Lenin CW-Vol. 23.pdf - From Marx to Mao

LETTERS FROM AFAR3311917, the immediate task was to conduct bold revolutionaryinternationalistpropaganda, summon the masses to fight,rouse them. The February-March days required the heroismof devoted struggle to crush the immediate enemy—tsarism.Now we are in transition from that first stage of the revolutionto the second, from “coming to grips” with tsarism to“coming to grips” with Guchkov-Milyukov landlord and capitalistimperialism. The immediate task is organisation, notonly in the stereotyped sense of working to form stereotypedorganisations, but in the sense of drawing unprecedentedlybroad masses of the oppressed classes into an organisationthat would take over the military, political and economicfunctions of the state.The proletariat has approached, and will approach, thissingular task in different ways. In some parts of Russiathe February-March Revolution puts nearly complete powerin its hands. In others the proletariat may, perhaps, in a“usurpatory” manner, begin to form and develop a proletarianmilitia. In still others, it will probably strive forimmediate elections of urban and rural local governmentbodies on the basis of universal, etc., suffrage, in order toturn them into revolutionary centres, etc., until the growthof proletarian organisation, the coming together of the soldierswith the workers, the movement among the peasantryand the disillusionment of very many in the war-imperialistgovernment of Guchkov and Milyukov bring near thehour when this government will be replaced by the “government”of the Soviet of Workers’ Deputies.Nor ought we to forget that close to St. Petersburg we haveone of the most advanced, factually republican, countries,namely, Finland, which, from 1905 to 1917, shielded by therevolutionary battles of Russia, has in a relatively peacefulway developed democracy and has won the majority of thepeople for socialism. The Russian proletariat will guaranteethe Finnish Republic complete freedom, includingfreedom to secede (it is doubtful now whether a single Social-Democrat will waver on this point when the Cadet Rodichevis so meanly haggling in Helsingfors for bits of privilegesfor the Great Russians 144 )—and precisely in thisway will win the complete confidence and comradely assistanceof the Finnish workers for the all-Russian proletarian