V.I. Lenin

SPEECHES ON GRAMOPHONE RECORDS

1919-1921

 

 

THE THIRD, COMMUNIST INTERNATIONAL

In March of this year of 1919, an international congress of Communists was held in Moscow. This Congress founded the Third, Communist International, an association of the workers of the whole world who are striving to establish Soviet power in all countries.

The First International, founded by Marx, existed from 1864 to 1872. The defeat of the heroic workers of Paris-of the celebrated Paris Commune-marked the end of this International. It is unforgettable, it will remain forever in the history of the workers’ struggle for their emancipation. It laid the foundation of that edifice of the world socialist republic which it is now our good fortune to be building.

The Second International existed from 1889 to 1914, up to the war. This was the period of the most calm and peaceful development of capitalism, a period without great revolutions. During this period the working-class movement gained strength, and matured, in a number of countries. But the workers’leaders in most of the parties had become accustomed to peaceful conditions and had lost the ability to wage a revolutionary struggle. When, in 1914, there began the war, that drenched the earth with blood for four years, the war between the capitalists over the division of profits, the war for supremacy over small and weak nations, these leaders deserted to the side of their respective governments. They betrayed the workers, they helped to prolong the slaughter, they became enemies of socialism, they went over to the side of the capitalists.

The masses of workers turned their backs on these traitors to socialism. All over the world there was a turn towards the revolutionary struggle. The war proved that capitalism was doomed. A new system is coming to take its place. The old word socialism has been desecrated by the traitors to socialism.

Today, the workers who have remained loyal to the cause of throwing off the yoke of capital call themselves Communists. all over the world the association of Communists is growing. In a number of countries Soviet power has already triumphed. Soon we shall see the victory of communism throughout the world; we shall see the foundation of the World Federative Republic of Soviets.

AN APPEAL TO THE RED ARMY

 

Comrades, red Army men! The capitalists of Britain, America and France are waging war against Russia. They are taking revenge on the Soviet workers’and peasants’Republic for having overthrown the power of the landowners and capitalists and thereby set an example to all the nations of the globe. The capitalists of Britain, France and America are helping with money and munitions the Russian landowners who are bringing troops from Siberia, the Don and North Caucasus against Soviet power, for the purpose of restoring the rule of the Tsar and the power of the landowners and capitalists. But this will not happen. The Red Army has closed its ranks, has risen up and driven the landowners’ troops and whiteguard officers from the Volga, has recaptured Riga and almost the whole of the Ukraine, and is marching towards Odessa and Rostov. A little more effort, a few more months of fighting the enemy, and victory will be ours. The Red Army is strong because it is consciously and unitedly marching into battle for the peasants’land, for the rule of the workers and peasants, for Soviet power.

The Red Army is invincible because it has united millions of working peasants with the workers who have now learned to fight, have acquired comradely discipline, who do not lose heart, who become steeled after slight reverses, and are more and more boldly marching against the enemy, convinced he will soon be defeated.

Comrades, Red Army men! The alliance of the workers and peasants of the Red Army is firm, close and insoluble. The kulaks, the very rich peasants, are trying to foment revolts against Soviet power, but they constitute an insignificant minority. They rarely succeed in fooling the peasants, and then not for long. The peasants know that only in alliance with the workers can they vanquish the landowners. Sometimes, in the rural districts people call themselves Communists who are actually the worst enemies of the working people, bullies who hang on to the authorities in pursuit of their own selfish aims, and to resort to deception, commit acts of injustice and wrong the middle peasant. The workers’ and peasants’ government has firmly decided to fight against these people and clear them out of the countryside. The middle peasants are not inmates but friends of the workers, friends of Soviet power. The class conscious workers and genuine Soviet people treat the middle peasants as comrades. The middle peasants do not exploit the labor of others, they do not grow rich at other people’s expense, as the kulaks do; the middle peasants work themselves, they live by their own labor. The Soviet government will crush the kulaks, well, out of the villages those who treat the middle peasants unjustly and, come what may, will pursue the policy of alliance between the workers and all the working peasants-both poor and middle peasants.

This alliance is growing all over the world. The revolution is drawing nigh, it is everywhere maturing. A few days ago it was victorious in Hungary. In Hungary, Soviet power, workers’ government, has been established. This is what all nations will inevitably do.

Comrades, Red Army men! Be staunch, firm and united. March boldly forward against the enemy. Victory will be ours. The power of the landowners and the capitalists, broken in Russia, will be defeated throughout the world.

IN MEMORY OF COMRADE YAKOV MIKHAILOVICH SVERDLOV, CHAIRMAN OF THE ALL RUSSIA CENTRAL EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

 

All those who have worked day after day with Comrade Sverdlov, now realize full well that it was his exceptional organizing talent which insured for us that of which we have been so proud, and justly proud. He made it possible for us to carry on United, efficient, organized activities worthy of all the organized proletarian masses, without which we could not have achieved success, and which answered fully the requirements of the proletarian revolution. The memory of Comrade Yakov Mikhailovich Sverdlov will serve not only as a symbol of the revolutionary’s devotion to his cause, not only as the model of how to combine a practical, sober mind, practical ability, the closest contact with the masses and ability to guide then, but also a pledge that ever-growing masses of proletarians will march forward to the complete victory of the communist revolution.

COMMUNICATIONS ON THE WIRELESS NEGOTIATIONS WITH BÉLA KUN

 

I knew Comrade Béla Kun very well when he was still a prisoner of war in Russia; and he visited me many times to discuss communism and the communist revolution. Therefore, when news of the Hungarian Communist revolution was received, and in a communication signed by Comrade Béla Kun at that, we wanted to speak to him and ascertain exactly how the revolution stood. The first communication we received about it gave us some grounds for fearing that, perhaps, the so-called socialists, traitor-socialists, had resorted to some deception, had got round the Communists, the more so that the latter were in prison. And so, the day after the first communication about the Hungarian revolution was received, I sent a wireless message to Budapest, asking Béla Kun to come to the apparatus, and I put a number of questions to him of such a nature as to enable me to make sure that it was really he who was speaking. I asked him what real guarantees there were for the character of the government and for its actual policy. Comrade Béla Kun’s reply was quite satisfactory and dispels all our doubts. It appears that the Left Socialists had visited Béla Kun in prison to consult him about forming a government. And it was only these Left Socialists, who sympathized with the Communists, and also people from the Centre who form the new government, while the Right Socialists, the traitor-socialists, the irreconcilables and incorrigibles, so to speak, left the Party, and not a single worker followed them. Later communication showed that the policy of the Hungarian Government was most firm and so Communist and trend that while we began with workers’ control of industry and only gradually began to socialize industry, Béla Kun, with his prestige, his conviction that he was backed by vast masses, could at once pass a law which converted all the industrial undertakings in Hungary that were run on capitalist lines into public property. Two days later we became fully convinced that the Hungarian revolution had at once, with extraordinary rapidity, taken the communist road. The bourgeoisie voluntarily surrendered power to the Communists of Hungary. The bourgeoisie demonstrated to the whole world that when a grave crisis supervenes, when the nation is in danger, the bourgeoisie is unable to govern. And there is only one government that is really a popular government, a government that is really beloved of the people-the government of the Soviets of Workers’, Soldiers’and Peasants’ Deputies.

Long live Soviet power in Hungary!

THE MIDDLE PEASANTS

 

The most important question now confronting the Communist Party, the question on which most attention was concentrated at the last Party Congress, is that of the middle peasants.

 

Naturally, the first question usually asked is, what is a middle peasant?

Naturally, Party comrades have often related how they have been asked this question in the villages. The middle peasant, we say in reply, is a peasant who does not exploit the labor of others, who does not live on the labor of others, who does not take the fruits of other people’s labor in any shape or form, but works himself, and lives by his own labor.

Under capitalism there were fewer peasants of this type then there are now, because the majority of the peasants were in the ranks of the impoverished, and only an insignificant majority, then, as now, were in the ranks of the kulaks, the exploiters, the rich peasants.

The middle peasants have been increasing in number since the private ownership of land was abolished, and the Soviet government has firmly resolved, at all costs, to establish relations of complete peace and harmony with them. It goes without saying that the middle peasant cannot immediately accept socialism, because he clings firmly to what he is accustomed to, he is cautious about all innovations, subjects what he is offered to a factual, practical test and does not decide to change his way of life until he is convinced that change is necessary.

It is precisely for this reason that we must know, remember, and put into practice the rule that when Communist workers go into rural districts they must try to establish comradely relations with the middle peasants, it is their duty to establish these comradely relations with them; they must remember that working peasants who do not exploit the labor of others are the comrades of the urban workers and that we can, and must, establish with them a voluntary alliance inspired by sincerity and confidence. Every measure proposed by the communist government must be regarded merely as advice, as a suggestion to the middle peasants, as an invitation to them to accept the new order.

Only by cooperation in the work of testing these measures in practice, finding out in what way they are mistaken, eliminating possible errors and achieving agreement with the middle peasant-only by such cooperation can the alliance between the workers and the peasants be insured. This alliance is the main strength and the bulwark of Soviet power; this alliance is a pledge that socialist transformation will be successful, victory over capital will be achieved and exploitation, and all its forms, will be abolished.

WHAT IS SOVIET POWER?

 

What is Soviet power? What is the essence of this new power, which people in most countries still will not, or cannot, understand? The nature of this power, which is attracting larger and larger numbers of workers in every country, is the following: in the past the country was, in one way or another, governed by the rich, or by the capitalists, but now, for the first time, the country is being governed by the classes, which capitalism formerly oppressed. Even in the most democratic and freest republics, as long as capital rules and the land remains private property, the government will always be in the hands of a small minority, nine-tenths of which consist of capitalists, or rich men.

In this country, in Russia, for the first time in the world history, the government of the country is so organized that only the workers and the working peasants, to the exclusion of the exploiters, constitute these mass organizations known as Soviets, and these Soviets wield all state power. That is why, in spite of the slander that the representatives of the bourgeoisie in all countries spread about Russia, the word “Soviet” has now become not only intelligible but popular all over the world, has become the favorite word of the workers, and of all working people. And that is why, notwithstanding all the persecution to which the adherents of communism in the different countries are subjected, Soviet power must necessarily, inevitably, and in the not too distant future, triumph over the world.

We know very well that there are still many defects in the organization of Soviet power in this country. Soviet power is not a miracle working talisman. It does not, overnight, heal all the evils of the past-illiteracy, lack of culture, the consequences of a barbarous war, the aftermath of predatory capitalism. But it does pave the way to socialism. It gives those who were formerly oppressed the chance to straighten their backs and to an ever-increasing degree to take the whole government of the country, the whole administration of the economy, the whole management of production, into their own hands.

Soviet power is the road to socialism that was discovered by the masses of the working people, and that is why it is the true road, that is why it is invincible.

HOW THE WORKING PEOPLE CAN BE SAVED FROM THE OPPRESSION OF THE LANDOWNERS AND CAPITALISTS FOREVER

 

The enemies of the working people, the landowners and capitalists say that the workers and peasants cannot live without them. “If it were not for us,” they say, there would be nobody to maintain order, to give out work, and to compel people to work. If it were not for us everything would collapse, and the state would fall to pieces. We have been driven away, but Cass will bring us back again.” But this sort of taught by the landowners and capitalists will not confuse, intimidate, or deceive the workers and peasants. An army needs the strictest discipline; nevertheless the class conscious workers succeeded in uniting the peasants, succeeded in taking the old Tsarist officers into their service, succeeded in building a victorious army.

The red Army established unprecedentedly firm discipline-not by means of the lash, but based on the intelligence, loyalty and devotion of the workers and peasants themselves.

And so, to say the working people from the yoke of the landowners and capitalists forever, to save them from the restoration of their power, it is necessary to build up a great Red Army of Labor. That army will be invincible if it is cemented by labor discipline. The workers and peasants must, and well, prove that they can properly distribute labor, establish devoted discipline and ensure loyalty in working for the common good, and can do it themselves, without the landowners and in spite of them, without the capitalists and in spite of them.

Labor discipline, enthusiasm for work, readiness for self-sacrifice, close alliance between the peasants and the workers-this is what will say the working people from the oppression of the landowners and capitalists forever.

WORK FOR THE RAILWAYS

 

Comrades, the great victories of the Red Army have delivered us from the onslaught of Kolchak and Yudenich and have almost put an end to Denikin.

The troops of the landowners and capitalists who wanted, with the aid of the capitalists of the whole world, to reestablish their rule and Russia have been routed.

The imperialist war and then the war against counterrevolution, however, have laid waste to and ruined, the entire country.

We must bend all efforts to conquer the chaos, to restore industry and agriculture, and to give the peasants the goods they need in exchange for grain.

Now that we have defeated the landowners and liberated Siberia, the Ukraine, and the North Caucasus, we have every opportunity of restoring the country’s economy.

We have a lot of grain, and we now have coal and oil. We are being held up by transport. The railways are out of action. Transport must be rehabilitated. Then we can bring grain, coal and oil to the factories, then we can deliver salt, then we shall begin to restore industry and put an end to the hunger of the factory and railway workers.

Let all workers and peasants set about rehabilitating the railways, let them set about the work with persistence and enthusiasm.

All the work necessary for the restoration of transport must be carried out with the greatest zeal, with revolutionary fervor, with unreserved loyalty.

We have been victorious on the front of the bloody war.

We shall be victorious on the bloodless front, on the labor front.

All out for work to restore transport!

LABOR DISCIPLINE

 

Why was it we defeated Yudenich, Kolchak and Denikin although the capitalists of all the world help them?

 

Why are we confident that we shall now defeat the economic chaos and rehabilitate industry and agriculture?

We overthrow the landowners and capitalists because the men of the Red Army, workers and peasants, knew they were fighting for their own vital interests.

We won because the best people from the entire working class and from the entire peasantry displayed unparalleled heroism in the war against the exploiters, performed miracles of valor, withstood untold privations, made great sacrifices and got rid of scroungers and cowards.

We are now confident that we shall conquer the chaos because the best people from the entire working class and from the entire peasantry are joining the struggle with the same political consciousness, the same firmness and the same heroism.

When millions of working people unite as one and follow the best people from their class, victory is assured.

We drove the scroungers out of the Army. And now we say, “Down with the scroungers, down with those who think of their own advantage, of speculation and of shirking work, those who are afraid of the sacrifices necessary for victory!”

Long live labor discipline, zeal and work and loyalty to the cause of the workers and peasants!

Eternal glory to those who died in the front ranks of the Red Army!

Eternal glory to those who are now leading millions of working people and who, with the greatest zeal, March in the front ranks of the army of labor!

NON-PARTY PEOPLE AND THE SOVIETS (Comrade Lenin Speaks)

 

Workers and peasants, provide us with nonparty people of integrity, devoted to Soviet Power, for the purpose of governing the country and improving the economy. The Soviet stand in need of honest and devoted non-Party people, since there are not enough Party members. Among non-Party workers and peasants there are very, very many who are marked by integrity and the capacity to conduct matters of government and the running of the economy. For instance, they can get handicrafts enterprises and cooperatives going, help distribute foodstuffs fairly, improve matters with catering facilities, housing, the feeding of children, and so on and so forth.

In every gubernia, there are thousands upon thousands of non-Party workers and peasants who are not hit involved in matters of government and the rehabilitation of the economy. It is the bounden duty of Party and Government functionaries to find such people, give them promotion and work to do, verify their abilities, and enable them to develop and show their worth.

We have nothing to fear from the eight given by non-Party workers and peasants; on the contrary, it is necessary and desirable. We should beware only of the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries, who are nowadays fond of calling themselves non-Party people, while in fact carrying on their treacherous work for the benefit of the whiteguards and the landowners. It was with good reason that all the whiteguards and landowners Payson to give help to the Kronstadt mutiny. Such disguised non-Party people should be exposed and arrested, while honest non-Party workers and peasants should be drawn into our work in every possible way.

CONSUMERS’ AND PRODUCERS’ COOPERATIVE SOCIETIES

 

Consumers’ cooperative societies are associations of workers and peasants for the purpose of supplying and distributing the goods they need. Producers’cooperative societies are associations of small farmers or artisans for the purpose of producing and marketing products, whether agricultural (such as vegetables, dairy products and the light) or nonagricultural (all sorts of manufactured goods, woodwork, ironware, leather goods, and so forth).

The substitution of the tax in kind, for the surplus appropriation system, will give the peasants grain surpluses which they will freely exchange for all sorts of manufactured goods.

Producers’cooperatives will help to develop small industry, which will supply the peasants with greater quantities of necessary goods. Most of these do not have to be transported by rail over long distances and do not need large factories for their manufacture. Everything must be done to foster and develop producers’cooperatives, and it is the duty of Party and Soviet workers to render them every assistance, for this will give the peasants immediate relief and improve their condition. At the present time, the revival and restoration of the national economy of the workers’ and peasants’state depends most of all on the improvement of peasant life and farming.

There must also be support and development of consumers’cooperative societies, for they will ensure swift, regular and low-cost distribution of products. It remains for the Soviet authorities to supervise the activity of the cooperative societies to see that there are no fraudulent practices, no concealment from the government, no abuses. In no circumstances should they hamper the cooperative societies but should help and promote them in every way.

ON THE TAX IN KIND AND THE FREE EXCHANGE OF SURPLUS GRAIN (Comrade Lenin Speaks)

 

Comrades, as a result of the substitution of the tax in kind for the surplus appropriation system, the peasants should, given a medium harvest, have hundreds of millions of poods of surplus grain left. The law entitles the peasants to make use of that surplus quite freely, at their own wishes, to improve their food, supply their livestock with fodder, and exchange it for industrial products. The free exchange of surplus grain for industrial products will make the peasants more interested in bettering their farming, and will make it easier to do so through the development of all kinds of industries that will turn out products necessary to the peasants. It would be best of all, if it proved possible, to rapidly and fully restore the big factories, as well as railway and water transport. That would enable the peasants to be rapidly, and cheaply, supplied with many of the necessary products of industry, such as salt, kerosene, textiles, footwear, agricultural implements, and fertilizers. But big supplies of both fuel and food are needed in the cities for the rapid rehabilitation of large-scale industry. Yet we are unable to rapidly collect and deliver such supplies. That is why, together with the work of gathering and delivering these supplies, what should at once be started on developing and encouraging small-scale industry in every possible way. It can and should insure for the peasants and immediate improvement in his life, and his farming, without big State expenditures of stocks of raw materials, fuel and foodstuffs. So let all Party  and Government functionaries thoroughly understand and conscientiously perform their duty in encouraging and developing, in every possible way, small-scale industry, which is of such benefit to peasant farming.

By James Thompson

Karl Marx writes in the sixth paragraph of the Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (1859):

“In the social production of their existence, men inevitably enter into definite relations, which are independent of their will, namely relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material forces of production. The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political and intellectual life. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness. At a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production or – this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms – with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an era of social revolution. The changes in the economic foundation lead sooner or later to the transformation of the whole immense superstructure.”

Marx teaches us that “The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political and intellectual life.”

In a previous post on this website “Frederick Engels on Bukunin’s School of Anarchy”, A. Shaw notes that Engels made the case that Anarchists view the state as the ultimate evil and routinely abstain from the political struggle in any meaningful way. In short, Anarchists have a phobia of political struggle. They are extremely successful in persuading people on the left, people of conscience and progressives generally from participating fully in the political struggle in the United States. This is easily confirmed by the pathetic numbers of people who vote.

According to Time magazine, the 2014 midterm elections voter turnout reached a 72 year low and only 36.4% of eligible voters actually voted. Researchers Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page maintained that the US political system has transformed from a democracy into an oligarchy where wealthy elites control most political power. The researchers maintain

“The central point that emerges from our research is that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy,” they write, “while mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence.”

If this is true, then it is obvious that those people who control the means of production in the United States control the political process as well. The people who control the means of production in the United States, obviously, are the capitalist class, commonly referred to as the 1%.

Marx taught us and examination of the current mode of production easily reveals that market economies are anarchistic in form and content. In other words, market economies are ideologically anarchistic.

Dictionary definitions of anarchism include components such as “rejection of authority” and “absence of government and absolute freedom of the individual, regarded as a political ideal.” Synonyms of anarchy include “lawlessness, nihilism, disorder, chaos, mayhem, tumult, turmoil.” It should be pointed out that nihilism, particularly that form of nihilism expressed by Friedrich Nietzsche, was the dominant ideology of Nazi Germany.

Few would argue that there is no worship of the “absolute freedom of the individual” in the US today.

Few would argue that the distribution of wealth in the USA is not uneven and that the market economy of the US is not chaotic.

An examination of current social relations in the USA reveals absolute anarchy in social, intellectual and political life. Mainstream media conceals the reality of the conduct of the US government every day. Low voter turnout hands elections over to the 1% without a fight. Movies, video games and the Internet have produced a culture based on violence and chaos never before seen in the history of mankind.

Lawlessness, including police terrorism, is rampant across the nation.

The US military violates international law and terrorizes working people around the globe.

Economic warfare waged by the US ruling class creates chaos, anarchy, terror and psychological dysfunction domestically and internationally.

Bizarre behavior among humans in the USA has become the new norm. All of this is a reflection of the chaos and anarchy of the mode of production, i.e. the market economy.

In his “Letters on Tactics”, Lenin defined revolution as the passing of state power from one class to another.

People on the left in the United States give a lot of lip service to “revolution.” However, all too often people on the left equate revolution with anarchy. They don’t seem to have a clue about how to acquire state power. Of course, by playing into the hands of the anarchists, people on the left play into the hands of the capitalists.

Anarchists, because of their phobia of political struggle, routinely abstain from meaningful political activity. Abstention from political activity is abstention from the struggle to acquire state power. Abstention from political activity is therefore abstention from revolution. Abstention from revolution means a free ride for the 1%. Anarchy is therefore antithetical to revolutionary struggle.

People in the US have a choice in front of them. They can continue to worship individualism and anarchy and abdicate their political power to the 1% or they can unite, organize and fight for the interests of working people which include accessible education, healthcare, housing, legal justice and freedom from oppression, exploitation and racism in all its forms. So, working people must choose between anarchy or revolution.