Vladimir Lenin - Against the Plague of Nations: An Address to Thinking People on The Polish Question

The Co-Operative Press, 15 Spruce Street, New York

The so-called League of Nations has become in reality a plague of nations. Born of the hatred engendered by four years of world war, ruled by the unscrupulous, moribund servants of greedy imperialism and capitalism, this organization is doing its utmost to prolong the sufferings of humanity. This so-called League of Nations is sending to slaughter British workers in Mesopotamia and India, French workers in Syria, Polish workers in Russia, and Turkish nationalists and Greeks thruout Asia Minor. It is starving to death the innocent children of Vienna, even the Lord Mayor of the City of Cork in the Tower of London.

Above all, this Plague of Nations is blockading, starving and fighting openly and secretly the peasants and workers of Soviet Russia. The anti-Bolshevik Polish nationalists, Pilsudski and Paderewski, have openly stated that it was this Plague of Nations ("League of Nations") which prevented them from concluding early peace with Soviet Russia. It is this same Plague of Nations again which is threatening Soviet Russia with new ultimata and injecting itself between the Poles and Russians at the present peace parleys at Minsk. It is this same Plague of Nations which is sending munitions, officers and aviators to the Polish front, thus clearly demonstrating the "neutrality" of that decrepit imperialism. Great Britain, the most elusive and most powerful member of the League, is being kept at bay by its revolutionary working class organizations demanding immediate lifting of the blockade and recognition of Soviet Russia. This explains the wavering and double-cross attitude toward Soviet Russia on the part of Lloyd George, who is supporting General Wrangel with ships and munitions while asserting His Majesty's neutrality towards that German baron bandit.

Italy has been forced by its working class revolutionary organizations to abandon all attacks against Soviet Russia and virtually to recognize the Soviet Government of the peasants and workers of Russia.

France remains the sworn enemy of every progress, especially in Russia. Her generals, her officers, guns, munitions and airplanes have been fighting the Soviet armies on the Polish front ever since the beginning of the present offensive of Poland against Soviet Russia. France has recognized General Wrangel as the government of All Russia. France is bent upon destroying the Soviets by starvation, hatred and violence.

There are still other governments supporting Poland morally and immorally, with empty words and promises.

These wanton onslaughts against the peaceful Republic of Soviet Russia have aroused the workers of the world to the highest pitch of indignation. They have become conscious of the fact that poverty, disease and starvation cannot be eradicated from the face of the earth unless Russia, this giant nation, is permitted to rehabilitate itself. The imperialistic policy of capitalist governments is calculated to prolong the sufferings of Russia and of the workers the world over.

Here is the toll of epidemics exacted from the workers of Petrograd during the single week from May 30 to June 5, 1920:

246 cases of Spotted Typhus

88 " " Repeated Typhus

10 " " Smallpox

18 " " Dysentery

10 " " Acute Diarrhoea

45 " " Other Diseases

Total 417 cases of needless suffering caused by filth and starvation imposed upon the Russian people by the horrible blockade of the Plague of Nations.

The Poles are spreading false stories about alleged atrocities of the Soviet Armies. We need not say much to refute their falsehoods. The massacres perpetrated upon the Jewish population by the Poles have been established beyond a scintilla of doubt by the most anti-Bolshevist investigators, by the High Commissioner of Great Britain, Sir Samuel himself. The inhuman treatment accorded by the Poles to the conquered nations was not confined to the Jews alone. They have maimed and killed peaceful peasants, even cattle, which they could not take with them. Upon the capture of Kiev they destroyed a freight depot, a sugar refinery and were about to burn the railroad station offices, which they were prevented from doing by the employees. They blew up the palace of the former governor-general, his church, the Girls' Gymnasium with the church, four bridges, waterworks, railroad cars, houses, and the big Georgiev Works, taking the machinery with them to Warsaw. The Ukrainian Executive Committee of the local communes have addressed a solemn protest to the People's Commissar of Foreign Affairs of Soviet Russia, G. Chicherin, against the Polish atrocities perpetrated before the evacuation by them of the captured cities. They mention the destruction of the famous Cathedral of St. Vladimir in Kief, a relic of antiquity as old as the famous Rheims Cathedral in France. They protested against the complete destruction of the town of Borisov by Polish artillery.

There is a system in the madness of the henchmen of the Allied managed of the Plague of Nations. Their aim is to so weaken and dishearten the workers of Russia as to compel them to submit to the dictates of greedy imperialism and capitalism. But the Soviet Government and its leaders have risen to the occasion. Their wits are more than a match for the war lords' dying Plague. The gradual disorganization and decomposition of the League is taking place before our eyes. The Soviet Government, on the other hand, is gathering its forces and straining every nerve to unite and to strengthen the power of resistance and the morale of the People of Soviet Russia. It is hoped that the workers in other countries will realize the worldwide significance of the battles going on at the Polish front, that they will give their moral and material support to the Soviet Republic of Russia in its darkest hour of trial.

The remarks of Comrade Lenin, chairman of the Council of the People's Commissars of the Soviet Republic, before a recent conference of Rural Commissars of Soviet Russia may well serve as an inspiration for the gigantic task facing the Soviet Republic and the proletariat of all countries.

(Speech of Lenin at the 2nd All Russian Conference on Party Work in the Villages.)

"Comrades, you of course are similar enough with the salient facts of the Polish Offensive.

"Immense quantities of falsehoods are circulated on this subject owning to the so-called freedom of the press which consists in the fact that all main organs of publicity abroad are bought up by capitalists and 90% of them are filled with articles written by prostitutes of the pen.

"It is alleged that the Polish offensive was started because the Bolshevists submitted to Poland impossible demands. As a matter of fact, you know very well that we were willing to grant the Poles even the enormous territory which they had occupied prior to their offensive. We value higher the preservation of the lives of our Red Soldiers than war for the sake of White Russia and Lithuania captured by Poland.

"We most solemnly declared both in the name of the Council of People's Commissars and in a special manifesto of the All Russian Executive Committee of the Soviets addressed to the Polish Government, aside from our appeal to the Polish workers and peasants, that we were ready to begin peace parleys on the basis of the front existing at that time. That is to say, on the basis of the front according to which Lithuania and White Russia, altogether non-Polish territories, remained with the Poles.

"We were convinced and still continue to be convinced that the Polish capitalists will not be able to retain foreign lands and that even thru a most disadvantageous peace treaty we will gain more by safeguarding the lives of our Red Soldiers, because every month of peace makes us ten times stronger, whereas every bourgeois government, including that of Poland, is getting more and more disorganized.