Vladimir Lenin's

A letter to Pravda

Today, Saturday, November 18, in the course of a speech I made
at the Peasants' Congress, I was publicly asked a question to
which I forthwith replied. It is essential that this question
and my reply should immediately be made known to all the reading
public, for while formally speaking only in my own name, I was
actually speaking in the name of the whole Bolshevik Party.

The matter was the following.

Touching on the question of an alliance between the Bolshevik
workers and the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries, whom many
peasants at present trust, I argued in my speech that this
alliance can be an "honest coalition", an honest alliance, for there is no radical divergence of
interests between the wage-workers and the working and exploited
peasants. Socialism is fully able to meet the interests of both. Only socialism can meet their
interests. Hence the possibility and necessity for an "honest
coalition" between the proletarians and the working and
exploited peasantry. On the contrary, a "coalition" (alliance)
between the working and exploited classes, on the one hand, and
the bourgeoisie, on the other, cannot be an "honest coalition" because of the radical divergence of interests
between these classes.

Imagine, I said, that there is a majority of Bolsheviks and a
minority of Left Socialist-Revolutionaries in the government, or
even, let us assume, only one Left Socialist-Revolutionary--the
Commissar of Agriculture. Could the Bolsheviks practise an
honest coalition under such circumstances?

They could; for, while they are irreconcilable in their fight
against the counter-revolutionary elements (including the Right
Socialist-Revolutionary and the defencist elements), the
Bolsheviks would be obliged to abstain from voting on questions which concern purely Socialist-Revolutionary points in
the land programme approved by the Second All-Russia Congress of
Soviets. Such, for instance, would be the point on equal land
tenure and the redistribution of land among the small holders.

By abstaining from voting on such a point the Bolsheviks would not be
changing their programme in the slightest.
For, given the victory of socialism (workers' control over the
factories, to be followed by their expropriation, the nationalisation of the banks, and the creation of a Supreme
Economic Council for the regulation of the entire economic life
of the country)--given that the workers would be obliged to agree to the transitional measures proposed by the small
working and exploited peasants, provided such measures were
not detrimental to the cause of socialism. Even
Kautsky, when he was still a Marxist (1899-l909), frequently
admitted--l said --that the measures of transition to socialism
cannot be identical in countries with large-scale and those with
small-scale farming.

We Bolsheviks would be obliged to abstain from voting when such
a point was being decided in the Council of People's Commissars
or in the Central Executive Committee, for if the Left
Socialist-Revolutionaries (as well as the peasants who support
them) agreed to workers' control, to the nationalisation of the
banks, etc., equal land tenure would be only one of the measures
of transition to full socialism. For the proletariat to
impose such transitional measures would be absurd; it is obliged, in the interests of the victory of socialism, to
yield to the small working and exploited peasants in the choice of these transitional measures, for they could do
no harm to the cause of socialism.

Thereupon, a Left Socialist-Revolutionary (it was Comrade Feofilaktov,
if I am not mistaken) asked me the following question:

"How would the Bolsheviks act if in the Constituent Assembly
the peasants wanted to pass a law on equal land tenure, while the bourgeoisie
were opposed to the peasants and the decision depended on the Bolsheviks?"

I replied: under such circumstances, when the cause of socialism
would be ensured by the introduction of workers' control, the
nationalisation of the banks, etc., the alliance between the
workers and the working and exploited peasants would make it
obligatory for the party of the proletariat to vote for the
peasants and against the bourgeoisie. The Bolsheviks, in my
opinion, would be entitled when the vote was being taken to make
a declaration of dissent, to place on record their non-agreement, etc., but to abstain from voting under such
circumstances would be to betray their allies in the fight for socialism because of a difference with them on a
partial issue. The Bolsheviks would never betray the peasants in
such a situation. Equal land tenure and like measures cannot prejudice socialism if the power is in the hands
of a workers' and peasants' government, if workers' control has
been introduced, the banks nationalised, a workers' and
peasants' supreme economic body set up to direct (regulate) the
entire economic life of the country, and so forth.

Such was my reply.

N. Lenin