Lenin's attitude to the revolution. II
II. Lenin - the organizer of the October Revolution
But Lenin was not only a brilliant thinker, a brilliant theoretician. In Lenin we see the clearest manifestation of another feature that distinguishes precisely the proletarian leader and the proletarian revolutionary. It is the ability to combine theory and practice.
This was most clearly manifested during the revolution of 1917. As soon as the February Revolution broke out, Lenin hurried here from exile. He develops a strategic plan for the revolution in the famous April Theses.
But Lenin is not limited to this. The greatest thinker, who has labored at the highest heights of theory, working out questions of philosophy, agrarian questions, studying history, reworking vast materials on the history of revolutionary movements - when the hour of struggle has come, he rushes into the very thick of this struggle. He directly leads the party at all stages of the transition from the February Revolution to the October Revolution.
In the April theses, Lenin states that the task is to pass from the first stage of the revolution, which gave power to the bourgeoisie, to the second stage, which should put power in the hands of the proletariat and the poorest part of the peasantry. Lenin declares that the only way out of the war can be found by revolutionary means, only by overthrowing the power of the capitalists and landowners. He says that in order to fulfill its task the proletariat must create a republic of Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies. Moreover, it establishes a concise program of the measures that must be carried out on the day after the revolution.
But at the same time, he warns the party that the task at this first stage of the revolution is to explain to the working people the counter-revolutionary nature of the Provisional Government, to convince them that neither peace nor bread can be obtained from the Provisional Government, from the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries, it is impossible to obtain land for the working people. peasants.
When some comrades try to throw out the slogan “Down with the Provisional Government” during the July demonstration, Lenin rejects this slogan, harshly criticizing them, arguing that the time has not come for this, that our task now is a propaganda, agitational, organizational task.
Time passes, the revolution advances. Under the leadership of Lenin, the Party tirelessly works to mobilize the masses for the socialist revolution. After the July days, when the counter-revolutionary face of Kerenskyism and the Kornilovites is clearly revealed before the masses, when it becomes clear to the working people that the Kerensky and Kornilovites are stranglers of the revolution, that they are restoring and maintaining the former order, that the peasants cannot get land from them, that the workers cannot to wait for them to improve their situation, especially since there can be no peace when peasant uprisings begin to flare up in the countryside, when the workers of St. Petersburg and Moscow cast aside the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries, and the Bolsheviks gain a majority in the soviets of Moscow and in the soviets of Petrograd— then Lenin declares that a fundamental turning point has come in the revolution, that Bolsheviks need to take state power.
He convinces the Party that the peaceful period of the development of the revolution has passed, that it is now impossible to take power by peaceful means, that power can be taken only by overthrowing the government of the bourgeoisie and the landowners.
But Lenin does not confine himself to establishing this position, he agitates, incites the party to this. As events progress Lenin appears before us as a leader, as the direct leader of the October uprising itself..
And here, with all his strength, with all his passion, his entire revolutionary temperament unfolds. He not only states that a certain turning point of the revolution has come, when it is necessary to go to the overthrow of the Kerensky government, but he determines the time frame for the uprising, he convinces the party that now the military question is next in line, that the political question has grown into a military question. He convinces that it is necessary to take up the organizational and technical preparations for the uprising.
Here, in this question, in this point, at this turning point, we see Lenin in exactly the same way as a theoretician, combining theory with deed, as a revolutionary fighter, an organizer of the masses.
In order to correctly orient and lead the Party to the forthcoming insurrection, Lenin uses all the experience of previous revolutions, uses everything written by Marx and Engels on the questions of insurrections.
In his article "Marxism and Insurrection", in his letters to the Central Committee, Lenin unfolds to the Party the basic principles by which the Party must be guided in preparing and carrying out an insurrection. He says that insurrection is an art, that one cannot play with an insurrection, that, having decided on an insurrection, one must go to the end. He convinces the party that it is necessary to gather decisive forces for carrying out the uprising at the decisive point of the revolution, in order to attack the enemy with these forces, he says that retreat is the death of an armed uprising. And while developing these general propositions of Marxism-Leninism, Lenin at the same time applied them specifically to Russian peculiarities, to the peculiarities of the then situation in St. Petersburg and Moscow.
“... a simultaneous, possibly more sudden and rapid attack on Peter, without fail, from the outside, and from the inside, and from the workers' quarters, and from Finland, and from Revel, from Kronstadt, the offensive Total fleet, accumulation gigantic advantage forces over 15 - 20 thousand (and maybe more) of our "bourgeois guard" (junkers), our "Vandean troops" (part of the Cossacks), etc.
Combine our three main forces: fleet, workers and military units in such a way that they will certainly be occupied and at a cost any loss were kept: a) telephone, b) telegraph, a) railway stations, d) bridges in the first place.
Highlight most resolute elements (our "drummers" and working youth, as well as the best sailors) into small detachments for them to occupy all the most important points and for participation them everywhere, in all important operations, e.g.:
Surround and cut off Peter, take it with a combined attack of the fleet, workers and troops - such is the task that requires art and triple courage.
Form detachments of the best workers with rifles and bombs for the offensive and encirclement of the "centers" of the enemy (junker schools, telegraph and telephone, etc.) with the slogan: to die for everyone, but not to miss the rejection”(Lenin, vol. XXI, p. 320).
He convinces not only the members of the Central Committee, but writes a letter to the St. Petersburg organization of the Bolsheviks and the Moscow organization of the Bolsheviks, writes to Helsingfors, developing a concrete plan of the uprising in front of these organizations, demanding its technical preparation, demanding the allocation of headquarters, demanding that the workers of the organization be sent to the bottom , to workers' quarters, to factories, to barracks to prepare an uprising.
At the same time, Lenin, in his letters to the Central Committee, where the line of armed insurrection was consistently and resolutely pursued by his comrade-in-arms, Comrade Stalin, falls upon the vacillators, the strikebreakers, who chickened out at this decisive moment.
It is known how Lenin branded the strikebreakers Kamenev and Zinoviev during the days of the October Revolution.
Lenin brilliantly foresaw that things were heading for a decisive turning point, that therefore a truly iron discipline was needed, that no hesitation was allowed, because the political question had grown into a military question.
Lenin not only determines the general term for the uprising, he not only draws up the plan for the uprising, he also indicates the very moment of the uprising. He fights against those who, along with Trotsky, believed that it was necessary to wait for the Congress of Soviets, branding this policy of waiting as "parliamentary cretinism."
He convinces us that we must immediately seize the initiative and go over to the offensive. On the eve of the uprising, Lenin wrote to the Central Committee:
“It is necessary that all districts, all regiments, all forces mobilize immediately and immediately send a delegation to the Military Revolutionary Committee, to the Central Committee of the Bolsheviks, urgently demanding: in no case should power be left in the hands of Kerensky and company until the 25th, in no way ; decide the case tonight without fail in the evening or at night.
History will not forgive the revolutionaries who could win today (and will certainly win today) at the risk of losing a lot tomorrow, at the risk of losing everything. Lenin, vol. XXI, p. 362).
Subsequent history showed how right Vladimir Ilyich was when he said that tomorrow would be too late. It is now known that Kerensky and the Provisional Government were preparing an attack on Smolny just for October 25, preparing to destroy the headquarters of the October Revolution.
It was precisely the timely transition to the offensive - on the instructions of Lenin and Stalin - by the Military Revolutionary Committee, the capture of all the most important points that wrested the initiative from the enemies, made it possible to act according to the plan that had been written by Lenin, and to carry out the October coup.
And the day after the October Revolution, having proposed at the Congress of Soviets his decrees on peace, on land, on the power of the soviets - decrees that sounded like an alarm bell throughout the country and the whole world - Lenin at the moment when the threat of an offensive from Kerensky was revealed , he himself goes to the headquarters of the Military Revolutionary Committee, negotiates with Helsingfors, with the workers of Kronstadt, extracts detachments from there, gives disposition to destroyers on the Neva, detachments of sailors and workers.
He directs the supply and offensive of the revolutionary detachments. And only thanks to his tireless energy, only thanks to his plan, his foresight, which he discovered, only thanks to his genius - the party at the decisive moment led the working masses to storm, won victory and thus opened a new era in world history.
Lenin (Ulyanov) Vladimir Ilyich (born April 22, 1870, died January 21, 1924) - the greatest genius of mankind, the successor of the work and teachings of Marx and Engels, the founder of Bolshevism, the founder and leader of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and the Communist International, organizer and leader of the first dictatorship of the proletariat in the history of the state, leader, teacher and friend of the working people of the whole world. Never since Marx has the history of the liberation movement of the proletariat brought forward such a gigantic figure as Lenin. Lenin's entire life was an example of an uncompromising struggle against the enemies of the people for the happiness of all working people. Lenin was born on April 22 (10), 1870 in Simbirsk (now Ulyanovsk). His father, Ilya Nikolaevich Ulyanov, was a teacher, school inspector, and then director of public schools. Lenin's older brother, the revolutionary Alexander Ilyich, was executed in 1887 for participating in the preparation of the assassination attempt on Alexander III. After graduating from high school in 1887, Lenin entered the law faculty of Kazan University.
A few months later, he was expelled for active participation in student unrest, arrested and deported to a village near Kazan. (Later, in 1891, Lenin, after self-training, passed all the exams for the faculty of law at St. Petersburg University.) After staying in the countryside for about a year, Lenin returned to Kazan, began to study Marx's Capital, and entered the Marxist revolutionary circle. In May 1889, Lenin moved to Samara, where he organized the first Marxist circle. Even then, Lenin amazed everyone with his profound knowledge of Marxism. In 1893 he moved to St. Petersburg. Here in 1894 he wrote his brilliant work "What are the "friends of the people" and how do they fight against the Social Democrats?".
In it, Lenin defeated the Narodniks, pointed to the leading role (hegemony) of the Russian working class in the struggle against tsarism and capitalism, for a victorious communist revolution, and for the first time put forward the idea of a revolutionary alliance of workers and peasants as the main means of overthrowing tsarism, the landowners, and the bourgeoisie. Lenin saw that a proletarian party was needed to carry out these tasks. In 1895, he created the St. Petersburg Union of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class, the germ of a revolutionary proletarian party in Russia. In December 1895, Lenin was arrested, imprisoned, and. then in 1897 he was exiled to Siberia, to the village of Shushenskoye, Minusinsk district, where N. K. Krupskaya went into exile.
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| V.I. Lenin in his student years. |
When the revolution began in Russia in 1905, Lenin directed all the work of the Bolsheviks in leading the masses in the revolution. With his immortal work "Two Tactics of Social Democracy in a Democratic Revolution", Lenin enriched Marxism with a new theory of socialist revolution, he developed the theory of the development of the bourgeois-democratic revolution into a socialist revolution, laid the tactical foundations of the Bolshevik party. Lenin mercilessly exposed the Mensheviks and the most vile of them - Trotsky, who instilled in the workers distrust in the forces of the working class, was opposed to the alliance of workers and peasants, and led the cause to disrupt the revolution.In order to directly lead the struggle of the working class in the revolution, Lenin returned to Russia in November 1905. Soon after, at the Tammerfors Conference of the Bolsheviks, Lenin met for the first time with Stalin, who was then leading the revolutionary struggle in Transcaucasia.
After the defeat of the first Russian revolution, Lenin was forced to go abroad again in 1907, where he stayed for more than 9 years. In the difficult years of the Stolypin reaction, in the midst of the decline of the labor movement, the flight of intellectuals from the party, and the attempts of the Mensheviks to liquidate the party, Lenin gathered the forces of the party in the struggle against anti-party trends in the labor movement. Lenin, fighting against the revisionists, degenerates in the field of Marxist theory, wrote his famous book Materialism and Empirio-Criticism. In this work, he defended the theoretical foundations of the Marxist party. Under the leadership of Lenin, the Bolsheviks convened the Prague Conference in January 1912, at which they expelled the Mensheviks from the party and took shape in a separate independent Bolshevik party. With the beginning of a new upsurge in the labor movement and the publication of the newspaper Pravda, in June 1912 Lenin moved from Paris to Krakow, closer to the border, in order to directly supervise all the work of the party. When the imperialist war began, Lenin was arrested by the Austrian police and was in prison for 11 days, and then went to Switzerland, where he lived until the February Revolution of 1917.
Lenin sharply and uncompromisingly opposed the war, exposing its predatory character. He called for turning the imperialist war into a civil one and put forward the slogan of defeating "his" governments in the imperialist war. Lenin exposed the betrayal of the leaders of the Second International, who, with the outbreak of the imperialist war, had gone over to the service of the bourgeoisie and became supporters of the war. He also exposed the latent social chauvinists - the so-called centrists - Kautsky, Trotsky and other traitors to Marxism who defended the interests of the imperialist bourgeoisie. From the very first days of the war, Lenin began to gather forces for the creation of a new, Third International. During the war (1916), Lenin wrote the book "Imperialism, as the Highest Stage of Capitalism", in which he gave the deepest Marxist analysis of imperialism. Based on his theory of imperialism, Lenin scientifically substantiated the possibility of the victory of socialism in one country and the impossibility of the simultaneous victory of socialism in all countries After the overthrow of the autocracy in February 1917, Lenin, despite the opposition of the imperialist governments, returned to Russia. Arriving in Petrograd on April 3, he was enthusiastically received by the working masses, who saw him as their leader. On April 4, at a meeting of Bolsheviks, Lenin announced his famous April theses, in which he outlined the brilliant plan of the party's struggle for the transition from the bourgeois-democratic revolution to the socialist revolution, putting forward the slogan: “All power to the Soviets.” On the basis of this plan, the Bolsheviks launched militant work to prepare socialist revolutions.
After the July days, the Provisional Government ordered the arrest of Lenin. The bourgeoisie, who madly hated Lenin, and their Mennevist-Socialist-Revolutionary agents decided to kill him. The Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries, together with Trotsky, Kamenev, and Rykov, insisted on handing over Lenin to the authorities. Stalin insisted that Lenin go into hiding and leave Petrograd. While underground, Lenin continued to lead the party. During these days he wrote his remarkable book The State and Revolution, in which he further developed Marx's teaching on the dictatorship of the proletariat. In September 1917, in view of the enormous growth of Bolshevik influence among the masses, Lenin indicated that the uprising was ripe.
On October 7, Lenin returned to Petrograd, and on October 10, the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party, after Lenin's report, adopted his resolution on an armed uprising. On October 24, the Central Committee gave the signal for an uprising. Lenin became the head of the uprising. Together with Lenin, the victory of the October Socialist Revolution was organized by his faithful ally, Stalin. Under the banner of Lenin, the working class won the Great October Socialist Revolution. The Second Congress of Soviets enthusiastically adopted the historic decrees on peace and land written by Lenin and formed the world's first workers' and peasants' government - the Council of People's Commissars headed by Lenin. Under Lenin's leadership, the Bolshevik Party and the Soviet Government achieved the respite needed to strengthen the Soviet Republic by making peace with Germany and defeating the Trotskyist-Bukharinite provocateurs of the war. Lenin built the Soviet state with a firm hand, suppressing the resistance of the overthrown classes - the bourgeoisie and the landowners. More than once the enemies of the people attempted on the life of Lenin. On August 30, 1918, Lenin was seriously wounded by a terrorist Social Revolutionary. This villainous attempt was organized with the complicity of Trotsky and Bukharin.
In the most difficult conditions, Lenin led the struggle of the workers and peasants for Soviet power and the independence of our homeland, against foreign interventionists and the White Guard hordes, and, directly leading the country's defense, hand in hand with Stalin, organized the victory of the Red Army in the civil war. Under the leadership of Lenin, the workers and peasants liquidated the class of landowners, crushed the bourgeoisie, dealt a cruel blow to the kulaks. In the struggle against the enemies of the working class, in 1919 Lenin created the combat headquarters of the world working-class movement, the Communist International, and led the first congresses of the Comintern, where its ideological and organizational foundations were forged. After the end of the civil war, under the leadership of Lenin, the country was transferred to peaceful work, to restore the national economy. The VIII All-Russian Congress of Soviets in December 1920 adopted the Leninist plan for the electrification of the country. Lenin pointed out the paths of the New Economic Policy, which ensured the building of socialism in our country. More than once, Trotskyists, Bukharinites and other traitors, who later became agents of foreign intelligence, tried to undermine the unity of the Bolshevik Party and force it to deviate from the Leninist path.
Each time, under the leadership of Lenin, the Bolshevik Party dealt cruel blows to these agents of the class enemy in their ranks. At the suggestion of Lenin, the party adopted at the Tenth Congress in 1921 a resolution on the unity of the party - an iron law for the protection of the unity of the Bolshevik ranks.
Lenin's injury during the attempt on his life in 1918 and continuous hard work undermined his health. Beginning in 1922, Lenin was forced to interrupt his work more and more often. November 20, 1922 Lenin spoke at the plenum of the Moscow Soviet. This was his last speech, which he ended with the words: "out of NEP Russia there will be socialist Russia." At the end of 1922, Lenin fell seriously ill. But even during his illness, he did not stop working for the benefit of the revolution, to which he devoted all his strength, his whole life. Being already seriously ill, Lenin wrote a number of important articles (“Pages from a Diary”), in which he summed up the work done and outlined a plan for building socialism in our country. On January 21, 1924, at 6:50 pm, Lenin died. The working people of the USSR and the whole world, with the deepest sorrow, saw off their father and teacher, best friend and protector, Lenin, to the grave. The working class and peasantry of the Soviet country responded to Lenin's death by even greater rallying around the Leninist party. The banner of Lenin was raised high and carried on by the Bolshevik Party. Faithful successor and great continuer of the work and teachings of Lenin - Stalin in the days of mourning Lenin, on behalf of the Bolshevik Party, took a great oath at the Second Congress of Soviets of the USSR - to fulfill, sparing no effort, Lenin's precepts. The Bolshevik Party fulfilled this great oath of Stalin with honor. Under the leadership of Stalin, the Bolsheviks achieved the victory of socialism in the Soviet country.
Lenin - the greatest statesman and political figure in the history of mankind, a powerful leader and organizer of the revolutionary struggle and victories of the working class, his brilliant theoretician, the coryphaeus of science - in the new conditions of the era of imperialism and the proletarian revolution raised the revolutionary theory of Marx to the highest level. Lenin's teaching summarizes the gigantic experience of the proletariat in its struggle to overthrow the capitalist system and to build a new, socialist society. The richest theoretical heritage of Lenin is invaluable. Lenin's most important works have been translated into all the major languages of the world.
Marxism-Leninism illuminates for the proletarians and working people of the whole world the path of struggle for the abolition of all exploitation, for the happiness of mankind.
Listen to the poem Vladimir Ilyich Lenin Part 1:
Mayakovsky V.V. 1925
Listen to the poem Vladimir Ilyich Lenin Part 2:
Mayakovsky V.V. 1925
FROM THE BIOGRAPHICAL CHRONICLE OF VI LENIN. PERSONAL EVENTS
1870, 10 (22) April. Born in Simbirsk in the family of the inspector of public schools I.N.Ulyanov and the daughter of the doctor M.A.Ulyanova, nee Blank. He is their fourth child.
1886, 12 (24) January. Death of Ilya Nikolaevich Ulyanov from a cerebral hemorrhage. 15 (27) January. Participates in the funeral of his father. September 19 (October 1). Approval by the Simbirsk District Court of the inheritance rights to the movable property of I.N. Ulyanova - M.A. Ulyanova in one fourth part, daughters Olga and Maria in one eighth part and sons Alexander, Vladimir and Dmitry in one sixth part.
1887, 8 (20) May. In the courtyard of the Shlisselburg prison, A.I. Ulyanov, convicted in the case of the attempt on Alexander III, was executed along with four associates.
June 10 (22). The Pedagogical Council of the Simbirsk Gymnasium awards V.I. Ulyanov a certificate of maturity and awards him a gold medal. August 10 (22). The director of the Simbirsk gymnasium, F.M. Kerensky, sends to Kazan University the characteristics of those who graduated from the gymnasium; among them is the characteristic of V.I. Ulyanov.
11 (23) August. F. M. Kerensky sends the list of students who have graduated from the VIII grade and have “moral maturity” to the manager of the Kazan educational district; V.I. Ulyanov was named among them.
4 (16) December. Participates in a student meeting at Kazan University, organized in support of student protests that began in Moscow against the reactionary university charter. Hands over his entrance ticket to the university.
December 5 (17). He writes a petition to the rector of Kazan University to expel him from the number of students due to the inability to continue his education under the existing conditions of university life.
1889, January-February. M.A. Ulyanova acquires with the money received from the sale of a house in Simbirsk, a small farm in the Samara province of Bogdanovskaya volost near the village of Alapaevka.
November 15 (27). The test committee of the Faculty of Law of St. Petersburg University awards V.I. Ulyanov, after passing the external exams, a diploma of the first degree.
1894, end of February. He meets N.K. Krupskaya in St. Petersburg at the apartment of engineer Klasson during a meeting of St. Petersburg Marxists.
1898, 8 (20) January. He asks in a telegram to the director of the police department to allow his fiancee N.K. Krupskaya to serve a link in the village of Shushenskoye.
7 (19) June. Reported by M.A. Ulyanova about the postponement of the wedding with N.K. Krupskaya due to the lack of the necessary documents. Early July. The Police Department puts forward as a condition for living with N.K. Krupskaya in Shushenskoye the immediate conclusion of a church marriage with her.
1909. V.I.Lenin and N.K.Krupskaya get acquainted with I.F.Armand during her arrival from Brussels to Paris.
1915, beginning of March. The death in Switzerland of the mother of N.K. Krupskaya - Elizaveta Vasilievna.
March 10 (23). Participates with N.K. Krupskaya in the funeral of her mother at the Bremgarten cemetery in Bern (Switzerland).
1916, 12 (25) July. The death of the mother - Maria Alexandrovna Ulyanova in Petrograd at the age of 82. V.I. Lenin learns about this in Zurich (Switzerland).
1917, April 4 (17). Upon arrival from Switzerland, he visits the graves of his mother, Maria Alexandrovna, and his sister, Olga Ilyinichna, at the Volkovo cemetery in Petrograd.
1919, March 13. Takes part in the funeral of M.T. Elizarov, the husband of her elder sister, A.I. Ulyanova-Yelizarova, at the Volkovo Cemetery in Petrograd.
1922, April 23. Professor N. Rozanov in the Botkin hospital in Moscow extracts a bullet from the body of V.I. Lenin, with which he was wounded on August 30, 1918. The end of May. General weakness, loss of speech, a sharp weakening of the movement of the right limbs, which lasted three weeks. December 16th. Second cerebral hemorrhage. Paralysis of the right arm and right leg.
1923, March 10. Third cerebral hemorrhage. Severe paralysis of the right half of the body and loss of speech.
March 14th. A government report is published, which indicates that the state of health of V.I. Lenin was followed by a significant deterioration, in view of which the government recognized the need to establish the publication of medical bulletins about his state of health.
1924, January 21. The fourth hemorrhage in the brain in the region of the quadrigemina. The death of V.I. Lenin at 6:50 p.m. in Gorki near Moscow.
January 27th. The sarcophagus with the body of V.I. Lenin is installed in the Mausoleum on Red Square in Moscow.
PUBLIC POSTS HELD BY V.I. LENIN
1917, night of 26 to 27 October. Elected by the II All-Russian Congress of Soviets as head of the Soviet government - Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars.
1918, beginning of July. The 5th All-Russian Congress of Soviets adopts the Constitution of the RSFSR, which clarifies the status of the post of Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars, which is occupied by V.I. Lenin. November 30th. At the plenary meeting of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies, the Council of Workers' and Peasants' Defense is approved, the Council is given full rights in the matter of mobilizing the country's forces and means for its defense. V.I. Lenin is approved as the Chairman of the Council.
1920, April. The Council of Workers' and Peasants' Defense is transformed into the Council of Labor and Defense (STO) of the RSFSR under the chairmanship of V.I. Lenin.
1923, 6 July. The session of the Central Executive Committee elects V.I. Lenin as chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR. July 7th The session of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the RSFSR elects V.I. Lenin as chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR. July 17th. The Council of Labor and Defense under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR is being created under the chairmanship of V.I. Lenin.
CONGRESSES OF THE PARTY HELD UNDER THE SOVIET AUTHORITY WITH THE PARTICIPATION OF V.I. LENINA
1918, March 6–8. VII emergency congress of the party. Questions about the revision of the Party Program, about the new name of the party - RCP(b). The controversy about the Brest peace.
1919, March 18–23. VIII Party Congress. VI Lenin delivers a report to the Central Committee on the work in the countryside, on the military issue. Adoption of the second Party Program.
1920, March 29 - April 5. IX Party Congress. The immediate tasks of economic construction and the question of cooperation were discussed.
1921, March 8–16 X Party Congress. Questions about the replacement of apportionment by taxes in kind, about the unity of the Party. Adoption of the NEP.
1922, March 27 - April 2. XI Party Congress. In the report of the Central Committee, V.I. Lenin declares that the retreat is over, that the alliance between the working class and the peasantry is being strengthened. Thesis: "who - whom."
Source of information: A.A. Dantsev. Rulers of Russia: XX century. Rostov-on-Don, publishing house "Phoenix", 2000.
On this day, April 22, 1870, Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, better known as Lenin, was born. His whole life and work became a myth, or rather, were turned into a myth. Under Soviet power, we lived in the atmosphere of the myth about Lenin, but with the fall of Soviet power, this myth began to collapse. Today, the Leninist myth is experiencing a renaissance.
According to VTsIOM data for 2016, to the question “Lenin does you rather like or rather dislike?” 63% expressed sympathy and 24% dislike.
Recently, a reconstruction of the 1917 revolution was staged near our house. There were revolutionary soldiers and sailors, and Lenin in an armored car. Having plunged into the events of a hundred years ago, I could not help but ask the reenactors about their attitude towards Lenin and the world revolution.
Petersburg is literally permeated with the myth of Lenin.
I was born in Leningrad, on Obukhovskaya Oborony Avenue, and lived for thirty years on Krupskaya Street. There are still houses where Nadezhda Konstantinovna held Sunday meetings of factory workers. Walking around the city, you will inevitably see a monument or memorial plaque dedicated to Lenin. “Here every stone of Lenin knows…” Mayakovsky wrote. Even in the new buildings where I now live next to the Prospekt Bolshevikov metro station, there are Kollontai, Dybenko, Krylenko, Antonov-Ovseenko and other Bolshevik streets.
As a child, like all Soviet people, I lived in the atmosphere of the myth of Lenin. In the kindergarten, the ever-living Ilyich looked at us from the portraits. The first thing I learned by heart at school were the words of Lenin, posted at the entrance: "Study, study and study again."
For good study and active work, I was repeatedly awarded books. One of them was the book by Zoya Voskresenskaya about Lenin "Bonfires".
Like everyone else, I was at first an October child, then a pioneer, then a member of the Komsomol. Someone was accepted as a pioneer on the cruiser "Author", someone in the Museum of the Revolution.
When joining the Komsomol, we were required to know Lenin's work "The Tasks of Youth Unions." I still remember many of the theses of Lenin's works by heart.
"You can become a communist only when you enrich your memory with the knowledge of the riches that mankind has developed."
“It is necessary that the whole matter of education, education, the study of modern youth should be the education in them of communist morality.”
We were taken to films about Lenin, to theaters to performances about Lenin, the whole class was taken to the opening of a new monument to Lenin. For extracurricular reading, we read "Mother's Heart" by the writer Zoya Voskresenskaya. We were told how Ilyich loved children and animals, how once he saved hares. In fact, the hares themselves jumped into the boat, fleeing the flood, and Lenin jammed them with an oar.
We were given Lenin as an example. For some reason, I especially remember the Society of Clean Plates. In high school, we studied Gorky's essay "Lenin" and Mayakovsky's poem. I remember the lines: “Lenin is now more alive than all the living. Our knowledge is power and weapon.” “I cleanse myself under Lenin in order to sail further into the revolution.”
When I was resting in a pioneer camp, we were taken on an excursion to Razliv, where Lenin was hiding. And now, when I go by train to Sestroretsk, the announcer announces: "Spill, the memorial museum of V.I. Lenin."
In the school drama circle, with great enthusiasm, I read the poem “Lenin and the stove-maker” by Alexander Tvardovsky from the stage. For success in my studies and amateur performances, I was presented with the book “Life is like a torch” about Alexander Ulyanov. The conclusion suggested itself from the book: the execution of his brother made Vladimir an avenger of the tsarist regime. The words "We will go the other way" remained in me forever.
Lenin made a great impression on me. The power of his intellect, conviction, spiritual independence, self-sufficiency in studies encouraged him to take an example from this person. His faith in his mission, loyalty to the idea and dedication inspired. I told younger schoolchildren about Ilyich's childhood, for which I was awarded the "Excellent student of Lenin's test" badge.
Volodya Ulyanov graduated from the Simbirsk gymnasium with a gold medal. The only four - logically - was given to him by the director of the gymnasium Fyodor Kerensky (father of the future minister of the interim government).
Lenin was a proud and ambitious man, and perhaps his attitude towards Minister A.F. Kerensky in 1917 was in the nature of personal rivalry.
Of all the films about Lenin that were endlessly shown on television, the film "July 6" made the greatest impression on me - about the attempted coup of the Left SRs in 1918. "The most humane man" seemed to me the most humane.
We were convinced: “Lenin lived, Lenin is alive, Lenin will live…”
"Lenin is always alive, Lenin is always with you -
In sorrow, in hope and joy.
Lenin in your spring
Every happy day
Lenin in you and in me!”
While serving in the Northern Fleet, I read a lot, studied the biography of Lenin, and then joined the party. After perestroika, he did not throw away his party card, as some did.
The fact that the married Lenin also had a mistress, Inessa Armand, I learned after perestroika. 
After the service, I entered the law faculty of St. Petersburg University, passing the exams with all fives.
Vladimir Ulyanov also graduated from the Faculty of Law, having passed the exams as an external student. The university preserved a picture of this historical event.
Having become a certified lawyer, Ulyanov got a job as an assistant to a barrister. Out of 16 cases, only 3 were won.
According to experts, Lenin's work "The Development of Capitalism in Russia" sins with numerous errors.
The leader of the world proletariat had about 150 pseudonyms. The most famous - Lenin - he took from his cousin Nikolai Yegorovich Lenin, on whose passport he intended to travel abroad.
The name - Vladimir Ilyich Lenin - is the fruit of Soviet myth-makers. The leader of the world proletariat never signed with this pseudonym. After coming to power, official party and state documents were signed by "V.I. Ulyanov (Lenin)".
According to the memoirs of contemporaries, Lenin was a rare phenomenon of a man of iron will, indomitable energy, merging fanatical faith in movement, in deed, with no less faith in himself. A "nondescript and rude" person, devoid of charm, had a "hypnotic effect."
This unattractive man exuded such inner strength that people quickly forgot about the first impression. The striking effect that the combination of willpower, inexorable discipline, energy, asceticism and unshakable faith in the cause produced in him can only be described by the word "charisma".
“Lenin was obsessed with obsessions,” “he was very authoritarian, very inflexible, did not tolerate disagreement with his opinion,” writes historian Helen Rappaport, author of a book about Lenin. - “Lenin was a cynical opportunist - he changed his party tactics depending on the circumstances and political benefits. Perhaps this was his outstanding talent as a tactician. "He was ruthless and cruel, shamelessly using people for his own ends."
According to the description of Maxim Gorky: "for him, the working class is like ore for a blacksmith."
Perhaps Ilyich's frank leaderism, unshakable confidence in his own rightness and his historical mission, had genetic roots. Ilyich's mother (nee Blank) was from a family of half Germans, half Jews.
“The main practical goal of Lenin’s life was henceforth to achieve a revolution in Russia, regardless of whether the material conditions for new production relations were ripe there or not.
The young man was not embarrassed by what was a stumbling block for other Russian Marxists of that time. Even if Russia lagged behind, he thought, even if its proletariat was weak, even if Russian capitalism had not yet deployed all its productive forces, that was not the point. The main thing is to make a revolution!”
Lenin was a professional revolutionary, and therefore the accomplishment of the revolution was the cause and meaning of his whole life. Power was needed at any cost. Lenin said that there is no morality in politics; Here the end justifies the means. Everything that serves the cause of building communism is moral. “We say that our morality is completely subordinated to the interests of the class struggle of the proletariat. Our morality is derived from the interests of the class struggle of the proletariat.” (vol. 25, pp. 390-391)
When I studied at the law faculty of the university, I subscribed to the complete works of Lenin.
The idea of a world revolution turned out to be a mistake. The proletarian revolution in Russia was a bluff, since in an agricultural country the proletariat made up only about 10 percent.
The fighter for the happiness of the working people Vladimir Ulyanov destroyed the best part of the working people of Russia. Ilyich called the intelligentsia simply - "the shit of the nation."
Why did Lenin embark on the path of forcibly building happiness for people?
Despite the appeals, the proletarians of all countries did not want to unite. But Lenin knew how to admit his mistakes and change his policy. So it was with the NEP, then with the idea of "peaceful coexistence."
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
The desire to create a democracy following the example of the Athenian and a just society like the Platonic state were doomed to failure.
Attempts to build a just society on earth led to the construction of the Gulag. Interfered, as always, human nature. Instincts were stronger than culture.
People do not change, so history repeats itself, developing in a spiral.
Gradually, the image of a heroic person grew into the image of a tragic person.
The revolution, as you know, devours its children. Lenin became its victim. He was destroyed by vanity and a manic desire for absolute power.
Power naturally tends to its absolutization. As a justification for absolute power, the cult of personality appears.
The dragon slayer has become a dragon! The tsarist monarchy was replaced by the "red monarchy" - one king was replaced by another.
They say that in the last months before his death, Ilyich critically assessed what had been done and wanted to change everything. But I did not find understanding and support.
Krupskaya asked not to erect monuments and not to name the streets after the leader. But her companions did not listen to her. “There is a logic of intentions and a logic of circumstances, and the logic of circumstances is always stronger than the logic of intentions,” said I.V. Stalin.
After the death of Lenin, they began to deify him, turned him into a pagan idol. They made a mausoleum, embalmed the body and placed it in a glass sarcophagus.
I visited the mausoleum already in perestroika. The experiment to preserve the body of Ulyanov (Lenin) continues to this day.
Next to the grave of my father in the cemetery of the victims of January 9, there is the grave of Vladimir Lenin. A handsome man in his fifties is looking from the photo.
When will Volodya Ulyanov be buried like a human being?
Previously, they worshiped the incorruptible relics of saints, now they worship the imperishable body of the leader. It is impossible to change the archetypes of consciousness, it is only possible to change the external forms of worship.
Rejecting one religion, the Bolsheviks created their own religion, where Marx was God the father, Lenin was God the son, the apostles were members of the Politburo. Its own "anti-church" was created. They even borrowed sayings from the Gospel: “he who does not work, he does not eat”, “who is not with us is against us”, etc.
It is noted that Lenin had a fanatical faith in the possibility of a revolutionary reorganization of Russia.
“We old people may not live to see the decisive battles of this coming revolution. But I can express the hope that the youth will have the happiness not only to fight, but also to win.” Lenin uttered these words on January 22, 1917 in Zurich. At that moment it seemed to him that the revolutionary movement was almost crushed.
On February 28, Lenin learned from the newspapers about the revolution in Petrograd. Ilyich was confused and did not know how to behave in a new situation. He realized that he had to hurry to Russia, otherwise the revolution would take place without him. But it was impossible to get to Russia through the warring Germany, so that you would not be considered a traitor.
They still argue: is Lenin a savior or a traitor?
The German ambassador to Denmark, Count Brockford-Rantschau, sent a sensational dispatch to Berlin, in which he reported that, in collaboration with Dr. Gelfand (Parvus), he “developed a wonderful plan for organizing a revolution in Russia,” adding at the end of the dispatch: “Victory and subsequent world domination for us, if we manage to revolutionize Russia in time and thereby break up the coalition.”
On March 27, 1917, 32 Bolsheviks led by Lenin arrived at the Zurich railway station to proceed through Germany in a sealed carriage.
Friedrich Platten, who organized the passage of Russian revolutionaries in a “sealed wagon”, assessed the chances of the Bolsheviks as follows: “As fighters, you seem to me to be something like the gladiators of Ancient Rome, entering the arena to meet death. I bow to the strength of your faith in victory."
Winston Churchill wrote: "The Germans transported Lenin from Switzerland to Russia in a sealed wagon like a plague bacillus."
German Foreign Minister Baron von Kuhlmann addressed Kaiser Wilhelm with the following message: "... it is necessary to promote separatist tendencies in every possible way and support the Bolsheviks."
The total amount of money received by the Bolsheviks from the Germans before and after their seizure of power is determined by Professor Fritz Fischer to be eight million marks in gold.
So was Lenin a German spy?
The German General Staff really counted on Lenin's activities in Russia. Deputy Chief of the German General Staff Erich von Ludendorff wrote:
“I have often dreamed of this revolution, which should alleviate the hardships of our war. When my dream came true, a very big burden fell off me. However, I could not have imagined that it would become the grave of our power.”
No one had much hope that Lenin and a handful of revolutionaries would be able to influence the course of events in Russia. The Germans spoke of them like this: "A bunch of fanatics seeking to make the world happy and devoid of any sense of reality."
On April 8, 1917, one of the leaders of German intelligence in Stockholm telegraphed the Foreign Ministry in Berlin: “Lenin's arrival in Russia is successful. It works exactly the way we would like it to."
The Germans wanted to use Lenin to conclude a separate peace with Germany. The Entente wanted to use Lenin against Germany. And Lenin used both Germany and the Entente for his own purposes - to carry out a social revolution.
Historians are still arguing in whose interests the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was concluded. In the interests of an exhausted Germany or in the interests of an exhausted Russia?
We are still in captivity of historical myths about the revolution of 1917.
Everything we were taught in school is at best a half-truth, and sometimes just a lie. Many historical documents have not yet been found or declassified. Perhaps, if they are published, our understanding of the revolution will change.
My grandmother lived in St. Petersburg in 1917 and witnessed revolutionary events. Documents and photographs of those years have been preserved in the home archive.
My grandfather, Nikolai Kofirin, led a detachment of revolutionary workers and soldiers.
To meet Lenin at the Finland Station and the procession that followed her through the streets of Petrograd, 7,000 soldiers were mobilized "along the line". Later, however, the soldiers allegedly doubted the correctness of their ovation to the leader, who passed through hostile Germany.
The triumphant meeting of Lenin at the Finland Station and his performance on an armored car in front of a crowd of thousands is a myth. According to the memoirs of Zinoviev, he and Ilyich got into an armored car and drove to the Kshesinskaya Palace, where the headquarters of the Bolsheviks was located.
In mid-April 1917, the French minister of military supplies, Albert Thomas, arrived in Petrograd. He gave Prince Lvov important information about the connections of the Bolshevik group led by Lenin with numerous German agents. Prince Lvov instructed Nekrasov, Tereshchenko and Kerensky to investigate this matter.
Kerensky ordered the arrest of Lenin as a German spy. Lenin refused to appear in court and hid in Finland at the Razliv station.
At the Udelnaya station, there is still a memorial plaque with an inscription that Lenin illegally left this station on a steam locomotive in Finland, and returned on October 7 to lead an armed uprising.
The capture of the Winter Palace by armed soldiers and sailors also turned out to be a myth. It was no coincidence that Lenin said that "the most important of the arts for us is cinema." Ten years after the revolution, Sergei Eisenstein made the film "October". In the film, from the rostrum of the Second Congress of Soviets, Lenin says: “The workers’ and peasants’ revolution, the need for which the Bolsheviks have been talking all the time, has come to pass!”
However, according to Trotsky's memoirs, Lenin did not appear in the meeting room and did not make speeches, and at 4 o'clock in the morning he went to sleep with the Bonch-Bruevichs.
What kind of "special forces" under the command of Antonov-Ovseenko arrested members of the interim government is still a mystery.
Why is the myth of Lenin experiencing a renaissance today?
Sergey Lvovich Firsov, Doctor of Philosophical Sciences, offered to answer this question. At the Russian Thought seminar at the Russian Christian Academy for the Humanities, he made a presentation on the Leninist myth.
Was a revolution inevitable?
Is a revolution the result of external forces or a consequence of internal causes?
Every revolution is a desperate attempt to resolve painful issues of social life. And those who do not feel these problems and do not try to eliminate them (for example, the most acute property stratification of society), will inevitably find themselves buried under the destructive tornado of the revolution.
What surprises me the most is that a hundred years ago, during the war, people abandoned the monarchy, and now we are being offered to recreate the monarchy, referring to the fact that in the conditions of the war waged against Russia, a monolithic power is needed.
All the talk about the overthrow of totalitarianism in the USSR and the need for democracy eventually led to a proposal to introduce the post of a lifetime presidency. This is exactly what Alexander Fedorovich Kerensky dreamed of - the creation of a presidential republic in Russia with himself at the head.
“Which hell is better: the republic of devils or the autocracy of Satan is difficult to decide. Both are disgusting,” wrote Yevgeny Trubetskoy a hundred years ago.
The archetypes of the subconscious are ineradicable. Our people still have “the king in their heads”. Well, we cannot live without a "monarch", even if he is called "General Secretary" or "President for Life".
As shown by a public opinion poll on March 16-18, 2017, the vast majority of citizens are not ready for the restoration of the monarchy in Russia. 68% of Russians were categorically against autocracy as a form of government.
22% of respondents "in principle are not against the monarchy", but do not see a suitable candidate.
6% of the country's inhabitants know a person who could become the new Russian monarch.
And who is it?
In the issue of the monarchy in Russia, the political technology "Overton Window" is used. First, they offer the public opinion an absurd idea, then they conduct sociological research for its approval, then they suggest that the legislator approve it as a norm, and so on.
Participation in one revolution in 1991 was enough for me to understand how the fighters against privileges and corruption turn into corrupt officials. They are fighting for power, not for the interests of the people!
The problem is that power can be seized. This means that it is necessary to make sure that power is not something that can be illegitimately appropriated. That is, power should not be vertical, but horizontal.
In 1920, in a speech entitled "The Tasks of the Youth Unions", Lenin stated that communism would be built in the years 1930-1940.
For the first time in the history of Russia, workers received the right to old-age pensions. The right to free education and health care was secured. The Cultural Revolution made the masses literate.
But with his solution to the national question, Lenin planted a bomb under Russia, which exploded 70 years later - in 1991, when the USSR collapsed.
No false theory can survive for a long time without its creator, and usually disappears with his death. Only that teaching is omnipotent, which is true. Eternal are only those ideas that are consonant with the thoughts and feelings of living people. After all, if they resonate in the souls of millions, then there is something in these ideas.
According to Doctor of Philosophical Sciences Leonid Polyakov, “today, many of Lenin's ideas are very relevant. For example, criticism of bourgeois democracy as a hidden form of the dictatorship of capital. He wrote: who owns, he rules. In such a situation, ranting about the power of the people is just a hoax. The Leninist theory of imperialism is also relevant, especially with regard to its transition to financial capitalism. This is a self-devouring monster, an economy for the production of money that ends up with the bankers. This is what caused the current global crisis. Read Lenin, he predicted this.”
“Both Lenin and Christ addressed the destitute, the most fallen, called for equality and fraternity, both promised people a bright future - the coming kingdom of freedom. Only one called it communism, and the other the kingdom of heaven. Both of them were repeatedly forced to suffer, were persecuted and persecuted for their beliefs. They sacrificed themselves and tried not for themselves, but the main thing is that they did not have self-interest. Both of them devoted their whole lives to the cause of the liberation of mankind and, in the end, were killed for wanting to make people happy. Only everyone understood happiness in their own way. After all, Christ was for the poor against the rich and advised to distribute his property to the poor in order to follow him.
What they did of Jesus the Nazarene after his death is reminiscent of the fate that befell Vladimir Ulyanov. And what about the inquisition in the form of state security, and the persecution for dissent, and the dogmatization of the doctrine and its transformation into a soulless law that requires unconditional observance, and the emergence of numerous scribes and Pharisees, that is, I wanted to say, ideologists, and the crusades for the sake of the world communist revolution? Isn't there a resemblance?
What is more fair: to take away from a handful of the rich and distribute to the masses of the poor, or to take from the poor in order to distribute to the rich - nationalization or privatization? Maybe the trouble is that Lenin wanted to do it as soon as possible, even using force where necessary. But is it possible to reproach a person for wanting to feed the destitute, to make everyone equal and free? Did he try for himself or wanted to become famous?
(from my novel "Alien Strange Incomprehensible Extraordinary Stranger" on the site New Russian Literature
In the year of the anniversary of the revolution, many doubt: will the memories of the events of a hundred years ago wake up protest activity in Russia?
The general secretary of the Communists of Russia party, Maxim Suraikin, says:
“Theoretically, against the backdrop of a deep socio-economic crisis and increased protest moods, a socialist revolution in 2017 is possible.”
The well-known literary critic, historian and public figure Marietta Omarovna Chudakova believes that the centenary of the 1917 revolution should not go unnoticed. On March 29, 2017, she gave a lecture at the European University in St. Petersburg "What do we not know about 1917?"
I am against revolutions. Any revolution gives rise to confusion, terror and repression. Nobody wants a revolution, except for desperate troublemakers who want to get to power over other people's corpses. But if revolutions do happen, then they are inevitable. And the authorities are primarily to blame for this, since popular indignation is a consequence of the mistakes of the ruling regime.
The German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel said: “History repeats itself twice. The first time in the form of a tragedy, the second - in the form of a farce.
Hegel said that the only thing history teaches is that no one has ever learned anything from it.
History does not teach anything, because people do not change, because instincts are stronger than culture.
Revolutions don't really change anything. The laws of existence cannot be changed by any good wishes. Some rulers replace others, trying to transform something, as they say, “for the better”, but sooner or later everything returns to normal.
Many are asking the question: has the limit on despotism been exhausted in Russia?
When the preservation of personal power becomes more important than the interests of the people and the state, when devotion to power becomes more important than professionalism, then revolutions happen.
On December 28, 2016, Dmitry Travin, an independent and reputable St. Petersburg economist, professor at the European University in St. Petersburg, delivered a lecture on Russia-1917 and Russia-2017 at the St. Petersburg book club Word Order. I asked the listeners whether the revolution will repeat itself in Russia?
Obviously, the role of the individual in history has been underestimated. If Lenin had not become the leader of the revolution, history could have gone according to a different scenario (perhaps without a civil war).
It was Lenin, according to the memoirs of his contemporaries, who raised the banner of civil war. The idea of turning the imperialist war into a civil war was formulated in the work "Socialism and War", written back in July-August 1915. Some of Lenin's orders and letters in the conditions of the ongoing civil war are striking in their cruelty and cynicism. But how could it be otherwise? “Either we them, or they us!”
On August 9, 1918, Lenin sent instructions to the Penza Provincial Executive Committee: “It is necessary to carry out merciless mass terror against the kulaks, priests and White Guards; doubtful ones to be locked up in a concentration camp outside the city.”
“... it is necessary to do away with priests and religion as soon as possible. Priests must be arrested as counter-revolutionaries and saboteurs, shot mercilessly and everywhere. And as much as possible."
In the article "How the bourgeoisie uses renegades" V.I. Lenin wrote:
“... It is a direct lie that the Bolsheviks were opponents of the death penalty for the era of the revolution. ... in 1917, during the Kerensky period, I wrote in Pravda that not a single revolutionary government can do without the death penalty and that the whole question is only what class the weapon of death penalty is directed against by this government ... "
From the speech of V.I. Lenin at the Fifth All-Russian Congress of Soviets:
“They refer to the decrees abolishing the death penalty. But that revolutionary is bad who, at the moment of acute struggle, stops before the inviolability of the law. Laws in transitional times have a temporary value. And if the law hinders the development of the revolution, it is repealed or amended.”
“Dictatorship is power based directly on violence, not bound by any laws. The revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat is power won and maintained by the violence of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie, power not bound by any laws.
“Freedom must be limited - such is the need! Otherwise, there will be anarchy that will destroy the state. Democracy must be managed! However, democracy, dictatorship - there is no difference, these are all words; The main thing is to keep control...
Any reforms are a necessity, and almost always they require coercion. Power is coercion, and coercion is power. Power without power is not power. Strength is the basis of power! The ruler does not ask, he orders! Only strength causes consent! Therefore, in the name of great goals, violence can be justified, moreover, it is necessary. It is impossible to carry out transformations without strong power in a situation of disputes and disagreements. And power is not the first person, and not the second, and not the third, power is the bureaucracy. Strengthening it, you involuntarily obey it, and there is nothing to be done about it. The authorities have their own laws!
Power is judged by results. Power requires to be flexible, and follow the need, and not the given word or notions of honor and morality. Success justifies all means! The people need a leader who could be trusted, who would protect, take care of everyone.
The ruler must be capable of everything that the common man is not capable of.
The ruler becomes the one who is not afraid to step over morality and conscience, who is capable of any measures necessary for the state.
When it comes to the preservation of the state, morality has no place. For the sake of the state, any evil is good.
Power is a sacrifice!”
(from my true-life novel "The Wanderer" (mystery) on the site New Russian Literature
I do not pretend to be objective in assessing Ulyanov (Lenin).
So what did you want to say with your post? they ask me.
All I want to say to people is contained in three main ideas:
1\ The purpose of life is to learn to love, to love no matter what
2\ Meaning is everywhere
3\ Love creates necessity.
And how do you personally feel about the MYTH ABOUT LENIN?
© Nikolai Kofirin – New Russian Literature –
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (real surname Ulyanov, maternal surname Blank)
Years of life: April 10 (22), 1870, Simbirsk - January 22, 1924, Gorki estate, Moscow province
Head of the Soviet government (1917–1924).
Revolutionary, founder of the Bolshevik Party, one of the organizers and leaders of the October Socialist Revolution of 1917, chairman of the Council of People's Commissars (government) of the RSFSR and the USSR. Marxist philosopher, publicist, founder of Leninism, ideologist and creator of the 3rd (Communist) International, founder of the Soviet state. One of the most famous politicians of the 20th century.
Founder of the USSR
Biography of Vladimir Lenin
V. Ulyanov's father, Ilya Nikolaevich, was an inspector of public schools. After being awarded the Order of St. Vladimir III degree in 1882, he received the right to hereditary nobility. Mother, Maria Alexandrovna Ulyanova (née Blank), was a teacher, but did not work. The family had 5 children, among whom Volodya was the third. A friendly atmosphere reigned in the family; parents encouraged the curiosity of children and treated them with respect.
In 1879 - 1887. Volodya studied at the gymnasium, which he graduated from 
gold medal.
In 1887, for preparing an attempt on the life of Emperor Alexander III, his elder brother Alexander Ulyanov (Narodnaya Volya revolutionary) was executed. This event affected the lives of all members of the Ulyanov family (formerly a respected noble family was subsequently expelled from society). The death of his brother shocked Volodya, and since then he has become an enemy of the tsarist regime.
In the same year, V. Ulyanov entered the law faculty of Kazan University, but in December he was expelled for participating in a student meeting.
In 1891, Ulyanov graduated as an external student from the law faculty of St. Petersburg University. Then he came to Samara, where he began working as an assistant to a barrister.
In 1893, in St. Petersburg, Vladimir joined one of the many revolutionary circles and soon became known as an ardent supporter of Marxism and a propagandist of this doctrine in working circles. In St. Petersburg, he began an affair with Apollinaria Yakubova, a revolutionary, a friend of his older sister Olga.
In 1894 - 1895. Vladimir’s first major works, “What are “friends of the people” and how they fight against the Social Democrats” and “The Economic Content of Populism”, were published, in which the populist movement was criticized in favor of Marxism. Soon Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov met Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya.
In the spring of 1895, Vladimir Ilyich left for Geneva to meet with members of the Emancipation of Labor group. And in September 1895 he was arrested for creating the St. Petersburg Union of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class.
In 1897, Ulyanov was exiled for 3 years to the village of Shushenskoye, Yenisei province. During the exile, Ulyanov married Nadezhda Krupskaya ...
Many articles and books on revolutionary topics were written in Shushensky. The works were published under various pseudonyms, one of which is Lenin.
Lenin - years of life in exile
In 1903, the famous II Congress of the Social Democratic Party of Russia took place, during which there was a split into Bolsheviks and Mensheviks. He stood at the head of the Bolsheviks, and soon created the Bolshevik Party.
In 1905, Vladimir Ilyich led the preparations for the revolution in Russia. 
He directed the Bolsheviks to an armed uprising against tsarism and the establishment of a truly democratic republic.
During the revolution of 1905-1907. Ulyanov lived illegally in St. Petersburg and led the Bolshevik Party.
1907 - 1917 years were spent in exile.
In 1910, in Paris, he met Inessa Armand, with whom relations continued until Armand's death from cholera in 1920.
In 1912, at the Social Democratic Party Conference in Prague, the left wing of the RSDLP emerged as a separate party of the RSDLP(b), the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party of the Bolsheviks. He was immediately elected head of the central committee (CC) of the party.
In the same period, thanks to his initiative, the newspaper Pravda was created. Ulyanov organizes the life of his new party, encouraging the expropriation of funds (actually robbery) into the party fund.
In 1914, at the beginning of World War I, he was arrested in Austria-Hungary on suspicion of spying for his country.
After his release, he left for Switzerland, where he put forward a slogan calling for turning the imperialist war into a civil one, overthrowing the government that had drawn the state into the war.
In February 1917, I learned about the revolution that had taken place in Russia from the press. On April 3, 1917 he returned to Russia.
On April 4, 1917, in St. Petersburg, the theorist of communism outlined the program for the transition from the bourgeois-democratic revolution to the socialist one ("All Power to the Soviets!" or "April Theses"). He began preparations for an armed uprising and put forward plans to overthrow the Provisional Government.
In June 1917, the 1st Congress of Soviets was held, at which it was supported by only about 10% of those present, but it declared that the Bolshevik Party was ready to take power in the country into its own hands.
On October 24, 1917, he led the uprising in the Smolny Palace. And on October 25 (November 7), 1917, the Provisional Government was overthrown. The Great October Socialist Revolution took place, after which Lenin became chairman of the Council of People's Commissars - the Council of People's Commissars. He built his policy, hoping for the support of the world proletariat, but did not receive it.
At the beginning of 1918, the leader of the revolution insisted on signing the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. As a result, a huge part of the territory of Russia departed to Germany. The disagreement of the majority of the population of the country of Russia with the policy of the Bolsheviks led to the Civil War of 1918-1922.
The left-SR rebellion that took place in July 1918 in St. Petersburg was brutally suppressed. After that, a one-party system is established in Russia. Now V. Lenin is the head of the Bolshevik Party and all of Russia.
On August 30, 1918, an attempt was made on the life of the Head of the Party, he was seriously wounded. After that, the "Red Terror" was declared in the country.
Lenin developed the policy of "war communism".
The main ideas are quotes from his writings:
- The main goal of the Communist Party is the implementation of the communist revolution, followed by the construction of a classless society free from exploitation.
- There is no universal morality, but only class morality. The morality of the proletariat is that which meets the interests of the proletariat (“our morality is completely subordinated to the interests of the class struggle of the proletariat”).
- The revolution will not necessarily take place all over the world at the same time, as Marx believed. It can first occur in one, separately taken country. This country will then help the revolution in other countries.
- Tactically, the success of the revolution depends on the rapid capture of communications (post, telegraph, railway stations).
- Before building communism, an intermediate stage is necessary - the dictatorship of the proletariat. Communism is divided into two periods: socialism and communism proper.
According to the policy of “war communism”, free trade was prohibited in Russia, barter in kind (instead of commodity-money relations) and surplus appropriation were introduced. At the same time, Lenin insisted on the development of state-type enterprises, on electrification, and on the development of cooperation.
A wave of peasant uprisings passed through the country, but they were brutally suppressed. Soon, on the personal orders of V. Lenin, the persecution of the Russian Orthodox Church began. About 10 million people became victims of "war communism". Russia's economic and industrial indicators have declined sharply.
In March 1921, at the Tenth Party Congress, V. Lenin put forward the program of the "new economic policy" (NEP), which slightly changed the economic crisis.
In 1922, the leader of the world proletariat suffered 2 strokes, but did not stop leading the state. In the same year, Russia was renamed the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).
At the beginning of 1923, realizing that a split was emerging in the Bolshevik Party, and that his state of health had worsened, Lenin wrote his Letter to the Congress. In a letter, he gave a characterization to all the leading figures of the Central Committee and proposed to remove Joseph Stalin from the post of General Secretary.
In March 1923, he suffered a third stroke, after which he became paralyzed.
January 21, 1924 V.I. Lenin died in the village. Gorki (Moscow region). His body was embalmed and placed in the Mausoleum on Red Square in Moscow.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the question was raised about the need to remove the body and brain of the first leader of the USSR from the Mausoleum and bury it. In modern times, there are still discussions about this by various government officials, political parties and forces, as well as representatives of religious organizations.
V. Ulyanov also had other pseudonyms: V. Ilyin, V. Frey, Iv. Petrov, K. Tulin, Karpov and others.
In addition to all his deeds, Lenin stood at the origins of the creation of the Red Army, which won the civil war.
The only official state award that a fiery Bolshevik was awarded was the Order of Labor of the Khorezm People's Socialist Republic (1922).
Lenin's name
The name and image of V. I. Lenin was canonized by the Soviet government along with 
October Revolution and Joseph Stalin. Many cities, towns and collective farms were named after him. In every city there was a monument to him. Numerous stories about “grandfather Lenin” were written for Soviet children, the words “Leninists”, “Leniniad”, etc.
Images of the leader were on the front side of all tickets of the State Bank of the USSR in denominations from 10 to 100 rubles from 1937 to 1992, as well as 200, 500 and 1 thousand "Pavlovian rubles" of the USSR 1991 and 1992 issue.
Lenin's works
According to a poll by the FOM in 1999, 65% of the Russian population considered the role of V. Lenin in the history of the country positive, and 23% - negative.
He wrote a huge number of works, the most famous:
- "The Development of Capitalism in Russia" (1899);
- "What to do?" (1902);
- "Karl Marx (a short biographical sketch outlining Marxism)" (1914);
- "Imperialism as the highest stage of capitalism (popular essay)" (1916);
- "State and Revolution" (1917);
- "The Tasks of Youth Unions" (1920);
- "On the pogrom persecution of Jews" (1924);
- "What is Soviet power?";
- "Our Revolution".
The speeches of the fiery revolutionary are recorded on many gramophone records.
Named after him:
- Tank "Freedom Fighter Comrade Lenin"
- Electric locomotive VL
- icebreaker "Lenin"
- "Electronics VL-100"
- Vladilena (852 Wladilena) - a minor planet
- numerous cities, villages, collective farms, streets, monuments.
And the October Revolution. But her lessons are no less relevant. Moreover, their relevance is increasing.
The reason is simple: firstly, the contradictions that the world communist revolution tried to resolve, started by the Russian October, but strangled by world capitalism, its three main forces, fascism, Stalinism and bourgeois democracy, have not been resolved; secondly, a new period of the rise of capitalism has come to an end, when the features of its new general crisis are being formed, when the question of "who will win" again arises. No matter how distant the experience of this first worldwide attempt to overthrow capital, it remains, if not the only one, then, in any case, the main one. And a return to it is a necessary condition for a new attempt to succeed. And therefore, on the eve of future revolutionary storms, celebrating the next anniversary of the leader of the October Revolution, we will pay attention to the main feature of Leninism, to its internationalism.
Internationalism, of course, was understood by the Bolsheviks not in the philistine sense of the type "there are no bad peoples", "all people are brothers", etc. Like all Marxists, the Russian revolutionary social democrats of the early 20th century understood it in the sense that the overthrow of the world capitalist system is the common cause of the entire world working class.
Already in the program adopted at the Second Congress of the RSDLP, from which Bolshevism originated, it was said:
“The development of exchange has established such a close connection between all the peoples of the civilized world that the great liberation movement of the proletariat had to become, and has long since become, international.
Considering itself one of the detachments of the world army of the proletariat, the Russian Social Democracy is pursuing the same ultimate goal that the Social Democrats of all other countries are striving for.(“The CPSU in resolutions and decisions of congresses, conferences and plenums of the Central Committee”, 8th ed., political literature publishing house, M. 1970, vol. 1, p. 60).
That is, as can be seen from the first sentence of the above quotation, it was not at all about loyalty to a beautiful, but abstract idea, but about a completely practical understanding of the fact that the overthrow of capitalism, which has become a world system, is just as impossible within national boundaries as it is impossible in a separate city block. The situation with the understanding of this fact was extremely confused by the efforts of the Stalinist agitprop, who, for the sake of preserving the power of the Stalinist bureaucracy and for the sake of giving it (with the indicated purpose) a “socialist” image, pulled out quotes from Lenin taken out of the international context in order to attribute to him the non-existent theory of “socialism in one country."
At the same time, the statements of the same Lenin in the same articles, or in works of the same time, were completely ignored, where the impossibility of national socialism was directly affirmed. It is on these elementary Marxist truths for that era, presented in the works of Lenin, that we will stop.
The Russian revolution turned out to be the intersection of two historical processes, national and global, which is reflected in all disputes about the nature of both the revolution itself and the society that emerged from it. Russian society by 1917 had long matured and overripe for the bourgeois revolution. At the same time, the general crisis of capitalism, which found its expression in the world war, raised the historical question of the exhaustion of the capitalist stage in the life of mankind, while creating objective conditions for the proletarian revolution with the aim of overthrowing capitalism and beginning the transition to communism. This intersection was superimposed by the fact that, frightened by the scope of the labor movement, the Russian bourgeoisie did not want to carry out its own revolution. And this task was also to be assumed by the working class. But, given the world crisis of the entire capitalist system, the working class of Russia naturally had reason to hope that the workers of the advanced countries, in turn, would make their own revolution and help the workers of the more backward countries, incl. and Russia, to start building socialism without delaying the long stage of capitalist development.
Based on this Lenin and sets the following tasks in the fall of 1915: “The task of the proletariat of Russia is to carry through to the end the bourgeois-democratic revolution in Russia in order to ignite the socialist revolution in Europe. This second task is now extremely close to the first, but it still remains a special and second task, because we are talking about different classes collaborating with the proletariat of Russia, for the first task the collaborator is the petty-bourgeois peasantry of Russia, for the second - the proletariat of other countries.(V.I. Lenin, PSS, v.27, pp. 49-50).
Already here is laid the turn that came as a surprise to the "old Bolsheviks", who, after the February Revolution, were still thinking in terms of 1905 and were going to establish a "democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry" to carry out the bourgeois revolution. Lenin, like Trotsky, saw in the worldwide crisis associated with the war an opportunity to combine, thanks to the help of the international proletariat, the tasks of the national bourgeois and international socialist revolution. Before leaving for Russia in early April 1917, Lenin writes "Farewell Letter to the Swiss Workers". He notes:
“Russia is a peasant country, one of the most backward European countries. Socialism cannot win immediately in it directly. But the peasant character of the country, with the vast remaining land fund of the noble landlords, on the basis of the experience of 1905, can give an enormous scope to the bourgeois-democratic revolution in Russia and make our revolution a prologue to the world socialist revolution, a step towards it.(V.I. Lenin, PSS, vol. 31, pp. 91-92).
In his brief speech at the opening of the April Conference, Lenin declared: “The Russian proletariat has the great honor of starting, but it must not forget that its movement and revolution are only a part of the world revolutionary proletarian movement, which, for example, in Germany is growing stronger and stronger day by day. It is only from this point of view that we can define our tasks.”(ibid., p. 341). On the same day, in the Current Status Report, he justifies his "addiction" to the global scale: “... we are now connected with all other countries, and it is impossible to break out of this tangle: either the proletariat will break out as a whole, or it will be strangled”(ibid., p. 354). Concluding his report, which is mainly devoted to the necessary steps of the revolution, he emphasizes: “The complete success of these steps is possible only with a world revolution, if the revolution stifles the war, and if the workers in all countries support it, therefore the seizure of power is the only concrete measure, this is the only way out”(ibid., p. 358).
Understanding the impossibility of winning even a socialist revolution, not to mention building a socialist society in a single country, especially such a backward one as Russia, runs through all of Lenin's works, right down to the very last - "Less is better". Not sure if he can still return to active work, he writes about what worries him: “Thus, at the present moment we are faced with the question: will we be able to hold out with our small and minute peasant production, with our ruin, until the Western European capitalist countries complete their development towards socialism?”(ibid., vol. 45, p. 402).
No illusions! And the same anxiety sounds in his "Letter to the Congress", where he is concerned about one issue: the stability of the party leadership, the need to avoid its split during the period of painful expectation of a revolution in developed countries. And the fact that if the revolution is delayed, a split is inevitable due to the internal development of the country, Lenin understands perfectly:
“Our party is based on two classes, and therefore its instability is possible and its fall is inevitable, if an agreement could not be reached between these two classes. In this case, it is useless to take certain measures, in general, to talk about the stability of our Central Committee. No measures in this case will be able to prevent a split » (ibid., p. 344).
Only impenetrable dogmatism and unwillingness to give up illusions make the current Stalinists again and again pull out Lenin's words about the "building of socialism" into the light of day, completely ignoring those quotations of his where he directly speaks of the victory of the international revolution, as necessary condition of this "construction".
But this condition was reflected not just in his speeches, but directly in the program of the RCP (b), adopted in the spring of 1919. Those. in the main official party document, where every word is carefully weighed. This is not a speech at a rally where, for the sake of inspiring the listeners, one can shout about the "building of socialism" without specifying when and under what conditions it is possible. The program speaks of the social revolution as “forthcoming,” and Lenin defended this characterization against the attacks of Podbelsky, pointing out that “in our program we are talking about a social revolution on a world scale” (ibid., v. 38, p.175). In a programme Russian communists, i.e. Bolsheviks, speech about the national social revolution is not even going on!
In the Political Report of the Central Committee to the 7th Congress of the RCP (b), Lenin said: “International imperialism, with all the might of its capital, with its highly organized military equipment, which represents a real strength, a real fortress of international capital, in no case, under no circumstances could get along side by side with the Soviet Republic, both in its objective position and in the economic interests of that the capitalist class, which was embodied in it, could not, due to trade relations, international financial relations. Here conflict is inevitable. Here is the greatest difficulty of the Russian revolution, its greatest historical problem: the need to solve international problems, the need to provoke an international revolution, to make this transition from our revolution, as a narrow national, to a world one.(ibid., v. 36, p.8). And a little further: “If you look at the world-historical scale, then there is no doubt that the final victory of the revolution, if it remained alone, if there were no revolutionary movement in other countries, would be hopeless ... Our salvation from all these difficulties - I repeat - in the pan-European revolution"(ibid., vol. 36 p. 11)”.
The "salvation ... of the all-European revolution" did not come, a split occurred, which Lenin feared, and the party of the proletariat was destroyed. Only one thing was wrong. The gravedigger party of the proletarian power turned out to be not the party of peasants, but the party of the bureaucracy, whose bourgeois nature inevitably followed from the bourgeois character of the Russian revolution, which failed to fulfill the task of growing into a world socialist one.
The ability to face the truth, not to build up the illusion that the revolution can be won without something fundamentally important, is an absolutely necessary thing for a Marxist if he wants to achieve a result. And we still have a long way to go to learn this skill from Lenin.
The October Revolution took place at the height of the World War, when the internationalism of most of the parties of the Second International was cast aside for the sake of "defending the fatherland." Therefore, along with the concept of the impossibility of national socialism in the internationalist approach Lenin The most important place is occupied by the question of revolutionary defeatism, which is a particular but extremely important example of the preservation of the class independence of the proletariat in relation to the bourgeoisie.
The tactics of revolutionary defeatism, the tactics of turning the imperialist war into a civil war, were directly deduced both from the general necessary condition for the class independence of the proletariat and from the specific decisions of the congresses of the Second International:
“The opportunists frustrated the decisions of the Stuttgart, Copenhagen and Basel congresses, which obligated the socialists of all countries to fight against chauvinism under any and all conditions, obliging the socialists to respond to any war begun by the bourgeoisie and governments with an intensified preaching of civil war and social revolution”(ibid., vol. 26, p. 20), - proclaims the Manifesto of the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b) written by Lenin "War and Russian Social Democracy".
And further: “The transformation of the modern imperialist war into a civil war is the only correct proletarian slogan, indicated by the experience of the Commune, outlined by the Basel (1912) resolution and arising from all the conditions of an imperialist war between highly developed bourgeois countries”(ibid., p. 22).
This is the meaning of revolutionary defeatism: to use the defeat of one's own government in order to turn the massive mutual massacre of each other by the working people on the fronts of the imperialist war, into a war of these working people against their bourgeois governments, for their overthrow and the establishment of the power of the working people themselves, which will put an end to all wars and capitalist exploitation.
Of course, we are not talking, and never have been, about helping the military enemy in some way for the sake of defeatism. And bourgeois propaganda often interprets this question in precisely this way, presenting the Bolsheviks as "German spies." Just as in Germany "Russian spies" were listed Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxembourg. Such an accusation is absurd, since the principle of revolutionary defeatism proceeds from the reactionary nature of all the belligerents and, therefore, it makes no sense to help another imperialist state in return for "one's own".
And, by the way, just such a parody of revolutionary defeatism, shortly before the German attack on the USSR, the Stalinist regime imposed on the French Communist Party. The communist deputies were forced, under the conditions of fascist occupation, to move to a legal position and begin to receive voters. They were all shot after June 22, 1941! As well as party activists who communicated with them. There was also a request for permission to legally publish “Humanite”. Fortunately for the PCF, the Nazis did not agree to this. But it is precisely the followers of Stalin who will be ready to tear me to pieces for the position of defeatism in World War II, which will be discussed below.
In fact, the point is to expose in every possible way the jingoistic propaganda that justified the war on its part as "fair".
It is about continuing and intensifying the struggle of the workers for their rights and, ultimately, for their power, despite the accusations of the patriots that by doing so they "weaken the front" and "contribute" to military defeat. Yes, they contribute, but precisely this struggle, and nothing else! Lenin explains these points quite clearly: “The revolutionary class in a reactionary war cannot but desire the defeat of its government. ... "Revolutionary struggle against war" is an empty and meaningless exclamation, to which such masters are heroes of the Second International, if by it one does not understand revolutionary actions against their government and during the war. It only takes a little thought to understand this. And revolutionary actions during the war against one's own government, undoubtedly, undeniably, mean not only the desire to defeat it, but in fact also the promotion of such a defeat. (For the “astute reader”: this does not mean at all that it is necessary to “blow up bridges”, organize unsuccessful military strikes and generally help the government defeat the revolutionaries) ”(ibid., p. 286). With these words, Lenin, in his article "On the Defeat of His Government in the Imperialist War", pounces on the originally half position Trotsky.
The point is to corrupt the army of “one’s own” imperialist power with one’s propaganda (and this is a condition for revolutionaries of all (!) countries), proving the senselessness and criminality of this war from all sides. The most complete result of such propaganda was the fraternization of the soldiers of the warring armies.
“The proletarian cannot deal a class blow to his government, nor can he (in fact) stretch out his hand to his brother, the proletarian of a “foreign” country that is at war with “us”, without committing “high treason”, without contributing to the defeat, without helping the disintegration of “his own” imperialist "great" power"(ibid., p. 290).
The most striking example of the effectiveness of the latter was the Bolshevik propaganda in relation to the German army. In Russia the German army seemed to be victorious, but it was here that the revolutionary example of the Russian workers and soldiers had its greatest effect. The units transferred from Russia to the western front turned out to be completely unfit for combat, accelerating the defeat of Germany in the war and the revolution in it.
Revolutionary defeatism is not just a revolutionary phrase. This is a practical position, without which it is impossible (impossible!) to tear the working class away from the ideological and political influence of “its own” bourgeoisie: The supporters of the slogan "no victory, no defeat" actually stand on the side of the bourgeoisie and opportunists, "not believing" in the possibility of international revolutionary actions of the working class against their governments, unwilling to help the development of such actions - a task, no doubt, not an easy one, but the only one worthy of the proletarian , the only socialist task. It was precisely the proletariat of the most backward of the belligerent great powers, especially in the face of the shameful betrayal of the German and French Social Democrats, who, in the face of their party, had to come up with revolutionary tactics that are absolutely impossible without "facilitating the defeat" of their government, but which alone leads to a European revolution, to a lasting peace of socialism, to the deliverance of mankind from the horrors, disasters, savagery, bestiality that reign now.(ibid., p. 291).
It was the transition "in practice" to the policy of defeatism, "contributing" to it, that led to revolutions in Russia, Germany, Austria-Hungary. But the absence of a political force to defend it turned out to be a disaster for the world proletariat during the Second World War. Chauvinistic, jingoistic frenzy contributed to the beginning of both the first and second world wars. It is very difficult to break it, all the more so for the revolutionary minority operating underground. However, when the workers, both in the rear and at the front, taught by the bitter experience of the war, themselves eventually begin to intuitively realize the correctness of this approach, then without a revolutionary avant-garde they can fall into the hands of completely different ideologists and practitioners. 2 million citizens of the USSR, a state-capitalist imperialist power, during the Second World War, if they did not fight on the side of Nazi Germany, then, in any case, were listed in collaborationist military units. And far (very far!) not everyone was anti-communist and enemy of socialism. Many bought into the "socialist" phraseology of General Vlasov. The same thing happened in the Ukrainian Insurgent Army. And how many soldiers, workers and peasants of the USSR were there who would have been glad to oppose the Stalinist regime, but who had enough understanding that it was pointless to do this under the flag of fascism ?!
The potential for the tactics of revolutionary defeatism was very great in our country, but there was no political force - the Bolshevik Party was mowed down almost without exception. Worse, few among them understood the capitalist nature of the USSR. Indicative, in this regard, is the example of the Trotskyists, the only, at least relatively numerous, anti-Stalinist political force in the labor movement. Operating in Europe, it also had the human potential for revolutionary propaganda to turn the imperialist war into a civil one. Particularly in France and Italy. Here, even many ordinary Stalinists, even participating in a completely patriotic resistance movement, hoped that after the end of the war they would be able to use their organization and authority for the socialist revolution. It wasn't there! Torez, Tolyatti and Co., who arrived from Moscow, quickly put everything “in place”, imposing the continuation of the policy of the anti-fascist Popular Fronts even after the defeat of fascism.
And if some part of the working class still retained revolutionary sentiments, then the Trotskyists helped to overcome them with their slogan of "unconditional defense of the USSR." If the USSR is a workers' state, then it is necessary to protect both it and its allies in the anti-Hitler coalition. This logic finally finished off the hopes for a new revolutionary wave as a response to the second world imperialist war. The world working class found itself subordinate to the tasks of its national detachments of capital. Only a few representatives of the Trotskyist Fourth International, as well as representatives of the Italian communist Left, took up revolutionary positions, but remained practically isolated. Without revolutionary defeatism, as well as without the defeat of Stalinism, the continuation of the world revolution, begun in October 1917, was impossible.
“The “unconditional defense of the USSR” turns out to be incompatible with the defense of the world revolution. The defense of Russia must be abandoned as a matter of special urgency, since it binds our entire movement, puts pressure on our theoretical development and gives us a Stalinized physiognomy in the eyes of the masses. It is impossible to defend the world revolution and Russia at the same time. Or one or the other. We stand for the world revolution, against the defense of Russia, and we call on you to speak in the same direction [...] in order to remain true to the revolutionary tradition of the Fourth International, we must abandon the Trotskyist theory of the defense of the USSR; we are thus carrying out in the International the ideological revolution necessary for the success of the world revolution. These are quotations from the June 1947 Open Letter of the Internationalist Communist Party. The party operated in France, joined the Fourth Trotskyist International, and included both those who shared the Trotskyist theory of the "deformed workers' state" and those who already understood the capitalist nature of the USSR. Among the latter were the authors of this letter - Grandiso Muniz, Benjamin Pere and Natalia Sedova-Trotskaya, widow Leon Trotsky.
However, it was already too late. Taking advantage of its victory in the Second World War, capitalism completed the redistribution of the world, united most of the world market under the auspices of the United States, and a smaller part of the USSR, thus ensuring the conditions for the collapse of the world colonial system and the inclusion of its countries in the system of the world capitalist market. In short, capitalism created the conditions for its transition to a higher stage of its development, which lasted 60 years, and which again begins to burst at the seams, preparing new large and small wars. It was a period of prolonged counter-revolution on all fronts. But the growing crisis, economic, military, political, ideological, again requires revolutionary leadership. And this leadership must be formed fully armed with all the revolutionary experience of the past, and the experience of Bolshevism in the first place. And the center of this experience has been and will be the bet on the world socialist revolution and the political class independence of the proletariat, the most integral part of which is the categorical rejection of any form of patriotism and revolutionary defeatism. 13.01.2020
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