31 August 1917. Vladimir Lenin

Non-fiction

Project 1917 is a series of events that took place a hundred years ago as described by those involved. It is composed only of diaries, letters, memoirs, newspapers and other documents

Vladimir Lenin

The world proletarian revolution is clearly maturing. The question of its relation to the state is acquiring practical importance. The elements of opportunism that accumulated over the decades of comparatively peaceful development have given rise to the trend of social-chauvinism which dominated the official socialist parties throughout the world.

This trend - socialism in words and chauvinism in deeds (Plekhanov, Potresov, Breshkovskaya, Rubanovich, and, in a slightly veiled form, Tsereteli, Chernov and Co. in Russia; Scheidemann. Legien, David and others in Germany; Renaudel, Guesde and Vandervelde in France and Belgium; Hyndman and the Fabians in England, etc., etc.) - is conspicuous for the base, servile adaptation of the "leaders of socialism" to the interests not only of "their" national bourgeoisie, but of "their" state, for the majority of the so-called Great Powers have long been exploiting and enslaving a whole number of small and weak nations. And the imperialist war is a war for the division and redivision of this kind of booty.

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Alexander Kolchak Anna Timiryova

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Alexandra Kollontai

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Late August. In the mornings, the sun makes its way into the cell in long, slanting rays. You watch the rays avidly, lovingly. While that ray is in your cell, it is as though you have a most welcome guest. Then higher, higher—it slips along the ceiling, gets caught for a moment in the bars on the window. And disappears… the cell is empty. The welcome guest has departed. At eleven, the prison superintendent arrives.

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