"The discussion on self-determination summed up"

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

To imagine that social revolution is conceivable without revolts by small nations
in the colonies and in Europe, without revolutionary outbursts by a section of the petty bourgeoisie
with all its prejudices, without a movement of the politically non-conscious proletarian and semi-proletarian masses
against oppression by the landowners, the church, and the monarchy, against national oppression, etc.
-to imagine all this is to repudiate social revolution.
So one army lines up in one place and says, “We are for socialism”,
and another, somewhere else and says, “We are for imperialism”, and that will he a social revolution!
Only those who hold such a ridiculously pedantic view could vilify the Irish rebellion
by calling it a “putsch”.
Whoever expects a “pure” social revolution will never live to see it.
Such a person pays lip-service to revolution without understanding what revolution is.