Interview with Russell Bentley, an American military veteran and communist who went to fight for Donetsk People’s Republic in 2014.

This interview was conducted by Comrade Jacobin aka “Raven”. You can also read it on Russell’s blog:
http://www.russelltexasbentley.com/2018/08/from-real-communist-ans-anti-fascist-in.html 

Also check out the skype interview with Russell Bentley:

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Question 1: What is the immediate military situation for Novorussia? We know the military battle lines have stabilized to a certain degree, as Novorussia has held onto the territories of Lughansk, and Donetsk, who’s borders extend all the way south to the Sea of Azov, east of Mariupol. Are there still constant border skirmishes like there were in the earlier years of the war, or has the fighting calmed down somewhat?

The military situation is currently stable, which means the center of the city is relatively safe, but there is still shooting on the front line positions every day. Civilian areas near the front are also still shelled on a regular (almost daily) basis. The threat of a major ukrop offensive is still very real. Most people here believe that the war will not end without one more major battle. That battle will begin with a major military offensive by the ukrop army against the entire Novorussian Front, and it will end only with the liberation and 

de-nazification of all of Ukraine. And the USA.

Question 2: Have the people of Donbass adjusted to the current borders, or are they still focused on gaining most of eastern Ukraine back, like when the war first started in 2014

We have friends and family in the cities of Eastern Ukraine now under nazi control. They suffer. 

Our ultimate goal is to de-nazify all of Ukraine, one way or another. 

Question 3: What would you say would be the percentage of the population in Novorussia who want to their territory to become part of the Russian Federation? Is it higher than the percentage of people who want to stay strictly independent from both Ukraine and Russia? Are there also people there who want to remain part of Ukraine but without the current government?

I believe most people here would like to see Ukraine return to it’s historic place as a strong independent ally of Russia. Ukrainians are rightly proud of their history and culture, which is closely intertwined with Russia’s. The goal is to drive the nazis from power, liberate all of Ukraine, punish the war criminals, and return to being a democratic nation closely allied with Russia, as Ukraine has been for the last 1,000 years.

Question 4: The Ukrainian nationalists have recently released a video of them harassing gypsies, destroying their homes and tents, and it seems like Azov Battalion and Praviy Sektor are ramping up their ethnic cleansing. Is it also your view that the ethnic cleansing is increasing, or have these crimes been occurring at the same rate the whole time and it just hasn’t been exposed until recently? Do you have any stories of more things like this happening?

The crimes of nazis like Pravy Sektor and Azov are ongoing. And they are truly horrific. Human trafficking and organ trafficking are rampant in areas under their control. Kiev is now the child prostitution capitol of Europe. Hardcore nazis from Western Ukraine consider the people of Donbass to be Russians, and sub-human, and act accordingly. NAF prisoners held by nazis are tortured and murdered on a regular basis.

It should be duly noted that ukrop nazis, and nazis in general, prefer to attack unarmed people.

Question 5: You have espoused that you are a communist in many of your previous interviews. What do you personally, and your organization, Essence of Time, define Communism and Socialism as, and how does this apply to Novorussia? Many communists in the west have the criticism that private property and most normal apparatuses of the capitalist mode of production still function in Donbass. How would you reply to or reconcile with this criticism?

To be honest, I laugh at most “Communists” in the West. The vast majority are cowards, hypocrites and poseurs, whose “communism” goes no further than buying a Che Guevara T-shirt from Amazon, and maybe reading a book or two from which to endlessly quote. The fact that they sit in the West, doing nothing but criticizing us here is a perfect example. They spend more time criticizing their comrades than actually fighting real fascists. Ask any group of “Communists” in the West how many have actually killed a nazi. I have. 

People whose “contribution” is nothing more than criticizing those who have done a thousandfold more than they ever will are beneath contempt. When I was in Cuba in 1995, I had a very enlightening discussion with a Cuban Army captain. I said I was a Socialist, and she said she was a Communist. I asked what the difference was, and she replied, “A Communist is someone who is willing to fight for Socialism.” Being willing to fight means being willing to die. By this measure, there are very, very few Communists in the West. But I and my comrades in Essence of Time have earned the right to call ourselves Communists.

It’s high time those who call themselves “Communists” in the West, especially the US, do the same.

Medical care and education are free in the DPR. Food, energy, housing, transportation and communication are a fraction of the cost of what they are in the West, but are as good or better in quality. It’s a good start. This is the Socialism we have fought for, and won. Those who have done the same or better are perhaps qualified to criticize or advise us. Those who have not should shut the fuck up and get to work, unless, as is too often the case, they are too stupid to learn from our example. Then they should just shut the fuck up.

Question 6: When one researches the war in Donbass via conventional sources on the internet such as Wikipedia, there are listed a number of military units fighting on the side of the Novorussian army which are very right wing, such as National Bolsheviks, Russian National Unity, and Serbian Chetniks, all groups which most socialists and communists are vehemently opposed to. For many leftists in the west, this is something which turns them off to supporting the struggle in Donetsk and Lughansk. Many of them (western marxists) admit that there are indeed Nazis on the side of the Ukrainians, but also claim there are Nazis and ultranationalists on the Novorussian side as well. To what degree do these right wing military units operate, and what comments do you have about this? Many will see this as the most important question in the interview.

There have been a few (perhaps 2 dozen, total, out of an army of 60,000) “nationalists” in the ranks of the NAF, all foreigners, mostly in the early days of the war, but they are all gone now. No one I served with at the Front would ever serve beside someone with a nazi tattoo or point of view.  We would probably have killed them. There are Cossacks and even Monarchists in the NAF, but they are in no way fascist or ultra-nationalist. And they stand beside real Communists here, in battle, against real nazis, as brothers in arms.

Anyone who claims there are nazis or ultra-nationalists fighting for the Donbass Republics is an idiot, a liar, or both. It is as stupid a saying “Communism is as bad as nazism.” They use this as their excuse for their failure to support one of the most communist and progressive revolutionary movements in the world today. Again, cowardice and hypocrisy, and again, unwarranted and unqualified criticism from people who not only have never done shit, but don’t even know what the fuck they are talking about, criticizing those who have actually fought fascism and won. 

Question 7. The Donbass region has a rich history of socialist ideals and anti fascist mentalities. The Stakhanovite movement was birthed there, Donbass put up a heroic resistance against the German Nazis during WWII, and up until recently, Odessa was known as a heavily multicultural city where hundreds of different nationalities could live among each other in peace. To what degree do you think the Novorussian population is enthusiastic about socialism past the point of nostalgia or national pride from the USSR days?

Donetsk too, is one of the most multi-cultural and cosmopolitan cities in the world.  When John Hughes founded his steel mill and coal mines here in 1869, he sent out advertisements all over the world for people to come get a good job with fair pay. People from over 100 nations responded and moved to Donetsk, then called  “Yuzovka”. The Donbass region has historically been one of the most staunchly Communist areas of the entire USSR. The people here have what it takes to be real Communists – a deep understanding of the theory and history, their own history of struggle, sacrifice, and victory, and real world experience of the rewards of Socialism as well as the evils of Capitalism and fascism. And they are willing to fight when they have to. I would say that even with its imperfections, the Donbass Republics are the vanguard and best example of what Communist people can do in the world today.

Question 8: We know that some factories in Donbass have been nationalized. How widespread is this nationalization, and do you see this spreading to all other sectors of the economy?

Some factories and businesses have been expropriated from oligarchs and nationalized. The DPR economy in general is geared towards benefiting society rather than enriching the wealthy class. It is an ongoing process.  I will say that the quality of life is better here for the average worker than it is anywhere in the US or even most of the EU. This is because the government is responsive to the will of the people. 

Question 9: How do you reconcile Donbass having a state religion (Eastern Orthodoxy) with communist principles? In the Soviet Union and in most Eastern Bloc countries during the cold war, religion was discouraged. Do you feel that this was a mistake? What are your views on liberation theology?

Jesus Christ was the first Communist. He shared what he had equally with others, drove the money changers from the temple with a whip, and gave his life for what he believed in. I have three close personal friends here who are Orthodox priests. All have served in the DPR Army, as soldiers. As the saying goes, “There are no atheists in foxholes”. Some of the greatest anti-fascists in modern history have been men of God – Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Oscar Romero, the Berrigan brothers, and above all, Hassan Nasrallah. Soldiers. 

Essence of Time considers the anti-religious aspect of the USSR to have been one of its biggest mistakes. I see no contradiction between Communism and religion. Although I do look at organized religion with some suspicion, I consider the Russian Orthodox Church to be the most trustworthy and least corrupt of any major sect of Christianity. And it is NOT the “state religion”. We don’t have one. There are Jews, Muslims, Catholic and Protestant worshipers and places of worship in Donetsk.

Question 10: You have mentioned in a video you made for people who want to come to Donbass that jobs there are scarce. If people are unemployed in Donbass does that mean that they are forced out onto the street like they are in the United States and other capitalist countries? Do you have a right to a job in Donbass, and, if not, does the state take adequate care of you until you find one? To what extent does homelessness exist in Donbass?

There is no homelessness in the Donbass Republics. None. Everyone here has a place to live, given by the state. If they can’t pay their electric bill, the electricity is not turned off. Many people are employed by the state doing work such as cleaning streets or tending public gardens. It is not necessary work, but it improves the quality of life for everybody here, and the salary, while small, is enough to live on. I will say it again – the quality of life for the average worker here is better than anywhere in the West, and it continues to improve. And doing so under siege conditions.

Question 11: How active are labor unions in Donetsk and Lughansk? The Ukrainian nationalists burned down the trade unions house in the famous Odessa massacre, do you think this was incidental, or do you think it corresponds with Nazi ideology and how the NSDAP historically crushed union power in Germany?

I do not really know what the status of labor unions is in the Donbass Republics is, but I know they exist and have political and economic power. Particularly among the coal miners.

Question 12: What rights do citizens living in Donbass have? We know that Aleksey Mozgovoy professed a stated goal for Novorussia that included the right to education and healthcare. What progress towards this goal has been achieved in the region?

Education and medical care are free and of excellent quality. Sometimes people must buy their own medicine, but it costs a small fraction of what it would cost in the West. 

Question 13: How would you respond to the claim that rebel control of the Donbass region is evidence of Russian imperialism? Also, what is your view of Russia generally? It is known that Russia is a capitalist state since the early 1990’s, but do you view them as imperialist? Why or why not?

Again, only idiots and liars speak of “Russian imperialism”. The people of Donbass are defending themselves against a foreign installed fascist regime. Russia helps us. Russia has many imperfections, but imperialism is not one of them. The USSR improved the quality of life in every single place where they exerted influence, they did not colonize these places and extract profits or resources. Just as in Donbass today, where the Russian Federation gives much more to support Donbass than they receive in return. Certainly the same can be said of Russia’s support for Syria. While Russia does have serious problems,  I would say the quality of life overall is better there than in the West, and while the quality of life continues to improve in Russia, it continues to decline in the West.

Question 14: What are the differences between the Lughansk and Donetsk governments? Do they have differing views on what rights their citizens should have? Are there different laws in each respective region? Is the political and military structure between the two united?

Although the two Republics are separate entities, they are united militarily, politically and economically. The legal and social structures are very similar, if not identical.

Question 15: It has been 3 years since you conducted the interview with Vice correspondent Simon Ostrovsky. How do you reflect on this interview? What is your view of Vice’s portrayal of the Ukrainian situation? Have you watched the Russian Roulette series on Vice, and what do you think of it?

Ostrovsky is a textbook example of a “presstitute” – a professional liar whose job is to conceal and obscure the truth, which he does for money. Vice News is a disinfo and propaganda machine funded by George Soros. There is not a single major Western “news” agency that can be trusted. Not one. But Ostrovsky’s interview of me has been viewed over 400,000 times, with an almost 10 to 1 ratio of thumbs up to thumbs down. In spite of his best (or worst) efforts, the video was a big success for me and the DPR.

Question 16: Events in the United States have been heating up for a number of years now, and today it is normal for the “Alt Right” to gather in the streets with the Ku Klux Klan and hold torchlight rallies like Azov and Praviy Sektor do in Ukraine. Many socialists and anti fascists here have been starting a new socialist gun culture in the United States with the Socialist Rifle Association, Redneck Revolt, and The John Brown Gun Club. Do you feel that this is an appropriate response to events? Should the left be prepared for the worst, or do you think the government will eventually solve these contradictions in American politics and culture? Furthermore, is it appropriate for leftists to trust that the government will quell the fascist flame if it begins to burn?

The fascist flame has been burning in the USA since before you or I or anyone reading this article were born. And the US government and the people who own it are the ones who lit it and keep it burning. They are the mortal enemies of the American people, and of Humanity at large. It is long past time for a revolution in the USA. The oligarchy and government are corrupt beyond any hope of redemption. It is time to tear it down and start over. As for guns – yes, everyone should own and know how to use one, but there is a HUGE difference between having one and actually using one for what the 2nd Amendment intended. But again, the poseur problem – a coward with a gun is worse than useless. Many say they are ready to “fight”, but in practice, they don’t like danger. I would estimate that the number of US gun owners from the Left or the Right who would ever do more than talk, who would actually challenge the government’s monopoly on violence, who would do in the US what we have actually done here, is probably about one in a thousand. If the truth hurts, prove me wrong. 

The Essence of Time combat unit had about 50 soldiers when I joined it in December 2014. We have suffered 11 killed in action, and 15 seriously (permanently) wounded since then. That is a 50% casualty rate. We fought at some of the hottest positions on the entire Donbass Front, including the airport, Spartak and Avdeevka. We have never retreated or lost a position, even in the face of 20 to 1 odds. That is exactly what it means to be a real Communist.

And I will also give some gun advice – The US government will not enact wide scale gun confiscation. They don’t have to. When the time comes, and it will, the government will simply shut off the supply of ammunition. Ammo is much, much more difficult to produce at home than a firearm is. A firearm without ammo is just a club. Stock up while you still can.

Question 17: What are your views on communist gun ownership generally? Did you own a gun while you lived in the US? Are there laws restricting firearm ownership in Donbass where you live/do you have to be in the army or militia to own one?

Only fools and cowards are against the 2nd Amendment. They are willing to be disarmed, defenseless, against the US military and police, the most corrupt and genuinely fascist organizations on Earth.

They are nothing more than willing slaves, unworthy to be called Communists. 

I am a strong proponent of the right to bear arms. It is simply the right to self-defense. I owned and carried guns most of my adult life, regardless of the law. Again, carrying a gun is just a pose unless you’re ready and willing to use it, and I mean use it against armed enemies who will be shooting at you.  It is legal and possible for people to own guns here, even outside the police and Army. I myself have a Makarov and AK (and plenty of ammo for both.) The requirements are simply common sense – you must have a clean criminal record, pass a psychological exam, and have a secure place to store your guns. There is still a very real threat of a major ukrop offensive, so the percentage of people here who own guns is probably as high or higher than in the US.

Question 18: What is your opinion on censorship? Do you think that leftists should be against the censoring of Alex Jones because it will eventually come around to the left like in the McCarthy era? In this current moment, in terms of realpolitik, is it better to censor the right wingers using the government, or just allow them to be seen out in the open, and prepare to fight them?

Only fools, cowards and those with something to hide advocate or support censorship, of Alex Jones or anyone else, because it ALWAYS eventually comes around. Who is qualified to decide what people should be “allowed” to hear, see or read? Nobody is, and I say fuck anybody that says they are. Yes, Alex Jones is a charlatan, but he has also been correct on many issues. I’d say he’s more correct, well intentioned and respectable than ANY of the stupid scumbags, from the Right or the Left, who advocate or support   censorship. Censorship is, always has been and always will be, the tool of the oppressor. Anyone who supports it also, wittingly or not, also a tool of the oppressor. Period.

Russian mass media has political TV programs airing daily, and they often allow open fascists to debate normal people and even try to sell their ideas. To allow fascists, fools, liars and various assholes to have their say is actually the best way to fight them, by allowing them to discredit themselves. Even if the general public is stupid enough to fall for fascist ideas (as is the case in the USA, but not Russia) education is the remedy, and censorship is the exact opposite of education. 

Question 19: You once mentioned that you had spent time in prison in America, for what were you incarcerated and for how long? Did you find that you grew as a person during this time/did you learn anything about yourself or humanity while you were locked up?

I plead guilty to possession of 500 kilograms of cannabis in 1996. I was the only one of the defendants who did not “co-operate” with the Feds, so I got more time than anyone, even the “kingpin”. I got 63 months, 5 years, 3 months. I escaped on August 31st, 1999 for 2,848 days, almost 8 years. I was eventually snitched out and was returned to finish my bit in a maximum security prison.  I finished my prison sentence in 2008, and did 4 years parole.

I was a professional cannabis smuggler for about 7 years. I would move loads from Mexico to the northern USA, Minnesota, Kansas City, Seattle. I made about a quarter of a million dollars per year, and gave about 30% of it away to worthy causes. I was also one of the leading activists in the marijuana legalization movement, and used quite a bit of my money to further that cause. I would also say that the legalization of cannabis is the best, if not the only, way that life in the USA has improved in the last 30 years. I am proud to have played a part in that.

I learned a lot in prison. I learned that people like me, who refused to snitch for a sentence reduction are about 1 in 100. I read hundreds of books and studied Sociology in an inmate college education program.  In the maximum security prison I was in (SEA-TAC FDC) I actually got along better with the Blacks, Latinos, Muslims and Native Americans than I did with the Whites. It was a culturally enriching experience, though I personally do not recommend going just for the culture. But if you have to go, make the most of it.

Question 20: What cultural aspects does the United States share with Donbass? Do people there like the same type of music, movies, and so on? Do people there like to drink and smoke like they do here in America?

I’d say that people here actually drink and smoke a bit more than in the US. It is a traditional Eastern European cultural thing, as well as a reaction to the stress of being in a war zone. The GOOD people in the USA are the same as the good people here, they work towards a better world for all, and they actually WORK towards the goal, not just talk. But among the populations as a whole, the people of Donbass, are much smarter, braver, better educated and better mannered, and have much higher moral and cultural standards than people in the US or the West. 

The people here also have a much better grasp of politics and history, and  many more of my Russian friends have read Jack London,  Fennimore Cooper and other American literary classics than have my friends in the US. And while not perfect, the cultural and political solidarity here is far, far stronger and more advanced than anything in the West. I consider identity politics to be THE major cause of this critical failure of solidarity in what passes for progressive forces in the West.

Question 21: What are your views on identity politics in leftist circles? Should class struggle against the capitalists be the primary duty of communists and socialists, or should they spend an equal amount of time on various other social issues, such as racism, sexism, and homophobia?

Identity politics is an excellent way to identify idiots and provocateurs. It is the single biggest failure of “the Left” in modern history. There is only one war, the class war. Fuck every single selfish piece of shit who advocates rights only for their own sub-group of Humanity. That some groups have genuinely been more oppressed than others is beyond dispute, but giving them special privileges is as stupid as it is immoral and counter-productive. Yes, Black lives matter, but it is a fact that more White people are murdered by police than Blacks, and their lives matter every bit as much. Women, Gays, and racial minorities who are only interested in their own rights are no better than corporations that are only interested in their own profits. There can be no question that Native Americans are the most oppressed and aggrieved minority in the US today. Anyone who doesn’t stand up for their rights at least as much as their own is a hypocrite. The only way to fight for your rights is to fight for everyone’s rights, along with anyone brave and dedicated enough to stand beside you for the same cause. It is the ONLY way.

People get, and deserve, only the rights they fight for themselves, and it is rankest hypocrisy to demand rights for yourself that you do not support for others. The robber baron Jay Gould once said “I can hire half the working class to kill the other half.”  Identity politics is people doing exactly that filthy job for free. Class solidarity is the most important weapon in the fight against modern fascism. It is the ONLY weapon that can win this war for the future of humanity, and identity politics is solidarity’s worst enemy.

Identity politics is just another form of “me first” racism, censorship,oppression, and even worse, it is a form of infantilism, in that oppressed people are asking their oppressors to make things right for them, usually at the expense of some other oppressed sub-group. The last time I had any hope for politics in the USA was when there was some talk of a Ralph Nader/Ron Paul coalition. It never happened. The Right has balls, but no brains, the Left has brains but no balls. Until the Right and Left unite, there will be no progress whatsoever. Communism means above all, egalitarianism. Anyone who advocates identity politics and calls themselves a Communist should be bitch-slapped. 

Question 22: What are your views on confederate statues being down, since you are from a state that was part of the confederacy (Texas)? Do you think the act of taking down the statues in effect masks the fact that the US is still a racist country, with or without the statues being there?

I think it is a meaningless distraction, a waste, a symbolic circle jerk, done by poseurs whom pretend to be tough and pretend to be doing something by fighting inanimate objects. If it wasn’t so stupid and wasteful, it would be laughable. What kind of clowns fight a symbol when they could and should be fighting the real thing? Take a look at who tears down statues in the 21st Century – US soldiers in Iraq, neo-nazis in Kiev and Poland, and ISIS in Iraq and Syria. All misguided dipshits trying to re-write history. Who wants to be like them?
Question 23: Do you think people spend too much time ruminating about the Soviet Union in the west? Should people spend more of their time trying to build a new socialist project?

People must understand the theory and history of Communism and the USSR. They need to understand the mistakes and successes, in order to re-build Communism and a new USSR 2.0. The Essence of Time Movement is doing both, exactly, today. In fact, I consider EoT to be the most important Communist organization in Russia today. The KPRF and even KPDPR are both deeply marginalized by their own internal contradictions and shortcomings. (As are ALL the Communist Parties in the US.) EoT’s plan is the best I have seen. Everyone who calls themselves a Communist should be familiar with it. It is the real deal. You can learn about it here – http://eu.eot.su/language/en/

Question 24: Who is your favorite Marxist philosopher, and who is your favorite Marxist pragmatist/strategist?

It is hard to pick a favorite. Ho Chi Minh and Che Guevara were two of my earliest influences. Big Bill Haywood, Eugene Debs, James Connolly were (and still are) some of my early heroes, and if not strictly “Marxist”, they were true Communists, willing to fight for Socialism and justice. I read Antonio Gramsci’s “Prison Notebooks” when I was in prison. Mao and Fidel, of course, Lenin and Stalin. Lenny Wulff’s “Science of Revolution” was also influential (free PDF here.)

The greatest living Marxist writer in the USA today is undoubtedly Michael Parenti.  I especially recommend “Blackshirts and Reds” (free pdf download here.) and “Dirty Truths”. As I have often said about Parenti, he’s like Noam Chomsky, but smarter, a much better writer, and he has some balls.

Question 25: Why do you think fascism was able to arise in such an open fashion in Kiev?

It must be understood that the Maidan coup was not a spontaneous event.  Beyond Victoria Newland’s $5 billion, beyond the “Orange Revolution” of 2004-2005, beyond operation Gladio, the roots of the Maidan coup are in Bandera’s OUN-B and UPA, pro-nazi armies during the German occupation of Ukraine in WW2. These were (and are) hardcore nazis, mass murderers, war criminals and rabid anti-communists. They form the central core of Ukraine’s military and political structure today. The original members of Bandera’s organizations have had generations to brainwash their offspring and to prepare for the moment when they could seize power.

These groups have been (and still are) supported, directed and manipulated by US and NATO, with financing, training, arms and instruction. The Maidan coup is in line with the “rebellions” in Libya and Syria.

Real Communists can learn a lot from what we have done in the Donetsk Republics. We have defended our homes and our families against a national military power using every weapon at their disposal – tanks, artillery, rockets, aviation, terrorism. And we have fought them to a standstill. Four years later, the Republics still exist, and we are still free. But this war is not just in Donbass, it is global, and it is not finished. 

The greatest enemy of the American People, and of the future of Humanity itself, is the US government and the genuinely fascist kleptocrats who own and control it.  They are right now, today, implementing a plan to rule the world, enslave those who are profitable or useful to them, and exterminate the rest of us. There is no escape, and the time for talking is over. You will not defeat your mortal enemy by voting, or writing letters to your government “representatives”, by lively and deep conversations in the local pub, or by hitting the “Like” button on Facebook. You have only 2 options – Fight or die. Victory or Death. Get busy.

V. I. Lenin

Letter To American Workers^[1]

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Written: 20 August, 1918.
First Published: Pravda No. 178 August 22, 1918; Published according to the Pravda text checked with the manuscript
Source: Lenin’s Collected Works, Progress Publishers, Moscow, Volume 28, 1965, pages 62-75
Translated (and edited): Jim Riordan
Transcription/HTML Markup: David Walters
Online Version: V.I.Lenin Internet Archive, 2002

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Comrades! A Russian Bolshevik who took part in the 1905 Revolution, and who lived in your country for many years afterwards, has offered to convey my letter to you. I have accepted his proposal all the more gladly because just at the present time the American revolutionary workers have to play an exceptionally important role as uncompromising enemies of American imperialism—the freshest, strongest and latest in joining in the world-wide slaughter of nations for the division of capitalist profits. At this very moment, the American multimillionaires, these modern slaveowners have turned an exceptionally tragic page in the bloody history of bloody imperialism by giving their approval—whether direct or indirect, open or hypocritically concealed, makes no difference—to the armed expedition launched by the brutal Anglo-Japanese imperialists for the purpose of throttling the first socialist republic.

The history of modern, civilised America opened with one of those great, really liberating, really revolutionary wars of which there have been so few compared to the vast number of wars of conquest which, like the present imperialist war, were caused by squabbles among kings, landowners or capitalists over the division of usurped lands or ill-gotten gains. That was the war the American people waged against the British robbers who oppressed America and held her in colonial slavery, in the same way as these “civilised” bloodsuckers are still oppressing and holding in colonial slavery hundreds of millions of people in India, Egypt, and all parts of the world.

About 150 years have passed since then. Bourgeois civilisation has borne all its luxurious fruits. America has taken first place among the free and educated nations in level of development of the productive forces of collective human endeavour, in the utilisation of machinery and of all the wonders of modern engineering. At the same time, America has become one of the foremost countries in regard to the depth of the abyss which lies between the handful of arrogant multimillionaires who wallow in filth and luxury, and the millions of working people who constantly live on the verge of pauperism. The American people, who set the world an example in waging a revolutionary war against feudal slavery, now find themselves in the latest, capitalist stage of wage-slavery to a handful of multimillionaires, and find themselves playing the role of hired thugs who, for the benefit of wealthy scoundrels, throttled the Philippines in 1898 on the pretext of “liberating” them, and are throttling the Russian Socialist Republic in 1918 on the pretext of “protecting” it from the Germans.

The four years of the imperialist slaughter of nations, however, have not passed in vain. The deception of the people by the scoundrels of both robber groups, the British and the German, has been utterly exposed by indisputable and obvious facts. The results of the four years of war have revealed the general law of capitalism as applied to war between robbers for the division of spoils: the richest and strongest profited and grabbed most, while the weakest were utterly robbed, tormented, crushed and strangled.

The British imperialist robbers were the strongest in number of “colonial slaves”. The British capitalists have not lost an inch of “their” territory (i.e., territory they have grabbed over the centuries), but they have grabbed all the German colonies in Africa, they have grabbed Mesopotamia and Palestine, they have throttled Greece, and have begun to plunder Russia.

The German imperialist robbers were the strongest in organisation and discipline of “their” armies, but weaker in regard to colonies. They have lost all their colonies, but plundered half of Europe and throttled the largest number of small countries and weak nations. What a great war of “liberation” on both sides! How well the robbers of both groups, the Anglo-French and the German capitalists, together with their lackeys, the social-chauvinists, i.e., the socialists who went over to the side of “their own ” bourgeoisie, have “defended their country”!

The American multimillionaires were, perhaps, richest of all, and geographically the most secure. They have profited more than all the rest. They have converted all, even the richest, countries into their tributaries. They have grabbed hundreds of billions of dollars. And every dollar is sullied with filth: the filth of the secret treaties between Britain and her “allies”, between Germany and her vassals, treaties for the division of the spoils, treaties of mutual “aid” for oppressing the workers and persecuting the internationalist socialists. Every dollar is sullied with the filth of “profitable” war contracts, which in every country made the rich richer and the poor poorer. And every dollar is stained with blood—from that ocean of blood that has been shed by the ten million killed and twenty million maimed in the great, noble, liberating and holy war to decide whether the British or the German robbers are to get most of the spoils, whether the British or the German thugs are to be foremost in throttling the weak nations all over the world.

While the German robbers broke all records in war atrocities, the British have broken all records not only in the number of colonies they have grabbed, but also in the subtlety of their disgusting hypocrisy. This very day, the Anglo-French and American bourgeois newspapers are spreading, in millions and millions of copies, lies and slander about Russia, and are hypocritically justifying their predatory expedition against her on the plea that they want to “protect” Russia from the Germans!

It does not require many words to refute this despicable and hideous lie; it is sufficient to point to one well-known fact. In October 1917, after the Russian workers had overthrown their imperialist government, the Soviet government, the government of the revolutionary workers and peasants, openly proposed a just peace, a peace without annexations or indemnities, a peace that fully guaranteed equal rights to all nations—and it proposed such a peace to all the belligerent countries.

It was the Anglo-French and the American bourgeoisie who refused to accept our proposal; it was they who even refused to talk to us about a general peace! It was they who betrayed the interests of all nations; it was they who prolonged the imperialist slaughter!

It was they who, banking on the possibility of dragging Russia back into the imperialist war, refused to take part in the peace negotiations and thereby gave a free hand to the no less predatory German capitalists who imposed the annexationist and harsh Brest Peace upon Russia!

It is difficult to imagine anything more disgusting than the hypocrisy with which the Anglo-French and American bourgeoisie are now “blaming” us for the Brest Peace Treaty. The very capitalists of those countries which could have turned the Brest negotiations into general negotiations for a general peace are now our “accusers”! The Anglo-French imperialist vultures, who have profited from the plunder of colonies and the slaughter of nations, have prolonged the war for nearly a whole year after Brest, and yet they “accuse” us, the Bolsheviks, who proposed a just peace to all countries, they accuse us, who tore up, published and exposed to public disgrace the secret, criminal treaties concluded between the ex-tsar and the Anglo-French capitalists.

The workers of the whole world, no matter in what country they live, greet us, sympathise with us, applaud us for breaking the iron ring of imperialist ties, of sordid imperialist treaties, of imperialist chains—for breaking through to freedom, and making the heaviest sacrifices in doing so—for, as a socialist republic, although torn and plundered by the imperialists, keeping out of the imperialist war and raising the banner of peace, the banner of socialism for the whole world to see.

Small wonder that the international imperialist gang hates us for this, that it “accuses” us, that all the lackeys of the imperialists, including our Right Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks, also “accuse” us. The hatred these watchdogs of imperialism express for the Bolsheviks, and the sympathy of the class-conscious workers of the world, convince us more than ever of the justice of our cause.

A real socialist would not fail to understand that for the sake of achieving victory over the bourgeoisie, for the sake of power passing to the workers, for the sake of starting the world proletarian revolution, we cannot and must not hesitate to make the heaviest sacrifices, including the sacrifice of part of our territory, the sacrifice of heavy defeats at the hands of imperialism. A real socialist would have proved by deeds his willingness for “his” country to make the greatest sacrifice to give a real push forward to the cause of the socialist revolution.

For the sake of “their” cause, that is, for the sake of winning world hegemony, the imperialists of Britain and Germany have not hesitated to utterly ruin and throttle a whole number of countries, from Belgium and Serbia to Palestine and Mesopotamia. But must socialists wait with “their” cause, the cause of liberating the working people of the whole world from the yoke of capital, of winning universal and lasting peace, until a path without sacrifice is found? Must they fear to open the battle until an easy victory is “guaranteed”? Must they place the integrity and security of “their” bourgeois-created “fatherland” above the interests of the world socialist revolution? The scoundrels in the international socialist movement who think this way, those lackeys who grovel to bourgeois morality, thrice stand condemned.

The Anglo-French and American imperialist vultures “accuse” us of concluding an “agreement” with German imperialism. What hypocrites, what scoundrels they are to slander the workers’ government while trembling because of the sympathy displayed towards us by the workers of “their own” countries! But their hypocrisy will be exposed. They pretend not to see the difference between an agreement entered into by “socialists” with the bourgeoisie (their own or foreign) against the workers, against the working people, and an agreement entered into for the protection of the workers who have defeated their bourgeoisie, with the bourgeoisie of one national colour against the bourgeoisie of another colour in order that the proletariat may take advantage of the antagonisms between the different groups of bourgeoisie.

In actual fact, every European sees this difference very well, and, as I shall show in a moment, the American people have had a particularly striking “illustration” of it in their own history. There are agreements and agreements, there are fagots et fagots, as the French say.

When in February 1918 the German imperialist vultures hurled their forces against unarmed, demobilised Russia, who had relied on the international solidarity of the proletariat before the world revolution had fully matured, I did not hesitate for a moment to enter into an “agreement” with the French monarchists. Captain Sadoul, a French army officer who, in words, sympathised with the Bolsheviks, but was in deeds a loyal and faithful servant of French imperialism, brought the French officer de Lubersac to see me. “I am a monarchist. My only aim is to secure the defeat of Germany,” de Lubersac declared to me. “That goes without saying (cela va sans dire ),” I replied. But this did not in the least prevent me from entering into an “agreement” with de Lubersac concerning certain services that French army officers, experts in explosives, were ready to render us by blowing up railway lines in order to hinder the German invasion. This is an example of an “agreement” of which every class-conscious worker will approve, an agreement in the interests of socialism. The French monarchist and I shook hands, although we knew that each of us would willingly hang his “partner”. But for a time our interests coincided. Against the advancing rapacious Germans, we, in the interests of the Russian and the world socialist revolution, utilised the equally rapacious counter-interests of other imperialists. In this way we served the interests of the working class of Russia and of other countries, we strengthened the proletariat and weakened the bourgeoisie of the whole world, we resorted to the methods, most legitimate and essential in every war, of manoeuvre, stratagem, retreat, in anticipation of the moment when the rapidly maturing proletarian revolution in a number of advanced countries completely matured.

However much the Anglo-French and American imperialist sharks fume with rage, however much they slander us, no matter how many millions they spend on bribing the Right Socialist-Revolutionary, Menshevik and other social-patriotic newspapers, I shall not hesitate one second to enter into a similar “agreement” with the German imperialist vultures if an attack upon Russia by Anglo-French troops calls for it. And I know perfectly well that my tactics will be approved by the class-conscious proletariat of Russia, Germany, France, Britain, America—in short, of the whole civilised world. Such tactics will ease the task of the socialist revolution, will hasten it, will weaken the international bourgeoisie, will strengthen the position of the working class which is defeating the bourgeoisie.

The American people resorted to these tactics long ago to the advantage of their revolution. When they waged their great war of liberation against the British oppressors, they had also against them the French and the Spanish oppressors who owned a part of what is now the United States of North America. In their arduous war for freedom, the American people also entered into “agreements” with some oppressors against others for the purpose of weakening the oppressors and strengthening those who were fighting in a revolutionary manner against oppression, for the purpose of serving the interests of the oppressed people. The American people took advantage of the strife between the French, the Spanish and the British; sometimes they even fought side by side with the forces of the French and Spanish oppressors against the British oppressors; first they defeated the British and then freed themselves (partly by ransom) from the French and the Spanish.

Historical action is not the pavement of Nevsky Prospekt, said the great Russian revolutionary Chernyshevsky.^[2] A revolutionary would not “agree” to a proletarian revolution only “on the condition” that it proceeds easily and smoothly, that there is, from the outset, combined action on the part of the proletarians of different countries, that there are guarantees against defeats, that the road of the revolution is broad, free and straight, that it will not be necessary during the march to victory to sustain the heaviest casualties, to “bide one’s time in a besieged fortress”, or to make one’s way along extremely narrow, impassable, winding and dangerous mountain tracks. Such a person is no revolutionary, he has not freed himself from the pedantry of the bourgeois intellectuals; such a person will be found constantly slipping into the camp of the counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie, like our Right Socialist-Revolutionaries, Mensheviks and even (although more rarely) Left Socialist-Revolutionaries.

Echoing the bourgeoisie, these gentlemen like to blame us for the “chaos” of the revolution, for the “destruction” of industry, for the unemployment and the food shortage. How hypocritical these accusations are, coming from those who welcomed and supported the imperialist war, or who entered into an “agreement” with Kerensky who continued this war! It is this imperialist war that is the cause of all these misfortunes. The revolution engendered by the war can not avoid the terrible difficulties and suffering bequeathed it by the prolonged, ruinous, reactionary slaughter of the nations. To blame us for the “destruction” of industry, or for the “terror”, is either hypocrisy or dull-witted pedantry; it reveals an inability to understand the basic conditions of the fierce class struggle, raised to the highest degree of intensity that is called revolution.

Even when “accusers” of this type do “recognise” the class struggle, they limit themselves to verbal recognition; actually, they constantly slip into the philistine utopia of class “agreement” and “collaboration”; for in revolutionary epochs the class struggle has always, inevitably, and in every country, assumed the form of civil war, and civil war is inconceivable without the severest destruction, terror and the restriction of formal democracy in the interests of this war. Only unctuous parsons—whether Christian or “secular” in the persons of parlour, parliamentary socialists— cannot see, understand and feel this necessity. Only a life less “man in the muffler”^[3] can shun the revolution for this reason instead of plunging into battle with the utmost ardour and determination at a time when history demands that the greatest problems of humanity be solved by struggle and war.

The American people have a revolutionary tradition which has been adopted by the best representatives of the American proletariat, who have repeatedly expressed their complete solidarity with us Bolsheviks. That tradition is the war of liberation against the British in the eighteenth century and the Civil War in the nineteenth century. In some respects, if we only take into consideration the “destruction” of some branches of industry and of the national economy, America in 1870 was behind 1860. But what a pedant, what an idiot would anyone be to deny on these grounds the immense, world-historic, progressive and revolutionary significance of the American Civil War of 1863-65!

The representatives of the bourgeoisie understand that for the sake of overthrowing Negro slavery, of overthrowing the rule of the slaveowners, it was worth letting the country go through long years of civil war, through the abysmal ruin, destruction and terror that accompany every war. But now, when we are confronted with the vastly greater task of overthrowing capitalist wage-slavery, of overthrowing the rule of the bourgeoisie—now, the representatives and defenders of the bourgeoisie, and also the reformist socialists who have been frightened by the bourgeoisie and are shunning the revolution, cannot and do not want to understand that civil war is necessary and legitimate.

The American workers will not follow the bourgeoisie. They will be with us, for civil war against the bourgeoisie. The whole history of the world and of the American labour movement strengthens my conviction that this is so. I also recall the words of one of the most beloved leaders of the American proletariat, Eugene Debs, who wrote in the Appeal to Reason,^[4] I believe towards the end of 1915, in the article “What Shall I Fight For” (I quoted this article at the beginning of 1916 at a public meeting of workers in Berne, Switzerland)^[5]—that he, Debs, would rather be shot than vote credits for the present criminal and reactionary war; that he, Debs, knows of only one holy and, from the proletarian standpoint, legitimate war, namely: the war against the capitalists, the war to liberate mankind from wage-slavery.

I am not surprised that Wilson, the head of the American multimillionaires and servant of the capitalist sharks, has thrown Debs into prison. Let the bourgeoisie be brutal to the true internationalists, to the true representatives of the revolutionary proletariat! The more fierce and brutal they are, the nearer the day of the victorious proletarian revolution.

We are blamed for the destruction caused by our revolution. . . . Who are the accusers? The hangers-on of the bourgeoisie, of that very bourgeoisie who, during the four years of the imperialist war, have destroyed almost the whole of European culture and have reduced Europe to barbarism, brutality and starvation. These bourgeoisie now demand we should not make a revolution on these ruins, amidst this wreckage of culture, amidst the wreckage and ruins created by the war, nor with the people who have been brutalised by the war. How humane and righteous the bourgeoisie are!

Their servants accuse us of resorting to terror. . . . The British bourgeoisie have forgotten their 1649, the French bourgeoisie have forgotten their 1793. Terror was just and legitimate when the bourgeoisie resorted to it for their own benefit against feudalism. Terror became monstrous and criminal when the workers and poor peasants dared to use it against the bourgeoisie! Terror was just and legitimate when used for the purpose of substituting one exploiting minority for another exploiting minority. Terror became monstrous and criminal when it began to be used for the purpose of overthrowing every exploiting minority, to be used in the interests of the vast actual majority, in the interests of the proletariat and semi-proletariat, the working class and the poor peasants!

The international imperialist bourgeoisie have slaughtered ten million men and maimed twenty million in “their” war, the war to decide whether the British or the German vultures are to rule the world.

If our war, the war of the oppressed and exploited against the oppressors and the exploiters, results in half a million or a million casualties in all countries, the bourgeoisie will say that the former casualties are justified, while the latter are criminal.

The proletariat will have something entirely different to say.

Now, amidst the horrors of the imperialist war, the proletariat is receiving a most vivid and striking illustration of the great truth taught by all revolutions and bequeathed to the workers by their best teachers, the founders of modern socialism. This truth is that no revolution can be successful unless the resistance of the exploiters is crushed. When we, the workers and toiling peasants, captured state power, it became our duty to crush the resistance of the exploiters. We are proud we have been doing this. We regret we are not doing it with sufficient firmness and determination.

We know that fierce resistance to the socialist revolution on the part of the bourgeoisie is inevitable in all countries, and that this resistance will grow with the growth of this revolution. The proletariat will crush this resistance; during the struggle against the resisting bourgeoisie it will finally mature for victory and for power.

Let the corrupt bourgeois press shout to the whole world about every mistake our revolution makes. We are not daunted by our mistakes. People have not become saints because the revolution has begun. The toiling classes who for centuries have been oppressed, downtrodden and forcibly held in the vice of poverty, brutality and ignorance cannot avoid mistakes when making a revolution. And, as I pointed out once before, the corpse of bourgeois society cannot be nailed in a coffin and buried.[*] The corpse of capitalism is decaying and disintegrating in our midst, polluting the air and poisoning our lives, enmeshing that which is new, fresh, young and virile in thousands of threads and bonds of that which is old, moribund and decaying.

For every hundred mistakes we commit, and which the bourgeoisie and their lackeys (including our own Mensheviks and Right Socialist-Revolutionaries) shout about to the whole world, 10,000 great and heroic deeds are performed, greater and more heroic because they are simple and inconspicuous amidst the everyday life of a factory district or a remote village, performed by people who are not accustomed (and have no opportunity) to shout to the whole world about their successes.

But even if the contrary were true—although I know such an assumption is wrong—even if we committed 10,000 mistake for every 100 correct actions we performed, even in that case our revolution would be great and invincible, and so it will be in the eyes of world history, because, for the first time, not the minority, not the rich alone, not the educated alone, but the real people, the vast majority of the working people, are themselves building a new life, are by their own experience solving the most difficult problems of socialist organisation .

Every mistake committed in the course of such work, in the course of this most conscientious and earnest work of tens of millions of simple workers and peasants in reorganising their whole life, every such mistake is worth thousands and millions of “lawless” successes achieved by the exploiting minority—successes in swindling and duping the working people. For only through such mistakes will the workers and peasants learn to build the new life, learn to do without capitalists; only in this way will they hack a path for themselves—through thousands of obstacles—to victorious socialism.

Mistakes are being committed in the course of their revolutionary work by our peasants, who at one stroke, in one night, October 25-26 (old style), 1917, entirely abolished the private ownership of land, and are now, month after month, overcoming tremendous difficulties and correcting their mistakes themselves, solving in a practical way the most difficult tasks of organising new conditions of economic life, of fighting the kulaks, providing land for the working people (and not for the rich), and of changing to communist large-scale agriculture.

Mistakes are being committed in the course of their revolutionary work by our workers, who have already, after a few months, nationalised almost all the biggest factories and plants, and are learning by hard, everyday work the new task of managing whole branches of industry, are setting the nationalised enterprises going, overcoming the powerful resistance of inertia, petty-bourgeois mentality and selfishness, and, brick by brick, are laying the foundation of new social ties, of a new labour discipline, of a new influence of the workers’ trade unions over their members.

Mistakes are committed in the course of their revolutionary work by our Soviets, which were created as far back as 1905 by a mighty upsurge of the people. The Soviets of Workers and Peasants are a new type of state, a new and higher type of democracy, a form of the proletarian dictatorship, a means of administering the state without the bourgeoisie and against the bourgeoisie. For the first time democracy is here serving the people, the working people, and has ceased to be democracy for the rich as it still is in all bourgeois republics, even the most democratic. For the first time, the people are grappling, on a scale involving one hundred million, with the problem of implementing the dictatorship of the proletariat and semi-proletariat—a problem which, if not solved, makes socialism out of the question.

Let the pedants, or the people whose minds are incurably stuffed with bourgeois-democratic or parliamentary prejudices, shake their heads in perplexity about our Soviets, about the absence of direct elections, for example. These people have forgotten nothing and have learned nothing during the period of the great upheavals of 1914-18. The combination of the proletarian dictatorship with the new democracy for the working people—of civil war with the widest participation of the people in politics—such a combination cannot be brought about at one stroke, nor does it fit in with the outworn modes of routine parliamentary democracy. The contours of a new world, the world of socialism, are rising before us in the shape of the Soviet Republic. It is not surprising that this world does not come into being ready-made, does not spring forth like Minerva from the head of Jupiter.

The old bourgeois-democratic constitutions waxed eloquent about formal equality and right of assembly; but our proletarian and peasant Soviet Constitution casts aside the hypocrisy of formal equality. When the bourgeois republicans overturned thrones they did not worry about formal equality between monarchists and republicans. When it is a matter of overthrowing the bourgeoisie, only traitors or idiots can demand formal equality of rights for the bourgeoisie. “Freedom of assembly” for workers and peasants is not worth a farthing when the best buildings belong to the bourgeoisie. Our Soviets have confiscated all the good buildings in town and country from the rich and have transferred all of them to the workers and peasants for their unions and meetings. This is our freedom of assembly—for the working people! This is the meaning and content of our Soviet, our socialist Constitution!

That is why we are all so firmly convinced that no matter what misfortunes may still be in store for it, our Republic of Soviets is invincible.

It is invincible because every blow struck by frenzied imperialism, every defeat the international bourgeoisie inflict on us, rouses more and more sections of the workers and peasants to the struggle, teaches them at the cost of enormous sacrifice, steels them and engenders new heroism on a mass scale.

We know that help from you will probably not come soon, comrade American workers, for the revolution is developing in different countries in different forms and at different tempos (and it cannot be otherwise). We know that although the European proletarian revolution has been maturing very rapidly lately, it may, after all, not flare up within the next few weeks. We are banking on the inevitability of the world revolution, but this does not mean that we are such fools as to bank on the revolution inevitably coming on a definite and early date. We have seen two great revolutions in our country, 1905 and 1917, and we know revolutions are not made to order, or by agreement. We know that circumstances brought our Russian detachment of the socialist proletariat to the fore not because of our merits, but because of the exceptional backwardness of Russia, and that before the world revolution breaks out a number of separate revolutions may be defeated.

In spite of this, we are firmly convinced that we are invincible, because the spirit of mankind will not be broken by the imperialist slaughter. Mankind will vanquish it. And the first country to break the convict chains of the imperialist war was our country. We sustained enormously heavy casualties in the struggle to break these chains, but we broke them. We are free from imperialist dependence, we have raised the banner of struggle for the complete overthrow of imperialism for the whole world to see.

We are now, as it were, in a besieged fortress, waiting for the other detachments of the world socialist revolution to come to our relief. These detachments exist, they are more numerous than ours, they are maturing, growing, gaining more strength the longer the brutalities of imperialism continue. The workers are breaking away from their social traitors—the Gomperses, Hendersons, Renaudels, Scheidemanns and Renners. Slowly but surely the workers are adopting communist, Bolshevik tactics and are marching towards the proletarian revolution, which alone is capable of saving dying culture and dying mankind.

In short, we are invincible, because the world proletarian revolution is invincible.

N. Lenin

August 20, 1918

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Endnotes

[1] The dispatch of the letter to America was organised by the Bolshevik M. M. Borodin, who had recently been there. With the foreign military intervention and the blockade of Soviet Russia this involved considerable difficulties. The letter was delivered to the United States by P. I. Travin (Sletov). Along with the letter he brought the Constitution of the R.S.F.S.R. and the Soviet Government’s Note to President Wilson containing the demand to stop the intervention. The well-known American socialist and journalist John Reed secured the publication of all these documents in the American press.

In December 1918 a slightly abridged version of the letter appeared in the New York magazine The Class Struggle and the Boston weekly The Revolutionary Age, both organs of the Left wing of the American Socialist Party. The Revolutionary Age was brought out by John Reed and Sen Katayama. The letter evoked keen interest among readers and it was published as a reprint from The Class Struggle in a large number of copies. Subsequently it was published many times in the bourgeois and socialist press of the U.S.A. and Western Europe, in the French socialist magazine Demain No. 28-29, 1918, in No. 138 of the Call, organ of the British Socialist Party, the Berlin magazine Die Aktion No. 51-52, 1918, and elsewhere. In 1934 the letter was brought out in New York in the form of a pamphlet, which contained the passages omitted in earlier publications.

The letter was widely used by the American Left Socialists and was instrumental in aiding the development of the labour and communist movement in the U.S. and Europe. It helped advanced workers to appreciate the nature of imperialism and the great revolutionary changes effected by the Soviet government. Lenin’s letter aroused a mounting protest in the U.S. against the armed intervention.

[2] Lenin quotes from Chernyshevsky’s review of the book by the American economist H. Ch. Carey, Letters to the President on the Foreign and Domestic Policy of the Union, and its Effects. Chernyshevsky wrote: “The path of history is not paved like Nevsky Prospekt; it runs across fields, either dusty or muddy, and cuts through swamps or forest thickets. Anyone who fears being covered with dust or muddying his boots, should not engage in social activity.”

[3] Man in the muffler—a character from Chekhov’s story of the same title, personifying a narrow-minded philistine scared of initiative and new ideas.

[4] Appeal to Reason—American socialist newspaper, founded in Girard, Kansas, in 1895. The newspaper propagated socialist ideas and was immensely popular among the workers. During the First World War it pursued an internationalist policy.

Debs’s article appeared in the paper on September 11, 1915. Its title, which Lenin most probably quoted from memory, was “When I Shall Fight”.

[5] See present edition, Volume 22, page 125. Speech Delivered at an International Meeting in Berne.

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Collected Works Volume 28
Collected Works Table of Contents
Lenin Works Archive

internationalcommunistpress
Communists in Brazil call for unity against the rise of fascism


Fascist candidate elected president, communists in Brazil declared their determination to continue their resistance against the advent of fascism.

ICP, 31 October 2018

On Sunday, fascist candidate Jair Bolsonaro won the second round of the presidential elections in Brazil by receiving 57 million votes (55% of the registered votes) while his social-democrat rival Fernando Haddad received 47 million votes. Striving for showing different aspects of the danger for a long time, communists declare their determination in continuing their resistance against the rise of fascism.

The President of the Communist Party of Brazil (PCdoB) Luciana Santos and the National Executive Committee of the Party declared in a statement that the election of a candidate who is clearly determined to establish a dictatorial government, to implement, with blood and fire, an ultra-liberal and neo-colonial program opens a new period in the country, a period which is marked by threats to democracy, national patrimony, the sovereignty of the nation and the rights of the people. Referring to the incidences that threatened the Republic's institutions, basic guarantees of the Federal Constitution and the autonomy of universities during the electoral campaign, the PCdoB points to a twist towards regression, deconstruction, and even the destruction of historic gains and achievements of the Brazilian people. It is asserted that this reactionary rupture that was triggered by the coup of August 2016 will have a strong regressive impact in Latin America. Expressing their conviction in the future victory of the Brazilian democracy against Bolsonaro, the PCdoB addressed the people and the democratic forces of the country, calling on starting today to "build a broad unity with the objective of unveiling horizons for a civic, patriotic, democratic and popular journey."

In its statement on the results of the second round of the elections, the Brazilian Communist Party (PCB) defined Bolsonaro's victory as the defeat of the cycle of class conciliation in Brazil, marking a new period in capitalist domination. Taking into consideration the fraudulent propaganda financed by large businessmen and disseminated by ultraconservative groups for spreading irrationality and hatred, the PCB warned about the risk that the hatred and violence already practiced during the election campaign, provoking physical aggression and several deaths, may be further disseminated by the fascist hordes encouraged by the Bolsonaro clan and supporters in the period between the announcement of the election result and the inauguration of the new ruler. The PCB predicted that the new government will deepen measures of criminalization of social movements and left in particular, that it will intend to push forward the process of privatization and subordination to the interests of US imperialism and that it will accelerate the withdrawal of civil, political, social and labour rights. Underlining the unity of anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist social movements against fascism, the PCB declared, "It is necessary immediately that all popular and democratic forces should unite around the construction of a broad anti-fascist front, which shall mobilize various social sectors dissatisfied with the election of Bolsonaro and those who will have their rights hit by the upcoming attacks."

Carolus Wimmer, International Relations Secretary of the Communist Party of Venezuela (PCV), put forward that Bolsonaro's election means a serious threat to democracy, which was financed by the stateless entrepreneurs and transnational corporations looking for dismantling the nation-state in order to plunder the wealth and the heritage of the peoples and which will institutionalize in Brazil the coup of August 2016. Wimmer added that the advent of fascism in such a developed economy belonging to the BRICS determines the beginning of the worsening of the class struggles in Latin America. Emphasizing the urgency of the unity of the workers, Wimmer declared that only socialism, only the organization and the formation of the working class has been able to defeat fascism in all its demonstrations.

See the link for the statement of the PCdoB in Portuguese, Spanish and English.
See the link for the statement of the PCB in Portuguese.
See the link for the statement of the PCV in Spanish.