Quotes

This is a state of the Paris Commune type, one in which a standing army and police divorced from the people are replaced by the direct arming of the people themselves. It is this feature that constitutes the very essence of the Commune, which has been so misrepresented and slandered by the bourgeois writers, and to which has been erroneously ascribed, among other things, the intention of immediately “introducing” socialism.

This is a state of the Paris Commune type, one in which a standing army and police divorced from the people are replacedby the direct arming of the people themselves. It is this featurethat constitutes the very essence of the Commune, which has been so misrepresented and slandered by the bourgeois writers, and to which has been erroneously ascribed, among other things, the intention of immediately “introducing” socialism.r

The Defeat of One’s Own Government in the Imperialist War

Imperialism

“Turn Imperialist War Into Civil War”

Lenin: 1917/tasks: WHAT SHOULD BE THE NAME OF OUR PARTY—ONE THAT WILL BE CORRECT SCIENTIFICALLY AND HELP TO CLARIFY THE MIND OF THE PROLETARIAT POLITICALLY?

(Draft Platform for the Proletarian Party)

Formerly progressive, capitalism has become reactionary; it has developed the forces of production to such a degree that mankind is faced with the alternative of going over to Socialism or of suffering years and even decades of armed struggle between the “great powers for the artificial preservation of capitalism by means of colonies, monopolies, privileges and national oppression of every kind.” Lenin Socialism and War

Wars and all their calamities are produced by capitalism, which keeps millions of working people in bondage, sharpens the struggle between nations, and turns the slaves of capital into cannon fodder. A world-wide socialist army of the revolutionary proletariat is alone capable of putting an end to this oppression and enslavement of the masses and to these massacres of slaves in the interests of the slave-owners.

How can a war be accounted for without considering its bearing on the preceding policy of the given state, of the given system of states, the given classes? I repeat: this is a basic point which is constantly overlooked. Failure to understand it makes nine-tenths of all war discussions mere wrangling, so much verbiage. We say: if you have not studied the policies of both belligerent groups over a period of decades so as to avoid accidental factors and the quoting of random examples if you have not shown what bearing this war has on preceding policies, then you don’t understand what this war is all about.

The millions of victims who will fall in the war, and as a consequence of the war, will not fall in vain. The millions who are starving, the millions who are sacrificing their lives in the trenches, are not only suffering, they are also gathering strength, are pondering over the real cause of the war, are becoming more determined and are acquiring a clearer revolutionary understanding. Rising discontent of the masses, growing ferment, strikes, demonstrations, protests against the war—all this is taking place in all countries of the world. And this is the guarantee that the European War will be followed by the proletarian revolution against capitalism.

14. As regards the national question, the proletarian party first of all must advocate the proclamation and immediate realisation of complete freedom of secession from Russia for all the nations and peoples who were oppressed by tsarism, or who were forcibly joined to, or forcibly kept within the boundaries of, the state, i.e., annexed. All statements, declarations and manifestos concerning renunciation of annexations that are not accompanied by the realisation of the right of secession in practice, are nothing but bourgeois deception of the people, or else pious petty-bourgeois wishes. The proletarian party strives to create as large a state as possible, for this is to the advantage of the working people; it strives to drawnations closer together, and bring about their further fusion; but it desires to achieve this aim not by violence, but exclusively through a free fraternal union of the workers and the working people of all nations. The more democratic the Russian republic, and the more successfully it organises itself into a Republic of Soviets of Workers’ and Peasants’ Deputies, the more powerful will be the force of voluntaryattraction to such a republic on the part of the working people of allnations. Complete freedom of secession, the broadest local (and national) autonomy, and elaborate guarantees of the rights of national minorities—this is the programme of the revolutionary proletariat.

Anarchism is a product of despair. The psychology of the unsettled intellectual or the vagabond and not of the proletarian.

The fight against the Black Hundreds is an excellent type of military action, which will train the soldiers of the revolutionary army, give them their baptism of fire, and at the same time be of tremendous benefit to the revolution. Revolutionary army groups must at once find out who organises the Black Hundreds and where and how they are organised, and then, without confining themselves to propaganda (which is useful, but inadequate) they must act with armed force, beat up and kill the members of the Black-Hundred gangs, blow up their headquarters, etc., etc.

The logic of the crisis of overaccumulation is explained through the model of the cyclical nature of capitalist development.  In general, there are laws for the fall of the average rate of profit.  But this should not be taken literally.  The average rate of profit does not fall linearly, it is subject to cyclicity. This means that at certain historical stages the rate of profit may rise, while at other periods it may fall.  Why can it rise in a short span of time?  This is due to the introduction of new technologies in capitalist production.  In conditions of a deep crisis, capitalism seeks to master a new technology that will increase labor productivity.  Those who can master technology before the rest and introduce it into production will receive additional advantages relative to their competitors.  Capitalism begins industrial expansion, leading to an increase in investment in fixed capital.  Those industries in which new technologies are being introduced give the largest profitability to the largest investor, stimulating the influx of new investments into the industry.  Since capitalism is a collection of disparate producers, each of which focuses only on its own personal profit, it is not interested in the state of the system as a whole – at some point, the problem of overaccumulation arises. That is, there is so much capital that the products made with the use of this capital do not find their realization, i.e., effective demand is not able to digest the entire volume of products produced.  The problem of overaccumulation arises, the rate of return begins to stagnate and even fall. And this starts a new cycle of searching for new technology for investors who try to overcome the problems of overaccumulation with its help.

In 1976, corporations became eligible for unlimited donations to political parties. The number of lobbying committees began to grow, in 1974 there were 89 of them, by 1982 there were 1467. The assets of public companies and state organizations were freely transferred to private hands. For example, in pharmacology, many studies were funded by the National Institutes of Health. In 1978, some companies received the rights to free use of patents for related developments.

Dictatorship of the Proletariat

The world’s social-patriots think they are defending their country. They are mistaken they are defending the interests of one band of capitalists against another. We preach proletarian revolution the only true cause, for which scores of people have gone to the scaffold, and hundreds and thousands have been thrown into prison. These imprisoned socialists are a minority, but the working class is for them, the whole course of economic development is for them. All this tells us that there is no other way out. The only way to end this war is by a workers’ revolution in several countries. In the meantime we should make preparations for that revolution, we should assist it. For all its hatred of war and desire for peace, the Russian people could do nothing against the war, so long as it was being waged by the tsar, except work for a revolution against the tsar and for the tsar’s overthrow.

"A slave who is aware of his servile position and fights against it is a revolutionary. A slave who is unaware of his slavery and vegetates in a silent, unconscious and wordless slave life is simply a slave. A slave who salivates when he complacently describes the delights of slave life and admires a kind and good master is a slave, a cad." V.I. Lenin, "In memory of Count Heyden". // PSS vol.16 p.40

Every month brings the world proletarian revolution nearer.

Eugene Debs, the American Bebel, who enjoys immense popularity among the American workers, say: “I’d rather be shot than give a cent towards the war. I’m willing to fight only the proletariat’s war against the capitalists all over the world.”

War is a continuation of policy by other means. When the French revolutionary townspeople and revolutionary peasants overthrew the monarchy at the close of the eighteenth century by revolutionary means and established a democratic republic when they made short work of their monarch, and short work of their landowners, too, in a revolutionary fashion that policy of the revolutionary class was bound to shake all the rest of autocratic, tsarist, imperial, and semi-feudal Europe to its foundations.

The tens of millions of dead and maimed left by the war—a war to decide whether the British or German group of financial plunderers is to receive the most booty—and those two “peace treaties,” are with unprecedented rapidity opening the eyes of the millions and tens of millions of people who are downtrodden, oppressed, deceived and duped by the bourgeoisie. Thus, out of the universal ruin caused by the war a world-wide revolutionary crisis is arising which, however prolonged and arduous its stages may be, cannot end otherwise than in a proletarian revolution and in its victory.

An oppressed class which does not strive to learn to use arms, to acquire arms, only deserves to be treated like slaves. We cannot, unless we have become bourgeois pacifists or opportunists, forget that we are living in a class society from which there is no way out, nor can there be, save through the class struggle.

They will say to their sons: “You will soon be grown up. You will be given a gun. Take it and learn the military art properly. The proletarians need this knowledge not to shoot your brothers, the workers of other countries, as is being done in the present war, and as the traitors to socialism are telling you to do. They need it to fight the bourgeoisie of their own country, to put an end to exploitation, poverty and war, and not by pious wishes, but by defeating and disarming the bourgeoisie.”