View source for "The discussion on self-determination summed up"

Lenin, ''Collected Works'', Volume 22, pp.355-356

To imagine that social revolution is conceivable<br> without revolts by small nationsin the colonies and in Europe,<br> without revolutionary outbursts by a section of the petty bourgeoisie with all its prejudices, <br>without a movement of the politically non-conscious proletarian and semi-proletarian masses<br> against oppression by the landowners, the church, and the monarchy, against national oppression, etc.<br>-to imagine all this is to repudiate social revolution. So one army lines up in one place and says, “We are for socialism”, <br>and another, somewhere else and says, “We are for imperialism”, and that will be a social revolution!<br>

Only those who hold such a ridiculously pedantic view could vilify the Irish rebellion by calling it a “putsch”.<br> Whoever expects a “pure” social revolution will never live to see it. <br>Such a person pays lip-service to revolution without understanding what revolution is.<br>