Tag: Lenin

Why Lenin, Bolsheviks Backed Independence for Ukraine

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This is a resolution adopted by the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) in November 1919. Russian revolutionary leader V.I. Lenin drafted the original text. The resolution can be found in Vol. 30 of Lenin’s Collected Works under the title “On Soviet Rule in Ukraine.” World-Outlook is publishing it because it is relevant to the world-wide discussion and debate on Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine. Moscow’s brutal attack on a sovereign neighboring republic smacks of the Great Russian chauvinism prevalent under the czars, the barbaric monarchy that ruled the Russian empire for centuries before it was overthrown by workers and peasants in 1917. That same chauvinism animated the reactionary policies re-established by the late 1920s in the former USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) during the counterrevolution led by Joseph Stalin—a regime Russian president Vladimir Putin faithfully served decades later as an officer of the KGB, the secret police. The resolution illuminates the stark contrast between the position of Putin and Russia’s capitalists today, with that of the workers and peasants’ government Lenin led after the Russian revolution.

Lenin on Internationalism, Fighting National Oppression

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This is a selection of writings by Russian revolutionary leader V.I. Lenin on internationalism, fighting national oppression, and the need for a voluntary union of soviet socialist republics. In recent posts, World-Outlook has referred to the fight Lenin carried out at the end of his life for a genuinely internationalist approach to ensuring such a voluntary union in the early years after the Russian Revolution of 1917. Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine this year, and Vladimir Putin’s distortions of Russia’s and Ukraine’s revolutionary history, give renewed importance to these issues.

Russian Troops Out Now! For Ukraine’s Independence! U.S./NATO Out of E. Europe!

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Moscow’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine is an anathema to humanity. Russian troops, tanks, air force, and other military hardware should get out now. The Ukrainian people defending the country’s independence deserve international solidarity—already shown by protests condemning the invasion inside Russia, Georgia, and elsewhere. It is also necessary to clearly see Washington’s hypocritical claims that it tried to avert war through diplomacy. We should demand that U.S. and NATO military forces pull out of Eastern Europe and the broader region. The Pentagon has doubled the number of U.S. warships in the Mediterranean, redeployed an aircraft carrier there from the Pacific, and increased the number of U.S. troops in the region. It is opening up new NATO bases in Eastern Europe. The newest, a “highly sensitive U.S. military installation” according to the New York Times, located near the village of Redzikowo, in Poland, is only about 100 miles from Russian territory. These moves are aimed at expanding U.S. military domination in Europe and countering Russian economic interests. They pose a genuine threat to world peace while offering Putin a pretext for his brutal invasion.

The Muslim Peoples of the East and the Russian Revolution

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The end of the 20-year-long U.S. war in Afghanistan in August, and the takeover of the country by the Taliban, highlighted once again the worldwide political significance of the countries of the Islamic East. Are peoples in these countries condemned to permanent backwardness, as many believe, weighed down by reactionary religious ideology? Or can they be a revolutionary force in the fight to liberate humanity? What will it take to cement an alliance between working people of East and West? An article by John Riddell, with an introductory note by Mike Taber, take up these questions.