Lenin on the World Revolution

1912

May 8 (April 25), 1912.

In Memory of Herzen

Lenin Collected Works, Volume 18, pages 25-31.

The storm is the movement of the masses themselves. The proletariat, the only class that is thoroughly revolutionary, rose at the head of the masses and for the first time aroused millions of peasants to open revolutionary struggle. The first onslaught in this storm took place in 1905. The next is beginning to develop under our very eyes.

In commemorating Herzen, the proletariat is learning from his example to appreciate the great importance of revolutionary theory. It is learning that selfless devotion to the revolution and revolutionary propaganda among the people are not wasted even if long decades divide the sowing from the harvest. It is learning to ascertain the role of the various classes in the Russian and in the international revolution. Enriched by these lessons, the proletariat will fight its way to a free alliance with the socialist workers of all lands, having crushed that loathsome monster, the tsarist monarchy, against which Herzen was the first to raise the great banner of struggle by addressing his free Russian word to the masses.

September 18, 1912.

The Successes of the American Workers

Lenin Collected Works, Volume 18, pages 335-336.

The importance of democracy is that it makes the class struggle broad, open and conscious. And this is not a conjecture or a wish, but a fact.

Anyone who has eyes to see must acknowledge that a proletarian is powerless when alone but that millions of proletarians are all-powerful.

October 21, 1912.

A New Chapter of World History

Lenin Collected Works, Volume 18, pages 368-369.

In Eastern Europe (Austria, the Balkans, Russia), the powerful survivals of medievalism, which terribly hamper social development and the growth of the proletariat, have not yet been abolished. These survivals are absolutism (unlimited autocratic power), feudalism (landlordism and feudal privileges) and the suppression of nationalities.

The class-conscious workers of the Balkan countries are the first to put forward the slogan of a consistently democratic solution of the national problem in the Balkans. That slogan calls for a Balkan federal republic.

As for Western Europe, the proletariat there is still more vigorously proclaiming the slogan: No intervention! The Balkans for the Balkan peoples!

Written in November 1912

Concerning Certain Speeches by Workers' Deputies

Lenin Collected Works, Volume 18, pages 413-419.

Russia's Social-Democratic Party is a contingent of the international army of the socialist proletariat.

The working class of the world is fighting not for recognition of its right to have a socialist party, but for power, and for the organisation of society along new lines.

It is highly important to say so from the Duma platform, to tell the workers of Russia about the beginning of the great battles for socialism in Europe and America, about the nearness of the triumph (inevitable triumph) of socialism in the civilised world.