V. I.

Lenin

Comrades, peasant deputies, The Central Committee of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour
Party (Bolsheviks), to which I have the honour to belong, wanted
me to represent our Party at the Peasant Congress, but illness
has prevented me from carrying out this commission. I therefore
take the liberty of addressing this open letter to you in order
to greet the all-Russia union of the peasantry and briefly to
point out the deep-seated differences that divide our Party on
the one hand and the party of the Socialist-Revolutionaries and
the Menshevik Social-Democrats on the other.

These profound differences concern the three most important
issues: the land, the war, and state organisation.

All the land must belong to the people. All the landed estates
must be turned over to the peasants without compensation. This
is clear. The dispute here is whether or not the peasants in the
local areas should take all the land at once, without paying any
rent to the landowners, or wait until the Constituent Assembly
meets.

Our Party believes that they should, and advises the peasants
locally—to take over all the land without delay, and to
do it in as organised a way as possible, under no circumstances
allowing damage to property and exerting every effort to
increase the production of grain and meat since the troops at
the front are in dire straits. In any case, although the final
decision on how to dispose of the land will be made by the
Constituent Assembly, a preliminary settlement now, at once, in
time for the spring sowing, can be made only by local bodies,
inasmuch as our Provisional Government, which is a government of
the landowners and capitalists, is putting off the convocation
of the Constituent Assembly and so far has not even fixed a date
for it.

Only local bodies are able preliminarily to take charge of the
land. The fields must be sown to crops. Most of the peasants in
the local areas are quite capable of making use of the land in
an organised way, of ploughing and putting it all under
crops. This is essential if the supply of food to the soldiers
at the front is to be improved. Hence, to wait for the
Constituent Assembly is out of the question. We by no means deny
the right of the Constituent Assembly finally to institute
public ownership of the land and to regulate its disposal. In
the meantime, however, right now, this spring, the peasants
themselves must decide locally what to do with it. The soldiers
at the front can and should send delegates to the villages.

Further. For all the land to pass over to the working people, a
close alliance of the urban workers and the poor peasants
(semi-proletarians) is essential. Unless such an alliance is
formed, the capitalists cannot be defeated. And if they are not
defeated, no transfer of the land to the people will deliver
them from poverty. You cannot eat land, and without money,
without capital, there is no way of obtaining implements,
livestock, or seed. The peasants must trust not the capitalists
or the rich muzhiks (who are capitalists too), but only the urban
workers. Only in alliance with the latter can the poor peasants
ensure that the land, the railways, the banks, and the factories
become the property of all the working people; if this is not
done, the mere transfer of the land to the people cannot abolish
want and pauperism.

Workers in certain localities in Russia are already beginning to
establish their supervision (control) over the factories. Such
control by the workers is to the peasants’ advantage, for it
means increased production and cheaper products. The peasants
must give their fullest support to this initiative on the part
of the workers and not believe the slander which the capitalists
spread against the workers.

The second question is the question of the war.

This war is a war of conquest. It is being waged by the
capitalists of all countries with predatory aims, to increase their profits. To the working people this war can spell only
ruin, suffering, devastation, and brutalisation. That is why our
Party, the party of class-conscious workers and poor peasants,
emphatically and unqualifiedly condemns this war, refuses to
justify the capitalists of the one country as against the
capitalists of another, refuses to support the capitalists of
any country whatever, and is working for the speediest termination of the war through the overthrow of the capitalists
in all countries, through a workers’ revolution in all countries.

In our new Provisional Government, there are ten ministers
belonging to the landowner and capitalist parties and six to the
Narodnik (Socialist-Revolutionary) and Menshevik
Social-Democratic parties. In our opinion the Narodniks and
Mensheviks have made a grave and fatal mistake in joining the
capitalist government and in general agreeing to support it. Men
like Tsereteli and Chernov are hoping to induce the capitalists
to bring the present predatory war to a speedy and more
honourable end. But these leaders of the Narodnik and Menshevik
parties are mistaken: they are, in effect, helping the capitalists to prepare an offensive by the Russian troops
against Germany, that is, to drag out the war, to add to the
incredibly enormous sacrifices the Russian people have made in
the war.

We are convinced that the capitalists in all countries are
deceiving the people by promising an early and just peace when
they are actually prolonging the war of conquest, The Russian
capitalists, who controlled the old Provisional Government and
continue to control the new one, did not even wish to publish
the secret predatory treaties ex-Tsar Nicholas Romanov concluded
with the capitalists of Britain, France, and other countries
with the object of wresting Constantinople from the Turks,
Galicia from the Austrians, Armenia from the Turks, and so
on. The Provisional Government has confirmed these treaties.

Our Party maintains that these treaties are just as criminal and
predatory as the treaties the German brigand-capitalists and
their brigand-Emperor Wilhelm have with their allies.

The blood of the workers and peasants must not be shed for the
sake of such predatory aims of the capitalists.

This criminal war must be brought to a speedy end, not by a separate peace with Germany, but by a universal peace , not by a capitalist peace, but by a peace of the
working masses against the capitalists. There is only one way to do this, and that is by transferring all state power
to the Soviets of Workers’, Soldiers’, and Peasants’ Deputies
both in Russia and in other countries. Only such Soviets will be
able effectively to prevent the capitalists from deceiving the
peoples, and prevent the war being dragged on by the capitalists.

This brings me to the third and last of the questions I have
mentioned: the question of state organisation.

Russia must become a democratic republic. Even the majority of
the landowners and capitalists, who have always stood for the
monarchy but now see that the people of Russia will on no
account allow it to be restored, are in agreement with this. The
capitalists now have directed all their efforts at making the
Russian republic as much like a monarchy as possible so that it
might be changed back into a monarchy with the least difficulty
(this has happened time and again in many countries). For this
purpose the capitalists want to preserve the bureaucracy, which
stands above the people, to preserve the police and the
standing army, which is separated from the people and commanded
by non-elective generals and other officers. And the generals
and other officers, unless they are elected, will almost
invariably be landowners and capitalists. That much we know from
the experience of all the republics in the world.

Our Party, the party of class-conscious workers and poor
peasants, is therefore working for a democratic republic of
another kind. We want a republic where there is no police that
browbeats the people; where all officials, from the bottom up,
are elective and displaceable whenever the people demand it, and
are paid salaries not higher than the wages of a competent
worker; where all army officers are similarly elective and where
the standing army separated from the people and subordinated to
classes alien to the people is replaced by the universally armed
people, by a people’s militia.

We want a republic where all state power, from the bottom up,
belongs wholly and exclusively to the

Soviets of Workers’, Soldiers’, Peasants’, and other Deputies.

The workers and peasants are the majority of the population. The
power must belong to them, not to the landowners or the
capitalists.

The workers and peasants are the majority of the population. The
power and the functions of administration must belong to
their Soviets , not to the bureaucracy.

Such are our views, comrade peasant deputies. We are firmly
convinced that experience will soon show the broad masses how
erroneous the policy of the Narodniks and Mensheviks is. Experience will soon show the masses that compromise with
the capitalists cannot save Russia, which, like Germany and
other countries, is standing on the brink of disaster, cannot
save the war-wearied peoples. The transfer of all state power
directly to the majority of the population alone can save the
peoples.

Petrograd, May 7, 1917

N. Lenin

---
Notes: