## V. I. Lenin

DRAFT APPEAL OF THE SECOND ALL-RUSSIAN PEASANT CONGRESS TO THE PEASANTRY

December 1917

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The 2nd All-Russian Peasant Congress appeals to the peasantry of all nations and peoples of Russia with a fervent call to exert all the strength of mind and will, all the might of your numbers and your energy in order to awaken the sleeping, to encourage the irresolute, and to speak loudly and clearly, from all corners of the country, from every village, from every quarter of the great cities, your weighty, your decisive word in this present—perhaps the most serious and most responsible—moment of the great Russian revolution.

Comrade-peasants! We constitute the overwhelming majority of the population of our country. We are the main mass of the toiling and exploited. We are the main mass of fighters for the satisfaction of the legitimate and just demands of the toiling, the demands for land first and foremost, fighters against all oppression and all exploitation from both landowners and capitalists.

Comrade-peasants! We are the main mass of our revolutionary army, upon whom fell first of all the inhuman sufferings of more than three years of war, a war unleashed by tsars and capitalists—that army upon which fell the heavy but grateful and honorable role, the role of an advanced fighter—alongside the workers—for freedom, for land, for peace, for the complete liberation of the toiling masses from all oppression, from all exploitation.

Comrade-peasants! Give thought to our appeal, our call, directed by peasant deputies to peasants of all nations of Russia; read our call in every village, in every cottage, discuss it at all, without exception, assemblies, gatherings, and peasant institutions; take firm and unshakeable decisions yourselves, on the ground. For from these decisions of yours, decisions of the toiling majority of the people, from the toiling peasantry itself, depends most of all their own fate.

A terrible hour approaches, the final and decisive battle draws near. The entire country, all nations of our great Russian Republic have divided into two camps—the camp of landowners and capitalists, the wealthy and their servants, prominent officials and their friends, commanders of the people and champions of war—and the camp of workers, toiling and exploited peasants, the poor people and their friends, soldiers and champions of devoutedly resolute, bold, merciless struggle against the oppressors of the people, revolutionary struggle for universal peace, for universal brotherhood of the toiling masses.

Between these two camps the struggle has already intensified in certain parts of our long-suffering homeland to the point of direct, open civil war, to war between Soviet armies and the negligible number of those who pin their hopes on the power of wealth and who wish to overthrow Soviet power, the power and government of Soviets of workers, soldiers, and peasant deputies.

Comrade-peasants! Much now depends on your decisive word, including the end of this civil war, the possibility of peaceful transfer without any redemption of all the land to the toiling masses, the victory of labor over capital, the victory of socialism.

Rise up, comrade-peasants, as one man, raise your voice, proclaim loudly your demands, draw up mandates from every village; you must force everyone to heed your authoritative call.

Comrade-peasants! You must first of all speak your word of decisive condemnation against those Deputies of the 2nd All-Russian Peasant Congress who broke away from the majority of this congress. These Deputies were for the most part sent from Provincial Soviet Executive Committees, already separated from genuine toiling peasantry. When the question of peace arose, these deputies raised a fuss and left for no good reason. Condemn the destroyers of peasant unity, the unity of the toiling people, the unity of peasants with workers and soldiers! An unprecedented crime have these splitters of peasantry committed, these deserters to the camp of those in collusion with landowners and capitalists.

These people call themselves "socialists-revolutionaries of the right wing and center"—supporters of Avksentiev and Chernov. They have betrayed the true and honest teachings, the program of the socialists-revolutionaries. They have gone over to the enemies of revolutionary socialism, into the camp of those who strangle the revolution. They have broken with those faithful until the end, those unchanging guardians and defenders of the demands of true socialists-revolutionaries—with the party of Left Socialists-Revolutionaries (Internationalists), which has remained devoted to the genuine interests of the toiling people. They, these supporters of Avksentiev and Chernov, left the Second All-Russian Peasant Congress, refusing to submit to the decision of the majority of the Congress, in order to carry out the will of those in collusion with landowners and capitalists against the peasants, in order to hinder the cause of peace, to prevent the immediate transfer of all land without redemption into the hands of the toiling people, in order to save the ruinous, compromising policy toward the peasants of Avksentiev, Chernov, Maslov and their ilk.

The All-Russian Peasant Congress resolved to immediately transfer the lands into the control of land committees, but the first Executive Committee did not do this, and the 2nd Peasant Congress had to resolve the same thing again, because the compromisers did not help the peasantry.

Condemn sharply these conscious traitors to the peasant cause. By such condemnation you will save many of the unconscious, wavering and weak, you will save laboring Russia from senseless civil war, from war of brother against brother, which besides the vain shedding of rivers of blood will change nothing for the better.

Know, comrades, that no enemy force in the world will break the unanimous decision of peasants, workers and soldiers, the decision of the 2nd All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers and Soldiers' Deputies and the 2nd All-Russian Congress of Peasant Deputies to achieve a happy lot for the toiling people. Having condemned the traitors to the peasant cause, let every village express its confidence in the decisions of the Congresses of Soviets of Workers, Soldiers and Peasants. Let every village and every district recall from the Constituent Assembly those deputies who did not proclaim loudly and did not prove by deed their complete acceptance of the said decisions.

Comrade-peasants, you know full well that in the Constituent Assembly could pass and did pass from the peasants many opponents of the decisions of the 2nd All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers and Soldiers' Deputies and the 2nd All-Russian Congress of Peasant Deputies only through deception. Some, calling themselves socialists-revolutionaries, actually deceived the peasants, who did not yet know the truth about the Avksentievite, Chernovite, and Maslovite policy, the policy of concessions to landowners, of compromise with capitalists, of arrests of members of Peasant Land Committees on the ground. These Avksentievs, Maslovs, and Chernovs deceived the peasants, because the general party lists of the socialists-revolutionaries were completed by October 12, and the truth was revealed to all laboring Russia only after October 12. The truth was revealed to all Russia by the 2nd All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers and Soldiers' Deputies only by October 26, 1917.

Then this truth was revealed by Soviet Power, the Soviet government, which first publicized the shameful secret treaties, first began a genuinely revolutionary, active struggle for immediate peace, first showed not in words alone but in deed what this struggle ought to be, and has already achieved tremendous success—an armistice on the Front. This truth was revealed by the power of peasants, workers and soldiers, which issued a decree on land, thereby turning irreversibly to the side of the toiling peasantry, eliminating any serious possibility of hindrance from outside to the fullness of peasant power on the ground.

This truth was revealed by the 2nd All-Russian Congress, which was first to expose before the peasantry the shameful role of the Avksentievite-Chernovite Executive Committee in a special detailed resolution (the congress began its work on November 25, 1917, and ended on December 10).

You see, comrade-peasants, that in drawing up the lists by October 12 and participating in elections to the Constituent Assembly on November 12, the peasantry could not yet then know the true truth about land and about peace, could not distinguish their friends from enemies, sheep from wolves in sheep's clothing. You see that only through deception can those socialists-revolutionaries act in the name of the toiling peasantry who resist the decisions of the 2nd All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers and Soldiers' Deputies and the 2nd All-Russian Congress of Peasant Deputies. Do not allow, comrade-peasants, that from this deception fraternal blood could be shed; speak your firm word of protest against those who abandoned the 2nd All-Russian Congress of Peasant Deputies. In every province, in every district, in every canton, in every village adopt definite mandates, express your ardent protests against those who left the congress, name by name those deputies from the peasantry in the Constituent Assembly who did not accept the decisions of these Congresses, demand the departure of such deputies from the Constituent Assembly, because, we repeat, only by deceiving the people can they present themselves as its true representatives.

Comrade-peasants, the Constituent Assembly must express the unshakeable will of the people. Whoever left the 2nd All-Russian Congress of Peasant Deputies, whoever broke its fruitful work, whoever split the peasants, whoever fled consciously or unconsciously from the peasants to the wealthy, is not a representative of the people, is a traitor to the people's cause, has no place in the Constituent Assembly, carries not peace, not land for the toiling masses, sows in the people senseless and criminal revolt against the Soviet power devoted to the toiling people. The people will not tolerate deception. The people will not tolerate a violation of its sovereign will and will not surrender its Soviet power to anyone in deference to the wealthy and their servants. The people will not surrender to the mercy of the wealthy the great cause of peace taken into its own hands, the cause of transferring all lands immediately and without redemption into the hands of the toiling masses.

Our country has only two ways out: either the war of Kaledinites, Kadets, Kornilovites and their concealed allies—Avksentievites, Chernovites and Maslovites—against Soviet power, a bloody war, a hopeless war for its instigators, a war which is unable to wrest power from the Soviets and will only bring more hatred, more victims, more blood, more prolonging of great nationwide transformations, more hunger to the breadless provinces—or complete recognition of the obvious truth for all honest people, namely: that opponents of the decisions of the 2nd All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers and Soldiers' Deputies and the 2nd All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Peasant Deputies and lying, spurious friends of the toiling people could pass into the Constituent Assembly only through deception and that a re-election of such Deputies is necessary.

There is no third way. Demand, comrades, the elimination of the wealthy, Kadets and their servant-Avksentievites, Chernovites, Maslovites, and a re-election of those deputies from the toiling peasantry to the Constituent Assembly who come forward as opponents of the decisions of the two Soviet Congresses—the 2nd All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers and Soldiers' Deputies and the 2nd All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Peasant Deputies.

The decisive word is yours, comrade-peasants!

With a firm and unanimous voice of all the toiling peasantry, with mandates from the ground, you can establish speediest peace throughout the country, among all nations of Russia, you can fully ensure not a deceptive but a correct re-election of those members of the Constituent Assembly disagreeable to the toiling people, you yourselves must hasten and ease the end of world war, the establishment of a just peace, hasten the transfer of all lands to the toiling masses without redemption, strengthen the sacred alliance of the toiling peasantry with the working class, and hasten the complete victory of the toiling masses.

The decisive word, comrade-peasants, is yours!

Down with fraternal war! Long live the immediate transfer of all land to the toiling masses without redemption! Long live peace! Long live the brotherhood of the toiling masses of all countries!

Executive Committee of the All-Russian Soviet of Peasant Deputies.