V. I. Lenin

The Present Situation And The

Immediate Tasks Of Soviet Power

Report Delivered To A Joint Meeting Of The All-Russia
Central Executive Committee, The Moscow Soviet Of Workers’
And Red Army Deputies, The All-Russia Council of Trade
Unions And Representatives Of Moscow Factory Committees

July 4, 1919 [1]

Comrades, when one is confronted with the task of assessing our general situation as it now is, the idea enters
one’s head, whether one wishes it or not, of comparing July
1919 with July 1918. I think that such a comparison, which
naturally suggests itself, can best give us a true conception of
those new difficulties--to a certain extent they are also old
difficulties-which have grown up and have made our situation a
burdensome one demanding a fresh effort; on the other hand this
comparison shows us the tremendous step forward that has been made
by the world revolution in that year and tells us why, taking a
most sober, even a most sceptical view of affairs, we again are
quite confident that we are advancing to the complete and final
victory.

Recall the situation a year ago, comrades. It was ill July 1918
that the menacing black clouds had gathered and that seemingly
insurmountable misfortunes threatened the Soviet Republic. The
food situation, then as today, had become graver at the end of the
farming year, when stocks were running short and the new harvest
had not been gathered. Last year the situation was incomparably
worse. Then, as today, serious political and war difficulties,
both at home and abroad, were added to the food difficulties. The
meeting of the Congress of Soviets last year coincided with the
revolt of the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries ill Moscow and the
treason of Muravyov, a Left Socialist-Revolutionary then in
command of the army, who left our front almost open. In the summer
of 1918 there was the gigantic plot in Yaroslavi which, as has now
been proved and is admitted by those participating, was due to the
activities of French Ambassador Noulens, who persuaded Savinkov to
organise the plot with a guarantee that the French troops landed
at Archangel would come to the aid of Yaroslavl and that in the
most difficult situation in Yaroslavi the town could expect to
link with Archangel and the Allies and, consequently, could expect
the early fall of Moscow. At that time the enemy succeeded ill
capturing Samara, Kazan, Simbirsk, Syzran and Saratov ill the
East. In the South, Cossack troops reinforced by German
imperialism--this has been fully established-obtained money and
munitions. The enemy launched an offensive, closed in on us from
two sides and began to poke fun at its. From German imperialist
quarters it was said that if we could not defeat the Czechoslovaks
how could we hope to defeat them. Such was the insolent tone
adopted by the imperialists.

Such was the seemingly hopeless way in which the Soviet
Republic was surrounded at a time of unprecedented food troubles,
at a time when our army was only just beginning to take shape. The
army lacked organisation and experience and we had to get it
together hastily, contingent by contingent, when systematic,
integrated work was out of the question. We lived through that
year and, relying on the experience gained and never once
forgetting the past, we have every right to say today that
although the situation is indeed a difficult one, if we compare
what we experienced last year with the present situation-anyone
who wishes to make a careful study of it, observe and not give way
to his own moods will have no doubts about it-we shall see that
our present situation is incomparably more stable even from the
point of view of the simple internal balance of forces, even by
comparing the facts bearing on our temporary difficulties, and to
give way to panic would be criminal a thousand times over. A year
ago the situation was incomparably more difficult yet those
difficulties were surmounted, so that we may say with absolute
confidence and without any exaggeration of our forces or
underestimation of our difficulties that we shall also surmount
our present difficulties. I must give you the main comparable
figures and speakers who follow me will deal with the question in
greater detail.

When the food situation became acute last summer, things were
so bad that in July and August there was literally nothing in the
warehouses of the Commissariat of Food, the organisation which
deals with food supplies, nothing which could be issued to the
most war-weary, the most tormented and the most hungry people of
the towns and the non-agricultural districts. This year our food
distribution machinery has made a tremendous advance. During the
year from August 1, 1917 to August 1, 1918 we procured only 30
million poods of grain but between August 1, 1918 and May
1, 1919 we procured as much as 100 million poods . This is
very little compared with what we need, and it shows that to win a
victory in the struggle for food there are millions of organisational obstacles that have to be overcome; they are being
erected against us by every peasant who has grain surpluses and
who is used to trading in a free market and who considers it his
sacred right to sell grain at uncontrolled prices; this peasant is
unable to understand that at such a time, when the country is
lighting against. Russian and international capital, trading in
grain is the most serious state crime. It is a mockery of the poor
and the hungry, it is the best service he could do the capitalist
and the profiteer. We know that every peasant who has earned his
livelihood by toil, sweat and blood, by bending his back,
understands what capitalism is. He sympathises with the
proletariat, even if only hazily, instinctively, because he
believes that the proletariat are devoting their whole lives and
forfeiting their blood to overthrow capital. But he will have to
make tremendous progress from this level before lie is able to
uphold the interests of the socialist state and to place those
interests higher than the interests of the huckster who wants to
profit right now while he can sell grain at unheard-of,
unprecedented prices. We are now beginning to get the measure of
it. We have made part of the journey and, therefore, know for
certain that no matter how difficult and tortuous the road, we are
capable of surmounting the difficulties. We have made considerable
progress as compared with last year but we have not yet solved all
problems. We cannot promise an immediate improvement, but we know
that the situation offers much greater hopes; we now know at any
rate that our resources are not cut off as they were last year by
Cossack gangs in the South-East, by German imperialism in the
South-West and by the Czechoslovaks in the grain-producing
East. The situation is much better so that we shall be able to
live through and overcome the next few weeks that will undoubtedly
bring fresh burdens and claim fresh sacrifices knowing that we did
it last year, knowing that our situation is better, knowing that
we already have practical experience of the chief difficulty of
any socialist revolution, the food difficulty. And we really can
say, without relying on assumptions and hopes, but on the basis of
our own practical experience, that we have learned to tackle this
difficulty and will learn to surmount it.

If you take the present war situation in which the Allies
collapsed when they seized the Ukraine after the Germans and when
they had Odessa and Sevastopol, we see that the threat which
seemed irrevocable to the mass of the petty bourgeoisie and to the
scared philistines turned out to be an empty one, that it was
nothing more than a giant with feet of clay. They did everything
they could to help the whiteguards, landowners and capitalists
with arms and ammunition. The British newspapers-and British
ministers, too-boasted openly that they had sent reinforcements to
Denikin. We have received information that they have sent
equipment for 250,000 men and have provided all the arms. We have
also received information, and it has been confirmed, to the
effect that they have sent dozens of tanks. That made possible the
severe attacks by Denikin that were launched at a time when the
enemy was pressing oil us from the East. We know the difficult
time we experienced last July. We do not in the least underestimate the danger and do not close our eyes to the fact
that we must go openly to the masses, we must tell them what the
situation is, tell them the whole truth and open their eyes,
because time more this truth is known to the workers and
particularly to the peasants-it is very difficult to convince
peasants of the truth-the more determinedly, more steadfastly and
class-consciously will they come over to our side. (Applause.)

In the Central Committee, comrades, we yesterday decided that
Comrade Trotsky would make the report to you on the war
situation. Unfortunately the doctors today forbade him absolutely
to make that report. I shall, therefore, outline the situation in
a few words, although I cannot by any means claim the role of
rapporteur on these matters; I can, however, tell in brief
outline, comrades, what we heard yesterday from Comrade Trotsky
who had made a tour of the Southern Front.

The situation there is truly a grave one, extremely heavy
attacks have been launched against us and we have suffered huge
losses. There is a double reason for our failures. Yes, just two
reasons; first, we had to withdraw large numbers of troops and
transfer them as reinforcements to the East at a time when Kolchak
was attacking. Precisely at this time Denikin carried out
universal mobilisation. It is true, as one of the members of the
Revolutionary Council of the Southern Front who has been working
there a long time told us, that universal mobilisation will be the
ruin of Denikin as it was of Kolchak; as long as he had a class
army of volunteers who hated socialism it was strong and sound,
but when he began universal recruitment he did, of course, get an
army together more quickly, but the army became the weaker, and
its class character less pronounced. Peasants recruited into
Denikin’s army will do the same in that army as the Siberian
peasants did in Kolchak’s army-they brought complete disintegration into the army.

Another reason for the failures, apart from the tremendous
increase in Denikin’s army, was the development of guerrilla
methods on the Southern Front. Comrade Trotsky also described this
in detail yesterday. You all know what our armies experienced as a
result of Grigoriev’s adventure, which resulted from
Makhno’s banditry and what the Ukrainian peasants and the
entire Ukrainian proletariat experienced during the rule of the
Hetman. In the Ukraine, owing to the low level of proletarian
class-consciousness, owing to weakness and lack of organisation,
owing to Petlyura’s disorganising tactics arid the pressure
of German imperialism-on these grounds hostility and guerrilla
tactics have emerged spontaneously. In every group the peasants
were taking up arms, electing their own atainan, or “father”, to set up an authority, to create it on the
spot. They paid no attention whatever to the central authorities
and every “father” thought he was the boss on the spot, that lie alone could settle all Ukrainian problems,
disregarding what was being done at the centre. It is now quite
clear to us that in the present circumstances the peasants cannot
he won over by enthusiasm alone-such a method is not reliable. We
have warned the Ukrainian comrades a thousand times that when it
is a matter of the movement of million-strong masses words are not
enough; they must have their own day-to-day experience so that
people can verify instructions themselves, so that they believe in
their own experience. This experience has cost the Ukrainian
peasants very dear. During the German occupation they suffered
incredible misfortunes, made unbelievable sacrifices, many times
greater than what we experienced; nevertheless they still do not
know how to achieve an organisation and how to win their
independence and state sovereignty. In the first period after the
liberation from German imperialism, when Denikin’s gangs
began to gain strength, our troops did not always deal them a
suitable rebuff, and when our troops were held up by the rapid
swelling of the rivers in spring, when it was impossible to
advance and no reinforcements came from here, there arrived that
catastrophic moment in which the first blow fell on the Ukrainian
peasantry as a whole and on the peasantry of the zone contiguous
to the Ukraine and the Don, but which will fortunately cure them
of the defects of guerrilla tactics and chaos. We know full well
that the Ukrainian peasants are strong enough to defeat
Denikin’s forces, and we know that the blows they have received are very grave and will arouse in them a new
classconsciousness and fresh strength. And Comrade Trotsky who
himself saw the incredible losses suffered there, stated
definitely that the experience of the Ukrainians cannot pass
without leaving a trace, that it would bring about a complete
change in the entire psychology of the Ukrainian peasants is that
not what we have experienced? We know that our situation was no
better last year. We know that a number of countries looked upon
us, the young Russian republic, with contempt, and that today the
same thing is beginning in many countries, the same phenomena are
to be observed.

The Ukraine is recuperating with greater difficulty than we die,
but she is recuperating. The lessons of collapse, of guerrilla
tactics, have been assimilated. This will he an epoch of change
in the entire Ukrainian revolution, and that will influence the
entire development of the Ukraine. This is the period of change
we, too, experienced when we turned our hacks on guerrilla
tactics and the scattering of revolutionary phrases-we can do
auything!-and began to realise the need for sound, sustained,
persistent and difficult organising activities. This was the
road we took many months after the October Revolution and on
which we have achieved considerable success. We look towards the
future fully confident that we shall surmount all difficulties.

One of the circumstances that Comrade Trotsky spoke of as being
clear evidence of the change is what he observed in respect of
deserters. He visited many gubernias where the comrades we had
sent to combat desertion from the army had met with no success. He
spoke himself at meetings and saw that tens of thousands of
deserters in this country had either given way to panic or were
trailing along too easily in the wake of the bourgeoisie. Nevertheless we had been ready to draw conclusions
that were tantamount to despair. Trotsky, who travelled through
Kursk and Byazan, was convinced, on the example of a number of
towns, that the change that had taken place in this sphere was
beyond description. Some commissars said they were now swamped
with deserters pouring into the Red Army. They are joining the Red
Army in such numbers that we can suspend our mobilisation as the
ranks are filled by old deserters returning to the army.

The peasants have seen what campaigns by the Cossacks and by
Denikin mean, and the masses of peasants have begun to show a
double degree of class-consciousness—they had wanted an
immediate peace and had been unable to understand that the Civil
War had been forced on us. The peasants did everything they could
to avoid enlistment—they hid in the woods or joined the
green bands [Gangs of bandits in the Ukraine who engaged in plunder under cover of political slogans against Reds and Whites during the Civil War —Editor. ] and there tried to ignore
everything else. This is the state of affairs that led to collapse
in the Ukraine; this was the state of affairs that gave us many
thousands of deserters. Trotsky spoke about the change that took
place when we granted the deserters a longer period in which to
report, when we approached the problem more boldly. Hundreds of
comrades turned up for work in Ryazan Gubernia and the change took
place. They attended the meeting and deserters poured into the Red
Army. The local commissars say they could not keep pace with
them. This is the circumstance connected with the recapture of
Liski railway station which strengthened our positions at Kursk
and Voronezh. This circumstance gave Trotsky reason to say that
the position in the South was serious and that we should bend all
efforts. I maintain, however, that the situation is not
catastrophic. That is the conclusion we arrived at yesterday. (Applause.)

That conclusion is not open to doubt and we shall do everything
to exert all our efforts; we are sure the class consciousness of
the working masses will triumph for we have the experience of the
Ukraine which tells us that the closer Denikin approaches and the
clearer it becomes what lie and the capitalists, and landowners
are bringing, the easier will it be for us to combat desertion and
the more boldly can we offer the deserters a further week in which
to report The day before yesterday the Council of Defence extended
the period by a further week because we are now fully confident
that the class-consciousness that Denikin is bringing them will
not be wasted and the Red Army will continue to grow if we
remember that all our efforts during the next few months must be
devoted to war work. We must tell you that we shall now help the
South and achieve victory there in the same way as we did in the
East. There may be people who give way to moods, comrades, those
most inclined to panic, who will ask whether we shall not lose
what we have gained in the East if we turn our main attention to
the South. As far as this is concerned we may ay that the
conquests made by our troops in the East will, by all accounts,
merge with the Siberian revolution. (Applause.)

Yesterday a certain Menshevik made a speech in Moscow. You can
read Citizen Colosov’s report in Izvestia; he said that time Mensheviks were leaving for Siberia, believing that
there was a Constituent Assembly and the power of the people
there, that universal suffrage and the will of the people ruled,
and not some dictatorship of one class, usurpation, violence—as they dub Soviet power. The experience of these
people, who flirted with Kerensky for eight months and who gave up
everything to Kornilov, who learned nothing and went over to
Kolchak—experience has now shown that it was not the
Bolsheviks, but the enemies of the Bolsheviks, people who devoted
all their activities to the struggle against the Bolsheviks and
travelled hundreds of versts to do it, who drew the conclusions that we have heard and which the public learned from
the reports of the Mensheviks, conclusions that show that the
Merisheviks have repelled not only the workers but the peasants as
well, and not only the peasants, but even the kulaks. Even the
kulaks are rebelling against Kolchak! (Applause.) None of
those descriptions of the revolts against Kolchak’s rule was
in the least bit exaggerated. Not merely workers and peasants, but
also patriotically-minded intellectuals, who had all formerly
sabotaged our work and who had been allies of the Entente-Kolchak
has repelled even them. We are now being told that an insurrection
is under way in the Urals, that we have before us an instance of a
real workers’ uprising; and again we say that there is every
chance that victory in the Urals will be a turn towards the
complete victory of the entire mass of the Siberian population
over Kolchak’s government, and that there are grounds for
expecting it within the next few months.

Comrades, you read of the capture of Motovilikha in yesterday’s newspapers-this is where the Urals factory
district begins. The details of the capture of Perm, where several
regiments came over to our side, confirm it, and every day we are
receiving telegram after telegram indicating that a decisive
turning-point has been reached in the Urals. This is corroborated
by a telegram I received today from Ufa dated July 2. We have more
detailed information which gives us good grounds to assert that a
decisive turning-point has been reached and we shall be victorious
in the Urals. By the capture of Penn and then of Motovilikha we
have achieved a great deal; they are big factory centres where the
workers are organising, are coming over to our side in hundreds
and are cutting the railway lines in the rear of the enemy. Probably few of you have had an opportunity of seeing
Kolchak’s people, workers and peasants who have come from
there, but we should like people in Moscow to see more of those
who come from there. Were not the Cis-Urals and Siberian peasants
ready to turn their backs on the Bolsheviks a year ago? They were
discontented and indignant at the Bolsheviks for demanding help in
a difficult war and for saying “victory over the landowners
and capitalists is not easily won and if they make war on you, you
must he prepared to make every sacrifice to defend the gains of
the revolution. Revolutions are not easily made, and if you find
these sacrifices too much for you, if you have not enough stamina
to make these sacrifices, you will ruin the revolution”. The
peasants did not want to listen to this, they thought it was
nothing more than a revolutionary appeal. When the other side
offered peace and the help of the Entente they went over to that
side. You realise, of course, that the Siberian peasants have
never experienced serfdom. They are the best-fed peasants in
Russia, they are used to exploiting people exiled from Russia;
they are peasants who could not see that there would he anything
to gain from the revolution, and these peasants got their leaders
from the entire Russian bourgeoisie, from all the Mensheviks and
Socialist-Revolutionaries-there were hundreds, thousands of them
there. Some people put the present population of Omsk, for
instance, at 900,000 bourgeois and others at 500,000. Literally
all the bourgeoisie got together there, all those who claimed the
right to lead the people because of their possession of knowledge
and culture and their habit of ruling-people of all parties, from
the Mensheviks to the Socialist-Revolutionaries, gathered
there. They had well-fed peasants, solid men not inclined to
socialism, they had aid from all the Entente countries, from the
all-powerful countries that held power in their hands throughout
the world. They had railway lines with free access to the sea, and
that meant complete mastery, for the flag of the Allies has no
rival anywhere in the world and rules over the entire globe. What
else was wanting? Why was it that these people who had everything
that was to he had against the Bolsheviks-a country with strong,
solid peasants and the aid of the Entente-why did they collapse so
badly after two years’ experience that all that was left in
place of the “power of the people” was the barbaric rule of the sons of landowners and capitalists? Kolchakia broke
down completely, and this is actually tangible when our Red Army
approaches the Urals as the liberator. A year ago the peasants
were shouting, “Down with the Bolsheviks, they put burdens
on the shoulders of the peasants”, and they went over to the
side of the landowners and capitalists. At that time they did not
believe what we told them; now they have experienced for
themselves, now they have seen that the Bolsheviks took one horse
away from a peasant whereas the Kolchak people took everything,
the horses and everything else, and re-introduced tsarist
discipline. Now that the peasants have the experience of the past
they welcome the Red Army as their deliverer and say that sound
and complete liberty will come to Siberia together with the
Bolsheviks. (Applause.)

This experience of Koichakia is a most valuable experience for
us; it shows us on a small scale what is going on all over the
world, it shows us the real sources-sources that are invincible,
sources that are ineradicable-of the strength of the
Bolsheviks. We had seemed helpless when Siberia was in the hands
of our enemies. Now that gigantic power has collapsed. Why?
Because we were right in our appraisal of the imperialist war and
its consequences, we were right when we said that mankind would
not emerge from this as it had from previous wars-people had
suffered so much, had been tormented so much, were so full of
wrath against capitalism that the rule of the working class would
set in and socialism would be established. The “middle way” has been mentioned here, and I know very well that the
Right Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks dream of that
middle way, that the best people in those intermediate parties
dream sincerely of that middle way, but we know from the
experience of whole countries and peoples that it is an empty
dream, because there is no middle way in the kingdom of the
Constituent Assembly where the Chernovs and Maiskys again began
their ministerial careers and were a complete failure. Is this an
accident or Bolshevik slander? Nobody will believe that it is! If
they started out with such faith in the Constituent Assembly and
ended up with such a failure it only goes to show once again that
the Bolsheviks are right when they say that there must he either
the dictatorship of the proletariat, the dictatorship of all
working people and a victory over capitalism, or the most filthy
and sanguinary rule of the bourgeoisie, even going as fare as a
monarchy established by Kolchak, as in Siberia. And now I can go
over from the lessons and conclusions drawn from Siberia to a
brief outline of the international situation.

Comrades, we have made tremendous progress in our internal
policy; millions of Russian peasants who a year ago had an
absolutely unenlightened view of the wide world, who believed any
glib talk about the Constituent Assembly, who lost heart oil
account of the burdens imposed by Bolshevism, who ran away every
time there was an appeal to struggle-since then the peasants have
had such an incredibly burdensome and sanguinary experience at the
hands of the Germans in the South that they have learned a lot. We
have become infinitely strong because millions of people have
realised what Kolchak is; millions of peasants in Siberia have
come over to Bolshevism-they are waiting for the Bolsheviks,
literally all of them-not because of our sermons and doctrines,
but because of their own experience; they called for the
Socialist-Revolutionaries and put them in power but from their
having placed the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks in
power they got the old Russian monarchy, the old Russian
policeman, who introduced incredible lawlessness into the country
together with the “democracy”, This cure of time people, however, is worth a lot. (Applause).

Take a glance at the world situation. Have we not made a
tremendous step forward in this respect during the past year when
we compare it with what we had a year ago? Did not even people
devoted to the revolution turn against us at that time, did they
not say that time Bolsheviks had sold Russia to the German
predators, that the Brest peace had demonstrated what a serious
mistake had been made, and did they not believe that only the
alliance of democratic France and Britain would save Russia? And
what happened? A few months after last year’scrisis the
Brest peace had ceased to exist. Six months passed after November
9, 1918, when Germany was defeated, and it took that six
months’ effort on the part of the French and British imperialists to conclude peace. And what did the peace bring? What
it gave was this: all the workers who had until then been on the
side of the champions of the French and British imperialists who
had preached war to the end, all of them are now coming over to
our side, not even day by day but hour by hour; they tell
themselves that they had been deceived into waging war for four
years. They had. been promised the defeat of Germany in the name
of liberty, the victory of liberty and equality, the victory of
democracy, and instead of it they had been given the Treaty of
Verailles, an unworthily imposed peace for the purpose of plunder
and profit. During that year our situation has been one of intense
struggle for the victory of the world revolution. And our
situation, if you compare it to that of the enemies, has been such
that we have acquired ever more allies throughout the world at
every step we have taken. We now see that what the Germans, from
their imperialist point of view consider a defeat, that what the
French and British consider a full victory-we see that this is the
beginning of the end for the French and British imperialists. The
working-class movement is growing faster and faster. The workers
are demanding the withdrawal of foreign troops from Russia and the
annulment of the Treaty of Versailles. We were alone at the time
of the Treaty of Brest; it was swept away and its place was taken
by the Treaty of Versailles that is strangling Germany.

In appraising the last year’s experience, in recognising
frankly all difficulties, we are able to say to you calmly,
confidently and soberly, “Comrades, we have come again and
again to outline to you the general situation and to picture to
the advanced workers of Moscow those difficulties that we have
again come up against; we invite you to give some thought to the
lessons we have learned in this difficult period and on the basis
of your thinking and your appraisal, on the basis of this
experience, reach, together with us, the firm and unshakable
conviction that victory will be ours, on a world and not only on a
Russian scale. Again and again we shall muster our forces to make
up for the defeats we have suffered in the South. We shall put
forward the tried and tested weapons of organisational ability,
discipline and loyalty, and then we are certain that Denikin will
be broken, and will collapse in the same way as Kolchak has
collapsed and the French and British imperialists are now
collapsing. (Stormy applause.)

Endnotes

[1]
This meeting was held in the Bolshoi Theatre, Moscow, when the
situation was difficult on account of Deminkin’s offensive. Because of Leon Trotsky’s illness, Lenin combined
his own notes and that of Trotsky—s report, who was Chairman
of the Revolutionary War Council of the Republic and
People’s Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs and closely collaborated with Lenin on military and political affairs
during this period. Lenin’s report was followed by the adoption of an appeal “To All Workers, Peasants, Red Army
Men and Sailors” to bend all their efforts to repulse the
enemy and achieve a decisive victory over Kolchak, Denikin and all
the satraps of the counter-revolution.