Index talk:A New Letter to the Workers of Europe and America.pdf

PDF to TXT
I started by doing the easy bit: using one of those PDF to TXT sites. I hope it'll be legible enough to proofread. 2603:7000:D03A:5895:E9AC:F217:57B6:262E 20:48, 14 November 2023 (UTC)


 * [A New Letter to the Workers of]
 * EuropeandAmerica
 * By NICHOLAS            LENIN
 * Price,       5 Cents
 * THE     SOCIALIST      PUBLICATION             SOCIETY
 * 243  55th   STREET                               BROOKLYN,     N. Y.
 * �� A New Letter                 to the Workers                  of
 * Europe         and America
 * COMRADES      :-
 * At the end of my letter of the 20th of August,            1918.
 * addressed to the American workers,       I wrote that we shall find
 * ourselves in a beleaguered fortress as long as the rest of the
 * srmies of the international   socialist revolution do not come to
 * our aid. I added that the workers         will have to break with
 * Gompers   and Renner.      Slowly     but surely the workers    are
 * approaching Communistic    or Bolshevistic    tactics. -
 * Less than five months have passed since I wrote these words.
 * It can be said that during this time the world revolution of the
 * proletariat has matured with tremendous rapidity, and the work-
 * ers in various countries have gone over to Communism        and
 * Bolshevism.
 * At the time of my writing the above mentioned letter, on the
 * 20th of August, 1918, our Bolshevik     party was the only one
 * which determinedly fought the old Second International,   which
 * lasted from 1889 to 1914, and which was shamefully bankrupted
 * during the imperialistic war of 1914-18. Our party was the only
 * one which unqualifiedly  took .the new road, which leads away
 * 3
 * � from Socialism and Social Democracy,       contaminated       by an
 * alliance with the brigand bourgeoisie, and toward Communism-
 * the road which leads away from petty-bourgeois       reformism   and
 * opportunism,   which had completely permeated and still per-
 * meates the official Social Democracy   and Socialist parties, and
 * toward real proletarian and revolutionary   tactics.Now, on the 12th of January, 1919, we find a great number
 * of Communist      proletarian parties, not only within the confines
 * of the former empire of the Czar, as in Lettonia, Finland,
 * Poland, but also in Western            Europe-in      Austria,      Hungary,
 * Holland, and finally in Germany.          When the German Spartacus
 * League-lead      by its world renowned and celebrated leaders, by
 * such real supporters of the cause of the laboring class as Lieb-
 * knecht, Rosa Luxemburg,          Clara Zetkin and Franz Mehring-
 * finally broke off its cooperation         with the Socialist traitors         of
 * the Scheidemann and Suedekum stamp, these social chauvin-
 * ists (Socialists    in words but chauvinists         in action), who for-
 * ever contaminated        themselves     by their alliance with the im-
 * perialistic  brigand bourgeoisie       of Germany and with Wilhelm
 * II.; when the Spartacus          League took the name of the Com-
 * munist Party of Germany,            then the foundation         was l?id for
 * the real proletarian,        the real international,     the real revolu-
 * tionary    Third International.        The Communist           International
 * became a reality.         Its formation      has not yet been formally
 * established,    yet, in fact, the Third International              is already
 * acting.
 * Now,     no conscious    workingman,          and no sincere     Socialist,
 * can fail to see what        shameful    treason     against   Socialism     was
 * perpetrated     by those    who,    in line with      the Mensheviks        and
 * 4
 * �“Social Revolutionists”            of Russia,        with the Scheidemanns
 * and Suedekumsocial Revolutionists”            of Russia,        with the Scheidemanns
 * and Suedekums          of Germany,         with the Renaudels          of France
 * and Vanderveldes           in Belgium,         with      the Hendersons        and
 * Webbs     in England         and with Gompers              & Co. in America,
 * supported     “their”     bourgeoisie       in the war of 1914-18. This
 * war has completely           revealed itself as an imperialistic               and
 * reactionary     war of brigandage            on the part of Germany,             as
 * well as on the part of the English, French, Italian and Amer-
 * ican capitalists.       They now begin to quarrel between                   them-
 * selves about the division of the captured                    spoils, about the
 * division of Turkey,          Russia,     of the African         and Polynesian
 * colonies, of the Balkans,            etc.       The hypocricy        of phrases
 * about democracy           and the “League              of Nations”       is being
 * rapidly exposed when we see that the left bank of the Rhine
 * is being taken by the French bourgeoisie,                   when we see that
 * Turkey and parts of Russia (Siberia, Archangel,                     Baku, Kras-
 * novodsk,     Aschabad,        etc.) are being captured              by French,
 * British    and American           capitalists,      when we see that the
 * division of the spoils of brigandage                makes for increased hos-
 * tility between       Italy and France, between               France and Eng-
 * land, between        England and America, between                  America     and
 * Japan.
 * Side by side with these cowardly       penny-wise    mongers
 * who are stuffed with the prejudices     of bourgeois   democracy,
 * side by side with these “Socialists,”   who yesterday    defended
 * “their”  imperialistic  governments,    and who today confine
 * themselves   to platonic “protests”  against “military   interven-
 * tion in Russia”-side    by side with them we see in the Allied
 * countries an increase in the number of those who have chosen
 * 5
 * �   the Communist          road, or the road of MacLean, Debs, Loriot,
 * Lazzari,    Serrati-the       number of those who understand       that
 * only the overthrow         of the bourgeoisie and the annihilation    of
 * the bourgeois        parliament,   only Soviet rule and proletarian
 * dictatorship    can put an end to imperialism       and safeguard the            ’
 * victory   of Socialism, safeguard       a permanent   peace.
 * Then, on the 20th of August,         1918, the social revolution
 * was still confined within the borders of Russia, and the power
 * of the Soviets, i. e., the whole state power, in the hands of
 * the Council of the representatives        of the workers,      soldiers and
 * peasants, seemed to be (and in fact was) a purely Russian
 * institution.   Now, on the 12th of January,                1919, we may
 * notice the powerful     Soviet movement, not only in parts of the
 * former Czar’s empire, as Lettonia,           Poland and Ukraine,           but
 * also in Western      European     countries;      in neutrals:      Switzer-
 * land, Holland,    Norway;      (of those that have suffered              from
 * war), Austria,   Germany.       The German revolution,             which is
 * particularly  important    and characteristic,      as it takes place in
 * one of the most developed capitalistic          countries,   at once took
 * the Soviet form. The whole trend of the evolution of the Ger-
 * man revolution,    and, especially,      the struggle      of the Sparta-
 * tides, the sincere and only representatives            of the proletariat
 * against the alliance of the Scheidemannist              and Suedekumist
 * elements, with the bourgeoisie;           all this clearly shows the
 * historic aspect of the conditions       in Germany.
 * /      It is a question of either Soviet power or bourgeois par-
 * liament, under whatever   name (as a national or constitutional
 * convention)  it may appear.
 * 6
 * �  This   is the    world-historic        formulation    of the question.
 * Now it can be said, and it must be said, without                 any exag-
 * geration:   the “Soviet    power”      is the second world-historic
 * step, or stage, in the development        of proletarian      dictatorship.
 * The first step was the Paris Commune.              Marx’s genial analy-
 * sis of the meaning and importance            of this Commune in his
 * book entitled “The Civil War in France,”                shows      that the
 * Commune gave birth to a new type of state, the proletarian
 * state.   Exery state at this time, even the most democratic
 * republic, is nothing but an apparatus of one class for the .pur-
 * pose of suppressing     the other classes. The proletarian              state
 * is the apparatus     whereby      the proletariat         suppresses       the
 * bourgeoisie.   Such suppression      is unavoidable        because of the
 * savage,   desperate   and unscrupulous           opposition       which      is
 * evinced by the land owners and capitalists,             the whole bour-
 * geoisie and all its supporters,    all exploiters,    when their down-
 * fall begins, when the exploiting        of the exploiters      begins.
 * As long as the property      of the capitalists    and their power
 * is being protected       the bourgeois     parliament,    even the most
 * democratic   parliament     in the most democratic        republic, is an
 * apparatus  for the suppression         of millions of toilers through
 * small groups of exploiters.         Socialists    who are fighting for
 * the deliverance    of the toilers from exploitation         must use the
 * bourgeois  parliaments      as a tribunal,     as one of their bases of
 * propaganda,      agitation    and organization,         as long as our
 * struggle confines itself within the boundaries of the bourgeois
 * social order.     Now, when world history            has placed on the
 * order of the day the question of the destruction            of this whole
 * system, the question of the crushing            and suppression     of the
 * 7
 * �   exploiters   and theexploiters   and the transition     from capitalism        to Socialism-
 * to confine ourself    now to bourgeois             parliamentarism,       to
 * bourgeois democracy,    to. picture it as “democracy”           in general,
 * to cloak its bourgeois      character,       to forget that universal
 * suffrage, as long as capitalist      property    is being protected,       is
 * merely acting for the bourgeois          state-means       shamefully     to
 * betray the proletarian,    to go over to its class enemies, the s
 * bourgeoisie,  to become a traitor and a renegade.
 * These two currents within world Socialism, of which the
 * Bolshevik press was already tirelessly speaking  as early as
 * 1915, appears before us with particular  clarity when illus-
 * trated  by the bloody       struggle    and civil war        in Germany.
 * Karl Liebknecht-his         name is known            by workers      in al!
 * countries, everywhere,      but especially in the Allied countries,
 * for it stands as a symbol for the fidelity of a leader to the
 * interest of the proletariat,        and for fidelity to the socialistic
 * revolution ; this name is a symbol for the real convinced, de-
 * voted, self-sacrificing,     pitiless      struggle     against   capitalism ;
 * this name is a symbol for the ruthless                war against imperial-
 * ism-not   in words but in action, a struggle ready for sacri-
 * fice, even when one’s own country               is in the grip of the hys-
 * teria of imperialistic     victories,         Together     with Liebknecht
 * and the Spartacides     stands everything           that has remained pure
 * and really revolutionary          among the German Socialists,               all
 * that is the most conscious            within     the proletariat,      the ex-
 * ploited, in whose heart the spirit of rebellion is rising                   and
 * giving birth to revolution.
 * Against    Liebknecht       stand       the satellites    of Scheidemann
 * 8
 * �and Suedekum and the whole          gang of despicable servants      of
 * the Kaiser and bourgeoisie.        Theyand Suedekum and the whole           gang of despicable servants      of
 * the Kaiser and bourgeoisie.        They are traitors    to Socialism,
 * such as Samuel Gompers,           Webb,       Renaudel    and Van-
 * dervelde. Here we have that          upper stratum   of the working
 * class which has been bought         by the bourgeoisie,    and which
 * we, the Bolsheviks,      addressing   ourselves    to the Russian
 * Suedekums,  the Mensheviks,      used to call “the agents of the
 * bourgeoisie within the labor movement,”       and which in Amer-
 * ica is more appropriately   designated by an expression        that is
 * magnificent in its expressiveness     and striking    truthfulness,
 * “labor lieutenants    of the capitalist    class.”   The newest and
 * most modern form of Socialist treason has found expression
 * in this feature:   In all the civilized countries the bourgeoisie,
 * either by colonial exploitation,     or by pressing financial profits
 * from formally    independent    weaker nations, is plundering         a
 * population    many times as numerous            as the population    in
 * their own country.       Here we have the economic possibility
 * of the “super-profit”    for the imperialistic     bourgeoisie.   And
 * the fact that      this bourgeoisie,  to some extent, can use this
 * “super-profit”      in order to bribe that renowned  upper stratum
 * of the proletariat      and change it into a reformistic,        oppor-
 * tunistic,  revolution-scared     petty-bourgeoisie.      Between    the
 * Spartacides     and the Scheidemanns             are fluctuating     the
 * Kautskians,  the soulmates of Kautsky-in     name independent,
 * in action the most dependent in everything        and in all con-
 * nections   dependent    today   upon the bourgeoisie     and the
 * Scheidemanns    and tomorrow    on the Spartacides.    Sometimes
 * following  the first mentioned,    sometimes    the other ones.
 * People   without      ideas, without   character,   without      politics,
 * without   honor     . . . . a living embodiment     of Philistine      con-
 * 9
 * �   fusion.  In words they recognize the social revolution,   but in
 * fact they cannot grasp it when it begins, instead of which, in
 * their renegade manner, they advocate “democracy”       in gene-               ’
 * ral, whereas, as a matter       of fact, they are advocates      of bour-
 * geois democracy.
 * cIn all capitalistic   countries,    any thinking   worker    can rec-
 * ognize in this treasonable           position,  which is analogous       to
 * conditions   of national and historical        nature, just these three
 * fundamental     tendencies,     both among Socialists          and Syndi-
 * calists;  for the imperialistic        war and the beginning        of the
 * world revolution        of the proletariat,     has revealed with the
 * utmost clearness these ideological-political          tendencies.
 * The above lines were        written   before   the base and bestial
 * murder   of Karl Liebknecht    and Rosa Luxemburg   was accom-
 * plished  by the Ebert-Scheidemann     government. These beadles
 * and lackeys of the bourgeoisie   entrusted   the German White
 * Guards, who -were defending the sacred possessions          of capi-
 * tal, with the task of lynching Rosa Luxemburg         and shooting
 * Karl Liebknecht   in the back, under the manifestly         fraudu-
 * lent pretext that he had sought to “escape.”       (Russian    Czar-
 * ism, which choked the revolution   of 1905 in blood, frequently
 * found it a useful pretext,    in shooting   down offenders,         to
 * accuse them of having attempted      to “escape”.)       Simultane-
 * ously these beadles vested the White       Guards with author-
 * ity, as if they had been guilty of nothing, since their govern-
 * ment, of course, stood above all Parties.       One cannot find
 * 10
 * �words to express all the vile, contemptible             devices resorted to
 * by these creatures         who pretend to be Socialists.             Evidently
 * history    has chosen a course which is to compel the “labor.
 * lieutenants    of the capitalist class” to “run the whole gamut”
 * of low-down,       bestial, vile actions.        The stupid Kautskyans,
 * in their paper “Die Freiheit,”            may talk about a “judgment
 * seat” to consist of representatives             of “all the Socialist Par-
 * ties”   for they continue          to call the Scheidemanns,              those
 * beadles, and serf-like        lackeys “Socialists.”       These heroes of
 * Philistine    obtusenessserf-like         lackeys “Socialists.”       These heroes of
 * Philistine    obtuseness      and party bourgeois          timidity     do not
 * even understand        that “a court” is an organ of state power;
 * but the struggle and the civil war in Germany are precisely
 * concerned     with the question of who is to hold this power,
 * either the bourgeoisie         whom the Scheidemanns             will “serve”
 * as beadles and instigators         of pogroms, or the Kautskyans,             the
 * jurists   of “pure democracy,”           or the proletariat,       which wilt
 * overthrow      the exploiting       capitalists    and break down their
 * opposition.
 * The best men of the proletarian       world international,          the
 * unforgettable  leaders of the proletarian      Socialistic revolution,
 * have fallen, but their blood admonishes          new and ever new
 * masses of workers     to desperate struggle,     if not for life then
 * for death. This struggle will lead to victory.          ‘In the summer
 * of 1917, we in Russia passed through the “July days,” in which
 * the Russian   Scheidemanns,      Mensheviks,     and Social-Revolu..
 * tionists also were cloaking the victories of the White Guards
 * over the Bolsheviks,    by calling them victories           of the “state
 * power,” when the Cossacks in the cities of Petrograd              lynched
 * the worker   Veinoff for circulating      Bolshevik       proclamations.
 * 11
 * �    We know from experience,      how quickly    such “victories”   of
 * the bourgeoisie and their slaves cured the masses of their
 * .   illusions as to bourgeois   democracy,    as to “universal    suf-
 * frage,” and other such things.
 * Within the bourgeois governing          classes of the Entente we
 * can now observe a certain hesitation.              One section of these
 * circles   now observe a certain hesitation.               One section of these
 * circles   recognizes     that the process        of dissolution       of the
 * Entente troops in Russia, where they are aiding the White
 * Guards by advancing          the blackest      monarchism       and feudal
 * landlordism,     has already begun, that a continued                 military
 * intervention     and an attempt       to influence Russia by force
 * would require an army of occupation               a million strong for a
 * long period, the surest way of swiftly          transplanting    the prole-
 * tarian revolution     to the Entente countries.           The example of
 * * the German army of occupation               in Ukraine       is sufficiently
 * convincing.       Another     section    of the bourgeoisie           in the
 * Entente countries      clings as firmly as ever to the idea of mili-
 * tary intervention       in Russia,     together     with    an “economic
 * siege” (Clemenceau)         and of crushing     the Soviet Republic.
 * The entire press that serves this bourgeoisie,              that is, the
 * greater part of the daily papers in England and France which
 * have been purchased        by the capitalists,    predicts an immedi-
 * ately impending      collapse of the Soviet power,           depicts the
 * horrors   of hunger .in Russia,      and spreads lies about “dis-
 * orders”   and the instability    of the Soviet government.           The
 * -White    Guards, the troops       of the capitalists,     aided by the
 * Entente    with officers     and war s,upplies, with         money and
 * auxiliary  troops, these officers cut off Russia’s hungry center
 * and north from the grain districts           of Siberia and the Don
 * 12
 * �   Region. ’ Famine among the workers   in Petrograd  and Mos-
 * cow, in Ivanoff-Voznessensk, and other labor centers, is, as
 * a matter of fact, great. Never have the masses of the work-
 * ers suffered such depths of misery, such pangs of hunger, as
 * those which they are now condemned to by the military inter-
 * vention   of the Entente,   an intervention     which  is partly
 * masked behind a hypocritical   fassurance    that they will not
 * send “their own” troops, while they are continuing       to send
 * mercenaries   as well as war materials,     money and officers.
 * The masses could not bear such misery, if they did not under-
 * stand that they ,are defending the work of Socialism both in
 * Russia and the rest of the world.
 * The Entente and White Guard forces are holding Arch-
 * angel, Perm, Rostov      on the Don, Baku, Ashabad,        but the
 * “Soviet’movement”      has taken control of Riga and Kharkov.
 * Lettonia   and Ukraine    are becoming   Soviet republics.     The
 * workers   see that these tremendous     sacrifices are not being
 * made in vain, that the Soviet power is great and spreading,
 * .  growing  and establishing   itself all over the world.     Each
 * month of severe struggle  and tremendous   sacrifice strength-
 * ens the cause of the Soviet power all over the world         and
 * weakens its enemies, the exploiters.
 * Undeniably, the exploiters still have forces at their dis-
 * posal with which to murder and lynch the finest leaders of
 * the world revolution   of the proletariat,   to multiply the    suffer-
 * ings and tribulations   of the workers     in the occupied     or con-
 * quered countries    and districts.   Yet all the exploiters     in the
 * world have not enough power to conquer the world               revolu-
 * 13
 * tion of the proletariat which will bring to the human race a
 * liberation from the yoke of capital, from the constant threat
 * of new and unavoidable    imperialistic   wars in the interest of
 * capitalism.
 * January  21st,   1919.                         N. LENIN.
 * �Three           Books You                Should             Read.
 * The     State      and      Revolution
 * By NIKOLAI       LENIN
 * There is doubt in certain circles as to the desirability    of
 * revolution    as opposed to evolution in bringing  about the com-
 * ing Communism.          Lenin shows in this book, on the basis oP
 * several passages from Marx and Engels, that the founders of
 * scientific Socialism were never in doubt on this question. Other
 * distortions    of Marxism are also exposed in the various chapters.’
 * Printed on heavy paper, stiff cover, price 50 cents.
 * New      Book      by Leon           Trotzky
 * FROM    OCTOBER        TO BREST-LITOWSK
 * Written in February, 1918, during the peace negotiations
 * with Germany, this book traces, in the author’s mud          briWant
 * style, all the preparatory  steps for the November Revolution,
 * as well as the exciting political   struggle for control after the
 * coup d’etat had been put through.       It has personal impressions
 * of Kerensky,   Kornilov,  and other counter-revolutionists,        that
 * will remain landmarks in literature.      100 pages.
 * PRICE,   35 CENTS
 * The Crisis in the German                  Social-Democracy
 * By ROSA     LUXEMBURG
 * This is an arraignment   of German Capitalism, and its tool,
 * German militarism     To fully understand the German situation
 * you should read this book.
 * PRICE,   25 CENTS
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 * Devoted     to Internatiotlal             Socialism
 * ’  Editors:     EUGENE      V.   DEBS.     LOUIS     C. PRAINA      and   LUDWIG     LORE
 * .        If you do not, you are missing an intellectual       treat.    Each
 * number contains articles from the men and women who are
 * taking a leading part in the International     Revolutionary      Social-
 * ist Movement.     Among    those who have contributed            articles
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 * knecht. Bukharin, Friedrich   Adler, Katayama, and many others.
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 * ature Agents are requested to write to us for samples                                  and price
 * list. 2603:7000:D03A:5895:E9AC:F217:57B6:262E 21:02, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
 * 243 55th Street,         Brooklyn,      N. Y.
 * Special rates to agents and Socialist organizations.                                 Liter-
 * ature Agents are requested to write to us for samples                                  and price
 * list. 2603:7000:D03A:5895:E9AC:F217:57B6:262E 21:02, 14 November 2023 (UTC)


 * Now that we have the text, I want to know how you want to format it. Should every page in the original pamphlet get its own URL? Do we include the ads for the other works? 2603:7000:D03A:5895:E9AC:F217:57B6:262E 21:06, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
 * You do not have to use any external sites to get OCR. If you register, you will find some OCR buttons above the edit window that will produce the OCR text. These buttons can be enabled and disabled (by registered users) in the Preferences: Gadgets. And, you will acquire your talk page, so it will be also easier for others to talk to you then. --Jan Kameníček (talk) 21:16, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
 * As for text formatting, you can use the buttons above the edit window. You can also learn from other works here if you look at their code. --Jan Kameníček (talk) 21:18, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
 * I have proofread page 3 so you can have a look at its code what it should look like. The best way of learning is looking at what others did and how they did it. If you are not familiar with wikicode, it might be good to have a close look at some already profread works before you start proofreading yourself. Style guide and Help:Formatting conventions may help you too. --Jan Kameníček (talk) 21:28, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Okay, I'm back. Where did we leave off? Shushimnotrealstooge (talk) 14:27, 30 November 2023 (UTC)