The Proletarian Revolution in Russia/Part 6/Chapter 8
VIII
PEACE—AND OUR TASK.
(Lenin)
This article was written early in April, after the Soviet acceptance of the Brest-Litovsk peace at the All-Russian Soviet Congress in Moscow, March 18, 1918.
The history of mankind is at present passing through one of its greatest and most difficult crises; a crisis that, without exaggeration, may be said to possess a world-wide liberating significance. From war to peace, from a war between beasts of prey who have sent to the slaughter millions of the toiling and exploited, with the object of securing a redivision of spoils already acquired among the strongest of the robbers, to a war of the oppressed against the oppressors for freedom from capitalist tyranny; from the abyss of suffering, pain and hunger to the resplendent communistic society of the future, to general well-being and permanent peace,—it is no wonder that at the most acute points of such a tremendous transformation, when the old is going to pieces with frightful noise and crash, and the new is being born in indescribable pain, that some should be seized with despair, and that others should seek relief from reality, which is at times too bitter, in the magic of fair, enchanting phrases.
Yet it was necessary to feel vividly what was occurring, to live through, in the most excruciating and painful manner, this sharpest of all sharp turns in history, turning us out of Imperialism into the Communistic Revolution. In a few days we destroyed one of the oldest, most powerful, most savage and barbarous monarchies. In a few months we passed through a series of agreements with the bourgeoisie, of realizing the emptiness of petit bourgeois illusions, for which other countries have required decades. In a few weeks, after having overthrown the bourgeoisie, we defeated its opposition in a civil war. In a victorious, triumphal progress of Bolshevism, we have passed from one end of our great country to the other. We have raised to liberty and to independent life the lowest sections of the toiling masses that have been oppressed by Czarism and by the bourgeoisie. We have introduced and strengthened the Soviet Republic, a new type of government, immeasurably higher and more democratic than the best of the bourgeois parliamentary republics. We organized a dictatorship of the proletariat, supported by the poorest peasants, and inaugurated a widely-planned system of Socialistic reconstruction. In millions and millions of workers in all countries we have awakened faith in their powers and kindled the fires of their enthusiasm. We have sent out in all directions the call of the workers' international revolution. We have thrown down the gauntlet to the imperialistic robbers of all countries.
And in a few days an imperialistic robber, falling upon us, who are unarmed, has cast us to the ground. He has forced us to sign an incredibly oppressive and humiliating peace,—our punishment for having dared, if only for one short moment, to free ourselves from the iron bonds of the imperialistic war. The robber strangles and chokes and dismembers Russia with all the greater fury, the more threatening he perceives rising before him in his own country the spectre of the impending workers' revolution.
We were forced to sign a "Peace of Tilsit." There is no reason for deceiving ourselves as to that. We must have the courage to look straight in the face of this bitter truth. We must sound to the depths, completely, the whole abyss of defeat and humiliation into which we have now been cast. The better we understand this, the harder and firmer will become our will to free ourselves, to rise again from slavery to independence; the more determined will become our unbending resolve, at whatever cost, to raise Russia from her present poverty and weakness, to make her rich and powerful in the true sense of the words.
And this Russia may become, for we still have left enough territory and natural resources to supply each and every one of us, if not with a super-abundance, yet with a sufficient supply of the means of subsistence. We have enough in natural riches and in labor-power, as well as in the impetus that our great revolution has communicated to our national productive forces—to create a really rich and powerful Russia.
Russia may become such if we cast aside all discouragement and all oratory, if we strain every nerve and tighten every muscle, if we understand that salvation is possible only by the path of international Socialist Revolution on which we have entered. To advance on this road, undaunted by defeat, to build up, stone by stone, the firm foundation of the Socialist society, to work with untiring hand at the creation of discipline and self-discipline, at strengthening, at all times and in all places, the organization, orderliness, efficiency and harmonious co-operation of the forces of the entire nation, a central supervision and control of the production and distribution of products,—such is the path to power, whether it be power in the military sense or power in the Socialist sense.
It is unbecoming in a Socialist, when he has suffered a defeat, to protest his victory loudly or to droop into despair. It is not true that we have no other alternative than that between an "inglorious" death, which is what this terrible peace amounts to, and a "heroic" death in a hopeless war. It is not true that we have betrayed our ideals by signing this "Peace of Tilsit" We have betrayed nothing and no one, we have neither sanctioned nor conceded a single falsehood; to no single friend and companion in misfortune have we refused all the aid in our power. A commander-in-chief, who withdraws the remains of his army, defeated and afflicted with a panic flight, into the interior of the country, who defends this withdrawal in a case of extremity, with an intolerable and humiliating peace, is not perpetrating treason against those sections of the army which he can no longer assist and which have been cut off by the enemy. Such a commander is doing his duty when he chooses the only way that is open for saving what can still be saved, consenting to no gambles, disguising no sad truths in the eyes of the people, "giving up territory in order to gain time," utilizing every breathing-spell, no matter how short, in order to collect his forces, in order to provide repose and healing for his army, which has become sick with disintegration and demoralization.
We have signed a "Peace of Tilsit." When Napoleon I forced Prussia in 1807 to make such a peace, he destroyed all the German armies, occupied the capital and all the large cities, introduced his police system, compelled the vanquished to provide an auxiliary army for new wars of conquest waged by the victor, dismembered Germany, and concluded with certain German states alliances against other German states. Yet, in spite of this severe peace, the German people succeeded in maintaining themselves, in gathering their forces, and in attaining for themselves the rights of freedom and independence. To all those who are willing and able to think, the example of the Peace of Tilsit—which was only one of the many oppressive and humiliating treaties forced upon the Germans at that time—shows clearly how childishly naive is the thought that under all circumstances a most cruel peace is the depth of degradation, while war is the path of heroism and salvation. Warlike eras have frequently shown that peace may often discharge the function of a breathing-spell for the gathering of forces for new battles. The Peace of Tilsit was the greatest humiliation of Germany, and, at the same time, the point of departure for a great national awakening. Historical circumstances at that time provided no other way out than through the bourgeois state; for, a century or more ago, history was created by a band of noblemen and the cliques of bourgeois intellectuals, while the great masses of workers and peasants lay slumbering and unobserving. History at that time, therefore, moved with frightful slowness.
Capitalism has now considerably raised culture in general, and particularly that of the masses. The war has shaken up the masses, awakened them with unparalleled terrors and sufferings. The war has accelerated the march of history until it now flies with the speed of a locomotive. History is now made by the independent action of millions and tens of millions of people. Capitalism has reached the stage of Socialism.
And therefore, if Russia now can pass, as she indisputably is passing, from a Peace of Tilsit to a period of national awakening, to a great war of national defense, the result of this transition will not be the bourgeois state, but the international Socialist revolution. We have therefore become, since November 7, 1917, "defenders"; we are for the "defense of the fatherland," but the fatherland that we are defending is the Socialist fatherland. We arc defending our Socialism, which is a section of the universal army of Socialism.
"Hatred of the Germans, down with the Germans!"—such was the cry and remains the cry of the ordinary, that is, bourgeois, patriotism. And we say: "Hatred to the imperialist robbers, hatred to Capitalism, death to Capitalism;" and, together with this: "We must learn from the Germans! Remain faithful to the fraternal union with the German workers. They have been late in coming to our assistance. We shall wait for their coming, we shall gain time; they will come to our assistance."
Yes, learn from the Germans! History moves in zig-zags and in round-about paths. It so happens that the German at present simultaneously personifies, together with savage Imperialism, the beginnings of discipline, organization, harmonious co-operation, on the basis of the modem machine industry, and strict accountability and supervision.
And that is precisely what we lack. That is just what we must learn. That is exactly what our Revolution must have in order to proceed from a victorious beginning, through a series of difficult trials, to a victorious conclusion. That is exactly what the Russian Soviet Socialist Republic needs in order to cease being poor and weak, and to become, once for all, rich and mighty.