Comrades, you are all, of course, familiar with the decree published today on mobilisation in the non-agricultural gubernias, and at a gathering like this I need not dwell at length on the reasons that prompted this decree, for you are naturally well aware from the newspapers how suddenly our position became extremely grave owing to Kolchak’s victories on the Eastern Front.

You know that in connection with this military situation all government directives have long been aimed at hurling the main forces against the Southern Front. Indeed, such forces of the Krasnovites were concentrated on the Southern Front, and the nest of unquestionably counter-revolutionary Cossacks—who after 1905 remained just as monarchist as before—was so strong there, that without victory on the Southern Front there could be no question of any consolidation of Soviet proletarian power in the centre. In view of the fact that the imperialist allies were just trying to attack from the south, from the Ukraine, and wanted to make the Ukraine a base against the Soviet Republic, the importance of the Southern Front became all the greater for us, and therefore we have no reason to repent having shaped all our military tasks so as to devote predominant attention and predominant forces to the Southern Front. I think we were not mistaken in this respect. Afterwards the latest news of the capture of Odessa, and today’s news of the capture of Simferopol and Yevpatoria, showed that the situation there is such that this region, which played the main decisive role in the whole war, has now been cleared.

You know very well what incredible efforts the continuation of the civil war costs us after four years of imperialist war, how exhausted the masses are, how incredibly great are the sacrifices the workers are making now, having waged civil war for two years. You know that we are waging war under enormous strain. Therefore, the concentration of all forces on the Southern Front caused an extreme weakening of the Eastern Front. We could not send reinforcements there. The army on the Eastern Front bore unheard-of burdens and sacrifices. It fought for months, and a whole number of working comrades reported by telegram that it was becoming immeasurably difficult for the Red Army men to endure such hardships. As a result, forces on the Eastern Front were overstrained. Meanwhile, Kolchak mobilised the Siberian population—the peasants—with the aid of tsarist, or stick, discipline. He excluded former front-line soldiers from his army, being able to concentrate in the army officers as leaders and the entire counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie. Relying on these, Kolchak recently achieved such gains on the Eastern Front that the Volga is threatened, and we are forced to admit that we shall have to repel Kolchak with enormous exertion of forces. And these forces will have to be supplied from here, for we cannot move them from the south—that would mean leaving the main enemy there unfinished.

Our general position, after the victories in the south and on the Don, is improving with every day, in connection with the international situation. Not a day passes without reports bringing news of an improvement in our international position.

Three months ago the British, French and American capitalists not only seemed, but actually were, a gigantic force that could, of course, have crushed us, had they then been able to use their vast material forces against us. They could have done so. Now we clearly see that they did not, and cannot, do so. Their latest defeat in Odessa shows clearly that, however great the material force of the imperialists, from a purely military standpoint they have met with complete collapse in their campaign against Russia. If we take into consideration that there are Soviet republics in the very heart of Europe, and that the growth of the Soviet form is becoming irresistible, then it can be said without exaggeration, viewing the situation quite soberly, that our victory on an international scale is fully assured.

If matters stood only thus, we could speak with absolute calm, but considering Kolchak’s latest victories, we must say that there are still several months of intense effort ahead of us to crush his troops. There is no doubt that we cannot accomplish this task by the old methods alone, and during the year and a half of Soviet power’s existence we have acquired such customary, perhaps sometimes even routine, methods, which have to a considerable extent exhausted the energy of the advanced section of the working class. We do not shut our eyes to the extreme weariness that is felt in certain sections of the working class, to how hard the struggle is becoming, but at present the calculation is much simpler and clearer. Even for non-supporters of the Soviet power, who consider themselves rather big figures in politics, even for them it is clear that on an international scale our victory is assured.

We shall yet have to go through a period of bitter civil war in connection with Kolchak. We therefore decided that precisely the All-Russia Central Council of Trade Unions—the most authoritative organisation uniting the broad masses of the proletariat—must, for its part, propose a number of the most energetic measures that would help us to end the war finally in a few months. This is perfectly possible, because our international position is improving, and in this respect we are fully assured. Our rear in Europe and America is in the very best condition, something we could not even dream of five months ago. Here it can be said that Messieurs Wilson and Clemenceau have set themselves the task of helping us: the telegrams that bring daily news of their quarrels, of their mutual desire to slam the door in each other’s faces, show that these gentlemen are completely at loggerheads.

But the clearer it becomes that on an international scale our cause is won, the more desperately and bitterly the Russian landlords and capitalists, and the kulaks who fled beyond the Urals, fight. All this not very respectable fraternity is fighting desperately. You have, of course, noticed in the newspaper reports the lengths to which the White-Guard terror went in Ufa; there is no doubt that these White-Guard elements, this bourgeoisie, are staking their last. The bourgeoisie is embittered to the utmost; by the most desperate offensive they hope to force us to divert part of our forces from the decisive Southern Front. We shall not do this, and we openly tell the workers that this means the need for fresh and fresh exertions of our forces in the East.

I shall take the liberty of proposing to you a number of practical measures which, in my opinion, should bring about a new grouping of forces and new definite tasks for the trade unions, and which I consider necessary in the situation I have just briefly outlined. There is no need to dwell on this further—everyone knows it. This situation makes it possible, reasoning in the most sober way, to end both the civil war and, on an international scale, the war in a few months. But an exertion of forces during these few months is essential. The first task that should be set before the trade unions:

“1. All-round support for the mobilisation announced on 11 April 1919.
All forces of the Party and trade unions must be mobilised immediately so that, precisely in the coming days, without the slightest delay in the mobilisation decreed by the Council of People’s Commissars on 10 April 1919, the most energetic assistance shall be rendered.
It is necessary at once to ensure that the mobilised see the active participation of the trade unions and feel the support of the working class.
In particular, it is necessary to make clear to each and every one mobilised that his immediate despatch to the front will bring him an improvement in food supply, firstly, because of better soldiers’ provisioning in the grain-rich front-line belt; secondly, owing to the distribution of grain brought to the famine-stricken gubernias among a smaller number of mouths; thirdly, because of the extensive organisation of food parcels from the front-line areas to the homeland, to the families of Red Army men....”

Of course, I mentioned the food supply situation only briefly here, but you all understand that this is our main internal difficulty, and that if it were not possible to link mobilisation with a rapid advance into front-line and grain-producing localities, with the organisation of formation units precisely there and not here—were this possibility absent, mobilisation would be hopeless, i.e., one could not count on its success. But now such a possibility exists. The mobilisation is directed mostly at the non-agricultural gubernias, at the places where the workers and peasants suffer most from famine. We can move them, first of all, to the Don—now the whole Don Region is in our hands; the struggle against the Cossacks has been going on a long time, and there it is possible to improve the nutrition of the advanced units, not only directly but also through the development of food-parcels. Steps have been taken in this respect, and food parcels up to 20 pounds twice a month have been allowed. An agreement on this has been reached. And thus the privileges that last year had to be granted in the form of the one-and-a-half-pood system—these can be compared with a broader measure—food parcels that will be able to support the families of Red Army men here.

By developing such activity we shall combine aid to the front with an improvement in food supply for the main non-agricultural areas, which suffer most in this respect. It is understandable that the movement to the Don will be linked with the movement to the Volga area, where the enemy has now dealt us such a heavy blow that beyond the Volga, in the east, several million poods of already procured grain have been lost. There the war is most immediately and directly a war for bread. The task of the trade unions is to ensure that this mobilisation does not pass within the framework of the usual phenomenon, but is combined with trade-union assistance to the Soviets. In the theses which I have read, this is set forth somewhat insufficiently concretely. I think that this all-round assistance should be expressed first by an exemplary series of measures, and then by the drafting of concrete instructions and a practical plan as to exactly how the trade unions, mobilising all forces, should help this mobilisation, in order to impart to it the character not only of a military-food measure, but also of a momentous political step, to make it the cause of the working class, which is aware that we can end the war in a few months because the arrival of new allies on an international scale is assured. This can only be achieved by the proletarian organisations, only by the trade unions. I am not in a position to enumerate these practical measures. I think that only the trade unions themselves can do that. They can solve this task by taking local peculiarities into account, by putting matters on a practical footing. Our task is to give the main political directives to the working class, which must rally anew and become aware of this truth, which is very bitter because it brings a fresh burden, but which at the same time outlines a real and practical path for overcoming the difficulties in a short space of time. By intensified movement of the workers to the grain-rich south we strengthen the forces there, and if the troops of the White Guards and landlords count on compelling us by their victories in the east to shake the south, they will not, I think, succeed, and I am firmly confident that we shall not shake the south and will support the east. The enemy has rallied the Siberian youth, avoiding the front-line soldiers—he fears them—and has moved the Siberian peasants. This is his last stake, his last resource. He has no support, no live force. The allies could not render him support. They proved unable to do so.

That is why I appeal to the representatives of the trade union movement with a request to pay the greatest attention to this matter and to ensure that the mobilisation does not go off in the old way. This must be a gigantic political campaign of the working class—not only a military-food but also a major political campaign. Weighing matters in the most sober way from the standpoint of the factors of war and class relations, no one doubts that this will decide matters in the next few months. For this it is necessary that the trade unions do not confine themselves within the old framework of work. Acting within the old framework, this task cannot be solved. A new sweep is needed here. One must act not only as trade unionists, but also as revolutionaries who are deciding the basic question of the Soviet Republic, the question that was decided by us in October—the question of ending the imperialist war and beginning socialist construction. Now the trade unions must act in the same way as revolutionaries—by mass action, not confining themselves to the old framework, deciding the practical question of ending the civil war in Russia. This end is very near, but it is exceedingly difficult. Further:

“2. In the front-line localities, especially in the Volga area, the arming of all members of the trade unions to a man must be carried out, and in the event of a shortage of weapons, their mobilisation to a man for all kinds of assistance to the Red Army, to replace those out of action, etc....

3. The most serious attention must be paid to intensifying agitation, especially among those being mobilised, those already mobilised, and Red Army men. Not to confine oneself to the usual methods of agitation—lectures, meetings, etc.—to develop agitation by groups and individual workers among the Red Army men, to distribute the rank-and-file workers, members of the trade union, among barracks, Red Army units, factories. The trade unions must organise verification to ensure that each of their members takes part in house-to-house agitation, in distributing leaflets, and in personal talks.”

We are now, of course, somewhat unused to the methods of agitation of the old days, when we were a persecuted party or a party fighting for power. State power gave us a vast state apparatus by means of which agitation was put on new lines. During these eighteen months it has been conducted on a different scale, but given the desperate ruin left by the imperialist war, which the civil war intensified, and given the terrible difficulties when invasion descended upon a whole number of Russian gubernias, you know that our agitation has not achieved anything like what is needed. It has worked wonders compared with the old, but it has not done everything and has not seen the job through. The vast masses of peasants and workers are now extremely little reached by agitation. That is why we cannot confine ourselves to the old framework here; in no case must we rely on the fact that there are now state Soviet organs for this. If we relied on that, we should not solve the task. In this respect we must remember the old ways, we must pay more attention to personal initiative, and say that, once this personal initiative is applied on a mass scale, we shall now achieve more than before, precisely because now the working class, although in the mass it has tired representatives, has nevertheless instinctively grasped the essence of the task. Even those who in their political ideology—Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries—fought tooth and nail against understanding the real state of affairs, barricaded themselves with iron shields, not understanding the reality—even they have understood that here a struggle is going on throughout the whole world between the old, bourgeois system and the new, Soviet one. Ever since the German revolution showed itself in practice; ever since its government brought about only the murder of the best leaders of the proletariat, with the support of the social-patriots of the majority; ever since Soviet power was victorious in a number of European countries—ever since then the question has been settled in practice. The question stands thus: Soviet power or the old, bourgeois order. This has been practically settled on a historical scale. The instinct of the workers has decided the matter; this instinct must be transformed into tenfold agitation.

We cannot increase the food supply when there is none, or tenfold the number of professional agitators and intellectuals when there are none—that we cannot do. But we can say to the broad mass of workers: you are not now what you were before yesterday. If you set to work by methods that represent personal agitation, your numbers will win.

We shall achieve a situation where, out of this mobilisation, there emerges not merely an ordinary mobilisation, but a real campaign, finally deciding the fate of the working class, which is aware that these coming months separate us from the last and decisive battle—not in the sense in which the song and the verses say, but in the most literal sense of the word, because we have now weighed our practical forces not only in relation to the White Guards.

During the year of war we have weighed our practical forces in relation to international imperialism. There was a time when the Germans were suffocating us, and we knew that the Germans were tied, that one hand was being held by the Anglo-French imperialists. There was a time when the British and French came out against us; both their hands were free. Had they hurled themselves upon us in December 1918, we could not have withstood them, but now we have experienced them for several more hard months and know that they are rotten in the sense of the bourgeois order. Their best troops are only fit for retreating even before the insurgent detachments that were operating in the Ukraine. So we reason quite clearly, and the working class has instinctively felt that here the last battle is coming, that a few months will decide whether we shall win here finally, or whether we shall continue to go through new difficulties.

Of the further measures I shall read those that are outlined here:

“4. Replace all male employees with women. To this end, carry out a new re-registration both of the Party and of the trade unions....

5. Immediately set up, through the trade unions, factory committees, Party organisations, cooperatives, etc., both local and central bureaus of assistance or committees of aid. Their addresses must be published. The population shall be notified of them in the broadest manner.” Every person mobilised, every Red Army man, everyone wishing to travel south, to the Don, or to the Ukraine for food-supply work, must know that in such a bureau of assistance or committee of aid, which is close and accessible to the worker and peasant, he will find advice, receive instructions, and be helped in his dealings with military institutions, etc.

The special task of such bureaus should be that of rendering assistance in equipping the Red Army. We can increase our army very greatly if we improve its supply of weapons, clothing, etc. Yet among the population there is still no small quantity of weapons that are either hidden or unused by the army. There are not a few factory stocks of various property needed by the army, and what is required is to find it quickly and direct it to the army. The military institutions in charge of army supply must be given immediate, broad and active assistance by the population itself. This task must be tackled with all our might.”

I shall take the liberty of touching briefly on certain different epochs in relation to our military tasks. Our first military task, which confronted us, we solved by the same partisan, irregular insurrection, as the Ukrainian comrades are now solving theirs. There we have not so much a war as a partisan movement and spontaneous insurrection. It yields that gigantic speed of advance and extreme chaos in which it is an immeasurably difficult task to utilise food stocks. There is no old apparatus there at all. Even the one we inherited from the Smolny period of our power—it was a very bad apparatus, working more against us than for us. But why is there no such apparatus in the Ukraine? Because it has not yet passed from the period of partisan warfare and spontaneous uprisings to a regular army, which is characteristic of the consolidated power of any class, including the proletariat. We created this after several months of incredible difficulties.

On the question of supply we set up special institutions. We arrived, through the known use of specialists in supply matters, at placing them under Party control, and now we have everywhere military institutions that are in charge of supply. When the moment of extreme tension of forces arrives, we say: we are not going back to the old partisan warfare, we suffered too much from it; we call for the entry into the existing organised institutions, the regular institutions for the supply of the Red Army, of representatives of the working class. The working class can do this in the mass. You know how much chaos there is in our country in regard to property, its location and direction, etc. Here, assistance in the supply of the Red Army is essential. The military men tell us that things will go successfully if large numbers of soldiers are mobilised who will immediately and finally decide matters on the Eastern Front. This matter is being held up most of all by the shortage of supplies. Considering the ruin left by the imperialist war and the civil war, this is not surprising. But it demands of us that we assimilate and understand the new situation and the new tasks. And it is not enough that we passed a year ago to regular institutions: we must also help these regular institutions with a mass movement, with the mass energy of the working class. Here an approximate scheme is outlined as to how the trade unions could do this. Only the trade unions can do this, because they stand closest to production and guide the most numerous mass of millions of workers. This task will require a change in the tempo and the character of work for several months. In this way we shall secure complete victory in a few months.

“6. Through the trade unions, a broad involvement of the peasants, especially peasant youth of the non-agricultural gubernias, must be organised for the Red Army and for the formation of food-supply detachments and a food-supply army on the Don and in the Ukraine.
This activity can and must be extended many times over; it serves simultaneously both to aid the starving population of the capitals and the non-agricultural gubernias, and to strengthen the Red Army.”

I have already spoken of how our food-supply tasks have become linked with military tasks, and you perfectly understand that we cannot but link these tasks. They must absolutely be linked. Neither task can be solved without the other.

“7. In regard to the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries, the line of the Party, in the present situation, is: to prison those who consciously or unconsciously help Kolchak. We shall not tolerate in our republic labouring people who do not help us in deed in the struggle against Kolchak. But among the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries there are people who wish to render such help. These people must be encouraged, giving them practical tasks, chiefly for technical assistance to the Red Army in the rear, with strict verification of this work....”

Here we must say that we have recently had to go through particularly trying and unpleasant experiences. You know that the leading groups of the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries looked at matters in this way: “No matter what, we wish to remain parliamentarians and to denounce equally both the Bolsheviks and the Kolchakites.” Excuse us, we had to tell them, but this is no time for parliaments. They are seizing us by the throat, and we are fighting the last and decisive battle. We shall not trifle with you. If you stage such strikes, you are committing the greatest crime against the working class. Every strike costs us the lives of thousands and thousands of Red Army men. We see this on the spot. To halt the production of rifles in Tula means to doom thousands of peasants and workers; to deprive us of a few factories in Tula means to take away thousands of workers’ lives. We say: we are at war, we are giving our last strength, we consider this war the only just and lawful war. We have kindled socialism in our own country and throughout the world. Whoever hampers this struggle in the slightest, him we fight without mercy. Whoever is not with us is against us. But if there are people—and we know that among the Mensheviks there are such—who, being unable or unwilling to understand what is happening in Russia, have not yet become convinced that if in Russia these “bad” Bolsheviks have created such a revolution, then in Germany the revolution is being born in immeasurably greater agony. The German democratic republic—what is it? What is German freedom?—It is the freedom to murder the real leaders of the proletariat: Karl Liebknecht, Rosa Luxemburg, and scores of others. With this the Scheidemannites are postponing their defeat. It is clear that they cannot govern. Since November 9, five months of freedom in the German republic have passed. During this time the representatives of power have been either the Scheidemannites or their accomplices. But you know that among them hostility is seething ever more strongly. This example shows that either the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie or the dictatorship of the proletariat is possible; and the extent to which there is no middle way can be seen from the fact that today, for instance, we read in the newspaper Frankfurter Zeitung. It says that the example of Hungary proves that we shall have to go towards socialism. Hungary proved that the bourgeoisie voluntarily hands over power to the Soviets, knowing that the country is in such a desperate state that there is no one to save it, no one to lead the people along such a difficult path of salvation except the Soviets. And to those people who, vacillating between the old and the new, say: although we do not ideologically recognise the dictatorship of the proletariat, we are prepared to help Soviet power while keeping our convictions to ourselves, because we understand that in a furious war one must, without reasoning, fight—to such people we reply: if you want to engage in politics, understanding by politics that you will freely criticise Soviet power before the weary, exhausted masses, without noticing that you are thereby helping Kolchak, we say: such people—implacable war. This line is not easy to assimilate and apply at once. We cannot adhere to a single line in regard to them. We say: if you insist on engaging in your politics, we shall provide you with a place in prison or in other countries that will begin to receive you. We shall treat such countries to a few hundred Mensheviks. Or do you at last wish to say to yourselves: we shall help Soviet power, otherwise it will mean several more years of gigantic calamities, which will all the same end with the victory of Soviet power. Such people must be helped in every way and given practical work. This policy cannot be defined as easily and at once as a policy moving in one direction, but I am convinced that every worker who has observed in practice what a hard war means, what the supply of the Red Army means, what all the atrocities are to which every Red Army man at the front is condemned—every worker will wonderfully understand these lessons of politics. I therefore request that you adopt these theses and that all the forces of the trade unions be strained to translate them into life as energetically and as quickly as possible.