1905:
The revolutionary Social-Democrat ... will not confine himself on the eve of the revolution to pointing out what will happen “if the worst comes to the worst”. Rather, he will also show the possibility of a better outcome. He will dream—he is obliged to dream if he is not a hopeless philistine—that, after the vast experience of Europe, after the unparalleled upsurge of energy among the working class in Russia, we shall succeed in lighting a revolutionary beacon that will illumine more brightly than ever before the path of the unenlightened and downtrodden masses; that we shall succeed, standing as we do on the shoulders of a number of revolutionary gene rations of Europe, in realising all the democratic transformations, the whole of our minimum programme, with a thoroughness never equalled before. We shall succeed in ensuring that the Russian revolution is not a movement of a few months, but a movement of many years; that it leads, not merely to a few paltry concessions from the powers that be, but to the complete overthrow of those powers. And if we succeed in achieving this, then ... the revolutionary conflagration will spread to Europe; the European worker, languishing under bourgeois reaction, will rise in his turn and show us “how it is done”; then the revolutionary upsurge in Europe will have a repercussive effect upon Russia and will convert an epoch of a few revolutionary years into an era of several revolutionary decades; then—but we shall have ample time to say what we shall do “then”, not from the cursed remoteness of Geneva, but at meetings of thousands of workers in the streets of Moscow and St. Petersburg, at the free village meetings of the Russian “muzhiks”.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1905/sdprg/iii.htm
1905:
This struggle would have been almost hopeless for the Russian proletariat alone and its defeat would have been as inevitable as the defeat of the German revolutionary party in 1849-50, or of the French proletariat in 1871, had the European socialist proletariat not come to the assistance of the Russian proletariat.
Thus, at this stage, the liberal bourgeoisie and the well-to-do peasantry (plus partly the middle peasantry) organise counter-revolution. The Russian proletariat pins the European proletariat organise revolution.
In such conditions the Russian proletariat can win a second victory. The cause is no longer hopeless. The second victory will be the socialist revolution in Europe.
The European workers will show us “how to do it”, and then together with them we shall bring about the socialist revolution.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1905/dec/31.htm
1906:
I went on to say that from the point of view of restoration, the position of the Russian revolution may be expressed in the following thesis: the Russian revolution is strong enough to achieve victory by its own efforts; but it is not strong enough to retain the fruits of victory. It can achieve victory because the proletariat jointly with the revolutionary peasantry can constitute an invincible force. But it cannot retain its victory, because in a country where small production is vastly developed, the small commodity producers (including the peasants) will inevitably turn against the proletarians when they pass from freedom to socialism. To be able to retain its victory, to be able to prevent restoration, the Russian revolution will need non-Russian reserves, will need outside assistance. Are there such reserves? Yes, there are: the socialist proletariat in the West.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1906/rucong/iii.htm
1908:
It is not on liberal allies that the Russian proletariat should count. It must follow its own independent path to the complete victory of the revolution, basing itself on the need for a forcible solution of the agrarian question in Russia by the peasant masses themselves, helping them to overthrow the rule of the Black- Hundred landlords and the Black-Hundred autocracy, setting itself the task of establishing a. democratic dictator ship of the proletariat and the peasantry in Russia, and remembering that its struggle and its victories are inseparable from the international revolutionary movement. Less illusions about the liberalism of the counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie (counter-revolutionary both in Russia and the world over). More attention to the growth of the international revolutionary proletariat!
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1908/jul/23.htm
1909:
The revolution and counter-revolution have shown us the alliance of autocracy and the bourgeoisie, the alliance of the Russian and international bourgeoisie—we must educate, rally and organise in three times greater numbers than in 1905 the masses of the proletariat, which alone, led by an independent Social-Democratic Party and marching hand in hand with the proletariat of the advanced countries, is capable of winning freedom for Russia.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1909/dec/24.htm
1915:
It follows that if the demand for the freedom of nations is not to be a false phrase covering up the imperialism and the nationalism of certain individual countries, it must be extended to all peoples and to all colonies. Such a demand, however, is obviously meaningless unless it is accompanied by a series of revolutions in all the advanced countries. Moreover, it cannot be accomplished without a successful socialist revolution.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1915/jul/x02.htm
1915:
The imperialist war has linked up the Russian revolutionary crisis, which stems from a bourgeois-democratic revolution, with the growing crisis of the proletarian socialist revolution in the West. This link is so direct that no individual solution of revolutionary [problems] is possible in any single country—the Russian bourgeois-democratic revolution is now not only a prologue to, but an indivisible and integral part of, the socialist revolution in the West. ... Life is advancing, through the defeat of Russia, towards a revolution in Russia and, through that revolution and in connection with it, towards a civil war in Europe.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1915/sep/x01.htm
1915:
The proletariat will at once utilise this ridding of bourgeois Russia of tsarism and the rule of the landowners, not to aid the rich peasants in their struggle against the rural workers, but to bring about the socialist revolution in alliance with the proletarians of Europe.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1915/nov/20.htm
1915:
This state of affairs patently indicates the task of the proletariat. That task is the waging of a supremely courageous revolutionary struggle against the monarchy (utilising the slogans of the January Conference of 1912, the “three pillars”), a struggle that will sweep along in its wake all the democratic masses, i.e., mainly the peasantry. At the same time. the proletariat must wage a ruthless struggle against chauvinism, a struggle in alliance with the European proletariat for the socialist revolution in Europe. The vacillation of the petty bourgeoisie is no accident; it is inevitable, for it logically follows from their class stand. The war crisis has strengthened the economic and political factors that are impelling the petty bourgeoisie, including the peasantry, to the left. Herein lies the objective foundation of the full possibility of victory for the democratic revolution in Russia. There is no need here for us to prove that the objective conditions in Western Europe are ripe for a socialist revolution; this was admitted before the war by all influential socialists in all advanced countries.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1915/nov/20.htm
1916:
The social revolution cannot be the united action of the proletarians of all countries for the simple reason that most of the countries and the majority of the world’s population have not even reached, or have only just reached, the capitalist stage of development. We stated this in section six of our theses, but P. Kievsky, because of lack of attention, or inability to think, did “not notice” that we included this section for a definite purpose, namely, to refute caricature distortions of Marxism. Only the advanced countries of Western Europe and North America have matured for socialism, and ii Engels’s letter to Kautsky (Sbornik Sotsial-Demokrata)[5] Kievsky will find a concrete illustration of the real and not merely promised “idea” that to dream of the “united action of the proletarians of all countries” means postponing socialism to the Greek calends, i.e., for ever.
Socialism will be achieved by the united action of the proletarians, not of all, but of a minority of countries, those that have reached the advanced capitalist stage of development. The cause of Kievsky’s error lies in failure to understand that. In these advanced countries (England, France, Germany, etc.) the national problem was solved long ago; national unity outlived its purpose long ago; objectively, there are no “general national tasks” to be accomplished. Hence, only in these countries is it possible now to “blow up” national unity and establish class unity.
The undeveloped countries are a different matter. They embrace the whole of Eastern Europe and all the colonies and semi-colonies and are dealt with in section six of the theses (second- and third-type countries). In those areas, as a rule, there still exist oppressed and capitalistically undeveloped nations. Objectively, these nations still have general national tasks to accomplish, namely, democratic tasks, the tasks of overthrowing foreign oppression.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/carimarx/5.htm
1917:
Russia is a peasant country, one of the most backward of European countries. Socialism cannot triumph there directly and immediately. But the peasant character of the country, the vast reserve of land in the hands of the nobility, may, to judge from the experience of 1905, give tremendous sweep to the bourgeois-democratic revolution in Russia and may make our revolution the prologue to the world socialist revolution, a step toward it.
Our Party was formed and developed in the struggle for these ideas, which have been fully confirmed by the experience of 1905 and the spring of 1917, in the uncompromising struggle against all the other parties; and we shall continue to fight for these ideas.
In Russia, socialism cannot triumph directly and immediately. But the peasant mass can bring the inevitable and matured agrarian upheaval to the point of confiscating all the immense holdings of the nobility. This has always been our slogan and it has now again been advanced in St. Petersburg by the Central Committee of our Party and by Pravda, our Party’s newspaper. The proletariat will fight for this slogan, without closing its eyes to the inevitability of cruel class conflicts between the agricultural labourers and the poorest peasants closely allied with them, on the one hand, and the rich peasants, whose position has been strengthened by Stolypin’s agrarian “reform” (1907–14), on the other. The fact should not be overlooked that the 104 peasant deputies in the First (1906) and Second (1907) Dumas introduced a revolutionary agrarian bill demanding the nationalisation of all lands and their distribution by local committees elected on the basis of complete democracy.
Such a revolution would not, in itself, be socialism. But it would give a great impetus to the world labour movement. It would immensely strengthen the position of the socialist proletariat in Russia and its influence on the agricultural labourers and the poorest peasants. It would enable the city proletariat to develop, on the strength of this influence, such revolutionary organisations as the Soviets of Workers’ Deputies to replace the old instruments of oppression employed by bourgeois states, the army, the police, the bureaucracy; to carry out—under pressure of the unbearably burdensome imperialist war and its consequences—a series of revolutionary measures to control the production and distribution of goods.
Single-handed, the Russian proletariat cannot bring the socialist revolution to a victorious conclusion. But it can give the Russian revolution a mighty sweep that would create the most favourable conditions for a socialist revolution, and would, in a sense, start it. It can facilitate the rise of a situation in which its chief, its most trustworthy and most reliable collaborator, the European and American socialist proletariat, could join the decisive battles.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/mar/26b.htm
1917:
Upon the strength of the revolutionary movement, in the event of its being entirely successful, will depend the victory of socialism in Europe and the achievement not of an imperialist armistice in Germany’s struggle against Russia and England, or in Russia’s and Germany’s struggle against England, or the United States’ struggle against Germany and England, etc., but of a really lasting and really democratic peace.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/jan/31.htm
1917:
The Russian revolution is only the first stage of the first of the proletarian revolutions which are the inevitable result of war.
In all countries a spirit of rebellion against the capitalist class is growing among the masses, and the proletariat is becoming aware that only the transfer of power to the proletariat and the abolition of private ownership of the means of production can save humanity from ruin.
In all countries, especially in the most advanced, Britain and Germany, hundreds of socialists who have not gone over to the side of “their own” national bourgeoisie have been thrown into prison by the capitalist governments. By this action the latter have clearly demonstrated their fear of the mounting proletarian revolution. In Germany the impending revolution is apparent both in the mass strikes, which have assumed particularly large proportions in recent weeks, and in the growth of fraternisation between the German and Russian soldiers at the front.
Fraternal trust and unity are gradually being restored among the workers of different countries, the very workers who are now killing each other in the interests of the capitalists. This, in turn, will create conditions for united revolutionary action by the workers of different countries. Only such action can guarantee the most systematic development and the most likely success of the world socialist revolution.
Operating as it does in one of the most backward countries of Europe amidst a vast population of small peasants, the proletariat of Russia cannot aim at immediately putting into effect socialist changes.
But it would be a grave error, and in effect even a complete desertion to the bourgeoisie, to infer from this that the working class must support the bourgeoisie, or that it must keep its activities within limits acceptable to the petty bourgeoisie, or that the proletariat must renounce its leading role in the matter of explaining to the people the urgency of taking a number of practical steps towards socialism for which the time is now ripe.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/7thconf/29h.htm
1917:
I now pass on to the third question, namely, the analysis of the current situation with reference to the position of the international working-class movement and that of international capitalism. From the point of view of Marxism, in discussing imperialism it is absurd to restrict oneself to conditions in one country alone, since all capitalist countries are closely bound together. Now, in time of war, this bond has grown immeasurably stronger. All humanity is thrown into a tangled bloody heap from which no nation can extricate itself on its own. Though there are more and less advanced countries, this war has bound them all together by so many threads that escape from this tangle for any single country acting on its own is inconceivable.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/7thconf/24c.htm
1918:
I have no illusions about our having only just entered the period of transition to socialism, about not yet having reached socialism. But if you say that our state is a socialist Republic of Soviets, you will be right. You will be as right as those who call many Western bourgeois republics democratic republics although everybody knows that not one of even the most democratic of these republics is completely democratic. They grant scraps of democracy, they cut off tiny bits of the rights of the exploiters, but the working people are as much oppressed there as they are everywhere else. Nevertheless, we say that the bourgeois system is represented by both old monarchies and by constitutional republics.
And so in our case now. We are far from having completed even the transitional period from capitalism to socialism. We have never cherished the hope that we could finish it without the aid of the international proletariat. We never had any illusions on that score, and we know how difficult is the road that leads from capitalism to socialism. But it is our duty to say that our Soviet Republic is a socialist republic because we have taken this road, and our words will not be empty words.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/jan/10.htm
1918:
Even the more developed generation of the immediate future will hardly achieve the complete transition to socialism.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/apr/29.htm
1918:
International imperialism, with the entire might of its capital, with its highly organised war machine, which is a real force, a real stronghold of international capital, could not, under any circumstances, under any conditions, live side by side with the Soviet Republic, both because of its objective position and because of the economic interests of the capitalist class embodied in it, because of commercial connections, of international financial relations. In this sphere a conflict is inevitable. This is the greatest difficulty of the Russian revolution, its greatest historical problem—the need to solve international problems, the need to evoke a world revolution, to effect the transition from our strictly national revolution to the world revolution.
...
When the Bolshevik Party tackled the job alone, it did so in the firm conviction that the revolution was maturing in all countries and that in the end—but not at the very beginning—no matter what difficulties we experienced, no matter what defeats were in store for us, the world socialist revolution would come—because it is coming; would mature— because it is maturing and will reach full maturity. I repeat, our salvation from all these difficulties is an all Europe revolution.
...
It is a lesson, because it is the absolute truth that without a German revolution we are doomed—perhaps not in Petrograd, not in Moscow, but in Vladivostok, in more remote places to which perhaps we shall have to retreat, and the distance to which is perhaps greater than the distance from Petrograd to Moscow. At all events, under all conceivable circumstances, if the German revolution does not come, we are doomed.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/7thcong/01.htm
1918:
World imperialism cannot live side by side with a victorious advancing social revolution.
Lenin, Works, Vol.XV, p.175, Russian [old] ed.
1918:
Our backwardness has put us in the forefront, and we shall perish unless we are capable of holding out until we receive powerful support from workers who have risen in revolt in other countries
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/apr/23.htm
1918:
We always staked our play upon an international revolution and this was unconditionally right ... we always emphasized ... the fact that in one country it is impossible to accomplish such a work as a socialist revolution.
Lenin, Works, Vol.XXV, pp. 273–4 Russian Third ed.
1919:
We know that we cannot establish a socialist order now—God grant that it may be established in our country in our children’s time, or perhaps in our grandchildren’s time.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1919/nov/04.htm
1919:
We are living not merely in a state, but in a system of states, and it is inconceivable for the Soviet Republic to exist alongside of the imperialist states for any length of time. One or the other must triumph in the end.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1919/rcp8th/02.htm
1919:
Comrade Podbelsky took exception to the fact that one of the clauses speaks of the impending social revolution ... This argument is obviously groundless, because the revolution referred to in our programme is the world social revolution.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1919/rcp8th/04.htm
1920:
Quite apart from the fact that this recognition is purely verbal, petty-bourgeois nationalism preserves national self-interest intact, whereas proletarian internationalism demands, first, that the interests of the proletarian struggle in any one country should be subordinated to the interests of that struggle on a world-wide scale, and, second, that a nation which is achieving victory over the bourgeoisie should be able and willing to make the greatest national sacrifices for the overthrow of international capital.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/jun/05.htm
1920:
Not only should we create independent contingents of fighters and party organisations in the colonies and the backward countries, not only at once launch propaganda for the organisation of peasants’ Soviets and strive to adapt them to the pre-capitalist conditions, but the Communist International should advance the proposition, with the appropriate theoretical grounding, that with the aid of the proletariat of the advanced countries, backward countries can go over to the Soviet system and, through certain stages of development, to communism, without having to pass through the capitalist stage.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/jul/x03.htm
1920:
At the meeting which was so poorly reported in Pravda, I said that we had passed from war to peace, but that we had not forgotten that war will return. While capitalism and socialism exist side by side, they cannot live in peace: one or the otherwill ultimately triumph—the last obsequies will be observed either for the Soviet Republic or for world capitalism.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/dec/06.htm
1921:
You all know, of course—I think that in your branch of industry this is more evident to you than to the workers of other industries—you all know to what extent capital is an international force, to what extent all the big capitalist enterprises, factories, shops, etc., all over the world are linked up together; this makes it obvious that in substance capital cannot be completely defeated in one country. It is an international force, and in order to rout it the workers must also make a concerted effort on an international scale. Ever since 1917, when we fought the bourgeois-republican governments in Russia, and ever since the power of the Soviets was established at the end of 1917, we have been telling the workers again and again that the cardinal task, and the fundamental condition of our victory is to spread the revolution to, at least, a few of the most advanced countries.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1921/feb/06.htm
1921:
The result is a state of equilibrium which, although highly unstable and precarious, enables the Socialist Republic to exist—not for long, of course—within the capitalist encirclement.
...
It was clear to us that without aid from the international world revolution, a victory of the proletarian revolution is impossible. Even prior to the revolution, as well as after it, we thought that the revolution would also occur either immediately or at least very soon in other backward countries and in the more highly developed capitalist countries, otherwise we would perish. Notwithstanding this conviction, we did our utmost to preserve the Soviet system under any circumstances and at all costs, because we know that we are working not only for ourselves but also for the international revolution.
...
We admit quite openly, and do not conceal the fact, that concessions in the system of state capitalism mean paying tribute to capitalism. But we gain time, and gaining time means gaining everything, particularly in the period of equilibrium, when our foreign comrades are preparing thoroughly for their revolution. The more thorough their preparations, the more certain will the victory be. Meanwhile, however, we shall have to pay the tribute.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1921/jun/12.htm
1921:
Highly developed capitalist countries have a class of agricultural wage-workers that has taken shape over many decades. Only such a class can socially, economically, and politically support a direct transition to socialism. Only in countries where this class is sufficiently developed is it possible to pass directly from capitalism to socialism, without any special country-wide transitional measures. We have stressed in a good many written works, in all our public utterances, and all our statements in the press, that this is not the case in Russia. for here industrial workers are a minority and petty farmers are the vast majority. In such a country, the socialist revolution can triumph only on two conditions. First, if it is given timely support by a socialist revolution in one or several advanced countries ...
The second condition is agreement between the proletariat, which is exercising its dictatorship, that is, holds state power, and the majority of the peasant population ...
We know that so long as there is no revolution in other countries, only agreement with the peasantry can save the socialist revolution in Russia.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1921/10thcong/ch03.htm
1922:
So long as our Soviet Republic [says Lenin] remains an isolated borderland surrounded by the entire capitalist world, so long will it be an absolutely ridiculous fantasy and utopianism to think of our complete economic independence and of the disappearance of any of our dangers.
Lenin, Works, Vol.XVII, p.409, Russian [old] ed.
1922:
But we have not finished building even the foundations of socialist economy and the hostile powers of moribund capitalism can still deprive us of that. We must clearly appreciate this and frankly admit it; for there is nothing more dangerous than illusions (and vertigo, particularly at high altitudes). And there is absolutely nothing terrible, nothing that should give legitimate grounds for the slightest despondency, in admitting this bitter truth; for we have always urged and reiterated the elementary truth of Marxism—that the joint efforts of the workers of several advanced countries are needed for the victory of socialism.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/feb/x01.htm