On the Road to Insurrection/Marxism and Insurrection

by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

Marxism and Insurrection

Letter to the Central Committee of the Social-Democratic Labour Party of Russia (Bolshevik)

(Written during the Democratic Conference)

ONE of the worst ways of distorting Marxism, and one of those most frequently used to that effect by the leading "Socialist" parties is to represent by methods of opportunist logic preparation for insurrection, and the consideration of insurrection as an art^[1] as "Blanquism" pure and simple.

The high priest of opportunism, Bernstein, has already acquired a shameful notoriety by accusing Marx of Blanquism, and no extant opportunist who shrieks "Blanquism!" refreshes or enriches his meagre ideas in any way.

Accuse the Marxists of Blanquism because they consider insurrection an art Can truth be more disgustingly distorted since in calling insurrection an "art" Marx explains himself in the most precise and categoric manner on this question, he declares that one must win an initial victory and then go from success to success without interrupting for an instant the offensive against the enemy, by profiting from his disorder.

In order to be entirely victorious, insurrection must not depend on a conspiracy, or on a party but on a revolutionary class. That is the first point. Insurrection must depend on the revolutionary pressure of all the people. That is the second point. Insurrection must break out at the apogee of the rising revolution, that is at the moment when the activity of the vanguard of the people is greatest, when fluctuations among the enemy and among the weak and indecisive friends of the revolution are strongest. That is the third point. It is in bringing these three conditions to the consideration of the question of insurrection that Marxism differs from Blanquism.

But from the moment that these conditions arise, it would be a betrayal of Marxism and the revolution to refuse to consider insurrection as an art. In order to show that the present moment is exactly the one when, by the whole course of events, the party is obliged to recognise that insurrection is the order of the day, it will be best to employ the comparative method, to set side by side the days of July 3 and 4, and the days of September.

Of July 3 and 4 we may justifiably reason thus: it would be preferable to seize power, for if we refuse to do so that will not prevent our enemies from accusing us of sedition and treating us as rebels. But from this consideration one could not logically argue an obligation to seize power, for the objective conditions of the triumph of insurrection were lacking.

(1) We had not then on our side the class that is the advance guard of the revolution.

We had not then a majority among the workers and soldiers of the capitals. Now we have one in the Soviets of Petrograd and Moscow. This majority has been created by the events of July and August, by the repression of the Bolsheviks and by the experience of the Kornilov revolt.

(2) Revolutionary enthusiasm had not yet taken possession of the great mass of the people, now after Kornilov that is an accomplished fact. Events in the provinces, the seizing of power by the Soviets in a number of places prove it incontestably.

(3) There were not then those wide-spread political fluctuations among our enemies and among the irresolute petty bourgeoisie; now we are confronted by colossal fluctuations: our chief enemy, allied and world imperialism—for the "Allies" are at the head of world imperialism—fluctuates at this moment between war for final victory and a separate peace against Russia. Our petty bourgeois democrats, who have obviously lost the majority among the people, have fluctuated tremendously in holding aloof from the bloc—in other words the coalition with the Cadets.

(4) That is why on July 3 and 4, insurrection would have been a mistake; neither physically nor politically should we have been able to retain power. We should not have had the physical force for although Petrograd was from time to time in our hands, our workers and soldiers would not have been willing to fight and die for the possession of the town; they were not then in their present state of exasperation, they were not boiling over with such a furious hatred against the Kerenskys, the Tseretellis and the Tchernovs; they were not then tempered by persecutions directed against the Bolsheviks with the help of the Social Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks.

Politically we should not have been able to retain power on July 3 and 4, for before the Kornilov adventure, the army and the provinces could and would have marched against Petrograd.

Now the situation is completely changed. We have on our side the majority of the working class, of the advance guard of the revolution, of the advance guard of the people, who alone can carry the masses with them.

We have on our side the majority of the people, for the resignation of Tchernov is only the clearest and plainest indication among a host of others that the Social Revolutionary bloc (or even the Social Revolutionaries left to themselves) will not give the land to the peasants. But it is here that the root cause of the essentially popular character of the revolution lies.

We have on our side the advantage of the position of our party which among the disordered fluctuations of imperialism and of the Menshevik and Social Revolutionary bloc, alone holds firmly to the path that it has traced out for itself.

We have certain victory on our side for the people are almost reduced to despair, and we alone have pointed out to them the real issue by demonstrating the importance of our attitude in the "Kornilov days"; further we proposed a compromise with the members of the bloc, who refused our offer, but who none the less unceasingly continue to be torn asunder by their perpetual hesitations.

It would be a grave error to believe that our proposal of a compromise is not yet rejected, that the "Democratic Conference" may still accept it. This compromise has been put forward by one party qua party to other parties; it could not be put forward in any other way. These parties have rejected it. The Democratic Conference is only a conference and nothing more. It must not be forgotten that it does not represent the majority of the revolutionary people, the poorest section of the peasantry, exasperated by the policy of the present government. It is a conference of the minority of the people. This is an obvious truth that must not be lost sight of. We should be making a tremendous mistake, we should be sinking into most hopeless parliamentary imbecility if we behaved towards the Democratic Conference as we should towards parliament, for even if it proclaimed itself a parliament, and the sovereign parliament of the revolution, it could determine nothing for the supreme decision does not depend on it, but on the working class districts of Petrograd and Moscow.

All the objective conditions of success are present. We have on our side the exceptional advantages of a situation where our victory in the insurrection is the only thing which can put an end to the faltering inaction which maddens the people and which is a real torture to them; again our victory in the insurrection is the only thing which will make the contrivance of a separate peace against the revolution break down, by means of an open proposal for peace which shall be more complete, more just, and in favour of the revolution.

Finally our party alone after gaining victory in the insurrection, will be able to save Petrograd. For if our offer of peace is rejected, and if we fail even to procure an armistice we shall become desperate "defensists," we shall put ourselves at the head of the military parties, we shall become the most military party of all, we shall conduct the war in a really revolutionary manner. We shall carry off all the bread and the boots of the capitalists. We shall leave them nothing but crumbs, we shall give them nothing but clogs. All the bread and boots will be needed for the front.

And then we shall be within reach of defending Petrograd victoriously. Russia has still immense material and moral resources for a truly revolutionary war. Further there are ninety-nine chances out of a hundred that the Germans will grant us at least an armistice. And, to obtain an armistice now is to vanquish the whole world.

Firmly convinced that the insurrection of the workers of Petrograd and Moscow is absolutely necessary to save the revolution and to defend Russia from the greed of the imperialists of the two Ententes who are ready to conclude a separate peace in order to divide her land, we must first of all, at the Conference adapt our tactics to the conditions of the rising insurrection and then prove that we accept not in words alone the dictum of Marx on the necessity of considering insurrection as an art.

We must, at the Conference, immediately proceed to the strengthening of the Bolshevik fraction, and for this, we must not seek quantity nor fear to leave the falterers in the camp of the falterers; they will be more useful to the cause of the revolution there, than in the camp of the resolute and devoted fighters.

We must compose a short declaration, in which we strongly and sharply emphasize the inopportuneness of long discussions and all discussions in the abstract, the necessity for immediate action for the salvation of the revolution, the absolute necessity of a complete rupture with the bourgeoisie, the dismissal of all the members of the present government, a complete break with the Anglo-French imperialists who are preparing to partition Russia by means of a separate peace, and finally the necessity for the immediate handing over of all the power to the revolutionary democracy led by the revolutionary proletariat.^[2]

In our declaration we must formulate, in a manner as brief as it is vigorous, this conclusion which will remain on our prospective programme; peace to the peoples; land to the peasants, confiscation of the scandalous profits of the capitalists, strong measures to curb these latter and to prevent them from continuing to disorganise production.

The briefer and more trenchant the declaration the better. It remains to emphasize again two important points, namely: The people are tortured, reduced to despair by the faltering and indecision of the Social-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks; we must break definitively with these parties, because they have betrayed the revolution. Secondly, by proposing immediate peace without annexation, by breaking with the allied imperialists and with all the imperialists in general, we shall obtain at once either an armistice or the adoption of the defensive point of view by the revolutionary proletariat, under whose direction the revolutionary democracy will carry on a truly just and revolutionary war.

After having read this declaration, after having demanded a decision instead of idle words, action instead of written resolutions, we must delegate our fraction to the factories and barracks: its place is there, there lies the nerve centre, the salvation of the revolution, the power behind the Democratic Conference.

There, in ardent and impassioned speeches we must develop and expound our programme and thus formulate the question: either complete acceptance of this programme, or insurrection. There is no middle course. To wait is impossible. The revolution is in danger.

The question put thus, the whole of our fraction concentrated in the factories and barracks, we shall be able to judge the moment when insurrection should be begun.

And to treat the insurrection in the Marxist manner, in other words as an art, we must at the same time, without loss of a minute, organise a general staff for the insurrectionary cadres, distribute our forces, concentrate the trustworthy regiments on the most important points, invest the Alexandra Theatre, occupy the Peter and Paul Fortress, arrest the Grand General Staff and the Government, march against the officer-cadets and the "barbarian division."^[3] Our cadres must be ready to sacrifice themselves to the last man rather than allow the enemy to penetrate into the centres of the town; we must mobilise the armed workers, summon them to the greatest fight of all, occupy simultaneously the central telegraph office and telephone exchange, instal our insurrectionary staff at the central telephone exchange, get telephone connections with all the factories, all the regiments, all the points at which the attacking army displays itself, &c.

All this indeed is only approximate, but I have limited myself to proving that at the present moment, one cannot be faithful to Marxism, to the revolution, without treating insurrection as an art.

1. Lenin alludes throughout this letter to a passage in "Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Germany" which is dealt with in detail in the preface to his pamphlet "Will the Bolsheviks Maintain Power?"
2. On September 22 Riazanov, in the name of the Bolshevik fraction, made a declaration in this sense at the Conference.
3. A division of Kornilov's Cossacks.