Comrades, in the brief period of time allotted to me, I can and believe it more expedient to focus only on the fundamental, principled questions raised by the reporter of the Executive Committee and the speakers who followed.

The first and primary question before us is this: where are we, what are these Soviets that have now gathered for an All-Russian Congress, what is this "revolutionary democracy" spoken of here so endlessly in order to obscure its complete misunderstanding and utter repudiation of it? For to speak of revolutionary democracy before an All-Russian Congress of Soviets while obscuring the character of this institution, its class composition, its role in the revolution—to say not a word of this and at the same time claim the title of democrats—is strange. We are shown the program of a bourgeois parliamentary republic, such as existed throughout Western Europe; we are shown a program of reforms now recognized by all bourgeois governments, including ours; and at the same time we are told of revolutionary democracy. Told to whom? To the Soviets. And I ask you: is there such a country in Europe—bourgeois, democratic, republican—where anything like these Soviets exists? You must answer: no. No such institution exists anywhere and cannot exist, because it is one or the other: either a bourgeois government with those "reform plans" we are shown, plans that have been proposed dozens of times in all countries and remained on paper, or the institution to which they now appeal—a new type of "government" created by revolution, which has examples only in the history of the greatest revolutionary upsurges, for example, in France in 1792, in France again in 1871, in Russia in 1905. The Soviets are an institution that does not exist in any ordinary type of bourgeois-parliamentary state and cannot exist alongside a bourgeois government. This is the new, more democratic type of state which we have called in our party resolutions a peasant-proletarian democratic republic, in which all power would belong solely to the Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies. It is futile to think this is a theoretical question, futile to try to present the matter as if it can be bypassed, futile to claim that presently institutions of one kind or another exist together precisely with the Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies. Yes, they exist together. But precisely this gives rise to an unprecedented quantity of misunderstandings, conflicts, and frictions. Precisely this causes the Russian revolution to pass from its first upsurge, from its first forward movement to its stagnation and those backward steps we now see in our coalition government, in all internal and external policy, in connection with the imperialist offensive being prepared.

It is one or the other: either an ordinary bourgeois government—and then peasant, worker, soldier, and other Soviets are not needed, then they will either be dispersed by those generals, the counterrevolutionary generals who hold the army in their hands, paying no heed to the rhetoric of Minister Kerensky, or they will die a shameful death. There is no other path for these institutions, which cannot go backward, cannot stand still, but can only exist by moving forward. This is the type of state not invented by Russians, which was thrust forward by revolution, because otherwise revolution cannot win. Within the All-Russian Soviet, frictions and party struggle for power are inevitable. But this will be the working out of possible errors and illusions through the masses' own political experience (noise), not through those reports delivered by ministers, referring to what they said yesterday, will write tomorrow, and promise the day after. This is ridiculous, comrades, from the perspective of the institution created by the Russian revolution and before which the question now stands: to be or not to be. The Soviets cannot continue to exist as they exist now. Adult people—workers and peasants—must gather, pass resolutions, and listen to reports that cannot be subjected to any documentary verification! Such institutions mark a transition to that republic which will create firm power, without police, without a standing army, not in words but in deed, power which in Western Europe cannot yet exist, power without which the Russian revolution cannot be victorious in the sense of victory over the landlords, in the sense of victory over imperialism.

Without this power there can be no question of our ourselves achieving such a victory, and the more deeply we enter into the program you are advised here and the facts we face, the more glaring becomes the fundamental contradiction. We are told, as the reporter and other speakers have said, that the first Provisional Government was bad! But when the Bolsheviks, those unfortunate Bolsheviks, said: "no support, no confidence in this government," how many accusations of "anarchism" were hurled at us! Now everyone says the previous government was bad, but what about the coalition government with its almost-socialist ministers—how does it differ from the previous one? Enough talk of programs and projects! Isn't it time to move to action? A month has passed since the coalition government was formed on May 6. Look at the facts, look at the ruination that exists in Russia and in all countries drawn into the imperialist war. How is this ruin explained? By the predation of capitalists. That is where the real anarchy is. And this—according to admissions published not in our newspaper, not in some Bolshevik paper, heaven forbid, but in the ministerial "Rabochaya Gazeta": industrial prices for coal supplies were raised by the "revolutionary" government!! And the coalition government changed nothing in this regard. We are told: can one introduce socialism in Russia, carry out radical transformations at once—this is all empty excuse-making, comrades. The doctrine of Marx and Engels, as they always explained, consists in this: "our teaching is not a dogma but a guide to action"{100}. Pure capitalism transitioning to pure socialism exists nowhere in the world and cannot exist during war; instead, there is something in between, something new, unprecedented, because hundreds of millions of people, drawn into a criminal war between capitalists, are perishing. The question is not one of promising reforms—that is empty words; the question is to take the step we now need.

If you wish to invoke "revolutionary" democracy, then distinguish this concept from reformist democracy under a capitalist ministry, because, finally, it is time to move from phrases about "revolutionary democracy," from congratulating each other on "revolutionary democracy," to class characterization, as Marxism and scientific socialism generally teach us. What you are offered is a transition to reformist democracy under a capitalist ministry. This may be splendid from the perspective of the ordinary examples of Western Europe. But now a whole series of countries face destruction, and those practical measures which supposedly are so complex, so difficult to introduce, which must be specially worked out, as the previous speaker—the citizen minister of posts and telegraphs—said, those measures are perfectly clear. He said there is no political party in Russia willing to take full power into its own hands. I answer: there is! No party can refuse to do so, and our party refuses nothing: every minute it is ready to take full power. (Applause, laughter.) You may laugh as much as you like, but if the citizen minister poses this question to us alongside the rightist party, he will get the proper answer. No party can refuse. And at a moment when freedom exists, when the threats of arrest and deportation to Siberia—threats from counterrevolutionaries in collusion with our almost-socialist ministers—when this is only a threat, at such a moment every party says: place your trust in us, and we will give you our program.

Our conference of April 29 gave that program{101}. Unfortunately, it is not considered and not followed. Apparently, it requires popular explanation. I will try to give the citizen minister of posts and telegraphs a popular explanation of our resolution, our program. Our program regarding the economic crisis consists in demanding immediately—no delays are necessary for this—the publication of all those unprecedented profits, reaching 500–800 percent, which capitalists derive, not as capitalists in a free market, in "pure" capitalism, but from military supply contracts. Here is where worker control is truly necessary and possible. Here is the measure which you, if you call yourselves "revolutionary" democracy, ought to implement in the name of the Soviet and which can be implemented from today to tomorrow. This is not socialism. This is opening the people's eyes to the true anarchy and the true game with imperialism, the game with the people's property, with the hundreds of thousands of lives that will perish tomorrow because we continue to strangle Greece. Publish the profits of the gentlemen capitalists, arrest 50 or 100 of the biggest millionaires. Hold them for several weeks, even under conditions as favorable as those under which Nicholas Romanov is held, simply in order to force exposure of the threads, the deceptive schemes, the filth, the cupidity, which daily costs our country thousands and millions even under the new government. That is the true cause of anarchy and ruin, that is why we say: everything has remained as before in Russia, the coalition ministry changed nothing, it only added a heap of declarations and pompous statements. However sincere people may be, however sincerely they may wish the workers well, the facts have not changed—the same class remains in power. The policy being conducted is not democratic policy.

We are told of "democratization of central and local power." Don't you know this is something new only for Russia? That in other countries dozens of almost-socialist ministers have turned to their countries with such promises? What do these words mean when before us stands the living concrete fact: the local population elects power, while the alphabet of democracy is violated by the center's claim to appoint or confirm local authorities? The theft of the people's property by capitalists continues. The imperialist war continues. And we are promised reforms, reforms and more reforms, which generally cannot be implemented within these bounds, because war suppresses all, determines all. Why don't you agree with those who say the war is being waged not for capitalist profits? What is the criterion? First, what class is in power, what class continues to be master, what class continues to make hundreds of billions in banking and financial operations? The same capitalist class, and therefore the war remains imperialist. Neither the first Provisional Government nor the government with almost-socialist ministers has changed anything: secret treaties remain secret, Russia fights for the straits, to continue Liakhov's policy in Persia, etc.

I know you don't want this, that the majority of you don't want this, and that the ministers don't want this, because one cannot want this, since it is the beating of hundreds of millions of people. But take the offensive about which Milyukovs and Maklakhovs now speak so much. They understand perfectly what this is about; they know it is tied to the question of power, to the question of revolution. We are told one must distinguish political and strategic questions. It is ridiculous even to pose such a question. The Kadets understand perfectly that the question is political.

That a revolutionary struggle for peace from below, which has begun, could lead to a separate peace—this is slander. Our first step, which we would implement if we had power: arrest the biggest capitalists, sever all threads of their intrigues. Without this, all phrases about peace without annexations and indemnities are the emptiest words. Our second step would be to declare to the peoples, separately from the governments, that we consider all capitalists robbers, and Tereshchenko, who is not one bit better than Milyukov, only somewhat stupider, and the French and English capitalists and all others as well.

Your own "Izvestia" has gotten confused and instead of peace without annexations and indemnities proposes to maintain the status quo[18]. No, we do not understand "peace without annexations" in that way. And here even the Peasants' Congress comes closer to the truth, speaking of a "federal" republic{102} and thus expressing the thought that the Russian republic wishes to oppress no people, neither in a new way nor in the old, to live with no people—not with Finland, not with Ukraine, which the war minister quarrels with so contemptuously, with which he creates conflicts that are impermissible and inadmissible—to live on any basis of violence. We want a united and indivisible Russian republic with firm power, but firm power is given by the voluntary consent of peoples. "Revolutionary democracy"—these are big words, but they are applied to a government that with petty quibbles complicates the question of Ukraine and Finland, who haven't even wished to separate but only say: don't postpone the application of democracy's alphabet until the Constituent Assembly!

A peace without annexations and indemnities cannot be concluded while you retain your own annexations. This is absurd, it's a game, every worker in Europe laughs at it—he says: in words they are eloquent, calling on peoples to overthrow bankers, but they themselves send domestic bankers to the ministry. Arrest them, expose the schemes, discover the threads—this you don't do, even though you have powerful organizations that cannot be resisted. You experienced 1905 and 1917, you know that revolution is not made to order, that revolutions in other countries were made by the bloody, arduous path of uprisings, but in Russia there is no group, no class that could resist the power of the Soviets. In Russia this revolution is possible, as an exception, as a peaceful revolution. Let this revolution propose peace today-tomorrow to all peoples through a break with all classes of capitalists, and within the shortest time from France and from Germany, in the persons of their peoples, agreement will be obtained, because these countries are perishing, because Germany's position is hopeless, because it cannot save itself, and because France… (Chairman: "Your time is up.")

I'll be done in half a minute… (Noise, requests from the floor to continue, protests, applause.)

(Chairman: "I report to the Congress that the presidium proposes to extend the speaker's time. Who objects? The majority favor extending the speech.")

I had reached the point that if revolutionary democracy in Russia were democracy in fact, not in words, then it would move the revolution forward rather than make an agreement with capitalists, rather than talk about peace without annexations and indemnities, but would eliminate annexations in Russia and directly declare that it considers every annexation criminal and predatory. Then it would be possible to avoid the imperialist offensive threatening to destroy thousands and millions of people over the division of Persia, the Balkans. Then the path to peace would be open, not a simple path—we don't claim that—but a path not excluding a genuinely revolutionary war.

We do not pose this question as Bazarov poses it today in "Novaya Zhizn"{103}; we only say that Russia is placed in such conditions that at the end of the imperialist war its tasks are easier than might have seemed. And it is placed in such geographical conditions that those powers which risked relying on capital and its predatory interests and rising against the Russian working class and the semi-proletariat attached to it—that is, the poorest peasantry—if they attempted this, it would be an extremely difficult task for them. Germany stands on the brink of destruction, and after America's intervention, which desires to devour Mexico and which will probably tomorrow enter into struggle with Japan—after this intervention, Germany's position is hopeless—it will be destroyed. France, which is geographically positioned so that it suffers more than all and its exhaustion reaches a maximum—this country, less starving than Germany, has lost immeasurably more human material than Germany. And here, if we began with the very first step to curb the profits of Russian capitalists and deprive them of all possibility of grabbing hundreds of millions in gains, if we proposed peace to all peoples against the capitalists of all countries with a direct declaration that you with German capitalists and those who directly or indirectly abet them or are entangled with them—you will not enter into any conversations or relations with them, that you refuse to speak with French and English capitalists—then you would have come forward to accuse them before the workers. You would not regard the issuance of a passport to MacDonald{104} as a victory, he who never waged revolutionary struggle against capital and whom they let through because he expressed neither the ideas, nor the principles, nor the practice, nor the experience of that revolutionary struggle against English capitalists for which our comrade Maclean and hundreds of other English socialists sit in prisons, and for which our comrade Liebknecht, who sits in a penal prison, sits, because he said: "German soldiers, shoot your kaiser."

Wouldn't it be more correct to send the imperialist-capitalists to the very same penal labor that the majority of members of the Provisional Government, in the specially reconstituted third Duma—I don't know, though, whether it's the third or fourth by count—daily prepare and promise for us, and the Ministry of Justice is already writing new bills about? Maclean and Liebknecht—these are the names of those socialists who are putting the idea of revolutionary struggle against imperialism into practice. This is what must be said to all governments if you wish to fight for peace—accuse them before the peoples. Then you would place all imperialist governments in a confused position. But now you are confused, when you appealed to the people with a proclamation about peace on March 14{105}, saying: "overthrow your tsars, your kings, and your bankers," while we, having in our hands an unprecedented, numerically rich, experienced, materially powerful organization like the Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, we conclude a bloc with our bankers, establish a coalition, almost-socialist government, and write projects for reforms which in Europe were written for decades and decades. There, in Europe, they laugh at such a struggle for peace. There they will understand it only when the Soviets take power and act revolutionarily.

Only one country in the world can take steps to end the imperialist war now on a class scale, against capitalists, without bloody revolution—only one country, and that country is Russia. And it remains so as long as the Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies exists. It cannot exist alongside an ordinary-type Provisional Government for long. And it will remain as it has only until this transition to the offensive is implemented. The transition to the offensive is a turning point in the entire history of the Russian revolution—that is, a transition from waiting, from preparing for peace through revolutionary uprising from below to a resumption of war. Transition from fraternization on one front to fraternization on all fronts, from spontaneous fraternization, when people exchanged a crust of bread with a hungry German proletarian for a penknife, for which they are threatened with penal labor, to conscious fraternization—that is the path that was sketched out.

When we take power into our hands, then we will curb the capitalists and then this will not be the war now being waged—because war is determined by what class conducts it, not by what is written in papers. Anything can be written in papers. But as long as the capitalist class is represented by a majority in the government, whatever you write, however eloquent, whatever composition of almost-socialist ministers you have, the war remains imperialist. Everyone knows this and everyone sees it. And the example of Albania, the example of Greece, Persia{106}—this shows it so clearly and vividly that I am astonished why everyone attacks our written declaration about the offensive{107} and no one says a word about the concrete examples! It's easy to promise projects, but concrete measures are all postponed. It's easy to write a declaration about peace without annexations, but then the example of Albania, Greece, Persia occurred after the coalition ministry. "Delo Naroda," not our party's organ but a government organ, an organ of the ministers, wrote that Russian democracy is subjected to this mockery, that Greece is being strangled. And that same Milyukov, whom you present as goodness knows what—he is an ordinary member of his party; Tereshchenko differs from him in nothing—he wrote that allied diplomacy bore down on Greece. The war remains imperialist and, however much you may desire peace, however sincere your sympathy for the toilers and however sincere your desire for peace—I am fully convinced it cannot but be sincere in the mass—you are powerless because war cannot be ended except through further development of the revolution. When revolution began in Russia, revolutionary struggle from below for peace also began. If you had taken power into your hands, if power had passed to revolutionary organizations to fight against Russian capitalists, then the toilers of other countries would have believed you, then you could have proposed peace. Then our peace would have been assured, at least from two sides, from the side of two peoples bleeding out and whose cause is hopeless, from the side of Germany and France. And if circumstances then placed us in the position of revolutionary war—no one knows this, we don't rule it out—then we would say: "we are not pacifists, we don't refuse war if a revolutionary class is in power, if it has truly removed capitalists from all influence on how matters are conducted, on increasing that ruin which allows them to make hundreds of millions." Revolutionary power would explain and tell all peoples without exception that all peoples should be free, that just as the German people dare not wage war to retain Alsace-Lorraine, neither dare the French people wage war for their colonies. For if France wages war for its colonies, then Russia has Khiva and Bukhara, these too are something like colonies, and then the division of colonies will begin. But how to divide them, by what standard? By force. But the distribution of force has changed, the position of capitalists is such that no way out except war remains. When you take revolutionary power, you will have a revolutionary path to peace: appeals to peoples with a revolutionary call, explaining your tactics through your example. Then before you the path to peace won by revolutionary means will open with the greatest probability that you will avoid the destruction of hundreds of thousands of people. Then you can be assured that the German and French peoples will declare for you. And if the English, American, and Japanese capitalists, even if they wanted war against the revolutionary working class—whose forces will increase tenfold when capitalists are curbed, eliminated, and control passes into the hands of the working class—even if the American, English, and Japanese capitalists wanted war, 99 out of 100 that they would not be able to wage it. It will be sufficient for you to declare that you are not pacifists, that you will defend your republic, your workers', proletarian democracy against the German and French and other capitalists—this will be sufficient to ensure peace.

That is why we attached such fundamental significance to our declaration about the offensive. The time has come for a turning point in the entire history of the Russian revolution. The Russian revolution began with the imperialist bourgeoisie of England helping it, thinking Russia was something like China or India. Instead, alongside a government in which there is now a majority of landlords and capitalists, Soviets arose—an institution of representation unprecedented and unseen in the world in its force, which you are destroying by participating in the coalition ministry of the bourgeoisie. Instead, the Russian revolution did something that the revolutionary struggle from below against a capitalist government everywhere, in all countries, began to meet with threefold more sympathy. The question stands thus: move forward or backward. You cannot stand still at the same place in revolutionary times. That is why the offensive is a turning point in all the Russian revolution—not in the strategic significance of an offensive, but in the political, economic. The offensive now is a continuation of the imperialist slaughter and the destruction of hundreds of thousands, millions of people—objectively, independently of the will or consciousness of any minister, because of the strangulation of Persia and other weak peoples. The transfer of power to the revolutionary proletariat with the support of the poorest peasantry is a transfer to revolutionary struggle for peace in the most secure, the most painless forms known to humanity, a transition to what power and victory for revolutionary workers will be assured both in Russia and throughout the world. (Applause from part of the assembly.)

"Pravda" nos. 82 and 83, June 28 (15) and June 29 (16), 1917.

Printed from the text of the newspaper "Pravda," verified against a stenograph corrected by V. I. Lenin.