Date: 1918
Source: ru:PSS/v37

Comrades, I would like to converse about those tasks that fall upon our Party and upon the Soviet power in connection with the question of the relationship of the proletariat to petty-bourgeois democracy. Recent events undoubtedly place this question on the order of the day, because a gigantic change in the international situation, such as the annihilation of the Brest-Litovsk Treaty, the revolution in Germany, the collapse of German imperialism, and the decomposition of Anglo-American imperialism, could not but undermine a whole series of bourgeois-democratic tenets that constituted the theoretical foundation of petty-bourgeois democracy. The military situation of Russia, the onslaught of Anglo-French and American imperialism, could not but push a part of this petty-bourgeois democracy more or less to our side. It is about these changes, which must be introduced into our tactics, about those new tasks that arise before us, that I would like to converse this evening.

Allow me to begin with some basic theoretical tenets. There is no doubt that the main social stratum that provides the economic basis of petty-bourgeois democracy in Russia is the middle peasantry. There is no doubt that the socialist revolution and the transition from capitalism to socialism must inevitably take special forms in a country where the number of peasant population is significant. Therefore, I would like first of all to remind you how the basic tenets of Marxism on the relationship of the proletariat to the middle peasantry were formed. In order to remind you of this, I will read several statements made by Engels in his article "The Peasant Question in France and Germany." This article was published as a separate pamphlet, written in 1895 or 1894, when the question of the agrarian program of the socialist party in relation to the peasantry practically came to the order of the day in connection with the discussion of the program of the German Social-Democracy at the Breslau Congress of this party{86}. Here is how Engels then spoke about the relationship of the proletariat: "What is our attitude towards the small peasantry?... Firstly, the proposition of the French program is absolutely correct: we foresee the inevitable ruin of the small peasant, but we are by no means called upon to accelerate it by our intervention. Secondly, it is equally obvious that, possessing state power, we would not think of forcibly expropriating the small peasants (with compensation or not, it is irrelevant), as we are forced to do with the large landowners. Our task in relation to the small peasants consists primarily in transferring their private production, their property, into a comradely one, but not by force, but by example, offering public assistance for this purpose."

Further on this issue, Engels said: "We can never promise the small peasants to support their individual farming and individual property against the superior forces of capitalist production. We can only promise them that we will not, against their will, forcibly interfere in their property relations"{87}.

Finally, the last saying that I would like to remind you of is the reasoning about the rich peasants, about the large peasants (in Russian terms, about the "kulaks"), about such peasants, therefore, who do not do without the use of hired labor. If these peasants do not understand the inevitability of the ruin of their present mode of production and are unable to draw the necessary conclusions for themselves, then the Marxists can do nothing for them. Our duty is only to facilitate for them the transition to a new mode of production{88}.

These are the tenets that I would like to remind you of and which, no doubt, are known to every communist. From this tenet we see that the task of the proletariat, having seized state power, cannot in any way be the same in countries where the large capitalist system prevails and in countries where backward, small, middle, and large peasantry prevails. We see that we stated the tasks of Marxism quite accurately when we said that in relation to the landlord-exploiter, war was our duty.

In relation to the middle peasant, we say: in no way any violence. In relation to the large peasant, we say: our slogan is their subordination to the grain monopoly; struggle against them when the grain monopoly is violated, when they hide grain. I recently had to repeat these tenets at a meeting of several hundred people – representatives of the committees of the village poor, who gathered in Moscow simultaneously with the VI Congress[11]. In our party literature, in propaganda and agitation, we have always emphasized this difference in our relations to the large bourgeoisie and the petty bourgeoisie. But, being theoretically all in agreement, not all and not quickly enough made corresponding political conclusions. And I deliberately started, so to speak, from afar, in order to show you what economic concepts about the interrelationships of classes we must be guided by in order to raise the question of our policy towards petty-bourgeois democracy on indisputable grounds. There is no doubt that this small peasant class (we call middle such a one who does not sell his labor power), this peasant in Russia is in any case the main economic class, which is the basis of a wide variety of political currents in petty-bourgeois democracy. In Russia, these currents are most associated with the Menshevik and Socialist-Revolutionary parties. The history of socialism in Russia knows a long struggle of the Bolsheviks with these parties, and Western European socialists constantly looked at this struggle as a struggle within socialism, i.e., as a split in socialism in Russia. In parentheses, this view is expressed quite often in the speeches of even good social-democrats.

Today, I was just handed a letter from Friedrich Adler – a man known for his revolutionary behavior in Austria. His letter, written at the end of October and received today, contains only a request: is it possible to release the Mensheviks from prison? He could not find anything smarter to write at such a moment, except for this request. True, he stipulated that he was not informed about our movement and so on, but still it is characteristic. This ridiculous mistake of Western European socialists is explained by the fact that they look back, not forward, and do not understand that neither the Mensheviks nor the Socialist-Revolutionaries (who preach socialism) are those to be attributed to socialists. The Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries throughout the revolution of 1917 only wavered between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, could never take the right position, and, as if on purpose, illustrated Marx's proposition that the petty bourgeoisie is incapable of any independent position in fundamental battles.

The proletariat from the very beginning, when it created the Soviets, instinctively showed a certain class position already by the fact that it created the Soviets. The Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries wavered all the time. And if their own friends called them "semi-Bolsheviks" in the spring and summer of 1917, it was not only a witticism, but also an accurate characterization. On no issue (take the issue of the Soviets, of the revolutionary movement in the villages, of the direct seizure of land, of fraternization at the front, of supporting or not supporting imperialism), on all these fundamental issues the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries said today – "yes," and tomorrow – "no." On the one hand, they helped, and on the other hand – no, and represented a model of spinelessness and helplessness. And on the other hand, when they threw phrases "for the Soviets" to the population (after all, they constantly called the Soviets "revolutionary democracy" and opposed it to what they called the propertied element), for them it was only a cunning political construction, and the broad masses, into whose ranks it fell, were carried away: "this is for the Soviets!". The preaching of the Mensheviks partly served us as well.

This is a very complex issue, with a very rich history, and it is enough for me to briefly point it out. And this policy of the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries before our eyes finally proves our proposition that to consider them socialists is a mistake. They were socialists only, perhaps, in phraseology and in memories. In fact, this is the Russian petty bourgeoisie.

I started with how Marxists should relate to the middle peasant, in other words, to the petty-bourgeois parties. We are now approaching a period when our previous slogans of the previous period of the revolution must change in order to correctly take into account the present turning point. You know that in October – November these elements wavered.

The Bolshevik Party then turned out to be irreconcilable and acted correctly; we told ourselves that we had to destroy the enemies of the proletariat, that we had to fight on the fundamental issues of war and peace, of bourgeois representation, of Soviet power. On all these issues, we could rely only on our own forces, and we acted quite correctly when we did not compromise with petty-bourgeois democracy.

The further course of events raised before us the question of peace and the conclusion of the Brest-Litovsk peace. You know that the Brest-Litovsk peace pushed away the petty-bourgeois elements from us.

From these two circumstances, from our foreign policy, which led to the conclusion of the Brest-Litovsk peace, and from our merciless struggle with the democratic illusions of a part of the petty-bourgeois democracy, from our merciless struggle for Soviet power, – from these two circumstances it followed that the petty-bourgeois democracy sharply recoiled from us. You know that after the Brest-Litovsk peace, vacillations began among the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries. Part of them went on an adventure, another part split among themselves and is splitting to this day. But the fact remains. We, of course, cannot doubt for a minute, not a drop, that our policy was then absolutely correct. Now to prove this means repeating the rear, because the German revolution proved most of all the correctness of our views.

What we were most reproached for after the Brest-Litovsk peace and what we most often had to hear from the poorly conscious working masses was that we were vainly placing hope on the German revolution and that it was still not there. The German revolution refuted all these reproaches and proved the correctness of our views that it must come, that we must fight against German imperialism not only through national war, but also through propaganda and its decomposition from within. Events have confirmed us so much that there is nothing to prove here. Likewise, regarding the Constituent Assembly, vacillations were inevitable here, and the course of events has so confirmed the correctness of our views that now all the revolutions that have begun in the West are proceeding under the slogan of Soviet power and are creating this Soviet power. Soviets – that is what characterizes the revolution everywhere. They have spread from Austria and Germany to Holland and Switzerland (to countries with the oldest democratic culture, which call themselves Western Europe even compared to Germany). In them, the slogan of Soviet power is put forward. This means that the historical collapse of bourgeois democracy was not an invention of the Bolsheviks, but was an absolute historical necessity. In Switzerland and Holland, the political struggle took place hundreds of years ago, and now the slogan of Soviet power is put forward there not for the beautiful eyes of the Bolsheviks. This means that we have correctly taken into account the present. The course of events has so confirmed the correctness of our tactics that it is not necessary to dwell on this issue any longer. It is only necessary to understand that this is a serious issue, an issue of the deepest prejudice of petty-bourgeois democracy. Recall the general history of the bourgeois revolution and the development of parliamentarism in all Western European countries and you will see that prejudices of this kind prevailed in all countries among the old social-democrats of the 40s. In France, these views lasted the longest. It cannot be otherwise. The petty bourgeoisie is most patriotic in matters of parliamentarism, it is most patriotic if you compare it with the proletariat and the large bourgeoisie. The latter is more international, because the petty bourgeoisie is less mobile, not so connected with other peoples and not involved in world trade. Therefore, it was to be expected that it is precisely in the question of parliamentarism that the petty bourgeoisie should manifest itself the most. This was the case in Russia as well. A large role in this regard was played by the fact that our revolution fought against patriotism. We had to go against patriotism in the era of the Brest-Litovsk peace. We said: if you are a socialist, then you must sacrifice all your patriotic feelings in the name of the international revolution, which will come, which is not yet there, but in which you must believe if you are an internationalist.

And it is clear that, by saying so, we could attract to our side only the advanced detachments of the working class. It is clear that the majority of the petty bourgeoisie did not stand on our point of view. We could not expect this. And where was the petty bourgeoisie to go to our point of view? We had to implement the dictatorship of the proletariat in its most severe form. We went through an era of infatuation with illusions in a few months. And if you take the history of Western European countries, they have not outlived this illusion even in decades. Take the history of Holland, France, England, and so on. We had to break the petty-bourgeois illusion that the people are something united and that the people's will can be expressed in something other than the class struggle. We were absolutely right that we did not compromise on this issue. If we had made concessions to petty-bourgeois illusions, to the Constituent Assembly illusion, we would have ruined the entire cause of the proletarian revolution in Russia. We would have sacrificed the interests of the international revolution to narrow national interests, which turned out to be going along the Bolshevik path, because it was not national, but purely proletarian. It was in these conditions that the Menshevik and Socialist-Revolutionary petty-bourgeois masses recoiled from us. They went to the other side of the barricades, they found themselves on the side of our enemies. When the Dutov uprising began, we clearly saw that the Dutovites, Krasnovites, and Skoropadskyites included those political forces that fought against us. On our side were the proletariat and the poorest peasantry.

You know that throughout Russia during the Czechoslovak uprising, when it was most successful, at this time kulak uprisings were taking place throughout Russia. Only the rapprochement of the urban proletariat with the countryside strengthened our power. The proletariat, with the help of the rural poor, only it withstood the struggle against all enemies. And the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries in the vast majority were on the side of the Czechoslovaks, Dutovites, and Krasnovites. This situation required from us the most fierce struggle and terrorist methods of this war. No matter how people from different points of view condemned this terrorism (and we heard this condemnation from all the vacillating social-democrats), it is clear to us that terror was caused by the aggravated civil war. It was caused by the fact that the entire petty-bourgeois democracy turned against us. They waged war against us in various ways – through civil war, bribery, sabotage. Such conditions created the necessity of terror. Therefore, we should not repent of it, renounce it. We must only clearly understand what conditions of our proletarian revolution caused the acuteness of the struggle. These special conditions consisted in the fact that we had to act against patriotism, that we had to replace the Constituent Assembly with the slogan "All power to the Soviets."

When a turning point came in international politics, a turning point inevitably came in the position of petty-bourgeois democracy. We see a change in mood in its camp. In the appeal of the Mensheviks, we see a call to abandon the alliance with the propertied classes, a call with which the Mensheviks address their friends – people from petty-bourgeois democracy who have allied themselves with the Dutovites, Czechoslovaks, and Englishmen. They address them with an appeal to fight against Anglo-American imperialism. Now it is clear to everyone that there is no force other than Anglo-American imperialism that could oppose the Bolshevik power. The same kind of vacillations are going on among the Socialist-Revolutionaries and among the intelligentsia, which most of all shares the prejudices of petty-bourgeois democracy, which was most full of patriotic prejudices. The same process is going on among them.

Now the task of our party is to be guided by class relations when choosing its tactics, so that we can accurately understand in this question what it is – an accident, a manifestation of spinelessness, vacillations that have no basis, or, on the contrary, it is a process that has deep social roots. If we look at this issue as a whole from the point of view of theoretically established relations of the proletariat to the middle peasantry, from the point of view of the history of our revolution, we will see that there can be no doubt in the answer. This is not an accidental, not a personal turning point. It concerns millions and millions of people who are placed in Russia in the position of the middle peasantry, or corresponding to the middle peasantry. The turning point concerns the entire petty-bourgeois democracy. It went against us with malice reaching fury, because we had to break all its patriotic feelings. And history has made it so that patriotism is now turning to our side. After all, it is clear that the Bolsheviks cannot be overthrown except by foreign bayonets. If until now they hoped that the English, French, and Americans were real democracy, if this illusion has been preserved until now, then the peace that they give to Austria and Germany completely exposes this illusion. The English behave as if they have set themselves the special goal of proving the correctness of the Bolshevik views on international imperialism.

Therefore, from the midst of the parties that fought against us, for example, from the Plekhanov camp, voices are heard that say: we were mistaken, we thought that German imperialism was our main enemy, and the Western countries – France, England, America – bring us a democratic system. It turned out that the peace that these Western countries give is 100 times more humiliating, predatory, and rapacious than our Brest-Litovsk peace. It turned out that the English and Americans act as executioners and gendarmes of Russian freedom, as this role was performed under the Russian executioner Nicholas I, no worse than the kings who played the role of executioners when they strangled the Hungarian revolution. Now this role has been taken by Wilson's agents. They are strangling the revolution in Austria, they are playing the role of gendarmes, they are issuing an ultimatum to Switzerland: we will not give bread if you do not join the fight against the Bolshevik government{89}. They declare to Holland: do not dare to admit Soviet ambassadors to yourselves, otherwise – a blockade. They have a simple tool – the rope of hunger. That is how they strangle the peoples.

History in recent times, in the era of war and after the war, is distinguished by an extraordinary speed of development and proves the proposition that Anglo-French imperialism is just as vile an imperialism as German imperialism. Do not forget that in America we have the freest republic, the most democratic, but this does not prevent imperialism from acting just as brutally there, that there they not only lynch internationalists, but that the crowd drags them into the street, strips them naked, pours tar on them, and sets them on fire.

Events expose imperialism with extraordinary force and raise the question: either Soviet power, or the complete strangulation of the revolution by Anglo-French bayonets. There is no longer any talk of an agreement with Kerensky. You know that they threw Kerensky out like a squeezed lemon. They went together with Dutov and Krasnov. Now the petty bourgeoisie has gone through this period. Patriotism is now pushing it towards us – that is how it turned out, that is how history forced it to act. And we all need to take into account this mass experience of all world history. It is impossible to defend the bourgeoisie, it is impossible to defend the Constituent Assembly, because it actually turned out to be in the hands of the Dutovites and Krasnovites. It seems ridiculous: how could the Constituent Assembly become their slogan. But that is how it turned out, because the Constituent Assembly was convened when the bourgeoisie was still on top. The Constituent Assembly turned out to be an organ of the bourgeoisie, and the bourgeoisie turned out to be on the side of the imperialists, pursuing a policy against the Bolsheviks. It was ready for anything to strangle Soviet power in the most vile ways – to betray Russia to anyone, just to destroy the power of the Soviets.

This is the policy that led to the civil war, which forced the petty-bourgeois democracy to turn around. Of course, vacillations in this environment are always inevitable. When the first victories of the Czechoslovaks came, this petty-bourgeois intelligentsia tried to spread rumors that the Czechoslovak victory was inevitable. They printed telegrams from Moscow that Moscow was on the eve of falling, that it was surrounded. And we know perfectly well that, even in the event of the most insignificant victories of the Anglo-French, the petty-bourgeois intelligentsia will first of all lose its head, fall into panic, and begin to spread all sorts of rumors about the successes of our opponents. But the revolution has shown the inevitability of the uprising against imperialism. And now our "allies" have turned out to be the main enemies of Russian freedom and Russian independence. Russia cannot be and will not be independent if Soviet power is not strengthened. That is why such a coup took place. In connection with it, we now have the task of determining our tactics. He would be very mistaken who would think of mechanically transferring now the slogans of our revolutionary struggle of that period when there could be no reconciliation between us, when the petty bourgeoisie was against us, when our steadfastness required us to use terror. Now it would not be steadfastness, but simply stupidity, insufficient understanding of the tactics of Marxism. When we had to conclude the Brest-Litovsk peace, this step from a narrow patriotic point of view seemed to be a betrayal of Russia; from the point of view of the world revolution, it was the right strategic step, which provided the most assistance to the world revolution. The world revolution unfolded precisely now, when Soviet power became a national institution.

And now, although petty-bourgeois democracy still continues to waver, its illusions have been undermined. And, of course, we must take this situation into account, as well as all other conditions. If before we had a different point of view, then the petty bourgeoisie stood on the side of the Czechoslovaks, and violence was inevitable, because war is war and you need to act as in war. And now, when these people begin to turn to us, we should not turn away from them only because our slogan in leaflets and newspapers was different before. When we see that they are making a half-turn to us, we must rewrite our leaflets, because the relationship of this petty-bourgeois democracy to us has changed. We must say: welcome, we are not afraid of you. If you think that we can only act by violence, then you are mistaken. We could reach an agreement. And those elements that are full of traditions, bourgeois prejudices, all cooperators, all parts of the working people that are most connected with the bourgeoisie, can come to us.

Take the entire intelligentsia. It lived a bourgeois life, it got used to certain conveniences. Since it wavered towards the Czechoslovaks, our slogan was a merciless struggle – terror. In view of the fact that now this turning point in the mood of the petty-bourgeois masses has come, our slogan should be agreement, the establishment of good-neighborly relations. When we happen to meet a statement by a group of petty-bourgeois democracy that it wants to be neutral in relation to Soviet power, – we must say: "neutrality" and good-neighborly relations are old junk that is not suitable from the point of view of communism. This is old junk and nothing more, but we must discuss this junk from the point of view of the matter. We have always looked at it this way and never hoped that these petty-bourgeois elements would become communists. But we must discuss business proposals.

We talked about the dictatorship of the proletariat, that the proletariat should be dominant over all other classes. We cannot eliminate the differences between classes until the full introduction of communism. Classes will remain until we destroy the exploiters – the large bourgeoisie and landlords, whom we mercilessly expropriate. But in relation to the middle and small peasantry, we have to say otherwise. Mercilessly suppressing the bourgeoisie and landlords, we must attract petty-bourgeois democracy to ourselves. When they say that they want to be neutral and be in good-neighborly relations with us, we answer: this is all we need. We never expected that you would become communists.

We continue to stand on the ground of merciless expropriation of landlords and capitalists. Here we are merciless, and here we cannot enter into any path of reconciliation or compromise. But we know that small production cannot be transferred to large production by any decrees, that here it is necessary to gradually, in the course of events, convince of the inevitability of socialism. These elements will never become socialists by conviction, direct, real socialists. They will become socialists when they see that there is no way out. Now they see: Europe has collapsed so much, imperialism has reached such a state that no bourgeois democracy will save, that only Soviet power can save. That is why this neutralism, these good-neighborly relations on the part of petty-bourgeois democracy are not only not terrible for us, but desirable. That is why, if we look at the matter from the point of view of representatives of the class exercising the dictatorship, we say: we never count on more from petty-bourgeois democracy. This is enough for us. You will be in good-neighborly relations with us, and we will have state power. We, gentlemen Mensheviks, after your speech about the "allies," will gladly legalize you. This will be done by the Central Committee of our party. But we will not forget that there are Menshevik-"activists" left in your party, and in relation to them our methods of struggle remain the same, because the "activists" are friends of the Czechoslovaks, and until the Czechoslovaks are expelled from Russia, you represent the same enemies. We reserve state power only for ourselves. With those who enter into relations of neutrality with us, we reason as a class that holds political power in its hands, directs all the sharpness of its weapons against landlords and capitalists, and says to petty-bourgeois democracy: if you please to go over to the side of the Czechoslovaks and Krasnovites, – we have shown how we fought, we will continue to fight. If you please to learn from the example of the Bolsheviks, – we are embarking on the path of agreement with you, knowing that otherwise, as a whole series of agreements that we will test, verify, compare, the country cannot move to socialism.

We embarked on this path from the very beginning, for example, by voting for the law on the socialization of land and gradually turning it into the measure thanks to which it was possible to unite the rural poor around us and turn them against the kulaks. Only as the proletarian movement in the villages wins will we systematically move to collective public land ownership and public cultivation of land. This task could not be accomplished otherwise than by relying on a purely proletarian movement in the countryside, and in this regard there is still much to be done. There is no doubt that here only practical experience, only reality will show how to proceed.

The tasks of agreement with the middle peasant, with the petty-bourgeois elements, with the cooperators are different. This task will undergo modifications if we put it in relation to those unions that have preserved petty-bourgeois traditions and habits. This task undergoes some more modification if we talk about the petty-bourgeois intelligentsia. It wavers, but we also need it for our socialist revolution. We know that socialism can only be built from the elements of large-capitalist culture, and the intelligentsia is such an element. If we had to fight it mercilessly, then it was not communism that obliged us to do so, but the course of events that pushed all the "democrats" and all those in love with bourgeois democracy away from us. Now there is an opportunity to use this intelligentsia for socialism, that intelligentsia that is not socialist, that will never be communist, but which is now objectively tuned towards us neutrally, in a good-neighborly way by the course of events and relations. We will never rely on the intelligentsia, but we will only rely on the vanguard of the proletariat, leading all the proletarians and all the rural poor. The Communist Party cannot have another support. But it is one thing to rely on a class that represents a dictatorship, and another thing to dominate other classes.

You remember that Engels even in relation to those peasants who use hired labor said: maybe not everyone will have to be expropriated{90}. We expropriate according to the general rule, and we do not have a kulak in the Soviets. We crush him. We suppress him physically when he penetrates the Soviet and tries to strangle the rural poor there. You see how the domination of one class is carried out here. Only one proletariat can dominate. But in one way it is applied to the small peasant, in another way to the middle peasant, otherwise to the landlord, otherwise to the small bourgeois. The whole task is that this turning point, which is caused by international conditions, – that we can understand it, understand the inevitability that the slogans to which we have become accustomed over the past six months of the history of the revolution must inevitably be modified, as far as petty-bourgeois democracy is concerned. We must say: we leave power to the same class. In relation to petty-bourgeois democracy, our slogan was agreement, but we were forced to use terror. If you really agree to live in good-neighborly relations with us, then please fulfill these or those tasks, gentlemen cooperators and intellectuals. And if you do not fulfill them, – you will be violators of the law, our enemies, and we will fight you. And if you stand on the ground of good-neighborly relations and fulfill these tasks, – this is more than enough for us. We have a solid support. We have never doubted your flabbiness. But we do not deny that we need you, because you were the only cultural element. If we had to build socialism not from the elements left to us as a legacy by capitalism, – the task would be easy. But the difficulty of socialist construction is that we have to build socialism from elements thoroughly corrupted by capitalism. The difficulty of the transition is that it is associated with a dictatorship that can only be led by one class – the proletariat. It follows from this that we tell ourselves that the line will be determined by the proletariat, which is trained and turned into a fighting force capable of defeating the bourgeoisie. Between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat there is a mass of transitional stages, and in relation to them our policy must now be put on the rails that we have theoretically foreseen, and we can now implement it. We have a whole series of tasks ahead of us, a whole series of agreements, technical tasks that we, the dominant proletarian power, must be able to give. We must be able to give the middle peasant one task, to help in the exchange of goods, in the exposure of the kulak. To the cooperators another: they have an apparatus for the distribution of products on a mass scale; we must take this apparatus for ourselves. We must give the intelligentsia a completely different task; it is not able to continue sabotage and is tuned in such a way that now it occupies a position in relation to us the most good-neighborly, and we must take this intelligentsia, set it certain tasks, monitor and verify their implementation, treat them as Marx said in relation to the employees of the Paris Commune: "every individual employer knows how to choose suitable assistants, accountants, and when they make mistakes, – knows how to correct their mistakes, and if they are not suitable, – replace them with new, good ones"{91}. We are building power from the elements left to us by capitalism. We cannot build power if such a legacy of capitalist culture as the intelligentsia is not used. Now we can treat the petty bourgeoisie as a good neighbor under the strict control of state power. Here the task of the conscious proletariat is to understand that domination does not mean that it will perform all these tasks itself. Whoever thinks so has no idea about socialist construction, has learned nothing in a year of revolution and dictatorship. It is better for such gentlemen to go to school and learn something there, and whoever has learned something over the past time, – he will tell himself: I will use this intelligentsia now for construction. For this I have sufficient support in the peasantry. And we must remember that only in the course of this struggle, in a series of agreements and experiments of agreements between the proletariat and petty-bourgeois democracy, will that construction be developed that will lead to socialism.

Let us recall that Engels said that we must act by example{92}. No form will be final until full communism is achieved. We did not claim that we know the exact road. But we are inevitably, inevitably moving towards communism. At present, each week gives more than decades of peacetime. The six months experienced since the Brest-Litovsk peace were an era of vacillations against us. The Western European revolution – an example beginning to repeat us – should strengthen us. We must take into account the changes that have taken place, take into account all the elements, without making any illusions, knowing that the vacillating will remain vacillating until the world socialist revolution completely wins. This may not be so soon, although the course of events of the German revolution gives hope that it will be sooner than many assume. The German revolution is developing as ours did, but at an accelerated pace. In any case, the task that faces us is a desperate struggle with Anglo-American imperialism. It felt that Bolshevism had become a world force, and precisely because of this it is trying to strangle us with maximum speed, wanting to first deal with the Russian Bolsheviks, and then with its own.

We must use those elements from the vacillating, whom the atrocities of the imperialists are pushing towards us. And we will do it. You know perfectly well that in war you cannot neglect any help, even indirect. In war, even the position of the vacillating classes is of great importance. The sharper the war, the more we must acquire influence on the vacillating elements that come to us. It follows from this that the tactics that we have been pursuing for six months must be modified in accordance with the new tasks in relation to the various strata of petty-bourgeois democracy.

If I have managed to draw the attention of party workers to this task and encourage them to come to its correct solution through systematic experience, I can consider my task fulfilled.

"Pravda" Nos. 264 and 265; December 5 and 6, 1918

Printed according to the text of the newspaper "Pravda", verified with the transcript