Lenin Collected Works:
Volume 19

Preface by Progress Publishers

Volume Nineteen contains the works of Lenin written between March and December 1913, in the period of the new upsurge of the revolutionary movement in Russia. The greater part of the volume consists of articles published in the Bolshevik legal press—in the newspapers Pravda and Nash Put and the magazine Prosveshcheniye.

In the articles “The Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism ", “Twenty-Fifth Anniversary of the Death of Joseph Dietzgen ", “Liberal and Marxist Conceptions of the Class Struggle” and “The Marx-Engels Correspondence”, Lenin expounded and developed some basic problems of Marxist theory.

The articles “The National Programme of the R.S.D.L.P. ", “The Working Class and the National Question” and others elaborate and substantiate the Bolshevik programme on the national question.

An important place in the volume is occupied by articles against the Menshevik liquidators, Trotskyists, Bundists¹ and Socialist-Revolutionaries,² all of which deal with ques tions of the struggle to consolidate the Bolshevik Party and the unity of the working class; among them are “Con troversial Issues”, “Working-Class Unity”, “Has Pravda Given Proof of Bundist Separatism? ", “There's a Trudovik for You” and the resolutions of the “Summer” Joint Confer ence of the Central Committee of the R.S.D.L.P. and Party officials held at Poronin.

In “May Day Action by the Revolutionary Proletariat”, “The Results of Strikes in 1912 as Compared with Those of the Past”, “The Role of Social Estates and Classes in the Liberation Movement ", “Liberals as Defenders of the Fourth Duma," Lenin dealt with the political crisis that was maturing in Russia on a nation—wide scale, showed tho leading role of the proletariat in the growing revolutionary movement and exposed the counter-revolutionary liberal bourgeoisie.

The articles “Is the Condition of the Peasants Improving or Worsening?", “The Land Question and the Rural Poor” and “The Agrarian Question and the Present Situation in Russia” expose the impoverishment and ruin of tIme greater part of the peasantry as a result of Stolypin 's agrarian policy and confront the Bolshevik Party and the working class with the task of drawing the peasantry into an active strug gle against the autocracy.

The volume includes documents that characterise Lenin 's leadership of the Bolshevik group in the Fourth State Du ma—the draft speeches “The Question of Ministry of Edu cation Policy”, “The Question of the (General) Agrarian Policy of the Present Government”, the articles “The Duma 'Seven'", “Material on the Conflict within the Social-Democratic Duma Group", and others.

There is also a group of articles—"Civilised Barbarism”, “A Great Technical Achievement”, “Armaments and Capi talism”, “Who Stands to Gain?" “The Awakening of Asia”, “Exposure of the British Opportunists "—devoted to world economics and politics. Lenin cited facts in these articles showing the decay of capitalism, the growth of armaments, the preparations for a world war and the awakening of the colonial peoples and criticised the growing opportunism in the international working-class movement.

Nine of the documents published in this volume appeared for the first time in the fourth Russian edition of the Collected Works. In his report on “Contemporary Russia and the Working-Class Movement” and in the articles “Conversa tion”, “For the Attention of Luch and Pravda Readers”, “A Discreditable Role”, “The Working-Class Masses and the Working-Class Intelligentsia” and “The Question of Bureau Decisions”, Lenin exposed the liquidators, who strove to destroy the illegal Social-Democratic Party, as out-and-out traitors to the working class. The article “The Split in the Russian Social-Democratic Duma Group” was written by Lenin for the international socialist press in reply to the slander about time Bolshevik Party that was being spread by time liquidators and Trotskyists. In the articles “The 'Oil Hunger' “and “An Incorrect Appraisal (Luch on Maklakov)" Lenin revealed the counter-revolutionary role of the Russian bourgeoisie and showed that they, in alliance with the feudal landowners, were hampering Russia's economic development.