24-29 April (7-12 May) 1917
Editor’s note:
The Seventh (April) All-Russia Conference of the RSDLP(B) was called by decision of the RSDLP(B) Central Committee and was held in Petrograd from 24-29 April (7-12 May) 1917. It was the Party’s first conference in legal conditions.
It was attended by 131 delegates with voting rights and eighteen with speaking rights from seventy-eight Party organisations (including Petrograd and its surrounding region, Moscow and Moscow District, the Central Industrial Area, the Urals, the Donbas, the Volga area and the Caucasus), by representatives of front and rear military organisations, and also by the national organisations of Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Finland and Estonia.
This was the conference where Lenin finally won over the party to his political positions expressed in the April Theses (no confidence in the Provisional Government, all power to the Soviets, no concessions to defencism, for a new International), against the opposition of many of the Party leaders.
We reproduce here Lenin’s speech on the ‘Resolution on the War’ and the text of the resolution itself.
* * *
Speech in Favour of the Resolution on the War
27 April (10 May) 1917
Comrades, the original draft resolution on the war was read by me at the City Conference. Because of the crisis that absorbed the attention and energy of all our comrades in Petrograd, we were unable to amend the draft. Since yesterday, however, the committee working on it has made satisfactory progress: the draft has been changed, considerably shortened and, in our opinion, improved.
I wish to say a few words about the construction of this resolution. It consists of three parts. The first is devoted to a class analysis of the war; it also contains our statement of principles explaining why our Party warns against placing any trust in promises made by the Provisional Government, as well as against any support for that government. The second part of the resolution deals with the question of revolutionary defencism as an extremely broad mass movement which has now united against us the overwhelming majority of the nation. Our task is to define the class significance of this revolutionary defencism, its essence, and the real balance of forces, and find a way to fight this trend. The third part of the resolution deals with the question of how to end the war. This practical question, which is of supreme importance to our Party, required a detailed answer. We think that we have succeeded in meeting this requirement satisfactorily. The articles in Pravda and numerous articles on the war published in provincial newspapers (the latter reach us very irregularly because the postal service is disorganised, and we have to take every convenient opportunity of getting them for the Central Committee) reveal a negative attitude towards the war and the loan. I think that the vote against the loan settled the question as to our opposition to revolutionary defencism. I do not think it is possible to go into greater detail on this.
The present war is, on the part of both groups of the belligerent powers, an imperialist war, i.e. one waged by the capitalists for the division of the profits obtained from world domination, for markets for finance (banking) capital, for the subjugation of the weaker nationalities, etc.
The primary and basic issue is the meaning of the war, a question of a general and political character, a moot question which the capitalists and the social-chauvinists carefully evade. This is why we must put this question first, with this addition to it:
Each day of war enriches the financial and industrial bourgeoisie and impoverishes and saps the strength of the proletariat and the peasantry of all the belligerents, as well as of the neutral countries. In Russia, moreover, prolongation of the war involves a grave danger to the revolution’s gains and its further development.
The passing of state power in Russia to the Provisional Government, a government of the landowners and capitalists, did not and could not alter the character and meaning of the war as far as Russia is concerned.
The words I have just read to you are of great importance in all our propaganda and agitation. Has the class character of the war changed now? Can it change? Our reply is based on the fact that power has passed to the landowners and capitalists, the same government that had engineered this war. We then pass on to one of the facts that reveal most clearly the character of the war. Class character as expressed by the entire policy carried on for decades by definite classes is one thing, the obvious class character of the war is another.
This fact was most strikingly demonstrated when the new government not only failed to publish the secret treaties between Tsar Nicholas II and the capitalist governments of Britain, France, etc., but even formally and without consulting the nation confirmed these secret treaties, which promise the Russian capitalists a free hand to rob China, Persia, Turkey, Austria, etc. By concealing these treaties from the people of Russia, the latter are being deceived as to the true character of the war.
And so, I emphasise again, we are pointing out one particularly striking confirmation of the character of the war. Even if there were no treaties at all, the character of the war would be the same because groups of capitalists can very often come to an agreement without any treaties. But the treaties exist and their implications are apparent. For the purpose of co-ordinating the work of our agitators and propagandists, we think this fact should be especially emphasised, and so we have made a special point of it. The people’s attention is and should be called to this fact, all the more so as the treaties were concluded by the tsar, who has been overthrown. The people ought to be made aware that the present governments are carrying on the war on the basis of treaties concluded between the old governments. This, I feel, makes the contradictions between the capitalist interests and the will of the people stand out most strikingly, and it is for the propagandists to expose these contradictions, to draw the people’s attention to them, to strive to explain them to the masses by appealing to their class-consciousness. The contents of these treaties leave no room for doubt that they promise enormous profits to the capitalists to be derived from robbing other countries. That is why they are always kept secret. There is not a republic in the world whose foreign policy is conducted in the open. It is fatuous, while the capitalist system exists, to expect the capitalists to open up their ledgers. While there is private ownership of the means of production, there is bound to be private ownership of shares and financial operations. The cornerstone of contemporary diplomacy is financial operations, which amount to robbing and strangling the weak nationalities. These, we believe, are the fundamental premises upon which the evaluation of the war rests. Proceeding from these premises we conclude that:
For this reason, no proletarian party that does not wish to break completely with internationalism, i.e. with the fraternal solidarity of the workers of all countries in their struggle against the yoke of capital, can support the present war, or the present government, or its loans.
This is our chief and basic conclusion. It determines our whole tactics and sets us apart from all the other parties, no matter how socialistic they claim to be. This proposition, which is irrefutable to all of us, predetermines our attitude towards all the other political parties.
The next point concerns the wide use which our government is making of promises. These promises are the object of a prolonged campaign by the Soviets, which have become muddled by these promises, and which are trying the people’s patience. We therefore consider it necessary to add to our purely objective analysis of the class relations an analysis of those promises, promises which in themselves have, of course, no significance to a Marxist, but which mean a great deal to the people, and mean even more in politics. The Petrograd Soviet has become muddled by these promises, has given weight to them by promising its support. This is the reason why we add the following statement to this point:
No trust can be placed in the present government’s promises to renounce annexations, i.e. conquests of foreign countries or retention by force of any nationality within the confines of Russia.
‘Annexation’ being a foreign word, we give it an exact political definition, such as neither the Cadets nor the petty-bourgeois democratic parties (the Narodniks and Mensheviks) can give. Few words have been used so meaninglessly and slovenly.
For, in the first place, the capitalists, bound together by the thousand threads of banking capital, cannot renounce annexations in this war without renouncing the profits from the thousands of millions invested in loans, concessions, war industries, etc. And secondly, the new government, after renouncing annexations to mislead the people, declared through Milyukov (Moscow, 9 April 1917) that it had no intention of renouncing them, and, in the Note of 18 April and its elucidation of 22 April, confirmed the expansionist character of its policy. Therefore, in warning the people against the capitalists’ empty promises, the Conference declares that it is necessary to make a clear distinction between a renunciation of annexations in word and a renunciation of annexations in deed, i.e. the immediate publication and abrogation of all the secret, predatory treaties and the immediate granting to all nationalities of the right to determine by free voting whether they wish to be independent states or to be part of another state.
We have found it necessary to mention this, because the question of peace without annexations is the basic issue in all these discussions of peace terms. All parties recognise that peace will become the alternative, and that peace with annexations will be an unheard-of catastrophe for all countries. In a country where there is political liberty, the question of peace cannot be placed before the people otherwise than in terms of peace without annexations. It is therefore necessary to declare for peace without annexations, and so the only thing to do is to lie by wrapping up the meaning of annexations or evading the question altogether. Rech, for instance, cries that the return of Courland means renunciation of annexations. When I was addressing the Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies, a soldier handed me a slip of paper with the following question: “We have to fight to win back Courland. Does winning back Courland mean that you stand for annexations?” I had to reply in the affirmative. We are against Germany annexing Courland, but we are also against Russia holding Courland by force. For example, our government has issued a manifesto proclaiming the independence of Poland. This manifesto, chock-full of meaningless phrases, states that Poland must form a free military alliance with Russia. These three words contain the whole truth. A free military alliance of little Poland with huge Russia is, in point of fact, complete military subjection of Poland. Poland may be granted political freedom but her boundaries will be determined by the military alliance.
If we fight for the Russian capitalists keeping possession of the former annexed territories of Courland and Poland, then the German capitalists have the right to rob Courland. They may argue this way: we looted Poland together. At the end of the eighteenth century, when we began to tear Poland to pieces, Prussia was a very small and weak country while Russia was a giant, and therefore she grabbed more. Now we have grown and it is our intention, if you please, to snatch a larger share. You can say nothing against this capitalist logic. In 1863, Japan was a mere nothing in comparison with Russia, but in 1905 Japan thrashed Russia. From 1863 to 1873 Germany was a mere nothing in comparison with Britain, but now Germany is stronger than Britain. The Germans may argue: we were weak when Courland was taken from us, but we have now grown stronger than you, and we wish to take it back. Not to renounce annexations means to justify endless wars over the conquest of weaker nationalities. To renounce annexations means to let each nation determine freely whether it wants to live separately or together with others. Of course, for this purpose, armies must be withdrawn. To show the slightest hesitation on the question of annexations means to justify endless wars. It follows that we could allow no hesitation on this question. With regard to annexations, our answer is that nations must be free to make their own decisions. How can we secure economic freedom alongside this political freedom? To accomplish this, power must pass into the hands of the proletariat and the yoke of capital must be overthrown.
I now pass on to the second part of the resolution.
The ‘revolutionary defencism’, which in Russia has now permeated all the Narodnik parties (the Popular Socialists, Trudoviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries), the opportunist party of the Menshevik Social-Democrats (the Organising Committee, Chkheidze, Tsereteli, etc.), and the majority of the non-party revolutionaries, reflects, in point of class significance, the interests and point of view of the well-to-do peasants and a part of the small proprietors, who, like the capitalists, profit by oppressing weak peoples. On the other hand, ‘revolutionary defencism’ is a result of the deception by the capitalists of a part of the urban and rural proletariat and semi-proletariat, who, by their class position, have no interest in the profits of the capitalists and in the imperialist war.
Consequently, our task here is to determine from what sections of society this defencist tendency could emerge. Russia is the most petty-bourgeois country in the world, and the upper sections of the petty bourgeoisie are directly interested in continuing the war. The well-to-do peasants, like the capitalists, are profiting by the war. On the other hand, the mass of proletarians and semi-proletarians have no interest in annexations because they make no profit on banking capital. How, then, have these classes come to adopt the position of revolutionary defencism? Their attitude towards revolutionary defencism is due to the influence of capitalist ideology, which the resolution designates by the word ‘deception’. They are unable to differentiate between the interests of the capitalists and the interests of the country. Hence we conclude:
The Conference recognises that any concessions to ‘revolutionary defencism’ are absolutely impermissible and virtually signify a complete break with internationalism and socialism. As for the defencist tendencies among the broad masses, our Party will fight against these tendencies by ceaselessly explaining the truth that the attitude of unreasoning trust in the government of the capitalists, at the moment, is one of the chief obstacles to a speedy termination of the war.
The last words express the specific feature that sharply distinguishes Russia from the other Western capitalist countries and from all capitalist democratic republics. For it cannot be said of those countries that the trustfulness of the unenlightened masses there is the chief cause of the prolongation of the war. The masses there are now in the iron grip of military discipline. The more democratic the republic, the stronger discipline is, since law in a republic rests on ‘the will of the people’. Owing to the revolution, there is no such discipline in Russia. The masses freely elect representatives to the Soviets, which is something that does not exist now anywhere else in the world. But the masses have unreasoning trust, and are therefore used for the purposes of the struggle. So far we can do nothing but explain. Our explanations must deal with the immediate revolutionary tasks and methods of action. When the masses are free, any attempts to act in the name of a minority, without explaining things to the masses, would be senseless Blanquism, mere adventurism. Only by winning over the masses, if they can be won, can we lay a solid foundation for the victory of the proletarian class struggle.
I now pass on to the third part of the resolution:
In regard to the most important question of all, namely, how to end the present capitalist war as soon as possible, not by a coercive peace, but by a truly democratic peace, the Conference recognises and declares the following:
This war cannot be ended by a refusal of the soldiers of one side only to continue the war, by a simple cessation of hostilities by one of the belligerents.
The idea of terminating the war in this way has been attributed to us over and over again by persons who wish to win an easy victory over their opponents by distorting the latter’s views – a typical method used by the capitalists, who ascribe to us the absurd idea of wishing to end the war by a one-sided refusal to fight. They say “the war cannot be ended by sticking your bayonet in the ground”, to quote a soldier, a typical revolutionary defencist. This is no argument, I say. The idea that the war can be terminated without changing the classes in power is an anarchist idea. Either this idea is anarchistic, in which case it has no meaning, no state significance, or it is a hazy pacifist idea that fails completely to appreciate the connection between politics and the oppressing class. War is an evil, peace is a blessing… Certainly this idea must be made clear to the people, must be popularised. Incidentally, all our resolutions are being written for leading Party members, for Marxists, and do not make reading matter for the masses. But they must serve as unifying and guiding political principles for every propagandist and agitator. To meet this requirement, one more paragraph was added to the resolution:
The Conference reiterates its protest against the base slander spread by the capitalists against our Party to the effect that we are in favour of a separate peace with Germany. We consider the German capitalists to be as predatory as the Russian, British, French and other capitalists, and Emperor Wilhelm as bad a crowned brigand as Nicholas II or the British, Italian, Romanian and all other monarchs.
On this point there was some disagreement in the committee, some maintaining that in this passage our language became too popular, others, that the British, Italian and Romanian monarchs did not deserve the honour of being mentioned. After a detailed discussion, however, we all agreed that, since our present aim is to refute all the slanders which Birzhevka has tried to spread against us rather crudely, Rech more subtly, Yedinstvo by direct implication, we must, on a question of this nature, come out with a most sharp and trenchant criticism of these ideas, having in mind the broadest masses of the people. Asked why we do not help to over throw Wilhelm if we consider him a brigand, we can say that the others, too, are brigands, that we ought to fight against them as well, that one must not forget the kings of Italy and Romania, that brigands can also be found among our Allies. These two paragraphs are intended to combat the slander, which is meant to lead to riot-mongering and squabbling. This is the reason why we must now pass on to the serious practical question of how to terminate the war.
Our Party will patiently but persistently explain to the people the truth that wars are waged by governments, that wars are always indissolubly bound up with the policies of definite classes, that this war can be terminated by a democratic peace only if the entire state power, in at least several of the belligerent countries, has passed to the class of the proletarians and semi-proletarians which is really capable of putting an end to the oppressive rule of capital.
To a Marxist these truths – that wars are waged by the capitalists and are bound up with the capitalists’ class interests – are absolute truths. A Marxist need not dwell on that. But as far as the masses are concerned, skilful agitators and propagandists should be able to explain this truth simply, without using foreign words, for with us discussions usually degenerate into empty and futile squabbling. The explaining of this truth is what we have been trying to do in every part of the resolution. We say that in order to understand what the war is about, you must ask who gains by it; in order to understand how to put an end to the war, you must ask which classes do not gain by it. The connection here is clear, hence we conclude:
In Russia, the revolutionary class, having taken state power, would adopt a series of measures that would undermine the economic rule of the capitalists, as well as measures that would render them completely harmless politically, and would immediately and frankly offer to all nations a democratic peace on the basis of a complete renunciation of every possible form of annexation and indemnity.
Once we speak in the name of the revolutionary class, the people have the right to ask: and what about you, what would you do in their place to end the war? This is an inevitable question. The people are electing us now as their representatives, and we must give a very precise answer. The revolutionary class, having taken power, would set out to undermine the rule of the capitalists, and would then offer to all nations well-defined peace terms, because, unless the economic rule of the capitalists is undermined, all we can have are scraps of paper. Only a victorious class can accomplish this, can bring about a change in policy.
I repeat: to bring this truth home to the uneducated mass, we need intermediate links that would help to introduce this question to them. The mistake and falsehood of popular literature on the war is the evasion of this question; it ignores this question and presents the matter as if there had been no class struggle, as if two countries had lived amicably until one attacked the other, and the attacked has been defending itself. This is vulgar reasoning in which there is not a shadow of objective truth, and which is a deliberate deception of the people by educated persons. If we approach this question properly, anyone would be able to grasp the essential point; for the interests of the ruling classes are one thing, and the interests of the oppressed classes are another.
What would happen if the revolutionary class took power?
Such measures and such a frank offer of peace would bring about complete confidence of the workers of the belligerent countries in each other…
Such confidence is impossible now, and the words of manifestos will not create it. Where the philosopher once said that speech has been given to man to enable him to conceal his thoughts, the diplomats always say: “Conferences are held to deceive the people.” Not only the capitalists, but the socialists too reason this way. This particularly applies to the conference which Borgbjerg is calling.
… and would inevitably lead to uprisings of the proletariat against those imperialist governments as might resist the offered peace.
Nobody now believes the capitalist government when it says: “We are for peace without annexations.” The masses have the instinct of oppressed classes which tells them that nothing has changed. Only if the policy were actually changed in one country, confidence would appear and attempts at uprisings would be made. We speak of “uprisings” because we are now discussing all countries. To say “a revolution has taken place in one country, so now it must take place in Germany” – is false reasoning. There is a tendency to form an order of sequence, but this cannot be done. We all went through the Revolution of 1905. We all heard or witnessed how that revolution gave birth to revolutionary ideas throughout the world, a fact which Marx constantly referred to. Revolutions cannot be made, they cannot be taken in turns. A revolution cannot be made to order – it develops. This form of charlatanism is now frequently being practised in Russia. The people are told: You in Russia have made a revolution, now it is the Germans’ turn. If the objective conditions change, then an uprising is inevitable, but we do not know whose turn it will be, when it will take place, and with what degree of success. We are asked: If the revolutionary class takes power in Russia, and if no uprisings break out in other countries, what will the revolutionary party do? What will happen then? This question is answered in the last paragraph of our resolution.
Until the revolutionary class in Russia takes the entire state power, our Party will do all it can to support those proletarian parties and groups abroad that are in fact, already during the war, conducting a revolutionary struggle against their imperialist governments and their bourgeoisie.
This is all that we can promise and must do now. The revolution is mounting in every country, but no one knows to what extent it is mounting and when it will break out. In every country there are people who are carrying on a revolutionary struggle against their governments. They are the people, the only people, we must support. This is the real thing – all else is falsehood. And so we add:
Our Party will particularly support the mass fraternisation of the soldiers of all the belligerent countries that has already begun at the front…
This is to meet Plekhanov’s argument: “What will come of it? Suppose you do fraternise, then what? Does this not suggest the possibility of a separate peace at the front?” This is jiggery-pokery, not a serious argument. We want fraternisation on all fronts, and we are taking pains to encourage it. When we worked in Switzerland, we published an appeal in two languages, with French on one side and German on the other, urging those soldiers to do the same thing we are now urging the Russian soldiers to do. We do not confine ourselves to fraternisation between German and Russian soldiers, we call upon all to fraternise. This, then, is what we mean by fraternisation:
… endeavouring to turn this instinctive expression of solidarity of the oppressed into a politically conscious movement as well organised as possible for the transfer of all state power in all the belligerent countries to the revolutionary proletariat.
Fraternisation, so far, is instinctive, and we must not deceive ourselves on this score. We must admit this in order not to delude the people. The fraternising soldiers are actuated not by a clear-cut political idea but by the instinct of oppressed people, who are tired, exhausted and begin to lose confidence in capitalist promises. They say: “While you keep on talking about peace – we have been hearing it now for two and a half years – we shall start things moving ourselves.” This is a true class instinct. Without this instinct the cause of the revolution would be hopeless. As you know, nobody would free the workers if they did not free themselves. But is instinct alone sufficient? You would not get far if you rely on instinct alone. This instinct must be transformed into political awareness.
In our ‘Appeal to the Soldiers of All the Belligerent Countries’ we explain into what this fraternisation should develop – into the passing of political power to the Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies.[1] Naturally, the German workers will call their Soviets by a different name, but this does not matter. The point is that we undoubtedly recognise as correct that fraternisation is instinctive, that we do not simply confine ourselves to encouraging fraternisation, but set ourselves the task of turning this instinctive fraternisation of workers and peasants in soldiers’ uniforms into a politically-conscious movement, whose aim is the transfer of power in all the belligerent countries into the hands of the revolutionary proletariat. This is a very difficult task, but the position in which humanity finds itself under capitalist rule is tremendously difficult, too, and leads to destruction. This is why it will call forth that explosion of discontent which is the guarantee of proletarian revolution.
This is our resolution, which we submit for consideration to the Conference.
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Resolution on the War
24-29 April 1917
I
The present war is, on the part of both groups of the belligerent powers, an imperialist war, i.e. one waged by the capitalists for the division of the profits obtained from world domination, for markets for finance (banking) capital, for the subjugation of the weaker nationalities, etc. Each day of war enriches the financial and industrial bourgeoisie and impoverishes and saps the strength of the proletariat and the peasantry of all the belligerents, as well as of the neutral countries. In Russia, moreover, prolongation of the war involves a grave danger to the revolution’s gains and its further development.
The passing of state power in Russia to the Provisional Government, a government of the landowners and capitalists, did not and could not alter the character and meaning of the war as far as Russia is concerned.
This fact was most strikingly demonstrated when the new government not only failed to publish the secret treaties between Tsar Nicholas II and the capitalist governments of Britain, France, etc., but even formally and without consulting the nation confirmed these secret treaties, which promise the Russian capitalists a free hand to rob China, Persia, Turkey, Austria, etc. By concealing these treaties from the people of Russia, the latter are being deceived as to the true character of the war.
For this reason, no proletarian party that does not wish to break completely with internationalism, i.e. with the fraternal solidarity of the workers of all countries in their struggle against the yoke of capital, can support the present war, or the present government, or its loans.
No trust can be placed in the present government’s promises to renounce annexations, i.e. conquests of foreign countries or retention by force of any nationality within the confines of Russia. For, in the first place, the capitalists, bound together by the thousand threads of banking capital, cannot renounce annexations in this war without renouncing the profits from the thousands of millions invested in loans, concessions, war industries, etc. And secondly, the new government, after renouncing annexations to mislead the people, declared through Milyukov (Moscow, 9 April 1917) that it had no intention of renouncing them, and, in the Note of 18 April and its elucidation of 22 April, confirmed the expansionist character of its policy. Therefore, in warning the people against the capitalists’ empty promises, the Conference declares that it is necessary to make a clear distinction between a renunciation of annexations in word and a renunciation of annexations in deed, i.e. the immediate publication and abrogation of all the secret, predatory treaties and the immediate granting to all nationalities of the right to determine by free voting whether they wish to be independent states or to be part of another state.
II
The ‘revolutionary defencism’, which in Russia has now permeated all the Narodnik parties (the Popular Socialists, Trudoviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries), the opportunist party of the Menshevik Social-Democrats (the Organising Committee, Chkheidze, Tsereteli, etc.), and the majority of the non-party revolutionaries, reflects, in point of class significance, the interests and point of view of the well-to-do peasants and a part of the small proprietors, who, like the capitalists, profit by oppressing weak peoples. On the other hand, ‘revolutionary defencism’ is a result of the deception by the capitalists of a part of the urban and rural proletariat and semi-proletariat, who, by their class position, have no interest in the profits of the capitalists and in the imperialist war.
The Conference recognises that any concessions to ‘revolutionary defencism’ are absolutely impermissible and virtually signify a complete break with internationalism and socialism. As for the defencist tendencies among the broad masses, our Party will fight against these tendencies by ceaselessly explaining the truth that the attitude of unreasoning trust in the government of the capitalists, at the moment, is one of the chief obstacles to a speedy termination of the war.
III
In regard to the most important question of all, namely, how to end the present capitalist war as soon as possible, not by a coercive peace, but by a truly democratic peace, the Conference recognises and declares the following:
This war cannot be ended by a refusal of the soldiers of one side only to continue the war, by a simple cessation of hostilities by one of the belligerents.
The Conference reiterates its protest against the base slander spread by the capitalists against our Party to the effect that we are in favour of a separate peace with Germany. We consider the German capitalists to be as predatory as the Russian, British, French and other capitalists, and Emperor Wilhelm as bad a crowned brigand as Nicholas II or the British, Italian, Romanian and all other monarchs.
Our Party will patiently but persistently explain to the people the truth that wars are waged by governments, that wars are always indissolubly bound up with the policies of definite classes, that this war can be terminated by a democratic peace only if the entire state power, in at least several of the belligerent countries, has passed to the class of the proletarians and semi-proletarians which is really capable of putting an end to the oppressive rule of capital.
In Russia, the revolutionary class, having taken state power, would adopt a series of measures that would undermine the economic rule of the capitalists, as well as measures that would render them completely harmless politically, and would immediately and frankly offer to all nations a democratic peace on the basis of a complete renunciation of every possible form of annexation and indemnity. Such measures and such a frank offer of peace would bring about complete confidence of the workers of the belligerent countries in each other and would inevitably lead to uprisings of the proletariat against those imperialist governments as might resist the offered peace.
Until the revolutionary class in Russia takes the entire state power, our Party will do all it can to support those proletarian parties and groups abroad that are in fact, already during the war, conducting a revolutionary struggle against their imperialist governments and their bourgeoisie. Our Party will particularly support the mass fraternisation of the soldiers of all the belligerent countries that has already begun at the front, endeavouring to turn this instinctive expression of solidarity of the oppressed into a politically conscious movement as well organised as possible for the transfer of all state power in all the belligerent countries to the revolutionary proletariat.
3 (16) June 1917
Everybody is screaming for ‘strong government’. The only salvation is in a dictatorship, in ‘iron discipline’, in silencing and reducing to obedience all the refractory members of the Right and Left. We know whom they wish to silence. The Rights are making no noise, they are working. Some of them in the government, others at the factories, all of them with threats of lockouts, orders for the disbanding of regiments, and the threat of penal servitude. The Konovalovs and the Tereshchenkos, with the help of the Kerenskys and the Skobelevs, are working in an organised manner for their own good. And they don’t have to be silenced.
All we have is the right of speech.
And of this right they want to deprive us.
Pravda is barred from the front. The Kiev ‘agents’ have decided not to distribute Pravda. The Zemstvo Union is not selling Pravda in its newspaper stands. And now we are promised a “systematic fight against the preaching of Leninism” (Izvestia). On the other hand, every spontaneous protest, every excess, wherever it comes from, is blamed on us.
This, too, is a method for combating Bolshevism.
A well-tried method.
Unable as they are to get clear guidelines, aware instinctively how false and unsatisfactory is the position of the official leaders of democracy, the masses are compelled to grope a way out for themselves.
The result is that every dissatisfied, class-conscious revolutionary, every angered fighter who yearns for his village home and sees no end to the war, and sometimes simply men who are out to save their own skins, rally to the banner of Bolshevism.
Where Bolshevism has a chance to air its views openly, there we find no disorganisation.
Where there are no Bolsheviks or where they are not allowed to speak, there we find excesses, demoralisation and pseudo-Bolsheviks.
And that is just what our enemies need.
They need a pretext for saying: “The Bolsheviks are demoralising the army” and then shutting the Bolsheviks’ mouths.
To dispose once for all of ‘enemy’ slander and the ridiculous distortions of Bolshevism, we quote the concluding part of a leaflet distributed in the army by one of our delegates on the eve of the All-Russia Congress.
Here it is:
Comrades, you must have your say.
Do not let us have any agreements with the bourgeoisie!
All power to the Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies!
This does not mean that we must immediately overthrow the present government or disobey it. So long as the majority of the peoples support it and believe that five socialists can cope with all the rest, we cannot afford to fritter away our forces in desultory uprisings.
Never!
Husband your strength! Get together at meetings! Pass resolutions! Demand that all power be handed over to the Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies! Convince those who disagree with us! Send your resolution to me at the Congress in Petrograd in the name of your regiment, so that I can quote your voice there!
But beware of those who, posing as Bolsheviks, will try to provoke you to riots and disturbances as a screen for their own cowardice! Know that though they are with you now, they will sell you out to the old regime at the first hint of danger.
The real Bolsheviks call you to conscious revolutionary struggle, and not to riots.
Comrades! The All-Russia Congress will elect representatives, to whom, pending the convocation of the Constituent Assembly, the Provisional Government will be accountable.
Comrades! At that Congress I shall demand:
First, that all power be handed over to the Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies.
Second, that a proposal for peace without annexations or indemnities be made immediately in the name of our people to the peoples and governments of all the belligerent nations, both our Allies and our enemies. If any government tries to turn it down it will be overthrown by its own people.
Third, that the money which people have made out of the war should be converted to state needs by way of confiscation of the capitalists’ war profits.
Comrades! Only by the transfer of power to the democracy in Russia, Germany and France, only by the overthrow of the bourgeois governments in all countries, can the war be ended.
Our revolution has started this, and it is our task now to give a further impetus to the world revolution by having a fully authorised popular Russian government make an order of peace to all the governments of Europe and by strengthening our alliance with the revolutionary democrats of Western Europe.
Woe betide the bourgeois government that will persist in continuing the war after this.
Together with its people we shall make revolutionary war upon that government.
It is to say all this to our government in Petrograd in your name that I have been elected to the Congress in Petrograd.
Member of the Army Committee of the 11th Army, Delegate of the Central Committee of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party (Bolsheviks) to the Congress of the South-Western Front, Ensign Krylenko.
No one who has taken the trouble to read our Party’s resolutions can fail to see that the gist of them has been correctly expressed by Comrade Krylenko.
The Bolsheviks are calling the proletariat, the poor peasants and all the toiling and exploited people to a conscious revolutionary struggle, and not to riots and disturbances.
Only a genuine government of the people, a government belonging to the majority of the nation, is capable of following the right path leading mankind to the overthrow of the capitalist yoke, to deliverance from the horrors and misery of the imperialist war, and to a just and lasting peace.
7 (20) June 1917
Is there a way to peace without an exchange of annexations, without the division of spoils among the capitalist robbers?
There is: through a workers’ revolution against the capitalists of the world.
Russia today is nearer to the beginning of such a revolution than any other country.
Only in Russia can power pass to existing institutions, to the Soviets, immediately, peacefully, without an uprising, for the capitalists cannot resist the Soviets of Workers’, Soldiers’ and Peasants’ Deputies.
With such a transfer of power it would be possible to curb the capitalists, now making thousands of millions in profits from contracts, to expose all their tricks, arrest the millionaire embezzlers of public property, break their unlimited power.
Only after the transfer of power to the oppressed classes could Russia approach the oppressed classes of other countries, not with empty words, not with mere appeals, but calling their attention to her example, and immediately and explicitly proposing clear-cut terms for universal peace.
“Comrade workers and toilers of the world”, she would say in the proposal for an immediate peace.
‘Enough of the bloodshed. Peace is possible. A just peace means peace without annexations, without seizures. Let the German capitalist robbers and their crowned robber Wilhelm know that we shall not come to terms with them, that we regard as robbery on their part not only what they have grabbed since the war, but also Alsace and Lorraine, and the Danish and Polish areas of Prussia.
We also consider that Poland, Finland, the Ukraine and other non-Great-Russian lands were seized by the Russian tsars and capitalists.
We consider that all colonies, Ireland, and so on, were seized by the British, French and other capitalists.
We Russian workers and peasants shall not hold any of the non-Great-Russian lands or colonies (such as Turkestan, Mongolia, or Persia) by force. Down with war for the division of colonies, for the division of annexed (seized) lands, for the division of capitalist spoils!’
The example of the Russian workers will be followed inevitably, perhaps not tomorrow (revolutions are not made to order), but inevitably all the same by the workers and all the working people of at least two great countries, Germany and France.
For both are perishing, the first of hunger, the second of depopulation. Both will conclude peace on our terms, which are just, in defiance of their capitalist governments.
The road to peace lies before us.
Should the capitalists of England, Japan and America try to resist this peace, the oppressed classes of Russia and other countries will not shrink from a revolutionary war against the capitalists. In this war they will defeat the capitalists of the whole world, not just those of the three countries lying far from Russia and taken up with their own rivalries.
The road to a just peace lies before us. Let us not be afraid to take it.
21 June (4 July) 1917
“The Russian revolution has reached a turning-point”, said Tsereteli informing the Congress of Soviets that the offensive had begun.[2] Yes, the whole course of the world war as well as the Russian revolution has reached a turning-point. After three months of vacillation, the Russian government has actually come to the decision demanded by the ‘Allied’ governments.
The offensive has been declared in the name of peace. And it is also ‘in the name of peace’ that the imperialists of the world send their troops into battle. Every time there is an offensive the generals in every belligerent country try to raise their troops’ morale by holding out the real hope of that particular offensive leading to early peace.
The Russian ‘socialist’ Ministers have garnished this common imperialist method with very high-sounding phrases in which words about socialism, democracy and revolution sound like rattles in the hands of a clever juggler. But no high-sounding phrases can conceal the fact that the revolutionary armies of Russia have been sent into battle in the name of the imperialist designs of Britain, France, Italy, Japan and America. No arguments from Chernov, once a Zimmerwaldist and now Lloyd George’s partner, can conceal the fact that while the Russian Army and the Russian proletariat do not really pursue any annexationist aims, this does not in the least change the imperialist, predatory nature of the struggle between the two world trusts. Until the secret treaties binding Russia to the imperialists of other countries are revised, and as long as Ribot, Lloyd George and Sonnino, Russia’s allies, continue to talk about the annexationist aims of their foreign policy, the offensive of the Russian troops will continue to serve the imperialists.
Tsereteli and Chernov object, however, that they have repeatedly declared their renunciation of all annexations. So much the worse, we reply. That means your actions do not accord with your words, for your actions serve both Russian and foreign imperialism. And when you begin to cooperate actively with the imperialist ‘Allies’ you render splendid service to the Russian counter-revolution. The joy of all the Black Hundreds and all counter-revolutionaries over the decisive turn in your policy is the best evidence of that. Yes, the Russian revolution has come to a turning-point. Through its ‘socialist’ Ministers, the Russian Government has done something which the imperialist Ministers, Guchkov and Milyukov, could not do. It has put the Russian Army at the disposal of the general staffs and the diplomats who act in the name and on the basis of unabrogated secret treaties, in the name of designs frankly proclaimed by Ribot and Lloyd George. The government could only fulfil its task, however, because the army trusted and followed it. The army marched to death because it believed it was making sacrifices for freedom, the revolution and early peace.
But the army did so because it is only a part of the people, who at this stage of the revolution are following the Socialist-Revolutionary and the Menshevik parties. This general and basic fact, the trust of the majority in the petty-bourgeois policy of the Mensheviks and the Socialist-Revolutionaries which is dependent on the capitalists, determines our Party’s stand and conduct.
We shall keep up our efforts to expose government policy, resolutely warning the workers and soldiers, as in the past, against pinning their hopes on uncoordinated and disorganised actions.
It is a question of a phase in the people’s revolution. The Tseretelis and Chernovs, having become dependent on imperialism, are putting into effect a phase of petty-bourgeois illusions and petty-bourgeois phrases, which serve to disguise the same old cynical imperialism.
This phase must be brought to an end. Let us help to end it as speedily and as painlessly as possible. This will rid the people of the last petty-bourgeois illusions and bring about the transfer of power to the revolutionary class.
30 August (12 September) 1917
It is possible that these lines will come too late, for events are developing with a rapidity that sometimes makes one’s head spin. I am writing this on Wednesday 30 August, and the recipients will read it no earlier than Friday 2 September. Still, on chance, I consider it my duty to write the following.
The Kornilov revolt is a most unexpected (unexpected at such a moment and in such a form) and downright unbelievably sharp turn in events.[3]
Like every sharp turn, it calls for a revision and change of tactics. And as with every revision, we must be extra cautious not to become unprincipled.
It is my conviction that those who become unprincipled are people who (like Volodarsky) slide into defencism or (like other Bolsheviks) into a bloc with the SRs, into supporting the Provisional Government. Their attitude is absolutely wrong and unprincipled. We shall become defencists only after the transfer of power to the proletariat, after a peace offer, after the secret treaties and ties with the banks have been broken – only afterwards. Neither the capture of Riga nor the capture of Petrograd will make us defencists. (I should very much like Volodarsky to read this.) Until then we stand for a proletarian revolution, we are against the war, and we are no defencists.
Even now we must not support Kerensky’s government. This is unprincipled. We may be asked: aren’t we going to fight against Kornilov? Of course we must! But this is not the same thing; there is a dividing line here, which is being stepped over by some Bolsheviks who fall into compromise and allow themselves to be carried away by the course of events.
We shall fight, we are fighting against Kornilov, just as Kerensky’s troops do, but we do not support Kerensky. On the contrary, we expose his weakness. There is the difference. It is rather a subtle difference, but it is highly essential and must not be forgotten.
What, then, constitutes our change of tactics after the Kornilov revolt?
We are changing the form of our struggle against Kerensky. Without in the least relaxing our hostility towards him, without taking back a single word said against him, without renouncing the task of overthrowing him, we say that we must take into account the present situation. We shall not overthrow Kerensky right now. We shall approach the task of fighting against him in a different way, namely, we shall point out to the people (who are fighting against Kornilov) Kerensky’s weakness and vacillation. That has been done in the past as well. Now, however, it has become the all-important thing and this constitutes the change.
The change, further, is that the all-important thing now has become the intensification of our campaign for some kind of ‘partial demands’ to be presented to Kerensky: arrest Milyukov, arm the Petrograd workers, summon the Kronstadt, Vyborg and Helsingfors troops to Petrograd, dissolve the Duma, arrest Rodzyanko, legalise the transfer of the landed estates to the peasants, introduce workers’ control over grain and factories, etc., etc. We must present these demands not only to Kerensky, and not so much to Kerensky, as to the workers, soldiers and peasants who have been carried away by the course of the struggle against Kornilov. We must keep up their enthusiasm, encourage them to deal with the generals and officers who have declared for Kornilov, urge them to demand the immediate transfer of land to the peasants, suggest to them that it is necessary to arrest Rodzyanko and Milyukov, dissolve the Duma, close down Rech and other bourgeois papers, and institute investigations against them. The ‘Left’ SRs must be especially urged on in this direction.
It would be wrong to think that we have moved farther away from the task of the proletariat winning power. No. We have come very close to it, not directly, but from the side. At the moment we must campaign not so much directly against Kerensky, as indirectly against him, namely, by demanding a more and more active, truly revolutionary war against Kornilov. The development of this war alone can lead us to power, but we must speak of this as little as possible in our propaganda (remembering very well that even tomorrow events may put power into our hands, and then we shall not relinquish it). It seems to me that this should be passed on in a letter (not in the papers) to the propagandists, to groups of agitators and propagandists, and to Party members in general. We must relentlessly fight against phrases about the defence of the country, about a united front of revolutionary democrats, about supporting the Provisional Government, etc., etc., since they are just empty phrases. We must say: now is the time for action; you SR and Menshevik gentlemen have long since worn those phrases threadbare. Now is the time for action; the war against Kornilov must be conducted in a revolutionary way, by drawing the masses in, by arousing them, by inflaming them (Kerensky is afraid of the masses, afraid of the people). In the war against the Germans, action is required right now; immediate and unconditional peace must be offered on precise terms. If this is done, either a speedy peace can be attained or the war can be turned into a revolutionary war; if not, all the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries remain lackeys of imperialism.
* * *
PS: Having read six issues of Rabochy after this was written, I must say that our views fully coincide.[4] I heartily welcome the splendid editorials, press review and articles by VM–n and Vol–y. As to Volodarsky’s speech, I have read his letter to the editors, which likewise ‘eliminates’ my reproaches. Once more, best wishes and greetings!
From ‘The Impending Catastrophe and How to Combat It’
10-14 (23-27) September 1917
A consideration of the measures to avert the impending catastrophe brings us to another supremely important question, namely, the connection between home and foreign policy, or, in other words, the relation between a war of conquest, an imperialist war, and a revolutionary, proletarian war, between a criminal predatory war and a just democratic war.
All the measures to avert catastrophe we have described would, as we have already stated, greatly enhance the defence potential, or, in other words, the military might of the country. That, on the one hand. On the other hand, these measures cannot be put into effect without turning the war of conquest into a just war, turning the war waged by the capitalists in the interests of the capitalists into a war waged by the proletariat in the interests of all the working and exploited people.
And, indeed, nationalisation of the banks and syndicates, taken in conjunction with the abolition of commercial secrecy and the establishment of workers’ control over the capitalists, would not only imply a tremendous saving of national labour, the possibility of economising forces and means, but would also imply an improvement in the conditions of the working masses, of the majority of the population. As everybody knows, economic organisation is of decisive importance in modern warfare. Russia has enough grain, coal, oil and iron; in this respect, we are in a better position than any of the belligerent European countries. And given a struggle against economic chaos by the measures indicated above, enlisting popular initiative in this struggle, improving the people’s conditions, and nationalising the banks and syndicates, Russia could use her revolution and her democracy to raise the whole country to an incomparably higher level of economic organisation.
If instead of the ‘coalition’ with the bourgeoisie, which is hampering every measure of control and sabotaging production, the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks had in April effected the transfer of power to the Soviets and had directed their efforts not to playing at ‘ministerial leapfrog’, not to bureaucratically occupying, side by side with the Cadets, ministerial, deputy-ministerial and similar posts, but to guiding the workers and peasants in their control over the capitalists, in their war against the capitalists, Russia would now be a country completely transformed economically, with the land in the hands of the peasants, and with the banks nationalised, i.e. would to that extent (and these are extremely important economic bases of modern life) be superior to all other capitalist countries.
The defence potential, the military might, of a country whose banks have been nationalised is superior to that of a country whose banks remain in private hands. The military might of a peasant country whose land is in the hands of peasant committees is superior to that of a country whose land is in the hands of landowners.
Reference is constantly being made to the heroic patriotism and the miracles of military valour performed by the French in 1792-93. But the material, historical economic conditions which alone made such miracles possible are forgotten. The suppression of obsolete feudalism in a really revolutionary way, and the introduction throughout the country of a superior mode of production and free peasant land tenure, effected, moreover, with truly revolutionary democratic speed, determination, energy and devotion – such were the material, economic conditions which with ‘miraculous’ speed saved France by regenerating and renovating her economic foundation.
The example of France shows one thing, and one thing only, namely, that to render Russia capable of self-defence, to obtain in Russia, too, ‘miracles’ of mass heroism, all that is obsolete must be swept away with ‘Jacobin’ ruthlessness, and Russia renovated and regenerated economically. And in the twentieth century this cannot be done merely by sweeping tsarism away (France did not confine herself to this 125 years ago). It cannot be done even by the mere revolutionary abolition of the landed estates (we have not even done that, for the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks have betrayed the peasants), by the mere transfer of the land to the peasants. For we are living in the twentieth century, and mastery over the land without mastery over the banks cannot regenerate and renovate the life of the people.
The material, industrial renovation of France at the end of the eighteenth century was associated with a political and spiritual renovation, with the dictatorship of revolutionary democrats and the revolutionary proletariat (from which the democrats had not dissociated themselves and with which they were still almost fused), and with a ruthless war declared on everything reactionary. The whole people, and especially the masses, i.e. the oppressed classes, were swept up by boundless revolutionary enthusiasm; everybody considered the war a just war of defence, as it actually was. Revolutionary France was defending herself against reactionary monarchist Europe. It was not in 1792-93, but many years later, after the victory of reaction within the country, that the counter-revolutionary dictatorship of Napoleon turned France’s wars from defensive wars into wars of conquest.
And what about Russia? We continue to wage an imperialist war in the interests of the capitalists, in alliance with the imperialists and in accordance with the secret treaties the tsar concluded with the capitalists of Britain and other countries, promising the Russian capitalists in these treaties the spoliation of foreign lands, of Constantinople, Lvov, Armenia, etc.
The war will remain an unjust, reactionary and predatory war on Russia’s part as long as she does not propose a just peace and does not break with imperialism. The social character of the war, its true meaning, is not determined by the position of the enemy troops (as the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks think, stooping to the vulgarity of an ignorant yokel). What determines this character is the policy of which the war is a continuation (‘war is the continuation of politics’), the class that is waging the war, and the aims for which it is waging this war.
You cannot lead the people into a predatory war in accordance with secret treaties and expect them to be enthusiastic. The foremost class in revolutionary Russia, the proletariat, is becoming increasingly aware of the criminal character of the war, and not only have the bourgeoisie been unable to shatter this popular conviction, but, on the contrary, awareness of the criminal character of the war is growing. The proletariat of both metropolitan cities of Russia has definitely become internationalist!
How, then, can you expect mass enthusiasm for the war!
One is inseparable from the other – home policy is inseparable from foreign policy. The country cannot be made capable of self-defence without the supreme heroism of the people in boldly and resolutely carrying out great economic transformations. And it is impossible to arouse popular heroism without breaking with imperialism, without proposing a democratic peace to all nations, and without thus turning the war from a criminal war of conquest and plunder into a just, revolutionary war of defence.
Only a thorough and consistent break with the capitalists in both home and foreign policy can save our revolution and our country, which is gripped in the iron vice of imperialism.
A Letter to the Central Committee of the RSDLP(B)
13-14 (26-27) September 1917
One of the most vicious and probably most widespread distortions of Marxism resorted to by the dominant ‘socialist’ parties is the opportunist lie that preparation for insurrection, and generally the treatment of insurrection as an art, is ‘Blanquism’.
Bernstein, the leader of opportunism, has already earned himself unfortunate fame by accusing Marxism of Blanquism, and when our present-day opportunists cry Blanquism they do not improve on or ‘enrich’ the meagre ‘ideas’ of Bernstein one little bit.
Marxists are accused of Blanquism for treating insurrection as an art! Can there be a more flagrant perversion of the truth, when not a single Marxist will deny that it was Marx who expressed himself on this score in the most definite, precise and categorical manner, referring to insurrection specifically as an art, saying that it must be treated as an art, that you must win the first success and then proceed from success to success, never ceasing the offensive against the enemy, taking advantage of his confusion, etc., etc.?
To be successful, insurrection must rely not upon conspiracy and not upon a party, but upon the advanced class. That is the first point. Insurrection must rely upon a revolutionary upsurge of the people. That is the second point. Insurrection must rely upon that turning-point in the history of the growing revolution when the activity of the advanced ranks of the people is at its height, and when the vacillations in the ranks of the enemy and in the ranks of the weak, half-hearted and irresolute friends of the revolution are strongest. That is the third point. And these three conditions for raising the question of insurrection distinguish Marxism from Blanquism.
Once these conditions exist, however, to refuse to treat insurrection as an art is a betrayal of Marxism and a betrayal of the revolution.
To show that it is precisely the present moment that the Party must recognise as the one in which the entire course of events has objectively placed insurrection on the order of the day and that insurrection must be treated as an art, it will perhaps be best to use the method of comparison, and to draw a parallel between 3-4 July and the September days.
On 3-4 July it could have been argued, without violating the truth, that the correct thing to do was to take power, for our enemies would in any case have accused us of insurrection and ruthlessly treated us as rebels. However, to have decided on this account in favour of taking power at that time would have been wrong, because the objective conditions for the victory of the insurrection did not exist.
- We still lacked the support of the class which is the vanguard of the revolution.
We still did not have a majority among the workers and soldiers of Petrograd and Moscow. Now we have a majority in both Soviets. It was created solely by the history of July and August, by the experience of the ‘ruthless treatment’ meted out to the Bolsheviks, and by the experience of the Kornilov revolt.
- There was no country-wide revolutionary upsurge at that time. There is now, after the Kornilov revolt; the situation in the provinces and assumption of power by the Soviets in many localities prove this.
- At that time there was no vacillation on any serious political scale among our enemies and among the irresolute petty bourgeoisie. Now the vacillation is enormous. Our main enemy, Allied and world imperialism (for world imperialism is headed by the ‘Allies’), has begun to waver between a war to a victorious finish and a separate peace directed against Russia. Our petty-bourgeois democrats, having clearly lost their majority among the people, have begun to vacillate enormously, and have rejected a bloc, i.e. a coalition, with the Cadets.
- Therefore, an insurrection on 3-4 July would have been a mistake; we could not have retained power either physically or politically. We could not have retained it physically even though Petrograd was at times in our hands, because at that time our workers and soldiers would not have fought and died for Petrograd. There was not at the time that ‘savageness’, or fierce hatred both of the Kerenskys and of the Tseretelis and Chernovs. Our people had still not been tempered by the experience of the persecution of the Bolsheviks in which the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks participated.
We could not have retained power politically on 3-4 July because, before the Kornilov revolt, the army and the provinces could and would have marched against Petrograd.
Now the picture is entirely different.
We have the following of the majority of a class, the vanguard of the revolution, the vanguard of the people, which is capable of carrying the masses with it.
We have the following of the majority of the people, because Chernov’s resignation, while by no means the only symptom, is the most striking and obvious symptom that the peasants will not receive land from the Socialist-Revolutionaries’ bloc (or from the Socialist-Revolutionaries themselves). And that is the chief reason for the popular character of the revolution.
We are in the advantageous position of a party that knows for certain which way to go at a time when imperialism as a whole and the Menshevik and Socialist-Revolutionary bloc as a whole are vacillating in an incredible fashion.
Our victory is assured, for the people are close to desperation, and we are showing the entire people a sure way out; we demonstrated to the entire people during the ‘Kornilov days’ the value of our leadership, and then proposed to the politicians of the bloc a compromise, which they rejected, although there is no let-up in their vacillations.
It would be a great mistake to think that our offer of a compromise had not yet been rejected, and that the Democratic Conference may still accept it. The compromise was proposed by a party to parties; it could not have been proposed in any other way. It was rejected by parties. The Democratic Conference is a conference, and nothing more. One thing must not be forgotten, namely, that the majority of the revolutionary people, the poor, embittered peasants, are not represented in it. It is a conference of a minority of the people – this obvious truth must not be forgotten. It would be a big mistake, sheer parliamentary cretinism on our part, if we were to regard the Democratic Conference as a parliament; for even if it were to proclaim itself a permanent and sovereign parliament of the revolution, it would nevertheless decide nothing. The power of decision lies outside it in the working-class quarters of Petrograd and Moscow.
All the objective conditions exist for a successful insurrection. We have the exceptional advantage of a situation in which only our victory in the insurrection can put an end to that most painful thing on earth, vacillation, which has worn the people out; in which only our victory in the insurrection will give the peasants land immediately; a situation in which only our victory in the insurrection can foil the game of a separate peace directed against the revolution – foil it by publicly proposing a fuller, juster and earlier peace, a peace that will benefit the revolution.
Finally, our Party alone can, by a victorious insurrection, save Petrograd; for if our proposal for peace is rejected, if we do not secure even an armistice, then we shall become ‘defencists’, we shall place ourselves at the head of the war parties, we shall be the war party par excellence, and we shall conduct the war in a truly revolutionary manner. We shall take away all the bread and boots from the capitalists. We shall leave them only crusts and dress them in bast shoes. We shall send all the bread and footwear to the front.
And then we shall save Petrograd.
The resources, both material and spiritual, for a truly revolutionary war in Russia are still immense; the chances are a hundred to one that the Germans will grant us at least an armistice. And to secure an armistice now would in itself mean to win the whole world.
* * *
Having recognised the absolute necessity for an insurrection of the workers of Petrograd and Moscow in order to save the revolution and to save Russia from a ‘separate’ partition by the imperialists of both groups, we must first adapt our political tactics at the Conference to the conditions of the growing insurrection; secondly, we must show that it is not only in words that we accept Marx’s idea that insurrection must be treated as an art.
At the Conference we must immediately cement the Bolshevik group, without striving after numbers, and without fearing to leave the waverers in the waverers’ camp. They are more useful to the cause of the revolution there than in the camp of the resolute and devoted fighters.
We must draw up a brief declaration from the Bolsheviks, emphasising in no uncertain manner the irrelevance of long speeches and of ‘speeches’ in general, the necessity for immediate action to save the revolution, the absolute necessity for a complete break with the bourgeoisie, for the removal of the present government, in its entirety, for a complete rupture with the Anglo-French imperialists, who are preparing a ‘separate’ partition of Russia, and for the immediate transfer of all power to revolutionary democrats, headed by the revolutionary proletariat.
Our declaration must give the briefest and most trenchant formulation of this conclusion in connection with the programme proposals of peace for the peoples, land for the peasants, confiscation of scandalous profits, and a check on the scandalous sabotage of production by the capitalists.
The briefer and more trenchant the declaration, the better. Only two other highly important points must be clearly indicated in it, namely, that the people are worn out by the vacillations, that they are fed up with the irresolution of the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks; and that we are definitely breaking with these parties because they have betrayed the revolution.
And another thing. By immediately proposing a peace without annexations, by immediately breaking with the Allied imperialists and with all imperialists, either we shall at once obtain an armistice, or the entire revolutionary proletariat will rally to the defence of the country, and a really just, really revolutionary war will then be waged by revolutionary democrats under the leadership of the proletariat.
Having read this declaration, and having appealed for decisions and not talk, for action and not resolution-writing, we must dispatch our entire group to the factories and the barracks. Their place is there, the pulse of life is there, there is the source of salvation for our revolution, and there is the motive force of the Democratic Conference.
There, in ardent and impassioned speeches, we must explain our programme and put the alternative: either the Conference adopts it in its entirety, or else insurrection. There is no middle course. Delay is impossible. The revolution is dying.
By putting the question in this way, by concentrating our entire group in the factories and barracks, we shall be able to determine the right moment to start the insurrection.
In order to treat insurrection in a Marxist way, i.e. as an art, we must at the same time, without losing a single moment, organise a headquarters of the insurgent detachments, distribute our forces, move the reliable regiments to the most important points, surround the Alexandrinsky Theatre, occupy the Peter and Paul Fortress, arrest the General Staff and the government, and move against the officer cadets and the Savage Division those detachments which would rather die than allow the enemy to approach the strategic points of the city.[5] We must mobilise the armed workers and call them to fight the last desperate fight, occupy the telegraph and the telephone exchange at once, move our insurrection headquarters to the central telephone exchange and connect it by telephone with all the factories, all the regiments, all the points of armed fighting, etc.
Of course, this is all by way of example, only to illustrate the fact that at the present moment it is impossible to remain loyal to Marxism, to remain loyal to the revolution unless insurrection is treated as an art.
26-27 September (9-10 October) 1917
Russia is a country of the petty bourgeoisie, by far the greater part of the population belonging to this class. Its vacillations between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat are inevitable, and only when it joins the proletariat is the victory of the revolution, of the cause of peace, freedom and land for the working people assured easily, peacefully, quickly and smoothly.
The course of our revolution shows us these vacillations in practice. Let us then not harbour any illusions about the Socialist-Revolutionary and Menshevik parties; let us stick firmly to the path of our proletarian class. The poverty of the poor peasants, the horrors of the war, the horrors of hunger – all these are showing the masses more and more clearly the correctness of the proletarian path, the need to support the proletarian revolution.
The ‘peaceful’ hopes of the petty bourgeoisie that there might be a ‘coalition’ with the bourgeoisie and agreements with them, that it will be possible to wait ‘calmly’ for the ‘speedy’ convocation of the Constituent Assembly, etc., have been mercilessly, cruelly, implacably destroyed by the course of the revolution. The Kornilov revolt was the last cruel lesson, a lesson on a grand scale, supplementing thousands upon thousands of small lessons in which workers and peasants were deceived by local capitalists and landowners, in which soldiers were deceived by the officers etc., etc.
Discontent, indignation and wrath are growing in the army, among the peasantry and among the workers. The ‘coalition’ of the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks with the bourgeoisie, promising everything and fulfilling nothing, is irritating the masses, is opening their eyes, is pushing them towards insurrection.
There is a growing Left opposition among the Socialist-Revolutionaries (Spiridonova and others) and among the Mensheviks (Martov and others), and has already reached 40 per cent of the Council and Congress of those parties. And down below, among the proletariat and the peasantry, particularly the poorest sections, the majority of the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks belong to the Lefts.
The Kornilov revolt is instructive and has proved a good lesson.
It is impossible to know whether the Soviets will be able to go farther than the leaders of the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks, and thus ensure a peaceful development of the revolution, or whether they will continue to mark time, thus making a proletarian uprising inevitable.
We cannot know this.
Our business is to help get everything possible done to make sure the ‘last’ chance for a peaceful development of the revolution, to help by the presentation of our programme, by making clear its national character, its absolute accord with the interests and demands of a vast majority of the population.
The following lines are an essay in the presentation of such a programme.
Let us take it more to those down below, to the masses, to the office employees, to the workers, to the peasants, not only to our supporters, but particularly to those who follow the Socialist-Revolutionaries, to the non-party elements, to the ignorant. Let us lift them up so that they can pass an independent judgment, make their own decisions, send their own delegations to the Conference, to the Soviets, to the government, and our work will not have been in vain, no matter what the outcome of the Conference. This will then prove useful for the Conference, for the elections to the Constituent Assembly and for all other political activity in general.
Experience teaches us that the Bolshevik programme and tactics are correct. So little time passed, so much happened from 20 April to the Kornilov revolt.
The experience of the masses, the experience of oppressed classes taught them very, very much in that time; the leaders of the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks have completely cut adrift from the masses. This will most certainly be revealed in the discussion of our concrete programme insofar as we are able to bring it to the notice of the masses.
Agreements with the capitalists are disastrous
- To leave in power the representatives of the bourgeoisie, even a small number of them, to leave in power such notorious Kornilovites as Generals Alexeyev, Klembovsky, Bagration, Gagarin, and others, or such as have proved their complete powerlessness in face of the bourgeoisie, and their ability of acting Bonaparte-fashion like Kerensky, is, on the one hand, merely opening the door wide to famine and the inevitable economic catastrophe which the capitalists are purposely accelerating and intensifying; on the other hand, it will lead to a military catastrophe, since the army hates the General Staff and cannot enthusiastically participate in the imperialist war. Besides, there is no doubt that Kornilovite generals and officers remaining in power will deliberately open the front to the Germans, as they have done in Galicia and Riga. This can be prevented only by the formation of a new government on a new basis, as expounded below. To continue any kind of agreements with the bourgeoisie after all that we have gone through since 20 April would be, on the part of the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks, not only an error but a direct betrayal of the people and of the revolution.
Power to the Soviets
- All power in the country must pass exclusively to the representatives of the Soviets of Workers’, Soldiers’ and Peasants’ Deputies on the basis of a definite programme and under the condition of the government being fully responsible to the Soviets. New elections to the Soviets must be held immediately, both to record the experience of the people during the recent weeks of the revolution, which have been particularly eventful, and to eliminate crying injustices (lack of proportional representation, unequal elections, etc.) which in some cases still remain.
All power locally, wherever there are not yet any democratically elected institutions, and also in the army, must be taken over exclusively by the local Soviets and by commissars and other institutions elected by them, but only those that have been properly elected.
Workers and revolutionary troops, i.e. those who have in practice shown their ability to suppress the Kornilovites, must everywhere be armed, and this must be done with the full support of the state.
Peace to the peoples
- The Soviet Government must straight away offer to all the belligerent peoples (i.e. simultaneously both to their governments and to the worker and peasant masses) to conclude an immediate general peace on democratic terms, and also to conclude an immediate armistice (even if only for three months).
The main condition for a democratic peace is the renunciation of annexations (seizures) – not in the incorrect sense that all powers get back what they have lost, but in the only correct sense that every nationality without any exception, both in Europe and in the colonies, shall obtain its freedom and the possibility to decide for itself whether it is to form a separate state or whether it is to enter into the composition of some other state.
In offering the peace terms, the Soviet Government must itself immediately take steps towards their fulfilment, i.e. it must publish and repudiate the secret treaties by which we have been bound up to the present time, those which were concluded by the tsar and which give Russian capitalists the promise of the pillaging of Turkey, Austria, etc. Then we must immediately satisfy the demands of the Ukrainians and the Finns, ensure them, as well as all other non-Russian nationalities in Russia, full freedom, including freedom of secession, applying the same to all Armenia, undertaking to evacuate that country as well as the Turkish lands occupied by us, etc.
Such peace terms will not meet with the approval of the capitalists, but they will meet with such tremendous sympathy on the part of all the peoples and will cause such a great world-wide outburst of enthusiasm and of general indignation against the continuation of the predatory war that it is extremely probable that we shall at once obtain a truce and a consent to open peace negotiations. For the workers’ revolution against the war is irresistibly growing everywhere, and it can be spurred on, not by phrases about peace (with which the workers and peasants have been deceived by all the imperialist governments, including our own Kerensky government), but by a break with the capitalists and by the offer of peace.
If the least probable thing happens, i.e. if not a single belligerent state accepts even a truce, then as far as we are concerned the war becomes truly forced upon us, it becomes a truly just war of defence. If this is understood by the proletariat and the poor peasantry, Russia will become many times stronger even in the military sense, especially after a complete break with the capitalists who are robbing the people; furthermore, under such conditions it would, as far as we are concerned, be a war in league with the oppressed classes of all countries, a war in league with the oppressed peoples of the whole world, not in word, but in deed.
The people must be particularly cautioned against the capitalists’ assertion which sometimes influences the petty bourgeoisie and others who are frightened, namely, that the British and other capitalists are capable of doing serious damage to the Russian revolution if we break the present predatory alliance with them. Such an assertion is false through and through, for ‘Allied financial aid’ enriches the bankers and ‘supports’ the Russian workers and peasants in exactly the same way as a rope supports a man who has been hanged. There is plenty of bread, coal, oil and iron in Russia; for these products to be properly distributed it is only necessary for us to rid ourselves of the landowners and capitalists who are robbing the people. As to the possibility of the Russian people being threatened with war by their present Allies, it is obviously absurd to assume that the French and Italians could unite their armies with those of the Germans and move them against Russia who offers a just peace. As to Britain, America and Japan, even if they were to declare war against Russia (which for them is extremely difficult, both because of the extreme unpopularity of such a war among the masses and because of the divergence of material interests of the capitalists of those countries over the partitioning of Asia, especially over the plunder of China), they could not cause Russia one-hundredth part of the damage and misery which the war with Germany, Austria and Turkey is causing her.
Land to those who till it
- The Soviet Government must immediately declare the abolition of private landed estates without compensation and place all these estates under the management of the peasant committees pending the solution of the problem by the Constituent Assembly. These peasant committees are also to take over all the landowners’ stock and implements, with the proviso that they be placed primarily at the disposal of the poor peasants for their use free of charge.
Such measures, which have long been demanded by an immense majority of the peasantry, both in the resolutions of congresses and in hundreds of mandates from local peasants (as may be seen, for instance, from a summary of 242 mandates published by Izvestia Soveta Krestyanskikh Deputatov), are absolutely and urgently necessary. There must be no further procrastination like that from which the peasantry suffered so much at the time of the ‘coalition’ government.
Any government that hesitates to introduce these measures should be regarded as a government hostile to the people that should be overthrown and crushed by an uprising of the workers and peasants. On the other hand, only a government that realises these measures will be a government of all the people.
Struggle against famine and economic ruin
- The Soviet Government must immediately introduce workers’ control of production and distribution on a nation-wide scale. Experience since 6 May has shown that in the absence of such control, all the promises of reforms and attempts to introduce them are powerless, and famine, accompanied by unprecedented catastrophe, is becoming a greater menace to the whole country week by week.
It is necessary to nationalise the banks and the insurance business immediately, and also the most important branches of industry (oil, coal, metallurgy, sugar, etc.), and at the same time, to abolish commercial secrets and to establish unrelaxing supervision by the workers and peasants over the negligible minority of capitalists who wax rich on government contracts and evade accounting and just taxation of their profits and property.
Such measures, which do not deprive either the middle peasants, the Cossacks or the small handicraftsmen of a single kopek, are urgently needed for the struggle against famine and are absolutely just because they distribute the burdens of the war equitably. Only after capitalist plunder has been curbed and the deliberate sabotage of production has been stopped will it be possible to work for an improvement in labour productivity, introduce universal labour conscription and the proper exchange of grain for manufactured goods, and return to the Treasury thousands of millions in paper money now being hoarded by the rich.
Without such measures, the abolition of the landed estates without compensation is also impossible, for the major part of the estates is mortgaged to the banks, so that the interests of the landowners and capitalists are inseparably linked up.
The latest resolution of the Economic Department of the All-Russia Central Executive Committee of Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies (Rabochaya Gazeta, No. 152) recognises not only the “harm” caused by the government’s measures (like the raising of grain prices for the enrichment of the landowners and kulaks), not only “the fact of the complete inactivity on the part of the central organs set up by the government for the regulation of economic life”, but even the “contravention of the laws” by this government. This admission on the part of the ruling parties, the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks, proves once more the criminal nature of the policy of conciliation with the bourgeoisie.
Struggle against the counter-revolution of the landowners and capitalists
- The Kornilov and Kaledin revolt was supported by the entire class of the landowners and capitalists, with the party of the Cadets (‘people’s freedom’ party) at their head. This has already been fully proved by the facts published in Izvestia of the Central Executive Committee.
However, nothing has been done either to suppress this counter-revolution completely or even to investigate it, and nothing serious can be done without the transfer of power to the Soviets. No commission can conduct a full investigation, or arrest the guilty, etc., unless it holds state power. Only a Soviet government can do this, and must do it. Only a Soviet government can make Russia secure against the otherwise inevitable repetition of ‘Kornilov’ attempts by arresting the Kornilovite generals and the ringleaders of the bourgeois counter-revolution (Guchkov, Milyukov, Ryabushinsky, Maklakov and co.), by disbanding the counter-revolutionary associations (the State Duma, the officers’ unions, etc.), by placing their members under the surveillance of the local Soviets and by disbanding counter-revolutionary armed units.
This government alone can set up a commission to make a full and public investigation of the Kornilov case and all the other cases, even those started by the bourgeoisie; and the party of the Bolsheviks, in its turn, would appeal to the workers to give full cooperation and to submit only to such a commission.
Only a Soviet government could successfully combat such a flagrant injustice as the capitalists’ seizure of the largest printing presses and most of the papers with the aid of millions squeezed out of the people. It is necessary to suppress the bourgeois counter-revolutionary papers (Rech, Russkoye Slovo, etc.), to confiscate their printing presses, to declare private advertisements in the papers a state monopoly, to transfer them to the paper published by the Soviets, the paper that tells the peasants the truth. Only in this way can and must the bourgeoisie be deprived of its powerful weapon of lying and slandering, deceiving the people with impunity, misleading the peasantry and preparing a counter-revolution.
Peaceful development of the Revolution
- A possibility very seldom to be met with in the history of revolutions now faces the democracy of Russia, the Soviets and the Socialist-Revolutionary and Menshevik parties – the possibility of convening the Constituent Assembly at the appointed date without further delays, of making the country secure against a military and economic catastrophe, and of ensuring the peaceful development of the revolution.
If the Soviets now take full state power exclusively into their own hands for the purpose of carrying out the programme set forth above, they will not only obtain the support of nine-tenths of the population of Russia, the working class and an overwhelming majority of the peasantry; they will also be assured of the greatest revolutionary enthusiasm on the part of the army and the majority of the people, an enthusiasm without which victory over famine and war is impossible.
There could be no question of any resistance to the Soviets if the Soviets themselves did not waver. No class will dare start an uprising against the Soviets, and the landowners and capitalists, taught a lesson by the experience of the Kornilov revolt, will give up their power peacefully and yield to the ultimatum of the Soviets. To overcome the capitalists’ resistance to the programme of the Soviets, supervision over the exploiters by workers and peasants, and such measures of punishing the recalcitrants as confiscation of their entire property coupled with a short term of arrest will be sufficient.
By seizing full power, the Soviets could still today – and this is probably their last chance – ensure the peaceful development of the revolution, peaceful elections of deputies by the people, and a peaceful struggle of parties inside the Soviets; they could test the programmes of the various parties in practice and power could pass peacefully from one party to another.
The entire course of development of the revolution, from the movement of 20 April to the Kornilov revolt, shows that there is bound to be the bitterest civil war between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat if this opportunity is missed. Inevitable catastrophe will bring this war nearer. It must end, as all data and considerations accessible to human reason go to prove, in the full victory of the working class, in that class, supported by the poor peasantry, carrying out the above programme; it may, however, prove very difficult and bloody, and may cost the lives of tens of thousands of landowners, capitalists and officers who sympathise with them. The proletariat will not hesitate to make every sacrifice to save the revolution, which is possible only by implementing the programme set forth above. On the other hand, the proletariat would support the Soviets in every way if they were to make use of their last chance to secure a peaceful development of the revolution.
25-26 October (7-8 November) 1917
Editor’s note:
The Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets met on 25-26 October 1917, at 22:40, in the Smolny Institute. This was the meeting which legalised the taking of power by the Soviets.
Of the 649 delegates elected to the Congress of Soviets, representing 318 provincial/local soviets, 390 were Bolshevik, 160 Socialist-Revolutionaries (about 100 were Left SRs), seventy-two Mensheviks, fourteen Menshevik Internationalists, and thirteen from various other groups.
In its second session, on 26 October, the congress voted on the ‘Decree on Peace’ drafted by Lenin.
We publish here Lenin’s report on this question, which includes the text of the decree, as well as Lenin’s reply to the discussion.
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Report on Peace
26 October (8 November) 1917
The question of peace is a burning question, the painful question of the day. Much has been said and written on the subject, and all of you, no doubt, have discussed it quite a lot. Permit me, therefore, to proceed to read a declaration which the government you elect should publish.
Decree on Peace
The workers’ and peasants’ government, created by the Revolution of 24-25 October and basing itself on the Soviet of Workers’, Soldiers’ and Peasants’ Deputies, calls upon all the belligerent peoples and their government to start immediate negotiations for a just, democratic peace.
By a just or democratic peace, for which the overwhelming majority of the working class and other working people of all the belligerent countries, exhausted, tormented and racked by the war, are craving – a peace that has been most definitely and insistently demanded by the Russian workers and peasants ever since the overthrow of the tsarist monarchy – by such a peace the government means an immediate peace without annexations (i.e. without the seizure of foreign lands, without the forcible incorporation of foreign nations) and without indemnities.
The government of Russia proposes that this kind of peace be immediately concluded by all the belligerent nations, and expresses its readiness to take all the resolute measures now, without the least delay, pending the final ratification of all the terms of such a peace by authoritative assemblies of the people’s representatives of all countries and all nations.
In accordance with the sense of justice of democrats in general, and of the working class in particular, the government conceives the annexation or seizure of foreign lands to mean every incorporation of a small or weak nation into large or powerful state without the precisely, clearly and voluntarily expressed consent and wish of that nation, irrespective of the time when such forcible incorporation took place, irrespective also of the degree of development or backwardness of the nation forcibly annexed to the given state, or forcibly retained within its borders, and irrespective, finally, of whether this nation is in Europe or in distant, overseas countries.
If any nation whatsoever is forcibly retained within the borders of a given state, if, in spite of its expressed desire – no matter whether expressed in the press, at public meetings, in the decisions of parties, or in protests and uprisings against national oppression – it is not accorded the right to decide the forms of its state existence by a free vote, taken after the complete evacuation of the troops of the incorporating or, generally, of the stronger nation, and without the least pressure being brought to bear, such incorporation is annexation, i.e. seizure and violence.
The government considers it the greatest of crimes against humanity to continue this war over the issue of how to divide among the strong and rich nations the weak nationalities they have conquered, and solemnly announces its determination immediately to sign terms of peace to stop this war on the terms indicated, which are equally just for all nationalities without exception.
At the same time, the government declares that it does not regard the above-mentioned peace terms as an ultimatum; in other words, it is prepared to consider any other peace terms, and insists only that they be advanced by any of the belligerent countries as speedily as possible, and that in the peace proposals there should be absolute clarity and the complete absence of all ambiguity and secrecy.
The government abolishes secret diplomacy, and, for its part, announces its firm intention to conduct all negotiations quite openly in full view of the whole people. It will proceed immediately with the full publication of the secret treaties endorsed or concluded by the government of land-owners and capitalists from February to 25 October 1917.[6] The government proclaims the unconditional and immediate annulment of everything contained in these secret treaties insofar as it is aimed, as is mostly the case, at securing advantages and privileges for the Russian landowners and capitalists and at the retention, or extension, of the annexations made by the Great Russians.
Proposing to the governments and peoples of all countries immediately to begin open negotiations for peace, the government, for its part, expresses its readiness to conduct these negotiations in writing, by telegraph, and by negotiations between representatives of the various countries, or at a conference of such representatives. In order to facilitate such negotiations, the government is appointing its plenipotentiary representative to neutral countries.
The government proposes an immediate armistice to the governments and people of all the belligerent countries, and, for its part, considers it desirable that this armistice should be concluded for a period of not less than three months, i.e. a period long enough to permit the completion of negotiations for peace with the participation of the representatives of all peoples or nations, without exception, involved in or compelled to take part in the war, and the summoning of authoritative assemblies of the representatives of the peoples of all countries for the final ratification of the peace terms.
While addressing this proposal for peace to the governments and peoples of all the belligerent countries, the Provisional Workers’ and Peasants’ Government of Russia appeals in particular also to the class-conscious workers of the three most advanced nations of mankind and the largest states participating in the present war, namely, Great Britain, France and Germany. The workers of these countries have made the greatest contributions to the cause of progress and socialism; they have furnished the great examples of the Chartist movement in England, a number of revolutions of historic importance effected by the French proletariat, and, finally, the heroic struggle against the Anti-Socialist Law in Germany, and the prolonged, persistent and disciplined work of creating mass proletarian organisations in Germany, a work which serves as a model to the workers of the whole world. All these examples of proletarian heroism and historical creative work are a pledge that the workers of the countries mentioned will understand the duty that now faces them of saving mankind from the horrors of war and its consequences, that these workers, by comprehensive, determined and supremely vigorous action, will help us to conclude peace successfully, and at the same time emancipate the labouring and exploited masses of our population from all forms of slavery and all forms of exploitation.
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The Workers’ and Peasants’ Government, created by the Revolution of 24-25 October and basing itself on the support of the Soviets of Workers’, Soldiers’ and Peasants’ Deputies, must start immediate negotiations for peace. Our appeal must be addressed both to the governments and to the peoples. We cannot ignore the governments, for that would delay the possibility of concluding peace, and the people’s government dare not do that; but we have no right not to appeal to the peoples at the same time. Everywhere there are differences between the governments and the peoples, and we must therefore help the peoples to intervene in questions of war and peace. We will, of course, insist upon the whole of our programme for a peace without annexations and indemnities. We shall not retreat from it; but we must not give our enemies an opportunity to say that their conditions are different from ours and that therefore it is useless to start negotiations with us. No, we must deprive them of that advantageous position and not present our terms in the form of an ultimatum. Therefore the point is included that we are willing to consider any peace terms and all proposals. We shall consider them, but that does not necessarily mean that we shall accept them. We shall submit them for consideration to the Constituent Assembly which will have the power to decide what concessions can and what cannot be made. We are combating the deception practised by governments which pay lip-service to peace and justice, but in fact wage annexationist and predatory wars. No government will say all it thinks. We, however, are opposed to secret diplomacy and will act openly in full view of the whole people. We do not close our eyes to difficulties and never have done so. War cannot be ended by refusal, it cannot be ended by one side. We are proposing an armistice for three months, but shall not reject a shorter period, so that the exhausted army may breathe freely, even if only for a little while; moreover, in all the civilised countries national assemblies must be summoned for the discussion of the terms.
In proposing an immediate armistice, we appeal to the class-conscious workers of the countries that have done so much for the development of the proletarian movement. We appeal to the workers of Britain, where there was the Chartist movement, to the workers of France, who have in repeated uprisings displayed the strength of their class-consciousness, and to the workers of Germany, who waged the fight against the Anti-Socialist Law and have created powerful organisations.
In the Manifesto of 14 March [issued by the Petrograd Soviet], we called for the overthrow of the bankers, but, far from overthrowing our own bankers, we had entered into an alliance with them. Now we have overthrown the government of the bankers.
The governments and the bourgeoisie will make every effort to unite their forces and drown the workers’ and peasants’ revolution in blood. But the three years of war have been a good lesson to the masses – the Soviet movement in other countries and the mutiny in the German navy, which was crushed by the officer cadets of Wilhelm the hangman. Finally, we must remember that we are not living in the depths of Africa, but in Europe, where news can spread quickly.
The workers’ movement will triumph and will pave the way to peace and socialism. (Prolonged applause)
* * *
Concluding Speech Following the Discussion on the ‘Report on Peace’
26 October (8 November) 1917
I shall not touch on the general character of the declaration. The government which your Congress sets up may amend unessential points.
I shall vigorously oppose lending our demand for peace in the form of an ultimatum. An ultimatum may prove fatal to our whole cause. We cannot demand that, since some insignificant departure from our demands on the part of the imperialist governments would give them the opportunity of saying that it was impossible to enter into negotiations for peace because of our irreconcilability.
We shall send out our appeal everywhere, it will be made known to everybody. It will be impossible to conceal the terms proposed by our workers’ and peasants’ government.
It will be impossible to hush up our workers’ and peasants’ revolution, which has overthrown the government of bankers and landowners.
The governments may not reply to an ultimatum; they will have to reply to the text as we formulate it. Let everyone know what their governments have in mind. We do not want any secrets. We want a government to be always under the supervision of the public opinion of its country.
What will the peasant of some remote province say if, owing to our insistence on ultimatums, he will not know what another government wants? He will say:
‘Comrades, why did you rule out the possibility of any peace terms being proposed? I would have discussed them, I would have examined them, and would then have instructed my representatives in the Constituent Assembly how to act. I am prepared to fight by revolutionary methods for just terms if the governments do not agree, but there might be such terms for some countries that I would be prepared to recommend their governments to go on fighting by themselves. The full realisation of our ideas depends solely on the overthrow of the entire capitalist system.’
This is what the peasant might say to us, and he would accuse us of being excessively uncompromising over trifles, when for us the main thing is to expose all the vileness, all the baseness of the bourgeoisie and of its crowned and uncrowned hangmen at the head of the government.
We should not and must not give the governments an opportunity of taking refuge behind our uncompromising attitude and of concealing from the peoples the reason why they are being sent to the shambles. This is a tiny drop, but we should not and must not reject this drop, which will wear away the stone of bourgeois conquest. An ultimatum would make the position of our opponents easier. But we shall make all the terms known to the people. We shall confront all the governments with our terms, and let them give an answer to their people. We shall submit all peace proposals to the Constituent Assembly for decision.
There is still another point, comrades, to which you must pay the most careful attention. The secret treaties must be published. The clauses dealing with annexations and indemnities must be annulled. There are various clauses, comrades – the predatory governments, you know, not only made agreements between themselves on plunder, but among them they also included economic agreements and various other clauses on good-neighbourly relations.
We shall not bind ourselves by treaties. We shall not allow ourselves to be entangled by treaties. We reject all clauses on plunder and violence, but we shall welcome all clauses containing provisions for good-neighbourly relations and all economic agreements; we cannot reject these. We propose an armistice for three months; we choose a lengthy period because the peoples are exhausted, the peoples long for a respite from this bloody shambles that has lasted over three years. We must realise that the peoples should be given an opportunity to discuss the peace terms and to express their will with parliament participating, and this takes time. We demand a lengthy armistice, so that the soldiers in the trenches may enjoy a respite from this nightmare of constant slaughter; but we shall not reject proposals for a shorter armistice; we shall examine them, and it is incumbent upon us to accept them, even if we are offered an armistice of a month or a month and a half. Nor must our proposal for an armistice have the form of an ultimatum, for we shall not give our enemies an opportunity of concealing the whole truth from the peoples, using our irreconcilability as a pretext. It must not be in the form of an ultimatum, for a government is criminal that does not desire an armistice. If we do not put our proposal for an armistice in the form of an ultimatum, we shall thereby show the peoples that the governments are criminal, and the peoples will not stand on ceremony with such criminals. The objection is raised that by not resorting to an ultimatum we are displaying weakness, but it is time to cast aside all bourgeois cant when speaking of the strength of the people. According to the bourgeois conception, there is strength when the people go blindly to the slaughter in obedience to the imperialist governments. The bourgeoisie admit a state to be strong only when it can, by the power of the government apparatus, hurl the people wherever the bourgeois rulers want them hurled. Our idea of strength is different. Our idea is that a state is strong when the people are politically conscious. It is strong when the people know everything, can form an opinion of everything and do everything consciously. We need not fear to tell the truth about fatigue, for what state today is not tired, what nation does not talk about it openly? Take Italy, where, owing to this tiredness, there was a prolonged revolutionary movement demanding the termination of the slaughter. Are there not mass demonstrations of workers in Germany that put forward a demand for the termination of the war? Was it not fatigue that provoked the mutiny in the German navy that was so ruthlessly suppressed by that hangman, Wilhelm, and his hirelings? If such things are possible in so disciplined a country as Germany, where they are beginning to talk about fatigue and about putting an end to the war, we need not fear to say the same openly, because it is the truth, equally true both of our country and of all the belligerent and even non-belligerent countries.
30 October (12 November) 1917
Calling Everyone.
The All-Russia Congress of Soviets has set up a new Soviet Government. Kerensky’s government has been overthrown and arrested. Kerensky has fled. All institutions are in the hands of the Soviet Government. A revolt of officer cadets who had been released on parole on 25 October broke out on 29 October. The revolt was suppressed that same day. Kerensky and Savinkov, together with the officer cadets and a part of the Cossacks, have made their way by deceit to Tsarskoye Selo. The Soviet Government has mustered forces for the suppression of the new Kornilov advance on Petrograd. The fleet, headed by the armoured battleship Republic, has been summoned to the capital. Kerensky’s officer cadets and Cossacks are wavering. Prisoners arriving from Kerensky’s camp assure us that the Cossacks have been deceived and that if they come to realise the true state of affairs they will refuse to shoot. The Soviet Government is making every effort to avert bloodshed. If bloodshed cannot be avoided and if Kerensky’s units do begin to shoot, the Soviet Government will not hesitate to suppress the new Kerensky-Kornilov campaign ruthlessly.
We announce for your information that the Congress of Soviets which has already dispersed, adopted two important decrees: (1) on the immediate transfer of all the landed estates to the peasant committees, and (2) on the proposal of a democratic peace.
Vladimir Ulyanov (Lenin),
Chairman of the Soviet Government
14 December 1917
Editor’s note:
Written on 14 (27) December 1917 at the request of the Swedish Left-wing Social-Democrat Höglund, who had arrived in Petrograd on an assignment from the left-wing Social-Democratic Party of Sweden. The article was first published in German in May 1918 in the newspaper Jugend-Internationale, the organ of the International Alliance of Socialist Youth Organisations, which was affiliated with the Zimmerwald Left (published in Zürich from September 1915 to May 1918).
In November 1919, a facsimile of the opening paragraph was used as an illustration to a special edition of Det röda Ryssland issued by the Left-wing Socialist publishers Fram (Forward) in Stockholm to mark the second anniversary of the October Socialist Revolution in Russia.
* * *
Two questions now take precedence over all other political questions – the question of bread and the question of peace. The imperialist war, the war between the biggest and richest banking firms, Britain and Germany, that is being waged for world domination, the division of the spoils, for the plunder of small and weak nations; this horrible, criminal war has ruined all countries, exhausted all peoples, and confronted mankind with the alternative – either sacrifice all civilisation and perish or throw off the capitalist yoke in the revolutionary way, do away with the rule of the bourgeoisie and win socialism and durable peace.
If socialism is not victorious, peace between the capitalist states will be only a truce, an interlude, a time of preparation for a fresh slaughter of the peoples. Peace and bread are the basic demands of the workers and the exploited. The war has made these demands extremely urgent. The war has brought hunger to the most civilised countries, to those most culturally developed. On the other hand, the war, as a tremendous historical process, has accelerated social development to an unheard-of degree. Capitalism had developed into imperialism, i.e. into monopoly capitalism, and under the influence of the war it has become state monopoly capitalism. We have now reached the stage of world economy that is the immediate stepping stone to socialism.
The socialist revolution that has begun in Russia is, therefore, only the beginning of the world socialist revolution. Peace and bread, the overthrow of the bourgeoisie, revolutionary means for the healing of war wounds, the complete victory of socialism – such are the aims of the struggle.
Endnotes
[1] See LCW, Vol. 24, pp. 186-8.
[2] This refers to the offensive on the South-Western Front launched by the Provisional Government in June 1917, at the insistence of the Russian and Anglo-French imperialists. Kerensky, the War Minister, ordered the offensive on 16 (29) June, which was backed by the defencist Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionary bloc.
[3] On 10-13 September, General Kornilov attempted a coup against the Provisional Government. In response, 25,000 armed workers joined the fight against Kornilov, spearheaded by the Bolsheviks.
[4] Rabochy (The Worker) was the Central Organ of the Bolshevik Party published daily from 25 August (7 September) to 2 (15) September 1917 instead of Pravda, which was closed down by the Provisional Government.
[5] The Savage Division was formed during the First World War from volunteer mountaineers of the North Caucasus. General Kornilov tried to use it as a battering ram in his assault on revolutionary Petrograd.
[6] All secret treaties made by the Provisional and tsarist governments were published beginning on 10 (23) November 1917 in issues of Pravda and Izvestia. In December, the treaties were published in a long series of books, entitled Collection of Secret Documents from the Archives of the Former Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Seven volumes were printed from December 1917 to February 1918.