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| A Month After This Letter Was Written, Lenin Was in Russia Calling for Revolution |
As recently as January 1917, Lenin had spoken of his skepticism that revolution in Russia was possible in the foreseeable future, but the downfall of the tsar and his replacement by the Provisional Government re-energized him. Here Lenin attacks the war and the new government's intention to continue fighting.
Zurich, 12 March 1917
The tsarist government began and waged the present war as an imperialist, predatory war to rob and strangle weak nations. The [Provisional Government], which is a landlord and capitalist government, is forced to continue, and wants to continue, this very same kind of war. To urge that government to conclude a democratic peace is like preaching virtue to brothel keepers. . .
The world has been completely divided up. The war was brought on by the clash of the two most powerful groups of multimillionaires, Anglo-French and German, for the redivision of the world. . . This is the real truth; it is being concealed by all sorts of bourgeois lies about a “liberating,” “national” war, a “war for right and justice,” and similar jingles with which the capitalists always fool the common people. . . Russia is waging this war with foreign money. Russian capital is a partner of Anglo-French capital. Russia is waging the war in order to rob Armenia, Turkey, Galicia. . .
The groups of capitalists who have drenched the world in blood for the sake of dividing territories, markets and concessions cannot conclude an “honourable,” peace. They can conclude only a shameful peace, a peace based on the division of the spoils, on the partition of Turkey and the colonies.
To achieve peace (and still more to achieve a really democratic, a really honourable peace), it is necessary that political power be in the hands of the workers and poorest peasants, not the landlords and capitalists. The latter represent an insignificant minority of the population, and the capitalists, as everybody knows, are making fantastic profits out of the war.
The workers and poorest peasants are the vast majority of the population. They are not making profit out of the war; on the contrary, they are being reduced to ruin and starvation. They are bound neither by capital nor by the treaties between the predatory groups of capitalists; they can and sincerely want to end the war. . .
Judge for yourselves, can the war continue, can the capitalist domination continue on earth, if the Russian people, always sustained by the living memories of the great Revolution of 1905, win complete freedom and transfer all political power to the Soviets of Workers' and Peasants' Deputies?
Source: V.I. Lenin, Letter, 12 March 1917
It is iteresting how the bolscheviks siezed power without bothering the citizens of the country. They claimed 'the people', a marxist construct, were behind them and were willing and able to kill those who disagreed. Army units were divided and officers confused. ALL WERE HUNGRY.
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