Workers World, Vol. 2 No. 8
When the Soviet Republic was barely three years old and faced with a formidable array of imperialistic armies at its doorstep – with hunger, misery and desolation caused by the civil war still raging throughout the land – Lenin took time out to write on the international obligations of the first workers’ republic. He wrote on “making the greatest national sacrifices” on behalf of the oppressed people of other countries “in the interest of overthrowing international capitalism.”
Such was the revolutionary internationalism that was the creative genius of Lenin. And it animated the entire Communist International. So highly did Lenin value this cardinal tenet of genuine internationalism, that he embodied the above thought in a special section of his celebrated “National and Colonial Theses” adopted by the Second Congress of the Communist International in 1920.
Nor was this all. The Red Army Oath had a section incorporated in it on the motion of Trotsky, which pledged it to defend not only the country and the regime, but the world revolution.
Naturally, the internationalism of Lenin and Trotsky was never conceived as a one-way street. It was ABC for every genuine Communist in whatever country he lived, that it was his duty to unconditionally defend the Soviet Union from all its enemies. And by the same token, it was conceived to be a fundamental duty of the new revolutionary workers’ regime to defend, give aid and assistance to all the workers of the world in their struggle to liberate themselves from imperialist exploitation.
With the deepest insight and with the profoundest knowledge and understanding of class relations governing the latest phase of imperialist society, Lenin redefined proletarian internationalism in such a way as to separate his conception from that of the social-patriots and the chauvinists.
“Proletarian internationalism,” he wrote, “demands (a) the subordination of the interests of the proletarian struggle in one nation to the interests of the struggle on an international scale; (b) the capability and the readiness on the part of one nation which has gained a victory over the bourgeoisie, of making the greatest national sacrifices for the overthrow of international capitalism.”
It is therefore extremely instructive on the ninetieth anniversary of Lenin’s birthday, to examine the conduct of the present Soviet leadership in the latest world crisis.
On the day following the brutal massacre of the African people at Sharpeville by the imperialist-racist Verwoerd regime, the stage at the UN seemed to be ready-made and specially set for the Soviet Union to show it was the tribune of the oppressed and true defender of the colonial masses.
(Assuming, of course, that the whole purpose of joining the UN – if there can be any justification for it at all – is to have a forum to rally the oppressed and expose their oppressors.)
Rarely in recent history has there been such a favorable opportunity to demonstrate fidelity to the Leninist conception of revolutionary internationalism – “the capability and readiness” to come to the aid of “other oppressed nations.”
London and Paris were in virtual panic at the magnitude of the South African rebellion – its momentum in Africa and its repercussion throughout the entire colonial world. The savage measures taken by the white supremacist regime awakened the sympathy of incalculable millions throughout the world. Washington itself was temporarily thrown off balance, as the South African rebellion came in the very midst of a tidal wave of sit-down demonstrations in America. In the eyes of the world working class and the oppressed peoples everywhere, the U.S. ruling class was tarred with the same chauvinist, white supremacist brush as its South African counterpart. Its hypocritical gestures of “regret” at the killings could only evoke distrust in all Asia and Africa – if not laughter.
This was a day singularly well chosen for the revolutionary intervention of the Soviet representative. It was a day he could avail himself of an extraordinary opportunity to utilize the difficulties of the imperialist exploiters in the interest of the exploited.
He could have declared that since South Africa is in a state of revolutionary crisis, the Soviet Union, as the leader and champion of the oppressed, was offering all aid, both material and military, to the embattled African people, and that the Soviet Union was ready to extend recognition to the Pan Africanist Congress and the African National Congress as the representatives of the South African people until a provisional revolutionary government was set up. This would have been in the spirit of Lenin’s internationalist thesis, as described above.
But it would have been entirely out of character for the present ruling stratum in the Soviet Union. However, the Soviet delegate should at least have utilized the UN as a forum for the African revolution.
Here is what he could have done: not only condemn and denounce the murderous racist Verwoerd regime, but make a motion to expel it from the United Nations. And moreover, invite the authentic leaders of the African masses to present their case at the UN. More specifically, invite the leaders of the Pan Africanist Congress as well as the African National Congress.
Such an action at this historical moment would have gained the approval not only of the South African people, but of the masses of all Asia and Africa, in fact, of an absolute majority of the human race! And it is the very least that could have been done.
No one could conceivably claim that the Soviet delegate was risking the fate of the Soviet Union with such an action. Nor could anyone claim that this would be an irresponsible adventure.
This is the year 1960 – 40 years after Lenin’s thesis. The Soviet Union is no longer a besieged fortress with hunger, misery and desolation at home, without state allies, and standing alone against might imperialist empires. The Soviet Union today is at least the second greatest industrial power on earth, with allies who govern workers’ states from Albania all the way to North Korea.
Surely Lenin’s thesis is easier to maintain and easier to carry out today than it was in Lenin’s own time!
But what did the Soviet representative actually do at this historic moment? He joined with the imperialist powers headed by the USA and voted for a miserable, rotten, utterly shameless and gutless resolution, calculated to whitewash the imperialists and actually give aid and comfort to the Verwoerd regime at a time when it was all but crumbling. The resolution was so shameless that even the oldest and rottenest of the imperialist powers (France and Britain) did not bother to vote against it. They merely abstained.
To add insult to injury, the resolution “calls upon the Government of the Union of South Africa to initiate measures bringing about racial harmony based on equality.” It further “requests the Secretary General, in consultation with the Government of the Union of South Africa, to make such arrangement as would adequately help in upholding the purposes and principles of the Charter and to report to the Security Council whenever necessary and appropriate.”
Aside from the fact that this resolution covers up the hypocrisy of the imperialist powers in relation to the Verwoerd terrorist regime, the Soviet signature serves an even more monstrous purpose. In the first place, in calling upon the “Government of the Union of South Africa,” that is, the murderous, racist regime of Verwoerd, it gives legitimacy to an oppressor government at a time when the oppressed are in open rebellion against it. This is an act of treachery. For it is an elementary principle of proletarian internationalism to withdraw recognition from an imperialist oppressor regime in time of revolution against it.
Secondly, the resolution requests the so-called Secretary General to consult with the Government of the Union of South Africa, and eliminates any reference to consultation with the leaders of the oppressed. It is nothing but a whitewash resolution. For to send Dag Hammarskjold to consult with Verwoerd is tantamount to sending an errand-boy and a friend of the White Citizens Councils to consult with Eastland in Mississippi on the state of equality for the Negro people there!
A vote on an issue raised in such a manner would have reduced itself to a clear-cut struggle between the imperialist and anti-imperialist forces in the UN.
Actually, the UN is nothing but an agency of imperialism – a post-World War II version of the robber League of Nations, which Lenin condemned as a “thieves’ kitchen” ruled by the monopolists. But the Soviet delegate on this occasion should have utilized it as a forum for the African revolution.
But such an action on the part of the USSR would have meant a complete break with imperialism. It would have effectively exposed imperialism and re-established the Soviet Union as the champion of the colonial masses everywhere. It would have meant the virtual end of the highly-cherished class-collaborationist policy of “peaceful co-existence,” and probably the end of the UN as a mask behind which the imperialist robbers prepare for war.
The Worker of March 27, 1960, apparently unaware of what was coming from the Soviet delegate in the UN, demanded of the United Nations in a front page editorial that it “invoke the full penalties of the anti-genocide conventions against South Africa. The UN must brand South Africa as a violator of the UN Charter and Declaration of Human Rights and impose sanctions.” This would have meant expulsion.
But the Worker, having learned the news that the Soviet delegate voted for the shameless resolution, conveniently forgot to so much as mention in the next issue the slogans it had just raised in the previous issue. And it did not breathe a word about the conduct of the Soviet representative.
What have Comrades Jackson and Davis to say? Do they really think that this was an example of proletarian internationalism on the part of the Soviet delegation?
The conduct of the Soviet leaders in relation to the South African uprising throws a powerful searchlight on Khrushchev’s “peaceful co-existence” policy.
Khrushchev’s recent conduct in Paris does the same – his demonstrative handshaking with de Gaulle, arch-executioner of the Algerian people and enemy number one of the French working class. He was courting a spurious deal with him, instead of lending aid to the embattled Algerian people by granting diplomatic recognition to the Provisional Government of Algeria.
De Gaulle’s reply to Khrushchev’s overture for “peaceful co-existence” was the explosion of another atomic bomb at the precise moment of Khrushchev’s visit.
The course of capitalist development in the next period, long prepared by the inherently explosive contradictions of the imperialist system will expose Khrushchev’s maneuvers as a cruel deception of the masses.
The irresistible drive of the revolutionary masses in Asia, Africa, Latin America, cannot but force the imperialists to new adventures, followed by new catastrophes which will impel the re-entry of the Western proletariat on the revolutionary arena.
A re-orientation of the Communist vanguard elements among the revolutionary working class becomes not only more imperative day by day, but is absolutely inevitable.
Last updated: 11 May 2026