Lenin on the World Revolution

1919

19 January 1919

Speech on the occasion of the assassination of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht;

Short newspaper report : Pravda, No. 14, 21 January 1919

Lenin, Volume 28, page 422

Today the bourgeoisie and the social traitors are rejoicing in Berlin - they have succeeded in murdering Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg. Ebert and Scheidemann, who for four years led the workers to the slaughter for the sake of predatory interests, have now assumed the role of executioners of proletarian leaders. The example of the German revolution convinces us that "democracy" merely serves as a cover for bourgeois robbery and the most brutal violence.

Death to the executioners!

20 January 1919

Speech at the II All-Russian Trade Union Congress

Pravda, No. 15 and 16 , 22 and 24 January 1919

Lenin, Volume 28, pages 423 - 440

I believe that the whole world-wide struggle, which is coming to a head clearly and rapidly on the question of the dictatorship of the proletariat or the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, I believe that this whole struggle can only then be correctly understood and correctly assessed, can only then be brought to the attention of the working class, its class-conscious representatives, the possibility of participating in it in the right way, if one realises what a self-deception for some and what a deception for others the independence slogan [emphasised by the Comintern (SH)] is. Above all, I would like to show, even if only briefly, how wrong this slogan is in theory, how little it can withstand even the slightest criticism in theoretical terms. (page 423 - 424)

Comrades, the recent event in Germany, the vicious, insidious murder of Liebknecht and Luxemburg, is not only the most dramatic and tragic event of the incipient German revolution, it also throws an extraordinarily harsh light on how the questions of today's struggle are posed in the current currents of the various political views and in today's theoretical conceptions. It is precisely from Germany that we have heard the most speeches, for example on the much-vaunted democracy, on the slogan of democracy in general, as well as on the slogan of the independence of the working class from state power. [ emphasised by the Comintern (SH)] These slogans, which at first glance might appear to be unrelated, are in fact closely connected. They are closely connected because they show how strong the petty-bourgeois prejudices still are to this day, despite the tremendous experience gained in the proletarian class struggle, how often the class struggle, to use a German expression, is still paid mere lip service to this day, without having really penetrated the minds and hearts of all those who talk about it. Indeed, how can one - even if we only remember the ABC of political economy as we have learnt it from Marx's Capital, that doctrine of class struggle on whose ground we all stand with both feet - how can one today, when the struggle has intensified to such an extent and on such a scale, when it has become clear that the socialist revolution has been put on the agenda throughout the world, when this is clear in practice from what is happening in the most democratic countries - how can we speak of democracy at all, or how can we speak of independence? Anyone who thinks like this shows - from the point of view of the theory of political economy - that he has not understood a single page of Marx's "Capital", on which socialists in all countries, without exception, now swear. [emphasised by the Comintern (SH)] (page 424 - 425)

Either dictatorship of the bourgeoisie (...) or dictatorship of the proletariat in order to crush with an iron fist the bourgeoisie, which incites the least class-conscious elements against the best leaders of the world proletariat [ emphasised by the Comintern (SH)]; in other words, victory of the proletariat to crush the bourgeoisie, which is now organising all the more furiously the desperate resistance against the proletariat. (page 426)