V. I.

Lenin

A Reply To The Resolution Of the Executive Commission Of The Soviet Of Soldiers’ Deputies

The newspapers for April 16 carried the following resolution:

“ Having discussed comrades’ reports concerning the spread of
disruptive propaganda carried on under a revolutionary and often
even under a Social-Democratic banner, particularly propaganda
by those who call themselves Leninists; regarding such propaganda to be no less harmful than any other
counter-revolutionary propaganda from the right; and realising
at the same time that it is impossible to take repressive
measures against propaganda so long as it remains merely
propaganda, the Executive Commission of the Soviet of Soldiers’
Deputies considers It essential that measures should be taken to
counteract this propaganda by our own propaganda and agitation. We must make our organisations strong enough to be
able at any moment to meet a counter-revolutionary action, no
matter where it comes from, by effective actions of our own. We
express our earnest wish that the Executive Committee launch a
systematic campaign in the press, and especially in the army
units, against the disruptive propaganda.”

If we compare this resolution with the statement made in
Izvestia’s leading article (for April 17) against the “dishonourable and outrageous persecution”, we see at once the
political division on the subject which has made itself manifest
in practice, namely: Russkaya Volya, the chief hounding agency; Mr. Plekhanov’s Yedinstvo, which
repeats “such a method of struggle”; both recognised as such by
Dyelo Naroda.

A different stand is taken by the Executive Commission of the Soviet of Soldiers’ Deputies, which simply declares that
“it is impossible to take repressive measures against propaganda
so long as it remains merely propaganda”.

That is why we reprint the resolution of the Executive
Commission in full and consider it useful to examine it on its
merits.

The resolution declares Lenin’s propaganda to be “no less
harmful than any other counter-revolutionary propaganda from the
right”.

Let us examine the gist of the differences between (1)
counter-revolutionary propaganda from the right, (2) the
propaganda for and in support of the Provisional
Government, and (3) our own propaganda.

The Rights are out for the overthrow of the Provisional
Government and the restoration of the monarchy.

The Provisional Government has promised to act in agreement with the Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’
Deputies.

Our propaganda is: all power in the state to be turned over to
the Soviets alone, because the Soviets unquestionably represent the overwhelming majority of the nation. To achieve
this, we want by “explanation” (as Lenin distinctly stated in
his theses [1] the very first day) to make the majority of the nation see the necessity for such a transfer of
power.

The Rights, then, are for a monarchic government. The capitalists are for a capitalist government (for that is what
the Provisional Government is); they promise to act in agreement
with the Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies.

We want to convince the majority of the people that power must
reside solely in the Soviets.

It is perfectly obvious that even from the point of view of those who advocate an agreement with the Provisional
Government, our propaganda cannot be regarded as “no less
harmful than any other counter-revolutionary propaganda from the
right”. The advocates of an agreement now have the backing of
the majority of the people! How then can they maintain that our
propaganda urging the majority to take overall the power is “no less harmful than propaganda from the right”?

This is a glaring inconsistency.

The Soviet of Soldiers’ Deputies can hardly uphold this view of
its Executive Commission for long.

To proceed.

What essentially are our differences?

We differ mainly on three points:

1. On the question of the land. We are for the peasants taking
all the land immediately by a decision of their own majority in each locality, thus increasing production of
grain and meat for the soldiers.

The Provisional Government is for an “agreement” between the
peasants and the landowners, i.e., an “agreement” between three
hundred peasants and one landowner.

The future will show whether the majority of the people are with
us or with the Provisional Government on this question.

2. We are for a republic where, from the bottom up, there will
be no police, no standing army (instead of a standing army,
we believe, there should be a universal arming of the whole
people), no bureaucracy, who, in effect, are undisplaceable
and privileged by high bourgeois, salaries. We want all
public officers to be elective and displaceable at any time,
and their pay to be on a proletarian scale.

The Provisional Government is for restoring the police of the
usual type; it is for a standing army, for the usual kind of
officials.

3. The Provisional Government is for continuing the war
and the kind of war which Nicholas the Bloody started. The Provisional Government is for confirming the
secret, predatory treaties concluded by him without consulting the will of the people and even without making
them public.

We are against such a war, we are against the confirmation of
the treaties, against their non-publication.

We urge all nations, without exception, to put an end to the war
by concluding, not a coercive, but a truly democratic peace,
that would give freedom to all nations and nationalities. We
want to show the people that in order to end the war by a truly
non-coercive peace it is necessary that the state power be
placed wholly and exclusively in the hands of the Soviets of
Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies.

For so long as the capitalists and landowners ( Guchkov ,
Lvov , Milyukov )
are in power, the war will remain a capitalist-directed one, all
promises of peace without annexations will remain mere promises,
and distrust of the capitalists’ government on the part of the
world’s working masses will continue; and that means the war
will drag on.

Question: What if the state power in Russia passed to the
Soviets but Germany failed to effect a revolution that would rid it of both Wilhelm II and the German Guchkovs
and Milyukovs(for if the German Nicholas II were replaced by the
German Guchkovs and Milyukovs, there would be no change whatever
as far as the war is concerned)?

Our answer is: Power in the hands of the Soviets of Workers’ and
Soldiers’ Deputies would be the power of the majority of the
people, and that majority consists of workers and poor peasants. They are really not interested in
annexations, they will renounce them not in word, but in deed; they will really stop being watchdogs of the
capitalists’ profits.

Under such conditions we too would agree to a revolutionary war against the capitalists of any country,
because that would really be a war against the interests of
Capital in general, and not a war in the interest of the
capitalists of one particular country.

Question: How can we advance the cause of peace right now,
immediately and practically, if it is impossible to end the war
by simply sticking the bayonets into the ground?

Our answer is: The war cannot be terminated by the simple
expedient of sticking the bayonets into the ground, or generally
by the unilateral withdrawal of any of the warring nations. There is, and can be, only one practical and immediate
way of hastening peace (apart from the victory of the workers’
revolution over the capitalists), and that is the fraternisation
of the soldiers at the front.

We must immediately, in the most energetic manner, and by all
the means at our disposal encourage fraternisation of the
soldiers of both warring groups at the front.

This fraternisation has already begun. Let us help it along.

These are our views. We are firmly convinced that the majority
of the people will not say that they are “no less harmful than any other counter-revolutionary propaganda from the
right”.

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Notes:
[1]



— Ed .