Page:Vladimir Ilyich Lenin - The Chief Task of Our Times.djvu/10

 tion; one must calculate one's strength in tens of millions; smaller numbers do not count in politics, and are rejected as a negligible quantity.

The International Revolution, viewed in this light, makes the situation perfectly clear; a backward country can revolt quicker, because its opponent is rotten to the core, its middle class is not organised; but, in order to continue the revolution, a backward country will require immediately more circumspection, prudence, and endurance. In Western Europe it will be quite different; there it is much more difficult to begin, but it will be much easier to go on. This cannot be otherwise, because there the proletariat is better organised and more closely united.

In the meantime, we stand alone, and in calculating our strength we must realise that as long as the European Revolution, which would solve all our difficulties, has not broken out, our only chance of existence is the continuation of the struggle between the international giants of imperialism. In concluding peace we took full account of this chance. The peace can be broken to-morrow, but while it continues we must in our external policy continue the tactics adopted in March, and expressed in the words: "To tack, to retreat, and to wait." When we hear from the lips of the Communists of the Left the words, "Active external policy"; when the expression, "The defence of the Socialist Fatherland," appears in inverted commas, as intended to be ironical, then I say to myself: These people have not in the least understood the position of the Western proletariat. They are reverting to the point of view of the vacillating lower bourgeoisie, which sees in the Revolution the guarantee of a particular order.

International interdependence says quite clearly: Only a madman can imagine that the task of dethroning international imperialism can be fulfilled by Russians alone. While in the West the Revolution is maturing, and is making appreciable progress, the task before us is as follows: We, who in spite of our weakness are in the forefront, must do all in our power to retain the occupied positions, All other considerations must be subordinated to the one endeavour; to make full use of the chance which enables us to exist, in order to be able at the moment when the international imperialism unites against us to ward off the blow for a few weeks. If we act thus we shall tread the path approved by every class-conscious worker in the European countries, who-knows that France and England have been learning for centuries what we began to learn only since 1905. Every class-conscious European worker knows that the revolution grows but slowly amongst the free institutions of a united bourgeoisie, and that we shall only be able to fight against such forces when we are able to do so in conjunction with the revolutionary proletariat of Germany, France, and England. Till then, sad and contrary to revolutionary traditions as it may be, our only possible tactics are to wait, to tack, and to retreat. When people say that we have no foreign international policy, I say: "All other policy tends, consciously or unconsciously, towards making Russia the weapon of an alliance with imperialists of the type of Ichkhenkeli and Semenoff." We say that it is best to live through and to suffer great national humiliations and hardships, in order to maintain our post as a Socialist division, forced by the trend of events to await in solitude until the Socialist Revolution in other countries comes to its help. And the revolution in other countries is coming to our help, slowly but surely. The war now taking its course in the West is revolutionising the masses; the time of revolt is approaching. I have dwelt on foreign policy longer than I intended, because it seems to me that it is just in this domain that the two principal lines of conduct are most clearly shown—on the one hand, the proletarian policy, which considers the Socialist Revolution the best and loftiest objective, and takes account of the revolutionary movement in the Western countries; and on the other, the bourgeois policy, which has for its highest ideal, imperial power and national independence.

On internal questions we are met with identical arguments from the Communists of the Left and‘ the bourgeoisie. For instance, the chief argument of the Communists of the Left against us is that in our policy there are signs of a tendency towards the Bolshevism of the Right, which, they say, will lead to State Capitalism. It is this evolution towards State Capitalism—this evil, this enemy, which we are anxious to fight against. When I read