global task force on third country education pathways

Minimum Standards for Offering Education Pathways for Refugee Students to a Third Country

Global task force on third country education (gtf) minimum standards: complementary education pathways.

The Global Task Force on Third Country Education Pathways (GTF) promotes and supports the expansion of tertiary education as a complementary pathway for refugee students. Increasing the number of higher education pathways will not only help grow the number of refugees enrolled in higher education to 15% by 2030, as set forth in the Refugee Education 2030: A Strategy for Refugee Inclusion , and pursue the renovated goals of the Third Country Solutions for Refugees: Roadmap 2030 as a continuation of the efforts done through  The Three-Year Strategy (2019-2021) on Resettlement and Complementary Pathways .

One of the main objectives of the GTF is to promote minimum standards for the design of complementary education pathways and to provide assistance and capacity building to ensure new and existing programs meet these standards. The GTF developed Minimum Standards to support the efforts of multi-sectorial stakeholders and higher education institutions engaged or interested in offering tertiary education opportunities to refugee students.

The Minimum Standards & Effective Practice

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Mapping of complementary labour and education pathways for people in need of protection

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INTRODUCTION

There has been increasing momentum behind complementary pathways as a way to enhance international responses to rising global displacement, which in many cases becomes protracted. When it comes to work-focused schemes, older programmes have primarily targeted people in certain professions, mainly scholars, writers, and artists, whose occupation may put them at risk. Networks of stakeholders in these industries, as well as cities, have banded together to facilitate short-term placements. Several more recent initiatives have taken the form of pilots launched by national governments and NGO partners; a couple have since transitioned from pilots to established programmes. Some initiatives target specific countries of origin (particularly Ukraine), while others are broader in scope. With regard to study pathways, war in Ukraine has also served as an impetus for the creation or expansion of several schemes, and before that, war in Syria. Several universities have taken their own initiative to provide scholarships for refugee students, along with visa and other travel and living costs, while some schemes are coordinated by multiple partners. A few schemes cover both study and work, as they provide opportunities for students and scholars.

The initiatives in this mapping are largely facilitating mobility to Europe and North America. Funding sources include philanthropy, universities, and governments. The schemes below represent both bottom-up and top-down approaches to implementing complementary pathways. A few programmes include a private or community sponsorship element, but the majority do not. They vary in terms of the length of stay provided for – many range from 6 months to 2 years, while others offer permanent residency upon arrival. It is important to note that programmes under which stays are short in duration, especially when it is not possible to extend them, cannot be fully labelled a ‘complementary pathway’. Nonetheless, these initiatives may serve as a stepping stone to a more sustainable opportunity. This mapping thus looks at all initiatives, regardless of duration.

In addition to the practical initiatives listed in this mapping, coalitions have also formed to expand complementary study and labour pathways. In the United States, Every Campus a Refuge launched in 2015 to encourage US colleges and universities to partner with local refugee resettlement agencies and house refugees on campus grounds, with the idea that campuses have the necessary components – housing, food, care, and skills – to welcome refugees and help them settle in. In 2018, the University Alliance for Refugees and At-Risk Migrants (UARRM) was formed in the US to tap into the potential of universities to support refugees and at-risk migrants, with a focus on higher education and vocational training for such students, threatened scholars, and their family members. At the international level, the Global Task Force on Third Country Education Pathways was launched in 2020 to promote the expansion of tertiary education as a complementary pathway. Its activities include gathering relevant stakeholders to expand available pathways; supporting the creation of pilot programmes and sustainable funding models; and coordinating a Global Community of Practice to share best practices and support cooperation. In 2022, the Global Task Force on Refugee Labour Mobility was established as a multi-sectoral and multi-stakeholder project to increase refugee access to third-country solutions via complementary labour pathways. It facilitates discussions with key stakeholders; provides technical support for new initiatives; and identifies ways to improve and scale up existing programmes. Also in the world of work, ResArtis, a network of artist residencies, has engaged in advocacy regarding migration since 1993, including the promotion of residencies as ‘safe havens’.

There are also several pilot initiatives in the making, alongside those already in operation discussed below. As part of the Displaced Talent for Europe (DT4E) project (2021-2024), Belgium, Ireland, Portugal, and the United Kingdom will facilitate the mobility of refugees in Jordan and Lebanon under labour mobility pilots, working with the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and Talent Beyond Boundaries (TBB). A TBB labour pilot is currently in testing phase in the US. The EUPassworld project is exploring ways to further link community sponsorship with complementary study and labour pathways and is in the process of developing programmes in Belgium, Ireland, and Italy. The DT4E and EU-Passworld projects are supported by the EU’s Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund (AMIF).

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With more than 100 million people displaced worldwide due to conflict, oppression, and persecution, the private sector is playing an increasingly important role, as seen in the acceptance of displaced persons from Ukraine and Afghanistan, in addition to government acceptance. The Global Task Force on Third Country Education Pathways (GTF) , the Japan ICU Foundation (JICUF), Sophia University, and Pathways Japan jointly hosted Japan’s first international meeting on May 17 and 18 to discuss the pathways to accept refugees and displaced persons through education. The meeting, the second of its kind following the one held in France in October 2021, brought together about 60 experts and practitioners from 20 countries to share experiences and discuss cooperation in expanding educational pathways in their countries.

The opening of the first day of the conference was held at the First House of Representatives Building. First, Ichiro Aisawa, a member of the House of Representatives, gave a speech, followed by comments on the Education Pathways initiative by Hideki Kusakabe, Deputy Director-General, International Cooperation Bureau, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Manal Stulgatis, Education Officer, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Rebecca Granato of the Global Task Force for Education Pathways/Open Society University Network then spoke on the Global Task Force’s efforts.

The workshop was then held at Sophia University for two days of discussions.During the workshop, participants discussed issues and solutions in expanding Education Pathways, including funding and student screening methods, challenges faced by students and how to support them, and job hunting assistance. Some of the participants were from Asia, including Korea and the Philippines, and the workshop also provided an opportunity to learn about the development of educational pathways in the Asian region.

This December, the quadrennial Global Refugee Forum will be held, and Japan will be a co-convene. Pathways Japan will work to expand educational pathways in Japan, and will also collaborate with universities and support organizations in Japan and abroad to expand educational pathways globally.

＊The event is also introduced on the page of JICUF, the co-host of the event. Please click here. JICUF Co-Hosts “Expanding Refugee Education Pathways” Conference at Sophia University

Simple ways universities can collaborate to bring more refugees into higher education

Through sustained partnerships, universities can share best practice and find new approaches to support refugee students

Rebecca Granato

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Universities have a role to play in humanising refugees and helping them establish new lives in new countries. In May, the number of people who had been displaced from their homes worldwide crossed the 100 million mark. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and governments, as well as NGOs set up to support refugees, have a clear mandate to support the youth included in this number as they strive to access higher education . While universities’ mandates may be less clear, as educators and administrators we also have a critical role to play in reaching the goal established by the UNHCR’s Global Compact on Refugees – that 15 per cent of refugees will be enrolled in higher education by 2030.

• Eight ways UK academics can help students and researchers from Ukrainian universities
• ‘Making it’ in the US: education and employment for Afghan refugees
• Practical ways to develop a comprehensive university ‘sanctuary’ programme

However, supporting the education of refugees and other displaced youth is a complex task that can require multiple actors. Here are four simple ways in which universities can collaborate to support displaced youth seeking higher education opportunities. 

Universities can collaborate to help students prepare for their higher education programmes

With displacement comes interrupted education journeys. In order for students to be successful at university, higher education partners can collaborate on the development and delivery of preparation or bridging programmes. For example, the network I work with, the Open Society University Network , connects 40 institutions across multiple continents and has worked with partners in countries including the US, Germany, Bangladesh and Kyrgyzstan. Institutions in the network have developed a taught 15-month transition programme that builds academic skills through different disciplinary approaches. This programme was only possible because universities with different strengths fed into its conceptualisation and design. These networks and collaborations also give students a better understanding of the degree programmes available to them once they complete their preparation course.

Universities can collaborate on third-country education pathways

Third-country education pathways, also known in the refugee education space as “ complementary education pathways ”, open access to students to move from their country of first asylum to a new country for the purposes of education and a more permanent solution. These pathways are designed in such a way that, regardless of the visa status students hold upon entering the country of study, they are allowed to stay on past graduation and are able to work and lead productive lives, ideally with permanent residency. While these pathways might sound as if they need to be created by UN agencies or governments, university networks can – and should – take a lead on setting them up. They can do this, for example, by agreeing to offer a certain number of places each year for students to enter their institutions. Then, they can collectively advocate with the appropriate government ministries or departments to create new visa categories and permanent residency solutions that are separate to the asylum process. Collaborating universities are not alone in this work – the Global Task Force on Third Country Education Pathways provides technical assistance and advice to partners across the world on pathway set-up. An example of how university collaboration has established education pathways is MeNS, a network of more than 20 universities in France working with the French government to allow up to 50 students to enter the country to study master’s degrees by 2023. MeNS is also a consortium of up to 16 universities offering bridging courses and support for movement into their undergraduate programmes. As a network of universities, MeNS is able to offer students choice – of location, major and campus life; and by speaking with a collective voice, MeNS has been able to garner the needed government support for issuing visas.

Universities can collaborate on promoting student engagement

University students have the ability to galvanise support for issues and initiatives. This is particularly true when it comes to support for displaced youth, as we’ve seen in Canada, where a student-driven levy funds scholarships and the necessary accompanying support for refugees on about 70 campuses. By adding a small student fee of $1 (£0.65) to $20 to tuition bills, agreed upon by students via campus referendums, a million students across Canadian institutions have funded thousands of refugees to come to Canada for a higher education. University collaborations have an advantage here; by promoting student engagement across different partners, students themselves can develop and share best practices in relation to supporting the displaced on their campuses. When university networks are global, refugees can also be part of the conversation, both in countries of first asylum or in third countries, engaging in equal and informed exchange with other student leaders. 

Universities can collaborate on staff and faculty preparation

Preparing to take in displaced learners requires a different set of considerations from those needed for the average international student. Displaced learners often come with gaps in their formal education or even with some university education that has gone unrecognised after their displacement. Many displaced students have also experienced trauma, which can have unpredictable effects on their ability to learn. And displaced learners will often face significant challenges in integrating into an unfamiliar culture and community. Universities need to ensure that their staff and faculty have the training needed to recognise when these challenges might be impeding learning and know where to direct the student for support. This sort of preparation is best done through a combination of site-specific capacity building alongside sharing best practice and training among collaborating universities. Within university networks, partners might even want to consider sharing staff members who are focused on designing and delivering training sessions and who could address student needs or legal questions.

There is strength in numbers and university collaborations demonstrate this when it comes to supporting displaced youth in accessing higher education. Through sustained partnerships, universities can share best practices and develop new approaches to admitting and supporting refugee students, leverage their collective strength to advocate with governments for safe and durable solutions, and share both financial and human resources.

Rebecca Granato is associate vice-president for global initiatives at Bard College and the director of the Open Society University Network ’s hubs for connected learning initiatives, which provide educational access for displaced students, opportunities for researchers and professional development for teachers of refugees.

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Getting smart collective, impact update, discussing the global education opportunity in moscow.

A Chilean mystic, an Argentinian systems thinker, a Harvard VP, a Scottish consultant, and a French researcher met in Moscow to discuss the future of education. Not your typical attendees for a US EdTech conference, they were joined by 9 Russian scholars and another diverse dozen international attendees. Each made a case for how their work could contribute to improved global education opportunity. 5 hosts.  The meeting was hosted in Moscow by Global Education Futures Forum and a group of partners:

• #GEFF is a, “Global gathering of leaders who represent a wide range of groups holding stakes in the transforming world of education and learning, yet all sharing the vision of educational systems becoming more flexible, open, accessible, and capable of addressing human learning needs across different stages of life.”
• GEFF is sponsored by Skoltech–Skolkovo Institute of Science & Technology, a three year old partnership co-founded by the Skolkovo Foundation in Russia and MIT. The new university is a bridge between research and innovation in EdTech, biotech, energy tech, and space.
• Agency of Strategic Initiative is coordinating a framework of national competencies and qualification. They also coordinate national platform and content initiatives.
• Institute of Education at the Higher School of Economics, a three year old leading research body.
• Tomsk State University is the oldest university in Siberia.

5 observations.  The meeting was unbounded by US conventions or policy idiosyncrasies and wandered far afield. Hosted near Red Square , the setting was a cultural experience.

• Diverse planet. Moscow is a sprawling modern city. With a different alphabet and relatively few English speakers it can be disorienting place for Western travelers–a reminder that we share the globe with 7 billion people with very diverse world views.
• EdTech opportunity . Recognizing the selection bias, the global leaders were optimistic about the potential for tech-enriched environments to promote deeper learning and to extend access to quality.
• Creativity . The group favored active engagement, project-based learning, and performance assessment with strong and shared interest in boosting creativity and initiative.
• Entrepreneurial U. Institutions of higher education should embrace their role in knowledge formation and should create innovation partnerships with government and business—what Henry Etkowitz calls the Triple Helix.
• Media literacy. Visiting other counties helps me be more conscious of the media that I consume and its origins and biases. I watched a couple days of Russia Today  (RT). Its glossy CNN-like coverage of world news has a good dose of what’s wrong with the US. Ron Paul gets a lot of airtime. They cover war crimes in Ukraine and citizen concerns about fracking in the US (perhaps because Russia is the largest exporter of natural gas). RT called BS on the chummy relationship between US news outlets and politicians; they openly mock US news infotainment. Larry King has resurfaced on RT with PoliticKing .

5 questions. The group wrestled with good questions:

• How to motivate struggling students and promote equitable outcomes?
• How to avoid bureaucratization of qualifications?
• What will the role of the university be in the future and what will the postsecondary landscape look like?
• How to capture and share knowledge? (i.e., upload global, download local)
• How to serve billions of young people in extreme poverty?

Several advisors called on the big question—it’s not just about better traditional outcomes. We are failing to prepare young people for life on an interconnected and interdependent planet. 5 good ideas. A few advisors advanced promising suggestions:

• Students should know what, why, and how, but equally important they should care what, care why, and care how (Alexander Laszlo, Argentina,  ISSS )
• Fast affordable evaluation to test new tools and strategies (Oliver Brechard, France)
• Countries can use pull mechanisms like the Open Education Challenge , a competition to identify the top education startups and provide them with the support and funding necessary to make a significant impact (Oliver Brechard, France).
• An international character development curriculum would allow teachers to share tools, resources, and strategies (Charles Fadel, Center for Curriculum Redesign ).
• Korea seeks to create more smart learning with a creativity focused curriculum and happy school environments (Eunji, Seoul National University).

Unlike U.S. conferences where the usual suspects dissect rotation models, this EdTech conference stayed well above 30,000 feet and frequently wandered into purpose and meaning. 5 recommendations. I suggested that every country needed innovation, investment, incubation, and advocacy in support of next gen learning:

• 4.0 Schools is New Orleans-based incubator of talent, EdTech, and new school models. As noted in my new book, Smart Cities , every city should have incubator capacity like 4.0 Schools.
• Next Generation Learning Challenge is a national grant program promoting blended, personalized, and competency-based models of secondary and postsecondary education. Every state/country should have a similar program.
• The International Association for K-12 Online Learning promotes next generation learning, convenes practitioners and advocates for better state and federal policy.
• Learn Capital and Rethink Education are venture funds producing high impact and high returns. See Boosting Impact for more on impact investing.
• Affordable postsecondary models will incorporate blended, personalized, and competency-based components. (See feature on SNHU and College for America.)

Most of the Russian academics had at least one U.S. degree; some had spent 20 years in the states. Despite the recent political tension, the interest in academic partnerships remains high.

Tom Vander Ark

• @tvanderark
• @TomVanderArk

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Hi Tom, I am not sure we spoke at the conference, and i don't have a record of your email-- but you write: "A Chilean mystic, an Argentinian systems thinker, a Harvard VP, a Scottish consultant, and a French researcher met in Moscow to discuss the future of education." I can work out all these folks except the the Scottish consultant. Do you have a name? Your summary is useful, thanks for posting it.

Sorry, can't find the contact

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V. I. Lenin

The third international and its place in history.

Written: 15 April, 1919 First Published: Published in May 1919; Published according to the manuscript. Source: Lenin’s Collected Works , 4th English Edition, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1972 Volume 29, pages 305-313 Translated: George Hanna Transcription/HTML Markup: David Walters & Robert Cymbala Copyleft: V. I. Lenin Internet Archive (www.marx.org) 2002; Permission is granted to copy and/or distribute this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License .

The imperialists of the Entente countries are blockading Russia in an effort to cut off the Soviet Republic, as a seat of infection, from the capitalist world. These people, who boast about their “democratic” institutions, are so blinded by their hatred of the Soviet Republic that they do not see how ridiculous they are making themselves. Just think of it, the advanced, most civilised and “democratic” countries, armed to the teeth and enjoying undivided military sway over the whole world, are mortally afraid of the ideological infection coming from a ruined, starving, backward, and even, they assert, semi-savage country!

This contradiction alone is opening the eyes of the working masses in all countries and helping to expose the hypocrisy of the imperialists Clemanceau, Lloyd George, Wilson and their governments.

We are being helped, however, not only by the capitalists’ blind hatred of the Soviets, but also by their bickering among themselves, which induces them to put spokes in each other’s wheels. They have entered into a veritable conspiracy of silence, for they are desperately afraid of the spread of true information about the Soviet Republic in general, and of its official documents in particular. Yet, Le Temps , the principal organ of the French bourgeoisie, has published a report on the foundation in Moscow of the Third, Communist International.

For this we express our most respectful thanks to the principal organ of the French bourgeoisie, to this leader of French chauvinism and imperialism. We are prepared to send an illuminated address to Le Temps in token of our appreciation of the effective and able assistance it is giving us.

The manner in which Le Temps compiled its report on the basis of our wireless messages clearly and fully reveals the motive that prompted this organ of the money-bags. It wanted to have a dig at Wilson, as if to say, “Look at the people with whom you negotiate!” The wiseacres who write to the order of the money-bags do not see that their attempt to frighten Wilson with the Bolshevik bogey is becoming, in the eyes of the working people, an advertisement for the Bolsheviks. Once more, our most respectful thanks to the organ of the French millionaires!

The Third International has been founded in a world situation that does not allow prohibitions, petty and miserable devices of the Entente imperialists or of capitalist lackeys like the Scheidemanns in Germany and the Renners in Austria to prevent news of this International and sympathy for it spreading among the working class of the world. This situation has been brought about by the growth of the proletarian revolution, which is manifestly developing everywhere by leaps and bounds. It has been brought about by the Soviet movement among the working people, which has already achieved such strength as to become really international .

The First International (1864-72) laid the foundation of an international organisation of the workers for the preparation of their revolutionary attack on capital. The Second International (1889-1914) was an international organisation of the proletarian movement whose growth proceeded in breadth , at the cost of a temporary drop in the revolutionary level, a temporary strengthening of opportunism, which in the end led to the disgraceful collapse of this International.

The Third International actually emerged in 1918, when the long years of struggle against opportunism and social-chauvinism, especially during the war, led to the formation of Communist Parties in a number of countries. Officially, the Third International was founded at its First Congress, in March 1919, in Moscow. And the most characteristic feature of this International, its mission of fulfilling, of implementing the precepts of Marxism, and of achieving the age-old ideals of socialism and the working-class movement—this most characteristic feature of the Third International has manifested itself immediately in the fact that the new, third, “International Working Men’s Association” has already begun to develop , to a certain extent, into a union of Soviet Socialist Republics .

The First International laid the foundation of the proletarian, international struggle for socialism.

The Second International marked a period in which the soil was prepared for the broad, mass spread of the movement in a number of countries.

The Third International has gathered the fruits of the work of the Second International, discarded its opportunist, social-chauvinist, bourgeois and petty-bourgeois dross, and has begun to implement the dictatorship of the proletariat.

The international alliance of the parties which are leading the most revolutionary movement in the world, the movement of the proletariat for the overthrow of the yoke of capital, now rests on an unprecedentedly firm base, in the shape of several Soviet republics , which are implementing the dictatorship of the proletariat and are the embodiment of victory over capitalism on an international scale.

The epoch-making significance of the Third, Communist International lies in its having begun to give effect to Marx’s cardinal slogan, the slogan which sums up the centuries-old development of socialism and the working-class movement, the slogan which is expressed in the concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

This prevision and this theory—the prevision and theory of a genius—are becoming a reality.

The Latin words have now been translated into the languages of all the peoples of contemporary Europe—more, into all the languages of the world.

A new era in world history has begun.

Mankind is throwing off the last form of slavery: capitalist, or wage, slavery.

By emancipating himself from slavery, man is for the first time advancing to real freedom.

How is it that one of the most backward countries of Europe was the first country to establish the dictatorship of the proletariat, and to organise a Soviet republic? We shall hardly be wrong if we say that it is this contradiction between the backwardness of Russia and the “leap” she has made over bourgeois democracy to the highest form of democracy, to Soviet, or proletarian, democracy—it is this contradiction that has been one of the reasons (apart from the dead weight of opportunist habits and philistine prejudices that burdened the majority of the socialist leaders) why people in the West have had particular difficulty or have been slow in understanding the role of the Soviets.

The working people all over the world have instinctively grasped the significance of the Soviets as an instrument in the proletarian struggle and as a form of the proletarian state. But the “leaders”, corrupted by opportunism, still continue to worship bourgeois democracy, which they call “democracy” in general.

Is it surprising that the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat has brought out primarily the “contradiction” between the backwardness of Russia and her “leap” over bourgeois democracy? It would have been surprising had history granted us the establishment of a new form of democracy without a number of contradictions.

If any Marxist, or any person, indeed, who has a general knowledge of modern science, were asked whether it is likely that the transition of the different capitalist countries to the dictatorship of the proletariat will take place in an identical or harmoniously proportionate way, his answer would undoubtedly be in the negative. There never has been and never could be even, harmonious, or proportionate development in the capitalist world. Each country has developed more strongly first one, then another aspect or feature or group of features of capitalism and of the working-class movement. The process of development has been uneven.

When France was carrying out her great bourgeois revolution and rousing the whole European continent to a historically new life, Britain proved to be at the head of the counter-revolutionary coalition, although at the same time she was much more developed capitalistically than France. The British working-class movement of that period, however, brilliantly anticipated much that was contained in the future Marxism.

When Britain gave the world Chartism, the first broad, truly mass and politically organised proletarian revolutionary movement, bourgeois revolutions, most of them weak, were taking place on the European continent, and the first great civil war between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie had broken out in France. The bourgeoisie defeated the various national contingents of the proletariat one by one, in different ways in different countries.

Britain was the model of a country in which, as Engels put it, the bourgeoisie had produced, alongside a bourgeois aristocracy, a very bourgeois upper stratum of the proletariat. [1] For several decades this advanced capitalist country lagged behind in the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat. France seemed to have exhausted the strength of the proletariat in two heroic working-class revolts of 1848 and 1871 against the bourgeoisie that made very considerable contributions to world-historical development. Leadership in the International of the working-class movement then passed to Germany; that was in the seventies of the nineteenth century, when she lagged economically behind Britain and France. But when Germany had out stripped these two countries economically, i.e., by the second decade of the twentieth century, the Marxist workers’ party of Germany, that model for the whole world, found itself headed by a handful of utter scoundrels, the most filthy blackguards—from Scheidemann and Noske to David and Legien—loathsome hangmen drawn from the workers’ ranks who had sold themselves to the capitalists, who were in the service of the monarchy and the counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie.

World history is leading unswervingly towards the dictatorship of the proletariat, but is doing so by paths that are anything but smooth, simple and straight.

When Karl Kautsky was still a Marxist and not the renegade from Marxism he became when he began to champion unity with the Scheidemanns and to support bourgeois democracy against Soviet, or proletarian, democracy, he wrote an article—this was at the turn of the century—entitled “The Slavs and Revolution”. In this article he traced the historical conditions that pointed to the possibility of leadership in the world revolutionary movement passing to the Slavs.

And so it has. Leadership in the revolutionary proletarian International has passed for a time—for a short time, it goes without saying—to the Russians, just as at various periods of the nineteenth century it was in the hands of the British, then of the French, then of the Germans.

I have had occasion more than once to say that it was easier for the Russians than for the advanced countries to begin the great proletarian revolution, but that it will be more difficult for them to continue it and carry it to final victory, in the sense of the complete organisation of a socialist society.

It was easier for us to begin, firstly, because the unusual—for twentieth-century Europe—political backwardness of the tsarist monarchy gave unusual strength to the revolutionary onslaught of the masses. Secondly, Russia’s backwardness merged in a peculiar way the proletarian revolution against the bourgeoisie with the peasant revolution against the landowners. That is what we started from in October 1917, and we would not have achieved victory so easily then if we had not. As long ago as 1856, Marx spoke, in reference to Prussia; of the possibility of a peculiar combination of proletarian revolution and peasant war. [2] From the beginning of 1905 the Bolsheviks advocated the idea of a revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry. Thirdly, the 1905 revolution contributed enormously to the political education of the worker and peasant masses, because it familiarised their vanguard with “the last word” of socialism in the West and also because of the revolutionary action of the masses. Without such a “dress rehearsal” as we had in 1905, the revolutions of 1917—both the bourgeois, February revolution, and the proletarian, October revolution—would have been impossible. Fourthly, Russia’s geographical conditions permitted her to hold out longer than other countries could have done against the superior military strength of the capitalist, advanced countries. Fifthly, the specific attitude of the proletariat towards the peasantry facilitated the transition from the bourgeois revolution to the socialist revolution, made it easier for the urban proletarians to influence the semi-proletarian, poorer sections of the rural working people. Sixthly, long schooling in strike action and the experience of the European mass working-class movement facilitated the emergence—in a profound and rapidly intensifying revolutionary situation—of such a unique form of proletarian revolutionary organisation as the Soviets .

This list, of course, is incomplete; but it will suffice for the time being.

Soviet, or proletarian, democracy was born in Russia. Following the Paris Commune a second epoch-making step was taken. The proletarian and peasant Soviet Republic has proved to be the first stable socialist republic in the world. As a new type of state it cannot die. It no longer stands alone.

For the continuance and completion of the work of building socialism, much, very much is still required. Soviet republics in more developed countries, where the proletariat has greater weight and influence, have every chance of surpassing Russia once they take the path of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

The bankrupt Second International is now dying and rotting alive. Actually, it is playing the role of lackey to the world bourgeoisie. It is a truly yellow International. Its foremost ideological leaders, such as Kautsky, laud bourgeois democracy and call it “democracy” in general, or—what is still more stupid and still more crude—“pure democracy”.

Bourgeois democracy has outlived its day, just as the Second International has, though the International performed historically necessary and useful work when the task of the moment was to train the working-class masses within the framework of this bourgeois democracy.

No bourgeois republic, however democratic, ever was or could have been anything but a machine for the suppression of the working people by capital, an instrument of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, the political rule of capital. The democratic bourgeois republic promised and proclaimed majority rule, but it could never put this into effect as long as private ownership of the land and other means of production existed.

“Freedom” in the bourgeois-democratic republic was actually freedom for the rich . The proletarians and working peasants could and should have utilised it for the purpose of preparing their forces to overthrow capital, to overcome bourgeois democracy, but in fact the working masses were, as a general rule, unable to enjoy democracy under capitalism.

Soviet? or proletarian, democracy has for the first time in the world created democracy for the masses, for the working people, for the factory workers and small peasants.

Never yet has the world seen political power wielded by the majority of the population, power actually wielded by this majority, as it is in the case of Soviet rule.

It suppresses the “freedom” of the exploiters and their accomplices; it deprives them of “freedom” to exploit, “freedom” to batten on starvation, “freedom” to fight for the restoration of the rule of capital, “freedom” to compact with the foreign bourgeoisie against the workers and peasants of their own country.

Let the Kautskys champion such freedom. Only a renegade from Marxism, a renegade from socialism can do so.

In nothing is the bankruptcy of the ideological leaders of the Second International, people like Hilferding and Kautsky, so strikingly expressed as in their utter inability to understand the significance of Soviet, or proletarian, democracy, its relation to the Paris Commune, its place in history, its necessity as a form of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

The newspaper Die Freiheit , organ of the “Independent” (alias middle-class, philistine, petty-bourgeois) German Social-Democratic Party, in its issue No. 74 of February 11, 1919, published a manifesto “To the Revolutionary Proletariat of Germany”.

This manifesto is signed by the Party executive and by all its members in the National Assembly, the German variety of our Constituent Assembly.

This manifesto accuses the Scheidemanns of wanting to abolish the Workers’ Councils , and proposes—don’t laugh!—that the Councils be combined with the Assembly, that the Councils be granted certain political rights, a certain place in the Constitution.

To reconcile, to unite the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie and the dictatorship of the proletariat! How simple! What a brilliantly philistine idea!

The only pity is that it was tried in Russia, under Kerensky, by the united Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries, those petty-bourgeois democrats who imagine themselves socialists.

Anyone who has read Marx and failed to understand that in capitalist society, at every acute moment, in every serious class conflict, the alternative is either the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie or the dictatorship of the proletariat, has understood nothing of either the economic or the political doctrines of Marx.

But the brilliantly philistine idea of Hilferding, Kautsky and Co. of peacefully combining the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie and the dictatorship of the proletariat requires special examination, if exhaustive treatment is to be given to the economic and political absurdities with which this most remarkable and comical manifesto of February 11 is packed. That will have to be put off for another article. [3]

Moscow, April 15, 1919

[1] Marx and Engels, Selected Correspondence, Moscow, 1965, p. 110.

[2] Marx and Engels, Selected Correspondence, Moscow, 1965, p. 92.

[3] See pp. 392-401 of this volume.

Collected Works Volume 29 Collected Works Table of Contents Lenin Works Archive