Lenin the Liberator: 22 April 1870
On 22 April 1970, the underground organisation of the South African Communist Party – SACP – carried out a nationwide, illegal distribution of educational material among the working people of South Africa where the Party had been outlawed since 1950. Among the materials circulated was a special miniaturised leaflet, titled “Lenin the Liberator”, commemorating the centenary of his birth. The full text of the leaflet is reproduced below – own additions in brackets and minor modifications.
“This year (1970), all over the world, men and women who love human freedom are celebrating the centenary of the birth of one of the greatest of men. Vladimir Ilyitch Lenin was born in Russia on April 22, 1870. The Russia into which he was born was a land of suffering. backwardness and oppression. Over this huge country – the biggest in the world – the Tsar (the Emperor) ruled by terror and absolute decree. The masses of peasants and workers had no votes, no say in making the laws under which they lived. They were starving and mostly illiterate.
“Opposition parties and trade unions were banned and leaders who fought for the people’s rights were arrested tortured, exiled and killed by the political police. The non-Russian peoples of the tsarist empire were nationally oppressed, insulted and degraded. In many ways it was just like South Africa today (under apartheid).
“Tsarist Russia was known and hated for its oppression. Its
