[lbo-talk] Lenin quote

comvox at flash.net comvox at flash.net
Wed Apr 15 20:29:05 PDT 2009



>From the "Report on the International Situation and the Fundamental Tasks of
the Communist International", July 19, 1920, at the 2nd CI Congress:

"Comrades, we have now come to the question of the revolutionary crisis as the basis of our revolutionary action. And here we must first of all note two widespread errors. On the one hand, bourgeois economists depict this crisis simply as 'unrest,' to use the elegant expression of the British. On the other hand, revolutionaries simply try to prove that the crisis is absolutely insoluble.

"This is a mistake. There is not such thing as an absolutely hopeless situation. The bourgeoisie are behaving like barefaced plunderers who have lost their heads; they are committing folly after folly, thus aggravating the situation and hastening their doom. All that is true. But nobody can 'prove' that it is absolutely impossible for them to pacify a minority of the exploited with some petty concessions, and suppress some movement or uprising of some section of the oppressed and exploited. To try to 'prove' in advance that there is 'absolutely' no way out of the situation wuld be sheer pedantry, or playing with concepts and catchwords. Practice alone can serve as real 'proof' in this and similar questions. All over the world, the bourgeois system is experiencing a tremendous revolutionary crisis. The revolutionary parties must now 'prove' in practice that they have sufficient understanding and determination and skill to utilise this crisis for a successful, a victorious revolution."

-- Joseph Green



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