The Daily Worker Newspaper, February 19, 1924, Page 8

Mypocritical Accusations They are little more than imitat- ors of the bourgeoisie, these gentle- men who delight in holding up to us the “chaos” of the revolution, the “destruction” of industry, the un- employment, the lack of food. Can there be anything more hypocritical than such accusations from people qwho greeted and supported the im- perialistic war and made common cause with Kerensky when he con- tinued the war? Is not this im- perialistic war the cause of all our misfortane? The revolution that was By NICOLAI LENIN (This was the first direct word that came to the American people from Nicolai Lenin after he be- came the recognized leader of the proletarian world. Early efforts to get it past the censorship lines evidently failed. It arrived in this country in December of 1918.) Moscow, August. 20, 1918. OMRADES: A Russian Bolshevik who participated in the revolu- tion of 1905 and for many years af- offered to transmit this letter to you. I have grasped this opportunity joy- fully, for the revolutionary pro- letariat of Am#erica—in so far as it is the enemy of American imperial- ism—is destined to perform an im- portant task at this time. Russia Deserted at Brest-Litovsk Had the Anglo-French and Amer- ican bourgeoisie accepted the Seviet invitation to participate in peace ne- gotiations at Brest-Litovsk, instead of leaving Russia to the mercy of brutal Germany, a just peace with- out annexations and indemnities, @ peace based upon complete equality , could have been forced upon Ger- many, and millions of livés might have been saved. Because they hoped to re-establish the Eastern Front once more drawing us into the whirlpool of warfare, they re- fused to attend peace negotiations and gave Germany a free hand to on thru the terrible difficulties and sufferings that war crea thru this heritage of destruction and reaction- ary mass murder. Te accuse us of “destruetion” of industries and “‘ter- rer” is hypocrisy or clumsy pedantry, and shows an ineapability of under- standing the most elemental funda- mentals ef the raging, climactic force of the class struggle called revolu- tion. : In werds our acensers “recognize” this kind of class struggle, in deeds revert again and again to the dle elass utopia of “class-har- mony’ and the mutual “mterdepend- ence” of classes upon one another. In reality the class struggle in revo- lutionary times has always inevitably taken on the form of civil war, an civil war is unthinkable without the worst kind of destruction, without terror and limitations of the form of democracy in the interests of the war. geoisie would still maintain that the victims of the world war died a righteous death, that those of the civil war were sacrificed for a criminal cause. But the proletariat, even now, in the midst of the horrors of war, is learning the great truth that all revo- lutions teach, the truth that has been handed down to us by our best teach- A LETTER TO AMERICAN WORKINGMEN the gigantic upheaval of the masses. The Workmens’ and Peasants’ Soviets are a new type of state, a new high- est form of democracy, a particular form of the dictatorship of the pro- letariat, a mode of conducting the business of the state without the bourgeoisie and against the bour- geoisie. For the first time democracy is'placed at the service of the masses, ers, the founders of modern Social-|of the workers, and ceases to be ism, that a successful revolution is incon- ceivable unless it breaks the resist- ance of the exploiting class. When the workers and the laboring peas- ants took hold of the powers of state, it became our duty to quell the re- sistance of the exploiting class. We are proud that we have done it, that we are doing it. We only regret that we did ngt do it at the beginning, with sufficient firmness and decision. | rul Force Must Be Met With Force We realize that the mad resistance: of the bourgeoisie against the social. ist_ revolution in all countries is un- avoidable. We know too, that wit! the development of this revolution this resistance will grow. But th proletariat will break down this sistance and in the course of i struggle against the bourgeoisie th proletariat will finally become rip for victory and power. Let the corrupt bourgeois pres trumpet every mistake that is mad by our revolution out into the world. We are not afraid of our mistakes. The ——< of the revolution has not sanctified humanity. It is not From them we have learned }democracy for the rich. Hollowness of Bourgeois Democracy While the old bourgeois democratic constitutions, for instance, pro- claimed formal equality and the right of free assemblage, the constitution of the Soviet Republic repudiates the hypocrisy of a formal equality of all human beings. When the bour- geois republicans overturned feudal thrones, they did not recognize the es of fo uality of monarch- we here-are™céiicerne the task of overthrowing the bourgeoisie, only fools or traitors will insist on the formal equality of the bourgeoisie. The right of free assemblage is not worth an iota to the workman and to the peasant when — all better meeting places are in the hands of the bourgeoisie. Our Soviets have taken over all usable build- ings in the cities and towns out of the hands of the rich and have placed them at the disposal of the work- men and peasants for meeting and organization purposes. That is how our right of assemblage looks—for the workers. That is the meaning nd content of our Soviet, of our cram its shameful terms down the throat of the Russian people. It lay peace. It ill becomes them to throw the blame for the Russo-German peace upon our shoulders. ... The workers of the whole world, in whatever country they may live, rejoice with us and sympathize with us, applaud us for having burst the iron ring of imperialistic agreements and treaties, for having dreaded no sacrifice, however great, to free ourselves, for having established our- selves as a socialist republic, even so rent asunder and plundered by Ger- man imperialists, for having raised the banner of peace, the banner of Socialism over the world. What won- der that we are hated by the capitalist class the world over. But this hatred of imperialism and the sympathy of the class-conscious workers of all countries give us assurance of the righteousness of our cause. Must Make Sacrifice for Revolution He is no Socialist who cannot un- derstand that one cannot and must not hesitate to bring even that great- est of sacrifices, the sacrifice of ter- ritory, that one must be ready to accept even military defeat at the hands of imperialism, in the interests of victory over the bourgeosie, in the interests of a transfer of power to the working class. For the sake of “their” cause, that is for the con- quest of world-power, the imperial- ists of England and Germany have not hesitated to ruin a whole row of mations, from Belgium te Servia té Palestine to Mesopotamia. Shall we then hesitate to act in the name of the liberation of the workers of the world from the yoke of capitalism, in the name of a general honorable ace; shall we wait until we can nd a way that entails no sacrifice; shall we be afraid to begin the fight until an easy victory is assured; shall we place the integrity and safety of this “fatherland” created by the bourgeoisie over the interests of the. international socialist revolu- ton? .. The great Russian revolutionist, Tchernychewski, once said: “Politi- eal activity is not as smooth as the pavement of the Novski Prospect.” He is no revolutionist who would have the révolution of the proletariat ints dare only under the “condition” that it proceed smbothly and in an orderly manner, that the proletarians. of all countries immediately go into action, ; another. terward lived in your. country by the war must necessarily go in the power of the Allied countriesyAmerican proletariat—those to make the Brest-Litovsk negotia-|sentatives who have ge age | given tions the forerunner of a general|expression of their full solidarity America’s’ Revolutionary Tradition The best representatives of the repre- with us, the Bolsheviki—are the ex- pression oF this revolutionary tradi- tion in the life of the American peo- ple. This tradition originated in the war 6f liberation against the English in the Eighteenth and the civil war in the Nineteenth Century. Industry and commerce in 1870 were in a much worse position than in 1860. But where can you find an American so pedantic, so absolutely idiotic as to deny the revolutionary and prog- ressive significance of the American civil war in 1860-1865? The representatives of the bour- geoisie understand very well that the overthrow of slavery was well worth the five years of civil war, the depth of destruction, devastation and terror that were its accompaniment. But these same gentlemen and the reform socialists who have allowed themselves to be cowed by the bour- geoisie and tremble at the thought of a revolution, cannot, nay, will not, see the necessity and righteousness = a on war in yore bd ee. ng a far greater e 0) abolishing capitalist wage-slavery and overthrowing the rule of the bourgeoisie. Bourgeoisie Used Terror We are accused of having brought devastation upon Russia. Who is it that makes these accusations? The train-bearers of the bourgebisie, of that same bourgeoisie that almost completely destroyed the culture of Europe that has dragged the whole continent back to barbarism, that has brought hunger and destruction to the world. This bourgeoisie now de- mands that we find a different basis for our revolution than that of destruction, that we shall not build it up upon the ruins of war, with human beings degraded and brutal- ized by years of warfare. O, how human, how just is this bourgeoisie! Its servants charge us with the use of terroristic methods... . Have the English forgotten their 1649, the French, their 17932 Terror was just and justified when it was em- ployed_by the bourgeoisie for its own urposes against feudal domination. ut terror becomes criminal when working men and poverty stricken to use it against the ourgeoisie. Terror was just and justified when it was used to put one exploiting minority in the place of But terror becomes horri- that guarantees against defeat be|ble and criminal when it is used to given beforehand, that the revolu- tion go forward along the broad, free, straight path to victory, that there shall not be here and there the heaviest sacrifices, that we shall not have to lie in wait in besieged fort- resses, shall not have te climb up along the narrowest paths, the most’ impassable, winding, dangerous moun- tain roads, He is no revolutionist, he has not yet freed himself from the dantry of bourgeois intellectual- ism, he will fall back, again and again, into the camp of the coun-' ploiters ter-revolutionary bourgeoisie, abolish all exploiting minorities, when it is employed in the cause of the actual majority, in the cause of the proletariat and the page pegs: of the Mai class and the poor peasantry. Mass Slaughter in World War The bourgeoisie of international es iggy has succeeded in slaugh- tering 10 millions, in ig 20 millions in its war. Sh our war, etek, sciias sprosiet ote loited, a oppressors and ex- cost a half or a whole mil- Hon victims in all countries, the bour- to be expected that the working class which has been exploited and forcibly held down, by the clutches of want, of ignorance and degradation for centuries should conduct its revolu- tion without mistakes. The dead body of bourgeois society cannot sim- ply be put into a coffin and buried. It rots in our midst, poisons the air we breathe, Bag ine our lives, clings to the new, the fresh, the living with a thousand threads and tendrils of old customs, of death and decay. We Learn Bw Mistakes - But for every hundred of our mis- takes that are heralded into the world by the bourgeoisie and its sycophants, there are ten thousand great deeds of heroism, greater and more heroic because they seem so simple and un- pretentious, because they take place in the every-day life of the factory districts or in seeluded villages, * be- eause they are the deeds of people who-are not in the habit of proclaim- ing their every success to the world, who have no opportunity to do so. But even if the contary were true —I know, of course, that this is not so—but even if we had committed 10,000 mistakes to avery 100 wise and righteous deeds, yes, even then our revolution would be great and invincible. And it will go down in the history of the world as tri- umphant. For the first time in th history of the world not the mino: ity, not alone the rich and the edu- cated, but the real masses, the hu; majority of the working class itself, are building up a new world, are ee ciding the most difficult questions ry ocialist constitution. i ; “for-this-reason We are firmly convinced that the Soviet Republic, whatever misfortune may still lie in store for it, is unconquerable. It is unconquerable because every blow that comes from the Jowers of madly raging imperialism, every new attack by the international bour- geoisie will bring new, and hitherto unaffected strata of: working men and peasants into the fight, will edu- cate them at the cost of the great- steel, awakening new heroism in the S. -We know that it may take a long e before help can come from you, comrades, American Workingmen, for the development of the revolution in the different countries proceeds alongs various paths, with varying rapidity (how should it be other- wise!). We know full well that the outbreak of the European proletarian revolution may take many weeks to come, quickly as it is ripening in these days. We are counting on the inevitability of the international revolution. But that does not mean that we count upon its coming at some definite, nearby date. We have experienced two great revolutions in our own country, that of 1905 and that of 1917, and we know that revo- lutions can come neither at a word of command nor according to pre- arranged plans. We know that cir- the proletariat of Russia, forward, that we have reached this new stage in the social life of the world not because of .our superiority but be- cause of the peculiarly reactionary character of Russia. But until the outbreak of the international revolu- tion, revolutions in individual coun- tries may still meet with a number of serious setbacks and overthrows. Soviet Russia Invincible nd yet we are certain that we are invincible, for humanity will not emerge from this imperialistic mas- sacre broken in spirit, it will triumph. Ours was the first country to break the chains of imperialistic warfare. We broke them with the greatest sacrifice, but they are broken. We ‘stand outside of imperialistic duties and considerations, we have raised the banner of the fight for the com- plete overthrow of imperialism for the world. | We are in a beleaguered fortress, so long as no other international so- cialist revolution comes to our as- sistance pwith its armies. But these armies exist, they are stronger than ours, they grow, they strive, they become more jnvincible the longer imperialism with its brutalities con- 0 cea, with their” with their Gompers and Inevitably lal/ | jis, such mistake is worth thousands an millions of “faultless” successes o: the exploiting minority in outwitting and taking advantage of the labor- ing masses. For only thru these mistakes can the workers’ and peas- ants learn to organize their new ex- istence, to get along without the capitalist class. Only thus will they, be able to blaze their way thru thou- sands of hindrances to victorious socialism, Mistakes are being made by our workmen in their revolutionary acti- vity, who, in a few short months, have placed practically all of the larger factories and works under state ownership, and are now learn- ing, from day to day, under the greatest difficulties, to conduct the management of entire industries, to reorganize industries already organ- ized, to overcome the deadly resist- ance of laziness and middle class re- action and egotism. Stone upon stone they are building the founda- tion for a new social community, the sett -Blscipline of bent a on = str wg pein argh x devistic of the r organizations o e paring for pro- working class over their members. jletarian revolution that «)ne is Mistak: gf meng gp their | humanity from destruction g | es are being made m . We are lutionary activity by the Soviets |invincible. The proletarian Revolu- Thich were fet res in 1905 by | tion is invincible. est sacrifice, making them hard as . nternational Revolution Delayed ~ "page