V. I. Lenin

Speech At The First All-Russia Congress Of The
Navy [1]

November 22 (December 5), 1917

Minutes

On behalf of the Council of People’s Commissars Comrade
Lenin greeted the army of sailors, assembled in congress, who
have proved themselves to be dedicated fighters for the
liberation of the working classes.

Lenin went on to analyse the current situation. He said the
Kerensky government’s collapse had been inevitable in view
of its policy of conciliation, which was not aimed at satisfying
the needs of the broad masses, and was based on the principle of
safeguarding all the interests of the bourgeoisie, the oppressor
class. He continued:

“But alongside the Provisional Government were the Soviets
of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies, which were produced by the revolutionary initiative of the insurgent
people, and which, as time goes on, are rallying ever wider
sections of the working masses. In Russia the people have
produced and given support to a truly popular government,
something no other European revolution has achieved, and the
credit for this accrues to the Soviets alone. The oppressed
masses were confronted with a highly difficult task, that of
building a new state on their own. You can see how much effort
the bourgeoisie has thrown into its resistance to us, how
attempts are being made to sabotage our activity, and what a
flood of lies and slander is being poured on us in and out of
season.

“Accusations of terrorism and violence are being heaped on
us, but we take these in our stride. We say we are not anarchists, and are committed to establishing a state. However,
the capitalist state has to be smashed and the power of the
capitalists destroyed. It is our task to build a new socialist
state. We shall be working tirelessly towards that goal, and we
shall be neither intimidated nor deterred by any obstacles. Evidence of this is to be seen in the new
Government’s first steps. But the transition to a new system is an extremely involved process and requires a firm
government to make it easier. Until recently, power has been in
the hands of monarchs and the henchmen of the bourgeoisie. All
their efforts and policies have served the purpose of coercing
the masses. By contrast we say: there must be firm power,
coercion is necessary, but we shall direct it against the
handful of capitalists, the bourgeois class. We shall always
retaliate with coercion against any attempts—hopeless and
mad attempts they must be—to resist Soviet power. In every
case, responsibility for this will fall upon those who resist.”

Comrade Lenin then discussed the establishment of a state
machine which, in the interests of the people, should be free
from red tape and should leave a lot of room for the operation
of the nation’s creative forces. He went on:

“The bourgeoisie and bourgeois intellectual sections of the
population are subverting the people’s power in every possible way. The working masses have no one to look to but
themselves. There is no doubt that the great tasks, facing the
people are tremendously difficult. But there is need for
self-assurance, there is need for all the elements awakened
among the people and capable of action to join existing
organisations and those that will be set up by the working
masses. Divided the masses are helpless; united they are
strong. They have gained self-assurance and, refusing to be put
out by the bourgeoisie’s badgering, they have set about
running the state on their own. Difficulties may crop up at the
start, due to inadequate training. But the art of practical
government, which has been monopolised by the bourgeoisie, must
be mastered. In this respect the Navy has shown itself to be
well to the fore, offering a brilliant example of the creative
capacity latent in the working masses.”

Comrade Lenin then went on to discuss in detail the major
questions of the current situation: land, workers’ policy,
the nationalities problem, and peace.

The Second All-Russia Congress of Soviets of Workers’ and
Soldiers’ Deputies adopted the Decree on Land, in which the
Bolsheviks reproduced the principles stated in the peasant
mandates in their entirety. This was a departure from the
Social-Democratic programme, for the mandates were drawn up in
the spirit of the Socialist-Revolutionaries’ programme, but
this was proof that the people’s power had no intention of
imposing its will on the people but tried to meet them half-way.

Whatever the solution of the land problem, whatever the
programme serving as a basis for the transfer of the land to the
peasants, it would in no way hamper the strong alliance of the
workers and peasants. The important thing was that if the
peasants had pressed for the abolition of landownership for
ages, it had to be abolished.

The speaker emphasised the tremendous importance of having a
strong alliance of workers and peasants, for the question of
land was closely bound up with that of industry, and the
agrarian revolution had to go hand in hand with a ploughing up
of Capitalist relations.

The onward march of the Russian revolution had shown that the
slavish policy of conciliating the landowners and capitalists
had been a soap bubble. The will of the majority would be
uppermost; it would be carried out by a working people’s
alliance, an honest alliance of workers and peasants on the
basis of their common interests. Parties came and went, but the
working people remained, and the speaker urged dedication to the
strengthening of this alliance.

Let the Navy, he said, dedicate itself to keeping this alliance
as the foundation of state affairs; if it remained sound,
nothing could frustrate the cause of transition to socialism.

Turning to the nationalities question, Lenin said, we should
take note of Russia’s highly patchy national composition,
with the Russians making up only about 40 per cent, and the
majority consisting of other nationalities. National oppression
under the tsars, unmatched in savagery and absurdity, turned the
rightless nationalities into great reservoirs of fierce hatred
for the monarchs. It was not surprising that all Russians had
been included in their hatred for those who went to the extent
of prohibiting the use of the mother tongue, and doomed masses
of people to illiteracy. It was assumed that the privileged
Russians would try to retain the advantages which had been so assiduously preserved for them by
Nicholas II and Kerensky.

“We are told that Russia will disintegrate and split up
into separate republics but we have no reason to fear this. We
have nothing to fear, whatever the number of independent
republics. The important thing for us is not where the state
border runs, but whether or not the working people of all
nations remain allied in their struggle against the bourgeoisie,
irrespective of nationality. (Stormy applause.)

“If the Finnish bourgeoisie are buying arms from the
Germans in order to use them against their workers, we offer the
latter an alliance with the Russian working people. Let the
bourgeoisie start their filthy petty squabbles and their trading
over frontiers, the workers of all countries and nationalities
will not fall out over that sort of thing. (Stormy applause.)

“We are now ’conquering’ Finland—this is using a nasty word—but not the way the robber barons of
international capitalism conquered it. We are winning Finland
over by giving her complete freedom to live in alliance with us
or with others, guaranteeing full support for the working people
of all nationalities against the bourgeoisie of all countries. It is not an alliance based on treaties, but on the
solidarity of the exploited against the exploiters.

“We now see a national movement in the Ukraine and we say
that we stand unconditionally for the Ukrainian people’s
complete and unlimited freedom. We have to wipe out that old
bloodstained and dirty past when the Russia of the capitalist
oppressors acted as the executioner of other peoples. We are
determined to wipe out that past, and leave no trace of
it. (Stormy applause.)

“We are going to tell the Ukrainians that as Ukrainians
they can go ahead and arrange their life as they see fit.
But we are going to stretch out a fraternal hand to the
Ukrainian workers and tell them that together with them we are
going to fight against their bourgeoisie and ours. Only a
socialist alliance of the working people of all countries can
remove all ground for national persecution and strife. (Stormy applause.)

“I shall now touch on the question of war. We have started
a resolute struggle against the war brought on by the clash of
robbers over their spoils. Until now all parties have spoken of
this struggle but have not gone beyond words and hypocrisy. Now
the struggle for peace is on. It is a difficult struggle. It is
highly naive to think that peace can be easily attained, and
that the bourgeoisie will hand it -to us on a platter as soon as
we mention it. Those who ascribed this view to the Bolsheviks
were cheating. The capitalists are embroiled in a life and death
struggle over the share-out of the booty. One thing is clear: to
kill war is to defeat capital and Soviet power has started the
struggle to that end. We have published and will continue to
publish secret treaties. We are not going to be deterred in this
by anyone’s anger or slander. The bourgeois gentlemen are
beside themselves because the people see why they have been
driven to the slaughter. They threaten Russia with the prospect
of another war, in which she will find herself isolated. But we
are not going to be deterred by the bourgeoisie’s fierce
hatred for us and for our peace movement. It will be quite
futile for them to try to incite the peoples against each other
in this fourth year of the war. They are sure to fail. It is not
only in this country, but in all the belligerent countries that
the struggle against the imperialist government at home is
welling up. There has been an open mutiny in the navy even in
Germany, which the imperialists tried for decades to turn into
an armed camp with the entire government machine geared to
stamping out the slightest sign of popular discontent. To
understand the significance of this mutiny, one has to be aware
that police reprisals in Germany are unparalleled. But revolution is not made to order; it results from an outburst of
mass indignation. Whereas it was quite easy to drive out a band
of nitwits, like Romanov and Rasputin,’31 it is immensely
more difficult to fight against the organised and strong clique
of German imperialists, both crowned and uncrowned. But we can
and have to work hand in hand with the revolutionary class of
working people in all countries. That is the path the Soviet
Government has taken by making public the secret treaties and
showing that the rulers of all countries are brigands. That is
not propaganda by word but by deed.— (Stormy applause.)

In conclusion the speaker dealt with the question of the peace
talks and said:

“When the Germans gave an evasive reply to our demand not to transfer any troops to the Western and Italian
fronts, we broke off the talks and shall resume them in a little
while. And when we do tell this to the world, no German worker
will remain ignorant of the fact that the peace talks had been
broken off through no fault of ours. In the hypothetical case of
the German working class siding with their government of
imperialist plunderers and confronting us with the need to
continue the war, the Russian people—who have always shed
blood without a murmur, and have done the will of an oppressive
government when quite ignorant of its aims and purposes—will undoubtedly throw their weight into the
struggle with so much more courage and vigour when it came to
fighting for socialism and freedom threatened with the bayonets
of the world bourgeoisie. But we put our trust in the international solidarity of the working masses, who will
surmount every obstacle and barrier in the struggle for
socialism.— (Stormy applause.)

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Notes:
[1]

The First All-Russia Congress of tire Navy was held at Petrograd
from November 18 to 25 (December 1 to 8), 1917. On its agenda
were the following items: the current situation arid the
question of power; the activity of the Central Committee of the
Navy; reforms in the Navy Department, etc. It was addressed by
Lenin, who spoke on tire current situation. It discussed the
activity of Tsentroflot which had betrayed its electors, and
endorsed the activity of the Revolutionary Naval Committee which
had dissolved Tsentroflot. It approved the organisational scheme
for the administration of the Navy Department. and elected 20
men to the All-Russia Central Executive Committee of the Soviets
of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies. The Congress sent
a message of greetings to the Council of People's Commissars and
an appeal to the whole of Russia.