Marxism and Insurrection

(Quote of the Week)

In a letter written in mid September 1917 to the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party, V.I. Lenin underlined that conditions had become ripe for the seizure of power by the proletariat in Russia. The Bolsheviks had widespread support within the working class in the cities as well as growing support in the countryside, where peasants were seizing land. That month, the Bolsheviks had obtained a majority in the Petrograd and Moscow Workers’ and Soldiers’ Soviets (councils). These councils were organs of proletarian power that had arisen alongside the capitalist Provisional Government after the February Revolution that had overthrown the tsarist monarchy. As Petrograd faced the threat of a bloodbath by German imperialism in the First World War and the suppression of the revolution, Lenin initiated the fight in the Bolshevik leadership to put workers insurrection on the order of the day.

To be successful, insurrection must rely not upon conspiracy and not upon a party, but upon the advanced class. That is the first point. Insurrection must rely upon a revolutionary upsurge of the people. That is the second point. Insurrection must rely upon that turning-point in the history of the growing revolution when the activity of the advanced ranks of the people is at its height, and when the vacillations in the ranks of the enemy and in the ranks of the weak, half-hearted and irresolute friends of the revolution are strongest. That is the third point....

All the objective conditions exist for a successful insurrection. We have the exceptional advantage of a situation in which only our victory in the insurrection can put an end to that most painful thing on earth, vacillation, which has worn the people out; in which only our victory in the insurrection will give the peasants land immediately; a situation in which only our victory in the insurrection can foil the game of a separate peace directed against the revolution—foil it by publicly proposing a fuller, juster and earlier peace, a peace that will benefit the revolution.

Finally, our Party alone can, by a victorious insurrection, save Petrograd; for if our proposal for peace is rejected, if we do not secure even an armistice, then we shall become “defencists,” we shall place ourselves at the head of the war parties, we shall be the war party par excellence, and we shall conduct the war in a truly revolutionary manner. We shall take away all the bread and boots from the capitalists. We shall leave them only crusts and dress them in bast shoes. We shall send all the bread and footwear to the front.

And then we shall save Petrograd.

—V.I. Lenin, “Marxism and Insurrection” (September 1917)