Dear Comrades !

Comrade Lenin died 101 years ago.

We salute all comrades of the world and encourage you to faithfully adhere to Leninism.

This year we publish an article from "International Press-Correspondence"

(100 years ago ...)

12 January 1925

Theses for the First Anniversary of the Death of Lenin

1

The 21st January 1925 is the first anniversary of the death of the great and universally recognized leader of the proletarian world revolution, of Comrade Lenin. While mourning this enormous loss, the revolutionary proletariat of all countries must on this day concentrate its attention upon the work to which comrade Lenin devoted his whole life, must call to mind the great bequest he has left, and once again, in the light of the experiences of

"the first year without Lenin", test the correctness of his revolutionary, communist line, and our fidelity towards the legacy he has bequeathed to us.

2.

The name of Lenin is the standard of millions of proletarians and peasants who have entered into the immediate fight for the shaking off of the imperialist yoke, for establishing their own power, for communism.

The reformists of all countries, the social traitors and compromisers of the II. International, the whole of international Menshevism, have hypocritically clothed themselves in the revolutionary teachings of Marx and Engels and distorted them for the benefit of the imperialist bourgeoisie. In the course of many years they have stifled the revolutionary activity and enthusiasm of the working masses exploited by capital, by persuading them of the stability of the bourgeois social order and chaining every national section of the proletariat to the fatherland created by its bourgeoisie. Comrade Lenin summoned the workers to the revolt against capital. By his fight against the war and by the slogan of transformation of the imperialist war into the civil war, by the example of the victorious Russian October Revolution. Comrade Lednin took the first steps for making a decisive breach between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, resurrected the old slogan of Marx and Engels: "Proletarians of all countries - unite !" and gave it its revolutionary content by

strengthening in the working masses and all who are suppressed by imperialism, the believe in their own forces and their conviction of their victory.

3.

The fundamental "work of Lenin" is the revolt of the working masses against imperialism which in the past year has further extended and developed. The bourgeoisie of all countries and their lackeys from the camp of the II. International continually talk of the decline of communism. Nevertheless the "spectre of communism is haunting the whole world", is terrifying the bourgeoisie and is promting it to continually fresh attempts at the creation of the united front against the proletarian revolution, against the workers of the west and the east.

The German bourgeoisie and the German social democracy have done everything in order to crush the revolution of the German working class. But the communist party of Germany lives. It has withstood the attack of this united front. It has withstood all the blows of the severest suppression, and is standing firmly at its post as the leader of millions of revolutionary workers.

The French bourgeoisie has for six years conducted an armed struggle against the Communist danger in the East and against the Soviet Union. And it now perceives this Communist danger in its own country. As it has seen tens of thousands of revolutionary workers in the streets of Paris marching under the banner of Lenin.

The English bourgeoisie had made an attempt tp deceive the workers by the formation of the so-called "Labour Government". But soon found it necessary to get rid of it as it felt the danger of the pressure of the prolertarian masses in England, who are becoming more and more revolutionary and who are following the policy of class war.

In the Balkans and in Poland, in the countries where the peasantry preponderate, the revolutionary alliance of the workers and peasants against the bourgeoisie is becoming stronger and compels the bourgeois governments to adopt the most desperate measures in order to suppress the revolutionary movement of the masses.

In little Estonia, where the proletariat and the peasantry are oppressed by the combined dictatorship of the profiteers, speculators and social democrats, the revolutionary worker Jan Tomp and the insurgents of Reval who were shot down by the bourgeoisie, died with the name of Lenin on their lips and have reminded the bourgeoisie of the strength of the idea of armed uprising of the proletariat.

In the Near asnd Far East, in North Africa, in India and China, however, the revolutionary movement of the colonial and semi-colonial peoples against world imperialism is growing, and is undermining the latter's existence and reminding it of the inevitable downfall of rule of the capital.

"Lenin is dead but his work lives!"

4.

In summoning the working class of the whole world to the revolutionary fight for the overthrow of the power of capital, Lenin unrelentingly exposed the petty-bourgeois illusions of reconciliation between the classes and the whole fraud of the hypocritical talk of "democracy" andf "pacifism".

The lackeys of the bourgeoisie in the II.International at the time of the death of Lenin contrasted him, the leader of the workers, with the puppet of the English bourgeoisie, McDonald, and his so-called "Labour Government", and thereby spread throughout the whole world the lie of the opening of a new epoch od "democratic pacifism". But in this year the name of McDonald became the symbol for grovelling before the bourgeoisie, and the whole course of the political events has once again, in the most striking manner, demonstrated the entire correctness of the revolutionary line and its teaching of the irreconcilability of the interests of the proletariat and of the bourgeoisie. True to the techings of Lenin, the V. Congress of the Communist International in June 1924, when the democratic illusions were at their height, refused to recognise the opening of any kind of new era in the relations between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie and between the peoples in the imperialist world, as it saw in the whole policy of "democracy" and "pacifism", only a manoeuvre of the imperialist bourgeoisie in order to deceive the working masses and to strengthen the rule of capital.

The ever sharpening contradictions between labour and capital on the one hand, and between the various imperialist cliques on the other, have rendered impossible any further continuation of this policy of deception, and have compelled the bourgeoisie to revert once again to open fascist measures.

In England the most reactionary wing of the bourgeoisie is in power. The English government and its agents support throuout Europe all reactionary, military groups.

The government of Herriot, supported by the French Mensheviki, is more and more openly adopting the methods of Poincaré.

Italian fascism is receiving support from the English Conservatives, a support which is postponing the moment of its overthrow.

Estonia, Poland, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and Roumania openly adopt the policy of proclaiming the military dictatorship against the working masses.

The workers of all countries must unite under the communist banner of Lenin, in order by armed methods to overthrow everywhere the reactionary power of the bourgeoisie.

5.

Comrade Lenin pitilessly scorned and exposed the pacifist illusions spread by the Menshevist Partiers of the II. International of a peace and fraternisation of the peoples under the rule of capitalism. He stigmatised the Peace of Versailles, which was concluded with the participation and approval of socialists, as a peace based on force which endeavoured to strengthen the rule of the group of imperialists who were victorious in the war. The League of Nations which the socialists of the II. International adopted as their banner, was stigmatised by Comrade Lenin as a League of robbers which makes use of the democratic phrases of fraternisation of the peoples in order to maintain the monopolist role of the group of imperialists who won the war.

The last year has exposed the whole fraud of the pacifist phrases. The so-called "Dawes-Plan" which was supported by all Parties oif the II. International, had brought along with it the complete economic enslavement of Germany by Anglo-American capital, and will result in a tremendous increase in the exploitation of the German proletariat for the requirement of its own and of the international bourgeoisie. The so-called "Genever-Protocol" of the League of Nations means nothing else than the preparation of a new, powerful, military alliance of the bourgeois countries against the only soviet republic, the Soviet Union, and against the peoples of the East who are fighting for their emancipation.

At the same time the antagonism between the various groups of imperialists are becoming more and more evident: - between England and France,

- between the United States and Japan,

- between England and the United States.

The governments of all countries, while declaring for the limitation of the armaments, are preparing for the future war by increasing on the widest scale these armaments on land, on sea, and in the air, for which purpose they invent ever fresh means for the destruction of the armed forces of their opponents and for the devastation of hostile countries.

The growing expenditure for militarism presses with special heaviness upon the little countries, as Poland, Czechoslovakia, Roumania, Yugoslavia, whom imperialism has converted into armed defenders of its rule in Europe.

For the same purpose of the coming war against the Soviet Union, the Allies refuse, in violation of the Peace of Versailles signed by them, to evacuate Cologne, whereby they expose the entire fraud of the agitation of the II. International for the Dawes Plan, which it held up as a solution of international questions asd opposed to militarist methods of solution.

The pacifist illusions of the working masses must be overcome. The proletarians must unite for the revolutionary fight against the threatening and approaching danger of a new world war.

6.

Comrade Lenin not only spread among the masses of the working class and of the exploited the slogan of the fight for the setting up of the dictatorship of the proletariat, but also, in the light of the experiences of the Russian October Revolution, which was carried out under his leadership, gave the world proletariat a living example of the revolutionary construction of a proletarian state, which continues in history the work of the Paris Commune.

The Russian proletariat, under the leadership of Lenin, destroyed the bourgeois state, and, while it ruthlessly suppressed the resistance of the ruling classes, built up in the midst of the fire of civil-war the new State of the Soviets which has brought forward for the leadership of this state thousands of representatives from the depths of the working and peasant masses.

This first Workers' Government of the world stand also today as a powerful stronghold, which maintains the work of the proletarian world revolution and mobilises the masses of the workers in the West and in the East for the armed struggle against the world rule of capital. The bourgeoisie and its lackeys, the Mensheviki, on the day of the death of Lenin more than once predicted the inevitable collapse of the Soviet State. But the same bourgeoisie was compelled during the past year to recognise the enormous success of the economic reconstruction in the Soviet Union, and to grant de jure recognition to the Soviet Government, as the real, legal government of the peoples of the Soviet Union.

The international bourgeoisie is again preparing a united front against the Soviet Union in order to deprive the Russian working class of the gains of the October Revolution, to compel payment of all debts and to hand back the factories and undertakings taking away from the foreign capitalists.

The international proletariat must be on the alert !

Hands of Soviet Russia !

The Mensheviki did not succeed by their campaign of calumny against the Soviet Union in destroying the fraternal bond between the workers of all countries on the one side, and the Soviet Union on the other. The visit of the delegation of the English Trade Unions to Russia, the conduct of these non-communist delegates in the Soviet Union and in Berlin, and finally, their report regarding all that they had seen in the Soviet Union, once again confirmed before the whole working class the successes of the first attempt of the proletarian dictatorship and called upon all workers to

carry out this revolutionary overthrow in their own country.

"The Work of Lenin lives."

7.

Comrade Lenin has enriched the teachings of the struggle of the workers for their emancipation by the idea of the revolutionary alliance of the working class with the peasantry. The Mensheviki of all countries have formerly summoned and even now summon the working class to an alliance with the imperialist bourgeoisie, to the struggle for their predatory, imperialist aims, and have at the same time sown dissension between the proletarians of the town and the poor sections of the small-holding peasantry. Comrade Lenin consistently maintained that not only the agricultural workers, these wage slaves of the big landowners, but also the small-holding peasants, who, suffering from the lack of sufficient land and the burden of taxation and of militarism, are interested in the overthrow of the present regime of capitalist domination and must support the revolutionary proletariat in its fight for dictatorship.

The teaching of Comrade Lenin has been confirmed in a most striking manner by all the developments. True to the heritage entrusted by Lenin, the C.P. of Russia continued last year this work of strengthening the alliance of the workers and peasants, in directing the work of the socialised industries to the satisfying of the requirements of the peasant economy, in caring for the allround increase of the well-being of the peasantry, and finally, in inducing the latter to participate more and more in the administrative work in the villages, in the municipalities, in the districts and provinces, in the national republics and in the whole Union.

In the countries under the rule of capital, the revolutionary workers in the course of the past year achieved great successes in the direction of fulfilling the trust bequeathed by Lenin by drawing nearer to the revolutionary section of peasantry. In Germany, France, Italy, Czechoslovakia, Poland Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Roumania and in the United States great sections of propertyless peasants have been drawn into the revolutionary front and are carrying on the struggle, hand in hand with the proletariast, under the leadership of the Communist Party. Everywhere there are taking place conferences of representatives of the revolutionary peasants, while in addition peasants newspapers are being published. The influence of the International Peasant Council [Krestintern - editor] is growing.

The revolutionary movement of the peasants in the countries with a prediminating peasant population has already become so great, that it is provoking continually increasing repression on the part of the bourgeoisie against the peasants, with the result, that the revolutionary alliance of the peasantry with the proletariat is becoming more firmly consolidated.

8.

Before Lenin, only the workers of the West and of the United States of America, the workers of the so-called "civilised countries", had been drawn into the international revolutionary movement. The working masses of the black and yellow races only served as cannon-fodder for imperialism in the world war, or they were exlusively the objects of imperialist bondage and exploitation. The imperialist bourgeoisie succeeded in instilling their arrogant and contemptuous attitude towards the black and yellow races into the aristocracy of labour. The Parties of the II. International, however, who supported the world bourgeoisie in their policy of exploiting and suppressing the colonial countries, could of course not take up the task of drawing the working masses of the countries of the East into the international trade union and political movement.

Comrade Lenin was the first to raise his voice in the international movement for the participation of the working masses of the East in the revolutionary proletarian International. The October Revolution summoned to participate in the revolutionary Soviet construction the peoples of the East who were formerly under the yoke of Tsarism: The Tartars, Bashkirs, Kirgis, Usbeks, Turkomen and others, and created free Soviet Republics of these peoples within the Soviet Union. The October Revolution cancelled all the Tsarist Treaties with the peoples of the East (with Persia, Afghanistan, China) which were permeated with the spirit of enslavement of these peoples and of the exploitation of the natural resources in their countries.

This revolution itself awakened the workers of the East to the revolutionary struggle. In the colonies of the imperialist countries (India, Egypt, Morocco etc), and among those peoples who had been robbed already by imperialism of a great portion of their independence (China, Persia, Afghanistan etc.), precisely in the course of the last year the movement for emancipation underwent its most powerful development. As a result, international imperialism has become frightened, as everywhere it encounters resictance to its predatory policy, and as the peoples of the East see in the Soviet Union a reliable ally and friend in their fight against imperialism.

At the same time the revolutionary workers of England France and Spain, who are true to the teachings of Lenin, are rendering help on their side to the colonial peoples who are suppressed by their bourgeoisie in their fight for emancipation.

The alliance of the workers of the East with the revolutionary proletariat of Europe against world imperialism is becoming closer and closer even after the death of Lenin.

9.

International Menshevism, true to its alliance with the bourgeoisie, always regarded everything from the point of view of the states created by the bourgeoisie and thereby supported the national suppression on the part of the ruling nation concerned. The English Mensheviki always fought along with the bourgeoisie against the slogan of the independence of Ireland. The Austrian social democrats occupied themselves with reforming the unnatural ramshackle Habsburgian Empire, which was only held together by force, and fought against the efforts of various nations to establish their independent states. At the present time, the Czechian socialists, and the Polish socialists, in alliance with their bourgeoisies, carry on the most