V. I. Lenin

Extraordinary Fourth All-Russia Congress Of
Soviets [1]

March 14-16, 1918

Contents

1. Draft Resolution On Wilson’s Message

2. Report On Ratification Of The Peace Treaty, March 14

3. Reply To The Debate On The Report On Ratification Of The Peace Treaty, March 15

4. Resolution On Ratification Of The Brest Treaty

1.

Draft Resolution On Wilson’s Message [2]

The Congress expresses its gratitude to the American people, and
primarily to the working and exploited classes of the United
States of America, in connection with President Wilson’s
expression of his sympathy for the Russian people through the
Congress of Soviets at a time when the Soviet Socialist Republic
of Russia is passing through severe trials.

The Russian Soviet
Republic, having become a neutral country, takes advantage of
the message received from President Wilson to express to all
peoples that are perishing and suffering from the horrors of the
imperialist war its profound sympathy and firm conviction that
the happy time is not far away when the working people of all
bourgeois countries will throw off the yoke of capital and
establish the socialist system of society, the only system able
to ensure a durable and just peace and also culture and
well-being for all working people.

2

Report On Ratification Of The Peace Treaty March 14

Comrades, today we have to settle a question that marks a
turning-point in the development of the Russian revolution, and
not only of the Russian but also of the international revolution, and in order to decide correctly on this very harsh
peace which representatives of Soviet power have concluded at
Brest-Litovsk, and which Soviet power asks you to approve, or
ratify—in order to settle this question correctly it is
more than ever necessary for us to get an understanding of the
historical meaning of the turning-point we are at, an understanding of the main feature of the development of the
revolution up to now and the main reason for the severe defeat
and the period of stern trials we have passed through.

It seems to me that the chief source of disagreement among the
Soviet parties [3] on this question is that some people too easily give way to a
feeling of just and legitimate indignation over the defeat of
the Soviet Republic by imperialism, too easily give way at times
to despair instead of considering the historical conditions of
the revolution as they developed up to the time of the present
peace, and as they appear to us since the peace; instead of
doing that they try to answer questions of the tactics of the
revolution on the basis of their immediate feelings. The entire
history of revolutions, however, teaches us that when we have to
do with a mass movement or with the class struggle, especially
one like that at present developing not only throughout a single
country, albeit a tremendous country, but also involving all
international relations—in such a case we must base our
tactics first and foremost on an appraisal of the objective
situation, we must examine analytically the course of the
revolution up to this moment and the reason it has taken a turn
so menacing and so sharp, and so much to our disadvantage.

If we examine the development of our revolution from that point
of view we see clearly that it has so far passed through a
period of relative and largely imaginary self-dependence, and of
being temporarily independent of international relations. The
path travelled by our revolution from the end of February 1917
to February 11 of this year, [4] when the German offensive began, was,
by and large, a path of easy and rapid successes. If we study
the development of that revolution on an international scale,
from the standpoint of the Russian revolution alone, we shall
see that we have passed through three periods in the past
year. The first period is that in which the working class of
Russia, together with all advanced, class-conscious and active
peasants, supported not only by the petty bourgeoisie but also
by the big bourgeoisie, swept away the monarchy in a few
days. This astounding success is to be explained by the fact
that on the one hand, the Russian people had acquired a big
reserve of revolutionary fighting potential from the experience
of 1905, while on the other hand, Russia, an extremely backward
country, had suffered more than any other from the war and had,
at an especially early date, reached a stage when it was
absolutely impossible to continue the war under the old regime.

This short tempestuous success when a new organisation was
created—the Soviets of Workers’, Soldiers’ and
Peasants’ Deputies—was followed by the long months of the period of transition of our revolution, the period in
which the government of the bourgeoisie, immediately undermined
by the Soviets, was kept going and strengthened by the petty
bourgeois compromising parties, the Mensheviks and
Socialist-Revolutionaries, who supported it. It was a government
that supported the imperialist war and the imperialist secret
treaties, fed the working class on promises, did literally
nothing, and preserved the state of economic ruin. The Soviets
mustered their forces in this period, a period that for us, for
the Russian revolution, was a long one; it was a long period for
the Russian revolution but it was a short one from the international point of view, because in most of the leading
countries the period of overcoming petty-bourgeois illusions, of
compromise by various parties, groups and trends had been taking
not months but long decades. The span of time, from April 20 to
the moment Kerensky renewed the imperialist war in June (he had
the secret imperialist treaty in his pocket), was decisive. This
second period included our July defeat and the Kornilov revolt,
and only through the experience of the mass struggle, only when
the working-class and peasant masses had realised from their own
experience and not from sermons that petty-bourgeois compromise
was all in vain—only then, after long political development, after long preparations and changes in the moods
and views of party groups, was the ground made ready for the
October Revolution; only then did the Russian revolution enter
the third period of its initial stage, a stage of isolation, or
temporary separation, from the world revolution.

This third, or October, period, the period of organisation, was
the most difficult; at the same time it was a period of the
biggest and most rapid triumphs. After October, our revolution—the revolution that placed power in the hands
of the revolutionary proletariat, established its dictatorship
and obtained for it the support of the vast majority of the
proletariat and the poor peasantry—after October our revolution made a victorious, triumphal advance. Throughout
Russia civil war began in the form of resistance by the
exploiters, the landowners and bourgeoisie, supported by part of
the imperialist bourgeoisie.

Civil war broke out, and in that war the forces of the enemies
of Soviet power, the forces of the enemies of the working and
exploited masses, proved to be insignificant; the civil war was
one continuous triumph for Soviet power because its opponents,
the exploiters, the landowners and bourgeoisie, had neither
political nor economic support, and their attacks collapsed. The
struggle against them was not so much a military operation as
agitation; section after section, mass after mass, down to the
working Cossacks, abandoned the exploiters who were trying to
lead them away from Soviet power.

This period of the victorious, triumphal advance of the
dictatorship of the proletariat and Soviet power, when great
masses of the working and exploited people of Russia were drawn
to the side of Soviet power definitely and irrevocably—
this period constituted the final and highest point of development of the Russian revolution, which had been
progressing all this time, apparently, independently of world
imperialism. That was the reason why a country which was
extremely backward and was the most prepared for the revolution
by the experience of 1905 was able to promote one class after
another to power rapidly, easily and systematically, getting rid
of various political alignments until at last that political
structure was reached which was the last word, not only in the
Russian revolution, but also in the West-European workers’
revolutions, for Soviet power has been consolidated in Russia
and has won the absolute sympathy of the working and exploited
people because it has destroyed the old state apparatus that was
an instrument of oppression and has laid the foundation of a
state of a new and higher form of which the Paris Commune was
the prototype. The Commune destroyed the old state machine and
replaced it by the armed force of the masses themselves,
replaced bourgeois parliamentary democracy by the democracy of
the working people, which excluded the exploiters and systematically suppressed their resistance.

That is what the Russian revolution did in this period and that
is why a small vanguard of the Russian revolution is under the
impression that this rapid triumphal advance can be expected to
continue in further victory. That is precisely their mistake
because the period when the Russian revolution was developing,
passing state power in Russia from one class to another and
getting rid of class compromise within the bounds of Russia
alone—this period-was able to exist historically only because the predatory giants of world imperialism were
temporarily halted in their advance against Soviet power. A
revolution that overthrew the monarchy in a few days, exhausted
all possibilities of compromise with the bourgeoisie in a few
months and overcame all the resistance by the bourgeoisie in a
civil war of a few weeks, this revolution, the revolution of a
socialist republic, could live side by side with the imperialist
powers, among the international plunderers, the wild beasts of
international imperialism, only so long as the bourgeoisie,
locked in mortal struggle with each other, were paralysed in
their offensive against Russia.

And then began the period that we feel so keenly and see before
our eyes, the period of disastrous defeats and severe trials for
the Russian revolution, the period in which the swift, direct
and open offensive against the enemies of the revolution is over
while in its place we are experiencing disastrous defeats and
have to retreat before forces that are immeasurably greater than
ours, before the forces of international imperialism and finance
capital, before the military might that the entire bourgeoisie
with its modern weapons and its organisation has mustered
against us in the interests of plunder, oppression and the
strangling of small nations; we had to think of bringing our
forces up to their level; we had to face a task of tremendous
difficulty, that of direct combat with enemies that differed
from Romanov and Kerensky who could not be taken seriously; we
had to meet the forces of the international imperialist
bourgeoisie, all its military might, we had to stand face to
face with the world plunderers. In view of the delay in getting
help from the international socialist proletariat we naturally
had to take upon ourselves a conflict with these forces and we
suffered a disastrous defeat.

And this epoch is one of disastrous defeats, an epoch of
retreat, an epoch in which we must save at least a small part of
our position by retreating before imperialism, by awaiting the
time when there will be changes in the world situation in
general, when the forces of the European proletariat arrive, the
forces that exist and are maturing but which have not been able
to deal with their enemy as easily as we did with ours; it would
be a very great illusion, a very great mistake, to forget that
it was easy for the Russian revolution to begin but difficult
for it to take further steps. This was inevitable because we had
to begin with the most backward and most rotten political
system. The European revolution will have to begin against the
bourgeoisie, against a much more serious enemy and under
immeasurably more difficult conditions. It will be much more
difficult for the European revolution to begin. We see that it
is immeasurably more difficult to make the first breach in the
system that is holding back the revolution. It will be much
easier for the European revolution to advance to the second and
third stages. Things cannot be different with the alignment of
forces of the revolutionary and reactionary classes that at
present obtains in the world. This is the main turn in events
that is always overlooked by people who view the present
situation, the extremely serious position of the revolution,
from the stand point of their own feelings and their indignation, and not from the historical standpoint. Historical
experience teaches us that always, in all revolutions, at a time
when a revolution takes an abrupt turn from swift victory to
severe defeats, there comes a period of pseudo-revolutionary
phrase-making that invariably causes the greatest damage to the
development of the revolution. And so, comrades, we shall be
able to appraise our tactics correctly only when we set out to
consider the turn in events that has hurled us back from swift,
easy and complete victories to grave defeats. This is an
extremely difficult and extremely serious question arising out
of the present turning-point in the development of the revolution, the turn from easy victories within the country to
exceptionally heavy defeats without; it is also a turning-point
in the entire world revolution, a turn from the period of
propaganda and agitation on the part of the Russian revolution,
with imperialism biding its time, to the offensive of imperialism against Soviet power, and this turn puts a
particularly difficult and acute question before the international movement in Western Europe. If we are not to
ignore this historical aspect of the situation we must try to
understand how Russia’s basic interests in the question of
the present harsh, or obscene, as it is called, peace took
shape.

When arguing against those who refused to see the need to accept
that peace, I have often come up against the statement that the
idea of concluding the peace expresses only the interests of the
exhausted peasant masses, the declassed soldiers, and so on and
so forth. Whenever I hear such statements, whenever I hear such
things referred to, I am always amazed that the class aspect of
national development is forgotten by comrades—people who
limit themselves exclusively to seeking explanations. As though
the Party of the proletariat on taking power had not counted on
the alliance of the proletariat and the semi-proletariat, i. e.,
the-poor peasantry (i. e., the majority of the peasantry of
Russia), had not known that only such an alliance would be able
to hand the government of Russia over to the revolutionary power
of the Soviets, the power of the majority, the real majority of
the people, and that without this alliance it would be senseless
to make any attempt to establish power, especially at difficult
turning-points in history! As though we could now abandon this
verity that was accepted by all of us and confine ourselves to a
contemptuous reference to the exhausted state of the peasantry
and the declassed soldiers! With regard to the exhausted state
of the peasantry and the declassed soldiers we must say that the
country will offer resistance, and that the poor peasants will
be able to offer resistance only in so far as those poor
peasants are capable of directing their forces to the struggle.

When we were about to take power in October it was obvious that
events were inevitably leading up to it, that the turn towards
Bolshevism in the Soviets indicated a turn throughout the
country, and that the Bolsheviks must inevitably take power. When we, realising this, took power in October, we said
to ourselves and to all the people, very clearly and unequivocally, that it was a transfer of power to the
proletariat and the poor peasantry, that the proletariat knew
the peasantry would support it—you know yourselves in what—in its active struggle for peace and its readiness to
continue the fight against big finance capital. In this we are
making no mistake, and nobody who sticks to the concept of class
forces and class alignments can get away from the indisputable
truth that we cannot ask a country of small peasants, a country
that has given much for the European and world revolution, to
carry on the struggle in a difficult situation, a most difficult
situation, when help from the West-European proletariat has
undoubtedly been delayed, although there is no doubt that it is
coming to us, as the facts, the strikes, etc., show. That is why
I say that such references to the exhaustion of the peasant
masses, etc., are made by people who simply have no arguments,
who are absolutely helpless when they seek such arguments, and
who are quite unable to grasp class relations as a whole, in
their entirety, the relations of the revolution of the proletariat and of the peasant masses; it is only when, at every
sharp turn in history, we appraise the class relations as a
whole, the relations of all classes, and do not select individual examples and individual cases, that we feel ourselves
firmly supported by an analysis of probable facts. I realise
full well that the Russian bourgeoisie are today urging us on
towards a revolutionary war when it is absolutely impossible for
us to have such a war. This is essential to the class interests
of the bourgeoisie.

When they shout about an obscene peace and do not say a word
about who brought the army to its present state, I realise quite
well that it is the bourgeoisie together with the Dyelo Naroda people, the Tsereteli and Chernov Mensheviks and
their yes-men ( applause )—I know quite well that it is the bourgeoisie who are bawling for a revolutionary
war. Their class interests demand it, their anxiety to see
Soviet power make a false move demands it. It is not surprising
that this comes from people who, on the one hand, fill the pages
of their newspapers with counter-revolutionary scribbling. . . . ( Voices : “They’ve all
been suppressed!”) Unfortunately, not yet all of them, but
we will close them all down. ( Applause. ) I should like
to see the proletariat that would allow the counter-revolutionaries, those who support the bourgeoisie and
collaborate with them, to continue using the monopoly of wealth
to drug the people with their bourgeois opium. There is no such
proletariat. ( Applause. )

I realise, of course, that nothing but shouts, howls and screams
about an obscene peace comes from those publications, I realise
full well that the people who favour this revolutionary
war—from the Constitutional-Democrats to the Right
Socialist-Revolutionaries—are those who meet the Germans
as they advance and say triumphantly, here come the Germans, and
then allow their officers, again wearing their badges of rank,
to strut about in the places that have been occupied by the
German imperialist invaders. Oh no, I am not a bit surprised at
these bourgeois, these collaborators, preaching a revolutionary
war. They want Soviet power to be caught in a trap. They have
shown their hand, these bourgeois and collaborators. We have
seen them and can still see live specimens, we know that in the
Ukraine there are Ukrainian Kerenskys, Ukrainian Chernovs and
Ukrainian Tseretelis—there they are, the
Vinnichenkos. Those gentlemen, the Ukrainian Kerenskys, Chernovs
and Tseretelis, concealed from the people the peace they
concluded with the German imperialists, and today they are
trying to overthrow Soviet power in the Ukraine with the help of
German bayonets. That is what those bourgeois and those
collaborators and their accomplices have done. That is what they
have done, those Ukrainian bourgeois and collaborators, whose
example you have before your very eyes; they concealed and are
still concealing their secret treaties from the people, they are
attacking Soviet power with the aid of German bayonets. That is
what the Russian bourgeoisie want, that is where the bourgeois
yes-men are trying to push Soviet power, wittingly or unwittingly; they know that under no circumstances can Soviet
power undertake an imperialist war against the might of
imperialism at the present moment. That is why it is only in
this international situation, in this general class situation,
that we can understand the full depth of the mistake of those
who, like the Left Socialist-Revolutionary Party, have allowed
themselves to be carried away by a theory that is common to the
history of all revolutions at moments of difficulty, a theory
that is half desperation and half empty phrases; according to
this theory, instead of taking a sober view of reality and
appraising the tasks of the revolution in respect of the
internal and external enemy from the standpoint of class forces,
you are asked to settle a serious and very grave problem only
under the impact of your feelings, merely from standpoint of
feelings. The peace is incredibly harsh and shameful. ln my
statements and speeches I have had occasion to liken it to the
Peace of Tilsit that the conqueror Napoleon forced on the
Prussian and German peoples after a series of heavy defeats. Yes, the peace is a grave defeat and is humiliating to
Soviet power, but if you, proceeding from this, and limiting
yourselves to it, appeal to feelings and arouse discontent in an
attempt to settle a gigantic historical problem, you will get
into that ridiculous and pitiful situation into which the
Socialist-Revolutionary Party once got itself, when in 1907, in
a situation that was somewhat similar in certain respects, that
party also appealed to the feelings of revolutionaries, when,
after our revolution had suffered heavy defeats in 1906 and
1907, Stolypin presented us with the laws on the Third
Duma—shameful and extremely difficult conditions of work
in one of the rottenest of representative institutions—when our Party, after brief internal wavering
(the wavering on the question was greater than it is today),
decided the question in this way: we have no right to give way
to feelings; no matter how great our indignation and dissatisfaction with the shameful Third Duma, we have to
recognise that it was not chance but the historical necessity of
a developing class struggle which lacked the strength to
continue but which could muster that strength even in the
shameful conditions that have been imposed. We proved to be
right. Those who tried to attract people by revolutionary
phrases, by appeals to justice (since they were expressing
feelings that were trebly legitimate)—those people were
given a lesson that will not be forgotten by any revolutionary
capable of thought and possessing ideas.

Revolutions do not go smoothly enough to ensure rapid and easy
progress. There has never been any great revolution, even on a
national scale, that did not experience a hard period of defeat,
and the attitude of a revolutionary towards the serious question
of mass movements, of developing revolutions, must not be one of
declaring the peace obscene and humiliating and then saying he
cannot reconcile himself to it; it is not sufficient to quote
agitational phrases, to shower reproaches on us because of the
peace—that is the known ABC of the revolution, the experience of all revolutions. Our experience since
1905—and if we are rich in anything, if there is any reason why the Russian working class and poor peasantry have
taken upon themselves the most difficult and honourable task of
beginning the world socialist revolution, it is because the
Russian people have been able, owing to specific historical
conditions, to make two great revolutions at the beginning of
the twentieth century—we have to learn from the experience
of those revolutions, we have to learn to understand that only
by studying the changes in the class connections between one
country and another is it possible to prove definitely that we
are in no condition to accept battle at the moment; we have to
take this into consideration and say to ourselves, whatever
respite we may obtain, no matter how unstable, no matter how
brief, harsh and humiliating the peace may be, it is better than
war, because it gives the masses a breathing-space, because it
provides us with an opportunity to correct what the bourgeoisie
have done, the bourgeoisie that are shouting wherever they have
an opportunity to shout, especially under the protection of the
Germans in the occupied regions.

The bourgeoisie are shouting that the Bolsheviks are responsible
for the disintegration of the army, that there is no army and
the Bolsheviks are to blame for it; but let us look at the past,
comrades, let us look, firstly, at the development of our
revolution. Do you not know that desertion and the disintegration of our army began long before the revolution, in
1916, and that everybody who has seen the army will have to
admit that? And what did our bourgeoisie do to prevent it? Is it
not clear that the only chance for salvation from the imperialists at that time was in their hands, that a chance
presented itself in March and April, when Soviet organisations
could have taken power by a simple motion of the hand against
the bourgeoisie. And if the Soviets had then taken power, if the
bourgeois and petty-bourgeois intelligentsia, together with the
Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks, instead of helping
Kerensky deceive the people, conceal the secret treaties and
lead the army to an offensive—if they had then come to the
aid of the army, had supplied it with munitions and rations and
had compelled the bourgeoisie to help the fatherland—not
the fatherland of the hucksters, not the fatherland of treaties
that help to slaughter the people ( applause )—and had themselves participated; if the Soviets had forced the
bourgeoisie to help the fatherland of the workers and all
working people, and had helped the ragged, barefoot and hungry
army, then, perhaps, we should have had a period of ten months,
long enough to rest the army and gain unanimous support for it,
so that without the army having moved one step from the front a
general, democratic peace could have been proposed, the secret
treaties could have been torn up and the line held without
retreating a single step. There would then have been a chance of
peace, which the workers and peasants would have willingly
supported and approved. That would have been the tactics of the
defence of the fatherland, not the fatherland of the Romanovs,
Kerenskys, or Chernovs, a fatherland with secret treaties, a
fatherland of the treacherous bourgeoisie—not that fatherland but the fatherland of the working people. That is who
is responsible for having made the transition from war to
revolution and from the Russian revolution to world socialism a
period of severe trials. That is why such proposals as a
revolutionary war sound like empty phrases, when we know that we
have no army, when we know that it would have been impossible to
hold the army, and people with a knowledge of the situation
could not help seeing that our decree on demobilisation was not
an invention but the result of obvious necessity, because it
would have been impossible to hold the army. The army could not
have been held. That officer, not a Bolshevik, was right who,
before the October Revolution, said that the army could not and
would not fight. [5] This is what has come of months of
bargaining with the bourgeoisie and of all the speeches about
the need to continue the war; no matter what noble sentiments on
the part of many revolutionaries, or of few revolutionaries, may
have dictated them, they proved to be empty revolutionary
phrases that played into the hands of international imperialism
so that it could plunder as much again and more, just as it has
been doing since our tactical or diplomatic error, since the
time we did not sign the Brest Treaty. When we told those who
opposed concluding peace that if we had a respite of any length
they would realise that the recuperation of the army and the
interests of the working people were more important than
anything else, and that peace should have been concluded for
this reason—they maintained that there could be no respite.

But our revolution differs from all previous revolutions in
having aroused among the masses a desire to build and create,
and the working people in the most out-of-the-way villages,
people humiliated, downtrodden and oppressed by tsars, landowners, and bourgeoisie, have been aroused; this is a period
of the revolution that is only now being accomplished, now that
the rural revolution is under way, the revolution that is
building a new way of life. And for the sake of this respite, no
matter how brief and how small it may be, it was our duty to
sign the treaty, since we place the interests of the working
people above the interests of the bourgeois warriors who rattle
their sabres and call on us to fight. That is what the revolution teaches. The revolution teaches that when we make
diplomatic mistakes, when we assume that the German workers will
come to our aid tomorrow, when we hope that Liebknecht will be
victorious immediately (and we know that one way or another
Liebknecht will win, that is inevitable in the development of
the working-class movement [ applause ]), it means that,
when used unthinkingly, the revolutionary slogans of the
difficult socialist movement turn into empty phrases. There is
not a single representative of the working people, there is not
a single honest worker who would refuse to make the greatest
sacrifice to help the socialist movement of Germany, because
during all this time at the front he has learned to distinguish
between the German imperialists and the soldiers tormented by
German discipline, most of whom are in sympathy with us. That is
why I say that the Russian revolution has corrected our mistake
in practice, has corrected it by giving us the respite. It is
very probable that it will be an extremely brief one, but we
have the chance of at least a brief respite in which the army,
worn out and hungry as it is, will become conscious of the fact
that it has been given an opportunity to recuperate. It is clear
to us that the period of the old imperialist wars is over and we
are threatened with the further horrors of an outbreak of fresh
wars, but there have been such periods of war in many historical
epochs, and they have always become most fierce towards the
end. This must be understood, not only at meetings in Petrograd
and Moscow; it must be understood by the many tens of millions
in the countryside; and the more enlightened part of the rural
population, those returning from the front, those who have
experienced the horrors of war, must help them understand it;
the huge masses of peasants and workers must become convinced of
the necessity for a revolutionary front—they will then say
we have acted correctly.

They tell us we have betrayed the Ukraine and Finland—what
disgrace! But the situation that bas arisen is such that we are
cut off from Finland, with whom we concluded an unwritten treaty
before the revolution and have now concluded a formal treaty. [6] They say we are
surrendering the Ukraine, which Chernov, Kerensky and Tsereteli
are going to ruin; they say we are traitors, we have betrayed
the Ukraine! I say: Comrades, I’ve seen enough of the history of revolution not to be embarrassed by the hostile
glances and shouts of people who give way to their feelings and
are incapable of clear judgement. I will give you a simple
example. Suppose that two friends are out walking at night and
they are attacked by ten men. If the scoundrels isolate one of
them, what is the other to do? He cannot render assistance, and
if he runs away is he a traitor? And suppose that it is not a
matter of individuals or of spheres in which questions of direct
feelings are being settled, but of five armies, each a hundred-thousand strong, that surround an army of two hundred
thousand, and that there is another army that should come to the
embattled army’s assistance. But if that second army knows
that it is certain to fall into a trap, it should withdraw; it
must withdraw, even if the retreat has to be covered by the
conclusion of an obscene, foul peace—curse as much as you
like, but it is necessary to conclude the peace. There is no
reason for considering the feelings of a duelist who draws his
sword and says that he must die because he is being compelled to
conclude a humiliating peace. But we all know that, however we
may decide, we have no army, and no gestures will save us from
the necessity of withdrawing to gain time and enable our army to
recuperate; everybody who looks reality in the face and does not
deceive himself with revolutionary phrase-making will agree with
this. Anyone who faces the facts without blinding himself with
phrase-making and arrogance must know this.

If we know this, it is our revolutionary duty to conclude even
this harsh, super-harsh and rapacious treaty, for by so doing we
shall reach a better position for ourselves and for our
allies. Did we actually lose anything by concluding the peace
treaty of March 3? Anyone who wants to look at things from the
point of view of mass relations, and not from that of the
aristocratic duelist, will realise that without an army, or
having only the sick remnant of an army, it would be self-deception, it would he the greatest deception of the
people, to accept battle and call it a revolutionary war. It is
our duty to tell the people the truth; yes, the peace is a harsh
one. The Ukraine and Finland are perishing but we must accept
this peace and all class-conscious working people in Russia will
accept it because they know the unvarnished truth, they know the
meaning of war, they know that to stake everything on one card
on the assumption that the German revolution will begin
immediately is self-deception. By concluding peace we have
obtained what we gave our Finnish friends—a respite, help
and not destruction.

I know of examples from history of much more rapacious peace
treaties having been concluded, treaties that surrendered viable
nations to the mercy of the conqueror. Let us compare our peace
to the Peace of Tilsit; the Peace of Tilsit was enforced on
Prussia and Germany by a conqueror. That peace was so harsh that
not only were all the capital cities of all the German states
seized, not only were the Prussians thrown back to Tilsit, which
would be the same as throwing us back to Omsk or Tomsk; not only
that—the worst of all was that Napoleon compelled the conquered peoples to supply him with auxiliary troops for his
wars; but nevertheless, when the situation became such that the
German peoples had to withstand the attacks of the conquer or,
when the epoch of revolutionary wars in France gave place to the
epoch of imperialist wars of conquest, then came the revelation
which those people who wax enthusiastic over empty phrases do
not want to understand, those people, that is, who picture the
conclusion of peace as a downfall. This psychology is understandable in an aristocratic duelist but not in a worker or
peasant. The latter has been through the hard school of war and
has learned to calculate. There have been even greater trials,
and nations even more backward have come through them. Harsher
peace treaties have been concluded, the Germans concluded one in
an epoch when they had no army, or when their army was sick like
ours. They concluded a very harsh peace with Napoleon. But that
peace was not the downfall of Germany—on the contrary, it
was the turning-point, national defence, renewal. We are on the
eve of just such a turning-point and are experiencing analogous
conditions. We must look truth in the face and banish all empty
phrases and declarations. We must say, peace, if it is necessary, must be concluded. The war of liberation, the class
war, the war of the people will take the place of the Napoleonic
wars. The system of the Napoleonic wars will change, war will
give place to peace and peace to war, and from every harsh peace
there has always emerged a more extensive preparation for
war. The harshest of peace treaties—the Peace of
Tilsit—has gone down in history as a turning-point towards
the time when the German people began to swing round; when they
retreated to Tilsit, to Russia, they were actually gaining time,
waiting for the international situation that had, at one time,
favoured Napoleon—he was another plunderer like
Hohenzollern or Hindenburg—waiting until the situation changed, until the mentality of the German people, tormented by
decades of Napoleonic wars and defeats, had recuperated and the
German people were resuscitated. That is what history teaches
us, that is why all despair and empty phrases are criminal, that
is why everyone will say yes, the old imperialist wars are
ending—an historical turning-point has come.

Our revolution has been one long triumph since October, and now
the lengthy times of hardship have come, we do not know for how
long, but we do know that it will be a long and difficult period
of defeats and retreats, because the alignment of forces is what
it is, because by retreating we shall give the people a chance
to recuperate. We shall make it possible for every worker and
peasant to realise the truth that will enable him to understand
that new wars waged by the imperialist plunderers against the
oppressed peoples are beginning, and every worker and peasant
will realise that we must rise in defence of the fatherland,
because we have been defencists since October. Since October 25
we have said openly that we stand for the defence of the
fatherland, because we have a fatherland, the one from which we
have driven the Kerenskys and Chernovs, because we have torn up
the secret treaties, because we have crushed the bourgeoisie—badly so far, but we shall learn to do it
better.

Comrades, there is another important difference between the
condition of the German people and of the Russian people who
have suffered a severe defeat at the hands of the German
invaders—there is a tremendous difference that must be mentioned, although I have already touched upon it briefly in
the preceding part of my speech. Comrades, when the German
people, over a hundred years ago, entered a period of the most
cruel wars of conquest, a period when they had to retreat and
conclude one shameful treaty after another before they were
awakened—at that time the German people were weak and backward, just that and nothing more. They had against them not
only the military forces and the might of the conqueror
Napoleon, they had against them a country that was far above
Germany in the revolutionary and political sense and in every
other respect, a country that had risen far above all others, a
country that had reached the top. That country was far above the
people who were languishing in subjection to the imperialists
and landowners. A people that, I repeat, had been nothing but a
weak and backward people, managed to learn from its bitter
lessons and to raise itself up. We are in a better position; we
are not merely a weak and backward people, we are the people who
have been able—not because of any special services or of
historical predestination, but because of a definite conjunction
of historical circumstances—who have been able to accept
the honour of raising the banner of the international socialist
revolution. ( Applause. )

I am well aware, comrades, that the banner is in weak hands, I
have said that outright several times already, and the workers
of the most backward country will not be able to hold that
banner unless the workers of all advanced countries come to
their aid. The socialist reforms that we have accomplished are
far from perfect, they are weak and insufficient; they will
serve as a guide to the advanced West-European workers who will
say to themselves, “The Russians haven’t made a very good beginning on the job that has to be done”; the
important thing is that our people are not merely a weak and
backward people as compared with the Germans, they are the
people who have raised the banner of revolution. Although the
bourgeoisie of any country you like are filling the columns of
their press with slander of the Bolsheviks, although the voice
of the imperialist press in France, Britain, Germany, etc.,
curses the Bolsheviks in unison, you will not find a meeting of
workers in any country at which the names and slogans of our
socialist government give rise to bursts of indignation. ( Voice : ’That’s a
lie!”) No, it is not, it is the truth, and anyone who has
been in Germany, Austria, Switzerland or America during the past
few months will tell you it is the truth and not a lie, that the
names and slogans of representatives of Soviet power in Russia
are greeted with the greatest enthusiasm by the workers and
that, despite all the lies of the bourgeoisie of Germany,
France, etc., the working-class masses have realised that no
matter how weak we may be, their cause is being served here in
Russia. Yes, our people have a very heavy burden to bear, the
burden they have themselves taken up; but a people that has been
able to establish Soviet power cannot perish. Again I repeat—there is not a single politically conscious
socialist, not a single worker among those who think over the
history of the revolution, who can dispute the fact that Soviet
power— despite all the defects that I know only too well
and fully appreciate—is the highest type of state, the direct successor to the Paris Commune. It has ascended a step
higher than the other European revolutions so that we are not
experiencing the difficult conditions that the German people
experienced a hundred years ago; the change in the balance of
forces among the plunderers, taking advantage of the conflict
and satisfying the demands of plunderer Napoleon, plunderer
Alexander I and the plundering British monarchy—that was
the only thing left, the one chance, for the German people,
oppressed by feudalism; and yet the German people did not perish
from the Peace of Tilsit. But we, I say again, have better
conditions, we have a powerful ally in all West-European
countries, the international socialist proletariat, the
proletariat that is on our side no matter what our enemies may
say. ( Applause. ) True, it is not easy for that ally to
raise his voice, any more than it was easy for us until the end
of February 1917. That ally is living in the underground, under
conditions of the military prison into which all imperialist
countries have been turned, but he knows us and understands our
cause; it is difficult for him to come to our aid, and Soviet
troops, therefore, will need much time and patience and will
have to go through many trials before the time comes when he
will aid us—we shall use even the slightest chance of procrastination, for time is working on our side. Our cause is
gaining strength, the forces of the imperialists are weakening,
and no matter what trials and defeats may emerge from the
“Tilsit” peace, we are beginning the tactics of withdrawal and, once more I say it, there is no doubt the
politically-conscious proletariat and, likewise, the politically-conscious peasants are on our side, and we shall be
able not only to make heroic at tacks, but also to make a heroic
retreat and we shall wait until the international socialist
proletariat comes to our aid and shall then begin a second
socialist revolution that will be world-wide in its scope. ( Applause. )

3

Reply To The Debate On The Report On Ratification Of The Peace Treaty March 15

Comrades, had I desired to find a confirmation of what was said
in my first speech about the nature of the revolutionary war
that was proposed to us, the best and clearest confirmation
would have been given me by the report of the representative of
the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries. [7] I think it will be most expedient if I
quote his speech from the verbatim report and we shall see what
arguments they adduce in confirmation of their propositions.

Here is a specimen of the arguments on which they rely. There
has been talk here of the volost gathering. [8] Those who consider this
meeting a volost gathering can resort to such arguments, but it
is clear that these people are repeating our words but are
incapable of thinking them out. People repeat what the
Bolsheviks taught the Left S.R.s when the latter were still
among the Rights, and when they speak it is evident that they
have learnt by rote what we said, but they have not understood
on what it was based, and now they repeat it. Tsereteli and
Chernov were defencists, and now we are defencists, we are
“traitors”, we are “betrayers”. The accomplices of the bourgeoisie speak here about a volost
gathering—they make eyes when they say this—but every worker understands very well the aims of the defencism by
which Tsereteli and Chernov were guided and the grounds which
cause us to be defencists.

If we were to support the Russian capitalists who wanted to be
given the Dardanelles, Armenia and Galicia, as it was written in
the secret treaty, that would be defencism in the spirit of
Chernov and Tsereteli, and that defencism was disgraceful then,
but now our defencism is honourable. ( Applause. )

And when, alongside such arguments, in the verbatim report of
Kamkov’s speech I find twice repeated the statement that
the Bolsheviks are agents of German imperialism ( applause from the Right ), a harsh term—I am very glad that
all those who pursued Kerensky’s policy emphasise it by
their applause. ( Applause. ) And indeed, of course, it
is not for me to object to harsh words. I shall never raise any
objection to that. Only, in order to be harsh one must have the
right to be so, and the right to be harsh is given by one’s words not differing from one’s deeds. That is
the little condition which many intellectuals do not appreciate,
but which the workers and peasants have grasped even at volost
gatherings—it is such a meagre thing, the volost gathering—they have grasped it both at volost gatherings
and in Soviet organisations, and their word does not differ from
their deed. But we are very well aware that they, the Left
S.R.s, remained in the party of the Right S.R.s until October,
during the time when the latter were sharing the rewards of
office, when they acted as agents because they had been promised
ministerial posts in return for keeping silent about the secret
treaties. ( Applause. ) But it is quite impossible to call agents of imperialism people who actually proclaimed war
against it, tore up the treaties and undertook the risk that
this involved, undertook to drag out the negotiations in Brest,
knowing that this would ruin the country, endured the military
attack and a series of unprecedented defeats, and did not
conceal the slightest thing from the people.

Martov has assured us here that he has not read the treaty. Let
those who like to, believe him. We know that these people are
accustomed to read a lot of newspapers, but they have not read
the treaty. ( Applause. ) Let those who wish, believe it. But I tell you that, while the party of the S.R.s knows very
well that we are giving way in the face of violence, which has
been fully exposed by us, that we are doing so deliberately,
frankly saying that we are unable to fight just now but are
giving way—history. knows of a number of most shameful treaties and a number of wars—when people in reply to this
produce the word “agents”, this harshness exposes them, and when they assure us that they disclaim responsibility
for what they are doing—is it not hypocrisy, when people
disclaim responsibility but continue to be in the government? I
maintain that when they say that they disclaim responsibility—they do not divest themselves of it, and
they are quite wrong in thinking this is a volost gathering. No,
this is everything that is honest and best among the working
masses. ( Applause. ) This is no bourgeois parliament to
which people are elected once or twice a year to take their
seats and receive a salary. These are people sent from the
provinces and tomorrow they will be in the provinces and will
relate that if the party of Left S.R.s is losing votes, it
deserves to, because the party which acts in this way is the
same soap bubble among the peasantry as it proved to be among
the working class. ( Applause , voices :
“Quite right.”)

Further, I will quote you one more passage from Kamkov’s
speech to show how every representative of the working and
exploited people reacts to it. “When yesterday Comrade
Lenin asserted here that Comrades Tsereteli and Chernov and
others had demoralised the army, can we really not find the
courage to say that Lenin and I also demoralised the army?” He is a long way wide of the
mark. ( Applause. ) He has heard that we were defeatists,
and he has recalled this when we have ceased to be defeatists. He has recalled it at the wrong time. They have
learnt the word by heart, they have a revolutionary-sounding toy
rattle to play with, but they are incapable of giving some
thought to the actual state of affairs. ( Applause. ) I
assert that out of a thousand volost gatherings where Soviet
power has been consolidated, in more than nine hundred there are
people who will tell the Party of Left S.R.s that they do not
deserve any confidence. They will say—all right; we demoralised the army and we must recall that now. But how did we
demoralise the army? We were defeatists at the time of the tsar,
but at the time of Tsereteli and Chernov we were not defeatists. We published in Pravda a proclamation which
Krylenko, who was then still being persecuted, addressed to the
army: “Why I am going to Petrograd.” He said:
“We are not calling on you for mutinies.” That was not demoralisation of the army. Those who declared this war to
be a great war were the ones who demoralised the army.

It was Tsereteli and Chernov who demoralised the army because
they spoke grand words to the people, words which many Left
Socialist-Revolutionaries were accustomed to throw out at
random. It is easy to play with words, but the Russian people at
volost gatherings are accustomed to think over them and take
them seriously. If, however, the people were told that we were
striving for peace and discussing the conditions of the
imperialist war, then I ask: and what about the secret treaties
and the June offensive? That is how they demoralised the
army. If they spoke to the people about the struggle against the
imperialists, about defence of the homeland, the people asked
themselves: do they seize the capitalists by the scruff of the
neck somewhere?—that is how they demoralised the army, and
that is why I said, and no one has refuted it, it would have
been the salvation of the army if we had taken power in March or
April, and if instead of the furious hatred of the exploiters
because we suppressed them—they quite justifiably hate us—if instead of this they had put the interests of the
homeland of the working and exploited people higher than the
interests of the homeland of Kerensky and Ryabushinsky’s
secret treaties, and of designs on Armenia, Galicia and the
Dardanelles, that would have spelt salvation. And in this
connection—beginning with the great Russian Revolution,
and especially from March, when a half-hearted appeal to the
peoples of all countries [9] was issued—the government, which
issued the appeal that called for the overthrow of the bankers
of all countries, was itself sharing profits and favours with
the bankers—that is what demoralised the army and why the
army could not keep going. ( Applause. )

And I assert that we—beginning from this appeal of
Krylenko’s, which was not the first, [10] and which I am recalling
because it stuck in my mind—we did not demoralise the army
but said: hold the front—the sooner you take power the easier will it be to retain it, and to say now: we are against
civil war and for an uprising—how unworthy this is and how
despicable this chatter of some people. When this reaches the
countryside and when the soldiers there, who have seen war not
as the intellectuals have, and who know that it is easy to wave
only a cardboard sword, when they say that at the critical
moment they, unshod, badly clothed and suffering, were helped by
being driven into an offensive—they are now being told that it doesn’t matter that there will be no army, there
will be an uprising instead. To drive the people against a
regular army with superior technical equipment—that is criminal, and we, as socialists, taught that it is so. Indeed,
the war taught a great deal, not only that people suffered, but
also that those who have the greatest technical equipment,
organisation and discipline, and the best machines, will gain
the upper hand; the war taught this, and it is excellent that it
did so. It has to be learnt that it is impossible to live in
modern society without machines, without discipline—one
has either to master modern techniques or be crushed. Years of
most painful suffering have taught the peasants what war is. And
when anyone goes speech-making at the volost gatherings, when
the party of Left S.R.s goes there, they will receive well-merited punishment. ( Applause. )

One more example, another quotation from Kamkov’s speech. ( He reads it. )

It is sometimes surprisingly easy to raise questions; only there
is a saying—an impolite, rude one—which refers to such questions—I’m afraid I can’t change the
proverb—I will remind you of it: one fool can ask more questions than ten wise men can answer.

Comrades, in the quotation I have just read out I am invited to
answer the question: will the respite last one week, two weeks,
or will it last more? I assert that at any volost gathering or
at any factory a person who in the name of a serious party comes
out with such a question will be laughed at by the people and
chased away, because at any volost gathering they will understand that there is no point in raising questions about
something that cannot be known. That will be understood by any
worker and peasant. ( Applause. ) If you absolutely insist on an answer, I will tell you that of course any Left
S.R. who writes in the newspapers or speaks at meetings will say
what this duration depends on: it depends on when Japan attacks,
with what forces, and what resistance it encounters; on the
extent to which the Germans get into difficulties in Finland, in
the Ukraine; on when the offensive on all fronts begins; on how
it develops; on the further course of the internal conflict in
Austria and Germany, and on many other things as well. ( Applause. )

Therefore, when at a serious meeting people with an air of
triumph raise the question: answer me, what kind of a respite
will it be?—I say that such people will be chased out of
workers’ and peasants’ meetings by those who understand that after three years of war torment, every week of
respite is a very great boon. (Applause.) And I assert that
whatever the abuse now heaped on us here, if tomorrow all the
abusive terms addressed to us from the Rights, almost-Rights,
near-Rights, Left S.R.s, Cadets, and Mensheviks were collected
together and published, even if some hundreds of poods were the
result, as far as I am concerned all this would weigh as light
as a feather compared with the fact that among us in the
Bolshevik group nine-tenths of its representatives have said: we
know war and we see that now, when we have secured this short
respite, it is an advantage for the recovery of our sick
army. And at every peasant meeting nine-tenths of the peasants
will say what everyone who concerns himself with the matter
knows, and when able to help in any way we have not rejected and
do not reject any practical proposal.

We have gained the possibility of a respite, even if only for
twelve days, thanks to the policy which has countered revolutionary phrase-making and “public”
opinion. When Kamkov and the Left S.R.s play a game with you and
make eyes at you, then, on the one hand, they are making eyes at
you and, on the other, they are saying to the
Constitutional-Democrats: put that down in our favour, indeed,
we are heart and soul with you. ( Voice from the hall :
“It’s a lie.”) And when one of the representatives of the S.R.s, apparently not even of the Lefts,
but of the super-Lefts, a Maximalist, spoke about phrase-making,
he said that phrase-making was everything that concerned
honour. ( A voice : “Quite right.”) Well, of course, in the Right-wing camp they call out “quite
right”; this exclamation is pleasanter to me than the exclamation “it’s a lie”, although that does
not impress me in the slightest either. But if I were to accuse
them of phrase-making without giving any clear and precise
confirmation of it, but the fact is I quoted two examples and I
took them not from my imagination but from actual occurrence.

Remember, were not the representatives of the S.R.s in the same
situation when in 1907 they gave their signatures to Stolypin
that they would faithfully and truly serve the Emperor Nicholas
II? I hope that I have learnt something from the long years of
the revolution, and when I am defamed by accusations of
treachery, I say: one must first of all be able to find
one’s way in history. If we wanted to alter the course of
history and it turns out that it was we who altered course and
not history—then execute us. History is not to be convinced by speeches, and history will show that we were right,
that we brought the workers’ organisations into the Great
October Revolution of 1917, but only thanks to the fact that we
rose above phrase-making and knew how to look at the facts, to
learn from them. And when now, on March 14-15, it has become
clear that if we had fought we should have helped imperialism,
we should have finally wrecked the transport system and lost
Petrograd—we see that to play with words and wave a cardboard sword is useless. But when Kamkov comes to me and asks
“will this respite be for long?”, it is impossible to give an answer because internationally there has not been an
objective revolutionary situation. There cannot be a long
respite for reaction now because the objective situation is
everywhere revolutionary, because everywhere the working-class
masses are indignant, are at the limit of their patience, at the
limit of exhaustion from the war; that is a fact. It is
impossible to escape from this fact, and therefore I have been
proving to you that there was a period when the revolution went
ahead and we went in front and the Left S.R.s stepped out
perkily behind us. ( Applause. ) But now a period has begun when we have to retreat in the face of overwhelming
force. That is an absolutely concrete description. No one will
rebut me on this. Historical analysis is bound to confirm
it. Here you have our Marxist, almost Marxist, Martov, speaking
ill of the volost gathering; he speaks ill of the closing down
of newspapers; he boasts that the oppressed and offended
newspapers were closed down because they were helping to
overthrow Soviet power, he speaks ill of. . . About this he does
not keep silent. Such things he sets before you, but an attempt
to answer the historical question put point-blank by me, whether
it is the truth or not that since October we have made a
triumphant advance. . . . ( Voices from the Right :
“No.”) You say “no”, but all these say “yes”. I ask: can we now make a victorious advance
in an offensive against world imperialism. We cannot, and
everyone knows it. When this, a frank simple statement, is made
forthrightly in order to teach people revolution—revolution is a profound, difficult and complex
science—in order to teach both the workers and the peasants, the people who are making the revolution, how to do
so, our enemies cry out: cowards, traitors, the flag has been
abandoned; they fall back on words, they wave their arms. No. The whole history of revolutions has shown many such
revolutionary phrase-mongers and nothing is left of them but
stench and smoke. ( Applause. )

Another example I cited, comrades, was that of Germany, of
Germany which was crushed by Napoleon, of Germany which
witnessed shameful peace alternating with wars. I am asked: are
we going to observe the treaties for a long time? If it were a
three-year-old child who asked me: are you going to observe the
treaty or not?—it would be both pleasant and naïve. But when grown-up Kamkov of the party of Left S.R.s
asks it, I know a few adult workers and peasants will believe in
the naïveté, but the majority of them will say:
“Stop being hypocritical.” For the historical example I cited shows as clearly as can be that emancipatory
wars of peoples that have lost an army—and that has happened more than once—of peoples crushed to the extent
of complete loss of all their territory, crushed to such an
extent that they have surrendered auxiliary corps to the
conqueror for new annexationist campaigns—cannot be struck
out of history, and can in no way be erased. If, however, the
Left S.R. Kamkov, in rebutting me, said, as I saw in the
verbatim report: “In Spain, however, there were revolutionary wars,” he thereby confirmed what I am
saying, indeed he hit out at himself. Spain and Germany
precisely confirm my example that to decide the question of the
historical period of annexationist wars on the basis of
“are you going to observe the treaty and, when you violate
it, when will they catch you. . . ?” is indeed worthy of
children. History tells us that every treaty results from a
cessation of struggle and a change in the relationship of
forces, that there have been peace treaties which were shattered
in a few days, that there have been peace treaties which were
shattered after a month, that there were periods of many years
when Germany and Spain concluded peace and violated it after a
few months, violated it several times, and in a series of wars
the peoples learnt what waging war means. When Napoleon led
German armies in order to strangle other peoples he taught them
revolutionary war. Such was the course of history.

That is why I tell you, comrades, that I am deeply convinced
that the decision adopted by nine-tenths of our Bolshevik
group [11] will be approved by nine-tenths of all the politically-conscious
working people of Russia—workers and peasants. ( Applause. )

We have a means of checking whether I spoke the truth or whether
I am mistaken, for you will go into the provinces and each one
of you will report to the local Soviets, and everywhere there
will be local decisions. I will say in conclusion: do not
succumb to provocation. The bourgeoisie knows what it is doing,
the bourgeoisie knows why it rejoiced in Pskov, rejoiced
recently in Odessa, the bourgeoisie of the Vinnichenkos, of the
Ukrainian Kerenskys, of Tsereteli and Chernov. It rejoiced
because it understood perfectly what a tremendous mistake in
diplomacy, in taking account of the situation, Soviet power had
committed by trying to wage war with a fleeing, sick army. The
bourgeoisie is trying to draw you into the pitfall of war. One
has not only to attack but also to retreat. Every soldier knows
that. Realise that the bourgeoisie is trying to draw both you
and us into a trap. Realise that the whole bourgeoisie and all
its voluntary and involuntary accomplices are setting this
trap. You will be able to endure the most severe defeats and to
maintain the most difficult positions, and by retreating to gain
time. Time is on our side. The imperialists, having glutted
themselves, will burst, and in their womb a new giant is
developing; it is growing more slowly than we should like, but
it is growing, it will come to our aid, and when we see that it
is beginning to strike its first blow, we shall say: the time
for retreat has come to an end, the era of the world offensive
and the era of the victory of the world socialist revolution is
beginning. ( Stormy applause , continuing for a long time. )

4

Resolution On Ratification Of The Brest Treaty

The Congress confirms (ratifies) the peace treaty signed by our
representatives at Brest-Litovsk on March 3, 1918.

The Congress recognises as correct the actions of the Central
Executive Committee and the Council of People’s Commissars
in deciding to conclude the present incredibly harsh, rapacious
and humiliating peace in view of our having no army and of the
extreme war weariness of the people, who in their distress have
received no support from the bourgeoisie and bourgeois intelligentsia, but have seen that distress made use of for
selfish class purposes.

The Congress also recognises the undoubted correctness of the
actions of the peace delegation that refused to enter into a
detailed discussion on the German peace terms, because those
terms were imposed on us in the form of an obvious ultimatum and
by undisguised force.

The Congress most insistently urges upon all workers, soldiers
and peasants, all the working and oppressed masses, the main,
immediate and most urgent task of the moment—the improvement of the discipline and self-discipline of the working
people; the creation throughout the country of strong, well-founded organisations that cover, as far as possible, all
production and distribution; a ruthless struggle against the
chaos, disorganisation and economic ruin which are historically
inevitable as the legacy of a most agonising war, but which are,
at the same time, the main obstacle to the complete victory of
socialism and the strengthening of the foundations of socialist
society.

Today, after the October Revolution, after the overthrow of the
political power of the bourgeoisie in Russia, after our
denunciation and publication of all secret imperialist treaties,
after the cancellation of the foreign loans, after the workers’ and peasants’ government has proposed a
just peace to all peoples without exception, Russia, having
escaped from the clutches of the imperialist war, has the right
to announce that she is not a participant in the plunder and
suppression of other countries.

The Russian Soviet Federative Republic, having unanimously
condemned predatory wars, from now on deems it its right and its
duty to defend the socialist fatherland against all possible
attacks by any of the imperialist powers.

The Congress therefore deems it the unconditional duty of all
working people to muster all forces to re-establish and improve
the defence potential of our country, to re-establish its
military strength on the basis of a socialist militia and the
universal military training of all adolescents and adults of
both sexes.

The Congress expresses its absolute confidence that Soviet
power, which has valiantly fulfilled all the obligations of the
international solidarity of the workers of all countries in
their struggle for socialism against the yoke of capital, will
in future do everything possible to promote the international
socialist movement, to secure and shorten the road leading
mankind to deliverance from the yoke of capital and from wage
slavery, to the creation of a socialist society and to an
enduring, just peace between the peoples.

The Congress is firmly convinced that the international
workers’ revolution is not far away, that the full victory
of the socialist proletariat is assured despite the fact that
the imperialists of all countries do not hesitate to use the
most brutal means for the suppression of the socialist movement.

Endnotes

1.
Extraordinary Fourth All-Russia Congress of Soviets , which was held to decide the question of the ratification of the
Peace Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, was held in Moscow from March 14 to
16, 1918. On March 13 this question was discussed by the Communist
group of the Congress; Lenin spoke at the meeting (for the
secretarial record of this speech see Lenin Miscellany XI , pp. 68-70). By 453 votes to 36 the group approved the
signing of the treaty. Not all the delegates had arrived at the
time and the group was not present in full strength.

According to the minutes, the Congress was attended by 1,232
delegates with a vote; they included 795 Bolsheviks, 283 Left
Socialist-Revolutionaries, 25 Socialist-Revolutionaries of the
Centre, 21 Mensheviks, and 11 Menshevik-Internationalists. The
questions on the agenda were: ratification of the peace treaty;
transfer of the capital; election of the All-Russia C.E.C. After
a statement on the peace treaty by G. V. Chicherin, People’s Deputy Commissar for Foreign Affairs, Lenin gave
the report on the main question on the agenda on behalf of the
All-Russia Central Executive Committee; the second report on
behalf of the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries against ratification of the treaty was given by B. D. Kamkov.

The Mensheviks, Right and Left Socialist-Revolutionaries,
Maximalists, anarchists and others put up a solid front against
ratification of the treaty. After a keen debate a signed vote
was taken and the Congress adopted Lenin’s resolution in
favour of ratification by an overwhelming majority. There were
784 votes in favour, 261 against and 115 delegates abstained. In
connection with the ratification of the Brest Treaty the Left
S.R.s withdrew from the Council of People’s
Commissars. The “Left Communists” refused to take part in the voting and stated in a special declaration that the
conclusion of peace would undermine the country’s defence
and the gains of the revolution. By refusing to vote, the
“Left Communists” violated the decisions of the
Seventh Party Congress and the Communist group of the
Extraordinary Fourth All-Russia Congress of Soviets and the
decision taken by the Central Committee, which met while the
Congress was on, that there should be no action against the
decisions of the Party.

The Congress passed a resolution on the transfer of the capital
of the Soviet state to Moscow and elected a Central Executive
Committee consisting of 200 members.

The decision of the Congress on ratification of the peace treaty
was approved by the local Soviets, the Party organisations and
the working people at numerous meetings and conferences held at
the time.

2. The
draft resolution was written by Lenin in reply to a message from
Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States, in which he tried,
by expressing sympathy he probably did not feel for the Russian
people over the German occupation of the Baltic States,
Byelorussia and the Ukraine, to influence the decision of the
Congress and prevent Soviet Russia from ratifying the peace treaty
with Germany.

The draft resolution was read out by Y. M. Sverdlov and approved by the Congress.

3.
The reference is to the Menshevik and Socialist-Revolutionary
parties, which were represented in the Soviets of
Workers’, Peasants’ and Soldiers’
Deputies. The Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries, however,
soon took the path of direct counter-revolution and on June 14,
1918 the All-Russia C.E.C. passed a decision expelling the
counter-revolutionary Socialist-Revolutionaries (the Rights and
the Centre) and the Mensheviks from the All-Russia Central
Executive Committee and the local Soviets. The decision was
published on June 18 in Izvestia VTsIK No. 123.

4.
Lenin appears to connect the new turn in the development of the
revolution with February 10, when Germany broke off peace
negotiations in Brest-Litovsk. The German action was facilitated
by L. D. Trotsky’s refusal to conclude peace on the terms
proposed by the German imperialists. Lenin also mentions this
date in the plan he made for his report to the Extraordinary
Fourth All-Russia Congress of Soviets on ratification of the
Brest Treaty. In another document, the plan for his speech at a
meeting of the Communist group of the Congress of Soviets, Lenin
defines the turning point in the development of the revolution
as February 17. The German offensive along the whole front began
on February 18, 1918.

5.
Lenin has in mind the speech at the meeting of the Petrograd
Soviet on September 21 (October 4), 1917 by Dubasov, an army
officer who had returned from the front. Describing the mood of
the soldiers, Dubasov stated that they wanted only one thing, an
end to the war, and that they would not go on fighting.

6.
The reference is to the Treaty between the Russian and Finnish
Socialist Republics, the first treaty in history between
socialist countries. In the middle of February 1918, the
revolutionary government of the Finnish republic proposed a
treaty of friendship to the Soviet Government. The
Russia-Finland Co-ordinative Commission was formed to draw up
the treaty and its draft was discussed at several meetings of
the Council of People’s Commissars, Lenin making several
amendments to it. The treaty was signed on March 1 by a special
commission headed by Lenin. It was endorsed by the Council of
People’s Commissars and published on March 10, 1918 in
Izvestia VTsIK No. 45 (see Decrees of the Soviet Government , Russ. ed., Vol: 1, 1957, pp. 503-10). Based on
recognition of the state sovereignty of Finland, the treaty
provided evidence of the Soviet Government’s consistent
adherence to the principle of the right of nations to self-determination.

7.
Lenin is referring to the second report, by B. D. Kamkov, on the
question of ratification of the peace treaty.

8.
In his speech at the Congress the Menshevik L. Martov claimed
that the contents of the treaty were not known to the Congress
delegates and compared them to peasants at a volost gathering,
forced by the local authorities to sign papers without knowing
what was in them.

9.
Lenin is referring to the appeal of the Petrograd Soviet of
Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies “To the
Peoples of the Whole World”, which was published in the
leading newspapers on March 15 (28), 1917. For an appraisal of
this half-hearted Menshevik-Socialist-Revolutionary appeal see
Lenin’s speech on war, delivered June 9 (22) 1917 at the
First All-Russia Congress of Soviets (present edition, Vol. 25,
pp. 29-42).

10.
The Appeal to the Soldiers of All the Belligerent Countries was
the first appeal written by Lenin on behalf of the Central
Committee of the Bolshevik Party, the St. Petersburg Committee
and the editorial board of Pravda (see present edition,
Vol. 24, pp. 186-88).

11.
When the resolution on ratification of the Peace Treaty of
Brest-Litovsk was put to the vote at the Communist group of the
Extraordinary Fourth All-Russia Congress of Soviets on March 13,
1918, 453 votes were cast in favour of ratification and 36
against.