V. I. Lenin
Collected Works
London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1960, Vol. 31, pp. 240-5

"Report of the Commission on the National and the Colonial Questions"
July 26, 1920

First, what is the cardinal idea underlying our theses? It is the
distinction between oppressed and oppressor nations. Unlike the
Second International and bourgeois democracy, we emphasise this
distinction. . . .The characteristic feature of imperialism consists
in the whole world, as we now see, being divided into a large number
of oppressed nations and an insignificant number of oppressor nations,
the latter possessing colossal wealth and powerful armed force.

[...]

Comrade Quelch of the British Socialist Party spoke of this in our
commission. He said that the rank-and-file British worker would consider
it treasonable to help the enslaved nations in their uprisings against
British rule. True, the jingoist and chauvinist-minded labour aristocrats
of Britain and America present a very great danger to socialism, and
are a bulwark of the Second International. Here we are confronted with
the greatest treachery on the part of leaders and workers belonging to
this bourgeois International. The colonial question has been discussed
in the Second International as well. The Basle Manifesto is quite
clear on this point, too. The parties of the Second International have
pledged themselves to revolutionary action, but they have given no sign
of genuine revolutionary work or of assistance to the exploited and
dependent nations in their revolt against the oppressor nations. This,
I think, applies also to most of the parties that have withdrawn from
the Second International and wish to join the Third International.

[MC5 adds: The Second International with the exception of the Leninist
minority and other isolated elements supported World War I. It also has
since taken chauvinist positions on the colonies and neo-colonies. Lenin
decided it was necessary to form the Third International and make aid to
the oppressed nation revolutionary movement a prerequisite for parties
from the oppressor nations.]