35. Internationalism of the Workers’ Movement essential to the Victory of the communist Revolution.
The communist revolution can be victorious only as a world revolution. If a state of affairs arose in which one country was ruled by the working class, while in other countries the working class, not from fear but from conviction, remained submissive to capital, in the end the great robber States would crush the workers’ State of the first country. During the years 1917-18-19 all the Powers were trying to crush Soviet Russia; in 1919 they crushed Soviet Hungary. They were, however, unable to crush Soviet Russia, for the internal conditions in their own countries were critical, and the governments were all afraid of being overthrown by their own workers, who demanded the withdrawal of the invading armies from Russia. The significance of this is, in the first place, that the realisation of proletarian dictatorship in one country is gravely imperilled unless active assistance is given by the workers of other lands. It signifies, in the second place, that, under such conditions, when the workers have gained the victory in only one country, the organisation of economic life in that country is a very difficult matter. Such a country receives little or nothing from abroad; it is blockaded on all sides.
If, however, for the victory of communism, it is essential that there should be a world revolution and that the workers in various lands should render mutual aid one to another, this implies that the international solidarity of the working class is an essential preliminary to victory. The conditions for the general struggle of the workers are like the conditions for the working-class struggle in each individual country. In