EXTRACTS FROM A SPEECH BY LENIN ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS TO THE CENTRAL EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE 14 May 1918 Lenin (i), xv, p. 287     ... For a number of reasons of an economic and political character of which you are aware, the different rate of development, the difference between conditions here and in the West, our Socialist Republic remains, for the time being, an oasis in the middle of a raging sea of imperialist rapacity. In the West the chief factor now, as before, is the imperialist war which is exhausting and tormenting mankind. This has given rise to such involved, tangled, and acute conflicts that, again and again, the decision in favour of war or peace, in favour of one coalition or another, hangs by a thread. We have lived through such a situation in the last few days. The antagonisms generated in the conflict raging among the imperialist powers involved in the war, resulting from the conditions in which capitalism has developed over a number of decades, have gone so far that the imperialists themselves are powerless to stop the war. Thanks to these antagonisms, the universal alliance of the imperialists of all countries-an alliance which is natural and essential for the defence of capital, which knows no fatherland ... is not now the motive force of policy. Of course, it remains as before the basic economic tendency in the capitalist system, and in the long run it must appear again with unavoidable force. An exception to this basic capitalist tendency is represented by the fact that the imperialist war, which has divided the imperialist Powers into two hostile groups locked in a life and death struggle, has for the time being, and in the given conditions, made this alliance of the imperialists of all countries impossible. We are in a situation in which the raging waves of imperialist reaction, which appear at any moment about to overwhelm the small island of the Socialist Soviet Republic, time and again break against each other.     Two chief antagonisms determine the international position of our Soviet Republic at the present moment: the first is the struggle between Germany and England on the western front, which has reached the limit of ferocity ... [this] makes it extremely difficult, almost impossible, for the great imperialist Powers to unite against the Soviet Republic, which in the half year or so of its existence has won the warm sympathy of all class-conscious workers in all countries.     The second antagonism determining Russia's international position is that between Japan and America.... This antagonism, concealed for the time being by their alliance against Germany, is holding up Japanese imperialism's attack on Russia. The advance against the Soviet Republic which has begun (the landing at Vladivostok, support for Semenov's band) is held up, for it threatens to turn the concealed conflict between Japan and America into open warfare....     From our revolutionary experience we have learnt that we must employ tactics of ruthless attack when the objective circumstances allow this. But we must resort to tactics of waiting, we must slowly assemble our forces, when there is no possibility of conducting a ruthless counter-offensive. We have not for a moment forgotten, and we shall not forget, the weakness of the Russian working class in comparison with other sections of the international proletariat. Historical circumstances, the heritage of the Tsarist regime, the flabbiness of the Russian bourgeoisie-that is why this section was pushed to the foremost position. But we must hold on to that position until our ally, the international proletariat, catches up with us-and it undoubtedly will, although incomparably more slowly than we would have liked. We must stick to our waiting tactics and exploit the conflicts and antagonisms among the imperialists, slowly accumulating strength and maintaining the oasis of Soviet power in the middle of the raging imperialist sea.     That is why we say that if the extreme war party triumphs in either of the imperialist coalitions, and seeks a pretext to march against us, we shall in no circumstances make its task easier. We shall do the little we can, whatever diplomacy is capable of doing, to put off that moment; we shall do everything to prolong that brief and precarious respite which we got in March, for we are firmly convinced that we have tens of millions of workers and peasants behind us, who are gathering new strength and consolidating the Soviet power with every week, every month that the respite lasts, and within whom the determination is hardening to enter the last decisive battle when external forces descend upon the Socialist Soviet Republic.     Since 25 October [17 November] 1917 we have been 'defencists'; we have won the right to defend the fatherland. We are not defending secret treaties; we tore them up and exposed them to the entire world; we are not defending our Great Power status-nothing remains of Russia but Great Russia-or national interests-since for us the interests of world socialism rank higher than national interests; we are defending the socialist fatherland.... Documents on Soviet Foreign Policy [Subject] [Author] [Date]