THE CHIEF TASK
OF OUR TIMES
By Lenin, Chairman of the Executive of the Russian Republic
You are wretched and you are prosperous,
You are mighty and you are powerless,
O Mother Russia.
The human race is at present passing through great and difficult changes which have (one can say it without the least exaggeration) a world-liberating significance. The world is passing to the war of the oppressed against the oppressors. In this new war the oppressed are struggling for liberation from the yoke of Capitalism; from the abyss of suffering, torment, hunger, and brutalisation; they desire to pass onward to the bright future of a communist society, to universal well-being and a secure peace. It is not surprising that at the most critical periods of such a drastic evolution, when the old order is cracking and bursting, and out of it, in indescribable travail, the new order is being born, some lose their heads, some give way to despair, and some seek salvation, from a, perchance, too bitter reality, in beautiful and alluring phrases.
It has fallen to the people of Russia to perceive very clearly, and to live with acute suffering through this harshest of historical transitions leading from Imperialism to the Social Revolution. In a few days we demolished one of the oldest, most powerful, most barbarous, and most cruel of monarchies. in a few months we went through the phases of coalition with the bourgeoisie and disillusionment in the bourgeois ideal, though it has taken other countries many years to reach this point. In a few weeks we deposed the bourgeoisie, and conquered its open resistance in civil war. Bolshevism swept the vast country in a triumphant procession from end to end. We raised to freedom and independence the lowest sections of the masses and those most oppressed by Czarism and the bourgeoisie. We have introduced and consolidated the Republic of Soviets, a new form of government, immeasurably loftier and more democratic than the best of the bourgeois Parliamentary Republics. We have established the dictatorship of the proletariat, supported by the poorest peasantry, and we have inaugurated a broadly conceived system of Socialist reform. We have awakened faith in our powers, and have kindled the flame of enthusiasm in millions and millions of workers of all lands. Everywhere we have raised the cry of the International Proletarian Revolution. We have thrown out a challenge to the imperialistic robbers of all lands.
BREST-LITOVSK.
And in a few days we, who had laid down cur arms, were thrown to the ground by the imperialistic robbers who attacked us. They forced, us to sign a harsh and ignoble peace, a tribute which we had to pay for having dared, if only for a short time, to escape from the iron fetters of an imperialistic war. These robbers are crushing and stifling and tearing Russia asunder, with a ferocity only equal to their dread of a proletarian revolution in their own country. We were forced to sign a "Tilsit"[1] peace, but do not let us delude ourselves. One must have the courage to look the bitter and unvarnished truth in the face. One must fathom to its greatest depth the abyss of defeat, dismemberment, subjection, and humiliation into which we have been
- ↑ Tilsit, a town in Prussia, on the Memel (Niemen), 60 miles N.E. of Könisberg, where Napoleon I. concluded treaties with Russia and Prussia in July, 1807. It has iron foundries, glass, cloth, and machinery manufactures.
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