V. I.

Lenin

The Seventh (April) All-Russia Conference of the R.S.D.L.P.(B.)

APRIL 24–29, 1917

2

Report on the Current Situation

April 24 (May 7)

C omrades, in evaluating the current situation I have to deal with an exceedingly broad subject,
which, to my mind, falls into three parts. First, the estimate
of the political situation proper here in Russia, our attitude
towards the government and the dual power that has come into
existence; second, our attitude towards the war; third, the
international background to the working-class movement, a
situation which has brought the workers of the world face to
face with a socialist revolution.

I think, I shall have to deal only in brief with some of the
points. Furthermore, I am going to submit to you a draft
resolution on all these questions with this reservation,
however, that, owing to the extreme lack of facilities and to
the political crisis that has been created here in Petrograd, we
were unable to have discussions of the resolution, or to
communicate it in good time to the local comrades. I repeat,
then, that these are only preliminary drafts, designed to make
work easier in the committee and concentrate it on a few of the
most essential questions.

I begin with the first question. If I am not mistaken, the
Moscow Conference adopted the same resolution as the Petrograd
City Conference. [ Interruption : “With amendments.”] I
have not seen the amendments, and I cannot pass an opinion. But
since the Petrograd resolution was published in Pravda ,
I shall take it for granted, if no one objects, that it is known
to everybody here. I submit this as a draft resolution to the
present All-Russia Conference.

Most of the parties in the petty-bourgeois bloc controlling the Petrograd Soviet represent our policy, in
contrast to their own, as a rash policy. What distinguishes our
policy is our demand above all for a precise class analysis of
current events. The chief sin of the petty-bourgeois bloc is
that it resorts to empty phrases to conceal from the people the
truth about the government’s class character.

If the Moscow comrades have any amendments, they may present
them now.

( Reads the resolution of the Petrograd City Conference on the attitude towards the Provisional Government. )

“ Considering:

“(1) that the Provisional Government , by its class character, is the organ of the
landowner and bourgeois domination; “(2) that the Provisional Government and the classes it
represents are bound with indissoluble economic and political
ties to Russian and Anglo-French imperialism; “(3) that the Provisional Government is carrying out its
proclaimed programme only partially, and only under pressure of
the revolutionary proletariat and, to some extent, of the petty
bourgeoisie; “(4) that the forces of bourgeois and landowner counter
revolution, now being organised, have already, under cover of
the Provisional Government and with the latter’s obvious
connivance, launched an attack on revolutionary democracy; “(5) that the Provisional Government is avoiding fixing the date
for the elections to the Constituent Assembly, preventing the
arming of the people as a whole, opposing the transfer of all
the land to the people, foisting upon it the landowners’ way of
settling the agrarian question, obstructing the introduction of
an eight-hour workday, condoning counter-revolutionary propaganda in the army (by Guchkov and Co.), rallying the
high-ranking officers against the soldiers, etc....”

I have read the first part of the resolution giving a class
definition of the Provisional Government. There are scarcely any
essential differences between this resolution and that of the
Moscow comrades, as far as it is possible to judge from the
latter’s text alone. But the general definition of the government as counter-revolutionary is, in my opinion,
incorrect. If we speak in general terms, we must specify which
revolution we mean. As far as the bourgeois revolution is
concerned, this cannot be said, because that revolution is
already completed. As far as the proletarian and peasant
revolution is concerned, such a statement is premature, for we
cannot be sure that the peasants will necessarily go farther
than the bourgeoisie. To express our confidence in the peasants,
particularly now that they have turned to imperialism and
defencism, i. e., to supporting the war, is, in my opinion,
unsound. at the present moment the peasants have entered into a
number of agreements with the Cadets. That is why I regard this
clause in the Moscow resolution as politically incorrect. We
want the peasants to go farther than the bourgeoisie, we want
them to take the land from the landowners, but so far we can say
nothing definite about their future conduct.

We studiously avoid the words “revolutionary democracy”. We may
use them when there is a question of an attack by the government, but at the present moment they are highly deceptive,
for it is very difficult to distinguish the classes which have
mingled in this chaos. Our task is to free those who are
trailing behind. The Soviets are important to us not as a form;
to us it is important what classes they represent. We must,
therefore, do a great deal of work to develop the class-consciousness of the proletariat....

( Resumes reading the resolution. )

“(6) that this government, at the same time, is relying at
present on the confidence of, and, to a certain extent, on an
actual agreement with, the Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and
Soldiers’ Deputies, which now unites an obvious majority of
workers and soldiers, i. e., peasants; “(7) that every step of the Provisional Government, in both its
domestic and foreign policies, is bound to open the eyes, not
only of the proletarians in town and country and the semi-proletarians, but also of the broad sections of the petty
bourgeoisie, to the real nature of this government, “ the Conference resolves that :

“(1) in order to ensure all the state power passing into the hands of the Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies
or other bodies directly expressing the will of the people,
prolonged work is necessary to develop proletarian class-consciousness and to unite the urban and rural
proletarians against the vacillations of the petty bourgeoisie,
for only work of this nature can guarantee real advance on the
part of the whole revolutionary people; “(2) this calls for many-sided activity within the Soviets of
Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies, for work aimed at in creasing
the number of these Soviets, consolidating their power, and
welding together our Party’s proletarian internationalist groups
in the Soviets; “(3) we must organise our Social-Democratic forces more
effectively, so as to be able to direct the new wave of the
revolutionary movement under the banner of revolutionary
Social-Democracy.”

This is the sum and substance of our policy. The whole petty
bourgeoisie is now wavering and trying to conceal this wavering
behind the empty phrase about revolutionary democracy. We must
contrapose these waverings with a proletarian line. The
counter-revolutionaries wish to frustrate it by premature
action. Our task is to increase the number of Soviets, to
reinforce them and to consolidate the unity of our Party.

The Moscow comrades have added to Point 3 the demand for
control. This control is represented by Chkheidze , Steklov, Tsereteli ,
and other leaders of the petty-bourgeois bloc. Control without
power is an empty phrase. How can I control Britain? To control
her, you would have to seize her fleet. I can understand the
uneducated mass of workers and soldiers naïvely and unconsciously believing in control. You only have to think about
the fundamental aspects of control, however, to realise that
such a belief is a departure from the basic principles of the
class struggle. What is control? If I write a paper, or a
resolution, they will write a counter-resolution. To control,
you must have power. If the broad mass of the petty-bourgeois
bloc do not understand this, we must have the patience to
explain it to them, but under no circumstances must we tell them
a lie. If, however, I obscure this fundamental condition by
speaking of control, then I am guilty of telling a lie and am
playing into the hands of the capitalists and the imperialists. “You’re welcome to your control, but we’ll have
the guns. Enjoy your control,” they say. They know that at the
moment the people cannot be denied their demand. Control without power is an empty petty-bourgeois phrase that hampers the
progress of the Russian revolution. That is why I object to the
Moscow comrades’ third point.

As for this peculiar interlocking of two powers, in which the
Provisional Government, lacking power, guns, soldiers, and the
armed mass of people, leans on the Soviets that are relying so
far on promises and are carrying out a policy of upholding those
promises, if you want to play this game, you are doomed to
failure. Our task is to keep out of this game. We shall carry on
our work of explaining to the proletariat the unsoundness of
this policy, and events, at every turn, will prove the correctness of our position. So far we are in the minority; the
masses still do not believe us. We can wait; they will side with
us when the government shows its face. The government’s
vacillations may repel them and they will swing over to our
side; and then, taking into consideration the balance of forces,
we shall say: Our time has come.

I now pass on to the question of the war. This question actually
united us when we came out against the loan, the attitude
towards which showed immediately and clearly the alignment of
political forces. As Rech has stated, everybody, except
Yedinstvo , is wavering; the entire petty bourgeoisie is
for the loan—with reservations. The capitalists make a wry
face and pocket the resolution with a smile, saying: “You may do
the talking, but we shall do the acting.” All those now voting
for the loan are known as social-chauvinists the world over.

I shall now proceed to read the resolution on the war. It is in
three parts:

(1) a characterisation of the war from the point of view of its
class significance; (2) the revolutionary defencism of the
masses, something that cannot be found in any other country; (3) how to end the war.

Many of us, myself included, have had occasion to address the
people, particularly the soldiers, and it seems to me that when
everything is explained to them from the class point of view,
there is one thing in our stand on which they are most unclear,
namely, in what way we intend to end the war, in what way we
think it possible to stop it. The masses are in a maze of
misunderstanding, there is complete ignorance about our stand;
that is why we must express ourselves most clearly on this.

( Reads the draft resolution on the war. )

“ The present war is, on the part of both groups of the
belligerent powers, an imperialist war, i. e., one waged by the
capitalists for world domination, for division of the capitalists’ spoils, for profitable markets for finance and
banking capital, and for the subjugation of the weaker nationalities.

“ The transfer of state power in Russia from Nicholas II to the
government of Guchkov, Lvov, and others, to the government of
the landowners and capitalists, did not and could not alter the
class character and meaning of the war as far as Russia is
concerned.

“ The fact that the new government is carrying on the same
imperialist war, i. e., an aggressive war of conquest, became
glaringly apparent when the government not only failed to
publish the secret treaties between ex-Tsar Nicholas II and the
capitalist governments of Britain, France, etc., but even
formally confirmed these treaties. This was done without
consulting the will of the people and with the express purpose
of deceiving them, for it is well known that the secret treaties
concluded by the ex-tsar are outrageously predatory treaties
that give the Russian capitalists a free hand to rob China,
Persia, Turkey, Austria, etc.

“ For this reason no proletarian party that does not wish to
break completely with internationalism, i. e., with the
fraternal solidarity of the workers of all countries in their
struggle against the yoke of Capital, can support the present
war, or the present government, or its loans, no matter in what
glowing terms these loans may be described.

“ Nor can any trust be placed in the present government’s promise
to renounce annexations, i. e., the conquest of foreign
countries or the forcible retention of any nationality within
the confines of Russia. For, in the first place, the capitalists, bound together by the thousand threads of Russian
and Anglo-French banking capital, and intent on protecting the
interests of capital, cannot renounce annexations in this war
without at the same time ceasing to be capitalists, without
renouncing the profits from the thousands of millions invested
in loans, concessions, war industries, etc. And secondly, the
new-government, after renouncing annexations to mislead the
people, declared through Milyukov (Moscow, April 9, 1917) that
it had no intention of renouncing them. Finally, as revealed by
Dyelo Naroda , a newspaper in which Minister Kerensky co-operates, Milyukov has not even sent his statement on the
renunciation of annexations to other countries.

“ Therefore, in warning the people against the capitalists’ empty
promises, the Conference declares that it is necessary to make a
clear distinction between a renunciation of annexations in word
and a renunciation of annexations in deed, i. e., the immediate
publication of all the secret predatory treaties, of all acts of
foreign policy, and the taking of immediate steps to fully
liberate all peoples who are being oppressed, kept bound to
Russia by force or kept in a state of subjection by the
capitalist class, which is continuing the policy of ex-Tsar
Nicholas II, a policy that is a disgrace to our nation.”

The second half of this part of the resolution deals with the
promises made by the government. For a Marxist, perhaps, this
part is superfluous; for the people, however, it is important. That is why we must add the reasons why we do not
believe those promises, why we must not trust the government. The present government’s promises to abandon its
imperialist policy are not to be trusted. Our policy in this
respect should not be in saying that we demand that the
government publish the treaties. This would be a vain hope. To
demand this of a capitalist government would be like demanding
an exposure of commercial swindling. When we say that it is
necessary to renounce annexations and indemnities, we should
indicate how this can be done; and if we are asked who can do
it, our answer will be that this step is by its very nature a
revolutionary one, a step which only the revolutionary proletariat can make. Otherwise these promises will remain empty
pledges and wishes used by the capitalists to keep the people in
leading-strings.

( Continues reading the draft resolution. )

“ The ’revolutionary defencism’, which in Russia has now permeated almost all the Narodnik parties (the Popular
Socialists, Trudoviks, Socialist-Revolutionaries), the opportunist party of the Menshevik Social-Democrats (the

Organising Committee, Chkheidze, Tsereteli, etc.), and the
majority of the non-party revolutionaries, reflects, in point of
class significance, the interests and point of view of the petty
bourgeoisie, the small proprietors, and the well-to-do peasants,
who, like the capitalists, profit by oppressing weak peoples. on
the other hand, it is a result of the deception of the masses by
the capitalists, who instead of publishing the secret treaties
confine themselves to promises and glib talk.

“ It must be admitted that the great mass of ’revolutionary
defencists’ are honest, i. e., they are really opposed to annexations, to conquests, to oppressing weak peoples; they
are really working for a democratic, non-coercive peace
among all the belligerents. This must be admitted for the reason
that the class position of the urban and rural proletarians and
semi-proletarians (i. e., of the people who earn their living,
wholly or partly, by selling their labour-power to the capitalists) makes these classes uninterested in capitalist
profits.

“ Therefore, while recognising that any concessions to
’revolutionary defencism’ are absolutely impermissible and
virtually signify a complete break with internationalism and
socialism, the Conference declares that our Party will preach
abstention from violence as long as the Russian capitalists and
their Provisional Government confine themselves to threats of
violence against the people (for example, Guchkov’s unhappily
notorious decree threatening the soldiers with punishment for
arbitrary displacement of superiors), as long as the capitalists
have not started using violence against the Soviets of
Workers’, Soldiers’, Peasants’, Agricultural Labourers’, and
other Deputies, which organise themselves freely, and freely
elect and dismiss all public officers. Our Party will fight against the profound and fatal error of ’revolutionary
defencism’ solely by means of comradely persuasion, bringing
home the truth that the attitude of unreasoning trust of the
broad masses in the government of the capitalists, who are the
worst enemies of peace and socialism, is, in present-day Russia,
the chief obstacle to a speedy termination of the war.”

Some of the petty bourgeoisie have an interest in this policy of
the capitalists—of that there can be no doubt. That is why
it would be wrong for the proletarian party at present to place
any hopes in the community of interests of the proletariat and
the peasantry. We are fighting to win the peasants over to our
side, but they are, to a certain extent, consciously on the side
of the capitalists.

There is not the slightest doubt that, as a class, the proletariat and semi-proletariat are not interested in the
war. They are influenced by tradition and deception. They still
lack political experience. Therefore, our task is one of patient
explanation. We make no concessions to them on matters of
principle; yet we cannot look upon them as social-chauvinists. This section of the population has never
been socialist, nor has it the slightest idea about socialism,
it is only just awakening to political life. Nevertheless, its
class-consciousness is growing and broadening with extraordinary
rapidity. We must be able to bring our views home to it, and
this is now the most difficult task of all, particularly for a
party that only yesterday worked underground.

Some may ask: Have we not gone back on our own principles? We
were advocating the conversion of the imperialist war into a
civil war, and now we are contradicting ourselves. But the first
civil war in Russia has come to an end; we are now advancing
towards the second war—the war between imperialism and the
armed people. In this transitional period, as long as the armed
force is in the hands of the soldiers, as long as Milyukov and
Guchkov have not yet resorted to violence, this civil war, so
far as we are concerned, turns into peaceful, prolonged, and
patient class propaganda. To speak of civil war before people
have come to realise the need for it is undoubtedly to lapse
into Blanquism. We are for civil war, but only for civil war
waged by a politically conscious class. He can be overthrown who
is known to the people as an oppressor. There are no oppressors
in Russia at present; it is the soldiers and not the capitalists
who now have the guns and rifles; the capitalists are getting
what they want now not by force but by deception, and to shout
about violence now is senseless. One must be able to uphold the
Marxist point of view, which says that this conversion of
imperialist war into a civil war should be based on objective,
and not subjective, conditions. For the time being we withdraw
that slogan, but only for the time being. It is the soldiers and
the workers who possess the arms now, not the capitalists. So
long as the government has not started war, our propaganda
remains peaceful.

The government would like to see us make the first imprudent
move towards revolutionary action, as this would be to its
advantage. It is exasperated because our Party has put forward
the slogan of peaceful demonstrations. We must not cede one iota
of our principles to the petty bourgeoisie, which is now marking
time. The proletarian party would be making a dangerous mistake
if it based its tactics on subjective desires where organisation
is required. We cannot say that the majority is with us; what we
need in the present situation is caution, caution, caution. To
base proletarian tactics on subjective desires means to condemn
it to failure.

The third point deals with the question of how to end the
war. The Marxist point of view is well known, but the difficulty
is how to bring it home to the masses in the clearest form
possible. We are not pacifists, and we cannot repudiate a
revolutionary war. In what way does a revolutionary war differ
from a capitalist war? The difference is, above all, a class
difference: which class is interested in the war? What policy
does the interested class pursue in that war? ...In addressing
the people we must give concrete answers to their questions. And
so the first question is how to distinguish a revolutionary war
from a capitalist war. The ordinary man in the street does not
grasp the distinction, he does not understand that it is a
matter of class distinction. We must not confine ourselves to
theory alone, we must demonstrate in practice that we shall wage
a really revolutionary war only when the proletariat is in
power. I think that by presenting the question this way we are
giving the clearest possible answer to the question as to what
this war is about and who is waging it.

Pravda has published the draft of an appeal to the soldiers of all the belligerent
countries. [1]

We have received information that fraternisation is taking place at the front, but this fraternisation is as yet
politically semi-conscious. What it lacks is a clear political
idea. The soldiers have come to feel instinctively that action
must come from below.

The class instinct of these revolutionary-minded people has
suggested this path to them as being the only correct path. For
a revolution, however, this is insufficient. We want to give a
clear-cut political answer. In order to put an end to this war,
state power must pass to the revolutionary class. I suggest that
an appeal to the soldiers of all the belligerent countries be
drawn up in the name of the Conference and published in all the
appropriate languages. If, instead of all these hard-worked
phrases about peace conferences, half of whose members are
secret or open agents of the imperialist governments, we send
out this appeal, we shall achieve our purpose a thousand times
quicker than we would by all those peace conferences. We refuse
to have any dealings with the German Plekhanovs. When we were
passing through Germany, those gentlemen, the social-chauvinists, the German Plekhanovs, tried to get into our
carriage, but we told them that we would not allow a single one
of them in and that if any of them did get in they would not get
out again without our having a big row. Had a man like Karl
Liebknecht been permitted to come to see us, we would certainly
have talked matters over with him. When we issue our appeal to
the working people of all countries, giving an answer to the
question of how to end the war, and when the soldiers read our
answer showing a political way out of the war, then fraternisation will make tremendous strides. This must be done
in order to raise fraternisation from the level of an instinctive revulsion against war to a clear political
understanding of how to get out of it.

I now pass on to the third question, namely, the analysis of the
current situation with reference to the position of the
international working-class movement and that of international
capitalism. From the point of view of Marxism, in discussing
imperialism it is absurd to restrict oneself to conditions in
one country alone, since all capitalist countries are closely
bound together. Now, in time of war, this bond has grown
immeasurably stronger. All humanity is thrown into a tangled
bloody heap from which no nation can extricate itself on its
own. Though there are more and less advanced countries, this war
has bound them all together by so many threads that escape from
this tangle for any single country acting on its own is
inconceivable.

We are all agreed that power must be wielded by the Soviets of
Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies. But what can and should they do
if power passes to them, i. e., if power is in the hands of the
proletarians and semi-proletarians? This is an involved and
difficult situation. Speaking of the transfer of power, there is
a danger—one that played a big part in previous revolutions, too—namely, the danger that the revolutionary
class will not know what to do with state power when it has won
it. The history of revolutions gives us examples of revolutions
that failed for this very reason. The Soviets of Workers’ and
Soldiers’ Deputies, which cover the whole of Russia with their
network, now stand at the centre of the revolution; it seems to
me, however, that we have not sufficiently studied or understood
them. Should they take over the power, it will no longer be a
state in the ordinary sense of the word. The world has seen no
such state power functioning for any considerable length of
time, but the whole world’s labour movement has been approaching
it. This would be a state of the Paris Commune type. Such power is a dictatorship, i. e., it rests
not on law, not on the formal will of the majority, but on
direct, open force. Force is the instrument of power. How, then,
will the Soviets apply this power? Will they return to the old
way of governing by means of the police? Will they govern by
means of the old organs of power? In my opinion they cannot do
this. At any rate, they will be faced with the immediate task of
creating a state that is not bourgeois. Among Bolsheviks, I have
compared this state to the Paris Commune in the sense that the
latter destroyed the old administrative organs and replaced them
by absolutely new ones that were the direct organs of the
workers. I am accused of having now used a word which the
capitalists fear most of all, as they have begun to interpret it
as a desire for the immediate introduction of socialism. I have
used it, however, only in the sense of replacing the old organs
by new, proletarian ones. Marx saw in this the greatest advance
of the entire world proletarian movement. [2] The question
of the social tasks of the proletariat is of the greatest
practical significance to us, first, because we are now tied up
with all the other countries, and are unable to disentangle
ourselves—the proletariat will either break free as a whole or it will be crushed; secondly, the existence of Soviets of
Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies is a fact. No one doubts that
they cover the whole of Russia, that they are a state power and
that there can be no other power. If that is so, we should form
a clear idea as to what use they can make of that power. Some
people say that it is the same type of power as in France or
America, but they have nothing of the kind there; such a direct
power does not exist there.

The resolution on the current situation is in three parts. The
first defines the objective situation created by the imperialist
war, the position in which world capitalism finds itself; the
second deals with the state of the international proletarian
movement; the third deals with the tasks of the Russian working
class when power passes into its hands. In the first part I
formulate the conclusion that during the war capitalism has
developed even more than before the war. It has already taken
over entire fields of production. Twenty seven years ago, in
1891, when the Germans adopted their Erfurt Programme , [3]

Engels said that one could not continue to define capitalism as a system of production lacking
planning. [4]
This is now out of date; once there are trusts there can no longer be lack of planning. Capitalism has made gigantic
strides, particularly in the twentieth century, and the war has
done more than was done for twenty-five years. State control of
industry has made progress in Britain as well as in
Germany. Monopoly, in general, has evolved into state monopoly. The objective state of affairs has shown that the war
has stepped up capitalist development, which has moved forward
from capitalism to imperialism, from monopoly to state control. All this has brought the socialist revolution nearer
and has created the objective conditions for it. Thus the
socialist revolution has been brought closer as a result of the
war.

Before the war Britain enjoyed a greater degree of freedom than
any other country in the world, a point which politicians of the
Cadet type have always stressed. There was freedom there because
there was no revolutionary movement there. The war wrought an
instant change. In a country where for decades no attempt was
ever made to encroach upon the freedom of the socialist press, a
typically tsarist censorship was immediately established, and
all the prisons were filled with socialists. For centuries the capitalists there had
learned to rule the people without the use of force, and if they
have resorted to force, it means that they feel that the
revolutionary movement is growing, that they cannot act
otherwise. When we said that Liebknecht represented the masses,
although he was one against a hundred German Plekhanovs, we were
told that that was a utopian idea, an illusion. Yet, anyone who
has, if only once, attended workers’ meetings abroad knows that
the sympathy of the masses for Liebknecht is an undeniable
fact. His bitterest opponents had to manoeuvre when facing the
public, and if they did not pretend to be his supporters,
neither did they dare to come out against him. Now things have
gone still farther. We now have mass strikes, we have fraternisation at the front. To attempt prophecy in this respect
would be a great mistake, but we cannot get away from the fact
that sympathy for the International is growing, that revolutionary unrest is beginning in the German army. This is a
fact which shows that the revolution in Germany is mounting.

What, then, are the tasks of the revolutionary proletariat? The
main flaw, the main error, in all the socialists’ arguments is
that this question is put in too general a form, as the question
of the transition to socialism. What we should talk about,
however, are concrete steps and measures. Some of them are ripe,
and some are not. We are now at a transition stage. Clearly, we
have brought to the fore new forms, unlike those in bourgeois
states. The Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies are a
form of state which does not exist and never did exist in any
country. This form represents the first steps towards socialism
and is inevitable at the beginning of a socialist society. This
is a fact of decisive importance. The Russian revolution has
created the Soviets. No bourgeois country in the world has or
can have such state institutions. No socialist revolution can be
operative with any other state power than this. The Soviets must
take power not for the purpose of building an ordinary bourgeois
republic, nor for the purpose of making a direct transition to
socialism. This cannot be. What, then, is the purpose? The
Soviets must take power in order to make the first concrete
steps towards this transition, steps that can and should be made

. In this respect fear is the worst enemy. The masses must be
urged to take these steps immediately, otherwise the power of
the Soviets will have no meaning and will give the people
nothing.

I shall now attempt to answer the question as to what concrete
measures we can suggest to the people without running counter to
our Marxist convictions.

Why do we want the power to pass to the Soviets of Workers’ and
Soldiers’ Deputies?

The first measure the Soviets must carry out is the nationalisation of the land. All the peoples are talking about
nationalisation. Some say it is a most utopian measure;
nevertheless, everybody comes to accept it, because landownership in Russia is so complicated that the only way out
is to remove all boundary lines dividing the land and make it
the property of the state. Private ownership of land must be
abolished. That is the task confronting us, because the majority
of the people are in favour of it. To accomplish it we need the
Soviets. This measure cannot be carried out with the help of the
old government officials.

The second measure. We cannot be for “introducing” socialism—this would be the height of absurdity. We must
preach socialism. The majority of the population in Russia are
peasants, small farmers who can have no idea of socialism. But
what objections can they have to a bank being set up in each
village to enable them to improve their farming? They can say
nothing against it. We must put over these practical measures to
the peasants in our propaganda, and make the peasants realise
that they are necessary.

Quite another thing is the Sugar Syndicate. This is a clear
fact. Here our proposal must be direct and practical: these
already fully developed syndicates must be taken over by the
state. If the Soviets intend to assume power, it is only for
such ends. There is no other reason why they should do so. The
alternative is: either the Soviets develop further, or they die
an ignominious death as in the case of the Paris Commune. If it
is a bourgeois republic that is needed, this can very well be
left to the Cadets.

I shall conclude by referring to a speech which impressed me
most. I heard a coal miner deliver a remarkable speech. Without
using a single bookish word, he told us how they had made the
revolution. Those miners were not concerned with the question as
to whether or not they should have a president. They seized the
mine, and the important question to them was how to keep the
cables intact so that production might not be interrupted. Then
came the question of bread, which was scarce, and the miners
also agreed on the method of obtaining it. Now that is a real
programme of the revolution, not derived from books. That is
what I call really winning power locally.

Nowhere is the bourgeoisie so well established as in
Petrograd. Here the capitalists have the power in their
hands. But throughout the country, the peasants, without
pursuing any socialist tasks, are carrying out purely practical
measures. I think that only this programme of the revolutionary
movement indicates the true path of the revolution. We are for
these measures being started on with the greatest caution and
circumspection. But it is only these measures that must be
carried out; we should go ahead in this direction only. There is
no other way out. Unless this is done the Soviets will be broken
up and will die an ignominious death. But if the revolutionary
proletariat should actually win power, it will only be for the
sake of going forward. And to go forward means to take definite
steps to get us out of the war—words alone won’t do it. The
complete success of these steps is only possible by world
revolution, if the revolution kills the war, if the workers of
the whole world support the revolution. Taking power is,
therefore, the only practical measure and the only way out.

| A brief report published May 8 (April 25), 1917 in Pravda No. 40 | |
| --- | --- |
| First published in full in 1921 in N. Lenin (V. Ulyanov), Works , Vol. XIV, Part 2 | |
| Published according to the typewritten copy of the Minutes | |

---
Notes:
[1]


— Lenin

[2]
See Marx’s letter to Dr. Kugelmann, dated April 17, 1871.
Marx and Engels, Selected Works , Vol. II, Moscow, 1962, p. 464.

[3]



[4]