Written: 6 November, 1919
First Published: Pravda No. 249, November 6, 1919; Published according to the manuscript; also, Lenin’s Collected Works, 4th English Edition, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1965, Volume 30, pages 120-123
Source: Women and Communism, Lawrence & Wishart, London, 1950
Transcribed and HTML Markup: Sally Ryan
Copyleft: V. I. Lenin Internet Archive (www.marx.org) 2002. Permission is granted to copy and/or distribute this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License
The second anniversary of the Soviet power is a fitting occasion for us to review whathas, in general, been accomplished during this period, and to probe into the significance andaims of the revolution which we accomplished.
The bourgeoisie and its supporters accuse us of violating democracy. We maintain that theSoviet revolution has given an unprecedented stimulus to the development of democracy both in depth and breadth, of democracy, moreover, distinctly for the toiling masses, who had beenoppressed under capitalism; consequently, of democracy for the vast majority of the people, of socialist democracy (for the toilers) as distinguished from bourgeois democracy (for theexploiters, the capitalists, the rich).
Who is right?
To probe deeply into this question andto understand it well will mean studying the experience of these two years and being betterprepared to further follow up this experience.
The position of women furnishes a particularly graphic elucidation of the differencebetween bourgeois and socialist democracy, it furnishes a particularly graphic answer to the question posed.
In no bourgeois republic (i.e., where there is private ownership of the land, factories,works, shares, etc.), be it even the most democratic republic, nowhere in the world, not even in the most advanced country, have women gained a position of complete equality. And this,notwithstanding the fact that more than one and a quarter centuries have elapsed since theGreat French (bourgeois-democratic) Revolution.
In words, bourgeois democracy promises equality and liberty. In fact, not a singlebourgeois republic, not even the most advanced one, has given the feminine half of the humanrace either full legal equality with men or freedom from the guardianship and oppression ofmen.
Bourgeois democracy is democracy of pompous phrases, solemn words, exuberant promises andthe high-sounding slogans of freedom and equality. But, in fact, it screens the non-freedom and inferiority of women, the non-freedom and inferiority of the toilers and exploited.
Soviet, or socialist, democracy sweeps aside the pompous, bullying, words, declaresruthless war on the hypocrisy of the "democrats", the landlords, capitalists or well-fedpeasants who are making money by selling their surplus bread to hungry workers atprofiteering prices.
Down with this contemptible fraud! There cannot be, nor is there nor will there ever be"equality" between the oppressed and the oppressors, between the exploited and theexploiters. There cannot be, nor is there nor will there ever be real "freedom" as long asthere is no freedom for women from the privileges which the law grants to men, as long asthere is no freedom for the workers from the yoke of capital, and no freedom for the toiling peasants from the yoke of the capitalists, landlords and merchants.
Let the liars and hypocrites, the dull-witted and blind, the bourgeois and theirsupporters hoodwink the people with talk about freedom in general, about equality in general,about democracy in general.
We say to the workers and peasants: Tear the masks from the faces of these liars, open theeyes of these blind ones. Ask them:
“Equality between what sex and what other sex?
“Between what nation and what other nation?
“Between what class and what other class?
“Freedom from what yoke, or from the yoke of what class? Freedom for what class?”
Whoever speaks of politics, of democracy, of liberty, of equality, of socialism, and doesnot at the same time ask these questions, does not put them in the foreground, doesnot fight against concealing, hushing up and glossing over these questions, is one of theworst enemies of the toilers, is a wolf in sheep's clothing, is a bitter opponent of theworkers and peasants, is a servant of the landlords, tsars, capitalists.
In the course of two years Soviet power in one of the most backward countries of Europedid more to emancipate women and to make their status equal to that of the "strong" sex thanall the advanced, enlightened, "democratic" republics of the world did in the course of 130years.
Enlightenment, culture, civilisation, liberty--in all capitalist, bourgeois republics ofthe world all these fine words are combined with extremely infamous, disgustingly filthy and brutally coarse laws in which woman is treated as an inferior being, laws dealing withmarriage rights and divorce, with the inferior status of a child born out of wedlock ascompared with that of a "legitimate" child, laws granting privileges to men, laws that arehumiliating and insulting to women.
The yoke of capital, the tyranny of "sacred private property", the despotism of philistinestupidity, the greed of petty proprietors --these are the things that prevented the most democratic bourgeois republics from infringing upon those filthy and infamous laws.
The Soviet Republic, the republic of workers and peasants, promptly wiped out these lawsand left not a stone in the structure of bourgeois fraud and bourgeois hypocrisy.
Down with this fraud! Down with the liars who are talking of freedom and equality forall, while there is an oppressed sex, while there are oppressor classes, while there is private ownership of capital, of shares, while there are the well-fed with their surplus ofbread who keep the hungry in bondage. Not freedom for all, not equality for all, but a fight against the oppressors and exploiters, the abolition of everypossibility of oppression and exploitation-that is our slogan!
Freedom and equality for the oppressed sex!
Freedom and equality for the workers, for the toiling peasants!
A fight against the oppressors, a fight against the capitalists, a fight against theprofiteering kulaks!
That is our fighting slogan, that is our proletarian truth, the truth of the struggleagainst capital, the truth which we flung in the face of the world of capital with itshoneyed, hypocritical, pompous phrases about freedom and equality in general, aboutfreedom and equality for all.
And for the very reason that we have torn down the mask of this hypocrisy, that we areintroducing with revolutionary energy freedom and equality for the oppressed and for thetoilers, against the oppressors, against the capitalists, against the kulaks--for this veryreason the Soviet government has become so dear to the hearts of workers of the wholeworld.
It is for this very reason that, on the second anniversary of the Soviet power, the:sympathies of the masses of the workers, the sympathies of the oppressed and exploited inevery country of the world, are with us.
It is for this very reason that, on this second anniversary of the Soviet power, despitehunger and cold, despite all our tribulations, which have been caused by the imperialists' invasion of the Russian Soviet Republic, we are full of firm faith in the justice of ourcause, of firm Faith in the inevitable victory of Soviet power all over the world.
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