V. I.

Lenin

The democratism of Soviet power and its socialist nature
are expressed in the fact that the supreme state authority is vested in the Soviets, which are
made up of representatives of the working people (workers, soldiers and
peasants), freely elected and removable at any time by the masses hitherto
oppressed by capital; that the local Soviets freely amalgamate on a basis of democratic
centralism into a single federal union as represented by the Soviet state
power of the Russian Soviet Republic; that the Soviets concentrate in their hands not only the legislative
power and supervision of law enforcement, but direct enforcement of the
laws through all the members of the Soviets with a view to a gradual
transition to the performance of legislative functions and state
administration by the whole working population.

Taking, further, into consideration, that any direct or indirect legalisation of the rights of ownership of
the workers of any given factory or any given trade on their particular
production, or of their right to weaken or impede the orders of the state
authority, is a flagrant distortion of the basic principles of Soviet power and a
complete rejection of socialism.... [1]

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Notes:
[1]
Here the manuscript breaks off— Ed .