Page:Nikolai Lenin - On the Road to Insurrection (1926).pdf/106

 class of revolutionary Russia, the proletariat, is seeing more and more clearly the criminal character of the war, despite the efforts of the bourgeoisie and their lacqueys to hoodwink them. The proletariat of the two capitals has become definitely international.

How could there be any question of enthusiasm?

Home policy is indissolubly knit up with foreign policy. It is impossible for the country to defend itself without the heroism of the people bringing about—doggedly and firmly—great economic changes. And it is impossible to arouse the heroism of the masses without breaking with imperialism; without proposing to all peoples a democratic peace; without transforming the criminal war of plunder and conquest into a just war of revolutionary defence.

The break with the capitalists in home and foreign policy can alone save our revolution and our country from the octopus of imperialism.

To be truly revolutionary, democracy must go hand-in-hand with the proletariat and support it as the only class revolutionary through and through.

Such is the conclusion to which we are led by our examination of the remedies to use against the terrible catastrophe which is threatening us.

The war has brought on such a crisis; tried so severely the moral and material force of the people; struck such violent blows at the social structure that the human race must choose between perishing or entrusting its lot to the most revolutionary class which alone can carry it rapidly and thoroughly to more developed means of production.

Through special historical causes—the backward state of the country, the particularly crushing burdens of war, the decay of Tsardom, the persistence of the traditions of 1905—the Russian Revolution has preceded that of other countries. As a result, Russia has been carried in a few months to the level of the most advanced countries.

But that is not enough. The war is pitiless, ruthlessly it presents the alternative: to perish or else to overtake, and even to surpass the most advanced countries, even on economic grounds.