet, Strikes, was seized by the gendarmes during a raid on the secret printing press where it was being printed and has not been found to this day. The Draft of and Commentary on the Program of the Social-Democratic Party was first published only in 1924.

Lenin corresponded not only with his friends outside but also with his comrades in other parts of the prison. His letters to them were full of encouragement and good cheer and solicitude for their welfare.

Three weeks after he was arrested Lenin wrote in a letter from prison: "I have a plan which has been engaging my mind very much ever since I was arrested, and the more I think about it the more keen I become about it. For some time I have been studying a certain economic question (the home market for the manufacturing industry). I have collected a certain amount of literature on the subject, have drawn up a plan of how to treat it, and have even written something on it with the intention of publishing it in book form if it exceeds the length of a magazine article. I should be very loth to drop this work, and now the alternative evidently is: either write it here, or else give it up altogether."

In his letters to his relatives Lenin gave a list of books, magazines and materials that he required for this work. The delivery of these books to the prison was organized by his sister Anna. Lenin read a vast amount of material and copied a large number of excerpts. That is how he began on his brilliant work, The Development of Capitalism in Russia.

In the summer of 1896 Lenin was delighted to learn that the activities of the League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class which he had formed were bearing fruit. In St. Petersburg, 30,000 weavers had gone on strike. As Lenin wrote in 1905, this was "a mass movement which had its beginning in street agitation in which an entire Social-Democratic organization had participated."

On January 29, 1897, sentence was pronounced in the League of Struggle case. Lenin was sentenced to three years' exile in Eastern Siberia.

He and the other prisoners convicted in this case received permission to stay in St. Petersburg for three days before being sent off to Siberia to enable them to settle their private affairs. During these three days he managed to hold a number of conferences with the St. Petersburg Social-Democrats. In his book What Is To Be Done? he related that before leaving for their place of exile, he and several other "old" members of the League "attended a private meeting at which 'old' and 'young' members of the League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class gathered," and that "sharp differences were immediately revealed between the 'old' members ("Decembrists," as the St. Petersburg Social-Democrats jestingly called them) and several of the 'young' members . . . and a very heated discussion ensued."

Contrary to the opinions of the "old" members, the "young" members considered that their fundamental task was to organize "workers' funds" for the assistance of strikers and the promotion of cultural objects. They were opposed to the idea that workers should fight for political liberties and for Socialism, and were also opposed to the formation of an organization of revolutionaries to lead the working class. Instead, the urged that the workers should be organized exclusively on trade union lines. In these arguments Lenin at once discerned the rudiments of what came to be know as "Economism," and gave battle immediately.

On February 17, 1897, Lenin started out on his long journey to his place of exile. Thanks to his mother's petition to the authorities he was allowed to travel privately at his own expense.

On March 4, he arrived in Krasnoyarsk, where he was obliged to wait for two months until his permanent place of exile was decided on. He made excellent us of this time, and worked every day in the well-stocked library of G. V. Yudin, a Krasnoyarsk merchant and book collector, copying the excerpts he required for his book The Development of Capitalism in Russia. Here, too, he worked on his essay "A Contribution to the Characterization of Economic Romanticism," in which he showed that the economic views of the Liberal Narodniks, who dilated on Russia's "own peculiar" paths of development, were in fact the Russian variety of the reactionary and utopian petty-bourgeois views of the Swiss economist Sismondi, who had lived at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Lenin also took advantage of his stay in Krasnoyarsk to visit the Marxists who were in exile there. Disguised as a waggoner carting the prisoners' belongings, he managed to get into the prison and Fedoseyev, who was detained there.

While Lenin was conducting his scientific studies in Yudin's library and carrying on a brisk correspondence with his relatives and friends, excitement prevailed at Police Headquarters. The Yeniseisk Gubernia Inspector of Prisons discovered that the "state offender, V. I. Ulyanov" was not among the newly arrived contingent of exiles, and raised the alarm. Telegraphic enquiries were made all over the country in a search for the missing exile. The Chief Prison Administration, the Department of Police, the Governor of Yeniseisk, the Chief Constable of Krasnoyarsk and the Governor-General of Irkutsk all intervened. At last Lenin was "discovered" in his rooms in the house of Madam Popova, where he had taken lodgings immediately on his arrival in Krasnoyarsk.

Finally, Lenin was ordered to spend his term of exile in the village of Shushenskoye, Minusinsk Okrug, Yeniseisk Guernia, a place over five hundred versts from the railway. He arrived there on May 8 and spent nearly three years there. Describing the place in a letter to his sister, Lenin wrote:

"This is a large village with several streets, rather dirty and dusty—all just as it should be! It stands in the open steppe—there is not a garden, nor any vegetation, anywhere. The village is surrounded . . . with dung, which is not carted away here, but simply dumped just outside the village, so that to leave the place one must always walk over a certain amount of dung."

It was extremely trying to live in exile divorced from direct revolutionary work. "Yes, I envy you," wrote Lenin at the end of 1898 to his sister Maria, who had gone to Belgium. "In the first period of my exile I decided not even to look at a map of European Russia or of Europe, because it was simply painful to unfold them and look at the black dots scattered over them. But this feeling has worn off now, and I can look at the maps more calmly. Sometimes I even begin to speculate about which of these 'dots' it would be interesting to visit later on. During the first half of my term of exile I must have been looking back mostly; but now—forward. Well, qui vivra verra." (He who lives will see.)

Nothing could damp Lenin's good spirits and cheerfulness. In this remote place he engaged in extensive theoretical researches, strictly apportioning the time to be devoted to different literary productions, primarily to the completion of his book The Development of Capitalism in Russia. He re-read the works of Marx and Engels, perused the latest foreign editions of Marxian literature which he was fortunate enough to received, read many other books on different subjects, as well as Russian and foreign newspapers and magazines, perfected his knowledge of foreign languages and made translations. Early in May 1898, N. K. Krupskaya, who had also been arrested and convicted in connection with the League of Struggle case and had received permission to spend her exile with Lenin, arrived in Shushenskoye. Jointly with her, Lenin translated Sidney and Beatrice Webb's History of Trade Unionism.

Lenin was a hard worker, but he was also fond of recreation. He enjoyed taking long walks; he was a keen hunter, an enthusiastic chess player, and loved ice skating. He read over and over again the works of Pushkin, Lermontov, Nektrassov, and the other Russian classics, with which he was very familiar, and of which he was very fond.

He made a close study of the Siberia countryside and of the conditions of the peasantry there. His legal education also stood him in good stead. He soon won the confidence of the peasants and assisted them in defending their rights against the encroachments of the local authorities and of the upper classes.

At that time there was a large number of Social-Democratic exiles in Siberia. In Shushenskoye itself there were only two exiles besides Lenin, but in the Minusinsk Okrug there was a number of persons who were implicated with him in the League case, and other comrades with whom he had conducted revolutionary work in St. Petersburg. Sometimes gatherings and conferences of these comrades were arranged under various plausible pretexts, and these were of a very animated character. Lenin established connections with the exiled Social-Democrats scattered in numerous other lonely places in the Far North and in Siberia.

Notwithstanding the difficulties involved, he succeeded in establishing connections with the Emancipation of Labour Group abroad and with the centres of revolutionary life in Russia, and to receive illegal literature. He himself wrote articles and pamphlets for the illegal press.

One day the gendarmes raided and searched Lenin's lodging, but thanks to the precautions he had taken and his quick resource, nothing of incriminating nature was found.

The correspondence which Lenin conducted with his relatives, with comrades in exile, with the Emancipation of Labour Group and with the Social-Democrats in Russia was rather voluminous and served as an important means of maintaining contacts, receiving information and giving instructions. Only a part of this correspondence has been preserved. In his letters Lenin dealt with a great variety of subjects, such as Marxist philosophy and policy, Party work, new developments in the working-class movement, new books, plans for the future, and so forth.

His correspondence with Lengnik on philosophical questions is of special interest. Lengnik, who in connection with the League of Struggle case was serving a term of exile in the village of Kazachenskoye, Yeniseisk Gubernia, had become infatuated with Kant and Hume. Lenin heard about this, and a lively correspondence between them ensued. Lenin's letters to Lengnik have so far not been found, but Lengnik related that "in his letters in reply to mine, Vladimir Ilyich . . . very politely but firmly expressed his determined opposition to Hume's scepticism and Kant's idealism, and contrasted them with the stimulating philosophy of Marx and Engels. He argued with great heat that there can be no limit to human knowledge, which is bound to make great progress and cast off its idealistic, bourgeois integument as the revolutionary working-class movement grows, and the latter will not only determine the conduct and world outlook of the working class—which is thoroughly clear, stimulating and thrilling in its simplicity and beauty—but will also to a very precise degree determine both the conduct and the world outlook of its class adversaries and compel them to talk in the language of facts and of the barricades, instead of the language of nebulous and transcendental theories and dreams."

Much as he was hampered by the stern conditions of life in exile, Lenin's theoretical and literary activities were prodigious. During the three years he spent in exile he wrote over thirty works, among which were : The Development of Capitalism in Russia, The Tasks of the Russian Social-Democrats, A Contribution to the Characterisation of Economic Romanticism, The Heritage That We Renounce, Capitalism in Agriculture, The Protest of Russian Social-Democrats, and The Draft of a Program for Our Party. In these works he formulated and found solution for the fundamental problems of the working-class movement: he drew up a programme and formulated the tactics of the Party, continued to combat Narodism, attacked the "Legal Marxists" and intensified his campaign against "Economism."

He deemed it to be his primary task while in exile to sum up what had already been accomplished and on this basis to formulate the news tasks that lay ahead. This was all the more urgent for the reason that the First Congress of the Party was shortly to be held.

With this object in view, Lenin, at the end of 1897, wrote his celebrated pamphlet The Tasks of the Russian Social-Democrats, in which he summed up the activities of the St. Petersburg League of Struggle and formulated the theoretical grounds for the political program and tactics of Russian revolutionary Social-Democracy. He pointed to the inseparable connection that existed between the socialist and democratic activities of the Marxist party, explained the attitude of the working class towards the opposition and revolutionary parties in the bourgeois-democratic revolution, pointed to the role of vanguard which the proletariat was to play in this revolution, raised the question of armed insurrection as a means of overthrowing the autocracy, and emphasized the decisive importance of the Marxist theory for the workers' party. It was in this work that Lenin first formulated the dictum that "without a revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement." This pamphlet served as the tactical platform for all the Social-Democrats then operating in Russia.

As a result of his study of the economic life of the country, Lenin already at that time foresaw the crisis that inevitably followed the industrial "boom," and he warned the Russian Social-Democrats of the enormous tasks that confronted them. He wrote:

"Russian Social-Democrats must see to it that when the crash comes the Russian proletariat will be more class-conscious, more united, able to understand the tasks of the Russian working class, capable of putting up resistance against the capitalist class—which is now reaping a rich harvest of profits and which always strives to throw the burden of the losses upon the workers—and capable of taking the leader of Russian democracy in the resolute struggle against the police despotism which fetters the Russian workers and the whole of the Russian people."

He therefore earnestly appealed to all the workers' circles and Social-Democratic groups scattered over Russia to unite in a single Social-Democratic Party.

This pamphlet was published by the Emancipation of Labour Group in Geneva in 1898, but too late for the First Party Congress. Nor was the draft of the Party program, which Lenin had written when he was still in prison, submitted to the congress.

The first two years of his exile Lenin devoted to the completion of one of his most important scientific works, The Development of Capitalism in Russia, which consummated the ideological defeat of Narodism.

With a scientific zeal and thoroughness which would seem impossible under conditions prevailing in prison and exile, Lenin studied the entire literature on the economics of Russia, and strictly verified, critically examined and re-classified the vast material collected by the government and Zemstvo statisticians. At the beginning of August 1898 the rough draft of the manuscript was completed. Lenin then began to policy up the work chapter by chapter, ending each one to the press as it was finished. This historic work was completed on January 30, 1899, and appeared at the end of March under the nom du plume of "Vladimir Ilyin."

In this book Lenin presses his opponents back step by step, inflicting crushing blows upon them, until he accomplishes their utter defeat. First of all he reveals the unsoundness of the theoretical views of the Narodniks on the question of the market and immediately follows this up with a concise and brilliant outline of the Marxist theory of reproduction. He then takes up the main point—peasant husbandry—and proves up the the hilt that capitalism is developing in the peasant communities. Not satisfied with this, he shows how capitalism is penetrating landlord farming, and he traces its development in industry (small peasant handicrafts, manufacture and large-scale machine industry.). The book ends with an outline of the process of formation of a home market in Russia.

The Development of Capitalism in Russia was the culmination of the long years of intense study of Russian economics which Lenin began when he was still in Samara. In 1894, in his book What the Friends of the People Are, he set the Russian Marxists the following theoretical task: To "present a complete picture of our conditions as a definite system of relationships in production, to show that the exploitation and expropriation of the toilers are inevitable under this system, and to point the way out of this system that has been indicated by economic development." Lenin fulfilled this task in his Development of Capitalism in Russia.

This work destroyed the main foundations upon which the pseudo-scientific theories of Narodism were built. In it he proved that "agrarian relations in Russia were developing on capitalist lines in landlord farming as well as in peasant husbandry; in the 'village communities' as well as outside of them. That is the first point. That this development irrevocably determined that there could be no other course of development than the capitalist course, and no other groups of classes than the capitalist grouping. That is the second point. This was the point of the controversy with the Narodniks. This had to be proved. It was proved."

But this is not the only thing that makes this book so important. In it Lenin explained the status and role of the various classes in Russia, particularly of the proletariat and the peasantry, at the end of the nineteenth century.

In his preface to the second edition of the Development of Capitalism in Russia, which he wrote in 1907, Lenin said: "The analysis of the social and economic system, and hence, of the class structure of Russia given in this work on the basis of an economic investigation and a critical analysis of statistical data, is now corroborated by the public plotical actions of all classes in the course of the revolution. The leading role of the proletariat has become fully revealed. And is has also become revealed that its strength in the historical movement is immeasurably greater than the proportion it constitutes of the total population. The economic basis of both these phenomena is shown in the work herewith presented to the reader."

Lenin goes on to say that the revolution had glaringly revealed the dial status and the dual role of the peasantry, i.e., the oscillation of the peasantry between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, and the revolutionary roots that were deeply implanted among the peasantry in the mass. "The economic basis of both these tendencies among the peasantry is shown in the work herewith presented tot he reader," wrote Lenin

This scientific analysis served as the basis of the Bolsheviks' tactics in the revolution of 1905-07.

After finishing this book, Lenin continued to work on separate economic themes. He wrote a long essay entitled "Capitalism in Agriculture," and several book reviews, which were published in the magazines issued by the "Legal Marxists." In the summer of 1899, however, he ceased to contribute to these magazines. Lenin was also busily engaged in combating revisionism, and in drawing up plans for future activities.

During the last year of Lenin's exile important events occurred in the international Social-Democratic movement. Revisionism openly and aggressively entered the arena. At the beginning of 1899, Bernstein's notorious book, The Premises of Socialism, appeared in Germany. In June of that year, the French "Socialist" Millerand entered the bourgeois government.

Although thousands of miles away from the centres of the working-class movement, Lenin closely watched the processes going on within it. He saw that the Bernsteinians in Germany were not being repelled with sufficient energy, and that the opportunists were becoming more active in all countries. He also saw that the Russian "Legal Marxists," who had started with a seemingly slightly "correction" of Marxism, had now utterly distorted it, giving it a bourgeois slant. In his letters from his place of exile he wrote that he was alarmed by the fact that Plekhanov was not coming out strongly in opposition to the revision of the philosophy of Marxism by Bernstein, Struve and others, and urged that it was necessary to break the alliance between the revolutionary and the "Legal" Marxists. "We shall have to declare real and relentless war upon the critics of Marx," he wrote.

The revisionists' sorties against the Marxist philosophy induced Lenin to make a closer study of philosophy. In the summer of 1899, Nadezhda Krupskaya wrote a letter to Lenin's mother in which she said: "Volodya is now intensely reading all sorts of philosophy (this has become his official occupation), Holbach, Helvetius, and so forth. I say in fun that he is becoming so impregnated with this philosophy that it will soon be dangerous to talk to him." Highly exacting towards himself, Lenin was not satisfied with the knowledge he possessed and began to study the literature on philosophy. "I am well aware of the gaps in my philosophical education, and I do not intend to write on the subject until I have filled them," he wrote in June 1899. "This is exactly what I am engaged in now; having started with Holbach and Helvetius, I intend to pass on to Kant."

Lenin waited impatiently for a copy of Bernstein's book. At last it arrived, but before he was half-way through it his indignation knew no bounds. "The more I read, the more I am amazed at its contents," he wrote at the time. "Its theoretical arguments are astonishingly weak; they are a repetition of other people's ideas; talk about criticism, but not even an attempt at serious and independent criticism. Its practical conclusion amount to opportunism (or rather Fabianism: the original of most of Berstein's statements and ideas can be found in the latest books of the Webbs), unadultered opportunism and possibilism, and of the old, cowardly kind, for Berstein dare no openly meddle with the program."

What particularly disturbed Lenin was the news he received about the activities of the "Economists." He had already sharply and emphatically attacked the first symptoms of "Economism" that had appeared in the League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class. Since then "Economism" had grown into a separate, opportunist trend, which was spreading to one local Social-Democratic organization after another.

In March 1898, the First Congress of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party was held in Minsk. The congress announced the formation of the Party, but it failed to unite the scattered Marxist circles and organizations into one body. Amateurish methods prevailed as hitherto, and after the congress ideological confusion continued to spread in the local organizations, thereby creating favourable conditions for the growth of "Economism" in the working-class movement.

No one understood better than Lenin that the "Economists" were the main opportunist group in the Russian working-class movement, and he realized what a danger they might become if a determined and relentless struggle were not waged against them. Consequently, in 1899, when the "Economists" issued their so-called "Credo" (confession of faith, or program) he immediately took steps to rally all forces to give them battle. With this object in view he drafted "The Protest of Russian Social-Democrats" and submitted it for discussion to a conference of Social-Democratic exiles in the Minusinsk Okrug convened on his initiative. The conference adopted this protest. In it Lenin denounced the "Economists" for their desertion of Marxism, for denying that the working class must have its own independent political party, and for attempting to convert the working class into a political appendage of the bourgeoisie. "We are convinced," he wrote, "that every attempt to transplant opportunist views to Russia will encounter an equally stern resistance on the part of the great majority of the Russian Social-Democrats."

The "Protest" called upon the Social-Democrats to concentrate all their efforts on the task of organizing the Party. It was distributed among the Marxist organizations all over Russia, and among the colonies of Marxist political exiles. It played an important part in the struggle against the "Economists," and it served to unite the revolutionary Social-Democrats. It "played an outstanding part in the development of Marxist ideas and of the Marxist party in Russia."

The Russian "Economists" advocated the same views as the opponents of Marxism in the Social-Democratic parties in other countries, i.e., the views of so-called Bersteinism. Hence, in combating the "Economists" Lenin was also combating international opportunism.

As the term of his exile drew to a close, Lenin concentrated his attention more and more on his future revolutionary activities. He drew up a plan for the formation of a revolutionary proletarian party which he outlined in those splendid article: "Our Programme," "Our Immediate Task," and "An Urgent Problem." These articles were intended for publication in Rabochaya Gazeta, which the First Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. had proclaimed as the central organ of the Party. In them he urged that the most important task of the revolutionary Social-Democrats was ruthlessly to combat the so-called "critics" of Marxism and preserve the purity of the revolutionary theory. At the same time, however, he strongly urged that it was necessary to develop the theory of Marxism still further in the light of the practical experience of the working-class movement. In the article "Our Programme," he wrote:

"We do not by any means regard the theory of Marx as something fixed and inviolable. On the contrary, we are convinced that it laid only the cornerstone of the science which Socialist must carry further in all directions if they want to keep pace with life. We think that the Russian Socialists particularly should develop the theory of Marx independently."

To enable the Russian working class to fulfill its historical mission it was necessary, said Lenin, to abandon amateurish methods and build up a revolutionary proletarian party. But at the same time he emphasized that the Russian Marxists must not mechanically take the West European workers' parties as their model, that they must critically analyse the experience of the international and Russian working-class movements and pursue their own independent line in build up their party. In his article "Our Immediate Task," he wrote:

"The history of Socialism and democracy in Western Europe, the history of the Russian revolutionary movement, the experience of our working-class movement—such is the material that we must assimilate in order to devise the suitable form of organization and tactics for our Party. But we must 'work up' this material independently, for we shall not find ready-made patterns anywhere."

Lenin was of the opinion that the most important instrument for rallying the Social-Democrats ideologically and organizationally, the most important instrument for building the Party, was an all-Russian political newspaper. In the above-mentioned article he wrote:

"We think that the most urgent task at the present time is to set to work to solve these problems, and for this purpose our immediate object must be to arrange for the publication of a Party organ which shall appear regularly and be closely connected with all the local groups. We think that all the activities of the Social-Democrats during the entire immediate future should be concentrated on this task."

One of the last of Lenin's literary productions during his period of exile was his "Draft of a Programme of the Emancipation of Labour Group, which was drawn up in 1887, needed substantial alteration and amplification.

In this "Draft of a Programme For Our Party" he emphasized that the main tendency of capitalism was to split each nation into a bourgeoisie and a proletariat. "The growth of poverty, oppression, enslavement, degradation and exploitation,"*** these celebrated words of Marx, said Lenin, should be introduced in the draft programme of the Party particularly at the present time when the Bernsteinians and other "revisionists" and "critics" of Marx are challenging Marx's theory of the growth of poverty. He also proposed that the proletarian class struggle should be more clearly described, it objects explained, and the international character of the working-class movement indicated. The Party's programme should particularly emphasize the political significance of the proletarian class struggle and its immediate object, viz., the winning of political freedom.

He also thought it necessary more clearly to characterize the class nature of Russian absolutism and to show that its forcible overthrow was essential in the interests of social development as a whole. He insisted that the programme should indicate the specific features of the development of capitalism in Russia, and the specific political tasks and methods of fighting which this dictated to the Russian working class. He also formulated the principles of the agrarian programme of the Russian Marxists and propounded the principle that the proletarian party must support the peasantry, which is striving to overthrow the autocracy and to abolish all the survivals of serfdom.

As the term of exile drew to a close Lenin's impatience to get back to the centre of revolutionary activity grew more than ever. In her reminiscences of these last months in Siberia, Nadezhda Krupskaya writes: "Vladimir Ilyich began to spend sleepless nights. He became terribly thin. It was during these nights that he thought out his plan in every detail. . . . The more time went on, the more Vladimir Ilyich was overcome with impatience, the more eager he was to get to work."

At last the hour of release arrived. On January 29, 1900, Lenin left Sushenskoye fully determined to set to work at once to carry out his plan of building a Marxist party and of founding an all-Russian Marxist newspaper. Such a newspaper was eventually published, bearing the title Iskra (The Spark), the first issue of which appeared in December 1900.

Lenin devoted the whole of the year 1900 to the arduous labours connected with the foundation of the newspaper. It had to be published abroad, out of reach of the tsarist police. But first of all it was necessary to establish connections with a number of Social-Democrat in Russia in order to obtain their support and to select agents for Iskra in Russia, arrange their work, and obtain the funds necessary for conducting the newspaper.

The police prohibited Lenin from living in St. Petersburg and Moscow, or in any of the industrial centres. He therefore chose Pskov as his place of residence, so as to be as near as possible to St. Petersburg. On his way to Pskov he passed through Ufa, Moscow and St. Petersburg, where he met and had conversations with local Social-Democrats. On February 26 he arrived in Pskov, which became the centre of activity, the headquarters, of the revolutionary Social-Democrats. Here, in April, a conference was held at which an editorial statement, drafted by Lenin, on the programme of the future newspaper was discussed. Here, too, party workers arrived from different parts of the country to consult with Lenin and to seek his advice. From here he made visits to other cities, such as Riga, Podolsk, Nizhni-Novgorod, Ufa, Kazan and Samara, and everywhere he established connections with and enlisted supporters for his plan of founding an all-Russian political newspaper. On two occasions Lenin secretly went to St. Petersburg. His second visit to that city nearly ended in disaster for the plan to found a newspaper; he was arrested in the street. Relating the incident subsequently, Lenin said: "They gripped both my elbows so that it was quite impossible for me to remove anything from my pockets and throw it away. And in the droshki, too, my captors held both my elbows." He had in his possession a list of his connections abroad, written in invisible ink on the back of an invoice. Happily, the gendarmes took no notice of this paper, and after keeping Lenin in custody for ten days, they released him. Had the detectives discovered this list, the tsarist government would not have allowed Lenin to slip out of its clutches.

The tsarist government regarded Lenin as its most dangerous enemy. Colonel Zubatov, and officer of gendarmes, stated in a confidential report to headquarters, written in 1900, that "at the present time there is nobody bigger than Ulyanov in the revolutionary movement," and he therefore proposed that Lenin should be assassinated at once. "This head must be severed from the revolutionary body," wrote this butcher.

His direct knowledge of the situation in the provinces, of the conflict of opinions and organizational diffusion that prevailed there, convinced Lenin more than ever of the correctness of the methods he had chosen to build up the Party. He learned that several local committees were making attempts to convene a congress immediately for the purpose of forming the Party. This he considered a mistake. He was of the opinion that it was first of all necessary to achieve ideological and organizational unity; that the congress should be not the initial but the culminating act in the process of forming the Party.

Lenin was the actual founder and leader of the Party. The best elements of the working class began to rally around him.

On July 16, 1900, having laid the basis for the newspaper in Russia, Lenin went abroad. This was the beginning of Lenin's first period as a political exile. This period lasted over five years.

IV

On leaving Russia Lenin already had in his mind a definite and well thought out plan of campaign for the building of a Marxist party in Russia. None knew as well as he the state of the movement in the country and its urgent needs and requirements; and none realized as clearly how imperatively necessary it was to build a revolutionary proletarian party in Russia.

This was the period of the dawn of imperialism, and already at that early stage Lenin discerned the processes that were going on in the womb of capitalist society and in the depths of the working-class movement. He was the first to see that a period of revolutionary shocks and upheavals had been ushered in to take the place of the period of "peaceful" organic development of capitalism which had now drawn to a close. Comparing the second half of the nineteenth century with the beginning of the twentieth, he strongly emphasized the profound difference between the two periods. In an article in Iskra he wrote: "Then and now—the age of the last bourgeois revolutionary movements, and the age of desperate reaction, of extreme tension of all forces on the eve of the proletarian revolution—are obviously different."

Already in his earlier works Lenin, with his wonderful perspicacity, foresaw that Russia would be the first to start a series of revolutions in this new historical epoch. He saw that the whole course of history was pushing the Russian working class into the front line positions of the international working-class movement, and that the hub of the revolutionary movement had shifted to Russia. He wrote the following prophetic words:

"History has now confronted us with an immediate task which is more revolutionary than all the immediate tasks that confront the proletariat of any other country. The fulfillment of this task, the destruction of the most powerful bulwark not only of European but also (it may now be said) of Asiatic reaction would place the Russian proletariat in the vanguard of the international revolutionary proletariat."

This conception of the new epoch and of the specific tasks which it imposed upon the working class of Russian served as the basis of Lenin's plan of building the Party.

On arriving at his destination, Lenin energetically set to work to carry out this plan of publishing an all-Russian political newspaper. These efforts resulted in the publication of Iskra (The Spark); but before he succeeded Lenin had to overcome a number of obstacles. One of these led to a sharp conflict with Plekhanov.

In August 1900, Lenin, Potressov, Plekhanov, Axelrod and Zasulich met in Corsier, near Geneva, to discuss Iskra's programme and to make arrangements to publish the paper. The negotiations were extremely heated and the conference almost ended in a complete rupture between Lenin and Plekhanov and the abandonment of the project to start the publication of Iskra immediately. "How the Spark was Nearly Extinguished," is the heading that Lenin gave to his account of the conference.

The prospect of the collapse of his plan to publish a newspaper caused Lenin a great deal of pain. "It was a real drama," he wrote, "the complete abandonment of the thing which for years I had tended like a favourite child, and with which I had inseparably linked up the whole of my life's work."

With great difficulty an agreement was at last reached. It was decided to publish Iskra not in Switzerland, as Plekhanov and Axelrod had proposed, but in Germany. Lenin left for Munich, where the principal editors took up their quarters. In addition to Iskra, arrangements were made for the publication of a scientific and political magazine which was to be called Zarya (The Dawn).

Thanks to Lenin's tireless efforts and to his iron will, which broke down all obstacles in the path to his goal, the all-Russian political newspaper was founded. In October 1900 Lenin drew up and published the "Announcement by the Editors of Iskra" in which he formulated the objects of the newspaper as follows: to forge the ideological and organizational unity of Russian Social-Democracy, to form a party. This object could be achieved, he stated, only by resolutely combating ideological confusion and amateurish methods of organization, by combating the "Economists," the Bernsteinians, and the other opportunists.

"Before we can unite, and in order that we may unite, we must first of all firmly and definitely draw the lines of demarcation," wrote Lenin in this first statement of Iskra's principles.

The first number of the Iskra appeared on December 11, 1900, with a leading article by Lenin, entitled "The Urgent Tasks of Our Movement." In this first article he wrote for Iskra, Lenin formulated the paper's fundamental object in plain and simple language of irresistible power. This object, he explained, was to build up a strong, organized party, for without such a party the working class would not be able to carry out its great historical mission to emancipate itself and the entire people from political and economic slavery.

Iskra was launched in a period when the revolutionary movement was growing all over the country. During the severe economic crisis that prevailed a the beginning of the twentieth century, the working class began to pass from economic strikes to political strikes and demonstration, mustering its forces for the revolutionary struggle against the tsarist autocracy.

In the spring of 1901, political demonstrations took place in many of the larger cities. In 1902, strikes began to be combined with demonstrations. The most outstanding of these strike demonstrations was that in Batum, led by Stalin, and the one Rostov. In 1903 a mighty wave of mass political strikes swept the whole of South Russia—Transcaucasia and the Ukraine. Influenced by the working-class movement, the peasants, too, joined the struggle, and in the spring of 1902, peasant disorders broke out in the Ukraine, in the Volga region and in Georgia, during which many manor houses were wrecked.

The obvious imminence of the revolution in Russia at the beginning of the twentieth century imperatively called for the formation of a united, centralized proletarian party, capable of directing the revolutionary movement and of leading the workers and peasants in the assault against the tsarist regime. But the task of forming such a party was one of immense difficulty. It had to be carried on under the fire of the relentless persecution of the tsarist government. Furthermore, it was necessary to overcome the backwardness; conservatism and narrow political outlook of the local party organizations; and the "Economists," who were doing all in their power to prevent the formation of the Party, had to be rendered innocuous. Describing the situation that prevailed in the Social-Democratic movement at that time, Stalin wrote that "amateurishness and the parochial outlook of the circles were corroding the Party from top to bottom," and "ideological confusion was the characteristic feature of the internal life of the Party."

But Lenin resolutely took up this historical task of forming the Party and carried it to a successful conclusion. In his book, What Is To Be Done? he gives us the following vivid picture of the conditions under which the supporters of Iskra developed their activities at that time:

"We are marching in a compact group along a precipitous and difficult path, firmly holding each other by the hand. We are surrounded on all sides by enemies, and are under their almost constant fire."

Lenin was the initiator and organizer of Iskra, its ideological inspirer and practical leader. Iskra was the true offspring of Lenin. He carefully edited every issue from beginning to end, wrote much of its contents, proposed subjects for articles and found authors for them, kept in touch with correspondents, painstakingly read the proofs, devised methods of smuggling the newspaper into Russia and collected funds for it. He succeeded in getting the paper out regularly, a thing unheard of before under the conditions of illegality which then prevailed in Russia.

Lenin's Iskra was the mode of what a revolutionary Marxist newspaper should be. It was a genuine Bolshevik newspaper, a newspaper of a new type, hitherto unknown in the working-class movement. Iskra prepared the ground for the impending revolution in Russia. Its supporters carried its slogans among the masses of the workers and organized and directed their struggle. Lenin's Iskra was the banner in the fight for the revolutionary theory of Marxism. In its columns Lenin imbued the advanced proletarians with the spirit of devotion to revolutionary principles and cultivated the traditions of implacable hostility to the slightest distortion of Marxism. In its struggle against the numerous enemies of Marxism Iskra was relentless. It is not surprising that Lenin wrote that "the old Iskra earned for itself the honour of being disliked both by the Russian and the West European opportunists."

Hardly an issue of Iskra appeared without an article by Lenin; and he was the author of most of the main articles. There was not a single important question affecting the Party and the working class, or home and foreign politics, that Lenin did not deal with in his articles.

Lenin's articles are classical examples of the art of the revolutionary publicist. Some of them are brilliant political exposures of the tsarist regime, of its policy of piratical conquest and predatory wars abroad, and of the brutal exploitation of the masses and the cruel suppression of every spark of public life at home. Others contain withering criticism of the "Economists," reveal the adventurist character of the policy of the Socialist-Revolutionaries, strike telling blows that the national of the Bund—the Jewish Social-Democratic organization—expose the designs of the police to disrupt the working-class movement from within—the policy known as Zubatovism—and strongly denounce the Liberals. These articles supplied the advanced proletarians and the Party agitators and organizers with plain answers to the questions that perplexed them, and gave them clear instructions what to do, and how to do it.

In this period Lenin devoted all his activities to the one task of establishing the Party. This is the period in which the path the working-class movement in Russian was to pursue was being decided. From this path the main obstacle, "Economism," had to be removed. The question of the relations between the spontaneous working-class movement and socialist ideology, and the questions of the role of consciousness, theory and the Party in the working-class movement, of the character, aims and objects of the Marxist Party, and the ways and means of building up this Party had to be decided.

Iskra No. 4, which came out in May 1901, contained Lenin's celebrated article "Where To Begin?" in which he gave a rough outline of his plan for building up the Marxist Party.

All those who sincerely had the Social-Democratic movement at heart and were seeking a way out of the ideological and organization confusion that prevailed, found in this article an answer to their problems that was brilliant for its simplicity. The starting point, said Lenin, was the all-Russian political newspaper. This newspaper will ensure the ideological defeat of the enemy within the working-class movement and preserve the purity of revolutionary theory; it will establish a uniform conception of the programme, the aims and the tactics of the Party, and of the methods of conducting its practical activities; it will forge the ideological unity of the Party and become a powerful instrument for uniting the local organizations. Around the newspaper will be built up the organization of its supporters, a network of agents and correspondents who will supply it with copy distribute it, and establish contacts with the workers. For, said Lenin, "a newspaper is not only a collective propagandist and a collective agitator, but also a collective organizer." This network of agents, who will be connected with the paper and with each other, will serve as the skeleton of the Party. Instead of being scattered and isolated, the local organizations will be united and cemented by common Party work. In this way the organizational unity of the Party will be achieved.

This article created a profound impression on the Social-Democratic workers. One St. Petersburg worker wrote in a letter to Iskra: "Last Sunday I collected eleven men and read 'Where To Begin?' to them and we did not disperse until late at night. Everything it says is true, and it covers every point."

Lenin said that this article, "Where To Begin?" was only a rough outline of his plan, which he was elaborating in greater detail in a pamphlet that he was preparing for the press. But being wholly engrossed in editorial and organizational work, he was able to start work on this pamphlet only in the autumn of 1901. It appeared in March 1902. This was Lenin's brilliant work, What Is To Be Done?

In this pamphlet Lenin showed that "Economism" meant yielding to spontaneity in the working-class movement and belittling the function of socialist consciousness in the working-class movement, of the role of the vanguard of the working class, of its Party. The socialist ideology, he wrote, cannot spring spontaneously from the movement, as the "Economists" asserted; it can only be the outgrowth of science. By denying that it was necessary to imbue the working class with socialist consciousness, the "Economists" were leaving a clear field for bourgeois ideology. Yielding to spontaneity meant repudiating the function of the Party as the vanguard of the proletariat, and any repudiation or belittling of the role of the Party meant allowing bourgeois ideology to gain a stronger hold on the workers. It was therefore necessary to wage a continuous, systematic and persistent struggle to prevent the penetration of bourgeois influences into the ranks of the working class and to imbue the working-class movement with socialist consciousness.

Lenin then goes on to state that belittling the function of consciousness meant belittling the importance of theory in the eyes of the Party. And this, in its turn, meant depriving the Party of a most important and indispensable weapon for the achievement of victory. "Without a revolutionary theory," wrote Lenin, "there can be no revolutionary movement . . . the role of the vanguard can be fulfilled only by a Party that is guided by an advanced theory."

Lenin showed that the "Economists'" "theory" of spontaneity led to a "khvostist" policy in politics. By urging that the working-class movement should be allowed to develop spontaneously, the "Economists" were condemning the Party always to drag at the tail of the movement, were reducing the Party to a passive force, which meant practically its annihilation, thus leaving the working class leaderless and surrendering it, bound hand and foot, to its worst enemies, tsarism and the bourgeoisie.

The opportunist efforts of the "Economists" to adapt themselves to the prevailing conditions evoked Lenin's withering scorn. Marxism, he said, taught the very opposite: it taught that conditions must be changed by revolutionary means, that the Party must play a decisive role in the struggle of the working class, and that deliberate and well-panned tactics, and the initiative and energy of the class-conscious workers, were factors of enormous importance in this struggle.

By belittling the political aims of the Party and the working class, the "Economists" were discouraging the proletariat from entering the political struggle against tsarism, and confining it to the "economic struggle against the employers and the government," thereby dooming the workers to perpetual slavery. But, said Lenin, the workers do not want to fight only for slight improvements in their conditions under the capitalist system; they are out to destroy the capitalist system and exploitation. The fight against capitalism, however, was being hindered by the tsarist regime which blocked the road of the working-class movement. Consequently, the working class must first remove tsarism from its path and thus clear the field for the fight for Socialism. Hence, the working class must take the leader in the struggle against tsarism.

Furthermore, he showed that because the "Economists" worshipped spontaneity and belittled the function of the Party and the political aims of the proletariat, they naturally belittled the organizational tasks of the working-class movement. They wished to perpetuate amateurish methods, the pursuit of paltry practical politics, the lack of cohesion among the local organization. But if the working class is to fulfill its historical mission, said Lenin, it must have a revolutionary organization, a party.

According to Lenin's plan, the Party was to consist of two parts—a close circle of cadres of leading Party workers, chiefly professional revolutionaries, and a broad network of local Party organizations, with a large membership enjoying the sympathy and support of hundreds and thousands of working people.

If the policy advocated by the "Economists" were accepted, argued, Lenin, the result would be the formation not of a revolutionary party which would lead the working class in the assault against capitalism, but a "social reform" party, which would help to perpetuate the rule of the capitalists. Hence, the "Economists" were reformists who betrayed the fundamental interests of the proletariat.

The appearance of "Economism" in Russia was not accidental, said Lenin, and the "Economists" served as vehicles of bourgeois influence over the working class. They represented the Russian variety of international opportunism which was opposed to Marxism, to the revolution, to Socialism and to the dictatorship of the proletariat.

The influence of Lenin's book, What Is To Be Done? was enormous. For example, one of Iskra's agents wrote:

"Everywhere I made headway with the aid of Lenin's plough, which is the best and most productive implement for tilling the soil. It serves splendidly to strip off the crust of routine, to break up the soil, which promises rich ears of wheat. Wherever it meets tares sown by Rabocheye Dyelo (the organ of the "Economists") it destroys them down to the very root."

The St. Petersburg Committee issued a statement to the effect that it associated itself with Iskra, and went on to say that it had "become convinced that it was necessary—to use the expression employed by the author of What Is To Be Done?—to finish the liquidation of the period of amateurishness, the period of local incohesion, organizational chaos and disagreements over the programme." The Moscow Committee passed a vote of thanks to the author of What Is To Be Done? The Tula Committee stated that it was only after the appearance of Lenin's book that "the committee and the more class-conscious workers understood the actual position and aims of Iskra." The Siberian League wrote: "Lenin's book What Is To Be Done? is producing a powerful impression upon the active Social-Democrats here and is the culmination of the triumph of Iskra's views on questions of organization and tactics." In its report to the Second Congress of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party, the Iskra organization characterized the influence exercised by Lenin's book as follows: "Meanwhile, What Is To Be Done? is exercising a powerful influence on the people active in Russian and a number of them, on their own confession, are becoming supporters of Iskra, thanks to the influence of this book." The ideological defeat of "Economism" was complete. As the History of the C.P.S.U.(B.) says:

"The historic significance of this celebrated book lies in the fact that in it Lenin:

1. For the first time in the history of Marxist thought, laid bare the ideological roots of opportunism, showing that they primarily consisted in worshipping the spontaneous working-class movement and belittling the role of Socialist consciousness in the working-class movement;
2. Brought out the great importance of theory, of consciousness, and of the Party as a revolutionizing and guiding force of the spontaneous working-class movement;
3. Brilliantly substantiated the fundamental Marxist thesis that a Marxist party is a union of the working-class movement with Socialism;
4. Gave a brilliant exposition of the ideological foundations of a Marxist party."

With great care patience and perseverance Lenin chose and trained the leading cadres of the Party and reared a force of professional revolutionaries who devoted their whole lives to the revolution. He urged all the supporters of Iskra to concentrate all their efforts, resources and attention on Iskra as a general party undertaking. He taught them never to neglect small things in their work, for out of small things big things are built.

The distribution of Iskra in Russia under the stern police regime that prevailed was a very intricate and difficult task. The work of smuggling the paper across the frontier and of distributing it in Russia was performed by experienced and devoted agents who rant the risk, if they were caught, of being sentenced to exile, imprisonment or penal servitude. Nor were their activities confined to distributing Iskra; their function was also to unite the local communities around the paper.

Lenin attached the greatest importance to the activities of the Iskra agents, and he personally directed and organized their work. He, too, supervized the building up of the Iskra organization in Russia.

All Iskra's correspondence with the agents and the organizations in Russia was conducted by Lenin himself. In this he was ably assisted by Nadezhda Krupskaya, who had joined Lenin abroad in the spring of 1901 and had been appointed secretary of the paper. In her reminiscences, Nadezhda Krupskaya writes: "We had a detailed knowledge of what every Iskra agent was doing, and discussed all their work with them. When connections between them broke down we put them in contact with one another again, informed them of cases of arrest, and so forth."

Lenin maintained communication with the St. Petersburg, Moscow, Baku, Samara, Kharkov, Nizhni-Novgorod, Odessa, Kiev, Orekovo-Zuyevo and a number of other organizations.

Already in that period he established firm connections with the Transcaucasian Iskra organization which had been formed by Stalin. Stalin wholeheartedly took his stand on the side of Iskra from the moment the paper began to appear and he regarded Lenin as the leader and founder of the Party. In his famous tribute to Lenin, Stalin states:

"My knowledge of Lenin's revolutionary activities since the end of the 'nineties, and especially after 1901, after the appearance of Iskra, had convinced me that in Lenin we had a man of extraordinary calibre. At that time I did not regard him as a mere leader of the Party, but as its actual founder, for he alone understood the inner essence and urgent needs of our Party. When I compared him with the other leaders of our Party, it always seemed to me that he was head and shoulders above his colleagues—Plekhanov, Martov, Axelrod and the others; that, compared with them, Lenin was not just one of the leaders, but a leader of the highest rank, a mountain eagle, who knew no fear in the struggle, and who boldly led the Party forward along the unexplored paths of the Russian revolutionary movement."

Stalin at once became extremely active in carrying out the tasks that Iskra set before the Russian Marxists. He, in conjunction with Ketskhoveli, arranged for the printing of some of the issues of Iskra at a secret printing plant in Baku from stereotypes smuggled in from abroad. The newspaper Brdzola (The Struggle), founded in Baku by Stalin and Ketskhoveli, was the best organ of the followers of Iskra published in Russia. It proved to be a very important factor in bringing about the defeat of the "Economists" and nationalists in Transcaucasia; it was a powerful medium for the propagation of Marx's revolutionary theory and an effective instrument for rallying the Transcaucasian Marxists around Lenin and Lenin's Iskra.

Lenin exerted every effort to maintain continuous and regular communication with the Iskra organizations in Russia and followed their activities with the closest attention. Often he was kept awake at night by anxiety caused by the receipt of news of the arrest of one of his adherents, of a raid on a committee, the interception of a consignment of literature, or the interruption of communications with some organization which had been established with so much difficulty. He closely questioned comrades who came to visit him from Russia, and nobody could obtain from the answers to his questions a more vivid picture of the state of affairs in their particular localities and of the activities of the local organizations.

Lenin directed all the activities of the Iskra-ites, and every step they took in the struggle against the "Economists." He devoted special attention to the struggle waged by the Iskra-ites in St. Petersburg and Moscow. To St. Petersburg, where "Economist" activities had revived at the end of 1902, he sent that outstanding Party worker, I. Babushkin; and to Moscow he sent N. Bauman, one of the principal Iskra agents.

Lenin's letters were a model of concrete leadership. His well-known letter to the St. Petersburg organization, which bore the leading: "A Letter to a Comrade On Our Organizational Tasks" (1902) was printed and widely distributed among the Social-Democratic organizations and served as a practical programme for the reorganization of the Party's entire activities on Iskra lines. Actually, this letter was a rough outline of the Party rules. In it Lenin called upon the followers of Iskra to transform every factory into a stronghold of the workers' party.

The advice and instructions that Lenin gave were based on his close investigation of the situation in the various localities and on his profound knowledge of the Party cadres. Although forced to live abroad, nobody knew the situation in the Party, in the working class, and in Russia generally, as well as he. In his reminiscences of Lenin, Stalin says:

"Very few of those who remained in Russia were as closely associated with Russian affairs and with the working-class movement in the country as Lenin was, although he spent a long time abroad. Whenever I visited him abroad—in 1907, 1908 and 1912—I saw heaps of letters he had received from militants in Russia. Lenin always knew more than those who stayed in Russia."

But Lenin found it very trying to live abroad, cut off from direct intercourse with the working class and the masses of the people. As Stalin says, "He always regarded his stay abroad as a burden." He always tried to maintain direct communication with the workers and urged them to write to him direct about themselves, about their lives, and about Party affairs; and asked for their opinions about his writings. In a letter to the Moscow Committee, which had expressed its solidarity with the author of What Is To Be Done?, he wrote:

"This is all the more precious for an author working underground, because he is compelled to work in an unusual state of isolation from his readers. Every exchange of opinion, every communication relating the impression any of his articles of pamphlets makes upon the various strata of readers is of exceptional importance for us, and we shall be very grateful if we receive correspondence not only about affairs in the narrow sense of the term, not only for publication, but also such as will enable the author to feel that he is not cut off from his readers."

Lenin lived in Munich for 18 months. This was the most fruitful period of his literary activities during the three years that Iskra was in existence. Here he wrote most of his articles for Iskra, and works such as "The Persecutors of the Zemstvo and the Hannibals of Liberalism," "The Agrarian Problem and the 'Critics' of Marx" and "The Agrarian Programme of the Russian Social-Democrats"; and here he did a vast amount of work on the programme of the Party and wrote the epoch-making book What Is To Be Done?

It was in this period that Vladimir Ilyich began to sign some of his writings as Lenin. Over this signature he published in Zarya in December the first part of his article, "The Agrarian Problem and the 'Critics' of Marx," and his book, What Is To Be Done?, which was published in the spring of 19092. The name Lenin became the standard around which rallied the fighters for the emancipation of the whole of toiling humanity.

At the beginning of 1902 both the German and the tsarist secret police obtained clues of the whereabouts of Iskra's headquarters and it became impossible to stay in Germany any longer. The question arose, however, as to where Iskra should be transferred. Plekhanov and Axelrod were in favour of Geneva; Lenin preferred London. Relations between the members of the editorial board became more and more strained.

Practically all the time Lenin had to combat the opportunist waverings of the other members of the board. He found himself in conflict with Plekhanov at the time the board was still in process of formation. In the summer of 1901 disagreements arose over Lenin's article, "The Persecutors of the Zemstvo and the Hannibals of Liberalism." As was the case at their first meeting in 1895, serious differences between Lenin and Plekhanov were revealed on a fundamental question of tactics, namely, the attitude to be adopted towards the Liberal bourgeoisie. In this article Lenin attacked the Liberals very strongly and criticized their political flabbiness and cowardice. Plekhanov, backed by the other members of the Emancipation of Labour Group, was opposed to this method of handling the Liberals and urged that they should not now be "rubbed the wrong way." This article appeared in Zarya in December 1901. In January 1902 still more serious disagreements arose over the question of the Party programme, which Lenin was the first to bring before the editorial board of Iskra. As early as July 1901 he had written to Axelrod:

"We have received news from Russia to the effect that talk about a congress has become more persistent. This compels us more than ever to think about the programme. It is extremely necessary to publish a draft programme, and this would be of enormous significance."

Lenin began working on the Party programme when the League of Struggle was still in existence, and he worked on it when in prison and in exile in Siberia. The most important articles on the programme published in Iskra were written by him. The work he did served as the foundation upon which the Party programme was built. But being entirely absorbed in matters of organization and in the work of editing Iskra, he could not undertake the task of actually drafting the programme. This was done by Plekhanov.

But Plekhanov's draft was extremely unsatisfactory and Lenin subjected it to severe criticism. The main points of his indictment against it were that it was more in the nature of a textbook on capitalism in general than a programme which declared war on Russian capitalism. Its description of the ruin and elimination of millions of small producers by large-scale capitalist production was extremely vague and diffuse. The most important and fundamental idea of Marxism, namely, the dictatorship of the proletariat, was omitted. It did not emphasize the leading role played by the working class and the proletarian character of the Party. In fact it drew scarcely any distinction at all between the working class and the masses of the working people generally, they were all lumped together as "toilers." Lenin wrote "An Opinion On Plekhanov's Second Draft" in which he pointed out that in Plekhanov's draft 'in place of the dictatorship of the proletariat' we have 'a revolution to be carried out by the proletariat backed by the other sections of the population which suffer capitalist exploitation,' and even in place of the proletarian class struggle we have 'the struggle of the toilers and the exploited masses.'"

The serious disagreements that arose on the editorial board of Iskra in the course of drawing up the draft of the programme almost led to a complete rupture between Lenin and Plekhanov. Nevertheless, Lenin secured the inclusion in the draft of a point on the dictatorship of the proletariat, and a distinct reference to the leading role of the working class in the revolution. He also secured the precise definition of the role of the Party in the working-class movement as its vanguard and leader. Thanks to Lenin, the Iskra programme when finally drafted was a revolutionary programme of a working-class party, differing very much from the semi-opportunist programmes of the parties affiliated to the Second International.

Just when the controversy over the Party programme was at its height, it was decided to transfer to headquarters of Iskra to London. At the beginning of April 1902 the editorial board met in Zurich for the final discussion of the draft programme; Lenin was not present at this conference, for on March 30 he left Munich for London.

While in London, Lenin made a close study of this citadel of modern capitalism. He familiarized himself with the English working-class movement, studied the life, conditions and mentality of the workers, visited the working-class districts and went to workers' meetings. He spent whole days in the British Museum, where Marx had worked when writing his epoch-making book, Capital.

During the first few months in London the disagreements on the editorial board of Iskra became more acute than ever and took up a great deal of Lenin's time and energy. This time it was not Plekhanov's draft programme that was the cause of the controversy, but Lenin's article "The Agrarian Programme of Russian Social-Democracy."

Lenin was the first Marxist who, on the basis of the principles laid down by Marx and Engels, drew up and formulated the theoretical grounds for the policy of the proletariat towards the peasantry. As early as the 'nineties, Lenin had propounded the idea of a revolutionary alliance between the workers and peasants as the principal means of overthrowing tsarism, the landlords and the bourgeoisie. Now, too, while abroad, he devoted considerable attention to the task of formulating the Party's theoretical grounds and practical policy on the peasant question. With his characteristic thoroughness and conscientiousness he studied the important literature of all countries dealing with the agrarian question.

Lenin was the author of the Iskra group's agrarian programme. In April 1901, his article, "The Workers' Party and the Peasantry," appeared in Iskra. They keynote of this article was that the proletariat must be in the van of the struggle for freedom and win over to its side the peasantry. Two social wars were going on in the rural districts, he said; one—a war between the rural workers and the rural bourgeoisie; and the other—a war between the entire peasantry and the landlord class. The class struggle must be fomented in the rural districts, he urged, and the peasants must be roused to sweep away the survivals of serfdom. As a means to this end, the demand should be issued for the formation of Peasant Committees and for the restitution to the peasants of the lands enclosed (or "cut off," hence the Russian term "otrezki") by the landlords at the time of the emancipation of the serfs. These ideas served as the basis of the agrarian section of Iskra's draft programme.

Lenin attached very great importance to the work of popularizing the Marxist programme among the masses of the peasants. In the spring of 1903 he wrote a pamphlet entitled To the Rural Poor, in which he explained the Party's programme in terms so plain and simple that it could be easily understood by the vast uneducated masses of the peasants.

It was Lenin's formulation of the principles underlying the agrarian programme that gave rise to the acute controversy on the editorial board of Iskra. Lenin finished his article, "The Agrarian Programme of Russian Social-Democracy," in March 1902. It is a classical commentary on the agrarian programme of the Party, and a brilliant formulation of the theoretical grounds of the Bolshevik policy towards the peasantry. In it he pointed out that if the peasant revolution should grow the peasants ought not to limit themselves to the demand for the restitution of the "oztrezki," but should seize the land from the landlords and demand the nationalization of all the land.

Plekhanov, backed by the other members of the Emancipation of Labour Group, opposed the ideas formulated in this article, especially Lenin's demand for the nationalization of the land. The disagreements between Lenin and Plekhanov were so sharp that a split in the editorial board of Iskra seemed inevitable, but at that time it did not reach the point of an open rupture.

While in London, Lenin, in addition to the work of editing Iskra, was obliged to devote a great deal of time to the practical preparations for the Second Congress of the Party. These preparations were carried on in an atmosphere of acute ideological conflict.

Meanwhile, the political situation in Russia became strained. All classes were preparing for the revolution that was maturing. At the beginning of 1902 the petty-bourgeois Socialist-Revolutionary Party was formed. The same year saw the organization of the Emancipation Group, the core of the future Constitutional-Democratic Party, the leading party of the Russian bourgeoisie. Iskra, edited by Lenin, was serving as an effective instrument for the organization of the working-class party in Russia. In the summer of 1902, Lenin wrote that "the struggle which in the first half of the nineties of the last century was a struggle between small circles of young revolutionaries, is now being resumed in the form of a decisive struggle among mature political trends and real political parties." The classes were forging their ideological and political weapons for the impending revolutionary battles.

Lenin's intense and tireless activities in building up the Party, and his determined and consistent struggle against the "Economists" bore fruit. "Economism" was ideologically defeated. In the summer of 1902 the period of "confusion, disintegration and vacillation" drew to a close. Committee after committee expressed its agreement with Iskra's programme, tactics and plan of organization. Its victory was beyond doubt.

Lenin urged that it was now opportune and necessary to convene a Party congress. This congress was to consolidate the results of the activities which Iskra had been carrying on for nearly three years and crown them with victory by officially proclaiming the formation of the Party. For it Lenin prepared with the utmost care and circumspection. Practically all the work of the editorial board of Iskra in connection with the preparations for the Second Congress lay on his shoulders. Under his direction an Organization Committee for Convening the Second Congress was formed. In his letters to the Iskra organizations and agents in Russia he prepared them for the forthcoming battles at the congress and urged them to send the most reliable, tried and staunch delegates.

In April 1903, Lenin left London for Geneva, where Iskra was henceforth to be printed. Here, before the congress, he wrote two article. The first, entitled "A Reply to the Criticism of Our Draft Programme," was a vindication of Iskra's agrarian programme. The second, entitled "The National Question In Our Programme," formulated the theoretical grounds for the slogan: right of nations to self-determination. Here, too, in addition to his work of editing Iskra, Lenin was busily engaged with the preparations for the Second Congress. He carefully studied all the questions connected with the congress, he drafted the Party rules, and drew up the standing orders, the agenda and the resolutions on a number of questions that were to come before the congress.

Delegates began to arrive in Geneva a month or two before the congress. Lenin took advantage of this to arrange frequent and intimate talks with the delegates, and he impressed everyone by his unassuming and modest demeanour. He questioned the delegates about the state of affairs in the districts from which they came and discussed with them many of the questions that were to come up at the congress. In this way he was able, before the congress opened, to ascertain the political position of every delegate, and he clearly foresaw how each of them would behave at the congress.

The Second Congress of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party was opened on July 17, 1903. At first, it sat in Brussels, but owning to the difficulties created by the Belgian police it was transferred to London. From the very first day a fierce conflict raged between the revolutionary and the opportunist elements, which lasted throughout the proceedings. Hot battles were fought on every question, even of minor importance.

Lenin exerted every effort to ensure the victory of the Iskra trend. He was elected a member of the Bureau of the Congress and of its principal committees, such as the Programme, Rules and Credentials Committees. He kept a comprehensive diary of the proceedings, and spoke on nearly all the questions on the agenda. Throughout the congress, which lasted over three weeks, he spoke about a hundred and twenty times in making reports, statements, interpolations, etc.

Backed by the staunch supporters of the Iskra line, Lenin put up a strenuous fight for the ideological, tactical and organizational principles of Iskra in opposition to the opportunists of all shades and brands. He fought determinedly for the Party programme, for the dictatorship of the proletariat, for support for the peasants' demands, and for the right of nations to self-determination. As a result of these efforts, the opportunists were routed. Iskra's revolutionary programme triumphed; it was endorsed by the congress.

Lenin was stern and implacable in his fight for the revolutionary Marxist Party. In his speeches he vigorously opposed the attempt to form a hetereogeneous and diffuse party instead of a compact, militant and definitely organized party. He combated the tendency revealed by a section of the delegates to place the interests of the separate circles above the interests of the Party, and strenuously opposed the attempts to divide the Party membership according to nationality and to reject the uniform class organization of the working class on a territorial basis.

As the congress proceeded the atmosphere became more tense, and it became evident that even among the followers of Iskra there were vacillating and inert elements. This was revealed most clearly during the debate on the Party rules, around which a heated controversy raged. The sharpest disagreements were revealed during the debate on the formulation of Rule 1 which defined the qualifications for membership of the Party.

The opportunists and the inert elements felt very uncomfortable in this tense atmosphere. In a footnote in his book One Step Forward, Two Steps Back, Lenin wrote: "I cannot help recalling a conversation I had at the congress with a delegate who belonged to the 'Centre.' 'How strained the atmosphere is at this congress!'—he complained. 'This fierce conflict, this agitation against one another, these sharp polemics, these uncomradely relations! . . .' 'What a splendid congress this is!'—I replied. 'A free and open struggle. Opinions are expressed. Shades of opinion become defined. Groups take shape. Hands are raised. A decision is adopted. A stage is passed. Forward!—that's what I like. That's life. It is not the endless, nauseating, intellectual word-spinning, which stops not because people have settled a question, but simply because they are tired of talked. . . .' The comrade from the 'Centre' looked at me with eyes wide open with astonishment and shrugged his shoulders. We were speaking in different tongues."

The report on the rules was made by Lenin. The draft that he submitted contained a clear formulation of the principles of organization of a militant, centralized and disciplined party of the proletariat. His formulation of Rule 1 was that membership of the Party was open to all those who accepted the Party programme, rendered the Party financial assistance, and belonged to one of the Party organizations. This formula conceived the Party as a firmly-welded organized body. It safeguarded its proletarian character and ensured strict discipline in its ranks. Its aim was to stimulate the activity, discipline and class-consciousness of every Party member, to safeguard the purity of the Party and to hinder the penetration of non-proletarian elements into its ranks. "Our task," said Lenin at the congress, "is to preserve the steadfastness, consistency and purity of our Party. We must strive to elevate the title of Party member to an ever higher plane."

Lenin wanted to build a party the internal life of which would be entirely different from the internal life of the workers' parties in Western Europe, in which revolutionaries and opportunists lived peacefully side by side, and where opportunist practices were becoming rife. The spearhead of Rule 1, as formulated by Lenin, was directed against the opportunists. Martov, backed by Axelrod, Zasulich, Trotsky and the vacillating followers of Iskra, i.e., the whole of the avowedly opportunist section of the congress, opposed Lenin's line. Martov's formulation of Rule 1 provided for the acceptance of the programme and the rendering of financial support to the Party, but it did not make membership of a definite Party organization obligatory, it left this to the member's discretion. This interpretation of Party membership conceived the Party as a diffuse and amorphous mass, of which anybody could consider himself a member and in which the members were not bound by Party discipline. This formula threw the door of the Party wide open to unstable, non-proletarian elements. The opportunists succeeded in carrying Martov's formulation of Rule 1 by a small majority.

The opportunists were triumphant and already dreamed of complete victory at the congress, but danger spurred Lenin on to redouble his efforts. Against the opportunists "we were compelled," Lenin related after the congress, "to load our weapons with a double charge."

Particularly stern and implacable were the conflicts that raged during the last sessions of the congress, at which the various central bodies of the Party were elected. Lenin had kept the question of the composition of the Party's central bodies well before him all through the congress proceedings, and he was determined that the Central Committee should consist of staunch and consistent revolutionaries.

The opportunists resorted to the meanest tricks in their opposition to Lenin, and Martov's speech consisted of a series of slanderous statements against him. The speech in which Lenin replied was one of the most powerful he delivered at the congress. In the course of it he said:

"I am not scared in the least by those frightful words 'state of siege in the Party,' 'exceptional laws against individuals and groups,' and so forth. We not only have a right, but it is our duty to establish a 'state of siege' for wavering and unstable elements; and our Party rules, the centralism that this congress has introduced from now onwards, is nothing more or less than a 'state of siege' for these numerous sources of political diffusion. Against diffusion special, even exceptional laws must be applied; and the step the congress has taken is in the right political direction, for it establishes a good basis for such laws and such measures."

Lenin's firm determination, his strict adherence to principle and his exposure and denunciation of the opportunists rallied the revolutionary elements and, in the end, victory was gained by the staunch followers of Iskra and of Lenin. In the election of the editorial of the Central Organ of the Party and of the Central Committee, the majority voted for Lenin's ticket.

As a result of obtaining this majority (bolshinstvo) Lenin's supporters began to be called Bolsheviks; and Lenin's opponents, who were in the minority (menshinstvo), began to be called Mensheviks.

After the congress the conflict within the Party became still more intense. The Mensheviks did all in their power to frustrate the decisions of the Second Congress and to capture the Party centres. It became evident to Lenin that the place in the Party of the old, defeated opportunists, the "Economists," was being taken by a new brand of opportunists, the Mensheviks. He realized that a stern struggle would have to be waged against them and that it was necessary to do at once what he did not succeed in doing entirely at the congress, namely, to expose and isolate the Mensheviks.

After the Second Congress the situation became tense in Russian Marxist circles abroad. Lenin had to contend not only against the Mensheviks, but also against all sorts of conciliatory elements who had capitulated before the uncurbed disruptive activities of the Mensheviks. At the Second Congress of the League of Russian Social-Democrats abroad, held in October 1903, the Mensheviks (Martov, Trotsky, Axelrod and others) secured a majority and made a series of most vile and slanderous statements against Lenin. They converted the League into an instrument of their anti-Party machinations and refused to submit to the decisions of the Second Congress of the Party. The Bolsheviks, headed by Lenin, withdrew from the League Congress, and the representative of the Central Committee declared the continuation of the congress a violation of the rules.

The conflict between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks grew in intensity. This struggle called for firmness and inflexibility. Lenin possessed these qualities to the full: but this was not the case with the second editor of Iskra, Plekhanov, who, burdened with previous opportunist mistakes, was drifting towards the Mensheviks.

In the evening of October 18, the day on which the Congress of the League of Russian Social-Democrats Abroad closed, a conversation took place between the two editors which marked a turning point in the post-congress conflict. Plekhanov, who had supported Lenin at the Second Congress, now turned towards the Mensheviks. He said that he could not "shoot at his own side" and demanded that all the old Menshevik editors, whom the congress had rejected, should be reinstated on the editorial board of Iskra, threatening to resign if this were not conceded. Lenin could not possibly agree to such a gross violation of the congress decisions or take responsibility for such a false step. He decided to resign from the editorial board of Iskra, to strengthen his position in the Central Committee, and there conduct his operations against the opportunists. Plekhanov, on his own accord, co-opted all four Mensheviks (Martov, Axelrod, Zasulich and Potressov) to the editorial board, No. 52, and all subsequent issues of Iskra, were produced without Lenin's participation. In place of the old, Leninist, Bolshevik Iskra, a new, Menshevik Iskra appeared.

For more than twelve months Lenin was bereft of so powerful an instrument as a newspaper with which to maintain contact and intercourse with and influence the Party and the masses. His chief means of intercourse with the Party organizations and of directing their activities was personal correspondence. He wrote on the average no less than three hundred letters a month, a colossal figure considering the conditions prevailing at that time. With the aid of his letters Lenin infused in the Bolsheviks his own tireless energy in the struggle, his detestation of the disrupters of the Party, and his confidence in ultimate victory. He himself learned a great deal from the letters he received from the Party workers in different parts of Russia. From them he obtained information about the situation in the various localities and about the temper of the Party members and of the workers, and this imbued him with fresh strength for the struggle.

Lenin was deeply impressed by a letter he received through friends from Stalin. Stalin wholeheartedly supported Lenin, who he regarded as the founder and leader of the Party. Lenin sent a reply to this letter, which Stalin received in his remote place of exile in Siberia. Concerning this reply Stalin says in his reminiscences of Lenin:

"Lenin's note was comparatively short, but it contained a bold and fearless criticism of the practical work of our Party, and a remarkably clear and concise account of the entire plan of work of the Party in the immediate future. Only Lenin could write of the most intricate things so simply and clearly, so concisely and boldly that every sentence did not so much speak as ring like a rifle shot. This simple and bold letter strengthened my opinion that Lenin was the mountain eagle of our Party."

Thus, in the Party's darkest days, the two greatest men of our times—Lenin and Stalin—made their acquaintance, for the time being by correspondence.

After capturing Iskra the Mensheviks launched a scurrilous campaign against Lenin and the Bolsheviks. Later, the Party Council too practically became a tool of the Mensheviks; and conciliatory moods began to assert themselves more strongly in the Central Committee. The disruptive activities of the Mensheviks, their blatant propaganda of organizational laxity, their undermining of the Party spirit and Party discipline, their glorification of the individualism characteristic of intellectuals, and their justification of anarchistic contempt for discipline, imperilled the very existence of the Party.

The Mensheviks had to be fought all along the line. Their opportunism on questions of organization had to be exposed and a full and comprehensive exposition of the theoretical basis of the organizational principles of Bolshevism had to be given. This could not be done adequately by means of the letters which Lenin sent to the committees and practical workers in Russia after the Second Congress. And so, in January 1904, he started to write his historic work, One Step Forward, Two Steps Back, which appeared on May 6, 1904.

In this book Lenin makes a skilful analysis of the conflict at the second Congress and after it. Step by step he traces the course of the debates and the voting on each question. He shows that the conflict at the Second Congress was a conflict of principles, a conflict between two trends—revolutionary and opportunist—a conflict between proletarian revolutionaries and petty-bourgeois reformists.

He brings out very sharply the main features of the Mensheviks' opportunism on questions of organization, namely, hostility towards centralism, aversion for discipline, defence of obsolete methods of organization, readiness to give free access in the workers' party to petty-bourgeois, opportunist elements, and, finally, repudiation of organization as an extremely important factor in the struggle of the working class for the socialist revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat.

In this book he forged the organizational weapon of the proletariat and worked out the organizational principles of the Marxist Party. The main outline of what a proletarian party should be was drawn by Marx and Angels, and on this basis Lenin formulated the integral and finished doctrine that the Party of the working class must be a centralized and disciplined revolutionary party.

The Marxist Party, said Lenin, is part of the working class, its foremost, class-conscious unit, armed with a knowledge of the laws of social development and of the laws of the class struggle and, hence, capable of leading the working class and of directing its struggle.

At the same time, however, the Party is an organized unit with its own discipline, which is bind on all its members. Only a party that is organized as a single unit, that is weld together by a common will, by united action and discipline can guide the struggle of the working class and direct it towards the common goal.

The Party is the highest of all forms of organization of the working class because it is armed with an advanced theory and with the experience of the revolutionary movement; and its mission is to guide all the other organizations of the working class.

The Party is the embodiment of the connection between the vanguard the Party may be, and however well it may be organized, it cannot exist and develop unless it is connected with the non-party masses, and unless it multiplies and strengthens its connections with them.

To be able to function properly and to lead the masses systematically, the Party must be organized on the principles of centralism, with a uniform set of rules, a common discipline and a single leading body at the top; the minority must submit to the majority, the local organizations to the centre, and the lower organizations to the superior organizations.

If the Party wants to preserve unity in its ranks it must in the course of its practical activities maintain strict proletarian discipline, which must be equally binding on all members of the Party, leaders as well as rank-and-filers. Lenin concluded this book with the following prophetic words:

"In its struggle for power the proletariat has no other weapon but organization. Divided by the rule of anarchic competition in the bourgeois world, ground down by slave labour for capital, constantly thrust back to 'the lower depths' of utter destitution, savagery and degeneration, the proletariat can become, and will inevitably become, an invincible force only when its ideological unity around the principles of Marxism is consolidated by the material unity of an organization, which unites millions of toilers in the army of the working class. Neither the decrepit rule of Russian tsarism, not the senile rule of international capital will be able to withstand this army."

The withering criticism of the Mensheviks' opportunism on questions of organization given in this book applied equally to the principles of organization adhered to by the Second International. The principles of organization of the Bolshevik Party which Lenin formulated in his book were the principles of organization of a party of a new type which differs fundamentally from the parties affiliated to the Second International.

The History of the C.P.S.U.(B.) describes the historical importance of Lenin's One Step Forward, Two Steps Back in the following words:

"The importance of this book lies primarily in the fact that it successfully upheld the Party principle against the circle principle, and the Party against the disorganizers; that it smashed the opportunism of the Mensheviks on questions of organization, and laid the organizational foundations of the Bolshevik Party.

"But this does not exhaust its significance. Its historic significance lies in the fact that in it Lenin, for the first time in the history of Marxism, elaborated the doctrine of the Party as the leading organization of the proletariat, as the principle weapon of the proletariat, without which the struggle for the dictatorship of the proletariat cannot be won."

In this book the Bolsheviks found an answer to their burning problems, and a brilliant generalization of their own practical experience. Armed with these Leninist ideas they marched boldly forward along the new path of the working-class movement.

In the summer of 1904 the situation in the Party was extremely strained. With the aid of the Conciliators, the Mensheviks also succeeded in capturing the Central Committee and thus gained control of all the central bodies of the Party. The Party was left without a central organ of the press and without a Central Committee.

In addition to all this, the Mensheviks were supported by the Second International, the leaders of which looked askance at the line pursued by Lenin who was training the Party cadres to wage a determined and relentless struggle against the opportunists. The opportunists in the International furiously attacked the Bolsheviks, and even some of the best people int he international working-class movement, like Rosa Luxemburg, for example, failed to understand the new principles that Lenin was offering the working class.

The Second International refused to recognize the Bolsheviks, but Lenin nevertheless succeeded in obtaining independent representation for them at the Amsterdam Congress, held in August 1904. The delegates at this congress received copies of the report of the Bolsheviks, which Lenin had edited. In this report it was emphatically stated that in insisting on his formulation of Rule 1 of the Party Rules, Lenin had in mind among other things, the sad experience of the German Social-Democratic Party, for "the formulation of Rule 1 of the German Party Rules, which did not make it obligatory for a member to belong to a definite party organization, was extensively utilized by disruptive elements."

The speedy liquidation of the state of disorganization in the Party and the revival of Party activities became particularly urgent in view of the fact that the Russo-Japanese war, which broke out in 1904, still further strained the situation in Russia. The Party had to put itself in full fighting trim to meet the impending revolution. It was necessary to convene another congress of the Party, the Third Congress, in order to settle accounts with the Mensheviks. This task was undertaken by Lenin and his Bolshevik followers.

Lenin took energetic measures to muster the devoted cadres of the Party. Towards the end of of July 1904, a conference of twenty-two Bolshevik delegates was held in Switzerland under his direction. The conference issued a platform in the campaign for the convocation of the Third Congress. This appeal was drawn up by Lenin. The majority of the Party members expressed their opposition to the central bodies which had been captured by the Mensheviks and set up new, genuine Party centres. At three regional conferences (South, Caucasus and North) a Bureau of the Committees of the Majority were set up, which under Lenin's direction carried on extensive practical work in preparation for the Third Congress. A very important part in this campaign for the convocation of the Third Congress was played by the Transcaucasian section of the Bolsheviks led by Stalin, who in January 1904, had escaped from exile in Siberia.

Overcoming all difficulties, Lenin organized a Bolshevik publishing house. He considered it particularly important to start a newspaper; and in a letter to the Bolsheviks in Russia he wrote: "Everything depends on this organ." Lenin succeeded in achieving this object. At the end of December 1904, the first number of the newspaper Vperyod (Forward), edited by Lenin, appeared. The Bolshevik Vperyod spoke in the language of the old, Leninist, Iskra. Delighted with the appearance of the paper, Lenin wrote to his comrades in Russia: "The entire majority is exultant and cheerful as never before. At last we have squashed this putrid squabbling, and we shall work unitedly with everybody who wants to work and not merely create a shindy! . . . Hurrah! Don't lose heart; we are all picking up again now, and we shall recover."

The period of the Second Congress was one of the most important and decisive in the history of the Bolshevik Party. Referring to the services which Lenin rendered in that period Stalin says:

"It was an immense service that Lenin rendered the Russian proletariat and its Party be exposing the utter danger of the Mensheviks' 'plan' of organization at a time when this 'plan' was still in the germ, when even its authors perceived its outlines with difficulty, and, having exposed it, opening a furious attack on the license of the Mensheviks in matters of organization and concentrating the whole attention of the militants on this question. For the very existence of the Party was at stake; it was a matter of life or death for the Party.

"Lenin welded the Party together and emerged victorious from the struggle. The victory of Lenin's plan "laid the foundation of that firmly welded and steeled Communist Party of which there is no equal in the world."

Years had been spent in a stern and persistent struggle for the Party against the "Economists" and Mensheviks. In the forge of this struggle Lenin hammered out the theoretical and organizational principles of the Bolshevik Party and reared its cadres. Lenin and the Party passed through a period of acute crisis. Lenin once said: "Every crisis breaks some and steels others." This crisis steeled the Bolsheviks.

Ahead lay new difficulties, new trials and new struggles. The year 1905 stood on the threshold.

V

In January 1905, revolution broke out in Russia.

Lenin foresaw the approach of the revolutionary storm long before the events in St. Petersburg. As early as 1904, on the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese war, he said that this was would expose the rottenness of the tsarist autocracy, undermine its power, and hasten on the revolution. He was of the opinion that the defeat of the tsarist government in this predatory war would weaken the tsarist regime and strengthen the revolutionary forces. Subsequent events fully confirmed Lenin's forecast. In an article entitled "The Autocracy and the Proletariat," published in the first issue of Vperyod on December 22, 1904, he referred not to the impending revolution, but to the "revolution which has already started in Russia." On receiving the news about the capture of Port Arthur by the Japanese, he wrote: "The capitulation of Port Arthur is the prologue to the capitulation of tsarism." This was several days before "Bloody Sunday."

The revolution which thus began in Russia was the first after the long years of political reaction that had reigned in Europe since the fall of the Paris Commune. The beginning of this revolution was a portent of the gigantic scope and genuinely nation-wide character it would assume. None knew as profoundly as Lenin that revolution teaches and enlightens with enormous rapidity; that one day of revolution is the concentrated essence of many years of "peaceful" evolution. More than once he stated that revolution is a gigantic school not only for the masses but also for the Party, for the leaders. But the task, he said, was not only to learn from revolution but also to teach it, to put the proletarian stamp upon it, and thereby ensure its real victory.

Events developed with whirlwind rapidity. Lenin felt his exile abroad very acutely at a time like this. In one of his comments on the events of January 9, he wrote:

"Naturally, at this accursed distance, in Geneva, it is becoming immensely more difficult to keep pace with events. But as long as we are compelled to remain at this accursed distance, we must try to keep pace with them, sum them up, draw conclusions, extract from the history of to-day the experience that will serve us in good stead to-morrow, in another place, where to-day the 'people are still silent,' but where, in one way or another, the flames of revolution will burst forth in the very near future."

Lenin made active preparations for the impending revolutionary battles. He closely studied the way in which the masses were "making history," and the new forms of struggle and organization that were arising in the course of the mass revolutionary struggle. Again and again he "took counsel" with Marx and Engels, re-read what they had written about the revolution of 1848, particularly their articles on armed insurrection, and studied the military works of Engels and the literature on street and barricade fighting, particularly during the Paris Commune. He read with avidity every important Russian, English, German and French newspaper, and none was able better than he to obtain a true picture of the course of the revolution even from the information given in the bourgeois press.

He formulated the main objectives at this stage as: to arm the proletariat and the peasantry, to prepare for and organize an armed insurrection, to establish in Russia the revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the workers and peasants.

He was very anxious that the Party should not lay behind events, that it should extend its influence and leadership over large sections of the workers, while ensuring the complete class independence of the proletariat.

In February 1905, his article "New Tasks and New Forces" appeared. In this article he, for the first time, formulated the main strategical slogan of Bolshevism in the bourgeois-democratic revolution, namely: the revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry. He explained that the revolution was creating new conditions for the Party and new methods of educating the masses. He fiercely derided the inertness and conservatism of those Party workers who still adhered to the old circle methods and would not, or could not, adopt the new forms of organization. He called for the utmost expansion of organizational activities, for revolutionary independence and initiative, for the promotion of young forces, whose lack of political experience, he said, would be compensated for by youthful energy. Only if all this were done would the Party succeed in fulfilling its function of vanguard of the proletariat.

"For a Social-Democrat, the period of revolution is the same as war-time for an army," he wrote. "We must enlarge the cadres of our army, transfer it from peace to war strength, mobilize the reserves and recall all those on furlough; we must organize new auxiliary corps, new units and auxiliary services. We must not forget that in war-time the necessity inevitably arises of augmenting the ranks with less-trained recruits, of appointing common soldiers to replace officers, and expediting and simplifying the process of promoting privates to the rank of officers."

Lenin took measures to expedite the convocation of the Third Congress of the Party. It was now doubly necessary. Before the revolution the main function of the congress would have been to put a stop to the confusion and disruption of Party activities caused by the Mensheviks, and to overcome the crisis in the Party. Now, however, its main function was to work out the Party's tactics in the revolution. Lenin made energetic preparations for the congress. He drafted the main resolutions, drew up a general plan of the congress proceedings, and in a number of articles ("Social-Democracy and the Provisional Revolutionary Government," "The Revolutionary-Democratic Dictatorship of the Proletariat and Peasantry," and others) analysed the fundamental tactical problems that were to come before the congress.

The Third Congress was opened in London in April 1905. It was practically a Bolshevik Congress, for the Mensheviks kept away and held a conference of their own in Geneva. Lenin personally directed all the congress proceedings. He was elected chairman, took an active part in the work of the Resolution, Credentials and Minutes Committees, and kept a comprehensive diary of the sessions. He spoke on nearly every question on the agenda, and the reports, speeches, interpolations and proposals he made amounted to over a hundred. All the main resolution adopted by the congress—such as those on armed insurrection, on the Provisional Revolutionary Government, and on the attitude to be adopted towards the peasantry—were drafted by him.

The congress endorsed Rule 1 of the Party Rules governing membership of the Party as formulated by Lenin; and it adopted the Bolsheviks' tactical line, which envisaged the complete victory of the bourgeois-democratic revolution and its growth into the socialist revolution. The resolutions drafted by Lenin and adopted by the congress emphasized that the proletariat must take a most active part in the revolution, must win the leading role in it, establish an alliance with the peasantry and isolate the Liberal bourgeoisie. The congress declared that the most important task that confronted the Party was to prepare for, organize and carry out an armed insurrection .It also declared that in order to strike at the counter-revolution not only "below," from outside, but also "at the top," within the government, the Social-Democrats would on certain conditions join the Provisional Revolutionary Government that would arise as a result of a victorious insurrection and would be the organ of that insurrection. The congress declared further that the Party must render the peasants the most energetic support even in confiscating the big landed estates, and it urged the immediate formation of Revolutionary Peasant Committees.

The line adopted by the Bolshevik Congress was the very antithesis of the Menshevik tactics of supporting the Liberal bourgeoisie as the leader in the bourgeois revolution.

In the resolution on tactics adopted by the congress, Lenin summed up the revolutionary experience of the masses. He had closely watched the struggle waged by the workers and peasants, particularly in the Caucasus, where, led by the Bolsheviks, it had assumed particularly wide dimensions.

The congress adopted a resolution, proposed by Lenin, on "The Events in the Caucasus," which stated that the movement in the Caucasus had already reached the stage of a nation-wide insurrection against the autocracy, and paid high tribute to the Caucasian Party organizations, which he regarded as the most militant in the Party. The congress instructed the Central Committee and the local committees to take the most energetic measures to spread information about the situation in the Caucasus as widely as possible, and also to render timely assistance to the Caucasus by all means in their power.

Following in the footsteps of the "Economists," the Mensheviks resorted tot he demagogic tactics of attempting to sow enmity and distrust between the workers and the intellectuals in the Party. Lenin exposed this manœuvre and urged that one of the most important tasks was to "exert every effort to strengthen the ties between the Party and the masses of the working class, to raise larger and larger sections of the proletarians and semi-proletarians to the level of complete Social-Democratic class-consciousness, to develop their independent revolutionary Social-Democratic activities and to promote from the masses of the workers the largest possible number of men and women capable of leading the movement and the Party organizations as members of local and central Party bodies."

Lenin was extremely incensed by the conservatism of those who hesitated to put workers on the local Party committees. "I could not remain calm when I was told that there were no workers fit to be members of local committees," he wrote with indignation. He insisted that these committees should be made more working-class in character. Speaking of this at the congress he said: "To put workers on the committees is not only an educational, but also a political task. The workers have a class instinct, and as soon as they gain some political experience they become consistent Social-Democrats. I would be very much in favour of having on our committees eight workers to every two intellectuals." These ideas became the basis of the organization policy of Bolshevism.

The congress elected a Central Committee, headed by Lenin. At the first full meeting of the Central Committee Lenin was elected editor-in-chief of Proletarii, the central organ of the Party, the first issue of which, containing Lenin's articles on the Third Congress, appeared on May 14, 1905.

When the congress closed, Lenin and the other delegates visited Marx's grave, as they had done after the Second Congress. Soon, the delegates left London. Lenin returned to Geneva.

Lenin deemed it extremely important to popularize the tactical line adopted by the Third Congress and to criticize the decisions of the Menshevik Conference in Geneva. For this purpose he drafted the "Announcement on the Third Congress of the R.S.D.L.P.," wrote a series of articles on the congress, and delivered a series of reports on it. In order that the West-European workers might be properly informed about the Bolsheviks' tactics, Lenin arranged for the publication of the "Announcement" and of the most important decisions of the congress in German and French.

Lenin gave a brilliant exposition of the Bolsheviks' tactics and a splendid critique of the Mensheviks' tactics in his extremely important work, Two Tactics of Social-Democracy in the Democratic Revolution, which appeared in July 1905. Here he explains the fundamental difference between the Bolshevik and Menshevik conceptions of the character, the driving forces and the prospects of the revolution, and of the functions and aims of the proletariat. The Menshevik tactics, he said, we prompted by fear that the revolution might be victorious, by the desire to subject the proletariat to bourgeois leadership. These were tactics calculated to betray the revolution. "But since we are out to fight we must wish to win," he wrote, "and we must be able to indicate the proper path to victory."

Referring to Lenin's comparison of the two sets of tactics Stalin says:

"It was an immense service that Lenin rendered the Russian revolution by utterly exposing the futility of the Mensheviks' historical parallels and the danger of the Menshevik 'scheme of revolution' which would surrender the cause of the workers to the tender mercies of the bourgeoisie."

The withering criticism to which Lenin subjected the tactics of the Russian Mensheviks in this book applied equally to the tactics of international opportunism.

As the true exponent of constructive Marxism, Lenin boldly brushed aside the old, stereotyped conception of the bourgeois revolution and of proletarian tactics that prevailed in the ranks of the parties affiliated to the Second International. Taking the quintessence of Marxism as his point of departure, and generalizing the experience of the international working-class movement and of the Russian revolution, he formulated a new theory of revolution and drew up new proletarian tactics for it.

Marx and Engels before him had worked out the concept of the hegemony of the proletariat in its main outline. Taking this as his point of departure Lenin built up a logical theory of the hegemony of the proletariat in the revolution, and amplified the fundamental tactical propositions concerning the proletariat as the leader in the bourgeois-democratic revolution.

In his Two Tactics Lenin proved from every angle that it was possible for the proletariat to become the leader of the bourgeois-democratic revolution, because the proletariat was the most advanced and the only consistently revolutionary class, because it had its own political party, which was independent of the bourgeoisie, and, in so far as the ultimate goal of its struggle was Socialism, it was vitally interested in carrying, this revolution to its logical conclusion, namely, the overthrow of tsarism. To become the actual leader in the revolution the proletariat had to win over the peasantry and isolate the Liberal bourgeoisie. Thus, Lenin's formulation of the concept of the hegemony of the proletariat in the bourgeois-democratic revolution provided the Marxist Party with a new line of tactics, entirely different from that which had been followed by Marxists hitherto.

In this book Lenin also thoroughly investigated the means by which the victory of the revolution could be ensured. He proved that the most important means of achieving victory was a popular armed insurrection. He proposed slogans that would stimulate the revolutionary initiative of the masses and help to organize them for insurrection. These slogans were: mass political strikes; the immediate revolutionary introduction of an 8-hour day in the towns and of democratic reforms in the rural districts; the immediate formation of Revolutionary Peasant Committees, and the arming of the workers. If the popular insurrection is successful, he said, it will be necessary to set up a Provisional Revolutionary Government which, if final victory over tsarism is to be achieved, must be nothing more nor less than the revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry. Thus, Lenin forged for the proletariat new tactical weapons, new means for the revolutionary mobilization of the masses hitherto unknown to Marxist parties.

Lenin called upon the proletariat to fight with all its might and determination for the victory of the democratic revolution; but at the same time he emphasized that this was not the ultimate goal. The Russian revolution would assume vast dimensions, he said; the democratic and socialist revolutions were two links in one chain, and after the democratic objects were achieved the struggle for the socialist revolution would being. This is the gist of Lenin's theory of the development of the bourgeois-democratic revolution into the socialist revolution. He recalled from the oblivion, to which the opportunists of the Second International had consigned them, Marx's utterances about continuous revolution and about combining the peasant revolutionary movement with the proletarian movement. He amplified these ideas and formulated a new harmonious theory of the socialist revolution, according to which the hegemony of the proletariat, standing in alliance with the peasantry in the bourgeois revolution, must grow into the hegemony of the proletariat standing in alliance with the rest of the toiling and exploited masses in the socialist revolution. The democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry paves the way for the socialist dictatorship of the proletariat.

This new theory of revolution propounded by Lenin already contained the seeds of the theory that the victory of Socialism is possible in one separate country.

The importance of Two Tactics in the history of the revolutionary movement is incalculable. Referring to it, the History of the C.P.S.U.(B.), says:

"The historic significance of this book consists above all in the fact that in it Lenin ideologically shattered the petty-bourgeois tactical line of the Mensheviks, armed the working class of Russia for the further development of the bourgeois-democratic revolution, for a new onslaught on tsardom, and put before the Russian Social-Democrats a clear perspective of the necessity of the bourgeois revolution passing into the socialist revolution.

"But this does no exhaust the significance of Lenin's book. Its invaluable significance consists in that it enriched Marxism with a new theory of revolution and laid the foundation for the revolutionary tactics of the Bolshevik Party with the help of which in 1917 the proletariat of our country achieved the victory over capitalism."

"In all his utterances, Lenin vindicated and explained the Bolshevik strategical plan. In an article entitled "The Attitude of Social-Democracy Towards the Peasant Movement," he wrote: "From the democratic revolution we shall at once, according to the degree of our strength, the strength of the class-conscious and organized proletariat, begin to pass over tot he socialist revolution. We stand for continuous revolution. We shall not stop half way."

The revolutionary struggle of the workers began to assume a more sharply defined political character. From economic and solidarity strikes the workers began to pass to political strikes and demonstrations. Armed collisions between the people and the police and the military became more and more frequent. Particularly stubborn was the strike in Ivanovo-Voznesensk in the summer of 1905, which lasted nearly two and a half months. During this strike the Evanovo-Voznesensk workers set up a Council of Delegates, which was in fact one of the first Soviets of Workers' Deputies.

The political strikes organized by the workers roused the whole country. Revolt in the towns was followed by revolt in the rural districts. In the spring, peasant disorders broke out and assumed wide dimensions in Central Russia, the Volga Region and Transcaucasia, especially in Georgia.

The movement of the workers and peasants, and the series of defeats sustained by the Russian forces in the Russo-Japanese war, had their effect upon the armed forces. The prop of tsarism was shaken. In June 1905, a mutiny broke out on the battleship Potemkin, of the Black Sea Fleet. This was the first mass revolutionary action among the armed forces of tsarism and the first time that a large section of these forces went over to the side of the revolution.

Even the bourgeoisie was stirred by the revolutionary events. It feared the revolutionary people and tried to strike a bargain with the tsar to the detriment of the revolution. It demanded slight reforms for the "people" in order to "pacify" them, to split the forces of the revolution and to check it.

The tsarist government took the severest measures to suppress the workers and peasants, but at the same time it adopted a manœuvring policy. On the one hand, it incited the different nationalities in Russia against each other, and on the other hand, it promised to set up a "representative body" in the form of a National Assembly, or State Duma.

In "far-away Geneva" Lenin closely watched the conduct of all the classes in the revolution, and in the article he wrote for Proletarii he made a scientific Marxist analysis of the course of the revolution, brilliantly foretold its development, formulated precise and definite slogans, and gave the Party the fullest instructions and advice.

He exposed the inconsistency, cupidity, cowardice and treachery of the Liberal bourgeoisie. Not a single move of the Liberals escaped his vigilant eye. The articles he wrote against the Constitutional-Democrats are a crushing indictment of these counter-revolutionaries who posed as democrats. "The proletariat is fighting; the bourgeoisie is stealing into power," is the way he characterized the tactics of the working class and those of the Liberal bourgeoisie in the revolution.

Lenin fiercely derided the Mensheviks who were scared by the dimensions the Russian revolution had assumed and were terrified at the prospect of its victory. "At The Tail Of The Monarchist Bourgeoisie, Or At The Head Of The Revolutionary Proletariat and Peasantry?"—in this heading to one of his articles he formulated the antithesis between the Menshevik and Bolshevik tactics. He called upon the Party members in the districts to intensify their campaign against the Mensheviks. The telling blows which Stalin levelled at Menshevism evoked his hearty approval, and he requested that a copy of Stalin's pamphlet, Passing Observations On the Disagreements in the Party, which appeared in the Caucasus in the summer of 1905, be sent him as quickly as possible. He also noted the "splendid formulation of the question concerning the celebrated 'introduction of consciousness from outside,'" in Stalin's article, "A Reply to 'Social-Democrat.'"

Lenin directed all the activities of the Bolsheviks. His slogans of armed insurrection, formation of a revolutionary army and of a Provisional Revolutionary Government were a clear and concise formulation of the Party's aims and of its methods of achieving them.

Perseveringly and methodically Lenin made preparations for the armed insurrection. He took energetic measures to purchase arms and to smuggle them into Russia; he sent people to establish close contacts with the mutineers on the Potemkin, and pointed to the lessons the Party could learn from this mutiny. He said that it confronted the Party with the practical task of forming a revolutionary army. "The revolutionary army," he said, "is needed because great historical questions can be solved only by force, and in the modern struggle organized force means military organization."

He strongly urged the Party members diligently to acquire military training and to display the utmost energy in forming hundreds and thousands of fighting squads. In a letter to the Military Committee of the St. Petersburg Committee of the R.S.D.L.P., written in October 1905, he severely criticized the activities of that body and suggested to it a definite plan of action. "Appeal to the youth," he wrote . . . "immediately form fighting squads everywhere, particularly among the students and the workers, etc., etc. Organize at once squads of three, ten, thirty, etc., men. Let them at once, on their own accord, arm themselves with whatever they can: revolvers, knives, rags steeped in kerosene to cause fires, etc. Let these squads at once elect leaders and, if possible, establish contact with the Military Committee of the St. Petersburg Committee. . . . Let five or ten men every week visit hundreds of workers' and students' circles, get in wherever they can, and everywhere propose this plain, concise, straightforward and simple plan: form squads at once, arms yourselves with whatever you can, work with all your might. We shall help you all we can, but don't wait for us, operate independently. . . . The squads must at once begin military training for immediate operations, at once."

Lenin began to expedite the preparations for the armed insurrection, for he saw that it was approaching with gathering speed. He was most anxious that the insurrection should not take the Party unawares.

With brilliant foresight he saw the future course of development of the revolution. Three days before the law of August 6, sanctioning the convocation of a State Duma, was promulgated, he published an article entitled, "The Boycott of the Bulygin Duma and Insurrection." In it he outlined a definite plan for a political campaign: an active boycott of the State Duma under the slogan of armed insurrection. This great political campaign, conducted by the Bolsheviks under Lenin's direction, was crowned with success. It proved to be of epoch-making importance. The revolutionary whirlwind swept away the Bulygin Duma. In October 1905, a general political strike broke out, and out of the struggle emerged the Soviets. Lenin foresaw that the tsarist government would yield on some points and manœuvre with the object of throttling the revolution. Several hours before the news of the promulgation of the tsar's Manifesto of October 17 was received in Geneva, Lenin wrote: "Tsarism is already unable to win; the revolution is not yet able to do so." The tsarist government will undoubtedly agree to a constitution with the object of fooling the people. The proletariat must make the revolution leap across this constitution bestowed by the tsar, must raise it to a higher stage, the stage of overthrowing the autocracy by means of armed insurrection.

The tide of revolution was rising. It became more and more difficult to follow the whirlwind of events and to direct the Party from afar. Lenin was straining to get to Russia. As early as the spring of 1905 he expressed in his articles his longing for an opportunity to speak with the workers and peasants directly, at vast mass meetings. When the October general strike was at its height, Lenin wrote: "Our revolution in Russia is really splendid, honour bright! We hope to return soon—things are moving in that direction with astonishing speed." He began to make energetic preparations to return home. With the cooperation of Maxim Gorky he made arrangements for the publication in St. Petersburg of a legal Bolshevik newspaper, Novaya Zhizn (New Life), and at last, at the end of October 1905, he left Geneva for Russia.

Obliged to stay in Stockholm for several days, he wrote an article entitled: "Our Tasks and the Soviet of Workers' Deputies," which however was not published at the time; it was found and first published only thirty-five years later, in 1940. Lenin at once perceived that the Soviets of Workers' Deputies which were created by the revolutionary initiative of the masses of the proletariat, were the rudiments of a new government, of the organs of the dictatorship of the revolutionary elements of the people. He regarded the Soviets as the embryo of the Provisional Revolutionary Government and as the organs of the growing and maturing insurrection. Clearly defining the relations between the Party and the Soviets, and between the Soviets and the broad masses of the people, he proposed that combined Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies should be formed. This would help to rally the whole people around the Soviet as the leading political centres of the revolution. He called for the immediate formation of a Provisional Revolutionary Government, whose programme should be: complete and genuine political freedom, convocation of a genuine National Constituent Assembly, arming of the people, the immediate granting of genuine and complete freedom to the oppressed nationalities, the legislative enactment of an 8-hour day and the transfer of all the land to the peasants. This government was to call upon the people to rise in revolt.

Such was the concrete programme of action for the proletarian party which Lenin drew up on the eve of his arrival in Russia.

He arrived in St. Petersburg early in November 1905, after several years of absence abroad. Notwithstanding the "liberties" granted by the tsar, he was compelled to hide from police. His attempt in the city legally merely resulted in his lodgings being immediately surrounded by a swarm of detectives, so he went into concealment, frequently changing his passport and lodgings, and leaving St. Petersburg several times for Finland, where he was in comparative safety.

Immediately on his arrival in St. Petersburg, Lenin attended a meeting of the Bolshevik section of the editorial board of the legal daily newspaper Novaya Zhizn. At this meeting changes in the editorial board were made and a plan of work was drawn up. Later Lenin attended a meeting of the Central Committee of the Party at which an appeal to the Party organizations concerning the convocation of a Party Congress was adopted. Several days later, Lenin spoke at a meeting of the Soviet of Workers' Deputies on the question of the lockout declared by the capitalists in retaliation to the workers enforcing, on their own accord, an 8-hour day. The Executive Committee of the Soviet adopted the resolution which Lenin moved on this question.

Then followed days of intense activity in direct daily contact with the Party organizations, meetings of the Central Committee and of the St. Petersburg Committee of the Party, speeches at Party meetings and conferences, and meetings and conversations with Party workers from all parts of Russia. Lenin took direct part in the preparations for the armed insurrection. At the end of November, a meeting of the Central Committee was held, attended by Maxim Gorky, who informed the Committee about the first temper prevailing among the Moscow workers. This was Lenin's first meeting with Gorky.

Lenin at once took the direction of Novaya Zhizn in his own hands. On November 10, his first article for that paper appeared, entitled "The Reorganization of Party work to suit the changed conditions. While preserving the secret Party organization, he write, it was necessary to utilize on the widest possible scale the legal opportunities that had been won by the working class. Working underground, the Party organizations could not elect their officers; but not the principle of election must be introduced and the organizations rebuilt on the basis of democratic centralism.

Two days later, on November 12, his second article appeared, entitled "The Proletariat and the Peasantry," in which he formulated the aims of the working class and the peasantry in the revolution and urged that the fighting alliance between these two classes should be strengthened. The peasantry wants land and freedom, he wrote. The working class must back the revolutionary peasantry with all its might. But the struggle will not end here. The peasants must be told quite plainly that the transfer of the land to them and political freedom will not by themselves abolish either the rule of capital or poverty among the masses. And he went on to say: "Thus, the Red Flag of the class-conscious workers signifies, firstly, that we wholeheartedly support the peasants' struggle for complete freedom and for all the land; and secondly, that we shall not half here, but march on further. In addition to the struggle for land and freedom, we are waging a struggle for Socialism."

Lenin's articles in Novaya Zhizn served to guide the Party's daily activities.

The activities of the Bolshevik organizations among the masses of the workers grew on an increasingly extensive scale. The Bolsheviks began to penetrate more deeply into the rural districts and to create strongholds for themselves in the Army and Navy.

At the beginning of December 1905, Lenin went to Tammerfors, in Finland, to attend the First Bolshevik Conference. Here Lenin and Stalin met for the first time. Both were members of the committee that drafted the resolution on the State Duma.

At this conference Lenin delivered two reports; one on the current situation, and the other on the agrarian question. Recalling those reports Stalin says:

"They were inspired, and they roused the whole conference to a pitch of stormy enthusiasm. The extraordinary power of conviction, the simplicity and clarity of argument, the brief and easily understandable sentences, the absence of affectation, of dizzying gestures and theatrical phrases aiming for effect—all this made Lenin's speech a favourable contrast to the speeches of the usual 'parliamentary' orator.

"But what captivated me at the time was not these features of Lenin's speeches. I was captivated by that irresistible force of logic in them which, although somewhat terse, thoroughly overpowered his audience, gradually electrified it, and then, as the saying goes, captivated it completely."

While the conference was in progress, the armed insurrection broke out in Moscow. On Lenin's advice the conference at once brought its proceedings to a close and the delegates dispersed to take part in the insurrection.

The first to start the armed struggle were the Moscow workers. They were led by the Moscow Soviet of Workers' Deputies headed by the Bolsheviks. On December 7 a political strike was declared in Moscow, and on the 9th the first barricades were set up. For nine days, several thousand armed workers waged an heroic struggle, and only by bringing troops from St. Petersburg, Tver and the Western Region was the tsarist government able to crush the insurrection. On the eve of the battle, some of the leaders were arrested and some isolated. The insurrection was broken up into isolated district revolts, the insurgents for the most part fighting on the defensive.

Insurrection broke out in a number of other towns and districts such as Krasnoyarsk, Motovilikha in Perm, Novorossiik, Sormovo, Sevastopol and Kronstadt. The oppressed nationalities in Russia also rose in revolt. Almost the whole of Georgia was up in arms. A widespread insurrection broke out in the Donbas in the Ukraine. The struggle in Latvia was of a very stubborn character. But like the one in Moscow, all these insurrections were suppressed with inhuman ferocity by the tsarist government.

The December armed insurrection sustained defeat. The revolutionary tide gradually receded.

In this situation the conflict between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks flared up with fresh vigour. The Mensheviks called upon the workers to stop fighting because, as they said, with the suppression of the insurrection the revolution was at an end. But Lenin said: No, the revolution is not at an end, it is still going on. We must not lay down our arms, but use them more vigorously! Strenuous efforts must be made to combat the "constitutional illusions" fostered by the Constitutional-Democrats, the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks. The Bolsheviks proclaimed an active boycott of the First State Duma.

When the insurrection was suppressed Plekhanov, the Menshevik, said: "They should not have taken to arms." He claimed that he was adopting the same attitude that Marx adopted in 1871, but Lenin treated this claim with derision. Why should not Plekhanov put himself on a par with Marx? he asked with biting irony. Plekhanov like a coward and renegade sneered at the heroic revolt of the Moscow workers, whereas Marx greeted with admiration the spirit of initiative displayed by the workers of Paris who, as he said, were ready to "storm the heavens." Plekhanov devoted to the December insurrection a "work" which almost became the Bible of the Constitutional-Democrats, whereas Marx wrote a book which to this day serves as a guide in the struggle for the "heavens." "The working class of Russia," wrote Lenin, "has shown that it is capable of 'storming the heavens' and it will do so again and again."

Lenin now urged that the Party should sum up the results of the first year of the revolution and study the experience of the October-December battles. He himself set to work to study these events with his characteristic thoroughness and care. In many of the article he wrote at the time he said that the October-December period had revealed what a colossal reserve of revolutionary energy the working class possessed. The December insurrection had proved once again that insurrection was an art, and that the chief rule of this art was audacious and determined attack.

Lenin summed up the experience of the October and December battles in his well-known work, The Victory of the Cadets and the Tasks of the Workers' Party, which was written in March 1906. In this book he directs the spearhead of this attack against those "grave worms of the revolution," the Constitutional-Democrats, or Cadets, as they were called, and their henchmen, the Mensheviks. He outlined and explained the Marxian concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat and amplified it in the light of the experience of the first Russian revolution. The Mensheviks, from their opportunist standpoint, claimed that the Soviets were merely organs of local government. Lenin, however, emphatically denied this and asserted that they were the organs of the armed insurrection, the rudimentary organs of the new, revolutionary power. Later on, in 1920, he said that "already at that time this controversy over the significance of the Soviets had considerable bearing on the question of the dictatorship."

In the above-mentioned work Lenin wrote: "These organs were set up solely by the revolutionary sections of the population, they were set up independently of all laws and norms in an entirely revolutionary way as the product of the native genius of the people, as a result of the initiative of the people who had rid themselves, or were ridding themselves, of the old, police fetters. Lastly, they were precisely organs of power, notwithstanding their rudimentary nature, their spontaneity, amorphousness and diffuseness in composition and in manner of functioning . . . they were undoubtedly the embryo of the new, popular, or if you will, revolutionary, government. In their social and political character they were the rudiments of the dictatorship of the revolutionary elements of the people."

The necessity of summing up the experience of the first year of the revolution was also dictated by the fact that a joint congress with the Mensheviks was about to be held. At the Tammerfors Conference, the Bolsheviks, in compliance with the demands of the workers for united leadership in the mass struggle, adopted a resolution in favour of restoring Party unity and offered to convene a unity congress with the Mensheviks. Yielding to the pressure of the masses, the latter agreed to this. But while agreeing that it was necessary to unite, Lenin was opposed to any attempt to obscure the disagreements between the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks. As early as October 1905, in a letter to the members of the Central Committee in which he criticized the conciliators, he wrote: "We must not confuse the policy of uniting two parts with the fusion of these two parts. We agree to unite the two parts, but to fuse them—never." He insisted that the Bolsheviks should come to this congress with their own platform covering all the problems of the revolution, so that the workers might clearly see the difference between the principles of the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks, and choose between them with their eyes open.

With this object in view, Lenin drew up the tactical platform of the Bolsheviks for the congress. This platform was discussed at a series of Party conferences held under Lenin's direction during February and March, 1906, first in Wasa, a suburb of Kuokkoala, Finland, where Lenin was compelled to take up his residence, for a time, then in Moscow, where he narrowly escaped arrest, and lastly in St. Petersburg. Lenin also took a most active part in the heated discussion that preceded the congress, and opposed the Menshevik leaders at numerous Party meetings in St. Petersburg.

In preparation for the congress Lenin devoted a great deal of attention to the agrarian question. He was a member of the Agrarian Committee and wrote a pamphlet entitled The Revision of the Agrarian Programme of the Workers' Party in which he formulated and explained the Bolshevik demand for the confiscation of the landlord estates and the nationalization of all the land in the event of a victorious revolution.

Before leaving for Stockholm, where the congress was to be held, Lenin called a conference of the Bolshevik delegates in St. Petersburg. Voroshilov, who was present as a delegate representing the Lugansk organization and saw Lenin for the first time, relates what a deep impression this talk with Lenin made upon them. After the delegates had reported on the state of Party work in their various localities Lenin concisely summed up the general situation and then entered into an informal conversation with the delegates. Describing the scene Voroshilov writes:

"Vladimir Ilyich was in a humorous mood, but in between his quips and jests he would put first to one and then to another a string of questions, sometimes of a most unexpected nature. He was interested in literally everything. He listened with equal interest to the way the State Duma elections had passed off, to the stories told about the tricks played by the Mensheviks, about the Cadets, about our fighting squads and the way they were being trained and armed, about the Cossacks of the stanitsas in the vicinity of Lugansk, about the peasants who had seized the landlords' estates, and so on, and so forth.

"I remember as if it were only yesterday how eagerly Vladimir Ilyich clutched at any piece of information which coincided with his views and corroborated his assumptions. . . . Before leaving, Vladimir Ilyich talked about the congress and about our (the Bolsheviks') prospects. . . . Now we could see with our own eyes and hear the one who was the actual builder of the proletarian revolutionary party and its tireless guardian and leader.

"We felt that our Lenin knew exactly the ways and means of defending the revolution and revolutionary Social-Democracy, whose mission it was to lead the great movement for emancipation in Russia."

The congress, which became known as the Fourth, "Unity" Congress of the R.S.D.L.P., was held in Stockholm in April 1906. This was a unity congress only in name. Actually, the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks each kept to their own views and retained their separate organizations. At the congress a fierce struggle raged between them. Lenin spoke on all the main questions on the congress agenda: on the agrarian programme, the current situation and the class tasks of the proletariat, the armed insurrection, the attitude to be adopted towards the State Duma, and on questions of organization. Rallied around Lenin were his close associates and devoted disciples, Stalin, Kalinin, Voroshilov, Frunze, Shaumyan, and others. The Mensheviks had a slight majority at this congress. After the December insurrection the Bolshevik organizations were broken up by the police and not all of them were able to send delegates. As a consequence, the Mensheviks succeeded in carrying their resolutions on a number of questions.

But Lenin did not become despondent; he was firmly convinced that in the long run the Bolsheviks would triumph. Recalling that period, Stalin writes:

This was the first time I saw Lenin in the role of the vanquished. But he was not a jot like those leaders who whine and lose heart when beaten. On the contrary, defeat transformed Lenin into a spring of compressed energy which inspired his followers for new battles and for future victory. I said that Lenin was defeated. But was it defeat? You had only to look at his opponents, the victors at the Stockholm Congress—Plekhanov, Axelrod, Martov and the rest. They had little of the appearance of real victors, for Lenin's implacable criticism of Menshevism had not left one whole bone in their body, so to speak. I remember that we, the Bolshevik delegates, huddled together in a group, gazing at Lenin and asking his advice. The talk of some of the delegates betrayed a note of weariness and dejection. I recall that Lenin bitingly replied through clenched teeth: 'Don't whine, comrades, we are bound to win, for we are right.' Hatred of the whining intellectual, faith in our own strength, confidence in victory—that is what Lenin impressed upon us. It was felt that the Bolsheviks' defeat was temporary, that they were bound to win in the early future.

"'No whining over defeat'—this was a feature of Lenin's activities that helped him to weld together an army faithful to the end and confident of its strength."

Lenin called upon the Bolsheviks to wage open, relentless and implacable war against the Mensheviks, against the opportunist decisions of the congress, and against the Menshevik Central Committee. As soon as the congress closed he called a conference of the Bolshevik delegates which adopted an appeal to the Party he had drawn up, summing up the work of the congress from the Bolshevik point of view and revealing its chief mistakes, such as the adoption of the Menshevik programme of the municipalization of the land, refusal to combat constitutional illusions, its description of the State Duma as the best weapon for the emancipation of the people from tsarism, and its refusal to sum up the experience of the fighting of October-December 1905.

After the congress Lenin returned to St. Petersburg. Here he lived until January 1907. He was again compelled to elude the vigilance of the police and move to Wasa, near Kuokkala. In spite of the hardships he had to endure under these conditions of illegality, having continuously to change his lodgings, sometimes staying a night with his relatives and other times with friends and acquaintances, he continued his tireless and intense activities. He addressed Party and workers' meetings, wrote articles and pamphlets, and personally supervised the Party press and the activities of the Bolsheviks in organizing the masses. During this period he wrote over a hundred articles and pamphlets.

In spite of the risk involved, Lenin, under the name of Karpov, spoke at a mass meeting in the Panina People's Palace, in St. Petersburg, on May 9 1906. This meeting was attended by workers from all the districts of St. Petersburg, and the representatives of all parties spoke there. Lenin was the last to speak. In his speech he denounced the policy of the Constitutional-Democrats, which was to strike a bargain with the autocracy to the detriment of the people. Representatives of the Constitutional-Democrats were then actually negotiating with the tsar's Ministers. Having this in mind, Lenin said: "Negotiations are the preliminaries to a deal—a deal is the practical consummation of negotiations." The revolution obtained its strength from the development of the class-conscious of the proletariat and of the political consciousness of the peasantry. By criticizing the Cadets' policy the Social-Democrats were developing this consciousness and thereby strengthening the revolution. When the Cadets dope the people with their propaganda they dim this consciousness and thereby weaken the revolution. Consequently, said Lenin, it was the duty of the Social-Democrats to expose the Cadets and to destroy their influence over the masses. All efforts must be exerted to make the proletariat play the part of leader of the victorious revolutionary army when the tide of revolution turns again.

This speech created a profound impression upon the audience. Describing this meeting in her reminiscences, N. K. Krupskaya says:

"After Ogorodnikov, a Cadet, has spoken, the Chairman called upon Karpov. I was standing among the crowd. Ilyich was very excited. For a minute he stood silent, terribly pale. All the blood had flowed to his heart. One immediately felt how the excitement of the speaker was being communicated to the audience. Suddenly, tremendous hand-clapping commenced—the Party members had recognized Ilyich. I remember the uncomprehending, excited face of a worker standing next to me. He asked loudly: 'Who is it, who is it?' But nobody answered him. The applause subsided. At the end of Ilyich's speech, all those present were swept with extraordinary enthusiasm—at that moment everyone was thinking of the coming fight to a finish." After adopting the resolution moved by Lenin, the workers poured into the street singing revolutionary songs.

After the December insurrection the workers and the revolutionary peasants retreated slowly, fighting all the time. In the summer and autumn 1906, the revolutionary struggle again flared up. A new wave of political strikes swept the country; and the peasants' struggle against the landlords increased in intensity. Mutiny broke out among the sailors at Kronstadt and Sveaborg.

In December 1905, the tsarist government suppressed the Bolshevik legal newspaper Novaya Zhizn. Its place was now taken by a new paper, which, owning to repeated suppression, came out under different names: Volna (The Wave), Vperyod (Forward) and The Echo. This paper was edited by Lenin. In the articles he wrote for it he, pointing to what was taking place in the State Duma, exposed the policy of the tsarist government and the Constitutional-Democrats, and told the peasants that they could expect neither land nor freedom from the Duma. He predicted that the tsar would dissolve the State Duma, and sharply criticized the Mensheviks for supporting the Constitutional-Democrats in the Duma. A sharp conflict with the Mensheviks arose over the latter's support of the Cadet demand for a "Duma Cabinet," i.e., a Cabinet responsible to the Duma. The St. Petersburg Committee of the Party, under Lenin's guidance, sent a protest about this to the Central Committee, then controlled by the Mensheviks. After the First State Duma was dissolved, in July 1906, Lenin sharply criticized the opportunist slogans issued by the Menshevik Central Committee in connection with the event. He showed that the vacillating and hesitating policy of the Mensheviks contained the germs of what came to be known as Liquidatorism, i.e., the policy advocated later by the Mensheviks of liquidating the underground Party, and denounced it as the cowardly renunciation of the heroic struggle the workers had waged in the period from October to December 1905.

The elections to the Second State Duma again brought to the fore the question of the attitude the Party should adopt towards the Duma. Like the genuine dialectician that he was, Lenin approached this question not from an abstract point of view, but on the basis of a concrete analysis of the prevailing situation. The Bolsheviks had boycotted the elections to the First Duma and this had greatly undermined its prestige; but it did not completely discredit it, because it was conducted when the revolutionary tide was already receding. The revolutionary tide was still receding during the elections to the Second Duma. In this situation it was necessary for the Party to utilize the elections, and the State Duma itself, for revolutionary propaganda purposes. In 1905, Lenin had taught the Party the art of revolutionary attack, now he taught it how to make an organized retreat, to be the last to retreat, in order to recuperate its strength and muster its forces for another and more powerful offensive against the enemy.

The Mensheviks advocated the conclusion of an election agreement with the Constitutional-Democrats and the policy of supporting them in the Duma. The Bolsheviks, however, insisted on the Party remaining absolutely independent during the elections, while agreeing to the formation of a "Left bloc" during the elections and in the Duma itself. By Left bloc they meant an agreement with the so-called Trudovik (Toiler) parties which represented the democratic petty-bourgeois in town and country.

The conflict between the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks became exceptionally acute in St. Petersburg. January 1907, a conference of the St. Petersburg organization of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party was held at which Lenin explained his policy, and the conference adopted a resolution supporting it. After this defeat the Mensheviks, supported by the Central Committee of the Party on which they predominated, engaged in disruptive activities with a view to causing a split. Lenin declared that behind the backs of the masses of the workers the Mensheviks were selling the workers' vote to the Cadets. In a pamphlet entitled The Election in St. Petersburg and the Hypocrisy of the Thirty-One Mensheviks, and in other of his utterances, he denounced the treacherous policy of the Mensheviks in very trenchant terms. The Menshevik Central Committee decided to try Lenin for slander before a Party court. This decision roused a storm of indignation in the Party organizations. Nevertheless, the trial was held. Lenin appeared before the court, but instead of being the defendant he spoke as the accuser. He completely turned the tables on the Mensheviks and the Menshevik Central Committee and put them in the dock instead of himself. In the course of his speech he frankly stated that the object of his stern denunciation of the Mensheviks was "to rouse among the masses hatred, aversion and contempt for these men, who had ceased to be members of a united party, who had become political enemies, who were trying to put a spoke in the wheel of our Social-Democratic organization in its election campaign. Against such political enemies I then conducted—and in the event of a repetition and development of a split shall I always conduct—a war of extermination."

Foreseeing utter defeat, the Menshevik Central Committee dropped the case.

Meanwhile, the reaction grew more intense, and Lenin took strenuous measures to strengthen the Party's secret organization. The regular publication of a legal newspaper became more and more difficult; in July 1906, the tsarist government suppressed The Echo. In August the Bolsheviks resumed publication of the illegal newspaper, Proletarii. This paper was edited by Lenin and articles by him appeared in every issue.

In February 1907, the Second State Duma was opened. In the columns of Proletarii, in the popular magazine Vperyod, and also in the Bolshevik legal newspapers Novi Luch (The New Ray) and Nashe Echo (Our Echo), Lenin, quoting facts from the proceedings of the Duma, exposed the manœuvres of the tsarist government and proved that the Cadets were striking a bargain with the monarchy and were betraying the people's interests. Lenin predicted that the autocracy would soon dissolve the Second State Duma as it had the first, and declared that the Black Hundreds were preparing for a coup d'état. As opposed to the opportunist tactics of the Mensheviks, who simply echoed the demands of the Constitutional-Democrats, Lenin pursued the Bolshevik tactics of winning the petty-bourgeois democrats, primarily the peasants, away from the Constitutional-Democrats. Moreover, he took great pains to teach the workers' deputies in the Duma how to utilize that body to the utmost for the benefit of the revolutionary movement.

After a strenuous struggle Lenin succeeded in rallying around the Bolsheviks the majority of the Party organizations and in securing a decision to convene a Party Congress, for which he made vigorous preparations. The Mensheviks proposed that a "workers' congress" be convened of representatives of all working-class organizations; but Lenin denounced this as an attempt to submerge the Party in the welter of petty-bourgeois elements.

The Fifth Congress of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party was held in London in April and May 1907. At this congress Lenin, backed by his supporters, waged a relentless struggle against the Mensheviks and against Trotsky, who tried to form a Centrist group of his own. Lenin delivered a report on the Party's attitude towards the bourgeois parties. The resolution adopted by the congress on this report contained a Bolshevik appraisal of all these parties and formulated the Bolshevik tactics towards them as follows: relentless struggle against the Black Hundreds and the Octobrists; resolute exposure of the Constitutional-Democrats and resistance to their attempts to win the leadership of the peasantry; and exposure of the attempt of the so-called Narodnik or Trudovik parties (the Populist-Socialists, the Group of Toil and the Socialist-Revolutionaries) to pose as Socialists, while consenting to enter into occasional agreements with them in the struggle against tsarism and the Constitutional-Democrats, in so far as at that time these parties represented the interests of the urban and rural petty-bourgeoisie.

The Fifth Congress marked an important victory for the Bolsheviks in the working-class movement; but victory did not turn Lenin's head. Recalling that occasion, Stalin says:

"This was the first time I saw Lenin in the role of victor. Victory usually turns the heads of leaders and makes them haughty and conceited. They begin in most cases to celebrate their victory and to rest on their laurels. Lenin did not resemble such leaders one jot. On the contrary, it was after a victory that he was most vigilant and cautious. I recall that Lenin insistently impressed on the delegates: 'The first thing is not to be carried away by victory, not to grow conceited; the second thing is to consolidate the victory; the third thing is to crush the opponent, for he has been defeated, but by no means crushed.' He poured withering scorn on those delegates who frivolously asserted: 'It is all over with the Mensheviks now.' He had no difficulty in showing that the Mensheviks still had roots in the labour movement, that they had to be fought with skill, and that all overestimation of one's own strength and, especially, all underestimation of the strength of the adversary had to be avoided.

"'No conceit in victory'—this was a feature of Lenin's character that helped him soberly to weigh the strength of the enemy and to insure the Party against possible surprises."

As Lenin had predicted, the tsarist government dissolved the Second State Duma. It arrested the Social-Democratic deputies and amended the Franchise Act, bringing about what was known as the coup of June the Third. Tsarism continued its offensive. The revolution ended in defeat.

In this new situation Lenin formulated the news tasks of the Party. The Mensheviks abandoned all revolutionary activities and called upon the Party to take up constructive work in the Duma in conjunction with the Cadets. Lenin sharply attacked the Mensheviks for this policy, but at the same time he strongly criticized the so-called boycottists (Kamenev, Bogdanov and others) who proposed that the Party should boycott the Duma and refrain from utilizing it as a rostrum for revolutionary propaganda.

In July 1907 Lenin addressed a conference of the St. Petersburg organization of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party, which was held in Terijoki, in Finland. A woman delegate, writing to her comrades about this conference, said: "I attended the conference of the St. Petersburg organization in Terijoki, where the question of the attitude to be adopted towards the State Duma was discussed. I heard Lenin and was enraptured. Lenin is in favour of taking part in the elections. . . . We had to hear our leaders speak under awful conditions. First we gathered at an inn, but no sooner did Lenin begin to speak than the innkeeper appeared and said that the police were threatening to close his inn. We then went into the woods, one at a time, so as not to attract attention. And then the rain came down in torrents, and we were unable to adopt even a resolution."

After a stiff fight Lenin gained the victory at this conference. He met with the same success at the Third and Fourth Conferences of the R.S.D.L.P. held in July and November 1907.

In August 1907 Lenin went to Stuttgart to attend the International Socialist Congress, where he took an active part in the conflict that raged between the revolutionaries and the opportunists. Jointly with Rosa Luxemburg, he moved the historic "amendment" to the resolution on militarism, in which he plainly and definitely stated that the task of the workers' parties was not only to strive to prevent the outbreak of war, but also to take advantage of the crisis created by war if it did break out to promote the socialist revolution.

During the congress Lenin called a conference of all the Left delegates with a view to uniting them in the struggle against the opportunists and Centrists in the Second International.

From Stuttgart Lenin returned to Kuokkala, in Finland. This place, however, became increasingly unsafe, so he removed to Oggelby, a village near Helsingfors. But here, too, he was unable to stay long. The police were on his track. It was quite evident that the tsarist government was determined to get the leader of the revolution into its clutches, and so the Bolshevik central body decided that Lenin must leave Russia. Arrangements were made for him to go abroad in December.

But it was not an easy matter to get out of Finland. An attempt to board ship at the port involved the danger of arrest. Lenin therefore crossed the ice at night to an island in the Gulf to board the ship there. The ice was thin and in one place gave way under him. Recalling this incident later, Lenin said that at that moment the thought flashed through his mind: "What a silly way to die." After nearly losing his life, Lenin succeeded in making his way abroad in December 1907.

This was the beginning of his second and longer period of exile.

VI

On December 25, 1907, Lenin arrived in Geneva. It was hard to return from Russia to this sleepy, conventional town. "I feel as if I have come here to be buried," said Lenin on the very first day of his arrival. And in January 1908 he wrote: "Devil take it, it is depressing to have had to return to this accursed Geneva, but it cannot be helped!"

The second period of exile was much more trying than the first. In the first period, at the beginning of the twentieth century, Lenin lived and worked in an atmosphere of impending revolution. The news from Russia told of the growth of the working-class movement, of successful efforts in building the Marxist party, and of Iskra's victory in the fight for the Party. The situation during the early years of the second period of exile was entirely different. The revolution had sustained defeat; reaction was rampant and the revolutionaries were being hunted down; the police broke up the Party organizations; the masses showed signs of weariness, and among the fellow-travellers of the revolution, especially among the intellectuals, there were numerous cases of treachery, desertion and renunciation of the revolution and the Party.

But the period of reaction did not break Lenin's spirit. On the contrary, he became more determined than ever, and his struggle against the enemies of the Party became more relentless and implacable. He had absolute confidence in the strength of the working class, and he was convinced that another revolution was inevitable. In the very first article he wrote after his arrival in Geneva he said:

"We were able to work for long years before the revolution. It was not for nothing that we were called adamant. The Social-Democrats have built a proletarian party which does not become despondent at the failure of its first military onslaught, does not lose its head and does not allow itself to be lured into adventurist schemes. This party is marching towards Socialism without binding its fate with the outcome of this or that period of the bourgeois revolution. And this proletarian party is marching to victory."

Lenin immediately set to work to arrange for the publication abroad of the Bolshevik Party organ Proletarii. In view of the fierce reaction that reigned, he regarded this newspaper as the most important instrument for rallying, uniting and training his Bolshevik followers, and for preparing the Party in outlook and organization for the turn of the revolutionary tide. Within a month all the arrangements were made, but soon serious disagreements arose on the editorial board, which consisted of Lenin, Dubrovinsky and Bogdanov.

The "critics" of Marxism took advantage of the triumph of reaction to intensify their efforts to distort and falsify the revolutionary theory. The counter-revolution had launched an offensive also on the ideological front. The columns of the Russian bourgeois press were filled with mysticism, pornography, decadence and religion. A host of bourgeois authors launched a campaign against Marxism. The agents of the bourgeoisie in the working-class movement joined this reactionary campaign.

Several publicists who had formerly associated themselves with the Bolsheviks (Bogdanov and others), and also a number of Menshevik writers, assiduously "criticized" Marxism, criticized its philosophical-theoretical and scientific-historical principles. For the Marxist philosophy of materialism they substituted a refined idealism. Some of them, as for example the so-called "god-seekers" and "god-builders" urged that a new religion was wanted, and they tried to befuddle the minds of the workers with religious dope. They betrayed Marxism on the hypocritical pretext that they were "defending" it. Their "criticism" was linked with the campaign the reactionaries were waging against the Party and the revolution, and with the offensive which the West European revisionists were waging against Marxism.

Under these circumstances it became imperatively necessary to expose and defeat the enemies of Marxism, and the fight on the theoretical front became the Party's main task. Moreover, the revolution had awakened and roused to political life new strata of the workers, and there were many new members in the Party who had not yet acquired a consistently Marxist world outlook. As Lenin wrote in that period: "At a time when the masses are assimilating the new and unprecedentedly rich experience of the direct revolutionary struggle, the theoretical struggle for the revolutionary world outlook, i.e., for revolutionary Marxism, becomes the slogan of the day."

At the beginning of 1908 a volume of essays by a number of writers who accepted the theories of the Austrian physicist and philosophical idealist Mach, appeared under the title Studies in the Philosophy of Marxism. This volume was a hash of all the falsifications and distortions of Marxism which the Machists had perpetrated on the pretext of "defending" Marxism. Lenin decided that the moment had arrived to launch an open struggle with the object of destroying this anti-Marxist trend.

In a letter to Maxim Gorky dated February 25, 1908, Lenin wrote:

"Studies in the Philosophy of Marxism has just appeared. I have read all the essays except Suvorov's (which I am now reading), and every article made me positively furious. No, this is not Marxism! Our empirio-critics, empirio-monists and empirio-symbolists are slipping into the mire. They assure their readers that 'belief' in the reality of the external world is 'mysticism' (Bazarov); they most outrageously confuse materialism with Kantianism (Bazarov and Bogdanov); they preach a species of agnosticism (empirio-criticism) and idealism (empirio-monism)—they preach to the workers 'religious atheism' and exhort them to 'adore' the higher human potentialities (Lunacharsky)—they proclaim Engels's doctrine of dialectics to be mysticism (Berman)—they drink from the putrid springs of certain French 'Positivists'—agnostics or metaphysicians, the devil knows what they are, with 'symbolical theory of knowledge' (Yushkevich)! No, this is too much! Of course, we rank-and-file Marxists are not well versed in philosophy, but why should they insult our intelligence by offering us this stuff as the philosophy of Marxism?! I would rather be hanged, drawn and quartered than agree to co-operate in an organ, or a body, which preaches this sort of thing."

In April 1098 Lenin wrote an article entitled "Marxism and Revisionism" in connection with the twenty-fifth anniversary of the death of Marx. In this article he stated that with the victory of Marxism in the working-class movement the enemies of Marxism had changed their tactics and were attempting to undermine Marxism by pretending to "amend" or "revise" Marx. He exposed the ideological content of revisionism in philosophy, political economy and politics, and revealed its class roots. He demonstrated that the fight against revisionism was a fight for Socialism, and concluded with the following prophetic words:

"What we now frequently experience only in the domain of ideology—disputes over theoretical amendments to Marx—what now crops up in practice only over individual partial issues of the labour movement as tactical differences with the revisionists and splits on these grounds, will all unfailingly have to be experienced by the working class on an immensely larger scale when the proletarian revolution accentuates all issues and concentrates all differences on points of the most immediate importance in determining the conduct of the masses, and makes it necessary in the heat of the fight to distinguish enemies from friends and to cast out bad allies, so as to be able to deal decisive blows at the enemy.

"The ideological struggle waged by revolutionary Marxism against revisionism at the end of the nineteenth century is but the prelude to the great revolutionary battles of the proletariat, which is marching forward to the complete victory of its cause despite all the waverings and weaknesses of the petty bourgeoisie."

This article was an open declaration of war against revisionism and against all falsifiers of the theories of Marxism. Lenin was disgusted with the policy of "non-intervention" amounting to connivance adopted by Kautsky towards philosophical revisionism, and he was also disgusted with the few rather perfunctory articles that Plekhanov wrote in opposition to the Machists. He said that Plekhanov was either unwilling or unable to oppose Bogdanov's philosophy firmly and emphatically, and that he, Lenin, would do it "in his own way," "come what may."

He began assiduously to study the works of the Russian Machists and even neglected Proletarii because of that. In a letter to Maxim Gorky written in March 1908 he said: "I am neglecting the newspaper because of my intoxication with philosophy."* He also studied the philosophical works of the teachers of the Russian Machists—Mach, Avenarius, Hume, Berkeley and their followers. But he did not confine himself to this; he also made a thorough study of the literature on natural science, especially on theoretical physics. In the latter part of May he went to London, where he spent a month, working in the British Museum.

At the end of June he wrote to his relatives: "My illness has held up my work on philosophy very considerably. But now I have almost recovered, and I will certainly write the book. I have worked a lot on the Machists and I think I have got to the bottom of their (and 'Empirio-monism's') inexpressible banalities." He started writing his book in February and finished it in October 1908.

Then began the long quest for a publisher who would agree to publish it legally in Russia. At last one was found, and the book was sent to press. In a letter to his sister in February 1909 Lenin wrote: "There is one thing and one thing alone that I am now dreaming of and beg—and that is that the publication of the book be expedited." A month later he referred to the subject again and wrote: "And yet it is hellishly important for me that the book should come out a the earliest possible date, because for its publication I am bound not only by literary, but also by important political obligations."

Lenin was anxious to get the book out because an enlarged conference of the editorial board of Proletarii (actually, the Bolshevik central body) was to take place in June 1909, and a decisive battle against Bogdanov and his supporters was expected.

This book appeared in May 1909. This was Lenin's great work Materialism and Empirio-Criticism.

In this book Lenin criticizes from every angle the latest subtleties of bourgeois idealist philosophy, gives a wonderfully profound exposition of the theory of knowledge of dialectical materialism and a philosophical generalization from the dialectical materialist point of view of the new discoveries in natural science, especially in physics.

The Machists had tried to "refute" materialism with the aid of "neo-positivism," "the philosophy of modern natural science," and so forth. Regarding the world, things, as a "complex of sensations" they in fact merely repeated the old subjective idealist views.

Lenin showed that on the pretext of preaching "the twentieth century of natural science," Bogdanov and the others were simply resurrecting the subjective idealism of the English eighteenth century philosopher, Berkley. The problems of the theory of knowledge, he said, could be scientifically solved only from the standpoint of materialism. The world is matter in motion. Nature existed before man; man's consciousness is the product of highly organized matter. Things exist outside of our consciousness and independently of it. "Our perceptions and ideas are their images. Verification of these images, differentiation between true and false images, is given by practice," Such, according too Lenin, is the gist of the materialist theory of knowledge.

1. Things exist independently of our consciousness, independently of our perceptions, outside of us. . . .
2. There is definitely no difference in principle between the phenomenon and the thing-in-itself, and there can be no such difference. The only difference is between what is known and what is not yet known. . . .
3. In the theory of knowledge, as in every other branch of science, we must think dialectically, that is, we must not regard out knowledge as ready-made and unalterable, but must determine how knowledge emerges from ignorance, how incomplete, inexact knowledge becomes more complete and more exact.

Human knowledge, while reflecting the outside world, cannot at once embrace all the infinite variety of phenomena of nature and of social life. Knowledge is a process consisting of many phases and stages, each of which is of a relative nature, but contains within itself a grain of absolute truth. "Human thought then by its nature is capable of giving, and does give, absolute truth, which is compounded of a sum-total of relative truths. Each step in the development of science adds new grains to the sum of absolute truth, but the limits of the truth of each scientific proposition are relative, now expanding, now shrinking with the growth of knowledge." For example, up to the twentieth century most scientists believed that the atom was the smallest indivisible particle of matter. Modern science, however, has proved that even the atom consists of a number of particles and is complex in structure. "The limits of approximation of our knowledge to the objective, absolute truth are historically conditional, but the existence of such truth is unconditional, and the fact that we are approaching nearer to it is also unconditional."

Knowledge develops hand in hand with the practical activities of man. The question as to whether objective facts and laws are correctly reflected by human perceptions is also decided by practice.

The great discoveries of the end of the nineteenth century, such as radioactivity, the electron, etc., caused a revolution in natural science and completely upset the old, commonly accepted, scientific conceptions. Many natural scientists were unable to abandon the old metaphysical materialism and adopt dialectical materialism, and therefore slipped into reactionary philosophy and began to draw idealist conclusions to the effect that matter disappears, that space and time are subjective concepts, etc. Analysing the revolution in natural science and especially in physics, Lenin showed that these scientific discoveries, far from refuting dialectical materialism, actually prove its soundness. He advanced the proposition that "the electron is as inexhaustible as the atom." To extricate natural science, and physics in particular, from the crisis into which it had been plunged, said Lenin, it was necessary to adopt "the only true method and the only true philosophy," namely, dialectical materialism. "Modern physics is in travail; it is giving birth to dialectical materialism."

Lenin also denounced the attempts of the philosophical revisionists to identify social being with social consciousness. "Materialism in general," he wrote, "recognizes objectively real being (matter) as independent of the mind, sensation, experience, etc., of humanity. Historical materialism recognizes social being as independent of the social consciousness of humanity. In both cases consciousness is only the reflection of being, at best an approximately true (adequate, perfectly exact) reflection of it. From this Marxian philosophy, which is cast from a single piece of steel, you cannot eliminate one basic premise, one essential part, without departing from objective truth, without falling a prey to a bourgeois-reactionary falsehood."

Lenin proved up to the hilt that the philosophy of Bogdanov, Bazarov and the other decadent writers was idealist and inimical to the proletariat, and he indicated the class role it was playing. Modern philosophy, he said, is as partisan as philosophy was two thousand years ago. Gnosiological scholastics are merely a screen to conceal the struggle and ideologies of classes. The objective function of the Machists is to serve reaction and clericalism. It is the duty of the Marxists, he said, to master and critically adapt the achievements of science, including also the materials provided by the scientific "carpet-baggers" of the bourgeoisie, such as the bourgeois economists, "and learn how to lop off their reactionary tendency, to pursue their own line and combat the whole alignment of forces and classes hostile to us. And this is just what our Machians were unable to do; they slavishly followed the lead of the reactionary professorial philosophy."

Lenin's book served as a most important instrument for rallying the ranks of the Bolsheviks in the period when reaction triumphed. In that very same year, 1909, Stalin, as son as he had read the book, wrote that "Ilyich's book is the only digest of its kind extant of the propositions of the philosophy (gnosiology) of Marxism," that "Ilyich's materialism in many ways differs from Plekhanov's."

This book inflicted utter defeat upon philosophical revisionism and at the same time marked a gigantic step forward in the further development of the philosophical principles of Marxism, a new stage in the development of dialectical materialism. Stalin wrote that "none other than Lenin undertook the very serious task of generalizing, in line with the materialist philosophy, the most important achievements of science from the time of Engels down to his own time, as well as of subjecting to comprehensive criticism the anti-materialistic trends among Marxists. Engels said that 'materialism must assume a new aspect with every new great discovery.' It is well known that none other than Lenin accomplished this task for his own time in his remarkable work Materialism and Empirio-Criticism." This book served as the theoretical groundwork in building the Marxist party of a new type. At this time Lenin considered that it was extremely important for the Party to sum up the experience of the first revolution and to study and popularize its lessons in the working class and among the masses of the people generally. He, himself devoted exceptional attention to this and dealt with it in many of his writings. In putting the case for the Party he severely attacked the counter-revolutionary Liberals and Menshevik renegades who tried to eradicate the revolutionary traditions from the minds of the people; he refuted the slander that the Liberals indulged in against the revolution, and denounced the Mensheviks for attempting to distort its history. He staunchly and consistently vindicated the heroic traditions of the direct revolutionary struggle of the masses and the rich experience gained by it.

In 1908 he wrote: "The question of appraising our revolution is by no means one of purely theoretical interest; it is of direct, practical and everyday importance. All our work of propaganda, agitation and organization at the present time is inseparably linked up with the process of assimilation by the broadest masses of the working class and of the semi-proletarian population of the lessons of these three great years. . . . We must state publicly, for all to hear, for the edification of the wavering and dejected, and to shame the renegades who have deserted Socialism, that the workers' party regards the direct revolutionary struggle of the masses, the struggles of October and December 1905, as the greatest movement of the proletariat since the Commune; that only the development of these forms of struggle can guarantee success for the revolution in the future, and that these examples of struggle must serve us as a beacon in the work of rearing new generations of fighters."

He showed that by its heroic struggle during the three years of the revolution the Russian proletariat had gained what other nations had spent decades to attain. The most important thing was that the masses of the workers had freed themselves from the influence of the treacherous and cowardly Liberals, that the proletariat had won for itself the hegemony in the democratic revolution, and that the oppressed masses had learnt how to wage a revolutionary mass struggle. He explained to every class-conscious worker the three chief lessons of the revolution, namely: that the masses of the people can obtain a real improvement in their conditions only by means of a staunch and persevering revolutionary struggle; that it was not enough to undermine the tsarist regime, it was necessary to uproot and destroy it; that the masses had seen how the different classes behaved in a revolution, had learnt what their real aims were, what they were fighting for, and how strongly, persistently and vigorously they can fight.

Lenin also revealed the fundamental causes of the defeat of the first Russian revolution. One of these was that a firm alliance between the workers and peasants in the revolution was lacking; and another, that the operations of the peasants "were too sporadic, unorganized and insufficiently aggressive." The onslaught of the working class against the tsarist regime was not as strong as it should have been because unity was lacking in the ranks of the working class itself, and its was therefore unable adequately to act as the real leader of the revolution. Lenin urged the Party to take all measures to enable the proletariat to play its historical role in the next revolution, to enable it to be the real leader of that revolution, marching at the head of tens of millions of working people.

Lenin closely studied the working-class struggle during the revolution and carefully traced the course of the strike movement. He showed that the working-class movement drew its strength from the combination of economics and political strikes, that the general strike must grow into insurrection, and that the struggle waged by the workers during the revolution had brought to light vast reserves of revolutionary energy. In an article entitled "The Lessons of the Revolution," written in 1910, Lenin wrote:

"Five years ago the proletariat struck the first blow at the tsarist autocracy, and the Russian people caught glimpses of the first rays of freedom. But now the tsarist autocracy has been restored; again the serfowners reign and govern; again the workers and peasants are subjected to tyranny everywhere; everywhere we see the Asiatic despotism of the authorities and disgusting outrages committed against the people. But these severe lessons will not be forgotten. The Russian people to-day are not what they were before 1905. The proletariat taught them how to fight. The proletariat will lead them to victory."

Lenin made a special study of the agrarian question in the revolution. His writings on this subject in this period provide us with a Marxist appraisal of the bourgeois-democratic revolution in Russia and reveal its economic basis. The specific feature of the Russian revolution, its "pivot," he said, was the agrarian question. He subjected to exhaustive criticism the agrarian programmes of all classes and parties in Russia, and pointing to concrete facts in the history of the revolution, especially to the activities of the First and Second State Dumas, he proved that the Constitutional-Democrats were the enemies of the peasants. In the light of the wealth of experience gained during the revolution, Lenin enunciated the Bolshevik agrarian programme which was, to sweep away the survivals of serfdom in the rural districts by revolutionary means and thus clear the road for the struggle for Socialism in the countryside.

By no means all that Lenin wrote on the agrarian question was published at that time. He expounded his main conclusions in a few, short, but exceptionally profound articles which appeared in illegal publications ("The Agrarian Programme of Social-Democracy in the Russian Revolution," and others). The larger of his works could not be published under the tsarist regime. His major work on this subject: The Agrarian Programme of Social-Democracy in the First Russian Revolution of 1905-07 was destroyed by the tsarist police while it was still in the press; nor was it possible to publish his Agrarian Question in Russia at the End of the Nineteenth Century. It was only after the autocracy was overthrown that these works became accessible to the millions.

Lenin performed truly titanic work in theoretically generalizing and popularizing the lessons of the first Russian revolution. The leaders of the parties affiliated to the Second International were neither willing nor able to appraise the significance of the Russian revolution of 1905-07 as the first revolution in the epoch of imperialism; nor were they willing or able to learn the necessary lessons from it. All of them "revealed their utter inability to understand the significance of this experience and to fulfil their duty as revolutionaries, i.e., to study and popularize the lessons of this experience."

In view of the ideological and political confusion that then prevailed and the severe crisis the Party was experiencing, it was extremely important for the fate of the working-class movement and of the Party to determine correctly the road which the Party was to pursue. The great service that Lenin rendered then was that in this exceptionally severe and crucial period in the life of the Party he, with brilliant foresight, indicated the road the movement would pursue and vigorously combated those who attempted to turn the Party from this road, to create panic in its ranks, or lure it into political adventures.

In doing this Lenin based himself upon a strictly scientific analysis, made from every angle, of Russia's path of development, of the situation and stand taken by the different classes, of their interrelations and their policies. The objective aims of the bourgeois-democratic revolution in Russia had not been achieved, he said; the profound causes that gave rise to the first revolution, and were again pushing the masses into the revolutionary struggle, had not been remove. Another revolution was inevitable. It would be wrong however, he added, to ignore the new factor which had arisen since the revolution, and which was one of its consequences, namely, the Stolypin regime.

While cruelly suppressing the revolutionary movement of the workers and peasants, the tsarist government at the same time resorted to an extensive manœuvre. On November 9, 1906, Stolypin, the Prime Minister, promulgated a new agrarian law, which granted the peasants the right to leave the village communities and to set up separate homesteads. The object of this laws was to break up the common ownership of land. Every peasant was given the opportunity to take over his allotment as his private property and to leave the village-community. The peasants were also allowed to sell their allotments. It was made obligatory for the village communities to provide those who desired to leave the community with land in a single plot. The rich peasants, known as kulaks, were thus able to buy up the land of the poorer peasants at a low price. Within a few years over a million peasants lost their land entirely and became paupers. On the other hand, the number of kulak homesteads increased considerably. The tsarist government compelled the village communities to allocate to the kulaks the best plots of land, and it loaned them considerable sums to help them to set up their farms. Stolypin's object was to create a class of small landowners who would loyally defend the tsarist regime.

It was necessary to understand the significance of Stolypin's policy in order to forecast the prospects of the revolution. Lenin explained this policy from the Bolshevik view point in a series of articles and lectures. At the same time he sharply criticized the doctrinaire and stereotyped views of the Liquidators and Otzovists, whose approach to the subject showed their utter inability to apply the Marxist method.

Lenin's description and analysis of Stolypin's policy is a classical example of the application of the Marxist dialectical method in analysing social phenomena. The Liquidators, he said, were utterly wrong in stating that this policy wiped out all prospects of another revolution. Stolypin's policy marked a further stage in the process of conversation of the feudal autocracy into a bourgeois monarchy. It was an attempt on the part of the serfowner landlords to solve the problems of the bourgeois evolution of Russia in their own way, from above; but this policy was doomed to failure. Stolypin's efforts to create and maintain a class of kulaks were aggravating the situation in the rural districts and intensifying class antagonisms among the peasantry. Another revolutionary upheaval was inevitable, but it was approaching in a new way. Answering the Otzovists, who failed to see this new factor, he wrote that the Stolypin policy "was an inherently contradictory, impossible attempt, which will once again bring the autocracy to the verge of collapse and will cause a repetition of the glorious epoch and glorious battles of 1905. But things are proceeding in a different way compared with 1897-1903; they will lead the people to revolution in a different way compared with 1905. Now this "different" must be understood; we must change our tactics."

The specific features of the situation dictated the specific tactics that Lenin drew up. These envisages a period of persevering and systematic effort to prepare the masses for another revolution by combining illegal with legal activities, by making the utmost revolutionary use of the Party's legal bases, such as the Social-Democratic Group in the State Duma, the trade unions, the sick insurance societies, workers' clubs and so forth. "Considering the mechanical strength of the reaction," wrote Lenin, "and our feeble connections with the masses, it becomes more and more necessary to prepare the minds of the masses (and not to indulge in direct action), it becomes more and more necessary to utilize the channels of propaganda and agitation created by the old regime (and not to lead the masses in a direct onslaught upon this old regime)."

To be able to do this it was necessary ruthlessly to combat those who were out to liquidate the Party either avowedly, like the Liquidators, or by refusing to utilize legal possibilities, as proposed by the Otzovists. All measures had to be taken to preserve and strengthen the illegal revolutionary party of the working class.

This is how Lenin defined the Party's organizational policy and tactics in the period of the Stolypin regime.

Lenin formulated these tasks in the very first utterances he made on arriving abroad. In March 1908, he wrote in Proletarii: "In view of the fact that the objective aims of the bourgeois revolution in Russia have not been achieved, a crisis is inevitable. Events, circumstances and vicissitudes in the purely economic field, specifically in the financial field, and in the field of home and foreign politics, may make this crisis acute. And the Party of the proletariat—having taken the straight road of building up a strong illegal variety of instruments for exercising legal and semi-legal influence than it had before—will be able to meet this crisis better prepared for the decisive struggle than it was in October and December 1905."

It was necessary to offer strenuous resistance to all sorts of Liquidatorist trends. With this object the Bolsheviks, at a meeting of the Central Committee held in August 1908, secured the adoption of a decision to convene a Party conference.

To make preparations for this conference Lenin, in December 1908, went to Paris, which was then the centre of the Russian political exiles.

In Paris, as everywhere, Lenin strictly planned his daily work. He rose at 8 a.m, cycled from the outskirts of the city where he lived to the Bibliothèque Nationale, returned at 2 p.m. and continued his work at home. One day, on the way from Juvisy, near Paris, where he had gone to witness an aviation display, an automobile ran into his bicycle. He just managed to jump off in time; the bicycle was wrecked.

In Paris, Lenin took an active part in the work of the Bolshevik group in that city, delivered lectures at the Proletarii Club, and addressed a meeting of political exiles.

Soon after his arrival, the Fifth Conference of the R.S.D.L.P. was held. This conference marked, as Lenin expressed it, "the turning point" in the history of the Party during the period of the Stolypin reaction. Lenin was the principal speaker at this conference, and in the course of his speech he severely criticized both the Liquidators and the Otzovists. The conference adopted a resolution, drawn up by Lenin, which contained an analysis of the situation then prevailing, defined the tactics of the Party, and condemned Liquidatorism and Otzovism.

This conference marked a great victory for Lenin in his fight for the Party, and this served to fan the hostility of the enemies of the Party and of Bolshevism. The Liquidators, who were the avowed opponents of the Party, the "Golos-ites" (supporters of the Menshevik Golos Sotsial-Demokratia [The Voice of the Social-Democrat] such as Martov and others), who diplomatically supported the Liquidators, the Trotskyites who concealed their Liquidatorist aims with sonorous "conciliatory" phrased, the Otzovists—"Liquidators the other way around," as they were called, and the conciliators of all shades—Trotsky's tactic allies—did all they possibly could to prevent the Party from rallying its forces. Their deliberate object was to destroy the Party of the proletariat, the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party.

While waging a relentless struggle against the pro-Menshevik Liquidators, Lenin considered it necessary first of all to purge the Bolshevik organization of its petty-bourgeois fellow-travellers, to rid it of those who were hindering the Bolsheviks in their fight for the Party and trying to isolate it from the masses. He directed his blows against the Otzovists. In June 1909, an enlarged conference of the editorial board of Proletarii was held, at which Lenin made a slashing attack upon the Otzovist "god-builders." The conference resulted in a victory for Lenin. It condemned the Otzovists and expelled them from the Bolshevik organization.

The fight Lenin waged against the Otzovists, Ultimatumists, Machists and "god-builders," found strong backing in Russia. Stalin, who after his escape from exile in Solvychegodsk had returned to the Caucasus in June 1909, was rallying the forces of the Bolsheviks there. In August 1909, the Baku Party Committee, led by Stalin, passed a resolution calling for an implacable ideological struggle against Bogdanov and his supporters, and declared that this was one of the most urgent tasks of the Party.

Some years later, in 1920, in tracing the course of development of this period, Lenin wrote:

"Of all the defeated opposition and revolutionary parties the Bolsheviks effected the most orderly retreat, with the least loss to their 'army,' with its nucleus best preserved, with the fewest splits (in the sense of deep, irremediable splits), with the least demoralization, and in the best condition to resume work on the broadest scale and in the most correct and energetic manner. The Bolsheviks achieved this only because they ruthlessly exposed and expelled the revolutionary phrasemongers, who refused to understand that it was necessary to retreat, that it was necessary to know how to retreat, that it was absolutely necessary for them to learn how to work legally, in the most reactionary parliaments, in the most reactionary trade unions, co-operative societies, social insurance, and similar organizations."

In his fight against the Liquidators Lenin was ruthless. Trotsky did all he could to defend the Liquidators, trying to conceal his own Liquidatorist position by posing as a conciliator and Centrist.

In January 1910 Trotsky and his secret agents, Kamenev, Zinoviev, Rykov and others, without consulting Lenin, convened a meeting of the Central Committee. At this meeting Lenin, by dint of great effort, secured the endorsement of the decisions of the conference of December 1908. A resolution was adopted condemning the Liquidators and Otzovists as channels of bourgeois influence upon the proletariat. But Trotsky and his secret agents succeeded in getting a number of decisions passed against Lenin, such as the decision to close down the Bolshevik newspaper Proletarii and to grant a subsidy to the sheet which Trotsky was publishing in Vienna. Subsequently, Lenin referred to the decisions of this meeting of the Central Committee as "idiotic," conciliatory decisions, which held up the development of the Party's work for a whole year.

After this meeting of the Central Committee the conflict became still more acute. The Liquidators, the Martovites, the Trotskyites, the Vperyod-ites and the Conciliators, united against Lenin and redoubled their efforts against the Party. Judas-Trotsky, as Lenin called him, began to knock together his heterogeneous, unprincipled crowd into a bloc against the Bolsheviks and Lenin. This was the notorious anti-Party August bloc. The Second International came to the aid of the Mensheviks. The columns of the socialist press in Europe were hospitably thrown open for them to utter the most outrageous slander against the Bolsheviks. On the editorial board of Sotsial-Demokrat Zinoviev and Kamenev wove a web of intrigue behind Lenin's back and negotiated with his enemies.

In this tense atmosphere Lenin tirelessly continued his activities in defence of the Party. His strength and energy seemed inexhaustible and his confidence in the victory of the Bolsheviks over all the enemies of the Party was boundless. He rallied the Bolshevik ranks and formed a bloc composed of the Bolsheviks and the pro-Party Mensheviks (Plekhanovites), who were in favour of preserving and strengthening the underground party.

Lenin denounced Trotsky's attempts to form an unprincipled anti-Party bloc consisting of all the enemies of Bolshevism, and exposed the anti-Party nature of Trotskyism. "Trotsky," he wrote, "is uniting all those who love ideological confusion, all those who are indifferent to the cause of defending Marxism, all the philistines who do not know what the fight is about, and who do not want to learn, to think, to delve down to the ideological roots of our disagreements."

In an article entitled "Judas-Trotsky's Blush of Shame," Lenin pillories Trotsky, tears the mask from this hypocrite, and reveals that "at the meeting of the Central Committee he vowed that he was opposed to Liquidatorism and Otzovism, 'swore to God that he was for the Party,' but after the meeting he grovelled at the feet of the Liquidators and Otzovists, and joined them in a conspiracy against the Party."

Lenin frustrated all the plans of the Party's enemies and exposed the knavish tricks to which they resorted to wreck the Party. "The plot against the Party has been discovered," he wrote. "All those who have the existence of the R.S.D.L.P. at heart, rise in defence of the Party!"

In his fight against the Liquidators, Lenin relied on the Party organizations in Russia and received the full backing of Stalin. In spite of the furious opposition of Martov's supporters, Stalin's famous "Letters from the Caucasus" appeared in Sotsial-Demokrat, the central organ of the Party. In these letters Stain subjected the Liquidators to withering criticism and denounced the treacherous conduct of Trotsky's accomplices. In these "Letters," as well as in a letter he wrote to Lenin from Solvychegodsk, his place of exile in Siberia at the end of 1910, he outlined a plan for the organization of Party work in Russia. This plan was: to convene a general Party conference, to publish a legal Party newspaper, and to form an underground Party centre to direct practical activities. This plan was subsequently adopted at the Party conference held in Prague.

Lenin waged implacable war against the opportunists and Centrists in the Second International. He closely watched the processes going on in the international working-class movement, and in his articles he showed how opportunism was growing and gaining strength in the Second International. He proved that this opportunism emanated mainly from the petty-bourgeois fellow-travellers of the working-class movement and from the "aristocracy of labour," the upper stratum of the working class which had been bribed by the bourgeoisie. The principal channels of opportunism, he said, were the trade union officials and the Labour and Social-Democratic groups in the parliaments of the different countries. Lenin showed that a split from the opportunists was maturing and would inevitably take place in all countries. He sharply criticized the Centrist leadership of the parties affiliated to the Second International and supported the Left elements in those parties, while criticizing their mistakes and their lack of consistency in fighting the opportunists. At the meeting of the International Socialist Bureau, of which he had been a member since the autumn of 1905, he, in 1908, 1909 and 1911, fought for a consistent, revolutionary line, criticized Kautsky's Centrist policy, supported the Dutch Left Social-Democrats, and defended Rosa Luxemburg when she was attacked by the leaders of the German Social-Democratic Party.

In August 1910, Lenin attended the Copenhagen Congress of the Second International and took an active part in its proceedings, strongly opposing the opportunists. During the congress he called a conference of the Left wing delegates for the purpose of organizing and welding together the revolutionary elements in the international working-class movement.

At the end of 1910 the first symptoms of a revival among the masses in Russia became visible. Apathy and weariness were giving way to rising revolutionary temper among the masses. As a result of the energetic measures taken by Lenin, the publication of a new Bolshevik organ, Rabochaya Gazeta (The Workers' Gazette), was started abroad, and in Russia, the legal newspapers, Zvezda (The Star) and the magazine Mysl (Thought) appeared. In a letter to Elizarov, dated December 20, 1910, Lenin wrote: "Yesterday I received from Russia copies of No. 1 of Zvezda, and to-day I received copies of No. 1 of Mysl. Now this is very gratifying! I hope you too have seen them. This is indeed very gratifying!!"

Lenin devoted a great deal of attention to Zvezda and Mysl, and articles written by him often appeared in their columns. He maintained close contact with the Bolsheviks in St. Petersburg and started corresponding with Yakov Sverdlov, who was then in St. Petersburg acting as an agent of the Central Committee.

Lenin was delighted to note the new working-class Party officials who were coming to the front, and he did all in his power to train them to become staunch Party cadres. When these workers came to visit him he personally arranged comfortable lodgings for them, supervized their studies and verified the progress they were making. The Otzovists, taking advantage of the workers' desire for knowledge, had set up a school at Capri, where they propagated their pernicious views. Lenin exposed the factional character of this school and succeeded in inducing the students to come to Paris. In November and December 1909 he delivered to them a series of lectures on the current situation and on Stolypin’s agrarian policy. In the summer of 1911 he opened a Party school in Longjumeau, near Paris, where he lectured to the workers on political economy, the theory and practice of Socialism, and the agrarian question.

The first symptoms of the approaching revival, which Lenin had predicted, made the question of finally routing the Liquidators and of rebuilding the Party an extremely urgent issue. In his articles Lenin strongly emphasized that it was impossible for the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks to remain in one party any longer, and that the situation demanded a complete rupture with the Mensheviks, their expulsion from the Party and the combing out of all opportunists.

He pursued his campaign against the Liquidators, and the Foreign Bureau of the Central Committee which supported them with redoubled vigour, and in June 1911 he succeeded in getting a meeting of the Central Committee called and a decision carried in favour of convening a Party conference.

Lenin made energetic preparations for this conference. The fight against the Liquidators was reaching a climax and the latter did all they could to hinder the Bolsheviks. Particularly pernicious was the role played at that time by the Conciliators, who tried to prevent the conference from being called and the renegades from being expelled from the proletarian Party. Lenin sharply denounced them as the accomplices of the Liquidators. In an article entitled "The New Faction of Conciliators, or the Virtuous," he wrote, "The role of the Conciliators during the period of counter-revolution may be characterized by the following picture. With immense efforts the Bolsheviks are pulling our Party waggon up a steep slope. The Liquidator Golos-ites are trying with all their might to drag it downhill again. In the waggon sits a Conciliator; he is a picture of tenderness. He has such a sweet, sweet face, like that of Jesus. He looks the very incarnation of virtue. And modestly dropped his eyes and raising his hand he exclaims: 'I thank thee, Lord, that I am not like one of these'—a nod in the direction of the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks—'vicious factionalists who hinder all progress.' But the waggon moves slowly forward and in the waggon sits the Conciliator. . . ."

A struggle flared up around the question of convening the conference. The Organization and Technical Committees, which the Central Committee at its meeting in June had set up abroad for the purpose of making arrangements for the conference, were actually serving the Liquidators and hindering all arrangements. Lenin and his followers strongly denounced them for this.

Meanwhile, Stalin was waging an intense campaign against the Liquidators in Russia, and this won Lenin's full approbation. In publishing Stalin's article, "From the Camp of the Stolypin 'Workers" Party," he made the following comment on it. "Comrade K's [i.e., Stalin's—Ed.] correspondence deserves the closest attention of all those who have the interests of our Party at heart. It is difficult to conceive of a better exposure of the policy pursued by Golos (and by the Golos diplomats), of a better refutation of the opinions and hopes of our 'conciliators and compromisers'."

Lenin commissioned Orjonikidze to go to Russia for the purpose of forming an Organization Committee to make arrangements for the conference. Orjonikidze's energetic efforts bore fruit. The committee was formed, it held conferences and issued an appeal to the Party explaining why the conference was being convened. Lenin was delighted with the way the committee conducted its work. "Of course," he wrote, "one would have to be unpardonably naive to give ay to credulous optimism. Enormous difficulties have still to be overcome. Police persecution has increased tenfold since the publication in Russia of the first leaflet emanating from a central Social-Democratic body. One can foresee long and arduous months of new arrests and further interruptions in the work. But the main thing has been done. The flag has been hoisted, and the workers' circles all over Russia are surging towards it. It will never be hauled down again, however fierce the onslaught of the counter-revolution may be."

In the course of his preparations for the conference Lenin, in the autumn, visited the Bolshevik groups in Paris, Zurich, Berne, Geneva, Brussels, Antwerp and London, and delivered lectures before them. In December 1911 he convened in Paris a conference of Bolshevik groups abroad at which he made a report on the state of affairs in the Party.

Breaking down all obstacles, discomfiting all enemies, and sweeping from his path all those who resisted him, he succeeded in getting the Party conference convened. This conference was held in Prague, in January, 1912, and has since been known as the Sixth (Prague) All-Russian Conference. Lenin personally directed its proceedings, delivered the main reports, took part in the debates, and drafted the main resolutions.

In his speeches Lenin pointed out that the correctness of the decisions of the preceding Fifth Conference on the Third of June Regime and the tasks of the Party had been fully corroborated by the course of events. Stolypin's policy had suffered bankruptcy in the eyes of the masses of the people, and primarily, of the proletariat. There were symptoms of the beginning of a political revival, and revolutionary temper was rising. The party's primary task was to continue its efforts to educate, organize and weld together the advanced masses of the proletariat. It was necessary, he said, to carry on widespread political agitation, to do everything to encourage the growth of the incipient mass movement and to rally it wound the banner and revolutionary slogans of the Party.

To do this successfully, he said, a strong and well-cemented underground party was needed, which would take advantage of all legal possibilities to a far greater extent that hitherto. The tasks of the day called for new methods of organizing party work. It was necessary to form small, flexible, mobile, underground Party groups, which should serve as the centres of a network of legal organizations, and see to it that the Party's line is followed in every branch of legal activity. This was the primary and most effective method of combating Liquidatorism.

Of great interest is the report Lenin delivered on the activities of the International Socialist Bureau. In it he described the state of the international working-class movement and said that the struggle between the revolutionary and reformist elements in the parties affiliated to the Second International, and primarily in the outwardly "united" German Social-Democratic Party, was becoming more intense. The Social-Democratic Parties, he said, were advancing towards a new epoch, the epoch of the socialist revolution, the epoch of decisive battles between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. The economic crisis and the war crisis were symptoms of the approach of this new historical epoch.

The Prague Conference marked the culmination of the struggle that Lenin had waged for the revolutionary proletarian party, of the struggle the Bolsheviks had waged against opportunism.

The conference expelled the Mensheviks from the Party and laid the foundations of the Party of a new type, the Party of Leninism, the Bolshevik Party.

The Bolsheviks had begun to pave the way for such a party as far back as the period of the old Iskra, and had been fighting for it persistently and perseveringly, overcoming all obstacles. The entire history of the struggle against the "Economists," Mensheviks, Trotskyites, Otzovists and idealists of all shades, right up to the Empirio-Critics, is the history of the struggle for precisely such a party. And, as is stated in the History of the C.P.S.U.(B.), "A fundamental and decisive part was played in this work by the writings of Lenin—What Is To Be Done?, Two Tactics, etc. Lenin's What Is To Be Done? was the ideological preparation for such a party. Lenin's One Step Forward, Two Steps Back was the organizational preparation for such a party. Lenin's Two Tactics of Social-Democracy in the Democratic Revolution was the political preparation for such a party. And, lastly, Lenin's Materialism and Empirio-Criticism was the theoretical preparation for such a party."

Lenin triumphed primarily because he steadfastly pursued a policy based on principles, and, as he always taught the Party, "a policy based on principles is the only correct policy."

VII

The Prague Conference marked the culmination of a great period in Lenin's life and activities. For many years he had waged a stubborn fight against numerous enemies for the creation of the Bolshevik Party, the Party of a new type, and he was victorious in this struggle. This was a great triumph for him, a red letter day in his life. In a letter to Maxim Gorky which he wrote at the beginning of 1912, he said: "At last I have succeeded, in spite of the Liquidatorist scum, in restoring the Party and its Central Committee. I hope you will rejoice with us over this."

But the "Liquidatorist scum" raised a furious howl abroad. In a letter to his relatives Lenin wrote: "There is such bickering and mud-slinging going on in our crowd as there has not been for a long time, if ever. All the groups and sub-groups have combined against the last conference and it organizers, so much so that at the meetings here they actually came to blows." The coteries abroad appealed for aid to the Second International. Trotsky published in Vorwärts, the organ of the German Social-Democratic Party, an anonymous lampoon against the Prague Conference. But Lenin gave a stern rebuff to all these despicable attacks. He sent a letter of protest to the International Socialist Bureau. He also wrote an article entitled "The Anonymous Writer in Vorwärts and the State of Affairs in the R.S.D.L.P.," in which he described the disruptive activities of these coteries abroad and showed that they had no contacts whatever with Party organizations in Russia. Vorwärts refused to publish this article, and so Lenin published it in pamphlet form in German and sent copies of it to six hundred addresses of newspapers, officials, local committees, libraries and other organizations connected with the German Social-Democratic Party.

Generally speaking, however, Lenin was not much perturbed by the hullabaloo raised by these "generals without armies." The Bolsheviks had definitely won the Party organizations in Russia, and the Prague Conference had served to unite them more strongly than ever. Lenin's thoughts were then taken up with something entirely different. For several years the Bolsheviks, under Lenin's leadership, had been retreating, but retreating in an organized manner, in perfect order, thrusting aside all those who attempted to sow panic and convert this retreat into a flight and capitulation, or to lure the Party into political adventures. But now there were ever-growing signs of a revival of revolutionary temper among the masses of the workers in Russia, of the imminence of a turn in the revolutionary tide, which Lenin had predicted, and of which he was absolutely convinced. It was necessary to be fully equipped for this change, to consolidate the results of the Prague Conference, and to develop the Party's activities in conformity with its decisions.

To do this it was first of all necessary to organize the work of the Bureau of the Central Committee in Russia and to expedite the publication there of a daily Bolshevik newspaper. Lenin instructed Orjonikidze to go to Russia to make arrangements for this. The Prague Conference had elected Stalin, then in exile in Vologda, to the Central Committee, and on Lenin's proposal he was placed at the head of the Bureau of the Central Committee in Russia. Orjonikidze went straight to Vologda to inform Stalin about the decisions of the conference. Later, he wrote to Lenin: "I have been to see Ivanovich [Stalin], and have arranged everything with him. He was very pleased to hear how things have turned out. The news made a splendid impression upon him."

On February 29, 1912, Stalin escaped from his place of exile and set to work energetically to carry out the decisions of the conference. In conformity with Lenin's instructions, he took the initiative in arranging for the publication of a legal Bolshevik newspaper, which was called Pravda (Truth). May 5 saw the appearance of the first issue of Pravda, which was prepared for the press under Stalin's direction. Two days later Stalin was arrested.

Pravda began to appear just at the time when the working-class movement in Russia was beginning to revive. A great fillip had been given the movement by the tragedy that was enacted on April 4, in the remote forests of Siberia, i.e., the shooting of the workers in the Lena goldfields. "The Lena shootings," wrote Lenin, "served as the stimulus which transformed the revolutionary temper of the masses into the revolutionary upsurge of the masses." Protest strikes were declared in different parts of the country involving about 300,000 workers, and on the First of May strikes occurred involving about 400,000 workers. The revival of the working-class movement had commenced. Lenin's forecast had come true.

It became increasingly difficult to direct Pravda, the growing activities of the Party, and the growing working-class movement from Paris. Lenin found it necessary to shift his headquarters to a place nearer to the Russian frontier. His choice fell on Cracow. In reply to an enquiry by Maxim Gorky, he wrote: "You ask me why I chose Austria. The Central Committee has set up a bureau here (this is between ourselves): it is near the frontier, we take advantage of this; it is nearer to St. Petersburg, we get newspapers from there within two days, it has become ever so much easier to write for the St. Petersburg newspapers, and arrangements are being made for closer cooperation."

Lenin left for Cracow on June 19, 1912, and stayed there for over two years, until the world imperialist war broke out in 1914. He lived in the city during the winter and in the village of Poronino in the summer. Lenin was very pleased with the change. In a letter to his relatives he wrote: "We find it better to live here than in Paris. We are resting our nerves and doing more literary work; and there is less bickering." But the main thing was that he succeeded in establishing closer connections with Russia, was able to react more quickly to events there, and more systematically direct the Party's everyday activities. In a letter to Maxim Gorky written in January 1913, he said: "The Cracow base has proved to be useful. Our removal to Cracow has 'paid' (as far as the cause is concerned)."

In the summer of 1913, owing to Nadezhda Krupskaya's ill-health, they went to live in Poronino, and in a letter to his relatives concerning this Lenin wrote regretfully: "The other day we moved . . . to the mountains, for the summer, to Poroninno, seven kilometers from Zakopane. It is near the Tatra Mountains, six or eight hours' journey from Cracow, to the South—communication both with Russia and with Europe runs through Cracow. It is further away from Russia—but this cannot be helped." So eager was he to be able to react quickly to events at home that to be several score of kilometres nearer to Russia and to receive news from there two or three hours earlier was a matter of great importance to him.

One of the drawbacks of Cracow was the absence of a good library. "There is less bickering here, this is an advantage. But there is no good library, this is a drawback. It is hard to get along without books," he wrote to Maxim Gorky.

Lenin devoted an exceptional amount of attention and energy to Pravda. He kept up a lively correspondence with its editorial board, of which Molotov was secretary. He insisted on receiving copies of the paper punctually and regularly, and was displeased if they were delayed even for a few hours (mail was delivered twice a day). In a letter to the editors he wrote: "Thank you very much for sending me, on two occasions, the papers in time, i.e., simultaneously with the bourgeois newspapers. But except for those two occasions, Za Pravda [For the Truth, the title adopted after Pravda was suppressed.—Ed.] always comes half a day later than the bourgeois newspapers. Cannot you change this and always send in time so that it come simultaneously with the bourgeois newspapers?"

Lenin kept Pravda under his constant observation, closely watched it activities, pointed to its mistakes and saw to it that they were rectified, and was delighted with its successes. He rallied around the paper the literary forces of the Party, while keeping a vigilant eye on the contributors. He was constantly urging that the circulation of the paper should be increased. "You must go straight to the factories," he wrote, "and fight for Pravda, get them to subscribe for more copies and win every factory away from Luch [The Ray—the organ of the Liquidators.—Ed.] Let the factories compete with each other to get the largest number of subscribers for Pravda. The victory of the Party spirit is a victory for Pravda, and vice versa. You must start a campaign to increase the circulation of Pravda from 30,000 to 50-60,000 and the number of subscribers from 5,000 to 20,000, and keep undeviatingly to that course. If you do, we shall enlarge and improve Pravda."

Lenin invited Maxim Gorky to become a contributor to Pravda, for he had an extremely high opinion of this great proletarian author. In the old Iskra he had strongly defended Gorky when the police deported him from Nizhni-Novgorod; and during the period of reaction he spared no effort to drag Gorky away from his Machist friends and to help him to become a staunch Marxist. Lenin's letters to Gorky are remarkable documents which brilliant reflect his genius, his unusually powerful mind and his revolutionary ardour. Lenin and Gorky were bound by strong ties of friendship. Lenin showed tender solicitude for Gorky's health and constantly enquired about the conditions he was working in. And when he heard that Gorky was abandoning his infatuation for Machism he gladly invited him to become a contributor to the Bolshevik press.

Lenin wrote articles for Pravda nearly every day, and these articles were of immense service in guiding the Party and the working-class movement, in developing the socialist consciousness of the workers and in improving their class organization. They were intelligible to every worker, for he dealt with even the most complex questions in clear and simple language. In them Lenin skilfully exposed the evils of the capitalist system which hindered the development of technique and culture and cruelly exploited the working class and the toiling peasantry. He showed that the proletarian struggle against capitalism was growing in intensity, and that a struggle was flaring up between the revolutionary and opportunist elements within the working-class movement. He traced the course of this struggle in the different countries and denounced the bourgeoisie of the great powers, which everywhere acted as the representative of reaction and the suppressor of the movement of the subject nations for their liberation. He ardently defended the Chinese revolution, and also the Balkan nations, which had been plunged into the maelstrom of war. And finally, he pointed to the growing symptoms of the approaching imperialist war.

Ardently loving his country, Lenin greatly deplored its backwardness under the tsarist regime and did his utmost to rouse popular anger and passion against the cause of this, viz., the feudal autocracy. Many of the articles Lenin wrote in this period deal with the peasantry. In them he describes the hard conditions of the downtrodden masses of the peasantry and shows them how they can free themselves from bondage and poverty, viz., by fighting on the side and under the leadership of the working class against the tsar, the landlords and the bourgeoisie. Lenin was firmly convinced that the impending revolution would be victorious, and he imbued the Party and the working class with this conviction.

"We are fighting better than our father fought," he wrote. "Our children will fight still better, and they will win.

"The working class will not perish; it is growing, gaining strength, maturing, becoming united, enlightened and steeled in the struggle. We are pessimistic about serfdom, capitalism and small production; but we are extremely optimistic about the working-class movement and its aims. We are already laying the foundation of the new edifice, and our children will complete."

Such were the sentiments that Lenin expressed in Pravda.

Lenin and Stalin jointly founded Pravda, that splendid Bolshevik newspaper which reared hundreds of thousands of courageous and front rank fighters for the revolution, for the cause of the working class, and for the interests of the people.

Besides strengthening the position of Pravda in every way, Lenin considered it necessary to increase the publication of legal Bolshevik literature to the utmost. He founded the legal Bolshevik monthly Prosveshcheniye (Education), the first issue of which appeared in St. Petersburg in December 1911. He took an active part in the work of its editorial board, wrote articles for nearly every issue, and collected funds for the magazine. When Pravda had become firmly established he proposed that a legal Bolshevik newspaper should be issued in Moscow. "Every class-conscious worker will understand," he wrote in Pravda, "that St. Petersburg without Moscow is like the right hand without the left. . . . Moscow, of course, must have its own daily workers' newspaper." After surmounting numerous obstacles Lenin in August 1913 succeeded in arranging for the publication in Moscow of the Bolshevik newspaper Nash Put (Our Road), for which he wrote a number of articles.

In 1912, the term of the Third State Duma expired and the elections for the Fourth Duma took place. The Social-Democratic group in the Duma was, together with Pravda, the chief base of Bolshevik legal revolutionary activities among the masses. Lenin therefore attached enormous importance to the Duma elections. He drafted the Party's election programme, formulated the Bolsheviks' election policy, and wrote a considerable number of articles for Pravda in connection with the campaign. He threw a glaring light on the character of the Third State Duma and of the Black Hundred and bourgeois parties in it, and exposed the true nature of the activities of the Constitutional-Democrats and Liquidators in the election campaign. In his letters to the editorial board of Pravda he urged that the paper should give more publicity to the election campaign and be more vigorous in its opposition to the Liquidators. As the elections drew near he devoted still more of his time to them. In September 1912, he wrote to Maxim Gorky: "We are now 'up to our ears' in the elections. . . . Much as regards the building of the Party depends upon the outcome of the elections."

When the election campaign was at its height the Central Committee commissioned Stalin, who had escaped from exile in Narym, to go to St. Petersburg. There he took direct control of Pravda and of the Bolshevik election campaign. Concerning Stalin's activities, Molotov informed Lenin with evident pleasure: "As you are probably aware, certain changes in a direction you would desire have taken place in the editorial board." Lenin and Stalin established close contact with each other, and Stalin's activities, his speeches and articles, won Lenin's full approval. In a letter to the editorial board expressing his opinion about an article by Stalin entitled "Who Won?" in which he summed up the results of the election in the workers' curia in St. Petersburg, Lenin wrote: "I cannot refrain from expressing my appreciation of the leading article in issue No. 146." Stalin also drew up the "Mandate of the St. Petersburg Workers to Their Working-class Deputy," and Lenin, after reading it, wrote in the margin on sending the manuscript to the press: "to be returned to me without fail!! Not to be soiled. Extremely important to preserve this document." In a letter to the editors of Pravda he wrote: "You must print this Mandate to the St. Petersburg Deputy in a prominent place in big type." The election campaign resulted in a big victory for the Bolsheviks: The workers' curiæ in all the principal industrial gubernias elected the Bolshevik candidates to the State Duma.

It was now necessary to sum up the Party's activities during the period of nearly twelve months since the Prague Conference, to formulate the tasks immediately ahead in connection with the revival of the working-class movement, and in conjunction with the Bolshevik deputies to determine the latter's line of conduct in the State Duma. Lenin arranged with Stalin to convene a joint conference of the Central Committee and the Party officials at the end of 1912, when the Duma would adjourn, and the deputies would be able to visit Cracow.

This conference was opened in Cracow on December 28, 1912. Its proceedings were directed by Lenin, who reported on the main questions on the agenda, "The Revolutionary Revival, the Strikes and the Tasks Before the Party," and "The Attitude Towards Liquidatorism and the Question of Unity." He also drafted and edited the resolutions, and arranged with Stalin the reorganization of the leadership of Pravda. He, too, formulated the Party's tactics in the period of the revolutionary revival. It was necessary, he said, unswervingly and consistently to popularize the Party's fundamental revolutionary slogans, known as the "three leviathans," i.e., a democratic republic, confiscation of all the landlord estates, and an 8-hour day. The Party must in every way support, develop and organize the revolutionary actions of the masses, such as revolutionary strikes, revolutionary street demonstrations, revolutionary mass meetings, and so forth. One of the most important tasks was to stimulate the peasantry to undertake united and simultaneous revolutionary actions on the widest possible scale. In their daily activities in the factories, the Bolsheviks must strive to secure the unity of the advanced workers from below. Lenin was pleased with the conference, and in a letter to Maxim Gorky he wrote that it was "very successful, and will play an important role."

The conference showed that the Bolshevik Party had grown and gained strength, that it had won a number of important victories over the Liquidators, and was steadily dislodging them from all their positions in the working-class movement. But Lenin was not content with this. He wanted to strengthen the underground Bolshevik organizations and enlarge the sphere of their legal activities in all directions. In a letter to Maxim Gorky, written in January 1913, he said: "If we could now create a good proletarian organization which would not be hindered by the treacherous Liquidators, we could win a hell of a lot of victories with the growth of the movement below." And he added with a note of chagrin: "What a pity we have no money; if we had, what a hell of a lot we could do from this base!"

Soon after the conference the Party suffered a severe blow. On February 10, 1913, Sverdlov was arrested; and on February 23, Stalin was again arrested. On receiving the news of Stalin's arrest Nadezhda Krupskaya, on Lenin's instructions, wrote to St. Petersbug: "We have only just received the letter containing the sad news. The situation demands great firmness and still greater solidarity."

While devoting a great deal of attention to Pravda, Lenin also concerned himself very closely with the activities of the Social-Democratic group in the Duma and guided the work of the Bolshevik deputies. He drew up the directions on which the group's declaration in the Duma was based: he wrote the speeches for the Bolshevik deputies on the policy of the Ministry for Education, on the Budget, and on the agrarian and national questions; he drafted a Bill to be introduced in the Duma for the abolition of national disabilities. Lenin maintained the closest contact with the Bolshevik deputies and took great pains to instruct them how to utilize the rostrum of the Duma in a revolutionary way.

The deputies often visited Lenin, and in long conversations with them he formulated their line of conduct in the Duma. Badayev, in this reminiscences, writes that he, like the other workers' deputies, was not quite clear as to what their functions in the Duma were, and that in one of these conversations Lenin said to them: "The Black Hundred Duma will never pass any laws which improve the lot of the workers. The task of a workers' deputy in the Duma is to remind the Black Hundreds, day after day, that the working class is strong and powerful, and that the day is not far distant when the revolution will break out again and sweep them and their government away. No doubt it is possible to move amendments and even to introduce some Bills, but this must only be done in order to expose more effectively the anti-working-class nature of the tsarist regime and to reveal the absolute lack of rights of the exploited workers. This is really what the workers should hear from their deputies." And under Lenin's guidance the Bolshevik deputies staunchly held aloft the banner of the workers' party in the Black Hundred Duma.

The Social-Democratic group in the Duma was a united group; it consisted of both the Bolshevik and Menshevik deputies, thirteen in all. The Mensheviks had a majority of one, and taking advantage of this they forced their decisions on the whole group. As a result, an abnormal situation was created in which the Menshevik deputies, who had been elected by the petty-bourgeois sections of the electorate, pushed into the background the Bolsheviks, who had been elected to the Duma by the masses of the workers. Lenin launched a great political campaign to secure equal rights for the two sections of the Duma group, and urged the editorial board of Pravda "to intensify the campaign of assistance for the six workers' deputies."* In the articles he wrote for Pravda on this subject he tore the mask from the faces of the Liquidatorist "seven," and mobilized the masses of the workers around the Bolshevik deputies. This campaign was crowned with success. Backed by the majority of the workers, the Bolshevik deputies broke away from the Social-Democratic group and formed an independent group in the Duma. On Lenin's advice it adopted the title of "Russian Social-Democratic Labour Group."

Among the multifarious problems with which Lenin concerned himself in that period, the national problem occupied an especially important place. The Black Hundred, Great Russian jingoism that was rampant in all spheres of public life and politics—the growth of nationalism among the bourgeoisie and the petty-bourgeoisie of the subject nations, the issue by the Liquidators and nationalists of the slogan "cultural-national autonomy," and the jingo propaganda raging in Western Europe, all set before the Bolsheviks the task of smashing nationalism in all its forms, and of drafting a Marxist programme on the national question.

This extremely important task was undertaken by Lenin and Stalin. Lenin had already broached this subject to Stalin at the Cracow Conference. It was at that time that Stalin wrote his celebrated work Marxism and the National Question, in which he formulated the Marxist programme on the national question and explained its theoretical basis. At the beginning of 1913, Lenin wrote to Maxim Gorky: "We have a wonderful Georgian here who is writing a long article in Prosveshcheniye, and he has collected all the Austrian and other materials on the subject." Urging that Stalin article be published in Prosveshcheniye at the earliest possible date, he wrote: "The article is a very good one. It is a fighting issue, and we shall not yield one iota of our principles to the Bundist scum." Lenin paid high tribute to this work on another occasion when he wrote: "In theoretical Marxist literature . . . the principles of the national programme of Social-Democracy have already been dealt with lately (Stalin's article occupies a foremost place).

Lenin began to work on the formulation and elucidation of the principles of the Bolshevik programme on the national question in the middle of 1913. He wrote numerous articles including "Critical Remarks on the National Question" (1913) and "The Right of Nations to Self-Determination" (February 1914), both of which virtually serve as a programme on the question. He lectured on this subject in Cracow, Paris, Liege, Leipzig, Zurich, Geneva and Berne.

In these works and speeches Lenin furious attacked Black Hundred, Great Russian jingoism, the policy of national oppression pursued by the tsarist government, and the bringing attitude of the Constitutional-Democrats towards the latter. He severely criticized Rosa Luxemburg, and the Polish Social-Democrats who supported her, for repudiating the right of nations to self-determination. He waged implacable against the Bund (the Jewish Social-Democratic League), the Ukrainian Social-Democrats, and similar petty-bourgeois nationalists, who tried to instil the poison of bourgeois nationalism into the working class and to disrupt the unity of the working-class movement. "No, we shall not tolerate the disgusting things that go on in Austria. We shall not permit it!" he exclaimed angrily, having in mind the Austrian working-class movement which was split up into separate national organizations. Firmly and consistently he hammered out the line of proletarian internationalism. His articles were a passionate plea for friendship among nations, for the amalgamation of the workers of all nationalities in a given country in single, proletarian, class organizations. Lenin studied the methods of the Transcaucasian Party organizations, which were formed and led by Stalin, and pointed to them as models of proletarian internationalism. In an article published in Pravda in May 1913, he wrote: "Only that complete unity (local, from bottom up) of the workers of all nations which has been practised for so long and so successfully in the Caucasus conforms to the interests and the aims of the working-class movement."

In his articles on this subject he made it quite clear that the right of nations to self-determination means the right of subject nations to secede and form independent states; and he formulated the Party's practical platform on the national question as: complete equality of all nations and languages; extensive regional autonomy, guarantee of the rights of national minorities.

Thus, Lenin formulated and explained the theoretical principles of the Marxist programme on the national question from every angle.

The tide of the revolutionary movement in Russia was rising. In 1912, 725,000 workers, according to official statistics, and over a million according to more complete returns, were involved in strikes; and in 1913, 861,000 workers according to official statistics, and 1,272,000 according to more complete returns, were involved. In the first half of 1914, about a million and a half workers were involved in strikes; and the strikes assumed an increasingly stubborn character.

Lenin's modest apartment in Cracow served as a veritable Staff Headquarters of the revolutionary movement. He kept up a lively correspondence with Russia, and Party workers from Russia and political exiles returning home often visited him to receive instructions.

In 1913 and 1914, frequent conferences took place between the Central Committee and Party workers. One of the most important of these was held in Poronino, in September 1913, at which Lenin reported on the activities of the Central Committee and delivered a report of the national question. He directed the proceedings of this conference and carefully edited all its resolutions.

Lenin continued vigorously to trounce the Liquidators, Vperyod-ists and Socialist-Revolutionaries and exposed the bourgeois methods by which they fought the working class and its Party. The spearhead of his attack he levelled against the so-called "August bloc" formed by Trotsky against the Party. In a series of articles, such as "Violation of Unity under Cover of Outcries For Unity," and others, he fiercely derided Trotsky's paltry, Liquidatorist ideas and his political adventurism.

At this time Lenin took an active part in the Lettish working-class movement. He wrote the "Draft Platform for the Fourth Congress of the Social-Democratic Party of the Lettish Region," and attended that congress in Brussels, in January 1914, where he succeeded in inducing the Lettish Social-Democrats to withdraw from the August bloc.

Seeing that the Bolsheviks had routed all the opportunist groups in the Russian working-class movement, the Second International hastened to the aid of the opportunists by offering to act as mediator to bring about "reconciliation" and "unity" in the Russian Social-Democratic movement. Lenin very emphatically protested against this, for it was practically an attempt on the part of the opportunists in the Second International to liquidate the independent Bolshevik Party.

Lenin spent two years in Cracow. These two years saw the mighty revival of the working-class movement in Russia, the rapid growth of the Bolshevik Party, and the capture by it of the key positions in the Russian working class. During these two years a firm foundations was laid for a mass Bolshevik Party, which even the fiercest persecution of the tsarist government failed to destroy.

In June 1914, a meeting of the Bolshevik Central Committee was held to discuss the preparations for convening the next Party congress. But this congress was not destined to meet. In August 1914, the first world imperialist war broke out.

VIII

When the war broke out Lenin was in Poronino, Galicia. On August 8, 1914, he was arrested by the Austrian police on a false accusation and taken to the prison at Novy Targ, but was released on August 19, in view of the utter absurdity of the charge. It was impossible, however, to remain in Austria as that country was at war with Russia; and in any case the war would have created serious obstacles to the conduct of revolutionary work. Lenin obtained permission to leave the country for neutral Switzerland. Here, first in Berne, and later in Zurich, he lived until the war ended in April 1917.

The tsarist secret police thought that the war had created a good opportunist to catch Lenin. The Department of Police requested the Commander-in-Chief of the South-western Front to arrest Lenin as soon as the Russian troops should capture Cracow and to send him to St. Petersburg. But this plan failed. From little Switzerland, surrounded by the raging conflagration of war, rang out Lenin's passionate appeal tot he peoples of the world to declare war on war.

The first world war arose out of the contradictions of imperialism, out of the struggle between the two groups of the biggest capitalist powers—Germany and Austro-Hungary on the one hand, and Great Britain, France and Russia on the other—for the division of the world and for spheres of influence; it arose out of the struggle for the right to enslave foreign nations and to plunder colonies. It was an imperialist, aggressive and predatory war on both sides.

The war served as a severe test for all trends in the working-class movement. The West-European Social-Democratic Parties, which long before the war had been corroded by opportunism, betrayed the working class and began to help the bourgeoisie in their respective countries to incite the workers and peasants of the different countries to fly at each other's throats ostensibly in the interests of "national defence," but actually in defence of the interests of the bourgeoisie. The Second International collapsed. The leaders of the Second International and most of the Socialist Parties supported the war and backed their respective imperialist governments.

In this menacing situation, when the Socialist Parties were rocked to their foundations by the severe crisis, and the leaders of the working-class movement proved to be traitors and renegades, only Lenin, and the Bolshevik Party which he had formed and reared, unflinchingly hoisted the flag of opposition to the imperialist war. Lenin at once formulated and published a clear and concise appraisal of the war and showed the workers and peasants the only way out of this world slaughter, i.e., by fighting to overthrow their respective imperialist governments.

On September 6, 1914, Lenin arrived in Berne. Next day, in the woods outside of the town he addressed a meeting of the local group of Bolsheviks on the Party's attitude towards the war. This meeting accepted his historical "Theses On the War."

In this first Bolshevik statement of principles on the war, Lenin answered the fundamental questions raised by the period, viz., the character of the war and the tasks of the working class arising from it. He defined the war as a bourgeois, imperialist, and predatory war, and denounced the treachery of the leaders of the Second International to the cause of the proletariat. The collapse of the Second International, he said, was no accident. Its chief cause was the predominance of opportunism in it. The most important task of the genuine internationalists, he said, was to conduct propaganda for the socialist revolution, and to urge the workers and peasants of the different countries to turn their weapons not against each other, but against the imperialist governments and the bourgeoisie of their respective countries. He proclaimed implacable war against jingoism and the jingo leaders of the Second International who had betrayed the cause of Socialism. In his theses he emphasized that the lesser evil for the working class and the working people of all the nations in the Russian Empire would be the defeat of the tsarist monarchy. These theses served as a concrete revolutionary programme of action also for the international proletariat.

Lenin immediately sent his "Theses on the War" to Russia and circulated them among the Bolshevik groups abroad. They were approved by the leading Party bodies in Russia, who on the question of the war had immediately taken a firm internationalist stand.

The "Theses on the War" served as the basis of the manifesto of the Central Committee on the imperialist war which Lenin wrote at the end of September 1914 under the title of "The War and Russian Social-Democracy." In this historic document Lenin issued the call: Transform the imperialist war into civil war, into a war against the bourgeoisie and the landlords! Instead of the social-chauvinist policy of defending the bourgeois fatherland, he issued the slogan: Defeat of your own imperialist government! He urged that the place of the decayed Second International must be taken by a new, the Third, International. The manifesto concluded with the following words:

"Transform the present imperialist war into civil war—is the only correct proletarian slogan; it was indicated by the experience of the Commune, was outlined by the Basle resolution (1912) and logically follows from all the conditions of an imperialist war waged by highly developed bourgeois countries. However difficult such a transformation may appear at any given time, Socialists will never relinquish systematic, persistent, undeviating preparatory work in this direction, since war has become a fact.

"Only along this road can the proletariat liberate itself from tits dependence upon the chauvinist bourgeoisie, and, in one form or another, more or less rapidly, take decisive steps on the road to the real freedom of nations and on the road to Socialism."

Lenin vigorously set to work to rally the forces of the Bolshevik Party. The obstacles in the way of conducting revolutionary work under war conditions were enormous. He was cut off from Russia by the theatre of military operations; letters from Russia sometimes took more than a month to reach him; Russian newspapers and magazines arrived very irregularly, and when they arrived they were already stale. In Russia the police were breaking up the Party organizations. Many leading Party workers, including Stalin, Molotov, Sverdlov, Spandaryan, Voroshilov and Orjonikidze, were either in prison or in exile. In view of the war conditions it was found necessary even in "democratic" Switzerland to devise special methods of conducting revolutionary activities in order to elude the increasing vigilance of the police and military authorities. In addition to all this, the Party was short of funds. In the autumn of 1914, when the publication of the Sotsial-Demokrat was resumed, the Party had no more than 160 francs in its treasury. "We have no money, no money!! This is the main difficulty!" wrote Lenin.

Lenin's own conditions of life were extremely hard at that time. He always lived very modestly, and often suffered actual want, especially when living abroad. But he was never in such dire straits as he was during the war. In a letter he wrote in the latter half of 1916 he confessed: "As regards myself, I will say this: I must earn some money, otherwise I shall crack up, indeed I shall!! The cost of living is hellishly high, and we have nothing to live on." And he begs that measures be taken to induce the publishers to send him his fees for his manuscripts. "If you don't arrange this I shall not be able to hold out. I mean it quite, quite seriously," he wrote.

Despite all the difficulties and dangers arising from the war situation, Lenin did not for a moment relax his strenuous Party activities; on the contrary he pursued them with greater energy and courage than ever. He welded together the small groups of Bolsheviks who were then abroad and delivered lectures in Lausanne, Geneva, Clarant, Zurich and Berne on the Party's attitude towards the war. On learning that Plekhanov was to deliver a lecture in Lausanne on the attitude of the Socialists towards the war, Lenin went there, took part in the debate, and utterly shattered Plekhanov's pro-war case.

He interested himself in the publication and distribution of the Bolshevik literature in Switzerland. In his letters and private conversations he discussed the possibilities of publishing such literature in Geneva and gave the Party workers precise and concrete instructions how to act, while displaying the necessary caution. He was perfectly well aware that even in "neutral" Switzerland it was a very complicated business in war time to publish anything against the imperialist war even in Russian. The bourgeois government of Switzerland, which economically was entirely dependent on the bourgeoisie of the "great" imperialist powers and was grovelling at the feet of the European reactionaries, would not hesitate to take proceedings against him for exposing the imperialist nature and the true objects of the war. "There is every reason to anticipate," he wrote in September 1914, "that the Swiss police and military authorities (at the very first gesture of the Russian, French or any of the other ambassadors) will court-martial or deport anybody they consider guilty of violating neutrality." For that reason, he advised that the greatest secrecy and caution be maintained, that all correspondence should, without fail, be written with "chemicals," that all rough copies be destroyed, that all copies of printed leaflets, newspapers and so forth be kept in premises belong to some influential Swiss citizen. He, personally, directed the publication of the newspaper, surmounting all financial difficulties and the obstacles created by the police, and gave advice on technical matters connected with the printing of the paper, such as type, format, and so forth. Thanks to his tireless energy, the publication of Sotsial-Demokrat was resumed, and the magazine Kommunist (1915), two issues of Sbornik Sotsial-Demokrata (Social-Democratic Magazine) (1916), and a number of leaflets and pamphlets were published.

On November 1, 1914, after a lapse of twelve months, the Sotsial-Demokrat appeared again (No. 33) containing the manifesto of the Central Committee on the war, which had been drawn up by Lenin. This issue was smuggled into Russia and also distributed among all the Bolshevik groups abroad. It proved to be an important factor in the further development of events. It provided the Bolshevik Party and the international working-class movement with a keen weapon in the struggle against the imperialist war, against tsarism and the bourgeoisie, and for the socialist revolution. Amidst the conflagration of the imperialist war Lenin's rousing appeal resounded across the frontiers and was heard by the masses.

In Russia, the Bolsheviks continued their activities in spite of the persecution of the tsarist government. In November 1914, the Bolshevik Group in the State Duma, which had been acting in conformity with Lenin's instructions, was arrested. In February 1915, five of the Bolshevik deputies were tried and sentenced to exile. At their trial, the deputies utilized the prisoners' dock as a rostrum from which to issue Lenin's called for proletarian internationalism and for a revolutionary struggle against the imperialist war.

The Bolshevik Party was obliged to operate with the greatest secrecy; but under Lenin's guidance it had gained considerable experience in this kind of work, and thanks to the influence Pravda had exercised from 1912 to 1914, new proletarian Party cadres had been trained. In spite of police raids on Party headquarters and the arrest of Bolsheviks, the work went on without interruption. On receiving news of the arrest of the Bolshevik members of the Duma, Lenin wrote: "It has become a hundred times more difficult for our Party to carry on its activities. Nevertheless we shall carry on! Pravda trained thousands of class-conscious workers from among whom, in spite of all difficulties, a new body of leaders—the Central Committee of the Party in Russia—will be chosen." In Sweden, the nearest neutral country to Russia, a Foreign Bureau of the Central Committee was formed, which, on Lenin's advice and directions, maintained regular communications with the Party workers in Russia. Lenin urged that leading Party groups should be formed in two or three of the most important centres in Russia, that the Bureau of the Central Committee in Russia and the Central Committee itself should be revived, and that arrangement be made for one or two members to go to Sweden to maintain communication with the Party centre abroad. "The most important thing," he wrote, "is to maintain permanent and reliable communication."

In spite of all the difficulties Lenin succeeded in establishing contact with the Party organizations in Russia. He carried on correspondence with the Bureau of the Central Committee in St. Petersburg, and on his recommendation, Molotov, who had escaped from exile in Irkutsk, was appointed to this body. He succeeded in establishing communication with Stalin, Sverdlov and Spandaryan, who were then in exile in the most remote places in Siberia, and sent them his "Theses on the War." In February 1915 Stalin, from his place of exile, wrote to Lenin as follows: "My greetings to you, dear Ilyich, hearty, hearty greetings! . . . How are you getting on; how is your health? I am living as before, chewing bread, just finishing half my term. Somewhat boring, but it cannot be helped. How are your affairs? Things must be more lively down your way. . . . Recently I read some articles by Kropotkin—he is an old fool, completely out of his mind. I have also read Plekhanov's little screed in Rech—what an incorrigible old gossip he is! Aw, well. . . . What about the Liquidators and their deputies, the agents of the Voluntary Economic Society? To bad there's nobody to give them a hiding! Will they really succeed in getting away with it unpunished?! Send us the glad news that very soon and organ will appear that will hammer their ugly mugs, hard, and without stopping."

In February 1915, Lenin conducted, in Berne, a conference of the Bolshevik groups abroad. He delivered the report on the main item of the agenda, viz., "The War and the Tasks of the Party." At this conference Bukharin opposed Lenin's revolutionary tactics of transforming the imperialist war into civil war and the slogan: Defeat of the tsarist government! But already at that early date he felt all the weight of Lenin's withering criticism. The conference adopted the revolutions moved by Lenin which formulated the main Bolshevik slogans during the war. The manifesto of the Central Committee and the decisions of the Berne Conference served to weld the ranks of the Bolsheviks.

Revolutionary activities conducted under war conditions brought the Party cadres face to face with new and urgent problems. Lenin provided solutions for these problems in an article entitled "A Few Theses" published in Sotsial-Demokrat in the autumn of 1915. In eleven points he formulated the tasks of the Party and defined its tactics and slogans in the struggle for the bourgeois-democratic revolution in Russia and for its conversion into the socialist revolution. Lenin defined the attitude the Party should adopt in the impending revolution in Russia eighteen months before it occurred, and when it did break out, in 1917, it brilliantly confirmed the correctness of his theses.

Lenin's slogans found favourable soil among the masses of the workers in Russia; and his activities, and those of the Party organizations he directed, bore good fruit. The bulk of the working class in Russia did not follow the jingo Socialists; they did not succumb to the war fever whipped up by the bourgeoisie; they remained loyal to the flag of internationalism. Considerable revolutionary activities were carried on in the Navy and in the Army, particularly among the forces on the Northern front and in the Baltic Provinces.

In his way Lenin prepared the Party for the great battles, the imminence of which he clearly foresaw.

The Bolshevik Party, led by Lenin, was the chief organizing force of the maturing revolution not only in Russia, but also in the West. Lenin and the Bolsheviks were the only consistently internationalist and thoroughly revolutionary force in the international working-class movement. There was no one else to take the initiative in forming the new, Third International. With his characteristic energy and perseverance Lenin began to lay the foundations of the new International from the very moment the war broke out. As Stalin tells us:

"It was a period when the Second International had hauled down its colours to capitalism, when even people like Plekhanov, Kautsky, Guesde and the rest were unable to withstand the tide of chauvinism. Lenin at that time was the only one, or almost the only one, to wage a determined struggle against social-chauvinism and social-pacifism, to denounce the treachery of the Guesdes and Kautskys, and to stigmatize the half-heartedness of the betwixt-and-between 'revolutionaries.' Lenin knew that he was backed by only an insignificant minority, but to him this was not of decisive moment, for he knew that the only correct policy with a future before it was the policy of consistent internationalism, that the only correct policy was one of principle.

"We know that in this fight for a new International Lenin proved the victor."

At first Lenin's appeal to transform the imperialist war into civil war remained a lone voice in the international working-class movement. But Lenin courageously went against the stream; he exposed the true objects of the war, the lies circulated by the imperialist governments and the sophistries of the "Socialist" flunkeys of the bourgeoisie. The most pernicious and disgusting of the latter, in his opinion, were the disguised jingo Socialists, the so-called Centrists, such as Kautsky, Trotsky and others, who paid lip service to the tenets of Marx, but actually betrayed them. "Now I hate and detest Kautsky most of all," he wrote, "—putrid, inane and smug hypocrisy. . . . There is nothing in the world more pernicious and dangerous for the ideological independence of the proletariat than the putrid smugness and disgusting hypocrisy of Kautsky, who, with the aid of sophistry and pseudo-scientific verbosity, wants to obscure, subdue, pacify the excited conscience of the workers." He showed that the Centrism of Trotsky—Judas Trotsky, as he called him—the fact that he was wallowing in the mire of Kautskyism, was no accident. In an article entitled "The Situation in the Russian Social-Democratic Movement," he wrote: "God himself commanded Trotsky to cling to the skirts of Kautsky and Bernstein."

Lenin would have no dealings with the opportunists. He proposed that they be presented with the following ultimatum: "Here is the manifesto . . . of our Central Committee on the war. Are you willing to publish it in our language?? No? Then, goodbye, our ways part!"

He called for a complete rupture with the opportunists. In an article entitled "The Collapse of the Second International," he showed how for decades opportunism had been gradually growing in the ranks of the Social-Democratic Parties and undermining them from within; and he swept away the miserable evasions of those scientific henchmen of the bourgeoisie such as Kautsky and his ilk. "The crisis that was created by the Great War," he wrote, "has torn off the coverings, has swept away conventions, has opened the abscess that had long been ripe, and has revealed opportunism in its true role of ally of the bourgeoisie. The complete organizational separation of the workers' parties from this element has become a necessity."

These renegades and traitors to Socialism and the working class had no more bitter and implacable enemy than Lenin. His attacks upon these gentlemen roused them to paroxysms of rage and fury. But this did not disturb Lenin in the least. In a letter to Inessa Armand, in December 1916, he wrote: "Such is my fate. Campaign after campaign against political stupidity, banality, opportunism and so forth. This has been going on since 1893. And how these philistines hate me! Still, I would not change my fate for 'peace' with the philistines."

Lenin tirelessly and perseveringly collected the internationalist elements in the working-class movement of all countries. There was not a single really Leftist group or organization, not a single sincere Left Socialist leader with whom he failed to establish contact, whom he did not try to influence, and urge to take a more consistent and determined stand against the war and against opportunism.

As soon as he arrived in Switzerland Lenin began to take energetic steps to unite the revolutionary forces in the working-class movement in Europe and America. He arranged for the translation of the Manifesto of the Central Committee and other Bolshevik documents into different foreign languages, and took advantage of every opportunity to make the stand taken by the Bolsheviks known to the European workers. On his initiative, a conference of Italian and Swiss Socialists was held in Lugano, on September 14, 1914. At this conference Lenin's "Theses on the War" were discussed, and this exercised some influence on the decisions that were adopted.

In February 1915, a conference of the "Socialists" of the Entente countries was held. Lenin took advantage of this occasion to issue a special declaration in which he denounced the jingoism of the leaders of the international Social-Democratic movement, expounded the principles underlying the position taken up by the Bolsheviks and explained why the latter could not take part in a conference of "Socialists" who had betrayed the cause of Socialism.

On the initiative of the Bolsheviks, and International Socialist Women's Conference was held in March 1915. In spite of the petty-bourgeois pacifist views of the majority of the delegates, this conference was important as the first international gathering of Socialists since the outbreak of the war. The Bolshevik delegation moved a resolution, drawn up in accordance with Lenin's directions, which declared that the majority of the Socialist Parties had violated the definite decisions of the Stuttgart (1907), Copenhagen (1910) and Basle (1912) Congresses of the Second International, denounced their betrayal of the cause of Socialism, and called for a rupture of the "class truce."

Shortly after, an International Youth Conference was held in Berne. Lenin guided the activities of the Bolshevik delegation at this conference and established direct contact with prominent leaders of the youth movement in other countries.

Meanwhile, the international working-class movement was steadily developing, and the revolutionary protest against the war and social-chauvinism was gradually growing in volume. In the summer of 1915, the masses of the people were already feeling the effects of the first year of war, which was causing the death of millions, dislocating industrial life and increasing the cost of living. The war fever was beginning to subside. It was becoming increasingly evident that Lenin's line was correct; discontent with the war was growing; the need was felt for convening a conference of the Left Socialist leaders of all countries.

Lenin made careful preparations for this conference. Its initiators, the Italian and Swiss Socialists, were inclined to convert it into a conference of all sorts of petty-bourgeois pacifist and Centrist organizations, but Lenin did everything to prevent this. He succeeded in getting the Bolsheviks represented at the preliminary conference held in July 1915, and in order to secure the participation of internationalist elements he sent letters to all the prominent Left wing Socialist, urging them to attend. He worked hard to unite the Lefts on the basis of a declaration of principles, the pivot of which was a rupture with opportunism and social-chauvinism: By the time the conference opened Lenin had succeeded in organizing a Left group, subsequently known as the Zimmerwald Left; but the only party to take a correct consistent stand on the question of war and revolution was the Bolshevik Party led by Lenin.

To inform the European workers about the Bolsheviks' position on the war, Lenin, on the eve of this conference, published in German a pamphlet entitled Socialism and the War, and he published in French the resolutions of the Bolshevik conference in Berne. The pamphlet contained a concise and popular outline of Lenin's views on the war and on the tasks of the working class.

The conference was opened on September 5, 1915, in the small Swiss village of Zimmerwald, and has since been known as the Zimmerwald Conference. It was attended by representatives of the minorities in the Socialist Parties of Germany, France, Norway, Sweden and Holland, and of the Socialist Parties of Italy, Switzerland, Poland and Latvia, and also of the Russia Bolsheviks. Leading the Left wing, Lenin gave battle to the Kautskyan majority at the conference and succeeded in securing the acceptance of a number of his proposals in its resolution.

The conference issued a manifesto which, however, was vague and inconsistent. Nevertheless, Lenin, and the Left under his leadership, voted for it, because, as he said, it represented "a step towards an ideological and practical rupture with opportunism and social-chauvinism." He considered that it would have been mere sectarianism to have refused to take this step in company with the inconsistent and wavering elements. Nevertheless, he reserved full freedom to criticize the inconsistency of the conference. Headed by Lenin, the Zimmerwald Left group issued its own declaration of principles, entitled, "The World War and the Tasks of Social-Democracy," and it also issued its own "Manifesto." All that had been left unsaid in the Zimmerwald Manifesto was expressed in the documents of the Left group. Lenin attached great importance to this independent step of the Zimmerwald Left. He wrote that it was "the first pronouncement of the core of the Left Social-Democrats of all countries who have a clear, precise and full reply to the question as to what is to be done, and what course to follow."

At the Zimmerwald Conference Lenin demonstrated what genuine revolutionary tactics were, tactics which equally abhorred both ideological compromises with the opportunists and sectarianism.

The Russian Bolsheviks, and the Lefts who followed their lead, constituted an insignificant minority in the working-class movement of that period. But this did not daunt Lenin. The fact that we are only a few at present, he said, is not so important; we shall have millions with us, for the position of Bolsheviks is the only correct position. Lenin's activities and the slogans he issued, served to rally millions of future fighters and to prepare them for the assault on capitalism.

While engaged in numerous practical activities in organizing and rallying the forces of the revolutionary proletariat in the European countries, Lenin devoted much time and attention to theory.

During the first months of the war he wrote an article for Granat's Encyclopedia Dictionary, entitled: "Karl Marx," in which he gave a concise and yet complete characterization and exposition of the tenets of Marx.

At this time also he resumed his studies of the works of Hegel, and in 1914-15, while living in Berne, he made many excerpts from Hegel's works (Logic, The Philosophy of History and The History of Philosophy), and also from the works of other philosophers (Aristotle and Feuerbach). These excerpts, and his commentaries on them, constitute Lenin's famous Philosophical Notebooks.

Lenin's Philosophical Notebooks give us an insight into this methods of scientific theoretical study. Carefully choosing all that was valuable in the works of Hegel, he, step by step, exposed the fallacy of Hegel's idealism. Lenin continued the work of Marx and Engels in creating and formulating the scientific grounds for materialist dialectics. Intending to write a brief outline of the principles of the Marxist dialectical method he, in his Philosophical Notebooks, described all the elements of the dialectical method and still further elaborated the principles of dialectical materialism.

At the same time he continued assiduously to study the agrarian question, the state of agriculture, and the conditions of the peasantry in capitalist countries. He carefully studied the returns of the agricultural censuses of the United States and other countries, and the result of these labours was a book he wrote in 1914-15 on capitalism and agriculture in the United States of America, which was published, however, only in 1917. This was the first part of a work he intended to write on New Data on the Laws of Development of Capitalism in Agriculture, but which he was unable to finish.

Lenin devoted special attention to the task of elaborating the Marxist views on war. He studied and analysed from the materialist point of view the best of what had been produced by bourgeois military science. He had a high opinion of the works of that outstanding military thinker of the nineteenth century, Clausewitz. He regarded his proposition that "war is the continuation of policy by other" (viz., violent) "means" as being of the utmost importance as a clue to the character of every war. It is impossible to understand the character of a given war unless one studies the policies which led up to and paved the way for it. Quoting the passage in which Clausewitz deals with the inter-relation between defence and attack, Lenin makes the following highly significant comment: "The distinction between defence and attack disappears," "defend your own soil on foreign soil."

Lenin brought his powerful mind to bear upon the whole gamut of complex problems that arose with the new historical epoch of imperialism, and he understood a task which only he, with his titanic revolutionary intellect and will, could perform.

On the very outbreak of the war he set to work to make a profound and detailed study of the world literature on the economics, methods of production, history, geography, politics, diplomacy, the working-class movement, the colonial question, and other spheres of social life in the different countries in the epoch of imperialism. The excerpts and tables of figures he copied from the literature and original sources he studied, together with the synopses and commentaries he made, are collected in twenty notebooks constituting a hefty volume of 640 pages. This material has since been published in book form under the title Notebooks on Imperialism. Every one of his propositions and generalizations, every deduction and appraisal, is based on the firm foundation of a vast amount of concrete material. The world has produced few research workers of such tireless industry and of such scientific scrupulousness as Lenin was.

The fruit of this vast work of research was Lenin's famous book Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism. Completed in June 1916, this book is one of the greatest works in Marxist-Leninst literature.

Marx, in Capital, analysed the foundations of capitalism. Lenin's work is a brilliant sequel to Capital. Complete master of the dialectical method, Lenin was the first to make a thorough and all-embracing Marxist analysis of imperialism, the highest and last stage in the development of capitalism. He exposed its sores and the conditions which made its collapse inevitable. He proved that imperialism was moribund capitalism, that "imperialism is the eve of the proletarian social revolution."

In this work Lenin gives the following classical definition of imperialism:

"Imperialism is capitalism in that stage of development in which the domination of monopolies and finance capital has established itself; in which the export of capital has acquired pronounced importance; in which the division of the world among the international trusts has begun; in which the partition of all the territories of the globe among the great capitalist powers has been completed."

He showed that the characteristic feature of imperialism in the field of politics is the turn from democracy towards political reaction. The vast power wielded by finance capital, its command of the political machinery of the bourgeois states, the system of lies and political chicanery it resorts to for the purpose of duping the masses and the "universal" infatuation with the prospect of imperialist conquest, ,causes "the wholesale transition of all the propertied class to the side of imperialism." Imperialist ideology permeates the working class and corrupts the aristocracy of labour, converting them into the "labour lieutenants" of the bourgeoisie.

Lenin utterly exposes the fallacy of Kautsky's anti-Marxian theory of "ultra-imperialism," according to which it was possible under imperialism for the capitalist countries to reach an agreement that would abolish war and lay the foundation for organized world production. According to this "theory" it is possible to eliminate all the contradictions of capitalism by peaceful means, by means of reform, and without a proletarian revolution. Lenin said that this theory was a "lifeless abstraction," a "stupid little fable," "the reactionary attempt of a frightened philistine to hide from stern reality."

Disproving Kautsky's statement that the appearance of international cartels makes peace among the nations possible, Lenin showed that actually these cartels intensify the antagonisms between the capitalist countries to the highest pitch, and that war is inevitable under imperialism.

Lenin characterized imperialism as a special stage in the history of capitalism for which the ground had been steadily prepared by the entire course of its preceding development. The specific features of this stage of capitalism are that it is (1) monopolist capitalism, (2) parasitic, or decaying, capitalism, and (3) moribund capitalism. This, of course, does not mean that capitalism will fade away of itself, that a proletarian revolution is not needed to abolish it.

In the epoch of imperialism, said Lenin in this work, all the contradictions of capitalism reach the highest pitch of intensity. Consequently, imperialism is the eve of the socialist revolution. The inhuman exploitation of the masses becomes more intense, and this in turn intensifies the proletariat's discontent with capitalism; the elements of revolutionary upheaval within each country mature. At the same time, the unbridled exploitation and oppression of the hundreds of millions of inhabitants of colonial and dependent countries increases also, and this, in turn, accelerates the growth in these countries of the elements of a war of liberation against imperialism.

Lenin's work on imperialism is of epoch-making importance. It marked a new stage in the development of the economic theory of Marx. It advanced the Marxian theory, enriched it with a new content, and created the possibility of revising and solving in a new way the practical problems of the proletarian revolution.

In studying imperialism Lenin discovered the law of the uneven political and economic development of capitalism; and he showed that under imperialism, this uneven development and the contradictions of capitalism become more marked. The development of capitalism assumes an extremely uneven, spasmodic and contradictory character. The keen rivalry among the predatory imperialists for markets and spheres of investment of capital, for colonies and sources of raw materials, makes periodical imperialist wars for the redivision of the world inevitable. Imperialist wars sap the strength of imperialism and make it possible for the imperialist front to be pierced at its weakest point. From this Lenin drew the conclusion that the old formula of Marx and Engels to the effect that Socialism could not be victorious in one separate country, that it could be achieved only by the simultaneous victory of the proletarian revolution in all the advanced capitalist countries, no longer accorded with the new historical situation, and that it must be replaced by a new formula, namely, that Socialism can be victorious in one separate country, and that the simultaneous victory of Socialism in all countries is impossible.

This was one of the greatest discoveries of our age. It served as the guiding principle in all the subsequent activities of Lenin and the Bolshevik Party. As the History of the C.P.S.U.(B.) states:

"This was a new and complete theory of the Socialist revolution, a theory affirming the possibility of the victory of Socialism in separate countries, and indicating the conditions of this victory and its prospects, a theory whose fundamentals were outlined by Lenin as far back as 1905 in his pamphlet, Two Tactics of Social-Democracy in the Democratic Revolution."

Lenin first formulated this brilliant thesis that the victory of Socialism was possible in one country, in August 1915, in his article on "The United States of Europe Slogan." In this article he wrote:

"Uneven economic and political development is an absolute law of capitalism. Hence, the victory of Socialism is possible, first in a few or even in one single capitalist country. The victorious proletariat of that country, having expropriated the capitalists and organized its own socialist production, would confront the rest of the capitalist world, attract to itself the oppressed classes of other countries, raise revolts among them against the capitalists, and, in the event of necessity, come out even with armed force against the exploiting classes and their states."

A year later, in his article entitled "The Military Programme of the Proletarian Revolution," Lenin again formulated his views with absolute conciseness and precision as follows:

"The development of capitalism proceeds in an extremely uneven manner in the different countries. Nor can it be otherwise under commodity production. Hence the incontrovertible deduction: Socialism cannot triumph in all countries simultaneously. It will at first triumph in one or several countries, while the other countries will for a time remain bourgeois or semi-bourgeois. This must not only give rise to friction, but stimulate the desire of the bourgeoisie of the other countries to crush the victorious proletariat in the socialist state. Under such circumstances, the war we would wage would be a legitimate and just war."

Clinging to the old formula of Marx and Engels, the opportunists accused Lenin of departing from Marxism; but in doing so they only proved that they were dogmatists and foes of Marxism, for they refused to take into consideration the fact that while the formula of Marx and Engels suited the conditions prevailing in the pre-imperialist stage of capitalism, when capitalism was on the upgrade, it was unsuitable for the new conditions prevailing under imperialist capitalism, whose course of development proceeds in a descending curve and is becoming moribund capitalism. The old formula had become obsolete and a new formula had to be found, instead of clinging to the old one and converting it into a dogma. This new formula was discovered by Lenin. He was the genuine Marxist who boldly developed the Marxist theory on the basis of a profound study of reality. If the theory of revolution were not developed further, the proletariat would never achieve victory, and would remain enslaved to the bourgeoisie. Lenin's theory that it is possible for Socialism to triumph in one country opened a new horizon for the proletariat in its struggle; it released the energy and the initiative of the proletariat in the individual countries to launch an onslaught of the bourgeoisie of their respective countries, and it gave scientifically justified confidence in victory.

With unflagging energy, Lenin continued to weld together the Left elements in the Socialist Parties and to guide their activities into revolutionary channels. During the first year of the war, he devoted himself mainly to seeking the Left elements in the international working-class movement, to establishing contacts with them and to organizing and uniting them. After the Zimmerwald Conference and the formation of the Zimmerwald Left group, he launched a campaign against the Centrist, petty-bourgeois pacifist elements associated with the Zimmerwald Conference and fought for a revolutionary policy. This struggle too bore fruit. Events proved that Lenin was right. The effects of the war, which had already lasted for two years, were beginning to be felt very keenly. As a consequence of this, at the Second Zimmerwald Conference, held in April 1916, in the village of Kienthal, in Switzerland, the Zimmerwald Right wing, influenced by the rising temper of the masses, was compelled to vote for more radical resolutions. At the Kienthal Conference the Lefts were stronger than they had been at Zimmerwald and exercised far greater influence on the decisions of the conference. Lenin succeeded in getting a resolution carried which criticized pacifism and sharply censured the International Socialist Bureau. In summing up the results of the conference, Lenin wrote in May 1916: "On the whole, in spite of a host of drawbacks, this is after all a step towards a rupture with the social-chauvinists."

Even before the conference Lenin had already urged that the question of breaking away from the opportunists and social-chauvinists was a fundamental question. In March 1916, he wrote: "All those who are hesitating about this are enemies of the proletariat; there must be no yielding to them."

After the conference, Lenin redoubled his efforts to help the Left elements in the working-class movement in Western Europe and America to abandon their petty-bourgeois views and opportunist errors. He wrote very considerably for the Left Socialist press, especially for Vorbote (The Herald), the theoretical organ of the Zimmerwald Left. He devoted exceptional attention to the youth, strove to imbue them with the revolutionary spirit and succeeded in winning over to his side the best elements among the proletarian youth.

In a number of his articles Lenin severely criticized and condemned the errors, distortions and theoretical confusion of some of the Lefts on most important questions appertaining to the war, peace and the revolution.

He was particularly stern in his criticism of the pacifist illusions of some of the Lefts and of their slogan of "disarmament." But while opposing the pacifists, Lenin worked out his own theory concerning just and unjust wars. He stated that the Bolsheviks, the proletarian revolutionaries, must not oppose war in general, but only aggressive, predatory and unjust wars, the aims of which are to conquer and enslave alien countries and alien peoples. As for wars of liberation, such as wars waged by the people to resist attempts to enslave them, wars to liberate the people from the yoke of capitalism, wars for the liberation of colonies and dependencies from the yoke of imperialism, these are just wars, and the Bolsheviks must support them.

There was nothing more pernicious, said Lenin, than the clerical, petty-bourgeois, pacifist argument that war could be abolished under capitalism. Imperialism necessarily gives rise to fierce rivalry among the capitalist states for the division and the redivision of the world. Consequently, under capitalism wars are inevitable. Only when capitalism is overthrown and Socialism triumphs all over the world will war be abolished.

Lenin poured withering scorn upon those who proposed that the proletariat should disarm, or refuse to take up arms. "An oppressed class," he wrote, "which has no desire to learn to wield arms and to gain possession of arms only deserves to be treated as slaves." In every class society the oppressing class is always armed. Those who want to throw off the yoke of exploitation must take up arms to wage a fierce struggle against the exploiters. "Our slogan," said Lenin, "must be: arm the proletariat in order to vanquish, expropriate and disarm the bourgeoisie."

Among other false theories that Lenin ruthlessly criticized at that time was the ostensibly "Left" but actually extremely opportunist claim that it was not important for the proletariat to fight for democratic aims under imperialism. Bukharin, Pyatakov and Radek tried to smuggle in the "idea" which was utterly hostile to Marxism, that it was not the function of the proletariat to fight for democratic demands, for a democratic republic, or for the right of nations to self-determination. Lenin called this "idea" "imperialist Economism," and a "caricature of Marxism" and proved that it was utterly absurd and pernicious.

Lenin was obliged to fight very strenuously against these opportunists, muddled-heads and intriguers, who subsequently proved to be despicable traitors and bandits. The greatest vigilance and foresight were required to prevent elements of this kind from damaging the cause of Socialism.

Lenin taught that the socialist revolution was not a single act, not a single battle, but a whole epoch of intense class conflicts, a series of battles along the whole line, i.e., on all questions of economics and politics. To prepare for victory over the bourgeoisie, and to be able to win the battle, the proletariat must wage a consistent and revolutionary struggle for democracy in every field.

At that time Lenin had already formed a clear picture in his mind of the socialist revolution which was soon to start in Russia. In the autumn of 1916, he wrote:

"The socialist revolution in Europe cannot be anything else than an outburst of mass struggle on the part of all and sundry of the oppressed and discontented elements. Sections of the petty-bourgeoisie and of the backward workers will inevitably participate in it—without such participation, mass struggle is impossible, without it no revolution is possible—and just as inevitably will they bring into the movement their prejudices, their reactionary fantasies, their weaknesses and error. But objectively they will attack capital; and the class-conscious vanguard of the revolution, the advanced proletariat, expressing this objective truth of a heterogeneous and discordant, motley and outwardly incohesive, mass struggle, will be able to unite and direct it, to capture power, to seize the banks, to expropriate the trusts hated by all (though for different reasons!), and introduce other dictatorial measures which in their totality will amount to the overthrow of the bourgeoisie and the victory of Socialism, which, however, will by no means immediately 'purge' itself of petty-bourgeois dross."

Lenin continued further to elaborate the national question and to oppose the anti-Marxist views of many of the Left Social-Democrats on this issue. To under the full significance of the Bolshevik demand for the right of nations to self-determination, he said, one must clearly understand that in the age of imperialism the population of the globe is divided into two unequal parts, one part consisting of a small group of oppressing nations, and the other constituting the vast oppressed masses who inhabit the colonies, semi-colonies and dependencies.

Lenin revived the slogan of Marx and Engels which the parties affiliated to the Second International had cast into oblivion: "No nation can be free which itself oppresses other nations." To secure its own emancipation the proletariat must demand the liberation of the colonies from the oppression of the imperialist powers, just as Marx advised the English proletariat to demand complete self-determination for Ireland. The proletariat in each country must present the demand for the liberation of the colonies and of subject nationalities primarily to its own imperialist government and to its own imperialist bourgeoisie.

In his theses, "The Socialist Revolution and the Right of Nations to Self-Determination," written in March 1916, and in his article "The Discussion of Self-Determination Summed Up," written in the autumn of 1916, Lenin makes an exhaustive critical analysis of the anti-Marxist position of the Polish and Dutch Left Social-Democrats on this question. In these historic works he further elaborated the Bolshevik programme on the national question. From being a constituent part of the bourgeois-democratic revolution, he said, the national question was becoming a constituent part of the socialist revolution. The national and colonial question was inseverably linked up with the question of overthrowing imperialism. The proletarian revolution must render every assistance to the struggle waged by the colonies against the imperialist yoke. Thus, Lenin worked out a harmonious system of views on the national and colonial question in the age of imperialism.

Living in Switzerland, Lenin took an active part in the Swiss working-class movement. The fact that the population of neutral Switzerland consisted of Germans, French and Italians created supplementary channels through which influence could be exercised on the working-class movement in Germany, France and Italy. Lenin diligently studied the history of Switzerland. He addressed meetings and maintained close contacts with the Left wing leaders of the Swiss Social-Democratic movement. In November 1916 he addressed the Congress of the Social-Democratic Party of Switzerland, and in December he drew up his theses on the task of the Left Zimmerwaldians in that party.

The conflict between the Rights and Lefts in the Zimmerwald Group flared up with increased intensity. The Right wing openly associated itself with the jingoes in France, Germany and Italy. In Switzerland, Grimm, the Centrist and chairman of the Zimmerwald Group, began to work hand in hand with the opportunists.

Lenin vigorously attacked the pacifist Socialists and Centrists Kautsky, Grimm, Merrheim and others, who had signed the Zimmerwald and Kienthal Manifestoes, but were now seeking conciliation and alliance with the opportunists.

"'Zimmerwald' is obviously bankrupt," wrote Lenin, "and a good word is again serving as a cloak for putridity! The Zimmerwald majority Turati & Co., Kautsky and Ledebour, and Merrheim—all of them have taken the stand of social-pacifism, which was so solemnly (and so fruitlessly!) condemned in Kienthal. . . . And the Zimmerwald 'Centre,'—R. Grimm, who on January 7, 1917, entered into an alliance with the social-patriots of Switzerland to fight the Lefts!! Grimm, who is abusing the social-patriots of all countries except the Swiss, whom he is screening! This is disgusting! These rascals make me furious! It makes me sick to hear them, or about them; and it makes me still more sick to think of collaborating with them."

With the collapse of "Zimmerwald" the fight for the new International had to be shifted to new ground. Lenin issued a call for the formation of a new, really socialist, International, and for the organization in all countries of proletarian parties of the new type, which should have no connection whatever with the old bankrupt parties, and be capable of leading the mass revolutionary struggle for Socialism.

"I see and know absolutely definitely," he wrote, "that the question of the programme and tactics of the new Socialism, of genuine revolutionary Marxism, and not of putrid Kautskyism, is on the order of the day everywhere."

Lenin stood out as the genuine leader of the international working-class movement who was laying the foundations for the new, Communist International.

At the beginning of 1917 Lenin noted a turn in world politics from imperialist war to imperialist peace. The war had greatly exhausted both belligerent coalitions. In the course of the war the resources and military potentialities of each had become sufficiently defined, and the strength of the armies and navies had been tested and weighed. The shortage of raw materials and food became increasingly acute. The bourgeoisie saw no prospects of making further profit out of the war. The growth of anger and discontent among the masses, the growing revolutionary struggle of the workers, and the unrest among the soldiers at the front were symptoms of a revolutionary situation in Europe. The capitalists, dreading the approaching revolution, hastened to conclude an imperialist peace. The phrasemongering of the social-pacifists about it being possible to achieve a democratic peace without a socialist revolution served as a convenient screen behind which the imperialists could prepare for the conclusion of a predatory peace. The proletariat and its Party had to be ready and determined for revolutionary action.

All Lenin's activities were now directed towards preparing the working class and its party ideologically, politically and organizationally for the fight for the socialist revolution. A most important factor in this was the works he wrote in this period on the question of the state.

The question of that fundamental tenet of the Marxist theory, namely, proletarian dictatorship, had already been dealt with by Lenin in his earlier works. The imperialist war had created a revolutionary situation. The question of the proletarian revolution and of the proletariat capturing power was on the order of the day. Lenin therefore sat down once again to study this question.

The traitors to Socialism, the opportunists, the social-chauvinists and the Kautskyites, did all they could to confuse this issue and to hush up Marx's real views about it. By their wilful distortion and misinterpretation of Marxism, and their efforts to rob it of its revolutionary content, the opportunists tried to cover up their renunciation of the proletarian revolution and of the proletarian dictatorship.

Lenin was furious with the way the opportunists brazenly distorted Marxism, for he was always prepared to fight to the bitter end for the purity of Marx's revolutionary doctrine. In this period, when he was working intensely on the question of the state, he wrote to Inessa Armand:

"I am still 'in love' with Marx and Engels, and I cannot sit quiet and hear them abused. Yes, they were real men! It is from them that we must learn. We must never retreat from this ground. From this ground both he social-chauvinists and the Kautskyites have retreated."

Lenin carefully collected and brought to light all that Marx and Engels had written on the question of the state. He purged the tenets of Marxism of their opportunist distortions and elaborated them in the light of the new experience and the new conditions of the proletarian class struggle. The fruit of these labours was his great work The State and Revolution.

All the materials he collected during the war in preparation for writing this book are contained in the "blue bound notebook," now bearing the title Marxism On the State.

In this book, after bringing to light again the opinions of Marx and Engels on this fundamental question of the revolution, Lenin sums up the experience of the new historical epoch. He observes that the Russian Revolution of 1905 had contributed a great deal that was new on the question of the state, and he briefly formulates the essence of the change as follows: "Replacement of the old ('ready-made') machinery of state and parliaments by Soviets of Workers' Deputies and by their agents." To the question: What about the non-working population?—he replies: "He who does not work neither shall he eat (let alone administer the state)!!" Thus, Lenin here foreshadows the Marxian doctrine—which he subsequently elaborated in the light of the experience of the three Russian revolutions—of the proletariat dictatorship and the theory of the Soviet state.

Lenin saw that the imperialist war was greatly accelerating the approach of revolution.

On January 22 (January 9, Old Style), 1917, the anniversary of "Bloody Sunday," Lenin delivered a lecture at a meeting of young workers in Zurich on the 1905 Revolution, in the course of which he said:

"The present grave-like stillness in Europe must not deceive us. Europe is charged with revolution. The monstrous horrors of the imperialist war and the suffering caused by the high cost of living, engender everywhere a revolutionary spirit; and the ruling classes, the bourgeoisie with its servitors, the governments, are more a more moving into a blind alley from which they can never extricate themselves without tremendous upheavals."

A little more than a month later the revolution broke out in Russia—the weakest link in the imperialist chain.

Lenin received the news of the victory of the insurrection in Petrograd at the beginning of March. From that movement he concentrated his mind on the study and appraisal of this most important even and was impatient to return to Russia.

He analysed the revolutionary events in Russia in his outline of theses written on March 4, 1917, and also in his "Letters From Afar." He regarded the Provisional Government as a bourgeois imperialist government, the object of which was to prosecute the predatory war to the end. He described the Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies as "a workers' government in embryo, the representative of the interests of all the poorest masses of the population, i.e., of nine-tenths of the population, which is striving for peace, bread and liberty." The overthrow of the autocracy, he wrote, was merely the first stage of the revolution. The Party's task was to pave the way for the victory of the proletariat at the second stage, to facilitate and accelerate the conversion of the bourgeois-democratic revolution into a socialist revolution. He strongly emphasized that the most important thing was to organize the masses, to strengthen the Bolshevik Party, and to preserve its complete independence. At that time he wrote: "The independence and separate existence of our Party, no rapprochement with any other party whatever—this is my ultimatum. Without this it will be impossible to help the proletariat to pass through the democratic revolution to the Commune, and I will not serve any other aims."

Lenin was impatient to return to Russian to take a direct part in the revolutionary events. In Switzerland he felt like a caged lion. "What a torture it is for all of us to be here at a time like this," he wrote. But it was not an easy task to get out of Switzerland. It was impossible to travel through the Entente countries, for all efforts to obtain permission to do so had failed. It became obvious that Great Britain had no intention of allowing such an implacable enemy of imperialist war as Lenin to leave Switzerland.

All sorts of plans for returning home occurred to Lenin, but they all proved to be impracticable, or extremely hazardous. He decided to take advantage of the antagonisms in the imperialist camp and to return to Russia via Germany. After negotiations conducted through the medium of certain prominent men in the Swiss working-class movement, permission to pass through Germany was received. In conformity with the terms of a special protocol that was drawn up, the car in which Lenin and the other political exiles were to travel was to enjoy extra-territoriality; the travellers' passports and baggage were not to be examined, and nobody was to be allowed to enter the car without their permission. On the other hand, the returning exiles undertook, on arriving home, to agitate for the release of an equal number of Austrians and Germans who were interned in Russia.

On leaving Switzerland Lenin wrote "A Farewell Letter to the Swiss Workers," which was read and endorsed at a meeting of Bolshevik exiles who were returning to Russia. In this letter Lenin referred to the tasks that confronted the proletariat in Russia and said that the Bolshevik Party would immediately propose peace and the liberation of all the colonies and of all oppressed nations, and would immediately begin and carry out the liberation of the nations which were oppressed by the Russian landlords and capitalists. He concluded this letter with the words:

"The transformation of the imperialist war into civil war is becoming a fact.

"Long live the proletarian revolution which is beginning in Europe!"

On April 9, 1917, Lenin, with a group of political exiles, left Berne. On the morning of April 14, he arrived in Stockholm, and on the evening of the same day he left for Russia.

IX

At last Lenin found himself once again at home, in Russia, which was seething with revolution. In the train on the way through Finland he conversed with soldiers and eagerly questioned them about everything and talked to them about "land, liberty and the end of the war," as one of the soldiers subsequently related.

Lenin's first thrilling meeting with the workers took place at Byelo-Ostrov Station, on April 16. Here he was welcomed by the workers of Sestorestsk, and by a delegation of Petrograd workers headed by Stalin. Recalling this meeting, one of the workers who was present relates the following:

"As soon as Ilyich stepped forward I yelled at the top of my voice: 'Up with him!' I clutched one of his legs so that he lost his balance and flung his arms around my neck. Some comrades near me caught him and we lifted him on our shoulders. As we did so, he said: 'Go easy, boys! What are you up to!' . . . but we carried him shoulder high, all the same. People coming in our direction stepped aside to make way for us (there was a large crowd of all sorts of people on the platform besides us). We carried Ilyich into the station and lowered him to the floor. There he stood, and all of us workers around him could not utter a word. . . We seemed to be stunned—with joy. I remember asking myself: Is this a dream? Is this Vladimir Ilyich standing there, in a grey suit, on the wooden floor of the Byelo-Ostrov Station?

"The scene was indescribable. I noticed that Ilyich too was greatly moved. But all this only lasted a moment. He soon 'pulled himself together,' as we say, embraced one, then another, then a third, and kissed them. One of our comrades began to deliver a speech of welcome on behalf of the Sestroretsk workers."

At 11.10 p.m. on April 16, Lenin arrived in Petrograd. The Finland Station, the station square, and all the adjacent streets were crowded with thousands of workers, soldiers and sailors, carrying Red Flags. A wave of indescribable emotion swept the crowd as Lenin got out of the train. The proletariat greeted their leader with wild acclamation. Lenin was greatly moved. Workers lifted him up carried him shoulder high into the large waiting room. Here the leaders of the Mensheviks wanted to deliver speeches of "welcome," but Lenin ignored them and walked out into the square, where the workers, soldiers and sailors were waiting for him. Climbing on to an armoured car that was in the square, Lenin delivered his famous speech in which he called upon the masses to fight for the victory of the socialist revolution. "Long live the socialist revolution," were the concluding words of this speech, the first that Lenin delivered to the Petrograd proletariat and soldiers after his long exile.

On this armoured car Lenin left the station for the headquarters of the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party. A long procession of working people followed behind the car. Searchlights lit up the road, which was lined by cordons of working men and women.

Lenin's arrival was, of course, of enormous importance for the Bolshevik Party and for the revolution. The revolution needed an unusually powerful mind to grasp quickly the extremely intricate situation, and unerringly to indicate to the masses of the working people their immediate objective. It required an unusually strong will to lead the masses towards this objective and achieve victory. Lenin, who had assimilated the experience of the revolutionary struggle of the working people of all countries and had a thoroughly scientific conception of the tasks of the proletariat, was the incarnation of this mind and will. The leader of the revolution took his place at the helm.

Lenin immediately plunged into revolutionary activity with titanic energy. The very night he arrived he expounded his views to his friends and immediate associates.

On the morning of April 17, he addressed a meeting of the leading Party workers in the Taurida Palace on the subject of war and revolution; and later he read the theses of his address at a meeting of the Bolshevik and Menshevik delegates to the All-Russian Conference of Soviets.

These were the famous April Theses, which gave the Party a new orientation. In them Lenin summed up the Party's fighting experience and outlined a brilliant plan of operations for transforming the bourgeois-democratic revolution into the socialist revolution.

He stated that the characteristic feature of the situation at the time was the existence of a dual power: alongside of the Provisional Government there actually existed another government, namely, the Soviets. The Provisional Government was the organ of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. The Soviets were the organ of the revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry. This dual power merely reflected a short, transient period in the development of the revolution, for there could be no such thing as a state with dual power. "The specific feature of the present situation in Russia," he said, "is that it represents a transition from the first stage of the revolution—which, owing to the insufficient class-consciousness and organization of the proletariat, led to the assumption of power by the bourgeoisie—to the second stage, which must place power in the hands of the proletariat and the poor strata of the peasantry."

The chief demand formulated in the theses was—the transfer of all state power to the Soviets and the establishment of a Soviet Republic. Hitherto, Marxists had considered the parliamentary democratic republic the most suitable form of the political organization of society during the transition from capitalism to Socialism. Lenin, however, having critically analysed the experience of the Paris Commune, and bearing in mind the experience of the Russian revolutions of 1905 and 1917, had arrived at the conclusion that the Soviet Republic was a new and higher form of the political organization of society during the transition to Socialism

In the Soviets Lenin discerned the state form of the proletarian dictatorship. This was a most valuable contribution to Marxist science. Had not Lenin replaced the old Marxist proposition that the parliamentary democratic republic was the political form of society in the transition period from capitalism to Socialism with his new proposition concerning the Soviet Republic, "the Party would have groped in the dark, the Soviets would have been disorganized, we should not have had a Soviet power, and the Marxist theory would have suffered a severe setback. The proletariat would have lost and the enemies of the proletariat would have won."

Even under the Provisional Government, said Lenin in his theses, the war continued to be an imperialist war, owning to the bourgeois character of this government. The proletariat would wage a revolutionary war only if all state power passed into its hands. It was the task of the Party patiently and perseveringly to explain to the masses that the war could not result in a democratic peace unless the rule of the bourgeoisie was overthrown.

He issued the slogan: "No support for the Provisional Government!" but he warned the Party that this government could not be overthrown at that stage, because it enjoyed the support of the Soviets. First of all it was necessary to convince the masses that the Soviets were the only possible form of revolutionary government, that the Soviets must take over all state power, and that a Soviet Government must be set up in place of the Provisional Government.

In view of the preponderance of the Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries in the Soviets, it was the task of the Bolsheviks, said Lenin, to explain to the masses the treacherous nature of the policy pursued by these compromising parties, to isolate the Mensheviks and the Socialist-Revolutionaries from the masses, and to win a majority in the Soviets, in order, through the Soviets, to change the composition and policy of the government.

This line was based on the assumption of a peaceful development of the revolution.

The theses also outlined concrete economic measures for the transition to Socialism, such as, the confiscation of the landlords' estates and the nationalization of all the land, the merging of all banks in a single national bank to be controlled by the Soviets, and the introduction of workers' control of social production and distribution.

As regards Party affairs, Lenin proposed that the Party's programme and name should be changed. He urged that the name, Social-Democratic Party, should be abandoned, because it had been sullied by the conduct of the parties affiliated to the Second International and by that of the Russian Mensheviks, who had betrayed the cause of Socialism. He proposed that the Bolshevik Party should be called the Communist Party, as Marx and Engels had called their Party, because the ultimate aim of the Bolshevik Party was to achieve Communism.

Lastly, Lenin proposed that a third, the Communist International, be founded.

Based as they were on the theory that it is possible to build Socialism in a single country, these theses opened up splendid prospects for the development of the revolution. They served as an inspiration to the Russian workers to fight to overthrow the rule of the bourgeoisie and to set up the proletarian dictatorship. They were welcomed by the entire Party, except for the few individuals of the type of Kamenev, Rykov, and other hangers-on of the Mensheviks.

The historic importance of Lenin's theses lies in that they provided the Party with the theoretical basis for a concrete plan for transforming the bourgeois revolution into a socialist revolution. The Party set to work to carry out this plan in Lenin's lifetime, and under his leadership.

The April Theses clearly revealed Lenin as a consistent revolutionary and outstanding scientist, who boldly hewed a new path for Marxist science.

In the speech he delivered at a reception in the Kremlin to higher educational workers in May 1938, Stalin said:

"I should like to dwell on one of these eminent men of science, one who at the time was the greatest man of modern times. I am referring to Lenin, our teacher, our tutor. Remember 1917. A scientific analysis of the social development of Russia and of the international situation brought Lenin to the conclusion that the only way out of the situation lay in the victory of Socialism in Russia. This conclusion came as a complete surprise to many men of science of the day. Plekhanov, an outstanding man of science, spoke of Lenin with contempt, and declared that he was 'ravings.' Other men of science, no less well-known, declared that 'Lenin had gone mad,' and that he ought to be put away in a safe place. Scientists of all kinds set up a howl that Lenin was destroying science. But Lenin was not afraid to go against the current, against the force of routine. And Lenin won."

The bourgeoisie, the Mensheviks and the Social-Revolutionaries raised a savage outcry when the April Theses were published. A furious campaign was launched against Lenin. He was threatened with violence, and the bourgeois press openly called for his assassination.

But Lenin was not intimidated by the threats of the bourgeoisie and of its hangers-on. He was firmly convinced that the future belonged to the Bolsheviks. The masses learned from his theses that the Bolsheviks stood for an immediate democratic peace, for the immediate confiscation of the landlords' estates, and for radical measures to combat the food shortage and economic dislocation. This was exactly what all the working people of Russia wanted.

Lenin's irresistible power lay precisely in the fact that he issued plain, crystal-clear slogans, which everybody, even a poorly education toiler, could understand. The slogans expressed the cherished aspirations and hopes of the working people, and therefore inspired and roused them for the struggle against the class enemy.

From the moment he arrived in Petrograd, Lenin began to take a most active part in the life and activities of the Petrograd organization of the Bolshevik Party. Under his personal direction a conference of the Party organizations in Petrograd was held in April. This conference of Petrograd Bolsheviks wholeheartedly backed Lenin and rallied their forces around the April Theses.

While the conference was in progress a mighty protest movement of the Petrograd workers and soldiers began against the imperialist policy of the Provisional Government. This movement led to the first political crisis of the bourgeoisie. In those days, May 3, 4 and 4, the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party met every day. A handful of extremists in the Petrograd organization called for the immediate overthrow of the Provisional Government, but Lenin emphatically opposed this and denounced it as adventurism, because the conditions were not yet ripe for action of that kind. At the same time he took measures to enable the masses to learn the lessons of the events of those days, which had helped to expose the imperialist designs of the Provisional Government.

To weld the Party closely together it was necessary to convene a Party conference. Lenin prepared for this conference with his characteristic thoroughness. This conference, known as the VII ("April") Conference of the Bolshevik Party, was opened in Petrograd on May 7 (April 24, Old Style). Lenin was elected chairman. He delivered the three most important reports and spoke on all the other questions on the agenda.

In his speeches at the conference he provided answers to all the fundamental problems of the revolution and indicated the Party's tactics. He said that steering a course for the socialist revolution presupposed a new alignment of class forces, that the proletariat would march towards the new revolution in close alliance with the poorer section of the rural population, fight resolutely against the bourgeoisie—including the rural bourgeoisie known as the kulaks—and strive to keep the middle peasants neutral. The immediate objective of the day, he said, was expressed in the slogan: "All power to the Soviets!"

Echoing the Mensheviks, Kamenev, Rykov, Pyatakov, Bukharin and the few adherents they had, claimed that conditions in Russia were not yet ripe for the socialist revolution. Lenin denounced this as an anti-Party position, and the conference headed the Party for the struggle to transform the bourgeois-democratic revolution into the socialist revolution.

On the basis of the decisions of the April Conference the Party conducted activities on an extensive scale for the purpose of politically educating and organizing the masses. These activities were guided by Lenin and his close associates, Stalin, Sverdlov, Molotov, Ordjonikidze, Dzerzhinsky, and others.

Lenin's energy was virtually inexhaustible. His article appeared in Pravda nearly every day, sometimes several articles in a single issue. Even when Lenin was absorbed with the work of directing the proceedings of the April Conference he found time to write articles for Pravda. From the time he arrived in Russia to the July days, he wrote over a hundred and fifty articles and several pamphlets.

Lenin often addressed mass meetings of workers and soldiers. He visited the Putilov, Obukhov and Semyannikov Ordnance Works, the Treugolnik Rubber Works, the Okhta Powder Works, the Skorokhod Boot Factory, the Railway Car Works, the Car Repair Shops of the Nikolayev (now the October) Railway, and other large industrial plants in Petrograd. He also addressed the First All-Russian Congress of Peasant Deputies, the Petrograd Conference of Factory Committees, and the First All-Russia Congress of Soviets.

As an orator, Lenin's influence upon the masses was colossal. The power of his speeches lay in his incisive logic, his unshakeable confidence in the justice of his cause, and his simplicity, clarity and convincing sincerity. As Gorky said about Lenin, "his speeches always gave on a physical sensation of irrefutable truth."

A worker who was present at the meeting which Lenin addressed at the Putilov (now Kirov) Works relates the following:

"He seemed to have appeared on the platform suddenly, out of the crowd, out of this mass of 40,000 men . . . I don't know whether words can be found to express the magnetism, the power with which he gripped all his hearers. . . . What Lenin said thrilled and inspired us. Fear fled, and weariness melted away. And it seemed that it was not Lenin alone who was speaking, but that all the 40,000 workers, sitting, standing or clinging to whatever they could climb onto, were expressing their innermost thoughts and hopes. It seemed as if everything that the workers harboured in their minds and hearts found expression in Lenin's one voice. Everything that each one of us thought, felt, but found neither the occasion nor the words with which to express fully and distinctly to his comrades, suddenly took shape and found utterance. It seemed as if this whole vast mass wanted to shout something at the top of its voice."

Lenin's plain and truthful words sank deeply into the minds of the masses.

In his articles, reports and speeches, Lenin gave the Bolshevik Party clear and distinct directions for all its revolutionary activities. The masses of the workers and soldier found in them a plain and comprehensive explanation of the Bolshevik line of policy and an exposure of the policy, pursued by the Provisional Government and the Menshevik and Socialist-Revolutionary bloc to the detriment of the people's interests.

The Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries wholeheartedly backed the rule of the bourgeoisie. At the First All-Russian Congress of Soviets, held in June 1917, Tsereteli, the Menshevik leader, stated that without the rule of the bourgeoisie, and without an alliance with the bourgeoisie, the revolution would be doomed. He emphatically declared that there was not a political party in Russia prepared to take sole power. Lenin, who was present at the congress, at once rose from his seat and exclaimed: "There is such a Party!" These words come like thunderbolt out of a clear sky. The Bolshevik Party, declared Lenin, was prepared at any moment "to take all power into its hands . . . give us your confidence, and we shall give you our programme."

In the speech he delivered at this congress Lenin outlined the platform of the Bolshevik Party on the main issues of the revolution.

The Bolsheviks' influence over the masses grew day by day. They had made preparations for a demonstration of their forces, which was to have taken place on June 23, when the congress would be in session. All the preparations were complete, but on June 22, the Congress of Soviets, which was controlled by the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries, banned the demonstration. To flout this veto meant placing the Party cadres in jeopardy. Consequently, on the night of June 22, the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party decided to call off the demonstration; and so flexible and organized as the Party which Lenin had built up and trained that this decision was put into operation immediately, and without the slightest untoward incident.

Owing to the pressure of the masses, however, the Menshevik and Socialist-Revolutionary leadership of the Congress of Soviets, and the Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet, were themselves compelled to call a demonstration on July 1. On that day half a million workers and soldiers of Petrograd marched through the streets, not under the banners of the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries, but under the banners of the Bolsheviks.

From all parts of the country, from factories, workshops and mines, from fields and trenches, messages comes pouring in expressing sympathy, support and ardent affection for Lenin. Many of these messages contained questions, such as: "How can we stop the war?" "What is your opinion on the agrarian question and on the situation at the front?" Many contained requests for "the programme, and explanations of it," and so forth. A group of soldiers wrote to Lenin saying: "It is being constantly dinned into our ears that you are an enemy of the people and of Russia, and so forth. But the soldiers don't believe this and sympathize with you." In another letter received from soldiers at the front, we read: "Comrade, friend Lenin. Remember that we soldiers" (mentioning the regiment) "are prepared to a man to follow you anywhere, and that your ideas truly express the will of the peasants and workers."

Lenin worked tirelessly and perseveringly to muster the political army of the revolution, carefully preparing it for the impending battles and skilfully avoiding premature conflicts. On July 16 and 17, the workers and soldiers of Petrograd came out on their own initiative in a demonstration demanding the transfer of all power to the Soviets; but the Bolsheviks succeeded in keeping the movement within peaceful and organized bounds. Skilfully manoeuvring, Lenin and Stalin avoided a premature battle under unfavourable conditions, and gave the bourgeoisie no pretext for drowning the movement of the workers and peasants in blood.

Taking advantage of the July events, the counter-revolution passed to the offensive. The government began to break up the Bolshevik Party and to arrest its active workers. On the Nevsky Prospect, a Bolshevik worker, named Voinov, who was distributing the Bolshevik paper Listok Pravdi, was killed in broad daylight by cadets. On the night of July 17, the editorial offices of Pravda were wrecked by cadets. Lenin escaped death by sheer accident: he had left the premises half an hour before the raid began.

A fierce campaign was launched against the Bolsheviks and their leaders. Lenin was falsely accused of being a spy in the pay of Germany, and the "evidence" of provocateurs was brought forward to prove it. But Lenin regarded the fury of the enemies of the revolution and of the people as proof that he was on the right road. He was fond of repeating the words of Nekrassov:

We hear the voice of approbation

Not in dulcet sounds of praise,

But in savage howls and vituperation.

The Provisional Government issued a warrant for Lenin's arrest and put a big price on his head. Already in June, the bourgeois League to Combat Bolshevism had passed a resolution to assassinate Lenin; and now cadets, army officers, spies and provocateurs were scouring the city in search of him.

But the Bolshevik Party went underground, and of course it took care to keep its leader Lenin in safe hiding.

Lenin owed his life largely to the vigilance of Stalin and Sverdlov. On July 20, the cadets broke into the apartment where Lenin lived, but their quarry had hone. On July 18, Sverdlov had warned Lenin of the approaching danger, and that very morning he went into hiding. For two days Lenin went from one hiding place to another. On July 19, he attended a meeting of the Petrograd Committee of the Party, which was held in the watchman's hut at the Renault Works.

On July 20, Lenin was already in a more reliable hiding place, in the house of an old Bolshevi worker named Alliluyev. He was given the same room in which Stalin subsequently lived, from August to October 1917.

But even this place was not entirely secure, and so on the night of July 24, Stalin took Lenin to the house of another worker, situated near the wayside station Razliv. Before leaving Lenin shaved off his beard and clipped his moustaches and become unrecognizable. For several days he hid in the attic of this house at Razliv, but later he lived in a shack built on the shore of the lake nearby. When the cold weather set in, at the end of August, Stalin arranged for Lenin to go to Finland. Wearing a wig and carrying a passport belonging to a labourer, he crossed the Finnish frontier on the footplate of a locomotive in the guise of a stoker. First he lived in the village of Yalkala, and later in Helsingfors. He was placed under the protection of the Finnish Bolsheviks.

After the July events the revolution entered a new stage. The peaceful period of the revolution had drawn to a close. The bayonet became the order of the day. The political situation in the country had undergone a sharp change. The dual power had come to an end. All power had passed into the hands of the counter-revolutionary Provisional Government. The Soviets had become a mere appendage of that government. The Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries, who controlled the Soviets, had become open abettors of the counter-revolution

A master in revolutionary tactics, Lenin proposed that the slogan "All Power to the Soviets" should be temporarily withdrawn, To retain this slogan after the events of the 3rd and 4th of July, he said, would mean misleading the people, fostering among them the illusion that the Soviets controlled by the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries could still take power. He pointed out that after the experience of July 1917, the revolutionary proletariat "must independently take state power, for otherwise the revolution cannot be victorious."

In proposing that the slogan "All Power to the Soviets" should be temporarily withdrawn, Lenin pointed out that this did not mean abandoning the struggle for the capture of power by the Soviets.

"Soviets can and must appear in this new revolution," he said, "but not the present Soviets, not organs of compromise with the bourgeoisie, but organs of a revolutionary struggle against it. True, even then we shall be in favour of building the whole state on Soviet lines. This is not a question of Soviets in general, it is a question of struggle against the present counter-revolution and against the treachery of the present Soviets."

On August 8, the Sixth Congress of the Bolshevik Party, convened to formulate new tactics and new slogans, was opened in Petrograd. Lenin, who was then in hiding, was elected honorary chairman. He directed the proceedings of the congress through the medium of his close associates, Stalin, Sverdlov, Molotov and Orjonikidze, and he drafted the theses on the main questions before the congress. The congress proceeded under the immediate direction of Stalin. In his reports Stalin, in the Lenin manner, distinctly formulated the Party's objectives and tactics in the struggle to be waged in the new stage of the revolution.

The congress agreed to withdraw the slogan "All Power to the Soviets" and instead called for preparations for an armed insurrection, for the forcible seizure of power by the proletariat in alliance with the poorer sections of the peasantry.

At this congress the Trotskyites opposed this new course of armed insurrection, were opposed to the establishment of the proletarian dictatorship, and repudiated Lenin's theory that the victory of Socialism was possible in Russia alone. The congress, however, gave a determined rebuff to these opportunist Trotskyite sorties. Following the directions of its leader, it turned the Party's course towards armed insurrection and the socialist revolution.

Shortly before the Sixth Party Congress, the counter-revolutionary Provisional Government, on the evidence of spies and provocateurs, fabricated against Lenin the absurd charge of "high treason" and issued an order for his arrest and prosecution. This roused a wave of protest among the broad masses of the workers and revolutionary soldiers.

Kamenev, Trotsky, Rykov and other expressed the opinion that Lenin should stand for trial, although it was obvious that this "trial" would be simply a pretext for putting Lenin out of the way. Stalin emphatically opposed this idea.

The Sixth Congress discussed this question as a special item on the agenda, and resolved that Lenin should not appear, as it was convinced that he would not get a fair trial, and that the proceedings would merely provide Lenin's enemies with an opportunity to wreck their vengeance on him. The congress expressed its protest against the bourgeois police persecution of the leaders of the revolutionary proletariat, and sent a message of greeting to Lenin.

While in hiding Lenin continued his revolutionary activities with unflagging energy. He maintained close contact with the Central Committee of the Party and wrote numerous articles which were published in the Party's central organ. From July to October he wrote over sixty articles, pamphlets and letters. Even from his place of hiding the proletariat heard the voice of its leader and felt his guiding hand.

Lenin was absolutely confident that the socialist revolution would be successful, and that power would soon pass into the hands of the proletariat. Orjonikidze, who visited Lenin when he was hiding in the shack on the shore of the lake near Razliv, related that in conversation with Lenin he had told him of the opinion expressed by a certain comrade that not later than August or September the Bolsheviks would be in power and that he would be at the head of the government. To this Lenin replied quite seriously: "Yes, that will be so."

Although in hiding and in danger of being discovered at any moment by the sleuth hounds of the Provisional Government, Lenin profoundly studied and analysed from every angle the question of the state, and the principles underlying the policy and the first practical measures of the proletarian dictatorship. The fruit of these reflections were his works The State and Revolution, The Threatening Catastrophe and How to Fight It, and the article "Will the Bolsheviks Retain State Power?"

In that brilliant work The State and Revolution, Lenin first of all brought to light again the authentic tenets of Marx and Engels on the state; but he did not confine himself to this. In the light of the experience of the Russian revolutionaries of 1905 and 1917, he, in this and other works, carried Marxism still further on the questions of the state and of the proletarian dictatorship. He stated that the proletarian dictatorship cannot mean democracy for all, for the rich and the poor. The proletarian dictatorship "must be a state that is democratic in a new way (for the proletariat and the poor in general) and dictatorial in a new way (against the bourgeoisie)."** He further stated that the proletarian dictatorship cannot arise out of the peaceful evolution of bourgeois society; it can arise only as a result of a violent proletarian revolution, as a result of the break-up of the bourgeois state machine. He defined the tasks of the working class in the process of building up its own machinery of state, indicated the economic conditions under which the state, as such, would fade away, and showed that there would be two stages in the development of Communist society.

Lenin was very keen on preserving for the Party the material he had collected in his study of the question of the state and wrote to the Party leaders that in the event of his being killed by the agents of the Provisional Government they were to take all measures to publish his notebooks on Marxism on the State, which he had left for safe-keeping in Stockholm. When he went into hiding in Finland he gave the manuscript of his book The State and Revolution to the comrade who was escorting him with instructions to pass it on to Stalin in the event of his being arrested.

He intended to write a second part to this book in which he was to have summed up the experience of the Russian revolutions of 1905 and 1917 and generalized the experience of the Soviet regime. He even drew up the synopsis of this part, but, as he wrote in the postscript to the first edition of this book, "except for the title, I was unable to write a single line of the chapter; I was 'interrupted' by the political crisis—the eve of the October Revolution of 1917. Such an 'interruption' can only be welcomed; but the writing of the second part of the pamphlet ('The Experience of the Russian Revolutions of 1905 and 1917') will probably have to be put off for a long time. It is more pleasant and useful to go through the 'experience of the revolution' than to write about it." But death prevented Lenin from completing this work.

In his pamphlet The Threatening Catastrophe and How to Fight It Lenin formulated the economic programme for the first period of the proletarian dictatorship. The autocracy and the bourgeoisie had brought the country to the brink of an abyss, he wrote. The tasks of saving the country from doom, of increasing its power of defence, and of building Socialism were closely interwoven. The country could be saved only by revolutionary measures, such as the introduction of workers' control of production and distribution, the nationalization of the banks and their amalgamation in a single State Bank, the nationalization of the trusts and the compulsory amalgamation of industrial enterprises, the abolition of trade secrets and the organization of the population in consumers' co-operative societies. These were the first steps in the work of building Socialism. No progress would be made if there was any hesitation about proceeding towards Socialism, he said.

As regards defending the country, this was impossible unless the masses of the people displayed the greatest heroism and unless the most radical economic changes were introduced. The above-mentioned measures would bring about the economic regeneration of Russia and create the material basis for the heroism of the masses, but this heroism could not be stimulated unless there was a complete rupture with imperialism, imperialist policy and imperialist war. Only such a determined rupture could save the revolution and the country, which was being held in the iron vice of imperialism. But such revolutionary measures would be taken only by the most revolutionary class, namely, the proletariat in power. And Lenin goes on to say:

"Due to the revolution, Russia, in its political structure, has caught up with the advanced countries in the course of a few months.

"But this is not enough. War is inexorable; it puts the question with merciless sharpness: either overtake the advanced countries and surpass them also economically, or perish. . . .

"Either full steam ahead, or perish. This is how history has put the question."

This was a programme for saving the country and the revolution, a programme for establishing the proletarian dictatorship and the building of Socialism in Russia.

In his article "Will the Bolsheviks Retain State Power?" Lenin outlined the first measures to be taken by the proletarian dictatorship in building up and consolidating the Soviet state. He treated with withering scorn all the enemies of the revolution who tried to frighten the masses by stating that the Bolsheviks would not be able to retain power for even two weeks. "No power on earth," he said, "can prevent the Bolsheviks, if only they do not allow themselves to be cowed and are able to seize power, from retaining it until the final victory of the world socialist revolution."

Lenin closely watched the process of development of the revolution and warned the masses that a counter-revolutionary plot was being hatched. He called upon the workers and peasants to show restraint, to be vigilant and to be in a state of mobilized preparedness. He pointed out that political power had passed into the hands of a military clique, and that the bourgeoisie was assiduously looking for a military dictator "to save Russia," i.e., to save their rule, their property and their privileges.

On August 25, General Kornilov, at the behest of the Russian and foreign imperialists, organized a revolt with the object of crushing the revolution and of restoring tsarism. The Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party, which in this period was personally directed by Stalin, called upon the workers, soldiers and sailors to rise in defence of the revolution. Kornilov was crushed.

The masses of the working people became still more convinced that the Bolshevik Party was the only party that was the true guardian of the interests of the people, and they flocked to its support in increasing numbers. The middle peasants, who had wavered in the period from April to August, now began to unite with the poorer section of the rural population. The influence of the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries over the masses began to wane. The Bolsheviks became predominant in the Soviets. In the beginning of September important Soviets like that of Petrograd and Moscow were already entirely under the control of the Bolsheviks. The defeat of Kornilov ushered in a new period in the development of the revolution, the period of organizing the assault.

Events developed precisely as Lenin predicted.

Lenin clearly foresaw the whole course of the revolution, the movements of the classes and the designs of the enemies who were secretly hatching another Kornilov plot. He realized that the revolution was rapidly approaching the stage of armed insurrection.

Between September 25 and 27, he wrote his historic letter to the Central Committee and to the Petrograd and Moscow Committees of the Party bearing the title "The Bolsheviks Must Assume Power," and he also wrote the article "Marxism and Insurrection." In his letter he said that the Central Committee must "place on the order of the day the armed uprising." The masses had been convinced by their own experience that the Bolshevik slogans were correct. Now, he says, "the majority of the people are behind us." Now, "victory is certain." "Having obtained a majority in the Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies of both capitals, the Bolsheviks can and must take power into their hands."

Lenin taught the Party that insurrection was an art, that careful organizational and technical preparations had to be made for it, that it was necessary to take advantage of the revolutionary situation, to concentrate the decisive forces at the decisive point, and choose the proper moment to deliver the decisive blow so as to rout the enemy and make victory certain.

On September 28, Stalin submitted Lenin's letter to the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party and proposed that it should be sent to the local Party organizations as an instruction. That despicable traitor Kamenev proposed that Lenin's letter be consigned to the flames. The Central Committee indignantly rejected this proposal and adopted the one made by Stalin.

Kamenev and Zinoviev persistently urged that the Bolshevik Party should join the Menshevik, Socialist-Revolutionary and Cadet Preliminary Parliament, that "Kornilov abortion," as Stalin called it. They wanted to sidetrack the Party from the work of preparing for the armed insurrection.

Lenin and Stalin had been opposed to the Bolsheviks taking part in this Preliminary Parliament even for a short period, so as not to foster illusions about it among the masses and not to cover up its counter-revolutionary activities. The Bolshevik group in this Preliminary Parliament, of which people of the stamp of Kamenev and Teodorovich were members, were unwilling to resign, but the Central Committee of the Party passed a resolution calling for a boycott of this Preliminary Parliament and ordering the Bolshevik group to withdraw from it. At the same time the Bolsheviks made energetic preparations for the convocation of the Second Congress of Soviets, in which they expected to secure a majority.

On Lenin's instructions the Party concentrated all its efforts on preparing for armed insurrection.

The Bolsheviks again issued the slogan "All Power to the Soviets!" which, in the situation then prevailing meant that the revolution would proceed straight towards the proletarian dictatorship by means of an insurrection, that power would be transferred to Bolshevik Soviets, that the proletarian dictatorship would become the established form of government.

Lenin wanted to be nearer to Petrograd where the Bolsheviks, under this direction, were making energetic preparations for the armed insurrection; he wanted to maintain closer contact with the Central Committee of the Party. Consequently, on September 30, he left Helsingfors for Vybord. From there he sent messages to the Party leadership urging it to expedite the preparations for the insurrection, as the Provisional Government was concentrating counter-revolutionary military units in the decisive industrial centres, and intended to withdraw the revolutionary regiments from the capitals and other large towns and send them to the front in order to weaken the forces of the revolution. He also stated that the bourgeoisie was organizing counter-revolutionary centres in the most important parts of the country, that a plot was afoot to surrender Petrograd to the Germans, and that the bourgeoisie was trying to come to an arrangement with the German imperialists jointly to crush the revolution, and was proposing to withdraw Russian troops from the front to facilitate this. Lenin spent many months in making careful and circumspect preparations for the socialist revolution. Day after day he patiently explained to the masses the lessons taught by the revolution, the conduct of the bourgeoisie and of the Menshevik and Socialist-Revolutionary bloc, and the meaning of the Bolsheviks' policy. In the spring of 1917, he had strongly denounced those who had adventurously called for the immediate overthrow of the Provisional Government and had thus committed the most fatal mistake political leaders can make, i.e., that of running too far ahead and isolating the vanguard from the masses. Now, however, when the crucial hour had struck, he insisted with all the force at his command on decisive, energetic and speedy preparations for armed insurrection.

In a letter to the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party dated October 12 (September 29, Old Style), he wrote:

"The crisis has matured. The whole future of the Russian Revolution is at stake. The whole honour of the Bolshevik Party is in question. The whole future of the international workers' revolution for Socialism is at stake."

In a letter to the Central Committee, Moscow Committee, Petrograd Committee, and the Bolshevik Members of the Petrograd and Moscow Soviets, written in the early part of October, he again said: "The Bolsheviks have no right to wait for the Congress of Soviets; they must take power immediately. . . ." "To wait is a crime against the revolution."

From his place of hiding Lenin directed the proceedings of a conference of Petrograd Bolsheviks held at the beginning of October. For this conference he drafted the resolutions, the instructions to the delegates to the forthcoming Party Congress, and a letter to be read in private session. In this letter dated October 20 (October 7, Old Style), 1917, he once again states: "We must admit that the revolution is ruined if the Kerensky government is not overthrown by the proletarians and the soldiers in the near future. The question of the uprising is placed on the order of the day."

Next day, in a letter addressed to the Bolshevik delegates to the Congress of Soviets of the Northern Region he once again emphasized with all his might: "Delay means death."

He reminded the Party of the dictum of Marx and Engels that insurrection, like war, was an art; and he stressed the decisive importance of making proper technical preparations, of having a well thought out organization, and of carefully drawn up plan of operations. He amplified the brilliant utterances of Marx and Engels concerning the art of insurrection and moulded them into a consistent theory. He critically analysed the bourgeois theory of the art of war, and taking from it all that was valuable and suitable for the proletariat, built up his own theory of armed insurrection. He summed up the art of armed insurrection in a number of definite and distinct rules, which were the concentrated expression of the experience of all the armed insurrections that had taken place in history.

He laid down for the Party the following main rules of the art of insurrection:

1. Never play at uprising, but once it is begun, remember firmly that you have to go to the very end.
2. It is necessary to gather a great preponderance of forces in a decisive place at a decisive moment, otherwise the enemy, being better prepared and organized, will annihilate the insurgents.
3. Once the uprising has been begun, one must act with the greatest determination, one must take the offensive, absolutely, and under all circumstances. 'Defence is the death of an armed uprising.'
4. One must strive to take the enemy by surprise, to take advantage of a moment when his troops are scattered.
5. One must try daily (one may even say hourly, when it is a question of one city) for at least small successes, thus maintaining under all circumstances a 'moral superiority.'

"Marx summarized the lessons taught by all revolutions about armed uprising, in the words of the greatest master of revolutionary tactics in history, Danton: 'Audacity, audacity, and still more audacity.'" Lenin drew up the following plan for the insurrection: Surround and cut off Petrograd; take it by means of a combined attack by the fleet, the workers, and the army"; combine these three main forces in such a way "as to make certain of occupying and holding at no matter what cost: (a) the telephone exchange; (b) the chief telegraph office; (c) the railroad stations; and above all (d) the bridges." For the most important operations special shock units should be formed of the "most resolute elements—the best workers, and the young workers; the best of the sailors, the most daring men, whose motto should be: "We shall die to a man, but the enemy shall not pass." Success in the insurrection demands art and triple daring. "The success of both the Russian and the world revolution depends upon two or three days of fighting."

It was according to this plan that the October (November) insurrection was carried out.

On October 20 (October 7, Old Style), Lenin, in conformity with a decision passed by the Central Committee, secretly left Vyborg for Petrograd. Next day he met with Stalin at the house of the workman employed at the Aivaz Works. Their conversation lasted several hours. In the course of it Stalin submitted to Lenin a detailed plan for the insurrection which he had drawn up in conformity with Lenin's instructions. Lenin approved of the plan.

Three days later on October 23 (October 10, Old Style), the historic meeting of the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party took place. Lenin delivered a report in which he urged the necessity of starting the insurrection. After hearing this report the Central Committee adopted the famous resolution moved by Lenin in which "armed insurrection was put on the order of the day." This resolution was endorsed at an enlarged meeting of the Central Committee held on October 29 (October 16, Old Style), at which Lenin delivered a report lasting two hours. On Lenin's proposal a Party Centre headed by Stalin was set up to direct the insurrection. This Party Centre constituted the leading group in the Military Revolutionary Committee of the Petrograd Soviet, and practically directed the whole insurrection.

It required a man of Lenin's brilliant foresight, of his amazing revolutionary craftsmanship and his boundless courage to decide on starting the insurrection. Lenin know that in the situation then prevailing to rouse the masses for insurrection meant staking everything. But, as Stalin said, "Lenin did not fear the risk, for he knew, he saw with his prophetic eye, that an uprising was inevitable, that it would win; that an uprising in Russia would pave the way for the termination of the imperialist war, that it would rouse the worn-out masses of the West, that it would transform the imperialist war into a civil war; that the uprising would usher in a Republic of Soviets, and that the Republic of Soviets would serve as a bulwark for the revolutionary movement all over the world.

"We know that Lenin's revolutionary foresight was subsequently confirmed with unparalleled fidelity."

At both sessions of the Central Committee those traitors to the revolution, Kamenev and Zinoviev, voted against the proposal to start the insurrection. Receiving a well deserved rebuff, they published a statement in the Menshevik newspaper Novaya Zhizn of October 18 (Old Style), to the effect that the Bolsheviks were preparing for insurrection, thus betraying the Party's most secret plans to the enemy. Kamenev, Zinoviev, Trotsky, and the few adherents who follows them, enemies of Lenin and of the proletarian revolution, did all they could to frustrate the plan for an insurrection. Trotsky, for example, proposed that it should not be started until the opening of the Second Congress of Soviets. Lenin denounced them all as traitors, and wrote that to wait for the congress would be "sheer idiocy, or downright treachery."

Filled with indignation and contempt he denounced Kamenev and Zinoviev as traitors to the revolution and, being implacable with all enemies of the socialist revolution, he demanded their expulsion from the Party.

The traitors were unsuccessful in their efforts to prevent the insurrection. The Party had made energetic preparations for it. All the preparations were directly controlled by the Party Centre, which held all the threads of the insurrection in its hands.

At this time Lenin was in hiding in the Vyborg Side of Petrograd and from there continuously guided the activities of the Central Committee. One night he nearly fell into the hands of the Provisional Government. He went out for a stroll and was stopped by a patrol; but after examining his papers they let him go, not realizing who he was.

The Provisional Government wanted to forestall the Bolsheviks and strike a mortal blow at the revolution. It ordered an assault on the Smolny—where the General Staff of the insurrection had it headquarters—to take place on November 6 (October 24, Old Style). It started by issuing an order suppressing Rabochy Put (The Workers' Path), the central organ of the Party. Early in the morning of November 6, troops and armoured cars were posted outside the editorial office and printing plant of the paper. Stalin gave orders to disperse the armoured cars and ensure the issue of the paper. The Red Guards and revolutionary soldiers obeyed Stalin's order, and at 11 a.m. Rabochy Put appeared. The leading article that issue entitled "What Do We Need?" written by Stalin, called upon the masses to overthrow the Provisional Government. That day, on the instructions of the Party Centre, Red Guards and revolutionary soldiers were hastily concentrated around the Smolny.

The insurrection began.

Lenin, still in hiding, was burning with impatience to get to the Smolny, but he would not leave his hiding place without the permission of the Central Committee. In the evening, Nadezhda Krupskaya handed to the Central Committee a letter written by Lenin addressed "To the Members of the Central Committee," in which he wrote: "The situation is extremely critical. . . . Now everything hands on a hair. . . . Under no circumstances is power to be left in the hands of Kerensky & Co. until the 25th (November 7), by no means; this matter must be decided without fail this evening, or to-night.

"History will not forgive delay by revolutionists who could be victorious to-day (and will surely be victorious to-day), while they risk losing much to-morrow, they risk losing all. . . .

"To delay action means death."

Lenin urged the Central Committee to expedite matters, for he was afraid that Trotsky and his supporters would try to get the insurrection postponed.

Moreover, he saw that the Kerensky government was preparing to drown the revolution in blood and he wanted to frustrate Kerensky's plans. That night Kerensky was expecting the arrival in Petrograd of troops which he had recalled from the front.

Late at night, on Stalin's insistence, the Central Committee called Lenin to the Smolny to take over the leadership of the movement. On his arrival Stalin gave him a detailed report of the measures that had been taken, and on the progress of the insurrection that had started. Here they approved of the plan to capture the Winter Palace. The leader of the revolution took the control of the insurrection directly into his own hands.

By the morning of November 7 (October 25, Old Style), the telephone exchange, the chief telegraph office, the radio station, the bridges across the Neva, the railway stations and the most important government offices—in fact the whole of Petrograd, was in the hands of the insurgent proletariat. The insurrection had succeeded.

At 10 a.m. the Military Revolutionary Committee issued its historic manifesto, drawn up by Lenin, addressed "To the Citizens of Russia," proclaiming to the masses of the people the overthrow of the Provisional Government and the transfer of state power to the Soviets.

Later in the day, Lenin addressed a special meeting of the Petrograd Soviet. His appearance on the platform was the signal for the outburst of a storm of cheering and vociferous greetings. In his speech he proclaimed the victory of the socialist revolution and expressed the firm conviction that Socialism would triumph in Russia. He concluded with the words: "Long live the world socialist revolution!"

At 10.45 p.m. the Second Congress of Soviets was opened in the Smolny. The transfer of all power, central and local, to the Soviets was officially proclaimed.

Lenin had spent the whole of the previous night in the Smolny, directing the insurrection in conjunction with Stalin, organizing the forces and taking the first urgent measures of the Soviet regime. It was only after almost two days and nights of continuous activity, after the capture of the Winter Palace, and when the Provisional Government had been arrested that Lenin, on the night of November 7, took a few hours' rest at the house of one of the Party workers near the Smolny. But even then he did not sleep. Getting up quietly so as not to wake the other people in the house, he went to a desk and drew up the Decree on Land.

He spent the whole of the next day working as intensively as he had done the preceding day. It was necessary immediately to organize the defence of Petrograd and to supply the population with bread. In addition to that, Lenin presided at a meeting of the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party, at which the composition of the Soviet Government was discussed; and then he attended a conference to discuss the organization of workers' control of industry.

In the evening he went to address the opening session of the Congress of Soviets. The congress welcomed the great leader of the socialist revolution with tremendous enthusiasm. Round after round of applause and continuous cheers echoed through the hall. Lenin was unable to speak for a long time. It was only after his repeated vigorous gestures asking the assembly to desist that the applause and cheers at last subsided. Then the voice of the leader of the proletarians and of the oppressed of all countries rang out, proclaiming the advent of a new era in the history of mankind, the era of proletarian revolution and proletarian dictatorship.

On Lenin's motion, the Congress of Soviets passed the first decrees of the Soviet Government: the Decree of Peace and the Decree on the Land. These epoch-making documents were extremely important factors int eh consolidation of the proletarian dictatorship and the building of Socialism. At this Congress of Soviets the first workers' and peasants' Soviet Government—the Council of People's Commissars—was formed. Lenin was elected Chairman of the Council.

X

As the head of the Soviet government, Lenin set to work with his characteristic vigour to build up and consolidate the Soviet State and to start on the work of building Socialism.

Here he revealed new aspects of his versatile genius. Founder and leader of the Bolshevik Party, political leader of the proletariat, master of revolutionary strategy and tactics and outstanding theoretician, as he was known before the Great October Socialist Revolution, after the revolution he proved his skill in statecraft. Never before had the world seen a head of state in whom the power of theoretical, political wisdom and foresight, indomitable will and boundless courage were so combined with such profound knowledge of the people, of its life, its cherished dreams and immediate needs. Not a single statesman before Lenin was ever so closely connected with the people and had such a confidence in them. And the people in their turn had boundless faith in him. He was the genuine leader of the "common people" whom the Great Revolution had raised to the position of makers of history.

It is almost impossible to conceive of the enormous tension that prevailed in the first days of the revolution, the difficulties which the Soviet regime at once encountered. It was necessary to consolidate the victory, to crush the furious resistance of the deposed exploiting classes, to break up the old, bourgeois machinery of state and to smash the malicious sabotage of the government officials and civil servants. It was necessary to organize the city's food supply, to start the factories working normally and to create a new life, a new stage, the state of the workers and peasants. But Lenin was undaunted by these difficulties. He was confident that the workers would loyally support the Bolsheviks, and that the workers would receive the unstinted support of the people—the poorer strata of the lower middle class of the cities, the soldiers in the trenches and the peasants in the rural districts. He said that "victory can be achieved and power held only by those who have confidence in the people, who take the plunge, relying on the creative genius of the people."

In those days the Smolny hummed like a beehive. Night and day intense revolutionary activity seethed with multitudinous affairs of state, Lenin took up his lodgings in the Smolny. Problems of the most diverse character had to be solved—political, economic, military, organizational, administrative, educational, cultural and agitational. Neither the Party, the workers, nor the peasants had any experience in the work of administering the state; nor could they have acquired it before. This had to be acquired now.

Lenin concerned himself with all affairs, kept his eye on everything, directed everything, and did not lose sight of a single thing. He drew up the principles of Soviet policy affecting all aspects of social life. He drafted decrees and regulations, drew up manifestoes, and wrote articles. He directed the proceedings of the Council of People's Commissars, which at the end of November began to meet every day, and at the same time he maintained close contact with the masses. During the first two months of the Soviet regime he addressed over twenty huge mass meetings. He attended and took an active part in the numerous congresses which gathered in Petrograd in those hectic days, delivered reports, made speeches, drafted resolutions and drew up appeals.

Innumerable workers' delegations from the factories, representatives of the soldiers at the front and peasant delegates from the rural districts poured into the Smolny to see Lenin and put to him their doubts, their questions, their proposals, their demands and their needs. They gathered closely around him and eagerly listened to what he had to say, and then carried far and wide through the country his call to the masses: take the building of the new life into your own hands.

The situation during the first days of the Revolution was extremely tense. Lenin had to turn his attention to military affairs. Kerensky and the Cossacks were approaching Petrograd, and danger lurked within the city itself. On November 11, the Cadet Corps rose in revolt. In Moscow the armed struggle was still raging. "The political question is beginning to merge with the military question," said Lenin at a conference of regimental delegates of the Petrograd garrison on the day the cadets mutinied; and he took into his own hands the task of directing the suppression of the first attempts of the deposed exploiting classes to resist the new regime. On the night of November 9, Lenin and Stalin appeared at the Headquarters of the Petrograd Military Area and demanded of the comrades who were in charge of military operations a report on the situation. Concerning this episode, Podvoisky, a member of the Revolutionary Military Committee, relates the following:

"In reply to my enquiry as to what this visit meant—distrust, or something else—Vladimir Ilyich said quietly, but firmly: 'No, not distrust; the workers' and peasants' government simply wants to know how its military authorities are functioning.' From that moment I felt that we had a dictatorship; that we had a strong and firm workers' government."

Lenin remained at Staff Headquarters almost continuously for several days, directing operations against the forces of Kerensky and Krassnov and mobilizing and organizing all the available forces for the fight against them. His indomitable firmness and calm confidence in victory inspired and united the masses. The enemy was defeated.

At the same time Lenin was obliged to combat those who from the very first days of the revolution tried to sow doubt and vacillation among the masses. Kamenev, Zinoviev, Rykov and other traitors began to demand the formation of a "homogenous socialist government" which was to include the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries whom the October Revolution had only just deposed. The Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party passed a resolution proposed by Lenin denouncing their proposal as the "betrayal of the slogan of Soviet Government." Kamenev, Rykov and others thereupon resigned from the Central Committee and from the council of People's Commissars; but the desertion of this miserable crowd of poltroons did not shake Lenin's determination. He brushed these traitors aside and, appealing to all the members of the Party and to all the working people, he wrote:

"Let the working people remain confident and resolute! Our Party, the party of the Soviet majority, stands solid and united in defence of their interests, and, as heretofore, behind our Party stand the millions of the workers in the cities, the soldiers in the trenches and the peasants in the villages, resolved at all costs to bring about the triumph of peace and the triumph of Socialism!"

In the very first days of the October Socialist Revolution, Lenin brought to the forefront the task of defending the Land of Soviets. "We must not think that we shall not have to wage a defensive war, which may be forced upon us," he warned the Party and the masses of the working people; and he issued the militant slogan: "Defend the socialist fatherland." "Since October 25 (November 7), 1917," he said, "we have become defencists, for we have won the right to defend our country. . . . We stand for the defence of our socialist country." In the name of the nations inhabiting the Land of Soviets he declared that in the event of an armed attack on the country, all the working people would rise in a holy war to defend it. "We, the workers and peasants, say to ourselves and to the whole world—and we shall be able to prove it—that we shall rise to a man to defend the Soviet Republic."

During the first weeks of the revolution Lenin was entirely engrossed in the work of building up the newly risen Soviet state, the state of a new type, which had never existed before. Under his leadership, the masses of the people cleared the ground for the erection of the magnificent edifice of Socialism. The entire machinery of the bourgeois state was demolished, the sabotage of the former tsarist officials was smashed, the counter-revolutionary Constituent Assembly was dissolved. All the remnants of serfdom: landlordism, the caste system, inequality of women, national oppression and the privileged position of the church, were completely eliminated from all spheres of social life. And then the first cornerstone of the edifice of Socialism was laid: workers' control of social production and distribution was introduced, the banks were nationalized, and a beginning was made in nationalizing the railways and large-scale industry.

It was on Lenin's initiative that all the main decrees of the Soviet Government were issued; and he himself drafted a considerable number of them. Some of these decrees demolished the old system and paved the way to a happy future; others drew the contours of this future. "Our decree," said Lenin, "is a call to action but not the old call to action: 'workers, arise and overthrow the bourgeoisie!' No, it is a call to the masses, it calls upon them to take up constructive work. The decrees are instructions which call for practical mass actions. This is what is important."

All the organs of the Soviet state and all the People's Commissariats were set up under Lenin's immediate guidance. On his initiative the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission to Combat Counter-Revolution (the Vecheka), that stern weapon of the proletarian dictatorship, was formed with Dzerzhinsky as its chief. It was Lenin who proposed the formation of the Supreme Council of National Economy, the first proletarian organ for conducting and planning socialist national economy.

On Lenin's proposal the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets set up the People's Commissariat for National Affairs, of which Stalin, Lenin's closest associate, was appointed People's Commissar. No such government department had ever existed in the capitalist world. On November 16, 1917, the "Declaration of Rights of the Nations of Russia" signed by Lenin and Stalin, was promulgated. This declaration formulated the principles of the Soviet Government's national policy with the utmost clarity; it infused new life into the vast masses of the formerly oppressed nations and laid a durable foundation for the undying friendship that exists among the nations inhabiting the Land of Soviets.

Thus was built up the state of a new type, a state that is vitally connected with the people, which wholly serves the interests of the people and was built up by the people. Naturally, the first steps in socialist construction, the beginning of the Soviet organization of the political and economic administration of the country, demanded of Lenin—the founder of the Soviet State—intense effort in the field of theory and organization, investigation, experiment, with frequent testing and alteration of different forms of institutions and different forms and methods of organizing the masses. He closely studied and scientifically generalized the practical experience of the vast masses of the working people in the task of building the new society. He did all he could to imbue the masses of the people with confidence in their own abilities, to convince them that they could dispense with the former ruling classes, and that they themselves were now masters of the country. The keynote of all his activities as a statesman, and of all his decrees, appeals, articles, speeches and reports was that the initiative of the masses must be stimulated and directed towards building of the new society. At a meeting of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee held on November 17, 1917, he said: "Socialism cannot be built up by means of edicts from above. Bureaucratic automatism is alien to its spirit; living and constructive Socialism is the creation of the masses of the people themselves."

Lenin was convinced that the initiative of the masses, the constructive genius of the workers and peasants, would give rise to the most diverse forms and methods of administering the state, of increasing productivity of labour and of educating the people politically and culturally. In an appeal "To the Population" dated November 18, Lenin wrote: "Comrades, toilers! Remember that you yourselves are now governing the state. Nobody will help you unless you unite and take all the affairs of state in your own hands. Your Soviets are now the organs of state power with full competence to decide all questions."

Lenin called upon the local Soviets to display initiative and to solve local problems independently; he did all in his power to encourage them to act as the representatives of the state.

At the end of December 1917, Lenin took a few days' rest in Finland, at a place not very far from Petrograd. During this very short "vacation" he pondered a great deal over the lines of socialist construction would pursue, and he wrote his famous article, "How To Organize Competition."

The socialistic measures introduced by the Soviet Government roused the bourgeoisie and their Menshevik and Socialist-Revolutionary flunkeys to fury. Inspired and backed by the governments of the imperialist countries, all the enemies of the people waged a fierce struggle against the Soviet Government. Counter-revolutionary plots were hatched, and attempts were made to assassinate the leaders of the Party and of the government, especially Lenin. An attempt of Lenin's life was made on January 14, 1918, when some terrorists fired at the car in which he was riding. The bullets pierced the body of the car in several places, but Lenin escaped unhurt.

The counter-revolutionaries wanted to utilize the Constituent Assembly as a weapon in their struggle against the Soviet regime. The Bolsheviks had called it together in order to make it serve the interests of the people, or, if it refused to do that, to discredit it in the eyes of the people and prove to them that it was inimical to their interests. At its first meeting, which was held on January 18, 1918, the Constituent Assembly refused to recognize the Soviet Government, or sanction its decrees. In this way it revealed its counter-revolutionary nature to the masses, who became convinced that it must be dissolved. As Lenin expressed it, the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly was a telling blow, felt all over the world, at the fetishes of bourgeois democracy, democracy for the rich.

On January 23, 1918, the Third All-Russian Congress of Soviets was opened. By that time the Soviet regime had existed two months and fifteen days. At the congress Lenin reported on the activities of the Council of People's Commissars and drew a vivid picture of the work that was being done to build up the new type of state, the Socialist Soviet Republic. "Our Socialist Republic of Soviets," he said, "will stand firmly, like a beacon of international Socialism and as an example to all the masses of the toilers."* The congress endorsed the "Declaration of Rights of the Working and Exploited People," which Lenin submitted. This historic document, which contained the first outline of the Soviet Constitution, gave the force of law to the first steps taken in the work of building the Soviet state.

Lenin was of the opinion that the position of the Soviet regime could not be regarded as satisfactory as long as Russia was at war with Germany. To consolidate the Soviet regime it was necessary to terminate the war; and therefore, almost immediately after the October Revolution, Lenin launched a campaign for peace. In the historic Decree on Peace promulgated on November 8, 1917, he, in the name of the Soviet Government, had called upon "all the belligerent peoples and their governments to start immediate negotiations for a just and democratic peace. . . ."

The bourgeosie and their agents, the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries, tried to prevent the opening of peace negotiations with Germany and to provoke the latter to start and offensive and thus place the young and not yet thoroughly consolidated Soviet regime in danger of being crushed by the German war machine. The tsarist generals in the High Command of the old army pursued the same policy and sabotaged the orders of the Soviet Government. On the night of November 22, Lenin and Stalin negotiated over the direct wire with General Dukhonin, the Commander-in-Chief, proposing that he should cease military operations and open negotiations with the Germans for an armistice. In his relations of this episode Stalin says: "It was a ghastly moment. Dukhonin and General Headquarters categorically refused to obey the orders of the Council of People's Commissars. The army officers were completely under the sway of General Headquarters. As for the soldiers, no one could tell what this mass of twelve million men would say, subordinated as it was to the so-called army organizings, which were hostile to the Soviets. In Petrograd itself, as we now know, a mutiny of the military cadets was brewing. . . . I recall that after a pause at the direct wire, Lenin's face suddenly lit up; it became extraordinarily radiant. Clearly, he had arrived at a decision."

Lenin proposed that they should at once go to the radio station and broadcast an order dismissing General Dukhonin, and over the heads of the officers appeal to the soldiers "to surround the generals, cease military operations, get in touch with the Austrian and German soldiers, and take the cause of peace in their own hands."

"This was 'a leap in the dark,'" says Stalin. "But Lenin did not shrink from this 'leap'; on the contrary, he made it eagerly, for he knew that the army wanted peace and would win peace, sweeping every obstacle from its path; he knew that this method of establishing peace was bound to have its effect on the German and Austrian soldiers and would give full rein to the yearning for peace on every front without exception.

"We know that here, too, Lenin's revolutionary foresight was subsequently confirmed with the utmost fidelity."

Lenin was well aware that the young Soviet Republic, not yet having its own army, could not wage war against the well-armed forces of imperialist Germany and that any attempt to do so would jeopardize its very existence. He was also aware that the Soviet Republic could obtain peace, for in its policy it took advantage of the profound contradictions of world imperialism, which had thrown the chief imperialist groups—the Anglo-French and German—at death grips with each other. This, in his effort to secure peace, he worked out the guiding principles of the foreign policy of the Land of Soviets in its capitalist environment.

The conclusion of peace, he said, would not diminish but, on the contrary, enhance the international significance of the October Revolution. "The Socialist Soviet Republic in Russia will serve as a living example to the peoples of all countries, and this example will have a tremendous propagandist and revolutionizing effect. On one side there is the utterly discredited bourgeois system and the predatory war of the two groups of pirates, on the other side there is peace and the Socialist Republic of Soviets."

Lenin had unbounded confidence in the inexhaustible strength of the revolution and in its vast international significance. He regarded the Soviet Republic as the bulwark and base of the world socialist revolution, and he was determined to preserve it at all costs. However harsh the terms of peace might be, he said, "the people which succeeded in creating the Soviet regime cannot perish." Such a people will triumph over all difficulties.

Lenin consulted with Stalin in every step he took in his effort to conclude peace. He, jointly with Stalin, drew up the instructions for the Soviet delegation that was sent to conduct peace negotiations in Brest-Litovsk. One day the delegation telegraphed to Lenin asking for further instructions. Lenin replied: "Stalin is not here, and I have not been able to inform him. . . I would like to consult Stalin before answering you." Shortly afterwards Lenin telegraphed to the delegation stating: "Stalin has just arrived, I will discuss the matter with him immediately and send you our joint answer." The instruction to sign the peace treaty was sent to Brest-Litovsk over the signatures of Lenin and Stalin.

Trotsky and his accomplice Bukharin were no less furiously opposed to the conclusion of peace with Germany than the bourgeoisie, the Socialist-Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks. With a view to placing the Soviet Republic in danger of being crushed by the German imperialists they and their followers pursued a provocative policy, masked by revolutionary phrases, demanding the continuation of the war. On January 28, 1918, Trotsky, the head of the Soviet peace delegation, treacherously flouted the direct instructions of the Bolshevik Party and refused to sign the peace treaty. On February 18, the German Army launched an offensive, and a grave danger menaced the Land of Soviets.

On the morning of February 18, a meeting of the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party was called, at which Lenin insisted that a telegram be sent to the Germans offering to conclude peace at once. Trotsky and Bukharin persisted in their provocative policy of fomenting war, arguing that the "Germans would not dare advance," and Lenin's proposal was rejected by a majority of one vote. Several hours later, grim facts proved how utterly false were the arguments of these traitors. The Germans did launch an offensive along the whole front. The remnants of the old army could not withstand the well-armed German hordes. Meeting with scarcely any resistance, the German forces advanced rapidly and soon Petrograd was menaced. Not a moment was to be lost.

The Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party met again that evening. Lenin and Stalin fiercely attacked Trotsky and Bukharin and revealed the treacherous character of their policy. In the end, the majority of the members of the Central Committee voted in favour of Lenin's motion that the German government be informed that the Soviet Government was prepared to conclude an immediate peace.

On the night of February 18, Lenin, on behalf of the Council of People's Commissars, sent a radio telegram to the German Government to the effect that the Council was prepared to conclude peace. The German imperialists, however, were in no hurry to reply. Meanwhile, their forces were continuing to advance. It was not until February 22, that they agreed to conclude peace, but offered even harsher terms than before.

Lenin spent these days in tireless efforts to secure support for his peace policy. On February 19, he delivered two speeches on war and peace, one at the meeting of the Council of People's Commissars, and the other at a joint conference of Bolshevik and "Left" Socialist-Revolutionary members f the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, delegates to the Petrograd Conference of Bolsheviks, and delegates to the All-Russian Congress of Peasant Deputies. He spoke twice on the same subject that next evening at a joint meeting of the Bolshevik and "Left" Socialist-Revolutionary members of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. On February 21, his first article written in opposition to the Trotsky-Bukharinite warmongers, entitled "Revolutionary Phrasemongering," appeared in Pravda, and on the following day his second article entitled "The Itch," appeared.

The object of the German imperialists in invading the Land of Soviets was to overthrow the Soviet regime and transform the country into a German colony. It was necessary to repel the German invaders, and Lenin speedily began to organize the country's defences. His immediate associate in this was Stalin. On receiving information that the Germans were preparing for an offensive, he and Stalin took urgent measures to counteract it. On the morning of February 18, they got into communication by direct wire with the members of the Dvinsk Soviet and issued clear and concisely instructions how to hinder the Germans' advance and to prevent them from capturing the huge military stores.

On February 21, 1918, he, in the name of the Council of People's Commissars, issued a decree drafted in the form of an appeal to the people. It was entitled "The Socialist Fatherland is in Danger," and every line of it breathed the ardent spirit of Soviet patriotism.

"The sacred duty of the workers and peasants of Russia," he wrote in this decree, "is devoutly to defend the Republic of Soviets against the hordes of bourgeois-imperialist Germany." All the forces and resources of the country must be used entirely for the purpose of revolutionary defence. He called upon all the local Soviets and all the workers and peasants "to defend every position to the last drop of their blood," to exert every effort to prevent the enemy from capturing the country's wealth, on retreating to destroy the railways, blow up and set fire to railway buildings, and to send all the rolling stock—railway cars and locomotives—to the East, into the interior of the country. All stocks of grain and other food, as well as all valuable property in danger of falling into enemy's hands, were to be destroyed.

He called upon the workers and peasants of Petrograd, Kiev and of all towns, villages and hamlets in the new war zone to form labour battalions and dig trenches under the supervision of military engineers. The decree concluded with the words: "Enemy agents, profiteers, marauders, hooligans, counter-revolutionary agitators and German spies must be shot on the spot.

"The socialist fatherland is in danger! Long live the socialist fatherland!"

Under Lenin's personal direction, and with Stalin's close cooperation, an Emergency Staff of the Petrograd Military Area was set up for the purpose of organizing the defence of the capital where a state of siege was proclaimed.

Lenin's call for the defence of the socialist fatherland against the armed intervention of the German imperialists roused a mighty wave of revolutionary enthusiasm throughout the country. Everywhere units of the new army of the revolutionary people—the Red Army—were formed. The young Red Army heroically kept the German invaders at bay; and on February 23, 1918, it struck them a crushing blow at Pskov and Narva. The German advance on Petrograd was checked. "February 23—the day the forces of German imperialism were repulsed—is regarded as the birthday of the Red Army." On the morning of February 23, German's new terms of peace were received. Practically only one day was left in which to reply. This was a day of most acute and intense struggle. Lenin was in favour of peace. At the historic meeting of the Central Committee held that day he submitted an ultimatum and in the sharpest terms demanded that the German peace terms be accepted. "The policy of revolutionary phrasemongering must stop," he said. He had the wholehearted support of Stalin and Sverdlov. "Either a respite, or the doom of the revolution, there is no other alternative," said Stalin. The Trotskyites and Bukharinites furiously resisted, but in the end Lenin's policy triumphed. By a majority vote the Central Committee adopted Lenin's resolution that the German terms of peace be accepted.

Lenin took measures to make his views on war and peace known to the whole Party and to the country. The evening edition of Pravda of February 23, contained an article by him in which every Party member and every worker in Petrograd could read the following emphatic statement:

"Only reckless phrasemongers can push Russia into war at the present time and under present conditions; and I, of course, would not remain either in the government or in the Central Committee of our Party for one moment if this policy gained the upper hand. . . .

"Let everybody understand: whoever is opposed to immediate peace, even on the harshest terms, is imperilling the Soviet regime."

On the evening of February 23, after a meeting of the Central Committee, a joint meeting of the Bolshevik and "Left" Socialist-Revolutionary members of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee was held at which Lenin delivered a speech in vindication of the policy of peace. Against him he had the united front of the Trotskyites, Bukharinites and "Left" Socialist-Revolutionaries. After that, a meeting of the Bolshevik members of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee was held at which, after Lenin had spoken, a vote approving his proposals was carried. Finally, at 3 a.m. on the 24th, the Central Executive Committee assembled and Lenin reported on the German peace terms. At 4.30 a.m., after a heated debate, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, by a majority vote, passed Lenin's resolution.

This week of utmost strain—from February 18 to February 24, from the beginning of the German offensive to the acceptance of the German peace terms—came to an end. Lenin wrote that this week marked "one of the greatest turning points in the history of the Russian and of the international revolution." The provocateur policy of Trotsky and Bukharin had imperilled the very existence of the Soviet Republic; and as a direct result of Trotsky's treachery at Brest-Litovsk the peace terms were even more harsh than those previously offered, and, moreover vast quantities of war materials fell into the hands of the Germans during their advance. The Trotskyites and fell Bukharinites "actually helped the German imperialists and hindered the growth and development of the revolution in Germany."

After the decision to conclude peace was taken by the Central Committee of the Party and by the All-Russian Central Executive Committee the struggle flared up with greater vigour than ever. The Trotskyites and Bukharinites openly waged a furious campaign against Lenin, the Party and the Soviet Government, while secretly they, in conjunction with the "Left" Socialist-Revolutionaries, engaged in a counter-revolutionary plot to overthrow the government. These miscreants set out to violate the Brest-Litovsk Treaty, overthrow the Soviet Government, and arrest and kill Lenin, Stalin and Sverdlov. This dastardly plot became known only twenty years later.

Lenin utterances spread throughout the country with irresistible force. Nearly every day his passionate articles appeared in Pravda, in which he lashed out at the warmongers who were trying to push the Soviet regime into the abyss. Stern reality very soon convinced the masses that Lenin was right, and that there was only one way of saving the country, viz., for the people to steel their hearts and will and sign this harsh peace treaty in order to obtain a respite during which to make thorough preparations for the defence of the socialist fatherland. The Party, the working class and the masses of the people rallied more closely than ever around Lenin.

On March 6, 1918, the Extraordinary, Seventh Congress of the Party was opened in Petrograd. Lenin delivered a report on the Brest-Litovsk peace negotiations, and after a heated conflict with the supporters of Trotsky and Bukharin lasting a day and a half, the congress endorsed Lenin's peace policy.

Both in his report and in the resolution which he submitted to the congress, Lenin strongly emphasized that further imperialist attacks upon the Land of Soviets were inevitable. Hence it was the fundamental task of the Bolshevik Party and the Soviet Government, as well as the sacred duty of all the working people, to strengthen the defences of the country to the utmost. He demanded that the most resolute measures be taken to introduce revolutionary order and iron discipline, to prepare the masses for self-sacrificing effort in defence of their socialist fatherland, and to strengthen the Red Army to the utmost. He proposed the introduction of "universal systematic training for the whole adult population of both sexes in the use of arms and in military tactics." It was necessary that every worker and every peasant should every day "learn to fight." A strong army and a firm rear were needed for a defence of the country. "We should have but one slogan: seriously learn the art of war," he said.

The congress also discussed the question of amending the Party programme and of changing the Party's name. Lenin was the reporter on this question too, and on his proposal the Party adopted the title of Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks). The draft of a programme drawn up by Lenin was accepted as a basis, and a Programme Committee was appointed to make the final draft. Lenin and Stalin were appointed to this committee.

On March 15, the Fourth Extraordinary All-Russian Congress of Soviets, after hearing a report by Lenin, ratified the Brest-Litovsk Peace Treaty. The congress stated in its resolution:

"The Russian Soviet Federative Republic, while unanimously condemning predatory wars, henceforth deems it its right and duty to defend the socialist fatherland against all possible attacks by any imperialist power.

"The congress therefore deems it to be the absolute duty of all the working people to exert all efforts to build up and improve the country's power of defence and to restore its military strength."

At this time it was decided to transfer the Soviet Government from Petrograd to Moscow in order to remove the Soviet capital further away from the danger of interventionist designs, to provide more tranquil conditions for the central state authorities, and to establish better connections with the rest of the country.

The counter-revolutionary Socialist-Revolutionaries plotted to blow up the train in which Lenin, the Central Committee of the Party and the members of the government were to travel; but the Soviet Intelligence Service and the vigilance of the Petrograd workers thwarted the designs of the terrorists.

Lenin left Petrograd on March 10, 1918, and arrived in Moscow next day. Moscow became the capital of the socialist state. The Kremlin became the centre from which the Land of Soviets was henceforth to be governed; and its spires became the guiding stars for the masses of the oppressed throughout the world.

Thus, a respite was gained. In the struggle for this respite, in the struggle for peace, Lenin stood forth as a brilliant strategist, whose object was to gain time, to disintegrate the forces of the enemy, and to muster for an offensive. "If our forces are obviously too small, the best means of defence is retreat into the interior of the country." It was this strategy, proposed by Lenin, that enabled the retreat during the Brest-Litovsk period to be executed in a most organized manner and forces to be mustered quickly to repel the German invaders and other enemies of the Land of Soviets. As the History of the C.P.S.U.(B.) states:

"In the period of the October Revolution, Lenin taught the Bolshevik Party how to advance fearlessly and resolutely when conditions favoured an advance. In the period of the Brest-Litovsk Peace, Lenin taught the Party how to retreat in good order when the forces of the enemy are obviously superior to our own, in order to prepare with the utmost energy for a new offensive.

"History has fully proved the correctness of Lenin's line."

Lenin determined to take the utmost advantage of the respite to strengthen the Soviet regime, to develop socialist construction and to create a Red Army.

Soon after the conclusion of peace he wrote an article entitled "The Main Task of Our Day," in which he made a passionate appeal to the people to exert every effort to strengthen the economic and military power of the Land of Soviets.

"We want no self-deception," he wrote. "We must have the courage to look the unvarnished, bitter truth in the face. We must plumb to the very depths the abyss of defeat, dismemberment, bondage and humiliation into which we have now been plunged. The more clearly we understand this, the more firm, hardened and steeled will be our determination to achieve liberation, our striving to rise once again from bondage to independence, and our indomitable determination at all costs to make Rus cease to be wretched and feeble and become mighty and abundant in the fullest sense of the word.

"And she can become such, because, after all, we have sufficient territory and sufficient natural wealth to provide everybody not with superfluities, perhaps, but, at all events, with adequate means of existence. In the shape of the natural wealth of our country, of our reserves of human strength, and of the magnificent scale on which our revolution has stimulated the creative genius of our people, we have the materials with which to create a really mighty and abundant Rus."

And he showed how wretched and feeble Russia could be transformed into a mighty socialist power. "We, the Bolshevik Party, have convinced Russia," he said on another occasion. "We have won Russia from the rich for the poor, from the exploiters for the toilers. Now we must administer Russia." He then began to draw up a plan for proceeding to the task of socialist construction.

The main factor in the organization of the administration of the country was, in Lenin's opinion, the strictest national accounting and control of production and distribution. It was necessary, he said, to increase to the utmost the productivity of labour and to introduce a new, Soviet, socialist labour discipline. This went hand in hand with the task of organizing socialist competition on the one hand, and of waging a determined and ruthless struggle against petty-bourgeois flabbiness, against slovenliness, indolence and profiteering, on the other. Under capitalism, said Lenin, discipline was maintained by means of the threat of starvation, by force, and by drill-sergeant methods. Under the Soviet system it is different. The new discipline, socialist discipline, the discipline of comradely intercourse, Soviet discipline, is built up by the vast masses of the working people in their daily practical work.

The problems of economic life, he wrote, now present themselves in a new way. "Introduce accurate and conscientious financial accounting, manage economically, do not be lazy, do not steal, observe the strictest discipline during work—it is precisely such maxims, which were justly scorned by the revolutionary proletariat when the bourgeoisie concealed its rule as an exploiting class by these commandments, that now, after the overthrow of the bourgeoisie, are becoming the immediate and the principal slogans of the moment."

The practical application of Soviet slogans, Soviet methods and Soviet laws, said Lenin, was necessary and sufficient to ensure the victory of Socialism.

In outlining the plan for starting on the work of socialist construction he strongly emphasized the importance of large-scale machine industry for the socialist re-organization of the entire national economy. Already at that early stage Lenin set the scientific forces of the country the task of "drawing up as quickly as possible a plan for the reorganization of industry and for the economic revival of Russia." The guiding principle in drawing up this plan was to be the aim of supplying ourselves "independently with all the principal types of raw materials and industry," to secure the technical and economic independence of the country. Socialist national economy, he said, must be built on the modern technical vase of electricity; and his instructions concerning the industrialization and the electrification of the country served as the basis of the entire activities of the socialist state in the work of reconstruction and development.

Already in the very early days of the Soviet Socialist State Lenin urged the necessity of having a single, state economic plan. In laying the first bricks of the edifice of socialist society, he strongly emphasized that what was needed to achieve success in the work of socialist construction was "a single will; on every practical question all must work as one man." He repeatedly stated that "neither railways, nor the transport system, nor huge machines, nor factories in general, can function properly if a single will is lacking to unite all the available working people in a single economic organ working with clockwork precision." This unity of the will and actions of millions of builders of Socialism must be ensured by the Socialist State Plan. At the Seventh Congress of the Party held in March 1918, he said: ". . . To transform the whole of the state economic mechanism into a single, vast machine, into an economic organism that will work in such a way as to enable hundreds of millions of people to be guided by a single plan—such was the enormous organizational task that has rested on our shoulders."

Such were the ideas which Lenin enunciated in the spring of 1918, on the immediate tasks of the Soviet Government. On April 26, he spoke on this question at the meeting of the Central Committee of the Party, which approved the theses he drew up on this question. On April 28, his celebrated work The Immediate Tasks of the Soviet Government appeared in Izvestia. Next day he delivered a report on the same subject at a meeting of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee.

These theses served as the basis for the entire activities of the Party and the government. The work of socialist construction was then started on a wide scale. In industry workers' control was replaced by workers' management. On June 28, Lenin signed the decree on the nationalization of the whole of large-scale industry.

Meanwhile Lenin continued to pay close attention to the work of strengthening the defences of the Land of Soviets and called upon the masses to take the utmost advantage of the respite to build up a strong Red Army.

Notwithstanding the peace treaty concluded with Soviet Russia the German imperialists did all they could to undermine and ruin the country. In violation of the treaty the German hordes seized the Ukraine, Byelorussia and other regions, restored capitalism and landlordism there, and began to despoil and oppress the Ukrainian and Byelorussia people. They destroyed numerous villages and shot thousands of workers and peasants. As Lenin stated in his "Letter to the American Workers," "the German bandits established a record of military brutalities." In retaliation the Ukrainian and Byelorussian people rose in a patriotic war of liberation against the foreign invaders. In the occupied regions warfare broke out and armed insurrections of workers and peasants flared up with increasing frequency. The invading army could not cope with the growing patriotic war waged by the people. This war dislocated the German war machine and hastened the disintegration of the German army. As Lenin said, "this army degenerated into gangs of looters, violating alien peoples."

When the arrogant German robber and Ukrainian Whiteguards tried to cross the borders of the Ukraine, Lenin instructed the People's Commissariat for War "immediately to take all measures in their power to defend the Eastern borders of the Kharkov Gubernia." The concrete instructions for this were drawn up by Stalin. "For details, consult Stalin," said Lenin in his order to the People's Commissariat for War.

Guided by the experience of the struggle against the German invaders in the Ukraine, Lenin, on June 2, 1918, issued to all the local Soviet authorities strict instructions to wage a ruthless war of extermination against the foreign invaders and Russian Whiteguards who had encroached upon the territory of the Land of Soviets. He advised them to evacuate everything that might be of use to the enemy. "I the Ukraine," he warned them, "there were many cases when the peasants and workers resisted the removal or destruction of property, hoping to retain it for themselves. But they were cruelly punished for this. The invaders seized everything: grain, cattle, coal, metals and machinery and shipped them to Germany. The example of the Ukraine should serve as a terrible lesson for the whole of Russia."

Lenin therefore called upon the entire population in the regions threatened by invasion to leave no food for the enemy, to transport all the grain and drive all the cattle into safer districts. It was most important to evacuate from these districts stocks of war materials, machinery, equipment and railway rolling stock; to take up the rails, blow up bridges, burn everything that could be carried away, destroy woods and crops and bury deep in the ground all metals that could not be carried away.

"Do everything in your power to hinder the enemy's advance. Set ambushes for him. Use firearms and cold steel against him.

"Make your rear safe, and to do that exterminate all spies, provocateurs, Whiteguards and counter-revolutionary traitors who, directly or indirectly, assist the enemy."

Lenin's instructions roused the working people and put them in a state of mobilized preparedness. In conformity with these instructions the workers and peasants made life intolerable for the enemy in the occupied regions. Soon the armed people drove the German army of marauders and cutthroats out of the Land of Soviets.

Lenin devoted considerable attention to the food question, which in May and June became extremely urgent. The danger of famine was threatening the country. The kulaks and profiteers were hoarding their grain in the hope of crushing the revolution by starvation. In the rural districts a fierce struggle was raging between the poorer peasants and the kulaks.

Lenin issued a passionate appeal to the working class, and primarily to the Petrograd workers, urging them to go into the rural districts to organize the poorer peasants in the struggle against the kulaks. "Comrades, workers," he wrote, "remember that the revolution is in a critical situation. Remember that you alone can save the revolution, nobody else. What we need is tens of thousands of picked, politically advanced workers, loyal to the cause of Socialism, incapable of succumbing to bribery and the temptations of pilfering, and capable of creating an iron force against the kulaks, profiteers, marauders, bribers and disorganizers." He called for a ruthless struggle against the kulaks. "The kulaks are rabid foes of the Soviet Government," he wrote. "Ruthless war must be waged against them! Death to them!" He proclaimed all those who possessed surplus stocks of grain and refused to sell them to the government at a fixed price enemies of the people. On his proposal a stern food dictatorship was introduced and a People's Commissariat for Food Supplies was set up especially for the purpose of operating it. On June 11, a decree ordering the formation of Committees of Poor Peasants, which were to take control in the rural districts, was issued over the signatures of Lenin and Sverdlov.

Bread was the arbiter of the fate of the revolution. "The fight for bread is a fight for Socialism," said Lenin, and this issue could be decided mainly in the rich grainfields of the South. To the South the Party and the government sent Stalin. On May 29, 1918, Stalin was appointed Director of Food Supplies in South Russia and given extraordinary powers. On June 6, Stalin arrived in Tsaritsyn. So effective were the measures he took there that Lenin deemed it necessary to inform the workers and peasants about them. In an appeal drawn up in the name of the Council of People's Commissars and issued on June 10, he wrote: "The Russian, French and Czechoslovak imperialists will fail in their attempt to crush the revolution by hunger. The South East is coming to the aid f the starving North. People's Commissar Stalin, who is now in Tsaritsyn directing food supplies in the Don and Kuban regions, has telegraphed us to the effect that vast stocks of grain are available there, and that he hopes to ship them to the North within the next few weeks."

As a result of Stalin's efforts, trainload after trainload of grain, meat and fish were sent to the starving workers of Petrograd, Moscow, and other industrial centres.

The dispatch of large detachments of workers to the rural districts and the organization of the Committees of the Poor Peasants served to strengthen the Soviet regime in the countryside and helped the middle peasants to rise in defence of this regime against the kulaks, Whiteguards and foreign invaders.

The "Left" Socialist-Revolutionaries came out in defence of the kulaks and launched a fierce campaign against Lenin, the Bolshevik Party and the Soviet Government.

On July 4, 1918, the Fifth Congress of Soviets opened. At this congress the "Left" Socialist-Revolutionaries, supported by the "Left Communists," demanded that war be declared on Germany. They tried to intimidate the Bolsheviks by saying that if the government did not immediately annul the Brest-Litovsk Peace Treaty it would be torn up by the "people." They demanded that the campaign against the kulaks should be stopped and that no more workers' food supply detachments be sent to the rural districts. Lenin retorted that the Socialist-Revolutionaries had no support among the people, that "their cause was hopeless among the people"; the alliance between the workers and peasants was becoming firmer every day and "no hysterical outcries against our Party can break this alliance."

Convinced that their case had utterly failed at the congress, the "Left" Socialist-Revolutionaries, on July 6, rose in rebellion against the Soviet Government. They assassinated Mirbach, the German Ambassador in Moscow, in order to provoke Germany to go to war against Soviet Russia. As was ascertained later, the Bukharinites and Trotskyites participated in this plot of the "Left" Socialist-Revolutionaries against the Soviet Government. They wanted to prevent the triumph of the socialist revolution and bring the Soviet regime to its doom.

Lenin immediately took the most energetic measures to suppress the rebellion. He sent telephone messages to all the district Party Committees, District Soviets and District Headquarters of the Red Army ordering them "to mobilize all forces, to rouse everybody immediately to apprehend the criminals." The rebellion was crushed literally within a few hours.

Lenin also watched the moves of the German imperialists who wanted to use the assassination of Mirbach by the Socialist-Revolutionaries as a pretext for intervention. The German Government demanded that a battalion of German soldiers be allowed to be quartered in Moscow, ostensibly for the purpose of protecting the German Embassy. The Soviet Government gave a stern rebuff to this attempt to encroach upon the sovereignty of the country. Lenin replied that this would mean "the beginning of the occupation of Russia by foreign troops," and he warned the arrogant German imperialists that the Soviet Government would retaliate to any attempt on their part to send troops to Moscow by "an intensified mobilization and a call to arms of all male workers and peasants for the purpose of offering resistance. . . . The workers and peasants of Russia will wage this revolutionary war hand in hand with the Soviet Government to the last gasp."

Lenin at once informed Stalin, then in Tsaritsyn, about the "Left" Socialist-Revolutionary rebellion. "We shall liquidate it this very night, ruthlessly, and tell the entire people the truth," he wrote. "We are at a hair's breadth from war. . . . It is necessary everywhere ruthlessly to crush these wretched and hysterical adventurers who have become tools of the counter-revolutionaries." To this Stalin replied: "As regards the hysterical ones, you may rest assured that our hand will not falter. We shall treat the enemies as enemies should be treated."

One of the items of business of the Fifth Congress of Soviets was the adoption of the Constitution of the R.S.F.S.R., the first Soviet Constitution, a most active part in the drafting of which was taken by Lenin, Stalin and Sverdlov. Its adoption by the congress was the crowning point of an entire historical stage in the work of building up the Soviet state. With great joy and pride Lenin wrote to Clara Zetkin in July 1918: "I have just been handed the new State Seal. Here is an impress of it. The inscription reads: 'Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic. Proletarians of All Countries, Unite!'"

Meanwhile, the imperialist countries were preparing for armed intervention in Soviet Russia, and at the end of May and the beginning of June it was evident that the period of respite was drawing to a close. In the above-mentioned letter to Clara Zetkin Lenin wrote: "We are now passing through what are perhaps the most difficult weeks of the entire revolution. The class struggle and civil war have penetrated deeply among the population. In all the rural districts there is a split: the poor peasants side with us, the kulaks are furiously opposed to us. The Entente has bought the Czechoslovaks; counter-revolutionary rebellion is raging everywhere, the entire bourgeoisie is straining every nerve to overthrow us. Nevertheless, we are firmly convinced that we shall avoid this 'usual' (as in 1794 and 1849) course of the revolution and will vanquish the bourgeoisie."

The Soviet revolution in Russia did not share the "usual" fate of the revolutions in Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This was primarily due to the fact that the revolution was guided by the Marxist Bolshevik Party, which had been steeled in many battles, and was led by a leader of the calibre of Lenin.

XI

It was evident to Lenin that the period of respite had come to an end. On July 29, 1918, he spoke at a joint meeting of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, the Moscow Soviet and representatives of factory committees and trade unions in Moscow on the international and internal situation of the Republic. He said: "War, military events, have again appeared on the stage as the fundamental question of the revolution. . . . The whole question of the existence of the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, the whole question of the Russian Revolution now boils down to the question of war. . . . We are at war, and the fate of the revolution will be determined by its outcome. This must be our first and last word in our work of agitation, in all our political, revolutionary and reforming activities. . . . We must exert all our efforts, and call everybody to arms."

In the summer of 1918, the situation was extremely acute for the Soviet Republic. The foreign and home counter-revolutionaries had united to combat the Soviet regime. The foreign interventionists—Great Britain, France, Japan and the United States—were in occupation of three-fourths of the country. The Ukraine and the Caucasus, Siberia and the Far East, the Urals and Central Asia were cut off from the rest of Russia. And in Central Russia kulak rebellions were breaking out everywhere. Soviet Russia found herself in a ring of fire, cut off from her main sources of food, raw materials and fuel. She was suffering cruel starvation, and industry was completely at a standstill. The socialist fatherland was proclaimed in danger.

Lenin set to work energetically to organize the defence of the country and focused the attention of the Party, the working class and the masses of the people on problems connected with the prosecution of the war. In the articles and appeals he wrote, and in the reports and speeches he delivered, he issued the slogan: "Everything for the Front!" He called upon the masses to exert all their efforts in the fight against the Anglo-French interventionists and Russian Whiteguards, and roused the workers to perform feats of heroism in defence of their socialist fatherland. He frequently visited the factories, sometimes speaking at three or four meetings a day; and this, of course, was in addition to the almost daily meetings of the Council of People's Commissars, the meetings of the Central Committee of the Party, and his vast daily activities in directing the Party and the state.

Lenin possessed the ability unerringly to determine the main danger threatening the proletarian state at any given moment, the ability to determine which was the main front where the fate of the country was being decided and to mobilize in time all the man power and material resources of the country to remove this danger and to vanquish the enemy.

Lenin and Stalin, Frunze and Voroshilov, were the men who created and trained the Red Army. And it was they were personally directed the defence of the country in conjunction with the best leaders of the Party. Wherever the situation was critical Lenin and the Party sent Stalin, Frunze and Voroshilov—the organizers of the great victories of the Red Army.

On January 28, 1918, Lenin signed the decree on the formation of a voluntary Workers' and Peasants' Red Army. This army was now, on Lenin's instructions, reorganized into a regular army with strong military discipline. Universal compulsory military service was introduced, the election of commanders was abolished, and military service was introduced, the election of commanders was abolished, and military experts who had served in the old Russian army were invited into the service. The first courses were opened for training Red Commanders from among the workers and peasants, and the system of Military Commissars was introduced.

Lenin warned the country that it was in for a long period of stern civil war against the home and foreign enemies of the Soviet regime. In October 1918, he stated that it was necessary to have an army of three million men by the spring of 1919. This was achieved. In 1919, three million Red Army men were under arms.

All the forces and resources of the country were concentrated on prosecuting the war and ensuring victory. In all spheres of social life Lenin firmly pursued the principle: "A la guerre comme à la guerre." The country was proclaimed an armed camp, and its entire economic, cultural and political life was adapted to the needs of the war. Medium and small-scale industry, in addition to large-scale industry, was placed under state control. A state grain monopoly was introduced and private trade in grain was prohibited. Surplus stocks of grain were requisitioned. Universal compulsory labour service was introduced in conformity with the principle: "He who does not work, neither shall he eat."

For the purpose of mobilizing all the resources of the country a Council of Workers' and Peasants' Defence was formed, of which Lenin was the chairman, and Stalin the vice-chairman.

Lenin's unshakable confidence in victory, his iron will and titanic energy all served to rally the masses and to convert them into an invincible and irresistible force. The Bolshevik Party, led by Lenin, roused the people for a patriotic war against the foreign interventionists and the Russian capitalist and landlord Whiteguards. "Our war is a just, legitimate and unavoidable war of defence," said Lenin.

Lenin now devoted all his efforts to the work of organizing the defence of the country. He was conscious of the fact that in addition to armaments for the army it was necessary to have "a well-organized food supply," and this he kept in the forefront of his attention.

All the operations of the People's Commissariat for Food Supplies—from drawing up general principles to giving concrete and detailed instructions concerning particular regions and even particular officials—were conducted under his personal supervision and direction.

The food situation was exceptionally acute. The workers were starving. On July 24, in a conversation over the direct wire with Stalin, who was then Tsaritsyn, he said: "As regards food, I must say that nothing at all is being issued either in Petrograd or Moscow to-day. The situation is very bad. Inform me whether you can take urgent measures, because we have no other source of supplies except you." That same day he sent Stalin the following wire: "Send fish, meat, vegetables, in fact all the provisions you can, and as much as you can." After this, scores of trainloads of provisions, procured by Stalin, made their way to the North, to Moscow, Petrograd, Ivanovo-Voznesensk and other industrial districts.

Lenin watched the situation in Tsaritsyn with the utmost intensity. The capture of this town by the Whiteguards would have cut off the Republic from its last grain resources and from the oil of Baku. The counter-revolutionaries in the Don Region would have been able to unite with the Czechoslovaks and advance in a united front against Moscow. In addition to organizing the supply of food for the starving capitals, Stalin set to work to organize the defence of Tsaritsyn. On August 31, 1918, he sent Lenin the following letter:

"Dear Comrade Lenin:

"A fight is raging for the South and the Caspian. To be able to hold this entire region (and we can hold it!) we must have several light torpedo boats and a couple of submarines. I beg of you to break down all obstacles and help us by expediting the immediate receipt of same. Baku, Turkestan and North Caucasus are ours (absolutely!) if our request is satisfied without delay. Our affairs at the front are going well. I have no doubt that they will improve (the Cossacks are becoming utterly demoralized). I grip the hand of my dear and beloved Ilyich.

"Yours, Stalin.

On receipt of this letter Lenin struck out the last lines referring to himself, changed the address, put his signature at the bottom of the letter and immediately sent it to the competent authorities as his own order to despatch the torpedo boats and submarines for the defence of Tsaritsyn. Inspired, organized and led by Stalin, the workers and peasants held Red Tsaritsyn, which now deservedly bears the name of Stalingrad.

At the time he received Stalin's letter Lenin was lying severely wounded. The imperialists and the exploiting classes deposed by the revolution vented all their malice and hatred against Lenin. The counter-revolutionaries had hatched a far-flung plot, the main object of which was to assassinate him. The terrorists constantly shadowed and lay in wait for him. On August 30, 1918, he addressed a meeting of workers in the Basmanny District of Moscow, and then went to the Zamoskvoetsky District to speak at the Michelson (now Vladimir Ilyich) Works. On leaving the meeting and walking to his car, Fanny Kaplan, a Socialist-Revolutionary terrorist, shot him, using notched and poisoned bullets. Two of these hit Lenin. As subsequently transpired at the trials of the Right Trotskyite gang of enemies of the people, Trotsky, Bukharin and their hangers-on took part in this villainous attempt on Lenin's life. For several days Lenin's condition was extremely grave. Bulletins were published in the press every day. The workers and peasants of Soviet Russia and the working people all over the world watched the course of their leader's illness with the greatest anxiety. Resolutions came pouring in from the fields, factories, workshops, and mines, and from the soldiers at the front and in the rear demanding that stern retribution be meted out to the terrorists, the counter-revolutionaries and the bourgeoisie. "Retalitate to White terror with Red terror!"—such was the demand and the will of the people.

On September 2, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, after hearing a report from Sverdlov on the attempt on Lenin's life, passed a resolution to introduce red terror against the counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie and their agents. The counter-revolutionary organizations were hunted out and destroyed.

The love displayed by the people for Lenin was boundless. During his illness workers, peasants and Red Army men, anxious that Lenin should not go hungry, sent him part of their own scanty rations. Many offered their blood for transfusion. In their letters, full of tender solicitude, they appealed to Lenin to get well quickly to spite their enemies and to rejoice the hearts of all working people.

While Lenin was lying sick the offensive launched by the young Red Army on the Eastern Front developed successfully. The men who captured Simbirsk sent Lenin the following wire:

"Dear Ilyich: The capture of your native Simbirsk is a reply to one of your wounds; we promise to reply to the second and capture Samara.."

To this Lenin replied:

"The capture of Simbirsk, my native town, is the best salve and the best bandage for my wounds. I feel immensely infused with fresh courage and strength. I congratulate the Red Army men on their victory, and on behalf of all the working people express gratitude for all their sacrifices."

Three weeks later Samara was captured.

Thanks to his powerful constitution, Lenin recovered from his wounds, and two weeks later he was on his feet again. On September 16, he attended a meeting of the Central Committee of the Party, and on September 17, he presided at a meeting of the Council of People's Commissars.

Great was the joy of the people on Lenin's recovery. He received thousands of greetings from workers, peasants and Red Army men in all parts of the country.

Once again the leader stood at the helm of the proletarian revolution. He directed the defence of the country. In conjunction with Stalin he drew up plans of military operations. He sent instructions to the front and verified the execution of the decisions of the Council of Defence. He watched the movements of trains carrying food supplies, raw materials and fuel. He watched the supplies of the Red Army and the industrial centres, and supervised the operations of the industrial enterprises and the machinery of state.

While directing the operations of the Soviet state, Lenin formulated the theoretical generalizations to be drawn from practical experience. In October and November 1918, he wrote his book The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky, in which he turned the full force of his withering wrath and contempt upon that "refined lackey" of the bourgeoisie, Kautsky, and those loyal watchdogs of imperialism, the other leaders of the Second International. In this book he contributes to Marxism the theory of the Soviet state, makes a superb analysis of the class nature of the proletarian dictatorship, reveals the fundamental difference between proletarian democracy and bourgeois democracy, and shows that "Soviet Government is millions more times democratic than the most democratic bourgeois republic." This book is a priceless contribution to the treasury of Marxism.

Things looked gloomy indeed when the working people of Soviet Russia celebrated the first anniversary of the October Revolution. Three-fourths of the country was occupied by foreign interventionists. The Soviet Republic was hard pressed by the foreign imperialists and the Russian Whiteguards. It stood alone, without allies, fighting the enemy on many fronts. The Red Army was then only in the course of formation. There was a shortage of grain, raw materialists, fuel, arms and equipment. Nevertheless, the Bolshevik Party and the working class it led, did not despair or become despondent. Lenin inspired the masses to continue the fight against the foreign interventionists.

On the first anniversary of the October Revolution Lenin summed up the results of the work that had been performed in the preceding year. Workers' control of industry had been replaced by workers' management of industry. The general peasant struggle for land had given way to the struggle of the now organized rural poor against the kulaks. In place of the old demoralized army and disconnected Red Guard units there was now a regular Red Army, which was already achieving its first victories at the various fronts. The initial steps towards organizing and consolidating the Soviet regime throughout the country had led to the adoption of the first Soviet Constitution. Such was the summary of the achievements of the heroic and self-sacrificing labours of the Bolsheviks and of the intense activities of Lenin and his immediate associates. The Land of Soviets was justly proud of these achievements, which infused the masses with fresh courage and confidence in ultimate victory.

Lenin, however, reminded the working class that in order to rout the enemies who had attacked the land of Soviets it must display the self-sacrifice, the courage and heroism displayed by the fighters in the armed insurrection during the October Revolution. In a speech he delivered on November 7, 1918, at the unveiling of a memorial tablet set up in honour of the fighters in the October Revolution, he said: "Comrades, let us honour the memory of the October fighters by vowing at this memorial to follow in their footsteps, to emulate them in their fearlessness and heroism. Let their slogan become ours, the slogan of the workers in revolt all over the world. The slogan is: 'Victory or Death!'"

Towards the end of 1918, the situation on the Perm front became catastrophic. In an effort to unite with the interventionists who were advancing from the North to strike a joint blow at Moscow, Kolchak had pressed back the Soviet forces on the left flank of the Eastern Front. On December 24, Perm fell, and the enemy advanced on Vyatka.

Lenin took energetic measures to send relief to the Eastern Front. At the meetings of the Council of Defence held on December 25 and 29, he brought up the question of immediately sending reinforcements. On his proposal the Central Committee of the Party commissioned Stalin—the organizer of the victory over the Whiteguards at Tsaritsyn—and Dzerzhinsky, to investigate the causes of the surrender of Perm and to take all the measures necessary to restore the situation on the Eastern Front.

In reply to the report sent in by Stalin and Dzerzhinsky on the measures they had taken, Lenin wrote: "I have received and read your first coded despatch. I beg of you both personally to supervise the carrying out of the measures outlined on the spot, otherwise we have no guarantee of success." Stalin in conjunction with Dzerzhinsky restored the fighting efficiency of the Third Army, which then launched an offensive against Kolchak.

While directing the defence of the country, Lenin also watched the international situation and closely studied developments in the international working-class movement.

In the middle of 1918, the tide of the world imperialist war turned in favour of the Entente. The forces of German imperialism were becoming exhausted. The German army was growing demoralized. Germany was seething with popular discontent against the burdens of the war; at the beginning of November 1918, revolution broke out. Germany had to admit defeat and sued for peace with the Entente.

In the speech he delivered at the Sixth Congress of Soviets on November 8, 1918, Lenin referred to the military defeat of Germany, and concerning German imperialism he said: "At first it spread incredibly to three-fourths of Europe, became bloated and then burst, leaving a frightful stench behind it." The German imperialists were crushed by the very war machine which they had created. "They found themselves stranded; they had devoured so much that they gorged themselves to death."

In view of the changed situation Lenin raised the question of annulling the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, and this the All-Russian Central Executive Committee did on November 13, 1918. The manifesto addressed "To the Peoples of Russia, to the Population of All the Occupied Regions and Territories," signed by Lenin and Sverdlov, stated that the oppressive and predatory Brest Peace fell "under the combined blows of the German and Russian proletarian revolutionaries." The Red Army began to clear the territory of Soviet Russia captured by Germany of German troops. As a result of the onslaughts of the regular units of the Red Army and of the guerilla detachments, the German hordes, defeated and disgraced, fled ignominiously from the Ukraine, Byelorussia and the Baltics provinces.

The rise of the revolutionary tide in Europe and the revolutions in Germany, Austria and Hungary led to the formation of Communist Parties in Europe. Solid ground was formed for uniting these parties in the Communist International, on the formation of which Lenin had spent so much effort. As early as January 1918, on his initiative, a conference of representatives of the Left groups in the Socialist Parties of a number of countries was held, and it was decided to convene the first Congress of the Communist International. In January 1919, Lenin addressed an open letter to the workers of Europe and America urging them to found the Third International.

The First Congress of the Communist International was opened in the Kremlin on March 2, 1919. Delegates were present from the most important countries of Europe and America. Its proceedings were directed by Lenin.

Lenin delivered the chief report on bourgeois democracy and proletarian dictatorship. In the course of this report he explained the fundamental difference between the dictatorship of the proletariat and the dictatorship of the exploiting classes. The object of the dictatorship of the exploiting classes, he said, was forcibly to suppress the resistance of the working people in the interests of an insignificant minority. The object of the proletarian dictatorship was forcibly to suppress the resistance of the exploiters in the interests of the vast majority of the people and to build Communism. The proletarian dictatorship was an absolute necessity for the entire mass of the working people, for only through this dictatorship could mankind proceed to Communism. The political form of the proletarian dictatorship was the Soviets. The Soviet regime provided real democracy for the working people. These propositions formulated by Lenin served as the basis of the programme of the Communist International.

Thus, on Lenin's initiative, was formed the international revolutionary proletarian organization of a new type—the Marxist-Leninist International.

Shortly after the Congress of the Communist International, in March 1919, the Eighth Congress of the Bolshevik Party assembled in Moscow. The congress was opened by Lenin, who on rising to speak was greeted with a storm of applause and cries of "Long live Ilyich!"

Lenin's first words were devoted to the memory of Sverdlov, one of the best organizers of the Bolshevik Party, who had died on the eve of the congress.

At this congress Lenin delivered the reports on the main items on the agenda: the report of the Central Committee, the Party programme, and work in the rural districts.

In his report on the political activities of the Central Committee he especially drew the Party's attention to the fact that the Soviet Republic was encircled by capitalist countries and emphasized the necessity of constantly increasing the military strength of the proletarian state. "We are living not only in a state, but in a system of states," he said, "and the existence of the Soviet Republic side by side with imperialist states for a long time is unthinkable. One or other must triumph in the end. And before that end supervenes, a series of frightful collisions between the Soviet Republic and the bourgeois states will be inevitable. That means that if the ruling class, the proletariat, wants to hold sway, it must prove its capacity to do so by its military organization."

The Eighth Congress adopted a new Party programme which had been drafted by the Programme Committee headed by Lenin. During the debate on the programme Lenin sharply attacked the anti-Bolshevik views of Bukharin, who proposed that the points in the programme referring to capitalism, small commodity production and the husbandry of the middle peasants be deleted. Bukharin had tried to gloss over the fact that small commodity peasant husbandry was giving rise to a class of kulaks, or exploiting farmers. Like the Mensheviks and the Trotskyites, he denied that the middle peasants could be a factor in building up the Soviet state. Lenin also was obliged very strongly to combat the pernicious and jingoist views of Bukharin and Pyatakov who opposed the right of nations to self-determination and the equality of nations.

In his report on work in the rural districts, Lenin devoted special attention to the middle peasants. In the autumn of 1918, the middle peasants began to turn towards the Soviet regime and Lenin issued the slogan in which he combined in one general formula the "triple object of Party work in the rural districts" (Stalin), namely: ". . . to come to an agreement with the middle peasant, not for a moment to renounce the struggle against the kulak, and at the same time to rely solely on the poor peasant. . . ."

This was a new slogan based on the new experience of the class struggle; it was a valuable addition to the Party's arsenal in its rural policy, and a valuable contribution to the tenets of Marxism on the peasant question.

"In relation to the middle peasants," he said at this congress, "it is necessary to take the stand of a firm alliance." He severely condemned those who tried to coerce the peasants to undertake collective methods of tilling the soil and to form agricultural communes. "Nothing could be sillier than the very idea of resorting to coercion in our economic relations with the middle peasants," he said.

The Party and the government must devote attention to the task of improving the conditions of the middle peasants and of supplying the rural districts with agricultural machines. "If we could to-morrow," he said, "supply 100,000 first-class tractors together with petrol and operators (you all know that at present this is sheer fantasy), the middle peasants would then say: 'we are in favour of Communia' (i.e., in favour of Communism)."

The resolution adopted by the congress on Lenin's report declared in favour of a policy of firm alliance with the middle peasants in which the proletariat was to retain the leading role. This marked a turning point in the Bolshevik Party's policy towards the middle peasants; it marked the transition from the policy of neutralizing them to that of establishing a firm alliance with them. This change of policy was a decisive factor in securing success in the civil war against the foreign interventionists and the Russian Whiteguards, and in the task of building up Socialism in Russia.

At this congress Trotsky and the so-called "military opposition," opposed the formation of a disciplined, regular Red Army. In this they met with a stern rebuff from Lenin and Stalin. Lenin's speech in defence of the Party's military policy made a deep impression upon the delegates, and the congress unanimously adopted the resolution on military policy proposed by the Central Committee.

In his speech in winding up the congress Lenin once again reminded the Party of the difficulties of the war situation, but at the same time he indicated what was the inexhaustible source of strength of the Soviet Republic in its struggle against the predatory imperialists. "We all know," he said, "what a strain this war is imposing upon us and how it is wearing us out. But the history of our cause is certain. The fact that the vast masses of the working people are convinced of the justice of their cause generates and multiplies mass heroism. For the first time in the history of the world there has been created an army, an armed force, when knows what it is fighting for; and for the first time in the history of the world the workers and peasants who have made untold sacrifices clearly realize that they are fighting to defend the Soviet Socialist Republic. . . ." This was the guarantee that the Soviet Republic was invincible.

After defeating Germany and Austria the Entente imperialists concentrated their forces against the Land of Soviets. They proclaimed a blockade against her and drew up a plan to rout the Red Army and to demolish the Soviet Republic. Kolchak's army marched from the East; Denikin's forces advanced from the South, and Yudenich marched against Petrograd from the North-West.

The ring of enemies closed tighter around the Soviet Republic; the Soviet regime was in mortal danger. But Lenin's confidence in the strength of the nations of the Soviet Republic and in the inexhaustible might of the great Russian people was unshakeable. "Russia is distinguished by the fact," he wrote, "that whenever times were most difficult she always had at her command masses who could be used as a reserve, as a source of fresh strength when the old strength was beginning to give out."

The Entente placed its hopes mainly on Admiral Kolchak, who was proclaimed "Supreme Rulger of Russia" and placed in command of all the counter-revolutionary forces in Russia. In the spring of 1919, his army almost reached the Volga. The Eastern Front became the main front.

Lenin took all measures to organize the speedy and utter defeat of Kolchak. On April 11, 1919, the Central Committee endorsed the "Theses of the Central Committee of the R.C.P.(B.) on the Situation on the Eastern Front" in which everybody was urged "to set to work in a revolutionary way." These theses played an exceptional role in mobilizing the Party, the trade unions and the masses of the workers for the fight against Kolchak. That same day the Council of People's Commissars proclaimed a general mobilization.

Lenin then issues an order to the Revolutionary Military Council of the Eastern Front to launch an offensive, warning the Council that "if we do not capture the Urals before the winter, in my opinion the doom of the revolution will be inevitable."

He called upon the Red Army to exert all its efforts to crush the united forces of international imperialism which had invaded the Land of Soviets, and called for the speediest mobilization of all forces for this purpose. He appealed to the people to be brave and fearless in the struggle, to fight to the last gasp against the enemies of the country. "Contempt for death must become widespread among the masses and thus ensure victory," he said. Every worker and peasant, every commander and private in the Red Army "must individually be made conscious of the fact that the termination of the war depends upon his bravery, upon his determination, and upon his devotion." He called for iron discipline in the ranks of the Red Army and for the most ruthless treatment of whimperers, panic-mongers, deserters and cowards. "The firing squad—this is the legitimate fate of the coward in battle," he said.

In view of the war he demanded that all the organizations, industrial plants and government offices, as well as all leaders, high and low, should work in a war-time manner. "Put a stop at all costs to the meeting habit," he said. "All work must be organized on military lines; definite persons must be appointed to be responsible for the fulfilment of definite assignments. Everywhere military discipline must prevail."

Lenin attached enormous importance to Party propaganda and agitation among the masses in the Red Army as well as among the civilian population. The Red Army possessed exceptionally good organizers and agitators in the Military Commissars, who played an extremely important part in the work of political education, and in increasing the Army's fighting efficiency and discipline. "Without the Political Commissars we would not have had the Red Army," said Lenin.

As regards political work among the masses of the civilian population in this grave period in the life of the Soviet Republic Lenin was of the opinion that he main task was to "imbue their hearts with courage, to call for firmness of spirit, to enhance their political consciousness and to reinforce comradely discipline."

He appealed direct to the working class. He addressed a special meeting of the Moscow Soviet, a meeting of the All-Russian Central Council of Trade Unions, a Conference of Railwaymen of the Moscow Junction and the Moscow Conference of Factory Committees and Trade Unions. At all these assemblies he called upon the working class to exert every effort to help the Eastern Front and to send its best sons to fight there. On April 10, he addressed a letter to the Petrograd workers in which he called upon them to set an example to the whole of Russia, to do all in their power to help the Eastern Front. "Help the Eastern Front!"—was the slogan he issued.

The entire country responded to Lenin's call. The best members of the Bolshevik Party, of the Young Communist League and the best of the non-Party workers were hurled into the struggle against Kolchak. On receiving these powerful reinforcements, the Red Army began to press back Kolchak's forces all along the line.

When the Red Army was approaching the Urals, Trotsky proposed the treacherous plan to stop the offensive and to divert the Soviet forces from the Eastern Front to the Southern Front. Lenin and Stalin emphatically opposed this plan and insisted that the offensive on the Eastern Front be continued until Kolchak was utterly defeated. Lenin wrote at the time:

"To relax the offensive in the Urals and in Siberia would mean betraying the revolution, betraying the cause of liberating the workers and peasants from the yoke of Kolchak." He urged that in the struggle against counter-revolutionaries, against the enemies who were threatening the existence of the Soviet state, it was necessary to be resolute and unflinching. "The enemy must not only be overthrown but exterminated. Do not confine yourselves to half-measures," he wrote.

On Lenin's proposal the Central Committee of the Party removed Trotsky from the leadership of the Eastern Front and placed Frunze and Kuibyshev in command. Under their leadership the Red Army delivered a crushing blow at Kolchak's forces in the Urals and drove them into Siberia. By the end of the year the Red Army, assisted by the powerful guerilla movement, annihilated the remnants of Kolchak's army.

In May 1919, General Yudenich launched an offensive against Petrograd in order to relieve the pressure of the Red Army on the Eastern Front and to save Kolchak. Soon the enemy was at the gates of Petrograd, the cradle of the proletarian revolution. To save Petrograd, the Central Committee of the Party, on Lenin's proposal, commissioned Stalin to go to that city to organize its defence. Certain evidence gave Lenin grounds for believing that spies and traitors were operating in Petrograd and at the front. He sent Stalin the following wire:

"All the circumstances connected with the Whiteguard offensive against Petrograd give grounds for the assumption that there is organized treachery in our rear and perhaps at the front itself. . . . Please pay special attention to this and take special measures to uncover these conspiracies."

Lenin's assumption was fully corroborated. Spies and Whiteguard conspirators were discovered at General Staff Headquarters at the front and in Petrograd. Under Stalin's direction these were hunted our and exterminated.

In connection with acts of treachery committed near Petrograd, Lenin in conjunction with Dzerzhinsky issued an appeal to the people to combat spies and conspirators, to hunt them out, to redouble their own revolutionary vigilance in every field of activity, especially in the Red Army, and to guard military secrets more strictly. In this appeal they said:

"Beware of spies! Death to spies! All politically conscious workers and peasants must rise in defence of the Soviet regime, must rise to combat spies and Whiteguard traitors. Let everyone be on the alert—and maintain continuous, military, organized contact with the Party Committee in his locality, with the Cheka, with the most reliable and experienced comrades among the Soviet officials."

But no Whiteguard plots could save Yudenich. Lenin backed all the proposals Stalin made to strengthen the Soviet rear, to root out spies and to organize the front. Under Stalin's direct the Red Army, assisted by the Petrograd workers and the Red Navy, completely routed the army of Yudenich.

After this the party placed Stalin in charge of the Western Front in order to organize the Soviet forces to repel the Whiteguard Poles. Lenin wrote to Stalin as follows: "I request you to go to the Western Front, which is frightfully weak as regards commissars. It is absolutely necessary to assist the entire front."

In August 1919, when the Red Army had driven Kolchak's forces from the whole of the Urals and was beginning to liberate Siberia, Lenin published in Pravda "A Letter to the Workers and Peasants Concerning the Victory Over Kolchak" in which he uttered a warning against boastfulness and complacency, for, he said, "the enemy is far from exterminated." The severe lessons of the war must not be ignored. The workers and peasants, and all working people in general, must take them to heart and be guided by them in future struggles. He enumerated these lessons as follows:

First lesson: "We need a powerful Red Army. We have proved not by words but by deeds that we can create one," we have learnt how to vanquish not only the tsarist generals, but also the generals of foreign armies. "To help the Red Army by every means which every individual can find—such is the primary, the fundamental and main duty of every politically conscious worker and peasants. . . .

"He who does not wholeheartedly and devotedly help the Red Army, who does not do all in his power to maintain order and discipline in it, is a traitor, a supporter of Kolchak, and must be ruthlessly exterminated."

Second lesson: "The Red Army cannot be a strong army unless the state has large stocks of grain at its disposal, for without such stocks it is impossible to move the army from place to place freely or train it properly. Without such stocks it is impossible to maintain the workers who are working to produce supplies for the army." To produce as much grain as possible and to deliver to the state all surplus grain stocks—such is the duty of every peasant who does not wish to see the restoration of the rule of the landlords and capitalists.

Third lesson: "It is necessary to maintain the strictest revolutionary order," sacredly to observe and fulfil the Soviet laws. "The slightest lawlessness, the slightest breach of order provides a loophole of which the enemies of the working people will immediately take advantage."

Fourth lesson: "The birth of Kolchakism was facilitated and directly fostered by the Mensheviks and S.R.'s ("Socialist-Revolutionaries"). It is time we learnt to judge political parties by their deeds and not by their words . . . the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries are accomplices of the Whiteguards."

Fifth lesson: "Down with the waverers, with the spineless, with those who are longing for the assistance of capital, with those who are enchanted by the slogans and promises of capital! Relentless war against capital and alliance among the working people, alliance between the peasants and the working class—this is the last and most important lesson taught by Kolchakism."

Defeated in the East and near Petrograd, the foreign interventionists and Whiteguards shifted the centre of their struggle against the Land of Soviets to the South. In the summer and autumn of 1919 they organized a second campaign against the Soviet Republic, known as the "campaign of fourteen nations." In this campaign the main force was the Denikin army. Describing Denikin's hordes Lenin wrote that this was an enemy who was "extremely capable of making swift raids, of plunging into adventures and hazardous undertakings for the purpose of spreading panic, for the purpose of causing destruction for the sake of destruction.

"What is needed in the fight against such an enemy is military discipline and military vigilance carried to the utmost extreme. Lack of vigilance or consternation means losing everything."

In the summer of 1919, Denikin's army, which had been well-equipped by the imperialists, began to press back the Red Army. The retreat of the Red Army was the result of the treacherous activities of Trotsky who had undermined the fighting efficiency of the Southern Front. The Denikin forces captured Orel, were approaching Tula and were threatening Moscow. Never had the enemy come so near to the heart of the revolution. The counter-revolutionaries in Russia and all over the world were already exulting at the prospect of the "inevitable" doom of the Soviet regime.

Lenin issued an appeal to the entire people in which he frankly and plainly stated that the "most critical moment of the socialist revolution" had arrived. Once again he turned to the main source of strength of the revolution—to the working class. He was convinced that the peasants would follow the lead of the workers, that the latter would cement the units of the Red Army and make it invincible.

"Everything for the struggle against Denikin!"—was his call.

"The masses of the working people are with us," he wrote in those tense days in the autumn of 1919. "This is the source of our strength. This is the source of the invincibility of World Communism. Enlist more new workers for the Party from among the masses for the purpose of taking an independent part in the work of building the new social system—such is our method of combating all difficulties, such is our road to victory."

The Bolshevik Party proclaimed a "Party Recruiting Week," during which tens of thousands of workers, peasants and Red Armymen, who were ready to lay down their lives for the Soviet regime, joined the Party. The pick of the Bolsheviks and of the workers went off to the front. Lenin regarded this constant growth of new forces, the mass heroism displayed by the workers and peasants, and the inexhaustible reserves of the country as the decisive factors which ensured the working people victory over the enemy. "In war it is the side that has most reserves, most sources of strength, and where the masses of the people display most fortitude that is sure of victory." This postulate of Lenin's is a guiding strategical principle.

To organize the defeat of Denikin, the Central Committee of the Party commissioned Stalin, Voroshilov, Orjonikidze and Budyonny to go to the Southern Front. Trotsky was removed from the leadership of that front. He had drawn up a plan according to which the main blow against Denikin was to have been delivered from Tsaritsyn with the object of reaching Novorossiisk across the Don steppes, which were inhabited by Cossacks hostile to the Soviet regime. Stalin rejected this plan and drew up his own, which was to strike the main blow along the Kharkov-Donbas-Rostov line, where there was a dense network of railways and where the inhabitants—workers and peasants—were on the side of the Soviet government. Lenin approved of Stalin's plan and gave orders to General Headquarters to put it into execution.

During those stern days Lenin urged that the primary question that every working man and woman should have in mind was: "Have we done everything to help the war, have we exerted sufficient effort, have we sent sufficient aid to the front? . . . All our sacrifices, all our aid must be given to the front. All hesitation must be abandoned. And if we concentrate all our forces and make every necessary sacrifice, there is no doubt that we shall also be victorious this time."

Lenin took all measures to ensure food supplies for the Red Army and for the starving workers in the industrial districts. He called upon the railwaymen to work with precision, and drew special attention to the importance of the internal waterways as means of transporting food supplies. In October 1919, he sent a telegram to Kazan, Samara, Saratov, Simbirsk, Ufa, Perm and Viatka demanding strict adherence to schedule in transporting grain. In this telegram he wrote:

"Not a single day, not a single hour that can be utilized must be lost. Exert the utmost effort, stand on guard of the revolution as the Red Armymen stand at their posts with their rifles; work until the very last moment of the navigation season, until the river is completely covered with ice; do not lay down your precious weapon until the ice fetters the Volga."

Lenin also called upon the central military organizations to work more efficiently, to execute Stalin's orders promptly and to the letter, and to supply the Southern Front with the necessary munitions. All the time Lenin and Stalin kept in constant touch with each other by telegraph and by conversations over the direct wire.

This time, too, the plans of the foreign interventionists were frustrated. The second campaign against the Soviet regime was defeated. The Red Army routed Denikin's forces.

At the end of December 1919, Lenin published in Pravda a "Letter to the Workers and Peasants of the Ukraine Concerning the Victory Over Denikin" in which he laid emphasis on one of the most important lessons of the civil war that was to be learnt from the struggle against Kolchak and Denikin. The working people of the Land of Soviets, he said, had still a long struggle for independence before them, and in this "long and arduous struggle we, the Great Russian and Ukrainian workers must march in close alliance, for separately we shall certainly not cope with our task." The guarantee of success in the struggle for the existence and independence of the proletarian state lies in the close alliance of the nations inhabiting the Land of Soviets, in the fraternal unity of the Ukrainian and other nationalities with the Great Russian nation. The friendship of the nations inhabiting the Land of Soviets, which had been tested in the flames of the civil war, is one of the decisive factors in building up the economic and military might of the U.S.S.R.

While the decisive battles were being fought on the Denikin front, Yudenich's army was once again hurled against Petrograd with the object of diverting Soviet troops from the Southern Front. Yudenich's forces captured Krasnoye Selo and Gatchina. At this crucial moment Lenin issued the following appeal to the workers and Red Armymen of Petrograd:

"Comrades! The fate of Petrograd hands in the balance! . . . Fight to the last drop of your blood, comrades, cling to every inch of ground, be staunch to the last, victory is nigh, victory will be ours!"

In response to Lenin's appeal the workers of Petrograd mobilized their forces and hurled themselves against Yudenich. And when, as a result of this onslaught, the Whiteguard forces began to retreat, Lenin issued a second appeal to the workers and Red Armymen of Petrograd in which he said: "Strike them hard; don't give them an hour or moment of respite."

This time the Red Army routed Yudenich completely.

Broken up by the Red Army, Denikin's forces retreated to the South. Lenin urged that they be hotly pursued and wiped out. At the beginning of 1920, the Southern Front was reorganized into the South-Western Front, and a separate Caucasian Front was formed. In a telegram to Stalin, Lenin wrote that it was necessary "to expedite the work of strengthening the Caucasian Front—this is the most important thing." On February 19, he again telegraphed Stalin, stating that in his opinion "the most important and urgent task" was "to secure the utter defeat of Denikin, and for this purpose you should exert every effort to expedite the work of strengthening the Caucasian Front." Next day he spoke to Stalin over the direct wire and told him: "The situation on the Caucasian Front is becoming more and more grave. As the situation is to-day it is by no means precluded that we shall lose Rostov and Novocherkask, and that the enemy will try to develop his success further to the North and threaten the Donets district. Take extraordinary measures to expedite the transfer of the 42nd and Lettish Divisions and to improve their fighting efficiency. I rely on you, appreciating the whole situation, to display all your energy and achieve effective results." To this Stalin made the following brief and concise reply: "You may rest assured that everything possible will be done." Denikin was indeed utterly routed.

The defeat of the Entente's second campaign was not only a military victory for the Soviet Republic, but also a victory for Lenin in the field of foreign politics and diplomacy. The Entente imperialists had exerted all their efforts to induce Esthonia, Latvia and the other Baltic countries to commence hostilities against the Land of Soviets, but all their efforts were in vain. When Yudenich's forces were almost at the gates of Petrograd, and Denikin's hordes were driving towards Moscow, these small countries took no action to help the Whiteguards. Soviet diplomacy, directed by Lenin, skilfully took advantage of the antagonisms between these countries and the big imperialist powers. They had all had practical experience of the policy of these powers, who trampled upon the national dignity and independence of small countries. Moreover, they were fully aware that if Kolchak, Yudenich and Denikin were victorious, the old tsarist empire—that prison of nations—would be restored, and they would be robbed of their independence. As against the imperialist foreign policy of peace and respect for the independence of all nations. And the Soviet Republic emerged victorious from this intense struggle against the might imperialist powers.

Lenin watched the operations of the Red Army with close and unflagging attention. He discussed the situation over the direct wire with the leaders of the respective fronts and issued orders, demanding reports on how they were executed. Tens of thousands of workers saw Lenin on the platform and heard his passionate appeals to them to fight heroically for the cause of Socialism on the military and labour fronts. These appeals infused them with fresh vigour for the struggle, heightened their political consciousness and served to strengthen the Soviet rear, to which Lenin attached enormous importance. "War puts to the test all the economic and organizational forces of every nation," he said. "We are winning and will continue to do so because we have backing, and strong backing at that, from the rear; because, in spite of starvation and cold, the peasants and workers are united, their forces have become stronger and they retaliate to every severe blow by uniting their forces more than ever and increasing their economic might. . . ."

Meanwhile, he continued without a moment's interruption his vast and manifold activities in guiding the Party and the state. The Council of People's Commissars and the Council of Defence met nearly every day under his chairmanship. Important questions, such as the defence of the country, food, fuel and transport, were permanent items of business. And how acute these questions were at the time may be judged by the following statement he made in an address he delivered at the Conference on Out of School Education that was held at this time. "Hardly a meeting of the Council of People's Commissars, or of the Council of Defence, takes place but what we share out the last million poods of coal or oil and feel in an awful state when all the Commissars take the last remnants and still there is not enough to go round, and we have to decide which factory to close down and which workers to throw out of work—a painful question, but one we have to face because we lack coal." In examining multifarious problems of wide political scope Lenin was able to go into their details and perseveringly secure the fulfilment of adopted plans and decisions. Every one of the at first sight small measures he initiated was directed towards a single purpose, towards a single goal—to secure the victory of the socialist revolution. The purpose of these "trifles" was to secure the grand objects of strengthening the Soviet regime, of defeating its enemies, and of ensuring the victory of Socialism in the Land of Soviets.

He introduced his amazing methodicalness in the proceedings of the Central Committee of the Party, the Council of People's Commissars and the Council of Defence. His time was strictly mapped out. He did not waste a minute. He opened the meetings of the bodies at which he presided promptly at the appointed time. He insisted that reporters and speakers should be brief, concise and businesslike in their utterances, that they should formulate their proposals clearly and precisely, and that the information they gave should be exact. He detested verbosity. In his presence questions of great importance concerning the state and the Party were settled expeditiously. He infected everybody who came in contact with him with his good spirits, his cheerfulness and bubbling energy. He was fond of a joke and laughed heartily when he heard a good one, causing those around him to do the same. A prominent Englishman who was present at a meeting of the Council of People's Commissars on seeing how infectious Lenin's laughter was said that this laughter was a sign of strength.

While listening carefully to reporters and speakers at meetings Lenin, at the same time, by an interchange of notes, settled important questions with leading people present.

He was exacting and insisted that once a matter had been undertaken, and he was relentless in his treatment of bureaucrats, humbugs and indolent and slipshod officials.

He showed extraordinary solicitude for the welfare of the workers and peasants, of scientists and government and Party employees. For example, when the railway system was in an extremely bad condition he proposed that the rations of railwaymen who were working under exceptionally severe conditions should be increased. He initiated the formation of the Central Commission For the Improvement of the Conditions of Scientists, so that the needs of scientists might be cared for an the requirements for their scientific work supplied.

He showed parental concern for the health and well-being of the children and took special measures to improve the supply of milk and butter for them.

One day, at a meeting of the Council of People's Commissars, he noticed that Tsurupa, the Commissar for Food Supplies, was sick, and he sent him a note urging him to regard his health as "state property," and treat it accordingly. "Dear Alexander Dmitrievich," he wrote, "You are becoming quite impossible in the way you are treating state property. I prescribe: three weeks medical treatment! . . .

"Upon my word of honour, the way you are flinging your poor health about is unpardonable. You have got to get well!"

The son of the novelist A. S. Serafimovich was killed at the front and the author was heartbroken at the loss. Lenin heard this from his sister, and he immediately wrote to Serafimovich: "My sister has just informed me about your sad bereavement. Permit me to grip your hand tightly, very tightly, and to wish you courage and fortitude." He went on to urge him to "force" himself to "resume work," for the workers and the country needed his literary productions.

Lenin devoted a great deal of attention to the welfare of the working women and peasant women. He frequently addressed their meetings and conferences and called upon them to take an active part in the work of defending the country and of building up the socialist state. When millions of women take part in the work of building communist society, he said, "we can rest assured that the success of the cause of socialist construction will be guaranteed." He particularly urged the women to do all they could to help the Red Army which was fighting to defend the country, to care for the wounded and to take the places in the factories and offices of the men who had gone off to the war.

Lenin was the best friend of the youth, and displayed paternal concern for the upbringing of the young generation, always assisting the youth organizations with counsel and instructions. A delegation from the First All-Russian Congress of Youth Leagues came to inform him among other things that the congress had decided to rename the League the Young Communist League. Lenin, approving of the change, explained to the delegation, however, that it was not the name but the activities of the League that was important. One must be a Communist in all things, he said; in one's manner of life and in one's activities.

At the Third Congress of the Young Communist League held in 1920, Lenin delivered an address on "The Tasks of the Young Communist League" in which he called upon the youth of the country to take an active part in all fields of work connected with the building up of the Soviet state, and seriously to study and master the treasure stores of human culture. One can be a Communist, he said, only when one has enriched one's mind with a knowledge of the treasures produced by the mind of man. The workers and peasants must be united and voluntarily disciplined, for without this it will be impossible to vanquish the capitalists and landlords of the whole world and it will be impossible to build communist society. It was the duty of the Young Communist League to train the young builders of communist society. The entire work of educating and training the young generation, he said, must be directed towards inculcating communist ethics. There is no such thing as abstract ethics divorced from human society. Those who preach such ethics are merely deceiving the people. Communist ethics are not divorced from the class struggle but are entirely subordinate to it, subordinate to the cause of overthrowing capitalism and of building communist society. The Young Communist League would justify its name only when its members linked up every step in their education and training with the common struggle the working people were waging for Communism. The League must render assistance and display initiative in every field of work. This speech was actually an outline of the programme of activities of the Young Communist League and of the Soviet youth as a whole.

Although overwhelmed with government and Party work, Lenin, nevertheless, found time to deliver lectures at the Sverdlov Communist University, to read current literature, and to study philosophical questions. The following request to the Library of the Rumyanstev Museum (now the Lenin State Library) gives us an insight into the profound interest he displayed in philosophical questions even in that extremely tense period, and also reveals his extraordinary modesty:

"Please send me for reference for one day:

"I. Two of the best and fullest Greek dictionaries; Greek-German, French, Russian or English.

"II. The best philosophical dictionaries, dictionaries of philosophical terms: German, Eisler, I think; English, Baldwin, I think; French, Frank, I think (if you have not a later one); Russian, one of the latest you have. Radlov, and others.

"III. History of Greek philosophy:

"(1) Zeller, complete and latest edition.

"(2) Gompertz (Viennese philosopher); Griechische Denker.

"If the regulations do not permit of reference books being borrowed for home use, will you not allow me to use them in the evening, at night, when the library is closed. I will return them in the morning."

In organizing the defence of the country Lenin urged upon the workers, and working people generally, to increase output to the utmost. He constantly reiterated that in the last analysis productively of labour was the most important, the main factor that ensured the victory of the new social system, the victory of Communism.

Lenin excelled all men in his instinct for what was new, and he watched for its appearance and nursed it like an experienced gardener watching and nursing a new plant. On May 10, 1919, the staff of the Kazan Railway, in response to Lenin's appeal to "work in a revolutionary way," decided to work overtime without pay to perform certain urgent jobs on the line. This was Saturday (in Russian, Subbota), and this idea of working voluntarily without pay for the common cause was taken up throughout the country. These Saturday afternoons came to be called "Subbotniks." Lenin regarded this as an epoch-making event. In an article entitled "A Great Beginning," he wrote:

"In this connection (i.e., the heroism displayed by the workers in the rear during the war against the Whiteguards) the Communists Subbotniks organized by the workers on their own initiative are positively of enormous significance. . . . It is the beginning of a revolution that is much more difficult, more material, more radical and more decisive than the overthrow of the bourgeoisie."

He regarded the Subbotniks as "the actual beginning of Communism." They showed, he wrote, "the class-conscious and voluntary initiative of the workers in developing the productivity of labour, in adopting the new labour discipline, and in creating socialist conditions of economy and life." He therefore considered that the labour heroism displayed by the workers in the rear was deserving of no less attention and encouragement than the heroism displayed at the front.

Lenin did all in his power to encourage the "great beginning" initiated by the masses of the workers: On May 1, 1920, a nation-wide Subbotnik was held in which Lenin himself took part, helping to clear up the courtyard of the Kremlin. A cadet at the Kremlin Military School, who participated in this work relates the following:

"On our right flank, next to the School Colours, stood a man of short stature wearing overalls. This was Ilyich. The band played the 'International.' Suddenly, a signal was heard, followed by the firing of guns, and we set to work. Ilyich joined us. Together we cleared the Kremlin courtyard of all sorts of lumber. Ilyich carried logs on his shoulders, and lugged stones on a wheelbarrow."

After the defeat of Kolchak and Denikin a short respite intervened, during which Lenin concentrated his attention on the operation of industry, transport and agriculture. Part of the Red Army was transferred to the labour front. The Council of Workers' and Peasants' Defence was transformed into the Council of Labour and Defence. At this time Lenin set the Soviet Government and the Bolshevik Party the following three most urgent tasks upon the execution of which the restoration of industry depended: to accumulate a large state reserve of food supplies; to ensure fuel supplies for industry; and to restore the transport system and ensure its regular operation.

He warned the country that it was much easier to defeat Kolchak, Yudenich and Denikin than to achieve victory on the economic front, for here it was necessary to overcome the deep-rooted petty-bourgeois habits, relations and customs, and this would entail a long and arduous struggle. He called upon the workers to display on the front of peaceful labour "even greater miracles of heroism and achievement than in the war against the exploiters!" He had boundless confidence in the creative forces of the working class and in its ability to cope with all difficulties. He expressed the opinion that on the labour front too the class-consciousness and staunchness of the working class and its "inflexible adherence to the watchword 'Death rather than surrender'—was not only a historical factor, but also a factor that will determine victory."

At the end of March, 1920, the Ninth Congress of the Party opened in Moscow. Lenin delivered the report on the political activities of the Central Committee, in the course of which he laid stress on the organizing role played by the Bolshevik Party in the war to defend the country. The slogans it issued—"Everything for victory," "Everything for the war," rallied and helped to organize vast masses of the working people at the front and in the rear. The Bolshevik Party ensured the unity of will and unity of action of millions of workers and peasants. "It was only because the Party was on the alert," he said, "it was only because the Party was strictly disciplined, because the authority of the Party was able to unite all departments and institutions, because the slogans issued by the Central Committee were taken up by tens, hundreds, thousands and finally by millions of people like one man, and because incredible sacrifices were made—it was only because of all this that the miracle which took place actually did take place. It was only because of all this that we were victorious in spite of the twofold, threefold and even fourfold attack of the imperialists of the Entente and the imperialists of the whole world."

He also concentrated the attention of the congress on questions concerning economic development. He had written on this subject in "A Letter to the Organizations of the R.C.P. On the Preparations For the Party Congress" which had been published in the name of the Central Committee. He referred to it in his speech in opening the congress, and he dealt with it in his report on the activities of the Central Committee, in his speech on economic development, and in his speech in closing the congress. He called upon the Party, the workers and the peasants to concentrate all their energy on "restoring the economy of the country, primarily on restoring the transport system, and secondly on improving the food situation."

At this congress he strenuously opposed the so-called Democratic Centralism Group, which, supported by Rykov and Tomsky, was working against the Party. This group desired to perpetuate the old system of managing industry by means of all sorts of "Boards" which had resulted in laxity and lack of responsibility, and it tried to frustrate the policy, instituted by Lenin and backed by the whole Party, of one man management and individual responsibility of factory and railway managers.

On Lenin's recommendation the congress devoted considerable attention to the question of drawing up a single economic plan for the whole country, an important item of which was the electrification of the whole industry, agriculture and transport.

The Ninth Congress also passed a decision to start the publication of the Complete Works of Lenin.

In April 1920, the Bolshevik Party celebrated the fiftieth birthday of its founder and leader—Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. On April 23, the Moscow Committee of the Party arranged a social evening in Lenin's honour at which some of his closest associates, such as Stalin, Maxim Gorky, and others, spoke. Towards the close of the evening Lenin delivered a short address in which he paid tribute to the Bolshevik Party, the Party which governed a vast country and which bore a great responsibility to the people of Russia and the international proletariat. He warned the Party against becoming intoxicated with success, and pointed to the numerous cases in history where parties which had become conceited had perished. The greatest difficulties, he said, still lay ahead, and he warned the Party not to become conceited. The danger "must be kept in mind by all Bolsheviks, individually, and collectively as a political party." He concluded his speech by expressing the firm conviction that the Bolshevik Party would never become a conceited party.

Lenin unceasingly urged the necessity of increasing the productivity of labour and of creating a new, socialist, labour discipline. "The work of creating a new labour discipline," he wrote, "of creating new forms of social ties between men, of creating new forms and methods of getting people to work, must take many years and decades. It is work of the noblest and most gratifying kind."

One of the most important measures, in his opinion, was the introduction of public control and the enlistment of the workers and peasants, particularly women, for this function. Stalin was put in charge of the People's Commissariat of State Control. In April 1919, Lenin wrote to Stalin expressing the opinion that the foremost tasks in the work of public control was to make surprise audits on warning of abuses being received from private citizens, to take revolutionary measures to combat bureaucracy and red tape, to increase the productivity of labour and to increase the output of manufactured goods. He regarded the machinery of public control as a powerful means of enlisting the masses of the people for the work of state administration. With this purpose in view, in 1920, the Commissariat for State Control was reorganized and became the Workers' and Peasants' Inspection. In a letter to Stalin consulting him on the objects of this organization, Lenin wrote: "Object: to enlist all the working people, men, and particularly women, in the work of the Workers' and Peasants' Inspection."

While calling upon the Bolshevik Party and the working class to exert all their efforts to restore the economy of the country he warned them that the enemy was mustering his forces for another attempt to overthrow the Soviet régime by armed force. This forecast soon came true. In April 1920, the imperialists launched their third campaign against the Land of Soviets, this time utilizing the military forces of Poland, and of the Whiteguards led by Baron Wrangel in the Crimea. Lenin called Poland and Wrangel the two hands of international imperialism trying to strange the Soviet Republic.

Once again war called for sacrifice, privation and the straining of all the resources of the country. But the working class and the working peasantry, conscious of the justness of their cause, bravely went forth to meet the difficulties, confident that they would surmount them and achieve victory. "We," said Lenin, "are not fighting for the right to plunder other nations; we are defending our proletarian revolution and will fight to the very end to do so. The Russia which has achieved her emancipation, the Russia which has clung to her Soviet revolution during the course of two years of suffering, we shall defend to the last drop of our blood!"

Again the task of defending the country absorbed most of Lenin's attention. He called upon the country once again to exert all efforts and to place all its resources at the service of the front. "Our slogan must be: Everything for the war!" he said. "Otherwise we shall be unable to cope with the Polish squires and the bourgeoisie in the way we must do in order to put an end to war once and for all, and to teach a lesson to the last of the neighboring powers that dares to play with this sort of thing. We must teach them such a lesson as will make them warn their grandchildren and great grandchildren not to do such things." On Lenin's proposal, Stalin was commissioned by the Central Committee of the Party to go to the South-Western Front to organize the defeat of the Polish squires. In response to Lenin's appeal thousands of the best members of the Party and of the Young Communist League went off to the front.

At this period Lenin made active preparations for convening the Second Congress of the Communist International. During the year that had elapsed since the First Congress was held, the international communist movement had grown in strength and maturity, and Lenin considered that it was necessary to convey to the young Communist Parties in the other countries the wealth of experience the Russian Bolshevik Party had acquired in the course of decades of class struggle and in the flames of three revolutions such as no other party in history had acquired before.

In April and May 1920, he wrote his remarkable book, Left-Wing Communism, An Infantile Disorder, which he described as "A Popular Essay in Marxist Strategy and Tactics." Indeed, it is the finest handbook extant on the strategy and tactics of Leninism. It contains an outline of the art of leadership of the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat, and generalizes the experience of the great revolutions. For revolution, wrote Lenin, it is not enough that the exploited and oppressed masses should realize that it is impossible to go on living in the old way and should demand a change; it is also necessary that the exploiters should not be able to live and govern in the old way. Revolution is impossible without a nation-wide crisis (affecting both the exploited and exploiters). Moreover, to lead the whole of the working class and the broad masses of the working people generally to revolution, propaganda and agitation is not enough. These masses must acquire independent political experience.

Lenin severely criticizes the "Left" doctrinaires, their dogmatic, stereotyped approach to revolutionary tasks and their aversion for activities among the broad masses. First of all it is necessary to win the vanguard to the side of Communism, he writes; but the vanguard alone cannot win victory. The revolutionary vanguard of the proletariat, the Communist Parties, must win over to their side the majority of the working class and of the masses of the working people generally. They must be able to lead these masses to revolution, skilfully training them with the aid of their own political experience and making allowance for the different national and national-political conditions. They strategy and tactics of the Communist Parties must be as flexible as possible. The parties must learn to utilize all methods of waging the struggle, from armed insurrection to the revolutionary utilization of even the most reactionary trade unions and parliaments. They must be able to combine legal and underground activities; they must be able to attack boldly and fearlessly, but must also be able to retreat in an organized manner, to manœuvre, to enter into practical compromises "even with the Devil and his grandmother." They must be able to take advantage of the friction, conflicts and quarrels in the enemy camp, and quickly and unexpectedly substitute one form of struggle for another when circumstances demand it.

Lenin also drafted the principal resolutions for the Second Congress of the Communist International in which he generalized the practical experience of the world proletarian revolution. He drafted the theses outlining the tasks of the Communist International, and also those on the agrarian and the national and colonial questions. He also drew up the conditions of affiliation to the Communist International, which safeguarded the Communist Parties from the penetration of opportunist elements.

The Second Congress of the Communist International was held in the summer of 1920. Lenin made several reports and took part in the debates on a number of questions. At one of the sessions he, in order to impress his views more closely on the minds of the delegates concerned, spoke in German when dealing with the Communist Party of Germany, and in French when dealing with the Communist Party of France. The substance of all his utterances may be reduced to the following points: the Communist Parties must be organized on the basis of the principles of revolutionary Marxism; they must be closely linked up with the masses; they must display great determination and skill in wielding Marxist strategy and tactics in preparing for the victorious socialist revolution.

While directing the proceedings of the Second Congress of the Communist International, Lenin did not for one moment relax his attention to the situation on the fronts of the civil war and did all in his power to ensure victory over the enemy.

He summed up the situation created after the Soviet-Polish war in his report to the Ninth Conference of the Party, held in September 1920, as follows:

"Hitherto, we have been the only force operating against the entire world of imperialists, with the sole ambition of penetrating the tiny crevices between them to prevent them from crushing us. But now we say: We are now stronger than we were before, and to every attack on your part we shall retaliate with a counter-attack to make you understand that you have not only thrown away several hundreds of millions on Yudenich, Kolchak and Denikin, but that with every attack you run the risk of the territory of the Soviet Republics becoming enlarged."

He warned the Soviet people not to become complacent, for as long as Baron Wrangel's troops occupied the Crimea danger still existed. "Until Wrangel has been utterly defeated, until we have captured the whole of the Crimea, military tasks stand in the forefront. This is absolutely indisputable," he said. On his proposal, the Southern Front was set up as a separate front with Frunze in command.

Lenin called for the most careful preparation of the operations against Wrangel and for the most thorough calculation of all the forces and factors in the situation."Follow on the heels of the enemy into the Crimea at all costs," he said. "Make the most careful preparations. Ascertain whether all the fords have been sounded for the capture of the Crimea." Lenin's instructions were carried out. During the celebration of the third anniversary of the October Revolution the Red Army began to storm the Isthmus of Perekop; it forded the Sivash Straits and routed Wrangel. On November 16, 1920, Frunze, the proletarian Commander-in-Chief, telegraphed to Lenin: "To-day our cavalry occupied The Southern Front is liquidated."

In the report he delivered to the Eighth All-Russian Congress of Soviets on December 22, 1920, Lenin said that in the fight against Wrangel the Red Army had displayed exceptional heroism and had "surmounted obstacles and destroyed fortifications which military experts and authorities had regarded as impregnable. One of the most brilliant pages in the history of the Red Army is the complete, determined and wonderfully swift victory it achieved over Wrangel. And in this way the war that was thrust upon us by the Whiteguards and the imperialists was brought to a close."

The defeat of Wrangel marked the close of foreign military intervention and of the civil war.

In the course of several years the imperialists had organized one campaign after another against the Land of Soviets. Kolchak in the East, Yudenich near Petrograd, Denikin in the South, Wrangel in the Crimea and Poland in the West, had all hurled their forces against her. But all the time Lenin was on guard. He saw through the enemy's plans in time. He skilfully discerned the direction of his main blow, swiftly reorganized the Soviet forces, rallied the masses of the Soviet people into an invincible force and achieved victory.

In explaining why the Soviet regime had emerged victorious, Lenin more than once emphasized that the Land of Soviet was not alone in its struggle against the counter-revolutionary Whiteguards and the foreign interventionists. The struggle waged by the Soviet Government and the successes it achieved had won the sympathy and the assistance of the working people all over the world. The workers in other countries had organized strikes, refused to load ships carrying supplies for the interventionists and Whiteguard generals and had formed Committees of Action in support of the demand: "Hands off Russia!" Lenin said: "As soon as the hand of the international bourgeoisie is raised against us, it is caught by its own workers."

Inspired by Lenin, the workers and peasants of the Land of Soviet defeated the foreign interventionists and the Russian Whiteguards, saved the Soviet regime and preserved the independence of their country.

XII

Lenin had skilfully steered the Soviet ship of state through the storms of the civil war. But new dangers threatened the revolution. In passing from war to peace, the Bolshevik Party encountered new difficulties of gigantic dimensions. The country was devastated as a result of the long years of war and foreign intervention. Industry, the transport system and agriculture were ruined. The masses of the people were war weary. The peasantry was discontented with the surplus appropriation system and wavered in its loyalty. Starvation and weariness was giving rise to discontent among a section of the workers. The class enemy tried to take advantage of the grave economic situation in the country and of the discontent of the peasants to further his counter-revolutionary designs. The working class was compelled to strain its efforts to the utmost to surmount these difficulties. It was the genius of Lenin that mapped out the road by which the industry of the country could be restored and transferred to socialist lines.

During the civil war military questions had absorbed the attention of Lenin. Day and night he was engaged with the task of organizing the defence of the country. But commencing with November 1920, he concentrated his attention on working out the country's economic policy. The victory of the Soviet state over the foreign interventionists and the Russian Whiteguards served to corroborate his theory that the victory of Socialism was possible in Russia. Speaking at a conference of the Bolshevik Party in Moscow in November 1920, he said: "The communist system, communist society, can be built up by the proletariat which has been victorious in war."

His plan for the restoration of the national economy and for building the economic foundation of Socialist he outlined a the Eight All-Russian Congress of Soviets in December 1920. He said that the immediate object must be to restore and develop to the utmost the heavy industry, and to place the entire national economy, including agriculture, on a new technical basis of modern large-scale machine production. That new basis was electricity. "Communism," he said, "is the Soviet power plus the electrification of the whole country. . . . Only when the country has been electrified, when industry, agriculture and transport have been placed on the technical basis of modern large-scale industry, only then shall we be finally victorious."

This was the historic plan for the electrification of the country drawn up by the Goelro (The State Commission for the Electrification of Russia) on Lenin's initiative and under his direction. About two hundred of the most outstanding scientists and engineers in the country took part in drawing up this plan. In it Lenin threw a penetrating light on the future. He said that large-scale machine industry was the only possible economic basis for Socialism, that only a powerful industry based on the electrification of the country was capable of uniting disjointed, individual peasant farming and transferring it to the rails of large-scale socialist agriculture. "In my opinion," he said concerning the plan for electrification, "it is the second programme of out Party."

This was a vast plan for the reorganization of the whole of the economy of the country on socialist principles. It set before the proletariat a task of gigantic proportions unprecedented for audacity, scope and consistency in design, but at the same time thoroughly scientific and practical. Its aim was in the course of ten to twenty years to change the face of this vast country, radically to change the national economy and to build socialist society. In the conditions then prevailing, Lenin's plan seemed to many to be a fantastic dream. But Lenin could boldly look into the future, firmly confident of the strength of the masses and of their ability to perform miracles. Facts confirmed his brilliant foresight. Under Stalin's direction Lenin's plan of electrification was fulfilled and even over-fulfilled.

Lenin foresaw that success in socialist construction in Russia would serve as a model and example for the victorious proletariat in other countries. He said: "If Russia becomes covered with a dense network of electric power stations and powerful technical installations, our communist economic development will become a model for a future socialist Europe and Asia."

Trotsky, Rykov and their supporters tried to frustrate the plan for the electrification of the country, but Lenin and Stalin thwarted all their efforts to do so. In a letter he wrote to Lenin in March 1921, Stalin subjected the arguments of Trotsky and Rykov to withering criticism and at the same time paid high tribute to the plan drawn up by the Goelro. "It is a skilfully drafted outline of a single economic plan, without ironical quotation marks," he wrote. "It is the only Marxist attempt made in our times to place under the Soviet superstructure of economically backward a really practical and, under present conditions, the only possible, technical-industrial basis."

With the cessation of the civil war and the transition to peaceful economic construction the Party was confronted with the task of laying down a new line on all questions affecting the economic life of the country. The Central Committee of the Party clearly realized that the system of what was known as War Communism had now become obsolete. The need for the surplus grain appropriation system had passed away and it was necessary to create opportunities for the peasants freely to dispose of their stocks of grain left over after paying their taxes. This would stimulate the revival of agriculture and trade, help to revive industry, improve the food supplies of the towns and create a new economic basis for the alliance between the workers and the peasants.

Lenin was of the opinion that the severe wounds inflicted upon the economy of the country by the imperialist war, and civil war and foreign intervention could be healed, and that its foundations could be reconstructed on socialist lines, only if the working class and the trade unions widely co-operated in this task. He strongly urged the necessity of making the workers and peasants understand that it was impossible to live in the old way, that the old economic conditions of existence had to be changed, and that production had to be carried on in accordance with a great economic plan. He put into the forefront the task of conducting extensive explanatory and educational work. It was necessary, he said, to create "a broad and firm basis of conviction for the new production tasks."

At this crucial moment, at the turning point from war to peaceful economic construction, the Trotskyites launched and attack against the Party. Trotsky advocated a policy of immediately converting the trade unions into state organizations, of "shaking up" the trade unions, as he called it, and of regimenting and bullying the masses. The sole object of this policy was to rouse the workers against the Party and to split the working class. This would have been fatal for the proletarian dictatorship. Trotsky's attack was followed up by attacks by other anti-Party groups, such as the Anarcho-Syndicalist "Workers' Opposition," led by Shlyapnikov, the "Democratic Centralists" led by Rykov, and the "Left Communists" led by Bukharin. It was they who forced upon the Party what was known as the "trade union discussion" concerning the function of the trade unions under the proletarian dictatorship.

Lenin hurled himself upon these enemies of the Party and disrupters of Party unity with his characteristic determination and relentlessness. He regarded the campaign launched by the Trotskyites and the other anti-Party groups as an attack upon the dictatorship of the proletariat and as an attempt to break the alliance between the working class and the peasantry.

He immediately replied to the politically harmful and dangerous platform proposed by the Trotskyites in a speech he delivered at a meeting of the Central Committee of the Party in November 1920; and on December 30 he spoke on the functions of the trade unions at a meeting of the Bolshevik delegates to the Eighth Congress of Soviets and leading trade union officials. He showed that the Trotskyites were confusing the trade unions with military organizations. He denounced their attempts to draw a contrast between the trade unions and the Party and revealed how dangerous the Trotskyite and other anti-Party platforms were for the proletarian dictatorship. He directed his main blow at the Trotskyites as the principal anti-Party group.

In January 1921, he attacked the opposition groups in an article entitled "The Party Crisis" and in a pamphlet entitled Once Again On the Trade Unions, in which he expounded and amplified the Marxist view of the functions of the trade unions under the proletarian dictatorship and showed that they served as a reservoir of state power, as a school of unity and solidarity, a school of administration and management of industry, and as a school of Communism. He exposed the anti-Marxist theoretical and political fallacies of Trotsky, Bukharin and Shlyapnikov on the trade union question and showed that they were substituting eclectics for dialectics. He called upon the Party to give a strong rebuff to all the anti-Party groups.

The great service that Lenin rendered in the course of this union discussion was that he revealed the true significance of the conflict within the Party. He showed that all the anti-Party groups were actually contending against the leading role played by the Party, against the alliance between the working class and the peasantry, and against the proletarian dictatorship. In this struggle Lenin received the loyal backing of Stalin, and together they repelled the attacks of the opponents of Leninism on the unity of the Party.

In March 1921, the Tenth Congress of the Bolshevik Party was held. The preparations for the congress and the congress itself were directed by Lenin. He was the reporter on the main questions on the agenda, such as the political activities of the Central Committee, the tax in kind, Party unity, and the Anarcho-Syndicalist deviation. He also drafted the main resolutions for the congress.

This congress took place in one of the most critical periods of the revolution. In February and March the country was in the throes of an acute food, fuel and transport crisis. Discontent grew among the peasantry. A week before the congress opened the Kronstadt mutiny broke out—this was another attempt on the part of the counter-revolutionaries to overthrow the Soviet regime. The Bolshevik Party had only just hone through a fierce internal conflict.

But under Lenin's direction the congress marked a turning point in the task of cementing the unity of the Party of the working class and of working out the New Economic Policy.

In his report and speeches on Party unity Lenin severely criticized the anti-Marxist views of all the anti-Party groups. He showed that they were merely unprincipled politicians, and that their ideas were akin to those of the petty-bourgeois counter-revolutionaries. He said that the main lesson to be drawn from the discussion was that factionalism must be combated with the utmost severity and the unity of the Party maintained at all cost. This lesson had to be learnt by and must become a law for every member of the Party. As the history of all revolutions showed, the slightest relaxation of the unity of the Party—the vanguard of the proletariat—would facilitate the restoration of the power and property of the capitalists and landlords. With amazing penetration he exposed the new tactics of the class enemies who were banking on a conflict within the Communist Party and on utilizing in their interests the activities of every opposition group. As was stated in the resolution drawn up by Lenin on this question: "These enemies, having become convinced that the chances of a counter-revolution openly conducted under the flag of the Whiteguards were hopeless, are exerting all efforts to take advantage of the disagreements within the Russian Communist Party to promote the counter-revolution in one way or another by transferring power to political groups which on the surface appear to recognize the Soviet regime most."

On Lenin's motion the congress adopted a resolution entitled "On Party Unity" which was an exceptionally important factor in the defeat of the anti-Party groups and in reinforcing the unity of the Bolshevik Party.

The congress adopted another resolution proposed by Lenin which was closely connected with the resolution "On Party Unity." This was entitled "The Syndicalist and Anarchist Deviation In Our Party." In this resolution the congress condemned the Workers' Opposition, declaring that the propaganda of its Anarcho-Syndicalist ideas was incompatible with membership of the Communist Party and calling upon the Party to combat this deviation.

Lenin took determined measures to strengthen the General Staff of the revolution, viz., the Central Committee of the Party. The Congress elected to this body firm and tried Bolsheviks like Lenin, Stalin, Molotov, Voroshilov, Kalinin, Dzerzhinsky, Orjonikidze, Frunze and Kuibyshev.

By inflicting defeat upon the opposition Lenin cemented the unity of the Party and prepared it for fresh battles against its enemies and for fresh efforts to overcome difficulties. In this way he ensured the success of the Party's sharp turn in its economic policy.

It was Lenin was inspired the historic decision of the Tenth Congress of the Party to abolish the surplus grain appropriation system and to introduce the food tax, which, in fact, ushered in the New Economic Policy.

Long before the congress Lenin had carefully and thoroughly pondered over the ways and means of building Socialism in a small-peasant country, over the relations between the working class and the peasantry, and over the new economic basis of the alliance between them. At a Party meeting held on December 30, 1920, at which these questions were discussed, he said that as a result of the transition from war to economic construction "the relations between the proletarian class and the peasant class were changing." "This must be carefully examined," he said. "And until we have examined it we must learn to wait."* And he did indeed carefully examine what was going on among the peasants. He studied the data concerning them and the letters he received from them, and he had long talks with peasants who came to visit him. In December 1920, he attended a conference of non-Party peasants who had arrived for the All-Russian Congress of Soviets. He listened very carefully to the heated debate that arose there on the burning questions affecting peasant life and took copious notes of what the peasant speakers said. Copies of these notes he sent to the members of the Central Committee of the Party and to the People's Commissars to enable them to become acquainted with the peasants' needs.

On February 8, Lenin wrote "A Preliminary Draft of Theses Concerning the Peasants" in which he advanced the following:

1. Satisfy the desire of the non-Party peasants that the surplus grain appropriation system (the requisitioning of surplus grain stocks) should be abolished and a grain tax introduced instead.
2. Reduce the scale of this tax compared with the amount requisitioned last year.
3. Approve the principle that the amount of the tax be assessed in conformity with the diligence of the husbandman increases.
4. Allow the husbandman wider freedom to trade locally with grain stocks over and above the tax on the condition that the tax is paid speedily and in full.

This document, modestly entitled "A Preliminary Draft," outlined the plan of transition to the New Economic Policy.

In the report on "The Tax In Kind" which he delivered at the Party Congress, Lenin expounded the theoretical grounds for the transition to the New Economic Policy and clearly and concisely formulated the main economic task, namely, to establish an economic alliance between the working class and the peasantry in the work of building Socialism.

The object of Lenin's plan was to lay the foundations of socialist economy with the aid of the workers and peasants themselves. The first act in the operation of the New Economic Policy was the substitution of a food tax for the surplus grain appropriation system. The peasants were to receive permission to dispose of their surplus stocks of grain at their free will. Lenin pointed out that free trade would at first lead to a slight revival of capitalism in the country, but there was no need to fear this. He was of the opinion that free trade, within the limits allowed, would give the peasants an incentive to increase their output and would result in a speedy revival of agriculture. This, in turn, would facilitate the speedy restoration of state industry, and private capital would be eliminated. After accumulating funds and resources it would be possible to build up a powerful industry—which would serve as the economic basis of Socialism—and then launch an offensive with the object of eliminating the remnants of capitalism in the country.

The system of War Communism which had existed hitherto, said Lenin, had to be introduced owning to the war and state of ruin, but it was not an could not be, a policy in harmony with the economic tasks of the proletariat and the bulk of the peasantry under the new conditions. It had been only a temporary expedient.

War Communism had been, as it were, an attempt to capture the fortress of capitalism in town and country by storm. In this attack the Party had advanced too far ahead and was in danger of being cut off from its base. Lenin, therefore, proposed a temporary retreat to close the gap between the vanguard and its main force. He recommended that assault tactics be abandoned for more prolonged siege tactics, so as to be able to accumulate forces and launch a fresh attack later on. The Trotskyite and other anti-Party groups, whose line of policy was to restore capitalism in the country, tried to make it appear that the New Economic Policy was a retreat all along the line. Lenin utterly demolished this pernicious anti-Party argument.

Thus, in an extremely acute situation, the Bolshevik Party under Lenin's guidance, made an abrupt turn from War Communism to the New Economic Policy, and thereby laid a firm foundation for the economic alliance between the working class and the peasantry for the purpose of building Socialism. This change of policy was a striking example of Lenin's brilliant revolutionary foresight and revolutionary statesmanship.

After the Tenth Congress Lenin devoted his attention mainly to the further theoretical elaboration and explanation of the New Economic Policy and its practical application, viz., the reorganization of the entire national economy on its basis.

Soon after the congress Lenin began writing his celebrated pamphlet The Food Tax, which he finished in April. In this pamphlet he showed the connection that existed between the New Economic Policy and the plan to proceed with the building of Socialism, which he had drawn up as early as 1918; and he gave an elaborate exposition of the principles of the new policy which was to ensure the building of Socialism. He showed that the Soviet system of economy which existed at that period was a transitory system, and that it consisted of the elements of five different systems of production, viz., the patriarchal, i.e., very largely natural, peasant economy; small commodity production (which embraced the majority of the peasants who traded in grain); private capitalism; state capitalism; and Socialism. A form of transition to Socialism was needed that would spring from peasant economy and answer its needs. The New Economic Policy was such a form. Its object was to enlist the bulk of the peasants in the work of building Socialism and thus ensure its victory. The immediate object of the New Economic Policy was to lay the economic foundation of Socialism, the foundation of socialist economy; to shift small-commodity peasant husbandry to the rails of large-scale socialist production.

In April Lenin spoke on this subject at a meeting of the active members of the Party in Moscow; in May he spoke on it at the Tenth All-Russian Conference of the Bolshevik Party; in the summer at the Third Congress of the Communist International; and in the autumn he spoke on it at the Second All-Russian Congress of Political Educational Workers and at the Moscow Gubernia Party Conference. In this period he also wrote his well-known articles, "The Fourth Anniversary of the October Revolution," and "The Significance of Gold To-day and After the Complete Victory of Socialism." In all these speeches and articles he explained the meaning of the New Economic Policy, its objects, and the methods by which it was to be applied.

As Lenin never tired of repeating, the New Economic Policy signified a life and death struggle between capitalism and Socialism, a struggle that was to decide "who shall win." He urged the Party do to all in its power to strengthen the proletarian dictatorship and the alliance between the workers and peasants upon which it was based, and to combat with unflagging efforts the hostile designs of the class enemies.

He also called upon the Party to increase the military power of the Soviet state. "Be vigilant," he reiterated, "guard the defences of our country and our Red Army like the apple of your eye, and remember that we have no right to permit any slackening even for one moment." The country must not allow itself to be taken unawares, he said. "We have passed through one period of war and we must prepare for a second. But we do not know when it will come, and we must see to it that when it does come we shall be prepared for all contingencies."

He also pointed to the international significance of the New Economic Policy. "Actually," he said, "this is a task that will confront all Socialists. . . . The new society, which will be based on an alliance between the workers and peasants, is inevitable. Sooner or later, twenty years earlier or twenty years later, it will come into being; and in striving to solve the problems of our New Economic Policy we are helping this new society to work out its forms of alliance between the workers and peasants."

At this period the political activities of Lenin as the head of the first Soviet Republic in the world were as varied as they were numerous. He devoted his attention very closely to such matters as the erection of electric power stations, the formation of co-operative societies, the progress of the sowing campaign, the fishing industry, the transport system, the introduction of electric ploughs, measures to combat the famine, foreign trade, finance, the improvement of the conditions of scientists, the introduction of coal-cutting machinery in the Donets coalfield, radio broadcasting, schools, the supply of oil tanks, the food supplies of the workers of Moscow and Petrograd, the publication of an atlas for the use of schools, the extraction of peat by means of hydraulic pressure, and the publication of a dictionary of the modern Russian language ranging "from Pushkin to Gorky." He took note of all the latest achievements of Russian and foreign science and technique, and took measures to secure the introduction in Russian industry and agriculture of everything that was likely to facilitate the economic regeneration of the country.

However, he focused his attention mainly on the problem of liquidating the economic crisis and on the fulfilment of the plan of socialist construction on the basis of the New Economic Policy.

He guided the retreat which the Bolshevik Party undertook on the introduction of the New Economic Policy with a firm and sure hand. He clearly foresaw that this retreat would create "a wider front for an offensive in the near future" and would make "the alliance between the workers and peasants, the basis of our entire Soviet revolution, of our entire Soviet Republic, invincible." This offensive, in Lenin's opinion, would help to link socialist industry with peasant husbandry, would help to meet the latter's most urgent requirements, help to establish a firm economic alliance with it and "primarily, it would increase the productive forces, restore large-scale industry." To this problem Lenin devoted much effort, thought and energy.

The organization of planned production was one of the chief objects of his attention. "We cannot work without a plan covering a long period and envisaging important achievements," he wrote. On his initiative a State Planning Commission was formed, the main function of which was to draw up a uniform state economic plan and to supervise its execution. It was to direct the entire economic life of the country with a view to increasing public wealth, steadily raising the material and cultural standards of the working people and strengthening the independence and power of defence of the Soviet Republic. The execution of Lenin's programme of building Socialism presupposed the development of planned production and the growing influence of the proletarian dictatorship upon the whole course of the economic life of the country.

Lenin closely watched and directed the operations of the State Planning Commission and chose the best workers he could find for it. He strongly insisted that the work of planning should not be divorced from reality, and demanded that in addition to long range plans covering a series of years, plans for one year, and even for several months, should be drawn up. He urged that the plans should be fulfilled and exceeded in order to "shorten the period of hunger, cold and poverty."

He daily watched the progress of the plan for the electrification of the country and closely followed the course of construction of the power stations provided for by the plan, especially the Kashira and Volkhov stations, the first to be built under the Goelro plan. He concerned himself with the problems connected with the supply of materials for the new construction schemes and of food for the workers employed on them. He verified the quality of the wok performed and the degree to which the factories were ready to receive power from the new stations. He mobilized all the forces of the Party and of the working people for the successful execution of the first national economic plan.

The entire business administration of the country was reorganized to facilitate the revival of agriculture and the restoration of industry and the transport system. An important factor in this was the circular entitled: "Instructions of the Council of Labour and Defence to the Local Soviet Bodies." These instructions, drawn up by Lenin, explained the main tasks connected with work of economic construction.

Lenin attached exceptional importance to these instructions, and with his characteristic energy, he did all in his power to have them put into operation. He had them discussed at the Fourth All-Russian Congress of Trade Union, at the Fourth Congress of Councils of National Economy, and at the Tenth All-Russian Conference of the Communist Party. He also wrote a series of letters about them and spoke on them at the session of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee.

He devoted unflagging attention to the way the instructions were carried out in the districts, for he regarded them as a means of enlisting the masses in the work of state control, as a means whereby the district bodies could keep check of the work of the central authorities, and as a means of recruiting non-Party people who were devoted to the cause of socialist construction for service in the work of administering the country.

Lenin regarded the enlistment of the masses in the work of administering the country as one of the most important tasks of the day. He constantly pointed out that it was the object of the Soviet government to get all the working people, Party and non-Party, men and women, to take an active part in the work of state and economic administration.

While teaching the masses, Lenin also learned from them. He fiercely derided those who adopted a supercilious and pedantic attitude towards the masses and would not stoop to learn from them, to understand their actions, to study carefully and generalize the practical experience of the mass struggle.

Lenin was connected by thousands of threads with the broadest masses of workers and peasants and always sought for and found new means of establishing contact with them. In January 1922 he wrote the following note to the editor of the popular newspaper Byednota (The Poor) which was published especially for the poorer section of the peasantry: "Please will you inform me briefly (two or three pages at the most) how many letters Byednota receives from peasants; what there is important (particularly important) and new in those letters; what moods they express; what subjects they deal with. Is it not possible to receive some of the letters about twice a month?"

Meetings and conversations with workers and peasants, speeches at public meetings and at large trade union production conferences, conferences of non-Party workers and peasants, conferences of non-Party delegates to congresses, interviews with worker and village correspondents of newspapers, and the study of the numerous letters he received—such were the means by which Lenin maintained contact with the masses.

One of the most distinguishing features of Lenin's character was his profound faith in the masses. He constantly reminded the Party of the importance of strengthening its ties with them. "We can administer only when we properly express what the people are conscious of," he said at the Eleventh Party Congress in the spring of 1922. The people were aware of Lenin's love for them, and they had unbounded faith in him. The workers said: "Lenin—that's ourselves."

In his speech to the graduates of the Kremlin Military School Stalin referred to Lenin's faith in the masses in the following words: "I do not know of any revolutionary who had so profound a faith in the creative power of the proletariat and in the revolutionary fitness of its class instinct as Lenin. . . . And hence Lenin's constant precept: learn from the masses, try to comprehend their actions, carefully study the practical experience of the struggle of the masses.

"Faith in the creative power of the masses—this was the feature of Lenin's activities which enabled him to comprehend the elemental forces and to direct their movement into the channel of the proletarian revolution."

Hating fuss and noise, and demanding simplicity and modesty in all things, Lenin was himself a model of exceptional modesty. The workers described this simplicity of Lenin's as "the simplicity of truth." As Stalin said:

"This simplicity and modesty, this striving to remain unobserved, or, at least, not to make himself conspicuous and not to emphasize his high position, this feature was one of Lenin's strongest points as the new leader of the new masses, of the simple and ordinary masses, of the very 'rank and file' of humanity."

Lenin ascribed a particularly important role to the machinery of state in the work of transferring the country to socialist lines and of strengthening the alliance between the working class and the peasantry.

He was a bitter enemy of bureaucracy and red tape, and took most resolute measures against those who were guilty of this. He constantly urged that it was impermissible for Soviet bodies, whose function it was to combat bureaucracy, to adopt a purely formal attitude towards any question. He demanded that criminal proceedings be taken against those guilty of bureaucracy and that the courts should pass severe sentences upon such misdemeanants. He suggests that on this point "the judges ought to be primed by the Central Committee."

In September 1921, he wrote a special letter to the People's Commissariat of Justice proposing that during that autumn and winter from four to six of the most glaring cases of bureaucracy in Moscow should be tried, and that each of these be made a "political" trial. He further suggested that several clever red tape "experts" should be found who should skilfully launch a "drive against bureaucracy." He also proposed that a circular letter should be issued clearly explaining the need to combat bureaucracy.

Lenin hated deception and fraud in any form and was particularly severe with embezzlers of socialist property. He demanded the direst punishment of every case of embezzlement of public funds and state property. He hated deceit, and demanded straightforwardness and truthfulness in all things.

In 1921, a Red Armyman arrived in Moscow to inform Lenin about cases of abuse of power and embezzlement committed by certain officials in the Don Region. In a letter he wrote to Lenin, this Red Armyman stated that this conduct on the part of the officials concerned was causing considerable discontent among the workers and peasants in the region. Lenin immediately sent a copy of the letter to Molotov, then Secretary of the Central Committee of the Party, suggesting that a special commission, consisting of members of the Central Executive Committee of Soviets and of ten to twenty students of the Sverdlov University, be sent to the Don Region, together with the Red Armyman, to enquire into the circumstances on the spot and shoot those who were proved guilty. Referring to the Red Armyman, he wrote in a separate note to Molotov: "(1) find the author of the letter at once, invite him to your office, pacify him, tell him I am ill, but that I am taking immediate action in the matter."

Even in the most tense moments of the struggle against the foreign interventionists and Russian Whiteguards, Lenin had urged the necessity of raising the cultural standards of the masses. When the Party and the government began to take up the peaceful work of restoring industry and agriculture he considered that this question had become more urgent than ever.

This explains the exceptional attention which he devoted at this time to cultural questions, and primarily to the abolition of illiteracy among the population. He constantly reiterated that an illiterate person cannot engage in politics, that he must be taught to read and write before he can do so.

He was deeply convinced that if the masses themselves took up the task of abolishing illiteracy, this evil would disappear very quickly. At the same time he pointed out that the cultural revolution would be a very long process and called upon the masses to "learn, learn and learn."

One of the greatest achievements of the revolution, in Lenin's opinion, was that it had made culture accessible to the masses. The raising of the cultural standard of the masses, he said, would stimulate the development of science, technique, art, and the extensive application of science in the work of building up Soviet economy and the Soviet state.

In this connection he set a task of enormous political importance, namely, to see to it that science "shall not remain a dead letter, or a fashionable phrase (it is no use trying to conceal it, this often happens among us), so that what we have learnt may become part of our very beings, so that it may actually and fully become a constituent element of our social life."

The remnants of the hostile classes in the country tried to take advantage of the petty-bourgeois anarchy and the difficulties of the transition to the New Economic Policy to damage the Soviet regime not only in the economic, but also in the ideological field. In view of these circumstances Lenin fought very hard to keep the Marxist theory pure.

In the early part of March, 1922, he wrote for the magazine Under the Banner of Marxism an article entitled "The Significance of Militant Materialism," which was virtually a programme of action for Communists in the theoretical field, particularly in the field of philosophy.

In this article he still further amplified his idea that the Party must maintain contact with the masses and that the Party is the vanguard in the struggle for the building of communist society. On this point he wrote:

"One of the biggest and most dangerous mistakes of Communists (as generally of revolutionaries who have successfully accomplished the beginning of a great revolution) is the idea that a revolution can be made by revolutionaries alone. On the contrary, to be successful every serious revolutionary work requires the understanding and translation into action of the idea that revolutionaries are capable of playing the part only of the vanguard of the truly virile and advanced class. A vanguard performs its task as vanguard only when it is able to avoid become divorced from the masses it leads and is able really to lead the whole mass forward. Without an alliance with non-Communists in the most diverse spheres of activity there can be no question of any successful Communist constructive work."

He also wrote that it was necessary for the Communists to establish an alliance with the non-Communist materialists, representatives of modern science, particularly with natural scientists. In this alliance, dialectical materialism must predominate. Only dialectical materialism was capable of successfully combating bourgeois ideas and all forms of idealism and clericalism. In this field, he urged, it was necessary to carry out the following three most important tasks: (1) to conduct unflagging atheist propaganda and to use all the material available to wage a relentless struggle against every form of clericalism; (2) to explain in the light of dialectical materialism the breakdown of the traditional ideas hitherto prevailing the field of modern natural science, and which the bourgeois philosophers are taking advantage of to smuggle in idealism; (3) to develop from every angle materialist dialectics as a philosophical science. "Unless it sets itself such a task and systematically fulfils it," he said, "materialism cannot be militant materialism."

The article "The Significance of Militant Materialism" is, as it were, Lenin's will and testament on philosophical questions. It is a model of party militancy in the field of theory, and points out the path along which theoretical work should proceed in the Soviet Union.

Lenin attached enormous importance to the task of inculcating habits of organization and discipline at work, to "working in a new way," as he put it. All his own activities as leader of the Party and of the Soviet Government were a model of that Bolshevik combination of qualities: Russian range of action and American efficiency.

Lenin set a striking example of proletarian organization and discipline. He ruthlessly condemned indolence, untidiness, proneness to talk instead of doing things. He severely chided those who undertook to do everything and finished nothing. He detested the constant sitting at conferences, useless fuss and bustle, and what he called "Oblomovshchina," i.e., idle dreaming as indulged in by the hero of Goncharov's famous novel. On one occasion he said: "It is sufficient to watch us at our meetings, at our work on commissions, to be able to say that old Oblomov still lives, and it will be necessary to give him a good washing and cleaning, a good rubbing and drubbing to make a man of him."

He insisted that executive control and the proper choice of men were the main things to get the machinery of state to function properly and to produce a state machine of a new type; and he strongly emphasized this in a number of his writings and speeches in the early part of 1922.

Lenin kept a careful eye on the unity and stability of the Bolshevik Party and on its contacts with the non-Party masses. The New Economic Policy encountered the resistance of certain unstable elements in the Party. On the one hand there were the political freaks, the vociferous "Lefts," who argued that the New Economic Policy meant a reversion to capitalism and spelt the doom of the Soviet regime. On the other hand there were the downright defeatists, such as Trotsky, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Radek, Bukharin, Rykov, Sokolnikov and their followers, who, having no faith in the possibility of building Socialism in Russia, stood in awe of the "might" of capitalism and tried to strengthen its position in the country by obtaining the greatest possible concessions for private capital, even to the extent of surrendering a number of economic key positions to it. Under Lenin's leadership the Party isolated both types of waverers and effectively repelled their attempts to divert it from the correct line.

This resistance to the Party's line of policy indicated the necessity of purging its ranks of wavering elements.

Lenin tirelessly guarded the purity of the Party and ceaselessly strove to improve the quality of its membership. "We don't want fictitious Party members even gratis," he wrote as far back as October 1919. "The only party in power that concerns itself not with increasing its membership, but with improving its quality, which purges its ranks of the limpets which have 'attached' themselves to it, is our Party, the Party of the revolutionary working class."

He regarded the purge announced by the Central Committee in 1921 as being of enormous importance. He exhorted the Party members to purge the Party of "rascals and bureaucrats, of dishonest or wavering Communists, and of Mensheviks who have repainted their 'façade' but who in their hearts have remained Mensheviks." He also stressed the importance of enlisting the non-Party workers in the task of purging the ranks of the Party. "In some place," he wrote, "the purging of the Party is proceeding mainly with the aid of the experience and suggestions of non-Party workers; these suggestions are being heeded, and the representatives of the non-Party workers; these suggestions are being heeded, and the representatives of the non-Party proletarian masses are being treated with due consideration. This is most valuable and most important. If we really succeed in this manner in purging our Party from top to bottom, 'without respect for persons,' the gains for the revolution will really be enormous."

He insisted that new members should be accepted with the greatest circumspection. On one occasion Zinoviev proposed that the probation period for all new members should be reduced. Lenin, in a letter to Molotov, the Secretary of the Central Committee, strongly opposed this and proposed instead that the probation period be reduced only for new members who had actually worked in large factories for not less than then years. For other categories he proposed a longer probation period. He explained that numerous petty-bourgeois and hostile elements had for various motives gone to work in factories and were not industrial workers in the true sense of the word. The danger of these penetrating the Party, particularly under the New Economic Policy, was very great.

He almost demanded that when members of the Young Communist League were being taken into the Party, investigation should be made as to "whether they had studied seriously and whether they had learned anything," and also "whether they had gone through a long period of serious practical work (economic, cultural, etc.)."

Lenin conducted all his work in leading the Party and the country, and all his work of developing socialist construction, in conjunction with Stalin, with whom he was in constant consultation. As was the case during the period of foreign intervention and civil war, when the Party commissioned Stalin to go to those fronts were the situation was most critical, and where the decisive battles were to be fought, so, now, Stalin was placed in charge of those sectors of the economic front where the victory of the socialist construction was being decided. One of these crucial sectors was the Donets Basin, which at that time was the only coal and metallurgical base the country had, and Stalin took the Donets Basin under his special supervision. It was necessary to secure the proper running of the railways, the main economic nerve of the country, and Stalin was appointed to the Commission for the Restoration of the Railways. A tense situation arose in Siberia, so Lenin wrote to Stalin: "Please pay attention to Dzerzhinsky's communication about Siberia. The danger that our people will not be able to establish proper relations with the Siberian peasants is very great and menacing." At the Fourth All-Russian Congress of Trade unions the anti-Party elements, with the complicity of Tomsky, misled the Bolshevik group, so the Central Committee of the Party commissioned Lenin and Stalin to attend the congress, where they utterly exposed the enemy's manœuvre. It was necessary to rout the Anarcho-Syndicalist elements in the Metal Workers' Union, so the Central Committee commissioned Lenin and Stalin to attend the Metal Workers' Congress. Preparing for the Eleventh Party Congress, Lenin considered the question of how best to organize the work of executive control and of putting the right men in the right place. It occurred to him that the Workers' and Peasants' Inspection could be enlisted for this extremely important task, and he consulted Stalin about it. "We need assistants," he wrote in a letter to Stalin. "The office of the Council of People's Commissars is inadequate, but it would be irrational to increase its staff. I have expressed the idea that we should make use of the Workers' and Peasants' Inspection for this purpose. I would like to know whether you approve of this."

Lenin and Stalin, in close collaboration, drew up the principles of Soviet national policy and directed the operation of this policy. In 1921 Lenin paid special attention to Transcaucasia. Before sending his first message to the Georgian Communists after the Soviet regime had been instituted in Georgia, he consulted Stalin. He sent the message to him with the following note: "Please despatch, but if you have any objection, ring me up on the telephone."** Lenin and Stalin were the initiators of the formation of the Transcaucasian peoples. After drawing up a proposal regarding the formation of the Federation of Transcaucasian Republics Lenin showed the draft to Stalin. Stalin suggested an amendment, which Lenin accepted. Lenin persistently and relentlessly combated Great Russian chauvinism. At one of the meetings of the Political Bureau of the Party he sent Stalin the following note: "As soon as I have got rid of this damned bad tooth I will start a life and death struggle against Great Russian chauvinism. I will devour it with all my sound teeth.

"We must absolutely insist that the sessions of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee shall be presided over in turn by

a Russian,

a Ukrainian,

a Georgian, and so forth.

Absolutely!

Yours, Lenin."

On the margin of this note Stalin replied: "Quite right."

Lenin displayed exceptional solicitude for Stalin. In July 1921 he received news from North Caucasus that Stalin was ill. He immediately sent the following wire to Orjonikidze: "First: inform me of the state of Stalin's health and the doctors' opinion about it." A few days later he wired again: "Let me have the name and address of the doctor attending Stalin and inform me for how many days Stalin will be kept away." Again and again he wired to Orjonikidze: "Am surprised that you are robbing Stalin of his rest. Stalin ought to rest for at least four to six weeks."

Lenin also showed concern for the conditions under which Stalin lived. In a note to the Commandant of the Kremlin he informed the latter (in November 1921) that Stalin's apartment was noisy and that Stalin could not sleep at night (there was a kitchen next door from which the sounds were heard from early morning to late at night). He therefore requested that Stalin be transferred to a quieter apartment, that this be done at once, and the he be informed when it had been done.

In a note to his secretary written in December 1921, Lenin wrote: "When Stalin rises (don't wake him) tell him that from 11 a.m. I shall be at a commission (in my room) and that I ask him to let me have his telephone numbers (if he has to leave) because I have something to talk to him about over the telephone."

In March 1922, the Eleventh Congress of the Party took place. This was the last Party Congress that Lenin attended. The intense activities of the preceding years had affected his health. In spite of his indisposition, however, he prepared for this congress as carefully as ever, and as far as his strength would allow, he directed the general preparations for it.

At the congress Lenin delivered the political report of the Central Committee, in the course of which he severely criticized existing defects, calling upon the Party to eliminate them, and summed up the results of the first year of operation of the New Economic Policy. The very first year of the operation of this policy, he said, had proved that it was absolutely correct. The alliance between the workers and peasants had been strengthened on a new economic basis. Kulak banditism had been almost entirely eliminated. Large-scale industry, the transport system, the banks, the land, and home and foreign trade, in short, all the economic key positions in the country, were held by the Soviet state. The Party had succeeded in bringing about a radical change on the economic front. A slow but sure improvement was to be observed in all fields of economic development.

This summary of results enabled Lenin to say: "For a year we have been retreating. In the name of the Party we must now call a halt. The purpose pursued by the retreat has been achieved. This period is drawing, or has drawn, to a close. Now our purpose is different—to regroup our forces."** This regrouping of forces was necessary in order to launch a new offensive against the capitalist elements in the country. Lenin defined it as "preparation for an offensive against private capital."

Lenin explained to the Party the dual character of the New Economic Policy. Capitalism was permitted to operate, he said, but the economic key positions in the country were held by the proletarian state. A desperate struggle was raging between the capitalist and socialist elements, in the course of which the socialist elements would grow and finally triumph over the capitalist elements. The express object of the New Economic Policy was to secure the victory of Socialism over capitalism, to bring about the abolition of classes and to build the foundations of socialist economy. At the congress Lenin said: "The economic forces at the command of the Russian proletarian state were quite adequate to ensure the transition to Communism."

The year's operation of the New Economic Policy had proved to the peasants that the Soviet government introduced measures which the broad masses could understand, that the Bolshevik Party cared for the daily needs of the peasants and rendered them effective assistance, and that it was firmly and unswervingly marching towards its goal of building Socialism in Russia on the basis of the alliance between the working class and the peasants under the leadership of the working class.

At the congress Lenin laid very strong emphasis on the point that to secure the victory of Socialism it was necessary to safeguard the alliance between the working class and the peasants and to establish a bond between socialist industry and peasant husbandry. He said that having joined forces with the peasant masses, with the ordinary labouring peasants "we would begin to advance, though slowly, but in such a way that the entire mass will actually move forward with us. If we do that we shall in time get such an acceleration of progress as we cannot drew of now."

Lenin excelled all others in the ability to determine the main kink in the chain of tasks which confronted the Party, clearly and concisely to formulate it and concentrate all the Party's attention upon it. The main task at this moment, in Lenin's opinion, was to develop trade between town and country, for this was the means by which the bond between socialist industry and peasant husbandry could be established. He therefore issued the slogan: "Learn to trade, to trade in an efficient manner."

He pointed out that what the Communist lacked most was efficiency, the ability to administer under the conditions created by the New Economic Policy, which provided both the economic and political possibilities for laying the foundations of socialist economy. He said: "To test men and verify what has actually been done—this again, this alone is now the quintessence of all our activities, of our whole policy."

At the congress he hotly attacked the Troskyites (Shlyapnikov, Prebrazhensky, and others) who opposed the New Economic Policy and tried to sow panic in the ranks of the Party.

In his speech in closing the congress he referred to the greater solidarity and unity in ideology and organization that had prevailed in the Party in the period between the Tenth and Eleventh Congresses.

Supreme in his estimation was the Party's position as the vanguard of the masses, as the leading force in the Soviet state. This explains the exceptional importance he attached to its unity and solidarity. "The radically and fundamentally 'new' achievement of this congress," he said, "is that it has provided vivid proof that our enemies are wrong in constantly reiterating that our Party is becoming senile and is losing its flexibility of mind and body."

"No, this flexibility we have not lost."

Measures had now to be taken to carry out the historic tasks which Lenin had formulated at the congress, to prepare for the gradual socialist offensive on the basis of the New Economic Policy.

After the congress, the Central Committee, on Lenin's proposal, elected Stalin—Lenin's loyal disciple and closest associate—as General Secretary of the Central Committee, and this post Stalin has held without interruption ever since.

The wounds which Lenin had received at the end of the summer of 1918, and the exceptional strain under which he had been working, had undermined his health. From the winter of 1921 onwards he had frequently to stay away from work.

In May 1922, Lenin's health became very much worse. At that time, on doctors' orders, he lived in Gorki, near Moscow. At the end of May he suffered the first stroke, which resulted in partial paralysis. He temporarily lost the use of his right leg and arm, and his power of speech was disturbed. A slight improvement set in in the middle of June, and in July the doctors permitted him to receive his most intimate friends, on the condition, however, that they did not discuss business matters. The following is what Stalin relates about one of his visits to Gorki at that time:

"When I first visited Comrade Lenin at the end of July, not having seen him for six weeks, this was just the impression he made on me—an old veteran who had managed to get some rest after incessant and exhausting battles, and who was refreshed by the repose. He looked bright and recuperated, but still bore traces of overwork and fatigue.

"'I am not allowed to read the newspapers,' Comrade Lenin remarked ironically, 'and I must not talk politics. I carefully walk around every scrap of paper lying the the table, lest it turn out to be a newspaper and lead to a breach of discipline.'

"I laughed heartily and lauded Comrade Lenin for his good discipline. We also made merry over the doctors who could not understand that when professional men of politics get together they cannot help talking politics.

"What strikes you in Comrade Lenin is his thirst for information and his craving, his insuperable craving for work. It is clear that he is famished for work. The trial of the Socialist-Revolutionaries, Genoa and the Hague, the harvest prospects, industry and finance—one question follows another in swift succession."

Stalin, who was directing the work of the Party, often visited Lenin during his illness. Lenin invited him to Gorki to receive information about the state of affairs and to discuss various questions with him.

Lenin's health rapidly mended and soon he resumed his business correspondence and asked to have books sent to him. To his secretary he wrote: "You may congratulate me on my recover. Proof: my handwriting is beginning to become human. Start sending me books (and send me catalogues) (1) scientific, (2) fiction, (3) political (the latter last of all, for they are not yet permitted)." He was eager to get back to Party and government work without which life was inconceivable to him.

In the middle of July Stalin wired Orjonikidze as follows:

"Yesterday, first time for six weeks, the doctors allowed Ilyich to receive friends and to transact business for a few hours a day.

"I visited Ilyich and found that he has completely recovered. To-day we received a note from him containing instructions on current political questions.

"The doctors think that within a month he will be able to resume his activities as of old."

In August 1922, the Twelfth All-Russian Party Conference sent greetings to the leader of the proletarian revolution, whom ill-health prevented from attending the conference. Lenin sent his reply to these greetings through Stalin. At the conference Stalin stated:

"Comrades, I have to report that Comrade Lenin called me to-day and in reply to the greetings of the conference he instructed me to convey to you his thanks for these greetings. He expressed the hope that the time was not far distant when he would be able to rejoin our ranks and resume work."

On October 2, 1922, Lenin returned to Moscow from Gorki and did indeed resume work. Next day he presided at a meeting of the Council of People's Commissars, and on October 5, he attended a meeting of the Central Committee of the Party. Lenin's return to work was greeted with joy by the Party and by all the working people.

The doctors had prescribed for Lenin a strict regime and had tried to limit his working hours to five per day; and in addition to Sunday, he was to have a complete day's rest every week (Lenin chose Wednesday). But Lenin did not adhere to doctors' orders. He got into full harness the very first day he returned. He entered his office at 9.30 a.m. and glanced through a large number of newspapers. At 10.45 he called his secretary and asked for his report. This lasted fifteen minutes, after which Lenin worked hard until 2 p.m., when he retired to his apartment, taking a pile of papers with him. He returned to his office at 6 p.m. with numerous instructions for his secretary. Very often he spent his additional rest day at his office. The following are the entries in the office diary made by Lenin's secretary for one of these "rest days": "November 1, Morning Conference with Stalin. Evening: 7 to 8 p.m. two Italian comrades. 8.30 p.m. Vladimir Ilyich went home."

On October 31, Lenin delivered a speech at the session of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. This was his first public appearance since his recovery. Everybody had looked forward to his appearance with the greatest eagerness, and Lenin himself was evidently deeply moved. In his speech he referred to the brilliant victory achieved by the Red Army and Soviet diplomacy in securing the liberation of the last piece of Soviet territory—Vladivostok—from the Japanese invaders. Referring to the economic state of the country he said that the Land of the Soviets was still very much poorer than the capitalist countries, but it would catch up with them at a rate that they could never conceive of. "Nobody believes that any important change can be achieved at a fantastic speed"; he said, "but we do believe in real speed, high speed compared with the rate of development in any period in history you like to take—especially if progress is guided by a genuinely revolutionary party; and this speed we shall achieve at all costs."

On November 13, Lenin delivered a report on "Five Years of the Russian Revolution and the Prospects of the World Revolution" at the Fourth Congress of the Communist International. Grave though the situation was in this ruined country, encircled as it was by the capitalist environment, Lenin was confident of ultimate victory, and he enumerated the splendid results of the first period of operation of the New Economic Policy.

"The past eighteen months have proved positively and absolutely that we have . . . passed our examination," he declared proudly. A general revival on the basis of the New Economic Policy had taken place. The alliance between the workers and peasants had been strengthened, the conditions of the working class had been improved, the ruble had been stabilized, the output of the light industry had been increased. "We already have proof," he said, "that, as a state, we are able to carry on trade, maintain strong positions in agriculture and industry, and make progress." But heavy industry was still in a grave state. "Heavy industry needs state subsidies. If we cannot provide them, then we are doomed as a civilized state—let alone as a socialist state." But the Land of Soviets had vast sources of accumulation. And Lenin gladly informed the international proletariat that as a result of the operation of the New Economic Policy the Soviet Government had already saved the first 20,000,000 rubles gold, which would be used entirely for the purpose of restoring and developing heavy industry. He added that the Soviet Government intended to economize in all things, even in education. "This must be so," he said, "because we know that unless we save heavy industry, unless we restore it, we shall fail to build up any industry; and without that we shall be doomed as an independent country." Very emphatically he declared: "We captured power for the workers, and our aim is to use this power to establish the socialist system."

Lenin delivered the report in German, and it lasted an hour. The congress listened to it with the closest attention and emotion, but it was already difficult for Lenin to make reports of this length. He spoke with obvious effort, and when he finished he was very tired. His sickness was beginning to tell no him.

A week later, on November 20, 1922, Lenin spoke at a meeting of the Moscow Soviet. He summed up the result of the five years' existence of the Soviet regime and concluded his speech with the following statement:

"We have dragged Socialism into everyday life, and here we must be able to keep our bearings. This is the task of our day, this is the task of our epoch. Permit me to conclude by expressing the conviction that, difficult as this task may be, new as it may be compared with our previous tasks, and no matter how many difficulties it may cause us, we shall all, not in one day, but in the course of several years, all of us together, fulfil it, come what may; and N.E.P. Russian will be transformed into Socialist Russia."

This was the last public speech that Lenin delivered.

XIII

Lenin's health grew worse; but in spite of that he continued to work. He presided at the meetings of the Council of People's Commissars and continued to interest himself in the most diverse questions, such as finance, the development of the electrical industry, concessions, the repair of shipping, the census of the population, and a multitude of others. He received visitors, gave interviews, wrote letters, and issued numerous instructions. He sent greetings to the Third Congress of the Young Communist International, to the All-Ukrainian Congress of Soviets, to the Congress of the State Employees' Union and the Congress of the Education Workers' Union. He concerned himself with the publication of a popular edition of the correspondence of Marx and Engels. He carefully pondered over the problems connected with foreign policy and the war danger, and wrote instructions to the Soviet Delegation at the Hague Peace Congress.

During these last weeks that Lenin was active he devoted a great deal of attention to the methods of further consolidating the Soviet state. During the whole period of the revolution he had worked hard to cement the friendship of the different nationalities in the Land of Soviet and had personally directed the work of building up the national Soviet Republics. The defence of the country, the building of socialist society, and the economic and cultural development of all the Soviet nationalities urgently called for the further consolidation of the union of the nations inhabiting the Land of Soviets. This brought up the question of uniting the different Soviet Republics more closely in a single union of states. In his greetings to the All-Ukrainian Congress of Soviets of December 10, 1922, Lenin said that one of the most important question of the day was that of uniting the Soviet Republics, and that "the proper solution of this problem will determine the future organization of our machinery of state."

At the end of December 1922, the Tenth All-Russian Congress of Soviet and the First All-Union Congress of Soviets adopted the historic decision, proposed by Lenin and Stalin, that the nations inhabiting the Land of Soviets should voluntarily unite in a Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

Lenin did not attend these congresses. He intended to speak at the Tenth All-Russian Congress of Soviets and wrote the outline of the report he intended to deliver on the activities of the government, but once against his health took a turn for the worse. On December 12, 1922, he attended his office in the Kremlin for the last time.

The entries in his secretary's office diary for that day are as follows: "Lenin arrived from Gorki in the morning of December 12, and entered his office at 11.15 a.m. He stayed there a little while and retired to his apartment. He returned at noon and received Tsurupa, who stayed with him for two hours. He left his office at 2 p.m., but did not leave any instructions for the evening. Evening: Vladimir Ilyich came to his office at 5.30 p.m. Dzerzhinsky arrived at 6.45 p.m. At 7.45 p.m. and official of the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs visited him. Vladimir Ilyich went home at 8.15 p.m."

Ill-health in no way weakened Lenin's will power, his energy, or his insatiable avidity for work. He was deeply interested in a number of problems. On December 13, he dictated a letter to Stalin to be read at the next meeting of the Central Committee of the Party in which he strongly insisted on the preservation of the state monopoly of foreign trade and strongly censured Bukharin, who was advocating the abandonment of this monopoly, as a champion of the interests of the profiteers, of the Nepmen (private traders) and kulaks.

The meeting of the Central Committee, at which Stalin presided, adopted a decision in conformity with Lenin's views and vigorously repelled the attempt to change the Soviet Government's foreign trade policy.

In view of Lenin's declining health the doctors prescribed complete rest. For two or three days before leaving Moscow Lenin received his colleagues in his apartment in the Kremlin, dictated letters, issued instructions and gave directions where certain books were to be sent. Lenin was very reluctant to talk about his ill-health and hardly ever complained. This time, however, he said he felt worse and spent a sleepless night.

Lenin realized that his condition was grave and on December 15, he wrote to Stalin: "I have wound up my affairs and can leave with a quiet mind. . . . There is only one thing that disturbs me very much, and that is that I shall not be able to speak at the Congress of Soviets. The doctors will be here on Tuesday and we shall consider whether there is the slightest chance of my being able to speak. I think it would be very awkward, to say the least, I have had the outline of my speech ready for the last few days. I suggest, therefore, that, while continuing to make arrangements for somebody else to speak in my place, the possibility be left open until Wednesday that I shall speak myself, though making a shorter speech than usual, say of about three quarters of an hour. Such a speech will not in the least hamper my substitute (whoever you appoint for that purpose), but I think it will be useful, both politically and for me personally, as it will remove cause for considerable perturbation."

A fresh attack of his illness prevented Lenin from speaking at the Congress of Soviets. His departure from Moscow to Gorki was put off.

The entire Party and all the working people in the country were stricken with grief at Lenin's illness and were filled with anxiety concerning their beloved leader.

But even while gravely sick Lenin did not cease to work for the benefit of the revolution and for the welfare of the Land of Socialism, to which he had devoted his whole life, his health and strength.

During the first two months of 1923 there was some improvement in Lenin's health, and in this period he wrote several important articles. On January 2, he dictated his article "On Co-operation"; on January 9, 13, 19, 22, and 23, he dictated the article "How to Reorganize the Workers' and Peasants' Inspection"; on January 16 and 17, he dictated the article "On Our Revolution," and on February 2, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 9, he dictated the article "Better Fewer, But Better."

Lenin was accustomed to write his articles and found it awkward to dictate to a stenographer. On February 6, the stenographer to whom he dictated the article "Better Fewer, But Better," made the following note: "Going over the article, Vladimir Ilyich stopped to observe that he was accustomed to write and not dictate, and that he now understood why article he had dictated to stenographers were unsatisfactory. He was accustomed to see what he was writing, to stop when he got into difficulties and to ponder over the snag, to pace up and down the room, even to go out for a stroll, and that even now he often wants to take up a pencil and write, or make his own corrections. He recalled that he had made an attempt to dictate an article to a stenographer as far back as 1918, and when he felt that he was 'slipping into a bog' he, in his confusion, began to 'push on' further and further with 'incredible' speed, with the result that in the end he had to burn the entire manuscript, after which he sat down to write by hand his Renegade Kautsky, with which he was satisfied."

In these last articles he wrote Lenin summed up the work that had been done during the years of the revolution. Once again he turned over in his mind all the fundamental problems of the revolution—the proletarian dictatorship, the machinery of state, economic policy, relations with the peasantry, defence of the country, foreign policy, the unity of the Party.

With extraordinary power he once again emphasized in these articles the possibility of the victory of Socialism in the Soviet Union. The Soviet Republic, he asserted, possessed "all that was needed for building complete socialist society." Over and over again he stressed the importance of heavy industry as the main material basis of Socialism. It was the Party's task, he said, "to change horses, from the peasant, muzhik, impoverished horse, from the horse of economy intended for a ruined peasant country, to the horse which the proletariat is seeking and cannot but seek—the horse of large-scale machine industry, electrification, Volkhovstroy, etc."

Only a powerful heavy industry, he said, could serve as a firm basis for ensuring the independence and for strengthening the defences of the Soviet state.

He reiterated again and again that the working class could build Socialism only in alliance with the peasantry; and the Bolshevik Party undeviatingly followed this precept of Lenin's. The express purpose of the New Economic Policy was to ensure the co-operation of the peasants in the work of socialist construction. There remained an important theoretical and practical problem to solve, namely, by what ways and means to build Socialism in alliance with the peasantry; to ascertain what to concentrate on in order to be able to enlist the peasantry in the work of building socialist society. In these last articles of his Lenin provided a brilliant solution for this problem, namely, co-operation, which was to be the means of enlisting the peasants in the work of socialist construction..

In co-operation in general, and in agricultural co-operation in particular, Lenin discerned the means whereby, under Soviet conditions, the peasants could pass from small individual husbandry to large-scale co-operative farming.

The introduction of the principle of co-operation, first in the marketing of produce and later in agricultural production, was, in Lenin's opinion, something the masses of the peasants could understand and adopt, and this would lead to their being drawn into the work of socialist construction. In this connection he wrote:

"The power of the state over all large-scale means of production, the power of the state in the hands of the proletariat, the alliance of this proletariat with the many millions of small and very small peasants, the assured leadership of the peasantry by the proletariat, etc.; is not this all that is necessary in order from the co-operatives—from the co-operatives alone, which we formerly treated as huckstering, and which, from a certain aspect, we have the right to treat as such now, under the N.E.P.—is not this all that is necessary in order to build complete socialist society? This is not yet the building of socialist society, but it is all that is necessary and sufficient for it."

Lenin's co-operative plan marked an extremely important step forward in the development of the Leninist theory that the victory of Socialism in the Soviet Union was possible.

Lenin devoted special attention in these last articles to the international situation and foreign policy. It was Lenin who laid the basis of the foreign policy of the Soviet Government, and under his direction Soviet diplomacy had won many a brilliant victory. He urged that the Soviet Republic should pursue an independent foreign policy, which must be guided solely by the interests of the Soviet state and of Socialism. Its guiding and constant rule, until Socialism had triumphed throughout the world, must be to take advantage of the antagonisms prevailing in the imperialist camp to hinder all efforts to form a united front against the Land of Soviets. At the same time, the Soviet Government must unflaggingly continue its efforts to strengthen the defences of the country.

In March 1923, Lenin's health suffered a relapse. On March 9, he had another strike, this time a very severe one, which confined him to his bed.

He could not take part in the proceedings of the Twelfth Party Congress, which was held in April 1923. This was the first Party Congress, which was held in April 1923. This was the first Party Congress that Lenin failed to attend since the Bolsheviks captured power.

The Twelfth Congress, however, was guided in its decisions by Lenin's counsels, given in his last articles and letters. On Lenin's proposal, sent to the congress in writing, it resolved to amalgamate the Central Control Commission of the Party and the Workers' and Peasants' Inspection into one body for state and Party control. The function of the new body was to safeguard the unity of the Party, reinforce state and Party discipline, and in every way to improve the machinery of the Soviet state.

Lenin's health continued to be grave right up till May, and in the middle of that month he was removed to Gorki, where, from the middle of July, his health began to improve.

On October 19, 1923, Lenin went to Moscow for a few hours. He visited his apartment in the Kremlin, looked into the Council Chamber of the Council of People's Commissars and also into his own office, went for a drive through the main streets of the capital, visited the Agricultural Exhibition, which had been organized that year, and returned to Gorki.

This was Lenin's last visit to Moscow.

On January 21, 1924, at 6 p.m. Lenin suddenly had a severe attack of his disease. He lost consciousness, and at 6.50 p.m. he died of hæmorrhage of the brain.

Thus passed away the man who, as Henri Barbusse said, "was the incarnation of the entire Russian revolution, who conceived it in his brain, who prepared it, brought it about and saved it. Lenin, the greatest and in all respects the purest of the makers of history; the man who has done more for mankind than anybody else has done before."

The death of Lenin, the leader and teacher, was a severe blow for the Party, for the working class, for the masses of the people in the Soviet Union and for the working people all over the world.

It caused rejoicing in the camp of the imperialists, who believed that with the death of Lenin the proletarian dictatorship would perish. Lenin's death also fanned the hopes of those who had tried to divert the Party from the path Lenin had mapped out for it, and they believed that with Lenin's death it would be possible to make the Party cast off its Bolshevik character.

But the enemies rejoiced too soon; their hopes were dashed to the ground. They failed to take into account the fact that Lenin had armed his Party with the invincible weapon of his fearless and lucid ideas—the weapon of Leninism. Lenin had imbued the Party with his passionate hatred for the capitalist system, with his iron will and determination to destroy that system and to establish Communism. He had trained the Party not to be daunted by difficulties and not to give way to weariness, despondency and vacillation.

On the night of January 21 the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party met, and next day it issued the following announcement of the death of Lenin, addressed to the Party and to all working people:

"On January 21 Comrade Lenin passed away.

"Death has taken from us the man who founded our steel-hard Party, who built it up year in and year out, led it amidst the blows of tsarism, trained and steeled it in the fierce struggle against the traitors to the working class and against the half-hearted, the waverers and deserters. Death has taken from us the man under who leadership the invincible ranks of the Bolsheviks fought in 1905, retreated during the period of reaction, and again launched an offensive; who were in the front ranks of the fighters against the autocracy and succeeded in defeating, exposing and upsetting the ideological sway of the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries. Death has taken from us the man under whose militant leadership our Party, enveloped in the smoke of battle, resolutely hoisted the Red Flag of the October Revolution all over the country, crushed the enemy's resistance and firmly established the rule of the toilers in former tsarist Russia. Death has taken from us the founder of the Communist International, the leader of the world Communist movement, the man who was loved and admired by the international proletariat, the banner of the oppressed Orient, the head of the workers' dictatorship in Russia.

"Never since Marx has the great proletarian movement for emancipation produced such a titanic figure as our late leader, teacher and friend. Lenin possessed all the truly great and heroic virtues of the proletariat—a fearless mind, an iron, inflexible and indomitable will which surmounts all obstacles, a holy and mortal hatred of slavery and tyranny, revolutionary ardour which moves mountains, boundless faith in the creative powers of the masses, and vast organizing talent. His name has become the symbol of the new world from West to East, and from South to North.

"Lenin was unexcelled in the ability to see both the great and the small, to forecast great historical changes and at the same time to take account of and utilize every tiny detail. He was able to attack fiercely when necessary; and to retreat when that was necessary, in order to prepare for a fresh attack. He never clung to stereotyped formulæ, nor did he allow anything to narrow his wise, all-seeing vision. For he was a born leader of the proletarian army, the genius of the working class."

On January 21-23, the members of the Central Committee of the Party, headed by Stalin, the members of the Soviet Government and delegations from the Second All-Union Congress of Soviets and of the Moscow workers' organizations, went to Gorki. Peasants from the surrounding villages also came to pay their last respects to Lenin.

At 10.a.m on January 23, the coffin containing the body of Lenin was carried to Gerasimovo Station, and at 1 p.m. the funeral train arrived in Moscow.

Here, through dense lines of mourners bearing draped flags, the coffin was carried on the shoulders of Lenin's closest friends and associates to the House of Trade Unions, where it was placed on a bier in the Column Hall. For four days and nights, despite the intense frost, hundreds of thousands of workers, peasants, Red Armymen, office employees, delegations from organizations in Moscow and many other cities in the Soviet Union, and from workers' organizations of capitalist countries, filed past in a continuous stream, bidding farewell to their leader.

At 9 a.m. on January 27, the coffin was carried from the House of Trade Unions to the Red Square, where the funeral ceremony was held. At 4 p.m., amidst the strains of the funeral march, the wailing of factory sirens and the crash of artillery, the coffin, with Lenin's remains, was placed in the mausoleum.

This mausoleum is now the place of pilgrimage of millions of people from all parts of the world, who come to impress on their hearts and minds the image of this, one of the greatest of human geniuses—Lenin.

On the day of the funeral the workers all over the world observed five minutes' silence. At the agreed moment all factories and road and railway traffic came to a standstill as a sign of mourning for the departure of Lenin, the teacher, friend and champion of all the oppressed.

The working class of the Soviet Union reacted to the death of Lenin by uniting still more closely around Lenin's Party.

The death of the leader revealed how dear the Party was to the hearts of the masses of the workers, and how deeply they treasured it. This they proved by joining its ranks in hundreds of thousands. In the course of a short period over 240,000 workers who were ready to lay down their lives for the cause of Lenin and the Party joined it in response to the appeal for a Lenin enrolment.

Lenin's banner was taken up and carried further forward by Stalin—the finest son of the Bolshevik Party, the worthy successor to and great continuator of Lenin's work.

On January 26, 1924, a Memorial Session of the Second All-Union Congress of Soviets was held at which Stalin delivered an address on Lenin. The intensity with which the congress listened to Stalin is difficult to describe. The lives and activities of Lenin and Stalin had been joined in the struggle for the cause of the revolution since the very dawn of the movement, when the very first steps were being taken to build up the Bolshevik Party. Stalin—Lenin's devoted disciple and comrade-in-arms—was from now on to continue Lenin's immortal cause. In a speech of exceptional power Stalin on behalf of the Party took a great vow. He said:

"We Communists are people of a special mould. We are made of a special stuff. We are those who form the army of the great proletarian strategist, the army of Comrade Lenin. There is nothing higher than the honour of belonging to this army. There is nothing higher than the title of member of the Party whose founder and leader was Comrade Lenin. . . .

"Departing from us, Comrade Lenin adjured us to hold high and guard the purity of the great title of member of the Party. We vow to you, Comrade Lenin, that we will fulfil your behest with credit!

"Departing from us, Comrade Lenin adjured us to guard the unity of our Party as the apple of our eye. We vow to you, Comrade Lenin, that this behest, too, we will fulfil with credit!

"Departing from us, Comrade Lenin adjured us to guard and strengthen the dictatorship of the proletariat. We vow to you, Comrade Lenin, that we will spare no effort to fulfil this behest, too, with credit!

"Departing from us, Comrade Lenin adjured us to strengthen with all our might the alliance of the workers and the peasants. We vow to you, Comrade Lenin, that this behest, too, we will fulfil with credit!

"Comrade Lenin untiringly urged upon us the necessity of maintaining a voluntary union of the nations of our country, the necessity for fraternal co-operation among them within the framework of the Union of Republics.

"Departing from us, Comrade Lenin adjured us to consolidate and extend the Union of Republics. We vow to you, Comrade Lenin, that this behest, too, we will fulfil with credit!

"Time and again did Lenin point out to us that the strengthening of the Red Army and the improvement of its condition is one of the most important tasks of our Party. . . . Let us then vow, comrades, that we will spare no effort to strengthen our Red Army and our Red Navy. . . .

"Departing from us, Comrade Lenin adjured us to remain faithful to the principles of the Communist International. We vow to you, Comrade Lenin, that we will not spare our lives to strengthen and extend the union of the toilers of the whole world—the Communist International!"

This was the vow of the Bolshevik Party to its leader Lenin, a vow that will live for ages. Looking back on the path they have traversed since Lenin's death, the Bolsheviks can proudly say that this vow is being honourably fulfilled.

Lenin devoted his whole live to the cause of liberating the workers and peasants from the power of the capitalists and landlords, to the cause of Socialism.

Lenin's life and activities were merged with the activities of the great and heroic Bolshevik Party, which he founded.

Lenin was the genius of the revolution. In the fiercest battles fought in the new epoch, the epoch of wars and revolutionary upheavals, Lenin marched at the head of the masses of the people. Under his leadership, the Great October Socialist Revolution in the U.S.S.R. triumphed. This revolution marked the turning point in human history from the old capitalist society to the new socialist society.

The Bolshevik revolution tore the first hundred million inhabitants of the globe out of the clutches of the first world imperialist war, out of the Hades of imperialism. Lenin said that the ensuing revolutions will tear the rest of mankind to hunger and savagery, and which will soon and inevitably perish, no matter how ferocious it may be in its death agony."

Lenin was a genius in his leadership of the Bolshevik Party and as the leader and teacher of the working class. He was a leader of a new type—simple and modest, connected with the masses by a thousand threads, a leader of new masses—the common people, the "rank and file" of humanity who have risen to fight for their emancipation. At the same time he was the greatest genius of all times and of all nations, master of all the treasures of human knowledge and human culture, wielding to perfection the all-conquering weapon of the proletariat—revolutionary Marxism.

Lenin based his revolutionary activities in changing human society on the granite foundation of Marxism, the profound philosophy of which he had plumbed to the very bottom. As Stalin said: "Lenin was and remains the most devoted and consistent discipline of Marx and Engels, basing himself entirely on the principles of Marxism."

Lenin treated every utterance, every thought expressed by the founders of scientific Communism with the greatest reverence, and passionately denounced those who preached "freedom to criticize" the Marxist theory as a blind for smuggling in bourgeois ideas. He relentlessly exposed those who paid lip service to Marx and Engels, but actually betrayed Marxism. Lenin championed and restored the authentic views of Marx and Engels and purged the ideas of Marxism of all sorts of opportunist distortions.

Lenin, however, constantly reiterated that Marxism was not a dogma, but a guide to action; that the Marxist theory must be developed further in all directions. He said that "the theory of Marx must be further worked out independently, because this theory provides only the general guiding postulates, which apply in particular to England differently from the way they apply to France, differently to France from the way they apply to Germany, and differently to Germany from the way they apply to Russia." It is no use persisting in the advocacy of the old Marxist solutions, he taught, when a changed situation demands new solutions. One must be able to employ the Marxist method of investigation in analysing new historical conditions and a new situation.

Lenin—a titan among the scientists, unexcelled master of materialist dialectics—fearlessly brushed aside old and obsolete views and took up and solved new problems that life brought to the front.

There is not a field of knowledge and practical effort connected with the struggle of the working class for its emancipation that Lenin did not enrich with his great ideas. There is not a single event of any importance in the life of the nations at the close of the nineteenth and in the first quarter of the twentieth century, not a single event of any importance in the field of science and in the revolutionary struggle of the masses of the working people on which Lenin did not throw a brilliant light in his works.

Lenin made a great contribution to the ideological store of Marxism out of the experience of the new epoch. He developed Marxism further and elevated it to a higher stage. He is the founder of Leninism. To quote Stalin's classical definition: "Leninism is Marxism of the epoch of imperialism and of the proletarian revolution. More precisely: Leninism is the theory and tactics of the dictatorship of the proletariat in particular." Stalin revealed the unity and continuity of the tenets of Marx and Lenin, and the new contribution that Lenin made to the treasure store of Marxism.

Lenin's doctrines are a beacon, lighting up the path of the victorious struggle of the working people for their emancipation. Lenin's ideas, assimilated by the masses, have become a great force for the reorganization of society on socialist principles. Leninism is the standard of millions of proletarians and working people generally all over the world.

Lenin was a devoted son of the Russian people. He was proud of his nation, which had created a mighty and virile state, successfully defending it against repeated foreign invasions, and had created a rich, flourishing culture, science and art. Lenin was proud of the Russian nation which had produced the most revolutionary working class in the world, which entertained a deep hatred for all national oppression, and had created the first socialist state in the world—the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, which is based on the fraternal co-operation of all nations.

Guided by Lenin's tenets, the Bolshevik Party united its ranks and roused the working class and the peasantry to fight against the tsarist autocracy and capitalism in Russia. Under Lenin's banner the working class of Russia stormed the fortress of capitalism and triumphed in the battles of the Great October Socialist Revolution. Under Lenin's banner the people of Soviet Russia routed and exterminated the hordes of Whiteguards and foreign interventionists during the Civil War. Lenin's name is associated with the victories of the people of the Soviet Union on all fronts—military, economic, diplomatic and cultural. Lenin's name is associated with the creation and consolidation of the Soviet state and with the accomplishment of the great plan for the building of Socialism in the Soviet Union. It is with Lenin's name on their lips that the working people of the Soviet Union are marching to the great goal of Communism, surmounting all obstacles in their path and sweeping aside all the enemies of Socialism.

The life, activities and the great works of Lenin teach us how to fight successfully for the cause of Communism. Stalin exhorts us to "remember, love and study Lenin, our teacher, our leader"; he advises us to "consult" Lenin, to turn to him in solving problems, great and small.

Stalin paid a noble tribute to Lenin when, in his speech to the electors during the general elections in the Soviet Union on December 11, 1937, he described what a member of the Soviet of the Union should be. He said:

"The people should demand of their deputies that they should remain at their posts as statesmen of the Lenin type; that they should be as clear and definite in their actions as Lenin was; that they should be as fearless in battle and as relentless towards the enemy as Lenin was; that they should be as free from panic, or anything resembling panic, when complications arise and danger looms on the horizon; that they should should be free from anything resembling panic as Lenin was; that they should be as wise and as unhasty in solving complex problems, when an all-sided orientation and when all the favourable and unfavourable factors must be taken into consideration, as Lenin was; that they should be as truthful and honest as Lenin was, and that they should love their people as Lenin loved them."

The Bolshevik Party of the Soviet Union has inherited from Lenin his great doctrine, his mighty, invincible will, his ardent love of the people. It has triumphed because it has remained loyal to Lenin's cause—Leninism!

Lenin's name, his cause and doctrine, will live for ages.

Lenin's ideas have found living incarnation in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, in the heroic Bolshevik Party and in the Communist International. They have found living incarnation in the works and activities of Lenin's great comrade-in-arms and loyal continuator of his cause, Stalin.

Lenin lives in the minds and hearts of the working people of the U.S.S.R. and of the oppressed in all parts of the world. For the working class and toilers generally all over the world Lenin's name sounds like a tocsin calling for a relentless struggle against the tyrants and for a free and happy existence under Communism.

In these stern times, when the Soviet Union is engaged in mortal combat with predatory Hitler imperialism, the great image of Lenin inspires the heroic Soviet people to perform feats of immortal valour for the glory of their socialist motherland. The entire Soviet people have risen to a man to fight in this Patriotic War against the German-fascist invaders who wantonly attacked their peaceful and happy land. Rallied under the banner of Lenin and under Stalin's leadership they are defending with their lives their socialist country, the gains of their socialist revolution, their socialist system, and their socialist culture.

This generation of heroes, reared and trained on the all-conquering ideas of Lenin, is permeated with his great spirit. Millions of loyal and devoted sons and daughters of their socialist motherland go out to perform immortal deeds, to perform feats of heroism in the Patriotic War with the image of Lenin in their hearts.

Lenin's cause is invincible!