Gregory Zinoviev 1922
Fourth Congress of the Communist International

Speech to Opening Session

November 5, 1922


Source: Published in Toward the United Front: Proceedings of the Fourth Congress of the Communist International, 1922 (https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/472-toward-the-united-front), pp. 64–76.
Translation: Translation by John Riddell.
HTML Markup: David Walters for the Marxists Internet Archive, 2018.
Copyright: John Riddell, 2011, 2017. Republished here with permission.


Comrades, I have been given the honourable task of delivering the opening address. So many events and memories crowd in on us today that truly one does not know where to begin. Certainly we want to give an account of what has happened in the land conquered by the Russian working class, and of what is happening in the Soviet Republic that has withstood enemy fire for five years. We are opening the Fourth World Congress of the advanced proletarians of fifty-two countries. Comrades, I believe that we can truly say that seldom do we have the occasion to experience events of such great and historic significance.

It goes without saying that our first words must be dedicated to those who during the past five years fell in the struggle, to ensure that the banner of the Communist Party would not be wrested from the hands of the vanguard in different countries, who for the moment in a great many states make up only a heroic minority. The number of our fallen comrades is beyond reckoning. In our country alone they must be reckoned in the thousands.

By chance I received today a small handbook dedicated to a contingent that fell in the defence of a single Soviet city – in defence of our Petrograd. This handbook is dedicated to a contingent of Schlüsselburg [Shlisselburg] workers, who fell along with other contingents in defence of our beautiful Petrograd. What weight does Schlüsselburg have compared to all Soviet Russia – let alone the territory of the entire world, where our comrades live and struggle! It is only a little corner, a little factory town, a single large factory. And an entire handbook is devoted to the contingent of this large factory, who in 1919 stood before the walls of Petrograd. It lists the dozens and dozens of Schlüsselburg workers who fell, gun in hand, defending a city of Soviet Russia. Comrades, imagine how many, how countless are those who have fallen in the proletarian struggle, if we consider the ‘collective Schlüsselburg’ – when we take into account the workers of all Russia, the communists of the entire world.

I recently saw another book. One of our Moscow comrades tried to lay the basis for a collection of biographies of outstanding comrades who fell during these years. Simply listing the names in small type would take up an entire book of hundreds of pages. And that includes only the names of comrades of whom our party and the Soviet government had knowledge. Yet we know that many thousand nameless heroes, whose names are still unknown to history, perished in battle under the Soviet banner.

In Germany during these years, there was not a single city, not even a single major square in the large cities, that was not covered with the blood of workers that fought for the banner of communism. In the initial attempts at a workers uprising in Hungary, countless thousands of brothers perished, and many of them still languish in prison. Only two weeks ago, 170 communists were arrested in Budapest. In Finland, so close to us, where the workers made an initial attempt to rise up, many thousands died, and even now many thousands are in prison.

In the Balkans, in Romania, our entire party was taken from its congress directly to prison, and on the way many were shot. In Greece the bourgeois revolution sent a large number of communist fighters to prison, and only a part of them were freed by rebel solders – the same soldiers who, let it be known, disarmed their own bourgeois officers with the cry ‘Long live Lenin’ on their lips.[1] In America, during these years, many of our best workers landed in prison. Even now the American bourgeoisie can hand out sentences of twenty years in jail for membership in the Communist International. In Italy our comrades have been conducting a civil war for several years, with varying success. And you must surely know that at the very moment when our Fourth World Congress opens, the Italian working class is literally at the mercy of the fascist bands, whose leaders, it must be noted, come from the ranks of the former socialists. As we have seen throughout this revolution, these renegades from socialism are particularly embittered and pitiless hangmen of the working class, agents of the bourgeoisie, settling accounts with the proletariat in the most atrocious manner.

Comrades, let us turn our thoughts back to the beginning of our revolution and draw the balance sheet of the first five years of great and noble struggle by the working class of the world for the victory of proletarian revolution. In so doing, our thoughts turn above all to our best comrades, our best leaders and brothers, who are no longer among us, who fell in the cause of communism in Soviet Russia and the entire world. We hold in eternal memory the first fighters for proletarian world revolution. (All rise. The orchestra plays the funeral march.)

Comrades, five years have passed since the day when the workers of this city, where the Fourth World Congress has just opened, overthrew the bourgeoisie and took the government into their own hands. During these five years, every day was a lesson for the proletariat of our country and the entire world. The last year was in many respects decisive for the Communist International. Fifteen months passed between the Third and Fourth Congresses. And during these fifteen months the destiny of the Communist International in the coming period was in a certain sense decided. Obviously, from a historical point of view the victory of the Communist International is assured. Even if our organisation of struggle were to vanish from the earth under the blows of reaction, as happened to the Paris Commune and the First International, the Communist International would be born again and would ultimately lead the proletariat to victory. But the question before us is whether the Communist International as it now exists, our generation of fighters, will succeed in carrying out the historical mission that the Communist International has set for itself.

It is during the period between the Third and Fourth Congresses that this question has been answered. The Third Congress ended its work at a moment when the offensive of worldwide capitalism and reaction began to display unprecedented and resolute strength. It became clear to us at the Third Congress that a number of unreliable sympathisers were beginning to leave us. As the Third Congress ended, the enemies of the Communist International predicted, if yet not its death, then its weakening and downfall. It was under the fire launched against us during these fifteen months by the capitalist offensive that it became clear whether our young and in part still weak international Communist Party could stand firm at its post.

More than fifty-six parties belong to the Communist International. Among them are parties whose membership is larger than was that of the Communist Party of Russia before the overturn five years ago. But there are also many parties that have not yet gained strength, have not taken on their final form, and have still to surmount their initial difficult times.

For fifteen months the forces of international capitalism and Menshevism, united in the Second International, have been attacking the different parties of the Communist International. All efforts of the bourgeois world and its accomplices – the Second and Two-and-a-Half Internationals – aimed during this time to get at our parties, break individual detachments out of our ranks, and destroy the Communist International. These were critical months for the Communist International.

Even in the most difficult moments, we are not given to self-deception or exaggeration regarding our strength. Communism’s great strength is that it can always speak the truth, even if that truth is a bitter one. If the condition of the Communist International did indeed correspond today to the hopes of our opponents, it would be unworthy of us to hide our weakness from the Fourth Congress. We must say what is. And so we shall. And when we look back on the road we have travelled and count up the forces on which the Fourth Congress can rely, we are fully justified in saying that the Communist International has survived its most difficult times and gained such strength that it need fear no attack of world reaction. For it was in this year – a year of systematic offensive by capitalists internationally, a year in which the Second and Two-and-a-Half Internationals fused,[2] a year of hunger in Soviet Russia, a year of endless privation, in which the working class absorbed almost unremitting defeats, showed that the Communist International has laid a firm foundation. It is alive and, to the horror of its enemies, it will live on. (Applause)

During this year, other decisive events took place. The platform of the Communist International’s programme and tactics, as formulated by our most important congresses, our highest authoritative bodies, has also stood the test and been proven correct.

You recall the recent events in Germany. Not so very long ago the speeches at the celebrated Halle congress faded away.[3] After the famous vote at Halle, we said in the name of the Communist International that for the right-wing Independents who had rejected the Twenty-One Points, only one path lay open – that leading to the social democracy and to Noske.[4] When we made that statement, there was a great commotion among the right-wing Independents. They said that our statement was a malicious fiction. Now the deed is done. The Communist International’s prophecy has been fulfilled. The right-wing Independents stand in Noske’s ranks, the ranks of the hangman of the working class.

The Communist International had a similar and highly significant experience in the testing of its policies in Italy, the focus, so to speak, of world events today. When the split took place in Livorno,[5] we said to those who did not wish to go with the Communist International: ‘Two roads are open to you: either go with the reformists and the Second International and take your place in the bourgeois camp, or acknowledge your error and return to the ranks of the Communist International’. I do not know what individual leaders of the Italian Socialist Party think regarding the lessons of the Italian events. But I am quite familiar with the stand of the immense majority of Italy’s Socialist workers. In their overwhelming majority, they recognised their error and the correctness of the Communist International’s viewpoint.[6] They are coming back into our ranks. Needless to say, we welcome them as brothers. (Applause)

Comrades these two examples from the international workers’ movement provide all honest class-conscious proletarians of the world with clear proof that the Twenty-One Conditions adopted by the Second Congress are no invention, no subterfuge, no dogma, but rather represent the overall consciousness of the proletariat fighting to break free of the chains of capitalism. The tactics of the Communist International are correct and have been tested in life. We follow a defined, clear path. We know where we are headed and where we are leading the international proletariat. And so – despite losses, large or small (for that is not entirely ours to determine) – we will, over a period of time, be it long or short, lead the international proletariat – and we guarantee it – to a conclusive victory over the bourgeoisie. (Applause)

One of the most important developments of the recent period is the unification of the Second and Two-and-a-Half Internationals. The Communist International’s prophecy has been fulfilled. The workers’ revolutionary struggle can only gain from this unification. The Second and Two-and-a-Half Internationals are as alike as two peas in a pod. Both organisations are counter-revolutionary. For the revolutionary proletariat, it is always advantageous for there to be fewer disguises and fictions. We can only gain when our struggle unfolds in a simple and defined framework.

Two camps – two terrains. On one side, the Second International, the International of the Noskes, the International of the social traitors; on the other side our fraternal alliance of the entire world, our association of workers of all countries, which bears the name Communist International.

We must state plainly that the fusion of the Second and Two-and-a-Half Internationals is, among other things, a preparation for White terror against the workers fighting for their freedom. Perhaps these words of ours will evoke the same animosity as was the case with regard to our statements in Halle and Livorno. Before the workers of the world we take responsibility for our statement: the unification of the Second and Two-and-a-Half Internationals merely draws up the artillery of a new and desperate offensive of the world bourgeoisie against revolutionary workers. The fusion of the Second and Two-and-a-Half Internationals prepares the ground for new Galliffets, Noskes, Mussolinis, and other hangmen of the working class. In this way, the leaders of the Second and Two-and-a-Half Internationals are objectively carrying out a new task of the world bourgeoisie.

The question of our attitude to the fusion of the Second and Two-and-a-Half Internationals relates not only to internal party policies and tactics but to world politics.

All the objective preconditions have ripened for the victory of proletarian revolution in all the decisive countries. All that is lacking for the working class is the so-called subjective factor – sufficient class organisation and consciousness. That is why social democracy plays a very great role in the present period.

We can say without any exaggeration that the most urgent task of our time, and perhaps of our entire epoch, is to defeat social democracy, which is the most important factor in international counter-revolution and a barrier to the victorious advance of the international working class. It is on this task that our Communist parties, newly appeared on the stage, must focus their attention above all. Our struggle against international Menshevism, against the united Second and Two-and-a-Half Internationals, is no factional battle within socialism, as some imagine. It is not a tussle among different currents of the socialist movement. Not at all. In fact it is the final, decisive struggle of the international working class that is freeing itself from the bourgeois yoke, a struggle directed against the latest exponents, the latest agents of international capitalism; against Menshevism. (Applause)

I believe that we must urgently say this to the working class the world over, all the more on this our fifth anniversary celebration of the Russian revolution’s five years’ existence.

Permit me to say a few words of a personal character.

In my view, this is something that must especially be said on the fifth anniversary of the revolution. You know, comrades, that five years ago I and some other comrades made a big mistake, the biggest mistake of my life.[7] At that time I had not succeeded in fully understanding the wholly counter-revolutionary character of Menshevism. That was the heart of our error of October 1917. After I had struggled for more than ten years alongside the Mensheviks, I – like many of our comrades – was then unable to grasp at the decisive moment that the Mensheviks and the Social Revolutionaries were not part of the working class, not even its rightist faction, its right wing, but were in truth the ‘left’ wing – highly skilled and agile and therefore also dangerous – of the international bourgeoisie. And it therefore seems to me that we must tell our comrades, who in part are only now beginning their decisive struggle with international Menshevism, and who are now under fire in this struggle from all sides – we must make the lessons of revolution today clear to them. We must tell them: Beware above all of going wrong on this point, of not recognising the great danger that threatens us from the camp of Menshevism and that is rooted in the Second International, the malice and cunning of this enemy, and the damage caused by the policies of its leaders. Beware of viewing Menshevism as the right wing of our own movement. Recognise in it the worst enemy, the accomplice of the international bourgeoisie, whose assistance is crucial to the bourgeoisie’s salvation. That’s what is at stake here. Capitalism owes its existence solely to the compassion of the social traitors of the Second International. The working class is presently numerous enough to overthrow international capitalism with a single shove, if only the Social Democrats do not hold it back.

On the anniversary of the October revolution we must tell the international proletariat: The Mensheviks claimed that the October revolution was an error on our part and that we would not survive more than a few months. First they declared that the Entente would crush us down in a few months, that the armed might of Kolchak and Yudenich would strike us down. Then they foretold that hunger would destroy us, saying that our policies were entirely wrong. Events have now shown that our error consisted at most of making the revolution in a month that is distinguished chiefly for inclement weather and rain. (Applause) But it seems to me that by coming forward so powerfully, despite the ‘Menshevik’ rain, the Petrograd workers demolished this Menshevik argument as well. (Applause)[8]

Now a few words about the international meaning of the NEP (New Economic Policy).

Comrades, last year at the Third Congress, as the NEP was first introduced, we were able to give you only a rather approximate theoretical conception of the NEP’s role in the first workers’ republic. Now we have much greater clarity on this point. Comrades from all countries, we have a duty to tell you this: Many of you were dismayed by the rebirth of capitalism in Soviet Russia. With the best of intentions, you told us, ‘Yes, we understand that you have been forced to introduce the New Economic Policy because we workers in other countries are still too weak to come to your aid’. That is obviously true, but this argument is insufficient.

We have come to the conclusion, comrades, that the New Economic Policy is not only a result of the fact that Communists in a number of capitalist countries are too weak. No, there is an additional cause. We feel compelled to tell you – and an opening address is not the place to substantiate this – that the NEP is a period that will probably be traversed by many countries, even those with the strongest industrial base, where the industrial proletariat forms the vast majority of the population. Only exceptionally will some countries be able to avoid this stage. The Russian delegation will develop this thought at the congress. We must say this plainly, because we hope that the entire strategy of the Fourth Congress, along with our battle plan for future years, will build on this thinking. We believe that the NEP is not merely an expression of the weakness of communism in some capitalist countries, but that it also shows us that the proletariat in every country must weigh its strength against that of the peasantry and clearly establish a relationship between the industrial proletariat and a large part of the rural population.

We did not take this into account at the start, because we did not yet have a good eye for these things. That is not at all surprising. Our revolution’s greatness consists precisely in the fact that from the start it approached this question practically. The NEP is no mere episode and is not an expression of the weakness of our brother parties in the capitalist countries. No, it represents tactical wisdom, which was acquired in a peasant country by the great proletarian revolution at painful cost. It is the result of the working-class struggle in the first victorious republic. This working class, which at first sought to drive forward at a rapid tempo, then had to recognise that in order not to lose touch with the great mass of the peasantry, which in these conditions is decisive for the outcome of the revolution, it had to take the measures that later received the name of New Economic Policy. And now, comrades, when we speak in this congress about the agrarian question and put forward a programme for agrarian countries, when we deliberate over a programme of our Communist International and speak of many other current issues, we will also have in mind the thought that I have just expressed. This thought requires further explanation, and we will pursue it further and more intensively in the course of the work of the congress.

In our opinion, to the degree that this can be foreseen, Central Europe, the Balkans, and a number of other countries will have to go through a ‘new economic policy’. They will have to do this in order to neutralise the peasantry, or at least some of its layers – of course with this or that modification, depending on the situation.

Soviet Russia is proud to come to the help of the international proletariat. Five years have gone by since our revolution. And we can present you with the results of our rule during these five years. One thing is clear: five years of intensive struggle, countless victims, an immensity of difficulties, famine, an unprecedented blockade, intervention, and all the rest, have not broken the strength of Russia’s working class. On the fifth anniversary of the revolution, the masses, however tired they may be, are not leaving our party. We tell you this in full awareness that we have no right before the international communist congress to paint up our situation in any way. We say this because it is a fact.

Not only have the working masses not streamed away from the Russian Communist Party, but on the contrary we feel how these masses are coming to our party more and more, just as intensively as in the best days of the revolutionary upheaval five years ago. What we saw today in Petrograd can be seen in any city of the Soviet republic, any town, any factory, any mine, wherever there are working masses. They could well have been worn down by five years of terrible struggle and they had the full right to catch their breath, but in fact they stand with us more firmly than ever. These working masses believe today more than ever in the victory of the Soviet republic. This is felt by every one of us who has the good fortune to stand in the thick ranks of Russia’s working masses, here among the workers of such wonderful cities as Red Petrograd.

Earlier there were still groups among the workers that doubted, wavered, and still believed that we would perhaps be defeated. But precisely these working-class circles have found their way back to us and are no longer wavering. Never has our party felt so strongly as now that it is on the right path, that the working masses fully trust it and are advancing together with it. The Russian Communist Party presents to the Fourth Congress, on the fifth anniversary of the great October Revolution, a united, living, vigorous working class, confident in its power. (Applause)

That’s why on this fifth anniversary of the October Revolution we can laugh in the face of the shadows of the past: the Social Revolutionaries, the Mensheviks, and the Russian patriots of the Second International. We are on the right path. During these five years there were moments when the Communist Party, fully convinced of the justice of its cause, was in a minority among the working masses. There were times when under the pressure of unprecedented sacrifices the working-class ranks wavered. But the great merit of the ruling Communist Party consists precisely in the fact that it is proud to be a component of the Communist International and that, in these moments of wavering, it never let its banner fall.

For we knew that we would work our way through the unheard-of sacrifices and difficulties and would lead the working class to victory. On the fifth anniversary of the October revolution we say that the hardest part is behind us. We have brought the working class of our country onto the open road. Our party – which has travelled an extremely difficult but great and glorious road since the October revolution and is only a detachment of the Communist International – has imbued the working class of the largest country in the world with its ideas. It has built a bridge to the most remote village. It leads the entirety of Soviet Russia. Comrades, we are proud to be backed up by a party that, even if difficult times come upon us, will not let its banner fall. We take the greatest pride in the fact that in the most difficult moments of the revolution we knew that we were showing the way to the workers of the entire world and their organisations.

We know well that in a few years many countries where industry is more developed, after carrying out their own proletarian revolution, will surpass us and take the leading position in the Communist International. As Comrade Lenin has said, we will become a backward soviet country among the advanced soviet countries.[9] We know this and we look forward to that day as the greatest victory of those who began the revolution. We know just as well as you how many difficulties await you on your road. You must confront an organised and greedy bourgeoisie. You will cross swords with the as yet unconquered betrayers of the Second International.

The Petrograd workers that you met yesterday in the factories and workplaces of Petrograd await with impatience the celebration of a victorious world revolution. But they too are aware of the difficulties that await you on this road. The Communist International is against any premature action, against unprepared uprisings, which are drowned in the blood of the workers and crush the proletariat’s precious asset, the organised international Communist Party. We are following in the footsteps of the Paris Commune, but we want a victorious commune. The Communist International will not permit the bourgeoisie to crush our forces in isolated encounters and drown the movement in the workers’ blood.

In the East our movement expanded during this year. Not only has it progressed, but also there is now hardly an Eastern country where we do not have the nucleus of a Communist Party, even if this nucleus is still not large. Yes, our parties in the East are still numerically small, but our Emancipation of Labour Group in Russia in 1883 was also not large. Nonetheless its emergence meant that a new era had begun in Russia, that a revolution had begun.

These lands represent an inexhaustible reserve of proletarian revolution. Thus the building of Communist Parties in these countries is a historic event. It signifies that, here too, forces of advanced workers are accumulating that will lead the oppressed nations to the victory of international revolution. During this year the national movements of oppressed peoples gained greatly in scope – movements that objectively are dealing blows to international capitalism. The growing rebellions in India, China, and Egypt undermine the existence of the bourgeois governments. Comrades, if it is granted to many of us present here today to live another five years – and for now we ask nothing more – if we live to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the October Revolution, we will see that what we have achieved thus far is mere child’s play. We will see the world shake under countless uprisings, as many hundreds of millions of oppressed people rise up against imperialism. We will see how the Red banner of communism is grasped by the hands not only of a small although heroic minority, but also of hundreds and hundreds of millions of the world’s oppressed people and toilers.

Long live the international revolution!

Long live the Russian proletariat, which has laid the foundation for this revolution. It endures the enemy’s relentless crossfire and fights on, well knowing that it is struggling not only for its own country but for the cause of the international proletariat.

The Russian workers are internationalists in the best sense of the word. During five years the Russian workers, especially those of Petrograd, have not dared wish for any better payment than that which they are receiving today.

Petrograd comrades, you are the advanced post of our forces, the first fighters for the Soviet government. Five years ago you grasped a rifle, formed the first weak detachments of the Red Guard, and advanced into such heroic struggle. How many of you then hoped to see the fifth anniversary? To see a Fourth Congress of the Communist International housed within the walls of your own soviet? Now we have witnessed it, and we cannot hope for any better reward. The congress will bring new strength to the workers of Petrograd and of all Russia. We will stride forward to the economic construction of our great republic. We will provide an example of heroism in the arena not only of civil war but also of the actual restoration of a socialist economy. We will help our brothers organise and give them the opportunity to hold firm until they are ready to lay hands on the bourgeoisie and thrust their knee into its chest. (Applause)

Down with the international bourgeoisie! (Applause)

Down with its agents – the Second International!

Long live the communists of the entire world!

Long live the workers arising in new struggles who take the path of communism!

Long live the Communist International!


Notes

1. The triumph of Turkish nationalist forces in September 1922 over the Greek army occupying Western Anatolia sparked a widespread revolt among Greek soldiers, compelling Constantine I, king of Greece, to abdicate on 30 September. The crown passed to his son, George II, but power was held by a repressive military junta.

2. The Bureau of the Two-and-a-Half (Vienna) International declared on 3 September 1922 that the goal of a world labour congress, including the Comintern, had been proven impossible, and entered into unity negotiations with the London-based Second International. A joint meeting of the two international executives took place on 10 December, and a fusion congress followed in May 1923.

3. At the Halle congress of the USPD in October 1920, a majority of delegates accepted the Twenty-One Conditions for affiliation that the Comintern had adopted earlier that year and voted to join the Moscow-based International. Zinoviev gave a major report to this congress. For the Twenty-One Conditions, see Riddell (ed.), Workers of the World and Oppressed Peoples, Unite! Proceedings and Resolutions of the Second Congress, 1920 (New York: Pathfinder Press, 1991), vol. 2, pp. 765 – 71.

4. As the Social Democratic minister responsible for Germany’s armed forces, Gustav Noske organised the violent suppression of workers’ uprisings in the early months of 1919.

5. The Italian SP’s Livorno congress took place 15 – 21 January 1921, four months after the party had failed to give leadership to the half-million workers occupying factories during the great September strike wave. By January, fascist attacks, focused on the SP, had become a serious danger. In Livorno, the ECCI representatives demanded that the SP, a member of the Comintern since 1919, ratify the conditions for membership (Twenty-One Conditions) adopted by the Second World Congress five months previously. Serrati, leader of the SP majority current, insisted on the need to apply the conditions flexibly ‘in conformity with the context and the history of the country’. A left current, led by Bordiga, demanded their immediate and full application, particularly with regard to expulsion of the SP’s anti-Communist right wing. Serrati’s motion received 98,028 votes; that of the Left, 58,173 votes; that of the Right, 14,695. The Left current then withdrew from the congress and founded the Italian Communist Party.

6. At the Italian SP congress in Rome, 1–3 October 1922, the rightist faction led by Turati demanded a break with ‘violent and dictatorial communism’ and an affirmation of ‘democratic, evolutionary socialism’. A motion by the leftist faction called for expulsion of all supporters of the current trying to ‘lead the party into collaboration with the bourgeoisie’. The Left’s motion received 32,106 votes, against 29,119 for that of the Right. The Turati forces withdrew and formed the Unitary Socialist Party; the SP began an attempt to fuse with the Comintern.

7. In October 1917, Zinoviev and Lev Kamenev voted in the Bolshevik Central Committee against the proposal to organise an insurrection for Soviet power. After the motion had been adopted, they continued to express their opposition in the party at large and the non-Bolshevik press. In the first days after establishment of the Soviet government, they were among a minority of Bolshevik leaders arguing that it should encompass Menshevik and Socialist-Revolutionary representatives, and they resigned from the Central Committee over this issue.

8. The German text of the proceedings contains the note: ‘On the opening day of the Fourth Congress, strong rain fell in Petrograd, which did not prevent thousands of working people from taking part in the demonstration in honour of the fifth anniversary and the Fourth Congress’.

9. Lenin stated, for example, ‘[S]oon after the victory of the proletarian revolution in at least one of the advanced countries ... Russia will cease to be the model and will once again become a backward country (in the “Soviet” and the socialist sense)’. See ‘Left-Wing’ Communism – An Infantile Disorder, Lenin Collected Works, vol. 31, p. 21.


 

Last updted on 6 January 2020