"When one makes a Revolution, one cannot mark time; one must always go forward - or go back. He who now talks about the "freedom of the press" goes backward, and halts our headlong course towards Socialism"
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Lenin treats revolution as a march that cannot pause. To "mark time" is to surrender initiative to the enemy; momentum is everything. From that premise flows the sharp dichotomy: forward toward socialism or backward into the old order. Calls for "freedom of the press", he argues, are not neutral appeals to principle but instruments to brake the advance. In his view, the press is a material apparatus owned by classes, not an abstract space of equal voices. Under capitalism, those who own printing presses and distribution networks dominate opinion. Demanding their freedom during a revolutionary rupture simply reinstates their power.
The context is the turbulent aftermath of October 1917, when the Bolshevik government issued the Decree on the Press and moved to shut down publications it labeled counterrevolutionary. Civil war loomed, and the leadership believed that propaganda from hostile parties could rally resistance, sabotage, and foreign intervention. Lenin ties the logic of war to the logic of politics: you do not grant the enemy a platform in the midst of battle. The phrase "headlong course towards Socialism" carries urgency and risk; any hesitation invites counterattack.
There is also a theoretical point: liberal rights, including press freedom, are treated as class-bound. Formal liberties that leave property relations untouched, Lenin argues, perpetuate domination. Only after expropriation and the creation of a proletarian media could there be a different, substantive freedom of expression. This stance underwrites the doctrine of the dictatorship of the proletariat and justifies coercion as a transitional necessity.
The implications are stark. By collapsing the field into forward/backward, Lenin negates pluralism and marks dissent as regression. Admirers see disciplined resolve in the face of existential danger; critics see the seed of authoritarianism that later grew into one-party rule and censorship. The line reveals a revolutionary calculus: speed and consolidation over open contestation, with freedom treated as a weapon that belongs to the class that wields it.
The context is the turbulent aftermath of October 1917, when the Bolshevik government issued the Decree on the Press and moved to shut down publications it labeled counterrevolutionary. Civil war loomed, and the leadership believed that propaganda from hostile parties could rally resistance, sabotage, and foreign intervention. Lenin ties the logic of war to the logic of politics: you do not grant the enemy a platform in the midst of battle. The phrase "headlong course towards Socialism" carries urgency and risk; any hesitation invites counterattack.
There is also a theoretical point: liberal rights, including press freedom, are treated as class-bound. Formal liberties that leave property relations untouched, Lenin argues, perpetuate domination. Only after expropriation and the creation of a proletarian media could there be a different, substantive freedom of expression. This stance underwrites the doctrine of the dictatorship of the proletariat and justifies coercion as a transitional necessity.
The implications are stark. By collapsing the field into forward/backward, Lenin negates pluralism and marks dissent as regression. Admirers see disciplined resolve in the face of existential danger; critics see the seed of authoritarianism that later grew into one-party rule and censorship. The line reveals a revolutionary calculus: speed and consolidation over open contestation, with freedom treated as a weapon that belongs to the class that wields it.
Quote Details
| Topic | Freedom |
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