V. I. Lenin

Draft Of A Manifesto To The Peasantry

From The Second All-Russia Congress Of Soviets Of
Peasants’ Deputies [1]

The Second All-Russia Peasants’ Congress ardently appeals
to the peasantry of all the nationalities and peoples of Russia
to devote mind and will, and the power of their numbers and
their energy to arousing the slumberers and encouraging the
irresolute, and from every corner of the country, from every
village and every quarter of the large cities, to utter aloud so
that all may hear, their weighty and decisive word at this,
perhaps the most serious and most responsible, moment of the
great Russian revolution.

Peasant comrades, we constitute the overwhelming majority of the
population of our country, the vast mass of the working and
exploited people. We are the vast mass that champions the lawful
and just demands of the working people—first and foremost
the demand for land—we fight all forms of oppression and
exploitation by the landowners and capitalists.

Peasant comrades, we are the main body of our army, those who
have suffered most the inhuman torments of more than three years
of the war instigated by kings and capitalists; it has also
fallen to our lot to undertake the difficult but thankful and
honourable role of vanguard fighters— together with the
workers—for freedom, land and peace, and for the complete
emancipation of the working people from all oppression and
exploitation.

Peasant comrades, consider our appeal, this manifesto issued by
peasant deputies to the peasants of all nationalities in
Russia. Make known our appeal in every village and in every
cottage; discuss it at every meeting and village assembly and in
every peasant body without exception, and make your own firm and
unshakable decisions in the localities. For it is chiefly on
your decisions, on the decisions of the majority of the people,
the decisions of the peasants themselves, that the fate of our
native land depends.

The fateful hour is approaching. The last fight is at hand. The
whole country and all the nations of our republic are divided
into two great camps.

One is the camp of the landowners and capitalists, the rich and
their servitors, the state dignitaries and their friends, the
bosses of the nation and the champions of the war.

The other is the camp of the factory workers and the working and
exploited peasants, the poor people and their friends, the
rank-and-file soldiers and the champions of peace, the advocates
of a heroic, decisive and bold revolutionary struggle for peace,
a struggle in which no mercy will be shown to the oppressors of
the people.

The struggle between these two camps has in some parts of the
country already assumed the acute form of open and direct civil
war, a war of the Soviet armies against a small handful of those
who are relying on the power of wealth and who desire to
overthrow Soviet power, the power and government of the Soviets
of Workers’, Soldiers’ and Peasants’ Deputies.

Peasant comrades, on your weighty, firm and unshakable word much
now depends; on it depends the cessation of this civil war; on
it depends the possibility in Russia of peacefully transferring
all the land to the working people without compensation; on it
depends the possibility of a peaceful transition to socialism. Peasant comrades, rise to a man; give voice to your
demands; draw up your mandates in every village. You can make yourselves heard; you can make everyone listen to you!

Peasant comrades, you must in the first place roundly condemn
those deputies to the Second All-Russia Peasants’ Congress
who split away from the Congress. Condemn the splitters. Condemn those who are smashing the unity of the
peasants, the unity of the working people, the unity of the
peasants and workers. These splitters, these breakers of peasant
unity, these deserters to the camp of the rich, to the camp of
the landowners and capitalists have committed an outrageous
crime. These people call themselves Socialist-Revolutionaries of
the Right wing and the Centre, followers of Avksentyev and
Chernov. They have betrayed the whole doctrine and programme of
the Socialist-Revolutionaries; they have deserted to the enemies
of socialism, to the suppressors of the revolution. They have
broken with the faithful custodians of the doctrine, programme
and demands of the Socialist-Revolutionaries, the party of the
internationalist Left Socialist-Revolutionaries, who have
remained loyal to the interests of the working peasantry. These
followers of Avksentyev and Chernov have quit the Second
All-Russia Peasants’ Congress and refused to submit to the
decision of the majority of the peasants in order to carry out
the will of the wealthy and the capitalists against the
peasants, in order to hinder the cause of peace, in order to
prevent the immediate transfer of all the land, without
compensation, to the working people, and in order to protect the
policy of Avksentyev, Chernov, Maslov and their like, a policy
fatal to the peasants.

Condemn these traitors to the peasant cause. By condemning them,
you will save many of the weak and wavering, and you will save
Russia from insane attempts at civil war— insane, because,
apart from shedding rivers of blood in vain, they will change
nothing; nothing in the world can shatter the unanimous decision
of the workers, soldiers and peasants, the decision of the
Second All-Russia Congress of Soviets of Workers’ and
Soldiers’ Deputies and of the Second All-Russia Congress of
Peasants’ Deputies.

Condemn these traitors to the peasant cause. Let every village
express its confidence in the decisions of the two congresses,
the Congress of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Soviets and the
Congress of Peasants’ Soviets. Let every village recall from the Constituent Assembly those deputies
from the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, or from the
Peasants’ Soviets and institutions, who have not loudly
proclaimed, and proved in practice, their wholehearted acceptance of these decisions.

Peasant comrades, you all know that opponents of the decisions
of the Second All-Russia Congress of Soviets of Workers’
and Soldiers’ Deputies and of the Second All-
Russia Congress of Peasants Deputies could be elected and did
get elected to the Constituent Assembly as peasant representatives, only by fraud. These people, who often
call themselves Socialist-Revolutionaries, actually duped the
peasants, who did not yet know the truth about the policy of
Avksentyev, Chernov and Maslov, a policy of making concessions
to the landowners, compromising with the capitalists, and
arresting members of the local peasants’ land committees. These Avksentyevs, Maslovs and Chernovs deceived the
peasants, since the general lists of the Socialist-Revolutionary
Party were colnpiled before October 17, whereas the truth was
revealed to the whole of Russia only after October 17.

The truth was revealed to the whole of Russia by the Second
All-Russia Congress of Soviets of Workers’ and
Soldiers’ Deputies, held on October 25 and 26, 1917. The
truth was further revealed by Soviet power, the Soviet
Government, which was the first to publish the shameful secret
treaties, the first to start a really revolutionary struggle for
peace, the first to show in practice what that struggle
should be; and it has already achieved its first success: an
armistice on one of the fronts.

The truth was revealed by the Soviet Government when it passed
the Decree on Land, thereby unconditionally siding with the
peasants and eliminating all possibility of outside interference
in the full power of the peasants in the localities.

The truth was revealed by the Second All-Russia Peasants’
Congress, which was the first to expose to the peasants, in a
special and detailed resolution, the shameful role played by the
Avksentyev-Chernov Executive Committee. The congress will close
on December 8, having begun on November 30, 1917.

You thus see, peasant comrades, that when the lists were drawn
up on October 17, and during the elections to the Constituent
Assembly on November 12, the peasants still could not have known the truth about land and peace, and still could not distinguish their friends from their enemies, from the
wolves in sheep’s clothing. You see that those
Socialist-Revolutionaries who oppose the decisions of the Second
All-Russia Congress of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies and of the Second All-Russia Congress of Peasants’ Deputies
can speak in the name of the peasants only by fraud.

Peasant comrades, do not allow blood to be shed because of this fraud! Raise your voices in determined protest against
those who quitted the Second All-Russia Congress of
Peasants’ Deputies. Draw up your mandates in every gubernia, in every uyezd, in every volost and in every village;
protest against those who withdrew from the congress; publish the names of the peasant deputies to the
Constituent Assembly from your localities who have not accepted
the decisions of these congresses, and demand the resignation of these deputies from the Constituent
Assembly; for it is only by deceiving the people that they can
pretend to have been elected by them.

Peasant comrades, the Constituent Assembly must express the will
of the people. Those who quitted the Second All-Russia Congress
of Peasants’ Deputies, who thwarted its will, who caused a
split among the peasants and who deserted the peasants for the
rich, are not the representatives of the people. They are
traitors, and there is no place for them in the Constituent
Assembly. They do not bring peace or land to the working people,
they bring the people the senseless and criminal rebellion of
the rich against Soviet power. The people will not tolerate
fraud. The people will not allow their will to be thwarted. The
people will not hand Soviet power over to the rich. The people
will not allow the rich to ruin the cause of peace they
uphold, or disrupt the transfer of the land to the working people, immediately, without exception and without
compensation.

The country is faced with only this alternative:

Either a civil war of the Kaledinites, the Cadets, the
Kornilovites (and their concealed allies, the followers of
Avksentyev, Chernov and Maslov) against Soviet power, a bloody
war, a hopeless war for its initiators, a war t4iat will not
deprive the Soviets of power but will only result in greater
bitterness, greater sacrifice, greater bloodshed, greater delay
in carrying through the great socialist reforms, and greater
famine in the gubernias where there is no grain, or— the
honest recognition of the obvious truth that the opponents of
the decisions of the Second All-Russia Congress of Soviets of
Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies and of the Second
All-Russia Congress of Peasants’ Deputies could have got
the peasants to elect them to the Constituent Assembly only by
fraud, and that there must be new elections for such deputies.

There is no third path. Either the bloody extermination to the
rich, the followers of Avksentyev, Chernov and Masby, or their
consent to new elections of peasants’ deputies of the
Constituent Assembly as soon as the opponents of the decisions
of the two Soviet congresses, the Second All-Russia Congress of
Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies and the
Second All-Russia Congress of Soviets of Peas. ants’
Deputies, come out in the name of the peasants in the
Constituent Assembly.

It is for you to say, peasant comrades!

It is for you to decide!

The resolute word of all peasants, the peasant mandates from all the localities, can bring peace to the
whole country, to all the nationalities of Russia, can stop the
civil war, can guarantee a true and genuine and not a sham
Constituent Assembly, can expedite and facilitate the termination of the war by a just peace and accelerate the
transfer of the land to the working people, can strengthen the
alliance between the peasants and the workers and hasten the
triumph of socialism.

It is for you to decide, peasant comrades! Long live the
transfer of the land to the working people! Long live peace!
Long live socialism!

The Second All-Russia Congress of Peasants’ Deputies

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Notes:
[1]
Written on December 6-7 (19-20), 1917. After the members of the
presidium of the Congress had seen the Manifesto it was read out
on their behalf at the evening sitting of December 8 (24). At
the insistence of the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries the wording
was toned down and in that form adopted by the Congress. On
behalf of the Executive Committee of the All-Russia Soviet of
Peasants’ Deputies the Manifesto was published in the newspaper Colos Trudovogo Krestyanstva (Voice of the
Labouring Peasantry) No. 22 of December 15 (28) under the title,
“To the Labouring Peasants”.