WW2 1942 Dated Pamphlet Titled “The Deception Of The People” By V I Lenin

For sale is a WW2 1942 Dated Pamphlet Titled “The Deception Of The People” By V I Lenin.

The full title of this pamphlet is;

“LITTLE LENIN LIBRARY VOLUME NINETEEN, THE DECEPTION OF THE PEOPLE by the Slogans of Equality and Freedom BY V. I. LENIN.” This was first printed in 1940, this reprint is from 1942.

The preface states;

“THE question which I examined in my speech of the 19th May at the Congress for extra-Tutorial Education, that is the question of equality in general and of the equality of the workers and peasants in particular, is undoubtedly one of the sharpest and most burning questions of to-day which affects the most deep-rooted prejudices of the petty-bourgeois, of the small proprietor, of the small-commodity owner, of every kind of philistine and nine-tenths of the intelligentsia (including the Menshevik and S.R. intelligentsia).

Denial of the equality of the worker with the peasant! Only think what an awful thing! Of course all the friends of the capitalists, all their hangers-on, and the Mensheviks and S.R.'s in the first place, try to seize upon this in order to 'tease' the peasant, to 'inflame' him, to set him against the workers, the Communists. Such efforts are inevit- able, but since they are founded on lies their shameful collapse is certain.

The peasants are sober, businesslike people, people of practical life. Things have to be explained to them practically, by simple, everyday examples. Is it just that the peasant who has a surplus of grain should hide that surplus whilst waiting for prices to rise to a speculative, mad height and without considering the hungry workers?

Or is it just that the State power which the workers hold in their hands should take all surplus grain, not according to a speculative, com- mercial, robber price, but at a firm price fixed by the State?

That is precisely how the question stands. That is its whole nature.

All kinds of frauds who, like the Mensheviks and S.R.'s, are working for the capitalists, for the return of the supreme power to the capital- ists, try to 'talk away' this essence of the matter with all kinds of phrases about 'equality' and 'the unity of labour democracy'.

The peasant must choose:

For free trade in grain-that means, for speculation in grain, that means, for the freedom of the rich to make profit, for the freedom of the poor to be ruined and starved, that means, for the return of the supreme power of the landlords and capitalists, for the breaking of the alliance of the peasants and the workers;

Or for the delivery of grain surpluses to the State at a fixed price, that is for a united working-class power-that means, for the alliance of the peasants and the workers in order completely to destroy the bourgeoisie, to set aside any possibility of the restoration of their power.

This is how the choice stands.

Rich peasants, kulaks, choose the first, are desirous of trying their luck in alliance with the capitalists and landlords against the workers, against the village poor, but such peasants will form a minority in Russia. For the majority of the peasants will go for the alliance with the workers against the restoration of the power of the capitalists, against 'freedom for the poor to starve', against fraudulently con- cealing this accursed capitalist 'freedom' (the freedom of death from starvation) behind high-sounding words about 'equality' (about the equality of the well-fed who has a surplus of grain with the hungry).

Our task is to fight against cunning capitalist deception which the Mensheviks and S.R.'s are dragging in by means of high-sounding and empty words about 'freedom' and 'equality'.

Peasants! Tear off the mask from these wolves in sheep's clothing who sing sweet songs about 'freedom', 'equality', 'the unity of labour democracy', and in practice are defending by means of them the 'freedom' of the landlords to oppress the peasants, the 'equality' of the wealthy capitalist with the workers and half-starved peasants, the 'equality' of the well-fed person who hides his surplus of grain with the workers tormented by hunger and unemployment owing to the ruin of the country through the war. Such wolves in sheep's clothing are the worst enemies of the toilers, they are in practice, even though they call themselves Mensheviks, S.R.'s or non-party people, the friends of the capitalists.

'The worker and the peasant are equal as toilers, but the well-fed speculator in grain is not equal to the hungry toiler.' 'We are fighting only by insisting on the interests of labour, by taking grain away from the speculator but not from the toiler.' 'We are seeking for agreement with the middle-class peasant, with the toiling peasant'- this is what I said in my speech, this is the essence of the matter, this is that real truth which has been confused by high-sounding phrases about 'equality' and the immense majority of the peasants know that this is the truth, that the workers' State is fighting against speculators and the rich, helping the toilers and the poor in every way, whilst both the landlords' State (under the Tsar) and the capitalist State (under the freest and most democratic republics) have always and every- where in all countries helped the rich to rob the toilers, helped the speculators and the rich to get profit at the expense of the ruined poor peasants.

Every peasant knows this truth. And therefore the majority of the peasants, the more conscious they are, the quicker and more firmly will make their choice: for an alliance with the workers, for an agree- ment with the workers' government, against the landlords and capitalist State; for Soviet power against 'the Constituent Assembly' or 'the democratic republic'; for agreement with the Bolshevik Communists, against support for the capitalists, the Mensheviks and S.R.'s!

And to those educated' gentlemen, the Democrats, the Socialists, the Social-Democrats, the Socialist revolutionaries, etc., we say: In words you all recognize the 'class struggle', in practice you forget about it just at the moment when it becomes particularly sharp. Το forget it means to pass over to the side of Capital, to the side of the bourgeoisie, against the toilers. Whoever recognizes the class struggle should recognize that in the bourgeois republic, even though it is the freest and most democratic one, 'freedom' and 'equality' cannot be, and never have been, anything but the expression of the equality and freedom of the commodity owners, of the equality and freedom of Capital. Marx, a thousand times in all his works and particularly in Capital (which you all acknowledge in words), explained this and laughed at abstract explanations of 'freedom and equality', at vulgarizers like Bentham, who did not see this and concealed the material roots of these abstractions.

*Freedom and equality' in the bourgeois system (that is so long as private property in the land and means of production is maintained) and in bourgeois democracy will merely remain formal, meaning, in fact, wage slavery for the workers (who are formally free, formally enjoy equal rights) and supreme power for capital, the oppression of labour by capital. This is the ABC of Socialism, 'educated' gentle- men, and you have forgotten this ABC.

It follows from this ABC that during the proletarian revolution when the class struggle has sharpened to the point of civil war, only fools and traitors can work off phrases about 'freedom', 'equality', 'the unity of labour democracy'. In practice the issue of the struggle of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie decides everything, while the intermediate, middle classes (including the whole petty-bour- geoisie, which also means the whole 'peasantry') inevitably hesitates between the one camp and the other.

It is a question of joining up these intermediate sections to one of the chief forces, either to the proletariat or to the bourgeoisie. There cannot be anything else. He who has not understood this when reading Marx's Capital has understood nothing in Marx, has under- stood nothing in Socialism, is in practice a philistine and a vulgarizer, blindly following after the bourgeoisie. But he who has understood this will not let himself be deceived by phrases about 'freedom' and 'equality', he will think and speak about facts, that is about the concrete conditions for bringing the peasant near to the workers, for their alliance against the capitalist, for their agreement against the exploiters, the rich and the speculators.

The dictatorship of the proletariat is not the end of the class struggle but its continuation in new forms. The dictatorship of the proletariat is the class struggle of the proletariat which has been victorious and taken political power into its hands against the defeated, but not destroyed bourgeoisie, which has not disappeared, has not ceased to offer resistance against this growing resistance of the bourgeoisie. The dictatorship of the proletariat is a particular form of class alliance between the proletariat, the advance guard of the toilers, and the numerous non-proletarian sections of toilers (the petty bourgeoisie, small proprietors, peasantry, intelligentsia, etc.), or their majority, an alliance against Capital, an alliance aimed at the complete overthrow of capital, at the complete suppression of the resistance of the bourgeoisie and all efforts at restoration on its side, an alliance aiming at the final creation and stabilization of Socialism. This is an alliance of a particular kind, which is formed in special circumstances, that is in circumstances of furious civil war, this is an alliance of the firm supporters of Socialism with its hesitating allies, sometimes with 'neutrals' (then, from being an agreement for struggle the alliance becomes an agreement for neutrality), an alliance between classes which are not similar economically, politically, socially or psychologically. To renounce the study of the concrete forms, conditions, tasks of this alliance by means of general phrases about 'freedom', 'equality', 'unity of labour democracy', that is by means of scraps of the ideological baggage of the epoch of com- modity economy, can only be undertaken by the rotten heroes of the rotten 'Berne' or Yellow International, such as Kautsky, Martov and Co. N. LENIN.”

This is in good condition. 

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