V. I. Lenin

Source: ru:PSS/v54;es:MT
Translated: machine translation (DeepSeek) from the Russian; AI-translated.

RESOLUTIONS ON THE CONVOCATION OF THE INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST BUREAU

APRIL 28, 1916

The Lugano Conference was held in September 1914.605 If Messrs. Huysmans and Co. had wanted to convene the Bureau, they could have done so long ago. But they did not. You deny the split in the sections of the old International, but this split is a fact. Today we actually have a crisis of the socialist parties of the whole world. On the one hand, you treat Thomas and Co. as miserable creatures and traitors,

“THE LANDOWNERS HAVE GONE INTO CAHOOTS WITH THE CADETS”

on the other hand, you say today: oh, we want to meet them, discuss and recreate the International! What you say is all phrases: phrases because they are said today, sixteen months after Lugano. The people with whom you want to recreate the International are dead; they no longer exist, not literally, but politically.

If Grimm thinks that each one cannot vote separately, we fully agree to take a vote by groups. We are far from any thought of imposing our will, but we want the vote to take place; after that we will gladly participate in the work of the commissions.

The question would have been settled long ago if a vote had been taken. It is highly unjust if, after many days of joint work, they want to refuse a vote. Why, the vote could be finished in five minutes! Martov’s proposal is acceptable without objection.606

First published, from the conference minutes
Translated from the German

*“THE LANDOWNERS HAVE GONE INTO CAHOOTS WITH THE CADETS”

This expression is not ours. It was used by the newspaper *Delo Naroda* in No. 170 of October 3, describing, in the words of “one of the provincial workers,” what happened in Russia in the summer and autumn of 1917. *Delo Naroda*, as is known, is the main, official organ of the party of the “Socialist-Revolutionaries.” The former minister Chernov is on the editorial board of this organ.

The admission of such a newspaper is especially valuable. Here is its admission:

“The landowners have gone into cahoots with the Cadets, in the words of one of the provincial workers.

Translated into more precise language, this means that the landowners found sympathy and support among certain elements of the government in the center and locally, recovered from their first fright, and began to organize... Attacks on the land committees began and are growing day by day, first in the form of complaints and outcries about ‘robberies,’ ‘lawlessness,’ ‘pogroms,’ pouring in like from a horn of plenty... The complaints were followed by restrictive circulars from above and judicial prosecutions of the land committees, and in areas close to the front, by the intervention of the military authorities in the form of orders from General Kornilov. And even here, in Petrograd, there were threats from the Ministry of Justice to bring the chief land committee to criminal responsibility.

The most frequent pretext for bringing to trial and filing civil suits is the annulment of pre-revolutionary lease contracts. The landowners and all their ilk repeat in one voice: the law on contracts has not been repealed, therefore all contracts remain in force, and ‘no committees, nor private individuals’ have the right to annul them... And the ‘incautious’ committees are falling en masse under the blow of the old justice system for annulling contracts and reducing rents. Yet this reduction is an absolutely inevitable thing, and hardly a single contract anywhere has survived.”

(Testimony is given from the “most moderate Professor Kablukov” that the position of the short-term peasant tenant is sometimes “worse than serfdom”)...

“Under such conditions, to annul the usurious lease contracts concluded before the revolution was not only not a crime, but a direct duty of the authorities... An attempt to retain, at all costs, a part of the peasant tenants in a position ‘worse than serfdom’ was a direct provocation to rebellion—a provocation all the more criminal because it was committed in the exclusive interests of the class of serf-owners and at a moment when the republic and the entire people are experiencing the greatest calamities... For it is surely no accident that it was precisely in Tambov Gubernia, where the number of committees brought to trial is enormous, that pogroms broke out and landowners’ ‘nests’ are burning...”
Thus speaks the newspaper *Delo Naroda*, the official organ of the ministerial party of the Socialist-Revolutionaries!

These lines should be reprinted everywhere, issued as leaflets and distributed in millions of copies among the peasantry, for they contain, cited by the Socialist-Revolutionaries themselves in the newspaper of V. Chernov himself,

“THE LANDOWNERS HAVE GONE INTO CAHOOTS WITH THE CADETS”

proof that the Socialist-Revolutionaries betrayed the peasants to the landowners, that the party of the Socialist-Revolutionaries betrayed the peasantry, that it too, if not “gone into cahoots” with the landowners, then surrendered to the landowners.

The people must read and re-read these lines. Every class-conscious peasant, soldier and worker must ponder the significance of these admissions.

Seven months of revolution have passed. The people have expressed their confidence in the Socialist-Revolutionaries countless times, given them a majority in elections, said to the party of the Socialist-Revolutionaries: lead us, we entrust you with guidance! In the Soviets of Workers’, Soldiers’ and Peasants’ Deputies, the party of the Socialist-Revolutionaries, acting since March 1917 in a bloc (alliance) with the Mensheviks, had a majority for months and months! Members of the party of the Socialist-Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks have been and are ministers and assistant ministers since May 6, together with the “Cadetishki,” alongside the “Cadetishki,” in alliance with the “Cadetishki”!!

The results of this coalition (alliance, agreement) with the Cadetishki and with the landowners are acknowledged by *Delo Naroda* itself.

Seven months of revolution, seven months of a democratic republic, seven months of the rule of the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks in the Soviets have led to an “enormous” number of members of land committees being brought to trial—trial by the old justice system, the old court, the tsarist-landowner court—have led to the uprising of the peasants of Tambov and other gubernias!

These are the results of the peasants’ trust in the party of the Socialist-Revolutionaries. And the new land project of the Socialist-Revolutionary minister S. L. Maslov shows again and again (see the article by the same author:

“A New Deception of the Peasants by the Party of the Socialist-Revolutionaries”*), how the Socialist-Revolutionaries betrayed the peasants.

---

Written later

October 20 (November 2), 1917

First published October 24

(November 6), 1917, in the newspaper

*Derevenskaya Bednota* No. 11

Printed from the text of the newspaper

*Derevenskaya Bednota*

* See Works, 5th ed., Vol. 34, pp. 428-433. Ed.

October 1917 – July 1918

ADDITIONS TO THE DRAFT DECREE

ON THE REQUISITION OF WARM CLOTHING

FOR SOLDIERS AT THE FRONT

Add:

Title: + ... and on the requisition of rich apartments to alleviate the needs of the poor...

§ 1. ... plus one of the warm items in addition to a blanket (overcoat, fur coat, jacket, felt boots, etc.).

§ 2. ... A rich apartment is also considered any apartment in which the number of rooms equals or exceeds the number of souls permanently living in that apartment.

Owners of rich apartments are obliged immediately, under threat of confiscation of all property, to submit in two copies a declaration of the warm items they have and those they are turning over for the benefit of the front, one copy to the house committee, the other copy to the district Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies.

Owners of rich apartments, under the same threat, are obliged immediately to submit to the same institutions and also in two copies a declaration of the vacating of one of two rich apartments for the needs of the poor population of the capital (i.e., two rich families having two rich apartments undertake to settle, during the given winter, in one of their apartments, placing the other, in view of the extreme need created by the war, at the disposal of the poor population).

INTERVIEW TO THE CORRESPONDENT OF THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

The house committees immediately compile lists of rich apartments subject to requisition, and the district Soviets of Workers’ Deputies confirm these lists, and also determine the conditions and procedure for the occupation of these apartments by families of the poor population.607

Written in November, before the 8th (21st),

First published in 1933

in the Lenin Miscellany XXI

Printed from the manuscript

INTERVIEW TO THE CORRESPONDENT OF THE

ASSOCIATED PRESS AGENCY, G. YARROS

NOVEMBER 15 (28), 1917

In connection with the results of the elections in Petrograd, in which the Bolsheviks won six seats,608 the correspondent of the Associated Press interviewed the Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars, who was elated by the major victory of his party.

“What do you think of the results of the elections to the Constituent Assembly?” asked the correspondent.

“I think these elections are proof of a great victory for the Bolshevik party. The number of votes cast for it in the elections in May, August and September steadily increased.609 To get six seats out of twelve in a city where the bourgeoisie (Cadets) is very strong means to have won in Russia.”

“Do you think that the Constituent Assembly, in the composition predicted by the election results in Petrograd, will sanction all the measures of the government of the people’s commissars?”

“Yes, it will sanction them, because then, according to your assumption, there will be no majority against us, since together with the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries we will constitute a majority in Petrograd (seven out of twelve).”

“What parties will be included in the new Council of People’s Commissars?”

“I do not know for certain, but I suppose that besides the Bolsheviks, only the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries.”

First published in part

in 1962 in the journal

*Istoriya SSSR* No. 2

Not fully published

April 20, 1963, in the journal

*Za Rubezhom* No. 16

Fully published for the first time,

from a typewritten copy

Translated from the English

DRAFT DECISION OF THE COUNCIL OF PEOPLE’S COMMISSARS

ON THE QUESTION OF THE WAR MINISTRY

In view of the fact that General Manikovsky issued a counter-revolutionary order to the Moscow Military District not to replace appointed commanders with elected ones—in view of the fact that General Marushevsky conducted negotiations with Dukhonin directed against the Soviet and made a criminal attempt at sabotage in organizing the delegation for negotiations on an armistice *,—

1) Manikovsky and Marushevsky are to be arrested immediately and not released without the permission of the Council of People’s Commissars;611

2) immediately begin the most energetic purge of the War Ministry and effect the removal of unreliable elements of the higher command personnel;

3) immediately summon reliable elements from the command personnel of the Latvian rifle regiments to Petrograd;

4) immediately summon one Latvian rifle regiment to Petrograd;612

5) report daily to the Council of People’s Commissars on the actual implementation of the indicated measures.

This decision is not to be published.

Written November 19 (December 2), 1917

First published, from the manuscript

* The first two paragraphs are written in the hand of L. D. Trotsky. Ed.