A LETTER TO AMERICAN WORKINGMEN
From the Socialist Soviet Republic of Russia
By N. LENIN
Reprinted from THE CLASS STRUGGLE
December, 1918
Price—5 Cents
NEW YORK
THE SOCIALIST PUBLICATION SOCIETY
431 PULASKI ST., BROOKLYN, N. Y.
December, 1918
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A Letter to American Workingmen
By N. Lenin.
Moscow, August 20, 1918.
Comrades: A Russian Bolshevik who participated in the Revolution of1905 and for many years afterwards lived in your country has offered totransmit this letter to you. I have grasped this opportunity joyfullyfor the revolutionary proletariat of America—insofar as it is theenemy of American imperialism—is destined to perform an important taskat this time.
The history of modern civilized America opens with one of those reallyrevolutionary wars of liberation of which there have been so fewcompared with the enormous number of wars of conquest that werecaused, like the present imperialistic war, by squabbles among kings,landholders and capitalists over the division of ill-gotten lands andprofits. It was a war of the American people against the English whodespoiled America of its resources and held in colonial subjection,just as their "civilized" descendants are draining the life-blood ofhundreds of millions of human beings in India, Egypt and all cornersand ends of the world to keep them in subjection.
Since that war 150 years have passed. Bourgeois civilization has bornits most luxuriant fruit. By developing the productive[4] forces oforganized human labor, by utilizing machines and all the wonders oftechnique America has taken the first place among free and civilizednations. But at the same time America, like a few other nations, hasbecome characteristic for the depth of the abyss that divide a handfulof brutal millionaires who are stagnating in a mire of luxury, andmillions of laboring starving men and women who are always staringwant in the face.
Four years of imperialistic slaughter have left their trace.Irrefutably and clearly events have shown to the people that bothimperialistic groups, the English as well as the German, have beenplaying false. The four years of war have shown in their effects thegreat law of capitalism in all wars; that he who is richest andmightiest profits the most, takes the greatest share of the spoilswhile he who is weakest is exploited, martyred, oppressed and outragedto the utmost.
In the number of its colonial possessions, English imperialism hasalways been more powerful than any of the other countries. Englandhas lost not a span of its "acquired" land. On the other hand ithas acquired control of all German colonies in Africa, has occupiedMesopotamia and Palestine.
German imperialism was stronger because of