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Polemic on General Line of International ... - From Marx to Mao

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Today, the leaders <strong>of</strong> the CPSU have struck up Kautsky’sold tune. What is this if not s<strong>to</strong>oping <strong>to</strong> the positi<strong>on</strong> <strong>of</strong> acomm<strong>on</strong> or garden lackey <strong>of</strong> the bourgeoisie?Again, the leaders <strong>of</strong> the CPSU argue: Did not Lenin“admit in principle the possibility <strong>of</strong> a peaceful revoluti<strong>on</strong>”? 1This is even worse sophistry.For a time after the February Revoluti<strong>on</strong> <strong>of</strong> 1917 Leninenvisaged a situati<strong>on</strong> in which “in Russia, by way <strong>of</strong> an excepti<strong>on</strong>,this revoluti<strong>on</strong> can be a peaceful revoluti<strong>on</strong>”. 2He called this “an excepti<strong>on</strong>” because <strong>of</strong> the special circumstancesthen obtaining: “The essence <strong>of</strong> the matter wasthat the arms were in the hands <strong>of</strong> the people, and that nocoerci<strong>on</strong> from without was exercised in regard <strong>to</strong> the people.” 3In July 1917 the counter-revoluti<strong>on</strong>ary bourgeois governmentsuppressed the masses by force <strong>of</strong> arms, drenching thestreets <strong>of</strong> Petrograd with the blood <strong>of</strong> workers and soldiers.After this incident Lenin declared that “all hopes for a peacefuldevelopment <strong>of</strong> the Russian Revoluti<strong>on</strong> have definitelyvanished”. 4 In Oc<strong>to</strong>ber 1917 Lenin and the Bolshevik Partyresolutely led the workers and soldiers in an armed uprisingand seized state power. Lenin pointed out in January 1918that “the class struggle. . . has turned in<strong>to</strong> a civil war”. 5 TheSoviet state had <strong>to</strong> wage another three and half years<strong>of</strong> revoluti<strong>on</strong>ary war and <strong>to</strong> make heavy sacrifices before itsmashed both the domestic counter-revoluti<strong>on</strong>ary rebelli<strong>on</strong>1A. Beliakov and F. Burlatsky, “Lenin’s Theory <strong>of</strong> Socialist Revoluti<strong>on</strong>and the Present Day”, Kommunist, Moscow, No. 13, 1960.2V. I. Lenin, “Speech <strong>on</strong> Attitude Towards the Provisi<strong>on</strong>al Government”,delivered at the First All-Russian C<strong>on</strong>gress <strong>of</strong> Soviets <strong>of</strong> Workers’and Soldiers’ Deputies, Selected Works, Eng. ed., FLPH, Moscow,1952, Vol. II, Part 1, p. 80.3V. I. Lenin, “On Slogans”, Selected Works, Eng. ed., FLPH, Moscow,1952, Vol. II, Part 1, p. 88.4V. I. Lenin, “The Political Situati<strong>on</strong>”, Collected Works, Eng. ed.,Internati<strong>on</strong>al Publishers, New York, 1932, Vol. XXI, Book 1, p. 37.5V. I. Lenin, “People from the Next World”, Collected Works, Russ.ed., Moscow, 1949, Vol. XXVI, p. 393.377

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