Vladimir Ilyich Lenin- "Left Wing" Communism, an Infantile Disorder (1920) Part I

"Left-Wing" Communism, an Infantile Disorder.

By Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.

First Published in 1920.

Source: 

V. I. Lenin, Selected Works, English edition, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1952, Vol. II, Part 2.

PART I.

IN WHAT SENSE CAN WE SPEAK 

OF THE INTERNATIONAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION ?

    In the first months following the conquest of political power by the proletariat in Russia (October 25 [November 7], 1917), it might have seemed that the tremendous difference between backward Russia and the advanced countries of Western Europe would cause the proletarian revolution in these latter countries to have very little resemblance to ours. Now we already have very considerable international experience which most definitely shows that certain fundamental features of our revolution have a significance which is not local, not peculiarly national, not Russian only, but international. I speak here of international significance not in the broad sense of the term: not some, but all the fundamental and many of the secondary features of our revolution are of international significance in the sense that the revolution influences all countries. No, taking it in the narrowest sense, i.e., understanding international signifcance to mean the international validity or the historical inevitability of a repetition on an international scale of what has taken place in our country, it must be admitted that certain fundamental features of our revolution do possess such a significance.