BY V.I. LENIN  
One crucial event, one critical lesson of the past few weeks--the Kronstadt events--was like a flash of lightning which threw more of a glare upon reality than anything else.

There is now no country in Europe without some White Guard elements. Russian émigrés in Europe have been estimated to total about seven hundred thousand. These are fugitive capitalists and the mass of office workers who could not adapt themselves to Soviet rule. We see nothing of this third force; it has emigrated, but it lives and operates in alliance with the capitalists of the world, who are assisting it as they assisted [the tsarist and White Guard generals Alexander] Kolchak, [Nicolai] Yudenich, and [Piotr] Wrangel, with money and in other ways, because they have their international bonds. We all remember these people. You must have noticed the abundance of extracts from the White Guard press in our newspapers over the last few days, explaining the events in Kronstadt.

In the last few days, they have been described by [Vladimir] Burtsev¹, who puts out a newspaper in Paris, and have been appraised by [Paul] Miliukov²--you must have all read this. Why have our newspapers devoted so much attention to it? Was it right to do so? It was, because we must have a clear view of our enemy. Abroad, they are not so conspicuous, but you will find that they have not moved very far away, just a few thousand versts³ at most; and having moved that far, have taken cover. They are alive and kicking, and lying in wait. That is why we must keep a close watch on them, especially because they are more than just refugees. Indeed, they are the agents of world capital, who work with it hand in glove....

Although we are not waging our last battle but one of the last and decisive battles, the only correct answer to the question "Against whom shall we wage one of the decisive battles today?" is: "Against petty-bourgeois anarchy at home." (Applause.) As for the landowners and capitalists, we beat them in the first campaign, but only in the first one; the second is to be waged on an international scale. Modern capitalism cannot fight against us, even if it were a hundred times stronger, because over there, in the advanced countries, the workers disrupted its war yesterday and will disrupt it even more effectively today, because over there the consequences of the war are beginning to tell more and more.

We have defeated the petty-bourgeois element at home, but it will make itself felt again. And that is taken into account by the landowners and the capitalists, particularly the clever ones, like Miliukov, who has told the monarchists: "Sit still, keep quiet, otherwise you will only strengthen the Soviet power." This has been proved by the general course of the revolutions in which the toilers, with temporary peasant support, set up short-lived dictatorships but had no consolidated power, so that after a brief period everything tended to slip back. This happened because the peasants, the toilers, the small proprietors, can have no policy of their own and must retreat after a period of vacillation. That was the case in the Great French Revolution, and, on a smaller scale, in all revolutions. And, of course, everyone has learned this lesson. Our White Guards crossed the frontier, rode off a distance of three days' journey, and, backed and supported by West European capital, are lying in wait and watching. Such is the situation. It makes clear the tasks and duties of the proletariat.

Weariness and exhaustion produce a certain mood, and sometimes lead to desperation. As usual, this tends to breed anarchism among the revolutionary elements. That was the case in all capitalist countries, and that is what is taking place in our own country. The petty-bourgeois element is in the grip of a crisis because it has had it hard over the past few years; not as hard as the proletariat had it in 1919, but hard, nevertheless. The peasantry had to save the state by accepting the surplus-grain appropriations without remuneration, but it can no longer stand the strain. That is why there is confusion and vacillation in its midst, and this is being taken into account by the capitalist enemy, who says: "All it needs is a little push, and it will start snowballing." That is the meaning of the Kronstadt events in the light of the alignment of class forces in the whole of Russia and on the international scale. That is the meaning of one of our last and crucial battles, for we have not beaten this petty-bourgeois anarchist element, and the immediate fate of the revolution now depends on whether or not we succeed in doing so. If we do not, we shall slide down as the French revolution did. This is inevitable, and we must not let ourselves be misled by phrases and excuses. We must do all we can to alleviate the position of these masses and safeguard the proletarian leadership. If we do this, the growing movement of the communist revolution in Europe will be further reinforced. What has not yet taken place there today, may well take place tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow, but in world history such periods, as between today and tomorrow, mean no less than a few years.

That is my answer to the question as to what we are now fighting for, in one of our last and crucial battles. That is my reading of recent events and the significance of the class struggle in Russia. It is now clear why it has become so acute and why we find it so hard to see that the chief enemy is not Yudenich, Kolchak, or Denikin, but our own conditions.

All of you, learning the lessons of our revolution and all preceding revolutions, must understand the full gravity of the present situation. If you do not allow yourselves to be blinded by all sorts of slogans, such as "freedom," "constituent assembly," "free soviets" (it is so easy to switch labels that even Miliukov has turned up as a supporter of the soviets of a Kronstadt republic), if you do not close your eyes to the alignment of class forces, you will acquire a sound and firm basis for all your political conclusions. You will then see that we are passing through a period of crisis in which it depends on us whether the proletarian revolution continues to march to victory as surely as before, or whether the vacillations and waverings lead to the victory of the White Guards, which will not alleviate the situation but will set Russia back from the revolution for many decades. The only conclusion that you, representatives of railway and water transport workers, can and should draw is--let's have much more proletarian solidarity and discipline. Comrades, we must achieve this at all costs, and win. (Stormy applause.)

1. Vladimir Burtsev was a Social Revolutionary who after the October 1917 revolution became a supporter of the counterrevolutionary White Guards.

2. Paul Miliukov, an opponent of Soviet power, was a leader of the Cadet Party, which favored a constitutional monarchy in Russia, or ultimately a Republic.

3. A verst is the Russian unit equivalent to about two-thirds of a mile.  
 
 
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