Lenin addresses the Second Congress of Communist Organizations of the East

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...

Lenin defended the new Soviet state as an alternative to parliamentary government and urged support for its authority during civil war. His argument illuminates Bolshevik theory of class power,...

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 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...

Lenin’s draft urged communists to distinguish oppressor and oppressed nations and to ally with anti-colonial movements while maintaining class analysis. The theses supported colonial liberation but...

Written in April–May, the pamphlet urged communist parties to participate in unions and elections where workers remained active. It was also a sharp intervention against European and British left...

Lenin discussed party organization, colonial struggles, and alliances with national liberation movements. The congress formalized a global revolutionary program, but participation was unequal and...