V. I. Lenin

Declaration Of Rights
Of The Working And Exploited People [1]

The Constituent Assembly resolves:

I. 1. Russia is hereby proclaimed a Republic of Soviets
of Workers’, Soldiers’ and Peasants’
Deputies. All power, centrally and locally, is vested in these
Soviets.

2. The Russian Soviet Republic is established on the
principle of a free union of free nations, as a federation of
Soviet national republics.

II. Its fundamental aim being to abolish all exploitation
of man by man, to completely eliminate the division of society
into classes, to mercilessly crush the resistance of the
exploiters, to establish a socialist organisation of society and
to achieve the victory of socialism in all countries, the
Constituent Assembly further resolves:

1. Private ownership of land is hereby abolished. All
land together with all buildings, farm implements and other
appurtenances of agricultural production, is proclaimed the
property of the entire working people.

2. The Soviet laws on workers’ control and on the
Supreme Economic Council are hereby confirmed for the purpose
of guaranteeing the power of the working people over the
exploiters and as a first step towards the complete conversion
of the factories, mines, railways, and other means of production and transport into the property of the
workers’ and peasants’ state.

3. The conversion of all banks into the property of the
workers’ and peasants’ state is hereby confirmed as one of the conditions for the emancipation of the working
people from the yoke of capital.

4. For the purpose of abolishing the parasitic sections
of society, universal labour conscription is hereby instituted.

5. To ensure the sovereign power of the working people,
and to eliminate all possibility of the restoration of the
power of the exploiters, the arming of the working people, the
creation of a socialist Red Army of workers and peasants and
the complete disarming of the propertied classes are hereby
decreed.

III. 1. Expressing its firm determination to wrest mankind from the clutches of finance capital and
imperialism, which have in this most criminal of wars drenched the
world in blood, the Constituent Assembly whole-heartedly endorses
the policy pursued by Soviet power of denouncing the secret
treaties, organising most extensive fraternisation with the
workers and peasants of the armies in the war, and achieving at
all costs, by revolutionary means, a democratic peace between the
nations, without annexations and indemnities and on the basis of
the free self-determination of nations.

2. With the same end in view, the Constituent Assembly
insists on a complete break with the barbarous policy of
bourgeois civilisation, which has built the prosperity of the
exploiters belonging to a few chosen nations on the enslavement of hundreds of millions of working people in Asia,
in the colonies in general, and in the small countries.

The Constituent Assembly welcomes the policy of the Council of
People’s Commissars in proclaiming the complete independence of Finland, commencing the evacuation of troops
from Persia, and proclaiming freedom of self-determination for
Armenia. [2]

3. The Constituent Assembly regards the Soviet law on the
cancellation of the loans contracted by the governments of
the tsar, the landowners and the bourgeoisie as a first blow
struck at international banking, finance capital, and expresses the conviction that Soviet power will firmly pursue
this path until the international workers’ uprising against the yoke of capital has completely triumphed.

IV. Having been elected on the basis of party lists drawn up prior to the October Revolution, when the people
were not yet in a position to rise en masse against the
exploiters, had not yet experienced the full strength of
resistance of the latter in defence of their class privileges, and
had not yet applied themselves in practice to the task of building
socialist society, the Constituent Assembly considers that it
would be fundamentally wrong, even formally, to put itself in
opposition to Soviet power.

In essence the Constituent Assembly considers that now,
when the people are waging the last fight against their
exploiters, there can be no place for exploiters in any government
body. Power must be vested wholly and entirely in the working
people and their authorised representatives—the Soviets of
Workers’, Soldiers’ and Peasants’ Deputies.

Supporting Soviet power and the decrees of the Council of
People’s Commissars, the Constituent Assembly considers
that its own task is confined to establishing the fundamental
principles of the socialist reconstruction of society.

At the same time, endeavouring to create a really free and
voluntary, and therefore all the more firm and stable, union of
the working classes of all the nations of Russia, the Constituent
Assembly confines its own task to setting up the fundamental
principles of a federation of Soviet Republics of Russia, while
leaving it to the workers and peasants of each nation to decide
independently at their own authoritative Congress of Soviets
whether they wish to participate in the federal government and in
the other federal Soviet institutions, and on what terms.

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Notes:
[1]
The draft of the declaration was placed before the All-Russia
Central Executive Committee on January 3 (16), 1918, and adopted
as a basis by a majority with two against and one abstention. It
was referred to a Co-ordinating Commission for final drafting. The declaration was adopted by the All-Russia Central
Executive Committee and published in Izvestia on
January 4 (17). On behalf of the Committee it was read out by
Sverdlov at the first sitting of the Constituent Assembly on
January 5 (18) and motioned for approval. The counter-revolutionary majority of the Assembly rejected the
motion to discuss it. On January 12 (25), it was approved by the
Third All-Russia Congress of Soviets and subsequently formed the
basis of the Soviet Constitution.

Paragraph 2 of Lenin’s manuscript was altered by
Stalin. The paragraph beginning with the words “In essence
the Constituent Assembly considers...“ was written by
Bukharin and edited by Lenin.

[2]
On December 6 (19), 1917, the Finnish Diet adopted a declaration
of Finland’s independence. In accordance with the nationalities policy of the Soviet state, the Council of Peoples
Commissars, on December 18 (31), 1917, issued a decree on
Finland’s independence. At the meeting of the government,
Lenin personally handed the text of the decree to Prime Minister
Svinhufvud, who led a Finnish Government delegation. On December
22, 1917 (January 4, 1918), the decree on Finland’s independence was approved by the All-Russia Central Executive
Committee.

On December 19, 1917 (January 1, 1918), in conformity with a
treaty concluded between Russia and Germany, Austria-Hungary,
Turkey and Bulgaria at Brest-Litovsk on December 2 (15), the
Soviet Government proposed to the Persian Government to
elaborate a common plan for the withdrawal of Russian troops
from Persia.

On December 29, 1917 (January 11, 1918), the government issued
the Decree on Turkish Armenia, which was published in
Pravda No. 227 on December 31, 1917 (January 13, 1918).