Lenin argues for Soviet power amid civil war

At a labour congress, Lenin argued for stronger discipline and productivity under conditions of economic crisis. The speech illustrates a widening gap between revolutionary workplace democracy and...

The Fifth All-Russian Congress of Soviets adopted a constitution that formalized a soviet republic and class-based political rights. It established a new institutional order while excluding some...

Lenin was wounded after a speech at the Hammer and Sickle factory. The attack became part of the context for intensified Red Terror, though the violence involved multiple institutions and actors;...

The Council of People’s Commissars issued a decree on Red Terror as civil war spread. The Cheka and local authorities imprisoned, executed, and intimidated perceived opponents. Bolshevik leaders...

Lenin attacked Karl Kautsky’s criticism of Bolshevik rule and defended the dictatorship of the proletariat. The polemic clarifies Lenin’s rejection of liberal parliamentary constraints, a position...

Delegates founded the Communist International to coordinate revolutionary parties across borders. Many delegates came from colonized or semi-colonized regions and treated anti-imperialism as...

Lenin presented and defended a new programme that addressed state power, the peasantry, and nationalities. Delegates debated how to carry the revolution across a multi-national former empire; the...

Lenin urged organizers from Eastern regions to build movements against imperial domination and local elites. The speech recognizes anti-colonial struggles as part of world politics, but also frames...

Lenin linked the state’s economic policies to the political coalition between workers and peasants. His formulation acknowledged the agrarian majority as decisive, while treating the party-state as...

Lenin’s broadcast answered a message from Indian revolutionaries meeting in Kabul and linked Soviet Russia’s struggle to India’s liberation. The exchange offers a direct record of anti-colonial...