Lenin Collected Works:
Volume 20

Preface by Progress Publishers

Volume 20 contains the works of V. I. Lenin written between December 1913 and August 1914, with the exception of the article “Critical Remarks on the National Question”, which was written somewhat earlier and published serially in October to December 1913.

The bulk of the volume is devoted to the Bolsheviks' struggle against opportunism in the Russian and international labour movement: against the liquidators, the Trotskyists, the Vperyod group, the Socialist-Revolutionaries and the opportunists of the Second International. Among these are the articles: “The Break-up of the 'August' Bloc”, “Disruption of Unity Under Cover of Outcries for Unity”, “Narodism and Liquidationism as Disintegrating Elements in the Working-Class Movement”, “The Ideological Struggle in the Working-Class Movement”, “The Vperyodists and the Vperyod Group”, Report of the C.C. of the R.S.D.L.P. to the Brussels Conference and Instructions to the C.C. Delegation, “A Fool's Haste Is No Speed”, “Comment on Kautsky's Letter”.

The Bolshevik programme on the national question is elaborated in the articles “Critical Remarks on the National Question” and “The Right of Nations to Self-Determination".

A conspicuous place in the volume is occupied by articles on the agrarian question, among them “The Peasantry and Hired Labour”, “Serf Economy in the Rural Areas” and “The Agrarian Question in Russia”.

Articles published for the first time in Lenin's Collected Works are “The Liquidators and the Decisions of the Lettish Marxists”, “Reply to the Article in Leipziger Volkszeitung”. In these articles Lenin denounces the liquidators' attempts to distort Party decisions and conceal objective data concerning monetary contributions to the Marxist and liquidationist newspapers. Other articles included for the first time in the Collected Works are: “Bill on the Equality of Nations and the Safeguarding of the Rights of National Minorities”, and “The Polish Social-Democratic Opposition at the Parting of the Ways”. These were published previously in Lenin Miscellany XXX.

The Instructions to the Central Committee Delegation to the Brussels Conference have been supplemented by a new letter of Lenin's.

In previous editions of the Collected Works the draft speech on “The Estimates of the Ministry of Agriculture” was published from the manuscript, four pages of which were missing. In the present edition the missing pages, which were found in 1941, have been restored.