Extraordinary Seventh Congress of the R.C.P.(B.)
V.I. Lenin

Source: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/7thcong/index.htm

V. I. Lenin

## Extraordinary Seventh Congress of the R.C.P.(B.)

MARCH 6-8, 1918

## Section One

1

## Political Report Of The Central Committee

### March 7

A political report might consist of an enumeration of measures taken
by the Central Committee; but the essential thing at the present
moment is not a report of this kind, but a review of our revolution
as a whole; that is the only thing that can provide a truly Marxist
substantiation of all our decisions. We must examine the whole
preceding course of development of the revolution and ascertain why
the course of its further development has changed. There have been
turning-points in our revolution that will have enormous
significance for the world revolution. One such turning-point was
the October Revolution.

The first successes of the February Revolution were due to the
fact that the proletariat was followed, not only by the masses
of the rural population, but also by the bourgeoisie. Hence, the
easy victory over tsarism, something we had failed to achieve in
1905. The spontaneous formation of Soviets of Workers’
Deputies in the February Revolution was a repetition of the
experience of 1905—we had to proclaim the principle of
Soviet power. The masses learned the tasks of the revolution
from their own experience of the struggle. The events of April
20-21 [2] were a peculiar combination of demonstrations and of something in the nature of armed
uprising. This was enough to cause the fall of the bourgeois
government. Then began the long period of the collaboration
policy, which stemmed from the very nature of the petty-bourgeois government that had come to power. The July
events [3] could not then establish the dictatorship of the proletariat—the masses were still not
prepared for  it. That was why not one of the responsible
organisations called upon them to establish it. But as a
reconnoitring operation in the enemy’s camp, the July events were of enormous significance. The Kornilov revolt [4] and the subsequent events served as practical lessons and made
possible the October victory. The mistake committed by those who
even in October wished to divide power [5] was their failure to
connect the October victory with the July days, with the
offensive, with the Kornilov revolt, etc., etc., events which
caused the millions of the common people to realise that Soviet
power had become inevitable. Then followed our triumphal march
throughout Russia, accompanied by a universal desire for
peace. We know that we cannot achieve peace by a unilateral
withdrawal from the war. We pointed to this as far back as the April
Conference . In the period from April to October, the soldiers clearly realised that the policy of collaboration was
prolonging the war and was leading to the savage, senseless
attempts of the imperialists to start an offensive and to get
still more entangled in a war that would last for years. That
was the reason why it was necessary at all costs to adopt an
active policy of peace as quickly as possible, why it was
necessary for the Soviets to take power into their own hands,
and abolish landed proprietorship. You know that the latter was
upheld not only by Kerensky but also by Avksentyev, who even
went so far as to order the arrest of the members of the Land
Committees. The policy we adopted, the slogan of “Power to
the Soviets”, which we instilled into the minds of the majority of the people, enabled us, in October, to achieve
victory very easily in St. Petersburg, and transformed the last
months of the Russian revolution into one continuous triumphal
march.

Civil war became a fact. The transformation of the imperialist
war into civil war, which we had predicted at the beginning of
the revolution, and even at the beginning of the war, and which
considerable sections of socialist circles treated skeptically
and even with ridicule, actually took place on October 25, 1917,
in one of the largest and most backward of the belligerent
countries. In this civil war the overwhelming majority of the
population proved to be on our side, and that is why victory was
achieved with such extraordinary ease.

The troops who abandoned the front carried with them wherever
they went the maximum of revolutionary determination to put an
end to collaboration; and the collaborationist elements, the
whiteguards and the landowners’ sons found themselves without support among the population. The war against them
gradually turned into a victorious triumphal march of the
revolution as the masses of the people and the military units
that were sent against us came over to the side of the
Bolsheviks. We saw this in Petrograd, on the Gatchina front,
where the Cossacks, whom Kerensky and Krasnov tried to lead
against the Red capital, wavered; we saw this later in Moscow,
in Orenburg and in the Ukraine. A wave of civil war swept over
the whole of Russia, and everywhere we achieved victory with
extraordinary ease precisely because the fruit had ripened,
because the masses had already gone through the experience of
collaboration with the bourgeoisie. Our slogan “All Power
to the Soviets”, which the masses had tested in practice
by long historical experience, had become part of their flesh
and blood.

That is why the Russian revolution was a continuous triumphal
march in the first months after October 25, 1917. As a result of
this the difficulties which the socialist revolution immediately
encountered, and could not but encounter, were forgotten, were
pushed into the background. One of the fundamental differences
between bourgeois revolution and socialist revolution is that
for the bourgeois revolution, which arises out of feudalism, the
new economic organisations are gradually created in the womb of
the old order, gradually changing all the aspects of feudal
society. The bourgeois revolution faced only one task—to
sweep away, to cast aside, to destroy all the fetters of the
preceding social order. By fulfilling this task every bourgeois
revolution fulfils all that is required of it; it accelerates
the growth of capitalism.

The socialist revolution is in an altogether different position. The more backward the country which, owing to the
zigzags of history, has proved to be the one to start the
socialist revolution, the more difficult is it for that country
to pass from the old capitalist relations to socialist relations. New incredibly difficult tasks, organisational tasks,
are added to the tasks of destruction. Had not the popular
creative spirit of the Russian revolution, which had gone
through the great experience of the year 1905, given rise to the
Soviets as early as February 1917, they could not under any
circumstances have assumed power in October, because success
depended entirely upon the existence of available organisational
forms of a movement embracing millions. The Soviets were the
available form, and that is why in the political sphere the
future held out to us those brilliant successes, the continuous
triumphal march, that we had; for the new form of political
power was already available, and all we had to do was to pass a
few decrees, and transform the power of the Soviets from the
embryonic state in which it existed in the first months of the
revolution into the legally recognised form which had become
established in the Russian state—i.e., into the Russian
Soviet Republic. The Republic was born at one stroke; it was
born so easily because in February 1917 the masses had created
the Soviets even before any party had managed to proclaim this
slogan. It was the great creative spirit of the people, which
had passed through the bitter experience of 1905 and had been
made wise by it, that gave rise to this form of proletarian
power. The task of achieving victory over the internal enemy was
an extremely easy one. The task of creating the political power
was an extremely easy one because the masses had created the
skeleton, the basis of this power. The Republic of Soviets was
born at one stroke. But two exceedingly difficult problems still
remained, the solution of which could not possibly be the
triumphal march we experienced in the first months of our
revolution—we did not doubt, we could not doubt, that the
socialist revolution would be later confronted with enormously
difficult tasks.

First, there was the problem of internal organisation, which
confronts every socialist revolution. The difference between a
socialist revolution and a bourgeois revolution is that in the
latter case there are ready-made forms of capitalist relationships; Soviet power—the proletarian
power—does not inherit such ready-made relationships, if
we leave out of account the most developed forms of capitalism,
which, strictly speaking, extended to but a small top layer of
industry and hardly touched agriculture. The organisation of
accounting, the control of large enterprises, the transformation
of the whole of the state economic mechanism into a single huge
machine, into an economic organism that will work in such a way
as to enable hundreds of millions of people to be guided by a
single plan—such was the enormous organisational problem
that rested on our shoulders. Under the present conditions of
labour this problem could not possibly be solved by the
“hurrah” methods by which we were able to solve the problems of the Civil War. The very nature of the task prevented
a solution by these methods. We achieved easy victories over the
Kaledin [6] revolt and created the Soviet
Republic in face of a resistance that was not even worth serious
consideration; the course of events was predetermined by the
whole of the preceding objective development, so that all we had
to do was say the last word and change the signboard, i.e., take
down the sign “The Soviet exists as a trade union organisation”, and put up instead the sign “The
Soviet is the sole form of state power"; the situation, however,
was altogether different in regard to organisational problems. In this field we encountered enormous difficulties. It
immediately became clear to everyone who cared to ponder over
the tasks of our revolution that only by the hard and long path
of self-discipline would it be possible to overcome the
disintegration that the war had caused in capitalist society,
that only by extraordinarily hard, long and persistent effort
could we cope with this disintegration and defeat those elements
aggravating it, elements which regarded the revolution as a
means of discarding old fetters and getting as much out of it
for themselves as they possibly could. The emergence of a large
number of such elements was inevitable in a small-peasant
country at a time of incredible economic chaos, and the fight
against these elements that is ahead of us, that we have only
just started, will be a hundred times more difficult, it will be
a fight which promises no spectacular opportunities. We are only
in the first stage of this fight. Severe trials await us. The
objective situation precludes any idea of limiting ourselves to
a triumphal march with flying banners such as we had in fighting
against Kaledin. Anyone who attempted to apply these methods of
struggle to the organisational tasks that confront the revolution would only prove his bankruptcy as a politician, as a
socialist, as an active worker in the socialist revolution.

The same thing awaited some of our young comrades who were
carried away by the initial triumphal march of the revolution,
when it came up against the second enormous difficulty—the
international question. The reason we achieved such an easy
victory over Kerensky’s gangs, the reason we so easily set
up our government and without the slightest difficulty passed
decrees on the socialisation of the land and on workers’
control, the reason we achieved all this so easily was a
fortunate combination of circumstances that protected us for a
short time from international imperialism. International
imperialism, with the entire might of its capital, with its
highly organised war machine, which is a real force, a real
stronghold of international capital, could not, under any
circumstances, under any conditions, live side by side with the
Soviet Republic, both because of its objective position and
because of the economic interests of the capitalist class
embodied in it, because of commercial connections, of international financial relations. In this sphere a conflict is
inevitable. This is the greatest difficulty of the Russian
revolution, its greatest historical problem—the need to
solve international problems, the need to evoke a world
revolution, to effect the transition from our strictly national
revolution to the world revolution. This problem confronts us in
all its incredible difficulty. I repeat, very many of our young
friends who regard themselves as Lefts have begun to forget the
most important thing: why in the course of the weeks and months
of the enormous triumph after October we were able so easily to
pass from victory to victory. And yet this was due only to a
special combination of international circumstances that
temporarily shielded us from imperialism. Imperialism had other
things to bother about besides us. And it seemed to us that we,
too, had other things to bother about besides imperialism. Individual imperialists had no time to bother with
us, solely because the whole of the great social, political and
military might of modern world imperialism was split by
internecine war into two groups. The imperialist plunderers
involved in this struggle had gone to such incredible lengths,
were locked in mortal combat to such a degree, that neither of
the groups was able to concentrate any effective forces against
the Russian revolution. These were the circumstances in which we
found ourselves in October. It is paradoxical but true that our
revolution broke out at so fortunate a moment, when unprecedented disasters involving the destruction of millions of
human beings had overtaken most of the imperialist countries,
when the unprecedented calamities attending the war had
exhausted the nations, when in the fourth year of the war the
belligerent countries had reached an impasse, a parting of the
ways, when the question arose objectively—could nations
reduced to such a state continue fighting? It was only because
our revolution broke out at so fortunate a moment as this, when
neither of the two gigantic groups of plunderers was in a
position immediately either to hurl itself at the other, or to
unite with the other against us; our revolution could (and did)
take advantage only of a situation such as this in international
political and economic relations to accomplish its brilliant
triumphal march in European Russia, spread to Finland and begin
to win the Caucasus and Rumania. This alone explains the
appearance of Party functionaries, intellectual supermen, in the
leading circles of our Party who allowed themselves to be
carried away by this triumphal march and who said we could cope
with international imperialism; over there, there will also be a
triumphal march, over there, there will be no real difficulties. This was at variance with the objective position
of the Russian revolution which had merely taken advantage of
the setback of international imperialism; the engine that was
supposed to bear down on us with the force of a railway train
bearing down on a wheelbarrow and smashing it to splinters, was
temporarily stalled—and the engine was stalled because the
two groups of predators had clashed. Here and there the
revolutionary movement was growing, but in all the imperialist
countries without exception it was still mainly in the initial
stage. Its rate of development was entirely different from
ours. Anyone who has given careful thought to the economic
prerequisites of the socialist revolution in Europe must be
clear on the point that in Europe it will be immeasurably more
difficult to start, whereas it was immeasurably more easy for us
to start; but it will be more difficult for us to continue the
revolution than it will be over there. This objective situation
caused us to experience an extraordinarily sharp and difficult
turn in history.

From the continuous triumphal march on our internal front,
against our counter-revolution, against the enemies of Soviet
power in October, November and December, we had to pass to a
collision with real international imperialism, in its real
hostility towards us. From the period of the triumphal march we
had to pass to a period in which we were in an extraordinarily
difficult and painful situation, one which certainly could not
be brushed aside with words, with brilliant slogans—however pleasant that would have
been—because in our disorganised country we had to deal
with incredibly weary masses, who had reached a state in which
they could not possibly go on fighting, who were so shattered by
three years of agonising war that they were absolutely useless
from the military point of view. Even before the October
Revolution we saw representatives of the masses of the soldiers,
not members of the Bolshevik Party, who did not hesitate to tell
the bourgeoisie the truth that the Russian army would not
fight. This state of the army has brought about a gigantic
crisis. A small-peasant country, disorganised by war, reduced to
an incredible state, has been placed in an extremely difficult
position. We have no army, but we have to go on living side by
side with a predator who is armed to the teeth, a predator who
still remains and will continue to remain a plunderer and is
not, of course, affected by agitation in favour of peace without
annexations and indemnities. A tame, domestic animal has been
lying side by side with a tiger and trying to persuade the
latter to conclude a peace without annexations and indemnities,
although the only way such a peace could be attained was by
attacking the tiger. The top layer of our
Party—intellectuals and some of the workers’ organisations—has been trying in the main to brush this
prospect aside with phrases and such excuses as “that is
not the way it should be”. This peace was too incredible a
prospect for them to believe that we, who up to now had marched
in open battle with colours flying and had stormed the enemy’s positions with “hurrahs”, could yield
and accept these humiliating terms. Never! We are exceedingly
proud revolutionaries, we declare above all: “The Germans
cannot attack.” [7]

This was the first argument with which these people consoled
themselves. History has now placed us in an extraordinarily
difficult position; in the midst of organisational work of
unparalleled difficulty we shall have to experience a number of
painful defeats. Regarded from the world-historical point of
view, there would doubtlessly be no hope of the ultimate victory
of our revolution if it were to remain alone, if there were no
revolutionary movements in other countries. When the Bolshevik
Party tackled the job alone, it did so in the firm conviction
that the revolution was maturing in all countries and that in
the end—but not at the very beginning—no matter what difficulties we experienced, no matter what defeats were in
store for us, the world socialist revolution would come—because it is coming; would mature— because it
is maturing and will reach full maturity. I repeat, our
salvation from all these difficulties is an all Europe revolution. Taking this truth, this absolutely abstract truth,
as our starting-point, and being guided by it, we must see to it
that it does not in time become a mere phrase, because every
abstract truth, if it is accepted without analysis, becomes a
mere phrase. If you say that every strike conceals the hydra of
revolution, and he who fails to understand this is no socialist,
you are right. Yes, the socialist revolution looms behind every
strike. But if you say that every single strike is an immediate
step towards the socialist revolution, you will be uttering
perfectly empty phrases. We have heard these phrases “every blessed time in the same place” and have got
so sick and tired of them that the workers have rejected these
anarchist phrases, because undoubtedly, clear as it is that
behind every strike there looms the hydra of socialist revolution, it is equally clear that the assertion that every
strike can develop into revolution is utter nonsense. Just as it
is indisputable that all the difficulties in our revolution will
be overcome only when the world socialist revolution matures—and it is maturing now everywhere—it is
absolutely absurd to declare that we must conceal every real
difficulty of our revolution today and say: “I bank on the
international socialist movement—I can commit any piece of
folly I please.” “Liebknecht will help us out, because he is going to win, anyhow.” He will create such
an excellent organisation, he will plan everything beforehand so
well that we shall be able to take ready-made forms in the same
way as we took the ready-made Marxist doctrine from Western
Europe—and maybe that is why it triumphed in our country
in a few months, whereas it has been taking decades to triumph
in Western Europe. Thus lt would have been reckless gambling to
apply the old method of solving the problem of the struggle by a
triumphal march to the new historical period which has set in,
and which has confronted us, not with feeble Kerensky and
Kornilov, but with an international predator—the imperialism of Germany, where the revolution has been maturing
but has obviously not yet reached maturity. The assertion that
the enemy would not dare attack the revolution was such a
gamble. The situation at the time of the Brest negotiations [8] was not yet such as to compel us to accept any peace terms. The
objective alignment of forces was such that a respite would not
have been enough. It took the Brest negotiations to show that
the Germans would attack, that German society was not so
pregnant with revolution that it could give birth to it at once;
and we cannot blame the German imperialists for not having
prepared that outbreak by their conduct, or, as our young
friends who regard themselves as Lefts say, for not having
created a situation in which the Germans could not attack. When
we tell them that we have no army, that we were compelled to
demobilise—we were compelled to do so, although we never
forgot that a tiger was lying beside our tame, domestic
animal—they refuse to understand. Although we were compelled to demobilise we did not for a moment forget that it
was impossible to end the war unilaterally by issuing an order
to stick the bayonets in the ground.

Generally speaking, how is it that not a single trend, not a
single tendency, not a single organisation in our Party opposed
this demobilisation? Had we gone mad? Not in the least. Officers, not Bolsheviks, had stated even before October
that the army could not fight, that it could not be kept at the
front even for a few weeks longer. After October this became
obvious to everybody who was willing to recognise the facts,
willing to see the unpleasant, bitter reality and not hide, or
pull his cap over his eyes, and make shift with proud phrases. We have no army, we cannot hold it. The best thing we
can do is to demobilise it as quickly as possible. This is the
sick part of the organism, which has suffered incredible
torture, has been ravaged by the priva tions of a war into which
it entered technically unprepared, and from which it has emerged
in such a state that it succumbs to panic at every attack. We
cannot blame these people who have experienced incredible
suffering. In hundreds of resolutions, even in the first period
of the Russian revolution, the soldiers have said quite frankly:
“We are drowning in blood, we cannot go on fighting.” One could have delayed the end of the war
artificially, one could have committed the frauds Kerensky
committed, one could have postponed the end for a few weeks, but
objective reality broke its own road. This is the sick part of
the Russian state organism which can no longer bear the burden
of the war. The quicker we demobilise the army, the sooner it
will become absorbed by those parts that are not so sick and the
sooner will the country be prepared for new severe trials. That
is what we felt when we unanimously, without the slightest
protest, adopted the decision—which was absurd from the
point of view of foreign events—to demobilise the army. It
was the proper step to take. We said that it was a frivolous
illusion to believe that we could hold the army. The sooner we
demobilised the army, the sooner would the social organism as a
whole recover. That is why the revolutionary phrase, “The
Germans cannot attack”, from which the other phrase ("We
can declare the state of war terminated. Neither war nor the
signing of peace.") derived, was such a profound mistake, such a
bitter over-estimation of events. But suppose the Germans do
attack? “No, they cannot attack.” But have you the right to risk the world revolution? What about the concrete
question of whether you may not prove to be accomplices of
German imperialism when that moment comes? But we, who since
October 1917 have all become defencists, who have recognised the
principle of defence of the fatherland, we all know that we have
broken with imperialism, not merely in word but in deed; we have
destroyed the secret treaties, [9] vanquished the bourgeoisie in our own country and proposed an open and honest
peace so that all the nations may see what our intentions really
are. How could people who seriously uphold the position of
defending the Soviet Republic agree to this gamble, which has
already produced results? And this is a fact, because the severe
crisis which our Party is now experiencing, owing to the
formation of a “Left” opposition within it, is one of the gravest crises the Russian revolution has experienced.

This crisis will be overcome. Under no circumstances will it
break the neck of our Party, or of our revolution, although at
the present moment it has come very near to doing so, there was
a possibility of it. The guarantee that we shall not break our
neck on this question is this: instead of applying the old
method of settling factional differences, the old method of
issuing an enormous quantity of literature, of having many
discussions and plenty of splits, instead of this old method,
events have provided our people with a new method of learning
things. This method is to put every thing to the test of facts,
events, the lessons of world history. You said that the Germans
could not attack. The logic of your tactics was that we could
declare the state of war to be terminated. History has taught
you a lesson, it has shattered this illusion. Yes, the German
revolution is growing, but not in the way we should like it, not
as fast as Russian intellectuals would have it, not at the rate
our history developed in October—when we entered any town
we liked, proclaimed Soviet power, and within a few days
nine-tenths of the workers came over to our side. The German
revolution has the misfortune of not moving so fast. What do you
think? Must we reckon with the revolution, or must the revolution reckon with us? You wanted the revolution to reckon
with you. But history has taught you a lesson. It is a lesson,
because it is the absolute truth that without a German revolution we are doomed—perhaps not in Petrograd, not in
Moscow, but in Vladivostok, in more remote places to which
perhaps we shall have to retreat, and the distance to which is
perhaps greater than the distance from Petrograd to Moscow. At
all events, under all conceivable circumstances, if the German
revolution does not come, we are doomed. Nevertheless, this does
not in the least shake our conviction that we must be able to
bear the most difficult position without blustering.

The revolution will not come as quickly as we expected. History
has proved this, and we must be able to take this as a fact, to
reckon with the fact that the world socialist revolution cannot
begin so easily in the advanced countries as the revolution
began in Russia—in the land of Nicholas and Rasputin, the
land in which an enormous part of the population was absolutely
indifferent as to what peoples were living in the outlying
regions, or what was happening there. In such a country it was
quite easy to start a revolution, as easy as lifting a feather.

But to start without preparation a revolution in a country in
which capitalism is developed and has given democratic culture
and organisation to everybody, down to the last man—to do
so would be wrong, absurd. There we are only just approaching
the painful period of the beginning of socialist revolutions. This is a fact. We do not know, no one knows,
perhaps—it is quite possible—it will triumph within a few weeks, even within a few days, but we cannot stake
everything on that. We must be prepared for extraordinary
difficulties, for extraordinarily severe defeats, which are
inevitable because the revolution in Europe has not yet begun,
although it may begin tomorrow; and when it does begin, then, of
course, we shall not be tortured by doubts, there will be no
question about a revolutionary war, but just one continuous
triumphal march. That is to come, it will inevitably be so, but
it is not so yet. This is the simple fact that history has
taught us, with which it has hit us very painfully—and it
is said a man who has been thrashed is worth two who haven’t. That is why I think that now history has given us
a very painful thrashing, because of our hope that the Germans
could not attack and that we could get everything by shouting
“hurrah!”, this lesson, with the help of our Soviet organisations, will be very quickly brought home to the masses
all over Soviet Russia. They are aIl up and doing, gathering,
preparing for the Congress, passing resolutions, thinking over
what has happened. What is taking place at the present time does
not resemble the old pre-revolutionary controversies, which
remained within narrow Party circles; now all decisions are
submitted for discussion to the masses, who demand that they be
tested by experience, by deeds, who never allow themselves to be
carried away by frivolous speeches, and never allow themselves
to be diverted from the path prescribed by the objective
progress of events. Of course, an intellectual, or a Left
Bolshevik, can try to talk his way out of difficulties. He can
try to talk his way out of such facts as the absence of an army
and the failure of the revolution to begin in Germany. The
millions-strong masses—and politics begin where millions
of men and women are; where there are not thousands, but
millions, that is where serious politics begin—the masses
know what the army is like, they have seen soldiers returning
from the front. They know—that is, if you take, not individual persons, but real masses—that we cannot fight,
that every man at the front has endured everything imaginable. The masses have realised the truth that if we have
no army, and a predator is lying beside us, we shall have to
sign a most harsh, humiliating peace treaty. That is inevitable
until the birth of the revolution, until you cure your army,
until you allow the men to return home. Until then the patient
will not recover. And we shall not be able to cope with the
German predator by shouting “hurrah!"; we shall not be able to throw him off as easily as we threw off Kerensky and
Kornilov. This is the lesson the masses have learned without the
excuses that certain of those who desire to evade bitter reality
have tried to present them with.

At first a continuous triumphal march in October and
November—then, suddenly, in the space of a few weeks, the
Russian revolution is defeated by the German predator; the
Russian revolution is prepared to accept the terms of a
predatory treaty. Yes, the turns taken by history are very
painful. All such turns affect us painfully. When, in 1907, we
signed the incredibly shameful internal treaty with Stolypin,
when we were compelled to pass through the pigsty of the
Stolypin Duma and assumed obligations by signing scraps of
monarchist paper, [10] we experienced what we are experiencing now but on a smaller scale. At that time, people
who were among the finest in the vanguard of the revolution said
(and they too had not the slightest doubt that they were right),
“We are proud revolutionaries, we believe in the Russian
revolution, we will never enter legal Stolypin institutions.” Yes, you will, we said. The life of the
masses, history, are stronger than your protestations. If you
won’t go, we said, history will compel you to. These were
very Left people and after the first turn in history nothing
remained of them as a group but smoke. Just as we proved able to
remain revolutionaries, proved able to work under terrible
conditions and emerge from them, so shall we emerge now because
it is not our whim, it is objective inevitability that has
arisen in an utterly ruined country, because in spite of our
desires the European revolution dared to be late, and in spite
of our desires German imperialism dared to attack.

Here one must know how to retreat. We cannot hide the incredibly
bitter, deplorable reality from ourselves with empty phrases; we
must say: God grant that we retreat in what is half-way good
order. We cannot retreat in good order, but God grant that our
retreat is half-way good order, that we gain a little time in
which the sick part of our organism can be absorbed at least to
some extent. On the whole the organism is sound, it will
overcome its sickness; But you cannot expect it to overcome it
all at once, instantaneously; you cannot stop an army in
flight. When I said to one of our young friends, a would-be
Left, “Comrade, go to the front, see what is going on in
the army”, he took offence at this proposal. He said, “They want to banish us so as to prevent our agitating
here for the great principles of a revolutionary war.” In
making this proposal I really had no intention whatever of
banishing factional enemies; I merely suggested that they go and
see for themselves that the army had begun to run away in an
unprecedented manner. We knew that even before this, even before
this we could not close our eyes to the fact that the disintegration of the army had gone on to such an unheard-of
extent that our guns were being sold to the Germans for a
song. We knew this, just as we know that the army cannot be held
back, and the argument that the Germans would not attack was a
great gamble. If the European revolution is late in coming,
gravest defeats await us because we have no army, because we
lack organisation, because, at the moment, these are two
problems we cannot solve. If you are unable to adapt yourself,
if you are not inclined to crawl on your belly in the mud, you
are not a revolutionary but a chatterbox; and I propose this,
not because I like it, but because we have no other road,
because history has not been kind enough to bring the revolution
to maturity everywhere simultaneously.

The way things are turning out is that the civil war has begun
as an attempt at a clash with imperialism, and this has shown
that imperialism is rotten to the core, and that proletarian
elements are rising in every army. Yes, we shall see the world
revolution, but for the time being it is a very good fairy-tale,
a very beautiful fairy-tale—I quite understand children
liking beautiful fairy-tales. But I ask, is it proper for a
serious revolutionary to believe in fairy-tales? There is an
element of reality in every fairy-tale. If you told children
fairy-tales in which the cock and the cat did not converse in
human language they would not be interested. In the same way, if
you tell the people that civil war will break out in Germany
and also guarantee that instead of a clash with imperialism we
shall have a field revolution on a world-wide scale, [11] the
people will say you are deceiving them. In doing this you will
be overcoming the difficulties with which history has confronted
us only in your own minds, by your own wishes. It will be a good
thing if the German proletariat is able to take action. But have
you measured it, have you discovered an instrument that will
show that the German revolution will break out on such-and-such
a day? No, you do not know that, and neither do we. You are
staking everything on this card. If the revolution breaks out,
everything is saved. Of course! But if it does not turn out as
we desire, if it does not achieve victory tomorrow—what
then? Then the masses will say to you, you acted like gamblers—you staked everything on a fortunate turn of
events that did not take place, you proved unfitted for the
situation that actually arose instead of the world revolution,
which will inevitably come, but which has not yet reached
maturity.

A period has set in of severe defeats, inflicted by imperial
ism, which is armed to the teeth, upon a country which has
demobilised its army, which had to demobilise. What I predicted
has come to pass; instead of the Brest peace we have a much more
humiliating peace, and the blame for this rests upon those who
refused to accept the former peace.  We knew that through the
fault of the army we were concluding peace with imperialism. We
sat at the table beside Hoffmann and not Liebknecht —and
in doing so we assisted the German revolution. But now you are
assisting German imperialism, because you have surrendered
wealth valued at millions in guns and shells; and anybody who
had seen the state—the incredible state—of the army could have predicted this. Everyone of integrity who came from
the front said that had the Germans made the slightest attack we
should have perished inevitably and absolutely. We should have
fallen prey to the enemy within a few days.

Having been taught this lesson, we shall overcome our split, our
crisis, however severe the disease may be, because an immeasurably more reliable ally will come to our
assistance—the world revolution. When the ratification of
this Peace of Tilsit, this unbelievable peace, more humiliating
and predatory than the Brest peace, is spoken of, I say:
certainly, yes. We must do this because we look at things from
the point of view of the masses. Any attempt to apply the
tactics applied internally in one country between October and
November—the triumphant period of the revolution—to apply them with the aid of our imagination to the progress of
events in the world revolution, is doomed to failure. When it is
said that the respite is a fantasy, when a newspaper called Kommunist —from the word “Commune”, I
suppose—when this paper fills column after column with attempts to refute the respite theory, I say that I have lived
through quite a lot of factional conflicts and splits and so I
have a great deal of experience; and I must say that it is clear
to me that this disease will not be cured by the old method of
factional Party splits because events will cure it more
quickly. Life is marching forward very quickly. In this respect
it is magnificent. History is driving its locomotive so fast
that before the editors of Kommunist bring out their next issue the majority of the workers in Petrograd will have
begun to be disappointed in its ideas, because events are
proving that the respite is a fact. We are now signing a peace
treaty, we have a respite, we are taking advantage of it the
better to defend our fatherland—because had we been at war
we should have had an army fleeing in panic which would have had
to be stopped, and which our comrades cannot and could not stop,
because war is more powerful than sermons, more powerful than
ten thousand arguments—. Since they did not understand the
objective situation they could not hold back the army, and
cannot do so. This sick army infected the whole organism, and
another unparalleled defeat was inflicted upon us. German
imperialism struck another blow at the revolution, a severe
blow, because we allowed ourselves to face the blows of
imperialism without machine-guns. Meanwhile, we shall take
advantage of this breathing-space to persuade the people to
unite and fight, to say to the Russian workers and peasants:
“Organise self-discipline, strict discipline, otherwise
you will have to remain lying under the German jackboot as you
are lying now, as you will inevitably have to lie until the
people learn to fight and to create an army capable, not of
running away, but of bearing untold suffering.” It is inevitable, because the German revolution has not yet begun, and
we cannot guarantee that it will come tomorrow.

That is why the respite theory, which is totally rejected in the
flood of articles in Kommunist , is advanced by reality. Everyone can see that the respite is a fact, that
everyone is taking advantage of it. We believed that we would
lose Petrograd in a few days  when the advancing German troops
were only a few days’ march away, and when our best sailors and the Putilov workers, [those
employed at the giant Putilov Works in
Petrograd.—Transcriber] notwithstanding all their great enthusiasm, remained alone, when incredible chaos and
panic broke out, which compelled our troops to flee all the way
to Gatchina, and when we had cases of positions being recaptured
that had never been lost—by a telegraph operator, arriving
at the station, taking his place at the key and wiring,
“No Germans  in sight. We have occupied the station.” A few hours later I received a telephone
communication from the Commissariat of Railways informing me,
“We have occupied the next station. We are approaching
Yamburg. No Germans in sight. Telegraph operator at his
post.” That is the kind of thing we had. This is the real
history of the eleven days’ war. [12] It was described to
us by sailors and Putilov workers, who ought to be brought to
the Congress of Soviets. Let them tell the truth. It is a
frightfully bitter, disappointing, painful and humiliating
truth, but it is a hundred times more useful, it can be
understood by the Russian people.

One may dream about the field revolution on a world-wide scale,
for it will come. Everything will come in due time; but for the
time being, set to work to establish self-discipline, subordination before all else, so that we can have exemplary
order, so that the workers for at least one hour in twenty-four
may train to fight. This is a little more difficult than
relating beautiful fairy-tales. This is what we can do today; in
this way you will help the German revolution, the world
revolution. We do not know how many days the respite will last,
but we have got it. We must demobilise the army as quickly as
possible, because it is a sick organ; meanwhile, we will assist
the Finnish revolution. [13]

Yes, of course, we are violating the treaty; we have violated it
thirty or forty times. Only children can fail to understand that
in an epoch like the present, when a long painful period of
emancipation is setting in, which has only just created and
raised the Soviet power three stages in its development—only children can fail to understand that in
this case there must be a long, circumspect struggle. The
shameful peace treaty is rousing protest, but when comrades from Kommunist talk about war they appeal to sentiment and
forget that the people are clenching their fists with rage, are
“seeing red”. What do they say? “A class-conscious revolutionary will never live through this, will
never submit to such a disgrace.” Their newspaper bears
the title Kommunist , but it should bear the title Szlachcic [Szlachcic—a
Polish nobleman —Ed.] because it looks at things from the point of view of the szlachcic who,
dying in a beautiful pose, sword in hand, said: “Peace is
disgraceful, war is honourable.” They argue from the point
of view of the szlachcic ; I argue from the point of view of the peasant.

If I accept peace when the army is in flight, and must be in
flight if it is not to lose thousands of men, I accept it in
order to prevent things from getting worse. Is the treaty really
shameful? Why, every sober-minded peasant and worker will say I
am right, because they understand that peace is a means of
gathering forces. History knows—I have referred to it more
than once—the case of the liberation of the Germans from
Napoleon after the Peace of Tilsit. I deliberately called the
peace a Peace of Tilsit although we did not undertake to do what
had been stipulated in that treaty, we did not undertake to
provide troops to assist the victor to conquer other nations—things like that have happened in history, and
will happen to us if we continue to place our hopes in the field
revolution on a world-wide scale. Take care that history does
not impose upon you this form of military slavery as well. And
before the socialist revolution is victorious in all countries
the Soviet Republic may be reduced to slavery. At Tilsit,
Napoleon compelled the Germans to accept incredibly disgraceful
peace terms. That peace had to be signed several times. The
Hoffmann of those days—Napoleon—time and again caught the Germans violating the peace treaty, and the present
Hoffmann will catch us at it. Only we shall take care that he
does not catch us soon.

The last war has been a bitter, painful, but serious lesson for
the Russian people. It has taught them to organise, to become
disciplined, to obey, to establish a discipline that will be
exemplary. Learn discipline from the Germans; for, if we do not,
we, as a people, are doomed, we shall live in eternal slavery.

This way, and no other, has been the way of history. History
tells us that peace is a respite for war, war is a means of
obtaining a somewhat better or somewhat worse peace. At Brest
the relation of forces corresponded to a peace imposed upon the
one who has been defeated, but it was not a humiliating
peace. The relation of forces at Pskov corresponded to a
disgraceful, more humiliating peace; and in Petrograd and
Moscow, at the next stage,  a peace four times more humiliating
will be dictated to us. We do not say that the Soviet power is
only a form, as our young Moscow friends [14] have said, we do not say that the content can be sacrificed for this
or that revolutionary principle. We do say, let the Russian
people understand that they must become disciplined and
organised, and then they will be able to withstand all the
Tilsit peace treaties. The whole history of wars of liberation
shows that when these wars involved large masses liberation came
quickly. We say, since history marches forward in this way, we
shall have to abandon peace for war, and this may happen within
the next few days. Everyone must be prepared. I have not the
slightest shadow of doubt that the Germans are preparing near
Narva, if it is true that it has not been taken, as all the
newspapers say; if not in Narva, then near Narva, if not in
Pskov, then near Pskov, the German~ are grouping their regular
army, making ready  their railways, to capture Petrograd at the
next jump. And this beast can jump very well. He has proved
that. He will jump again. There is not a shadow of doubt about
that. That is why we must be prepared, we must not brag, but
must be able to take advantage of even a single day of respite,
because we can take advantage of even one day’s respite to
evacuate Petrograd, the capture of which will cause unprecedented suffering to hundreds of thousands of our
proletarians. I say again that I am ready to sign, and that I
consider it my duty to sign, a treaty twenty times, a hundred
times more humiliating, in order to gain at least a few days in
which to evacuate Petrograd, because by that I will alleviate
the sufferings of the workers, who otherwise may fall under the
yoke of the Germans; by that I facilitate the removal from
Petrograd of all the materials, gunpowder, etc., which we need;
because I am a defencist, because I stand for the preparation of
an army, even in the most remote rear, where our present,
demobilised, sick army is being healed.

We do not know how long the respite will last—we will try
to take advantage of the situation. Perhaps the respite will
last longer, perhaps it will last only a few days. Anything may
happen, no one knows, or can know, because all the major powers
are bound, restricted, compelled to fight on several fronts. Hoffmann’s behaviour is determined first by the
need to smash the Soviet Republic; secondly, by the fact that he
has to wage war on a number of fronts, and thirdly, by the fact
that the revolution in Germany is maturing, is growing, and
Hoffmann knows this. He cannot, as some assert, take Petrograd
and Moscow this very minute. But he may do so tomorrow, that is
quite possible. I repeat that at a moment when the army is
obviously sick, when we are taking advantage of every opportunity, come what may, to get at least one day’s
respite, we say that every serious revolutionary who is linked
with the masses and who knows what war is, what the masses are,
must discipline the masses, must heal them, must try to arouse
them for a new war—every such revolutionary will admit that we are right, will admit that any disgraceful peace is
proper, because it is in the interests of the proletarian
revolution and the regeneration of Russia, because it will help
to get rid of the sick organ. As every sensible man understands,
by signing this peace treaty  we do not put a stop to our
workers’ revolution; everyone understands that by concluding peace with the Germans we do not stop rendering
military aid; we are sending arms to the Finns, but not military
units, which turn out to be unfit.

Perhaps we will accept war; perhaps tomorrow we will surrender
even Moscow and then go over to the offensive; we will move our
army against the enemy’s army if the necessary turn in the
mood of the people takes place. This turn is developing and
perhaps much time is required, but it will come, when the great
mass of the people will not say what they are saying now. I am
compelled to accept the harshest peace terms because I cannot
say to myself that this time has arrived. When the time of
regeneration arrives everyone will realise it, will see that the
Russian is no fool; he sees, he will understand that for the
time being we must refrain, that this slogan must be carried
through—and this is the main task of our Party Congress
and of the Congress of Soviets.

We must learn to work in a new way. That is immensely more
difficult, but it is by no means hopeless. It will not break
Soviet power if we do not break it ourselves by utterly
senseless adventurism. The time will come when the people will
say, we will not permit ourselves to be tortured any longer. But
this will take place only if we do not agree to this adventure
but prove able to work under harsh conditions and under the
unprecedentedly humiliating treaty we signed the other day,
because a war, or a peace treaty, cannot solve such a historical
crisis. Because of their monarchic organisation the German
people were fettered in 1807, when after several humiliating
peace treaties, which were transformed into respites to be
followed by new humiliations and new infringements, they signed
the Peace of Tilsit. The Soviet organisation of the people makes
our task easier.

We should have but one slogan—to learn the art of war properly and put the railways in order. To wage a socialist
revolutionary war without railways would be rank treachery. We
must produce order and we must produce all the energy and all
the strength that will produce the best that is in the revolution.

Grasp even an hour’s respite if it is given you, in order
to maintain contact with the remote rear and there create new
armies. Abandon illusions for which real events have punished
you and will punish you more severely in the future. An epoch of
most grievous defeats is ahead of us, it is with us now, we must
be able to reckon with it, we must be prepared for persistent
work in conditions of illegality, in conditions of downright
slavery to the Germans; it is no use painting it in bright
colours, it is a real Peace of Tilsit. If we are able to act in
this way, then, in spite of defeats, we shall be able to say
with absolute certainty—victory will be ours. ( Applause. )

## Endnotes

[2] On April 18,1917, Milyukov, the Foreign Minister of the
bourgeois Provisional Government, circulated a Note to the
Allied Powers stating that the Provisional Government would
observe all the tsarist treaties and undertook to continue the
imperialist war. On April 20 the soldiers of the Petrograd
garrison, on learning about Milyukov’s Note, demonstrated
in the streets with the slogans “All power to the
Soviets” and “Down with war”. On April 21 the
Petrograd workers in response to a call made by the Bolshevik
Party stopped work and held a demonstration. The chief demand of
the 100,000 demonstrators was for peace. By confronting the
broad masses with the question of “who to support?”
and showing that only the working class by taking power could
put an end to the war, the April demonstration hastened the
development of the bourgeois-democratic revolution into a
socialist revolution. The bourgeoisie replied to it with the new
manoeuvre of forming a coalition government in which Mensheviks
and Socialist-Revolutionaries participated.

[3] Lenin refers to the demonstration in Petrograd of July 3-4
(16-17), 1917. Spontaneous demonstrations against the
Provisional Government began in Vyborg District on July 3
(16). The 1st Machine-Gun Regiment was the first to demonstrate. It was joined by other army units and factory
workers. The demonstration threatened to develop into an armed
attack on the Provisional Government.

At this time the Bolshevik Party was against an armed uprising
because it considered that the revolutionary crisis had not yet
matured, that the army and the provinces were not ready to
support an uprising in the capital. At a joint meeting of the
Central Committee with the Petrograd Committee and the Military
Organisation of the R.S.D.L.P.(B.) at 4 p. m. on July 3 (16), it
was decided to refrain from armed actiom The Second Petrograd
City Conference of Bolsheviks, which was being held simultaneously, took an analogous decision. The conference
delegates went out to the factories and various districts of the
city to restrain the masses from taking armed action. But the
uprising had already begun and it could not be stopped.

Taking into account the mood of the massos, the Contral
Committee in consultation with the Petrograd Committee and the
Military Organisation decided late in the evening on July 3 (16)
to  participate in the demonstration in order to give it an
organised and peaceful character. Lenin, who was not in
Petrograd at the time, came straight to the capital when he
heard what was happening. He arrived in the morning on July 4
(17). More than 500,000 people took part in the demonstration of
July 4 (17), which was conducted under the main slogan of the
Bolsheviks, “All power to the Soviets”.

With the knowledge and consent of the Menshevik and
Socialist-Revolutionary Central Executive Committee, detachments
of officers and officer cadets were sent against the peacefully
demonstrating workers and soldiers, and opened fire on the
demonstrators. Counter-revolutionary military units were
recalled from the front to smash the revolutionary movement.

On the night of July 4 (17) the Bolshevik Central Committee
decided to halt the demonstration. Late at night Lenin visited
the Pravda editorial office to look at the current issue, half an hour after he left, the office was wrecked by a
detachment of officer cadets and Cossacks.

The Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries, in effect, aided
and abetted the counter-revolution. Having helped to smash the
demonstration, they associated themselves with the bourgeoisie
in attacking the Bolshevik Party. The Bolshevik newspapers Pravda , Soldatskaya Pravda and others were
banned by the Provisional Government. Mass arrests, searches and
pogroms began. The revolutionary units of the Petrograd garrison
were withdrawn from the capital and sent to the front.

After the July Days the counter-revolutionary Provisional
Government took over complete control of the country and the
Soviets were reduced to the role of a helpless appendage. The
period of dual power was over, the peaceful state of the
revolution was also over. The Bolsheviks were now faced with the
task of preparing an armed uprising for the overthrow of the
Provisional Government.

[4] Kornilov revolt —a counter-revolutionary
conspiracy organised in August 1917 by the Russian bourgeoisie and
landowners and led by the tsarist general Kornilov. On August 25
Kornilov began with drawing troops from the front to march against
Petrograd. In response to a Bolshevik appeal the common people
rose against Kornilov. The workers of Petrograd took up arms and
began to form detachments of Red Guards. The attempt at
counter-revolution was quickly crushed and Kornilov himself
arrested.

[5] The reference is to the defeatist position taken up by
L. B. Kamenev, G. Y. Zinoviev, A. I. Rykov and certain other
members of the Central Committee of the Party and the Soviet
Government, who after the October Socialist Revolution supported
the Socialist-Revolutionary demand for the setting up of a
“homogeneous socialist government” (see present Resolution of C.C. of the
R.S.D.L.P.(B) on the Opposition and From the Central Committee of
the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party (Bolsheviks) ).

[6] Kaledin , A. M. (1861-1918) was a tsarist
general. At the end of 1917 and the beginning of 1918 he became
one of the leaders of the monarchist counter-revolution and
organiser of the Civil War against Soviet power on the River
Don. When defeated in January 1918, he shot himself.

[7] This
argument against the signing of the peace terms dictated by
Germany was put forward by the “Left Communists” at a meeting of members of the Central Committee with Party workers on
January 8 (21), 1918. V. V. Obolensky (N. Osinsky) asserted that
“the German soldier will not agree to take part in an offensive”, and Y. A. Preobrazhensky tried to prove that the
German army was “technically incapable of advancing: winter,
no roads . . .”. The wrongness and harmfulness of such arguments was exposed by Lenin in his article The Revolutionary Phrase .

[8] Soon after the publication of Lenin’s Decree on Peace,
which was passed by the Second All-Russia Congress of Soviets,
the Soviet Government sent a Note to the Entente powers
proposing the immediate conclusion of an armistice on all fronts
and the starting of peace negotiations. The refusal of the
imperialists of the Entente to support the initiative of the
Soviet Government and their active opposition to the conclusion
of peace compelled the Council of People’s Commissars to
begin separate peace negotiations with Germany. After preliminary negotiations and the conclusion of an armistice, the
peace conference opened at Brest-Litovsk on December 9 (22),
1917. It was attended by a delegation from Soviet Russia and a
delegation from the powers of the Quadruple Alliance (Germany,
Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and Turkey). At the conference the
Soviet delegation made a declaration, based on the propositions
of the Decree on Peace, setting forth proposals for the
conclusion of a just and democratic peace without annexations
and indemnities. After going through a series of manoeuvres, the
delegation from the German bloc stated that the Soviet proposals
were inacceptable and on January 5 (18), 1918 offered Soviet
Russia onerous and predatory peace terms stipulating that
Poland, Lithuania and parts of Latvia, Estonia, the Ukraine and
Byelorussia should be placed under German control.

On January 8 (21), 1918 at a meeting between members of the
Central Committee and Party workers Lenin gave detailed
arguments proving the need to conclude peace even on these
onerous terms. These arguments were expounded in his “Theses on the Question of the Immediate Conclusion of a
Separate and Annexationist Peace” (see present edition,
Vol. 26, pp. 442-44). Questions of war and peace were discussed
at meetings of the Central Committee on January 11 (24), January
19 (February 1), January 21 (February 3), and on February 18,
22, 23 and 24, 1918. To prevent the collapse of the peace
negotiations and to stop the adventuristic policy of the
“Left Communists” and Trotsky being put into effect, Lenin got the Central Committee of the Party to pass a decision
on the need for sustaining the peace negotiations for as long as
possible and signing the peace terms only if the Germans should
present an ultimatum. On January 27 (February 9), however, when
the Germans demanded in the form of an ultimatum that the Soviet
delegation should sign the peace terms they had proposed on
January 5 (18), Trotsky, who was leading the Soviet delegation
at this stage, ignored the Central Committee’s decision
and in spite of Lenin’s demand refused to sign the peace
treaty while stating simultaneously that Russia would cease
waging war and would demobilise her army.

The German imperialists took advantage of this. On February 18,
German troops broke the armistice agreement and launched an
offensive all along the Russo-German front. The same day, on
Lenin’s insistence the Party Central Committee passed a
decision to sign the peace treaty with Germany. But on February
22, imperialist Germany presented a fresh ultimatum stipulating
even more onerous and humiliating peace terms: in addition to
the territory they had occupied the Germans demanded that Soviet
Russia should cede provinces of Latvia and Estonia that were not
in German hands, and that she should conclude peace wlth the
Ukrainian Central Rada, withdraw Soviet troops from the Ukraine
and Finland, pay Germany a huge indemnity and demobilise her
army. On February 23 the Central Committee came out in favour of
Lenin’s proposal to conclude peace immediately on the terms proposed by Germany. On the morning of February 24, the
All-Russia Central Executive Committee and then the Council of
People’s Commissars decided to accept the new peace terms,
and this was immediately made known to the German Government. On
March 1, 1918 the peace negotiations were reopened and the Peace
Treaty was signed on March 3.

The revolution in Germany of November 1918 deposed Kaiser
Wilhelm II and the Soviet Government was able to annul the
Treaty of Brest.

[9] The Soviet Government published the secret diplomatic papers and
the secret treaties between the tsarist government (and
subsequently the bourgeois Provisional Government) of Russia and
the governments of Britain, Franco, Italy, Japan, Austria-Hungary and otber imperialist powers, On November 10
(23), 1917 the newspapers began publishing these secret
diplomatic papers and treaties, which afterwards appeared in the Collections of Secret Documents from the Archives of the
Former Ministry for Foreign Affairs. Seven of these collections came out between December 1917 and February 1918.

[10] The reference is to the signed oath of loyalty to the tsar that
was obligatory for deputies of the Third State Duma. Since refusal
to take this oath meant losing the platform in the Duma that was
needed to mobilise the proletariat for revolutionary struggle, the
Social-Democrat deputies signed the oath along with the rest of
the members of the Duma.

[11] The term “fleld revolution on a world-wide scale”
was used by V. V. Obolensky (N. Osinsky) in the “Theses on
the Question of War and Peace”, which he wrote for the meeting of the Party Central Committee on January 21 (February 3),
1918 and published on March 14 in the “Left Communist” newspaper Kommunist No. 8. Explaining what he meant by
this term, Obolensky wrote: “Revolutionary war, as a field
civil war, cannot resemble in character the regular military
actions of national armies when they are carrying out strategic
operations. . . . Military action assumes the character of
guerrilla warfare (analogous to barricade fighting) and is mixed
with class agitation.”

[12] Lenin appears to be referring to the period between the
launching of the German offensive, on February 18, and the arrival
of the Soviet delegation in Brest-Litovsk on February 28,
1918. The German offensive continued until March 3, the day the
peace treaty was signed.

[13] The revolution in Finland which began on January 27, 1918 in
response to a call from the leaders of the Social-Democratic Party
of Finland, deposed Svinhufvud’s bourgeois government and
placed power in the hands of the workers. On January 29 a
revolutionary government of Finland was set up in the shape of the
Council of People’s Representatives, which included
E. Gylling, O. W. Kuusinen, Y. Sirola, A. Taimi and othcrs. This
government’s most important acts were the passing of a law
making land less peasants sole owners of the land they tilled, the
freeing of the poorest sections of the population of all taxes the
expropriation of enterprises belonging to owners who had fled the
country, and the setting up of state control over private banks.

The proletarian revolution was victorious, however, only in the
south of Finland. The Svinhufvud government made good its losses
in the north of the country, where a build-up of counter-revolutionary forces took place, and appealed to the
government of Kaiser Germany for aid. On May 2, 1918 German
armed forces intervened and the workers’ revolution was
crushed after a bitter civil was lasting three months. During
the White Terror that ensued thousands of revolutionary workers
and peasants were executed or tortured to death in prison.

[14] This refers to the resolution passed by the Moscow Regional Bureau
of the R.S.D.L.P. on February 24, 1918. For a criticism of this
anti-Party document see Lenin’s article Strange and Monstrous .

V. I. Lenin

## Extraordinary Seventh Congress of the R.C.P.(B.)

MARCH 6-8, 1918

## Section Two

2

## Reply to the Debate on the Political Report of the Central Committee March 8

Comrades, let me begin with some relatively minor remarks, let
me begin from the end. At the end of his speech Comrade Bukharin
went so far as to compare us to Petlyura. If he thinks that is
so, how can he remain with us in the same party? Isn’t it
just empty talk? If things were really as he said, we should
not, of course, be members of the same party. The fact that we
are together shows that we are ninety per cent in agreement with
Bukharin. It is true he added a few revolutionary phrases about
our wanting to betray the Ukraine. I am sure it is not worth
while talking about such obvious nonsense. I shall return to
Comrade Ryazanov, and here I want to say that in the same way as
an exception that occurs once in ten years proves the rule, so
has Comrade Ryazanov chanced to say a serious word. ( Applause. ) He said that Lenin was surrendering
space to gain time. That is almost philosophical reasoning. This
time it happened that we heard from Comrade Ryazanov a serious
phrase—true it is only a phrase—which fully expresses the case; to gain time I want to surrender space to
the actual victor. That and that alone is the whole point at
issue. All else is mere talk—the need for a revolutionary
war, rousing the peasantry, etc. When Comrade Bukharin pictures
things as though there could not be two opinions as to whether
war is possible and says—“ask any soldier” (I wrote down his actual words)—since he puts the question
this way and wants to ask any soldier, I’ll answer him. “Any soldier” turned out to be a French officer
that I had a talk with. That French  officer looked at me, with
anger in his eyes, of course—had I not sold Russia to the
Germans?—and said: “I am a royalist, I am also a champion of the monarchy in France, a champion of the defeat of
Germany, so don’t  think I support Soviet power—who would, if he was a royalist?—but I favour your signing the
Brest Treaty because it’s necessary.” [15] That’s “asking any soldier” for you. Any
soldier would say what I have said—we had to sign the
Brest Treaty. If it now emerges from Bukharin’s speech that our differences have greatly diminished, it is only because
his supporters have concealed the chief point on which we
differ.

Now that Bukharin is thundering against us for having demoralised the masses, he is perfectly correct, except that it
is himself and not us that he is attacking. Who caused this mess
in the Central Committee?—You, Comrade
Bukharin. ( Laughter. ) No matter how much you shout “No”, the truth will out; we are here in our own
comradely family, we are at our own Congress, we have nothing to
hide, the truth must be told. And the truth is that there were
three trends in the Central Committee. On February 17 Lomov and
Bukharin did not vote. I have asked for the record of the voting
to be reproduced and copies made so that every Party member who
wishes to do so can go into the secretariat and see how people
voted—the historic voting of January 21, which shows that
they wavered and we did not, not in the least; we said,
“Let us accept the Brest peace—you’ll get nothing better—so as to prepare  for a revolutionary
war”. Now we have gained five days in which to evacuate
Petrograd. Now the manifesto signed by Krylenko and Podvoisky [16] has been published, they were not
among the Lefts, and Bukharin insulted them by saying that
Krylenko had been “dragged in”, as though we had invented what Krylenko reported. We agree in full with what they
said; that is how matters stand, for it was these army men who
gave proof of what I had said; and you dismiss the matter by
saying the Germans won’t attack. How can this situation be
compared with October, when the question of equipment did not
arise? If you want to take facts into consideration, then
consider this one—that the disagreement arose over the statement that we cannot start a war that is obviously to our
disadvantage. When Comrade Bukharin began his concluding speech
with the thunderous  question “Is war possible in the near
future?” he greatly surprised me. I answer without hesitation—yes, it is possible, but today we must accept
peace. There is no contradiction in this.

After these brief remarks I shall give detailed answers to
previous speakers. As far as Radek  is concerned I must make an
exception. But there was another speech, that of Comrade
Uritsky. What was there in that speech apart from Canossa, [17] “treachery”,
“retreated”, “adapted”? What is all this about? Haven’t you borrowed your criticism from a Left
Socialist-Revolutionary newspaper? Comrade Bubnov read us a
statement submitted to the Central Committee by those of its
members who consider themselves very Left-wing and who gave us a
striking example of a demonstration before the eyes of the whole
world—“the behaviour of the Central Committee strikes a blow at the international proletariat”. Is that
anything but an empty phrase? “Demonstrate weakness before
the eyes of the whole world!” How are we demonstrating? By
proposing peace? Because our army has run away? Have we not
proved that to begin war with Germany at this moment, and not to
accept the Brest peace, would mean showing the world that our
army is sick and does not want to give battle? Bubnov’s
statement was quite empty when he asserted that the wavering was
entirely of our making—it was due to our army’s being sick. Sooner or later, there had to be a respite. If we
had had the correct strategy we should have had a month’s
breathing space, but since your strategy was incorrect we have
only five days—even that is good. The history of war shows
that even days are sometimes enough to halt a panic-stricken
army. Anyone who does not accept, does not conclude this
devilish peace now, is a man of empty phrases and not a
strategist. That is the pity of it. When Central Committee
members write to me about “demonstrations of weakness”, “treachery”, they are writing the
most damaging, empty, childish phrases. We demonstrated our
weakness by attempting to fight at a time when the demonstration
should not have been made, when an offensive against us was
inevitable. As for the peasants of Pskov, we shall bring them to
the Congress of Soviets to relate how the Germans treat people,
so that they can change the mood of the soldier in panicstricken night and he will begin to recover from his panic and
say, “This is certainly not the war the Bolsheviks promised to put an end to, this is a new war the Germans are
waging against Soviet power.” Then recovery will come. But
you raise a question that cannot be answered. Nobody knows how
long the respite will last.

Now I must say something about Comrade Trotsky’s position. There are two aspects to his activities; when he began
the negotiations at Brest and made splendid use of them for
agitation, we all agreed with Comrade Trotsky. He has quoted
part of a conversation with me, but I must add that it was
agreed between us that we would hold out until  the Germans
presented an ultimatum, and then we would give way. The Germans
deceived us—they stole five days out of seven from us. [18] Trotsky’s tactics were
correct as long as they were aimed at delaying matters; they
became incorrect when it was announced that the state of war had
been terminated but peace had not been concluded. I proposed
quite definitely that peace be concluded. We could not have got
anything better than the Brest peace. It is now clear to
everybody that we would have had a month’s respite and that we would not have lost anything. Since history has swept
that away it is not worth recalling, but it is funny to hear
Bukharin say, “Events will show that we were right.”
I was right because I wrote about it back in
1915—“We must prepare to wage war, it is inevitable, it is coming, it will come.” But we had to accept peace
and not try vain blustering. And because war is coming, it was
all the more necessary to accept peace, and now we are at least
making easier the evacuation of Petrograd—we have made it,
easier. That is a fact. And when Comrade Trotsky  makes fresh
demands; “Promise not to conclude peace with
Vinnichenko”, I say that under no circumstances will I take that obligation upon myself. [19] If the Congress
accepts this obligation, neither I, nor those who agree with me,
will accept responsibility for it. It would mean tying our hands
again with a formal decision instead of following a clear line
of manoeuvre—retreat when possible, and at times attack. In war you must never tie yourself down with formal
decisions. It is ridiculous not to know the history of war, not
to know that a treaty is a means of gathering strength—I
have already mentioned Prussian history. There are some people
who are just like children, they think that if we have signed a
treaty we have sold ourselves to Satan and have gone to
hell. That is simply ridiculous when it is quite obvious from
the history of war that the conclusion of a treaty after defeat
is a means of gathering strength. There have been cases in
history of one war following immediately after another, we have
all forgotten that, we see that the old war is turning into. . . [Several words are missing in the
verbatim report. —Ed. ] If you like, you can bind yourselves for ever with formal decisions and then hand
over all the  responsible posts to the Left
Socialist-Revolutionaries.  We shall not accept responsibility
for it. There is not the least desire for a split here. I am
sure that events will teach you—March 12 is not far away,
and you will obtain plenty of material. [20]

Comrade Trotsky says that it will be treachery in the full sense
of the word. I maintain that that is an absolutely wrong point
of view. To demonstrate this concretely, I will give you an
example: two men are walking together and are attacked by ten
men, one fights and the other runs away—that is treachery;
but suppose we have two armies of a hundred thousand each and
there are five armies against them; one army is surrounded by
two hundred thousand, and the other must go to its aid; knowing
that the other three hundred thousand of the enemy are ambushed
to trap it, should the second army go to the aid of the first?
It should not. That is not treachery, that is not cowardice; a
simple increase in numbers has changed all concepts, any soldier
knows this; it is no longer a personal concept. By acting in
this way I preserve my army; let the other army be captured, I
shall be able to renew mine, I have allies, I shall wait till
the allies arrive. That is the only way to argue; when military
arguments are mixed up with others, you get nothing but empty
phrases. That is not the way to conduct politics.

We have done everything that could be done. By signing the
treaty we have saved Petrograd, even if only for a few days. (The secretaries and stenographers should not think of
putting that on record.) The treaty requires us to withdraw our
troops from Finland, troops that are clearly no good, but we are
not forbidden to take arms into Finland. If Petrograd had fallen
a few days ago, the city would have been in a panic and we
should not have been able to take anything away; but in those
five days we have helped our Finnish comrades—how much I
shall not say, they know it themselves.

The statement that we have betrayed Finland is just a childish
phrase. We helped the Finns precisely by retreating before the
Germans in good time. Russia will never perish just because
Petrograd falls. Comrade Bukharin is a thousand times right in
that, but if we manoeuvre in Bukharin’s way we may ruin a
good revolution. ( Laughter. )

We have not betrayed either Finland or the Ukraine. No class-conscious worker would accuse us of this. We are helping
as best we can. We have not taken one good man away from our
army and shall not do so. You say that Hoffmann will catch
us—of course he may, I do not doubt it, but how many days
it will take him, he does not know and nobody knows. Furthermore, your arguments about his catching us are
arguments about the political alignment of forces, of which I
shall speak later.

Now that I have explained why I am absolutely unable to accept
Trotsky’s proposal—you cannot conduct politics in that way—I must say that Radek has given us an example of
how far the comrades at our Congress have departed from empty
phrases such as Uritsky still sticks to. I certainly cannot
accuse him of empty phrases in that speech. He said, “There is not a shadow of treachery, not a shadow of
disgrace, because it is clear that you retreated in the face of
overpowering military force.” That is an appraisal that
destroys Trotsky’s position. When Radek said, “We must grit our teeth and prepare our forces,” he was
right—I agree with that in full—don’t bluster, grit your teeth and make preparations.

Grit your teeth, don’t bluster and muster your forces. The
revolutionary war will come, there is no disagreement on this;
the difference of opinion is on the Peace of Tilsit—should
we conclude it or not ? The worst of it is that we have a  sick
army, and the Central Committee, therefore, must have a firm
line and not differences of opinion or the middle line that
Comrade Bukharin also supported. I am not painting the respite
in bright colours; nobody knows how long it will last and I
don’t know. The efforts that are being made to force me to
say how long it will last are ridiculous. As long as we hold the
main lines we are helping the Ukraine and Finland. We are taking
advantage of the respite, manoeuvring and retreating.

The German worker cannot now be told that the Russians are being
awkward, for it is now clear that German and Japanese imperialism is attacking—it will be clear to everybody;
apart from a desire to strangle the Bolsheviks, the Germans also
want to do some strangling in the West, everything is all mixed
up, and in this war we shall have to and must be able to
manoeuvre.

With regard to Comrade Bukharin’s speech, I must say that
when he runs short of arguments he puts forward something in the
Uritsky manner and says, “The treaty disgraces us.”
Here no arguments are needed; if we have been disgraced we
should collect our papers and run, but, although we have been
“disgraced”, I do not think our position has been shaken. Comrade Bukharin attempted to analyse the class basis of
our position, but instead of doing so told us an anecdote about
a deceased Moscow economist. When you discovered some connection
between our tactics and food speculation—this was really
ridiculous—you forgot that the attitude of the class as a
whole, the class, and not the food speculators, shows that the
Russian bourgeoisie and their hangers-on—the Dyelo
Naroda and Novaya Zhizn writers—are bending all their efforts to goad us on to war. You do not stress that
class fact. To declare war on Germany at the moment would be to
fall for the provocation of the Russian bourgeoisie. That is not
new because it is the surest—I do not say absolutely certain, because nothing is absolutely certain—the surest
way of getting rid of us today. When Comrade Bukharin said that
events were on their side, that in the long run we would
recognise revolutionary war, he was celebrating an easy victory
since we prophesied the inevitability of a revolutionary war in
1915. Our differences were on the following—would the
Germans attack or not;  that we should have declared the state
of war terminated; that in the interests of revolutionary war we
should have to retreat, surrendering territory to gain time. Strategy and politics prescribe the most disgusting peace
treaty imaginable. Our differences will all disappear once we
recognise these tactics.

## Endnotes

[15] Lenin is referring to his conversation with the French officer,
the Comte de Lubersac, which took place on February 27, 1918.

[16] The reference is to the appeal of the People’s
Commissariat for Military Affairs, which called upon all workers
and peasants to take up voluntary military training. Military
training had to be made voluntary because the Russian Army under
the terms of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was to be completely
demobilised. The appeal was published on March 5, 1918 in the
newspaper Izvestia VTsIK No. 40.

[17] Canossa —castle in Northern Italy. In 1077, the
Roman Emperor Henry IV, who had been defeated by Pope Gregory VII,
stood for three days in the robes of repentance before the gates
of this castle in order to save himself from excommunication and
regain his power as emperor. Hence the phrase “to go to
Canossa”, i.e., to humiliate oneself before a person whom
one has previously resisted.

[18] According to the terms of the armistice concluded on December 2
(15), 1917 at Brest-Litovsk between the Soviet Government and the
powers of the Quadruple Alliance (Germany, Austria-Hungary,
Bulgaria and Turkey), either side could renew hostilities at seven
days’ notice. The German military command broke this condition by launching an offensive along the whole front on
February 18, two days after denouncing the armistice.

[19] According to Clause VI of the Treaty of Brest, signed on March 3,
1918 Russia undertook to conclude peace with the counter-revolutionary Ukrainian Central Rada. The peace
negotiations between the Soviet Government and the Rada did not
take place, however. On April 29, 1918 the German occupation
forces in collusion with the Constitutional-Democrat and Octobrist
bourgeoisie engineered a coup in the Ukraine. The Rada was
overthrown and replaced by the dictatorial regime of Hetman
Skoropadsky. Negotiations between Soviet Russia and the
Skoropadsky government began on May 23 and an armistice was signed
on June 14, 1918.

[20] March 12 was the provisional date for the assembly of the
Extraordinary Fourth All-Russia Congress of Soviets to decide the
ques- tion of ratifying the peace treaty. The Congress was held
March 14-16, 1918.

V. I. Lenin

## Extraordinary Seventh Congress of the R.C.P.(B.)

MARCH 6-8, 1918

## Section Three

3

## Resolution On War And Peace [21]

The Congress recognises the necessity to confirm the extremely
harsh, humiliating peace treaty with Germany that has been
concluded by Soviet power in view of our lack of an army, in
view of the most unhealthy state of the demoralised army at the
front, in view of the need to take advantage of any, even the
slightest, possibility of obtaining a respite before imperialism
launches its offensive against the Soviet Socialist Republic.

In the present period of the era that has begun, the era of the
socialist revolution, numerous military attacks on Soviet Russia
by the imperialist powers (both from the West and from the East)
are historically inevitable. The historical inevitability of
such attacks at a time when both internal, class relations and
international relations are extremely tense, can at any moment,
even immediately, within the next few days, lead to fresh
imperialist aggressive wars against the socialist movement in
general and against the Russian Socialist Soviet Republic in
particular.

The Congress therefore declares that it recognises the primary
and fundamental task of our Party, of the entire vanguard of the
class-conscious proletariat and of Soviet power, to be the
adoption of the most energetic, ruthlessly determined and
Draconian measures to improve the self-discipline and discipline
of the workers and peasants of Russia, to explain the inevitability of Russia’s historic advance towards a
socialist, patriotic war of liberation, to create everywhere
soundly co-ordinated mass organisations held together by a
single iron will, organisations that are capable of concerted,
valorous action in their day-to-day efforts and especially  at
critical moments in the life of the people, and, lastly, to
train systematically and comprehensively in military matters and
military operations the entire adult population of both sexes.

The Congress considers the only reliable guarantee of consolidation of the socialist revolution that has been
victorious in Russia to be its conversion into a world working-class revolution.

The Congress is confident that the step taken by Soviet power in
view of the present alignment of forces in the world arena was,
from the standpoint of the interests of the world revolution,
inevitable and necessary.

Confident that the working-class revolution is maturing
persistently in all belligerent countries and is preparing the
full and inevitable defeat of imperialism, the Congress declares
that the socialist proletariat of Russia will support the
fraternal revolutionary movement of the proletariat of all
countries with all its strength and with every means at its
disposal.

## Endnotes

[21] The resolution on war and peace was passed on March 8 at the
morning session of the Party Congress. On Lenin’s proposal,
which was affirmed by the Congress, the resolution was not made
public. It was first published on January 1, 1919 in the
workers’ daily Kommunar , which was issued by the
Central Committee of the R.C.P.(B.) in Moscow from October 9, 1918
to June 1, 1919.

V. I. Lenin

## Extraordinary Seventh Congress of the R.C.P.(B.)

MARCH 6-8, 1910

## Section Four

4

## Speeches Against Trotsky’s Amendments to the Resolution on War and Peace March 8 (Morning)

## I

Comrades, in my speech I have already said that neither I nor those who
support me consider it possible to accept this amendment. We must in no way bind our hands in
any strategic manoeuvre. Everything depends on the relationship of forces and the time of the
attack against us by these or those imperialist countries, the time when the rehabilitation
of our army, which is undoubtedly beginning reaches the point when we shall be in a position
and obliged not merely to refrain from concluding peace but to declare war. Instead of the
amendments which Comrade Trotsky proposes, I am ready to accept the following:

First, to say—and this I shall certainly uphold—that the present resolution is
not to be published in the press but that a communication should be made only about the
ratification of the treaty.

Secondly, in the forms of publication and content the Central Committee shall have the
right to introduce changes in connection with a possible offensive by the Japanese.

Thirdly, to say that the Congress will empower the C.C of the Party both to break all the
peace treaties and to declare war on any imperialist power or the whole world when the C.C.
of the Party considers that the appropriate moment for this has come.

We must give the C.C. full power to break the treaties at any moment but this does not in
any way imply that we shall break them just now, in the situation that exists today. At the
present time we must not bind our hands in any way. The words that Comrade Trotsky proposes
to introduce will gain the votes of those who are against ratification in general, votes for
a middle course which will create afresh a situation in which not a single worker, not a
single soldier, will understand anything in our resolution.

At the present time we shall endorse the necessity of ratifying the treaty and we shall
empower the Central Committee to declare war at any moment, because an attack against us is
being prepared, perhaps from three sides; Britain or France wants to take Archangel from
us—it is quite possible they will, but in any case we ought not to hamper our central
institution in any way, whether in regard to breaking the peace treaty or in regard to
declaring war. We are giving financial aid to the Ukrainians, we are helping them in so far
as we can. In any case we must not bind ourselves to not signing any peace treaty. In an
epoch of growing wars, coming one after the other, new combinations grow up. The peace treaty
is entirely a matter of vital manoeuvring—either we stand by this condition of
manoeuvring or we formally bind our hands in advance in such a way that it will be impossible
to move; neither making peace nor waging war will be possible.

## II

It seems to me that I have said: no, I cannot accept this. This amendment makes a hint, it
expresses what Comrade Trotsky wants to say. There should be no hints in the resolution.

The first point says that we accept ratification of the treaty, considering it essential
to utilise every, even the smallest, possibility of a breathing-space before imperialism
attacks the Soviet Socialist Republic. In speaking of a breathing space, we do not forget
that an attack on our Republic is still going on. There you have my opinion, which I stressed
in my reply to the debate.

## Endnotes

V. I. Lenin

## Extraordinary Seventh Congress of the R.C.P.(B.)

MARCH 6-8, 1918

## Section Five

5

## Speech Against The Statement Of The “Left Communist” Group In Support Of Trotsky’s Amendment March 8

I am unable to give an immediate answer to Comrade Radek’s polemic [22] —since I am not voting, I
cannot give grounds for my vote. According to the usual procedure, I cannot reply; I do not
want to hold up the Congress by requesting to be given the floor in order to reply to this
polemic. I merely remind you, therefore, of what was said in my reply to the debate and,
secondly, register my protest against a speech on grounds for voting being turned into a
polemic to which I am not in a position to reply.

## Endnotes

[22] K. Radek made a statement
on behalf of the group of “Left Communists”, in which he tried to continue the
polemic over the question of war and peace.

V. I. Lenin

## Extraordinary Seventh Congress of the R.C.P.(B.)

MARCH 6-8, 1910

## Section Six

6

## Addendum To The Resolution On War And Peace March 8

The Congress deems it essential not to publish the resolution that has been
adopted and requires of all Party members that they keep this resolution secret. The only
communication to be made to the press—and that not today but on the instructions of the
Central Committee—will be that the Congress is in favour of ratification.

Furthermore, the Congress lays special stress on the authority granted to the Central
Committee to denounce at any moment all peace treaties concluded with imperialist and
bourgeois states, and also to declare war on them.

## Endnotes

V. I. Lenin

## Extraordinary Seventh Congress of the R.C.P.(B.)

MARCH 6-8, 1918

## Section Seven

7

## Speech Against Zinoviev’s Amendment To The Addendum To The Resolution On War And Peace March 8

I think, comrades, that there is no need for this amendment which Comrade Zinoviev has
moved. [23] I hope that only members of the Party are in the hall; in view of the state importance of the question, I
think that we can adopt a decision to take the personal signature of everyone present in this
hall.

This is by no means a superfluous measure; we are in conditions in which military secrets
become very important questions, the most essential questions, for the Russian Republic. If
we say in the press that the Congress has decided on ratification there cannot be any
misunderstanding. I only propose that this should not be voted on just now because there may
be changes: further information should reach us today. We have taken special measures to
obtain information from the North-East and the South—this news may cause some change.
Since the Congress agrees that we must manoeuvre in the interests of a revolutionary
war—will even empower the Central Committee to declare war—it is obvious that we
have the agreement of both sections of the Party on this; the dispute was only over whether
or not to continue the war without any respite. I consider that in moving this amendment I am
saying something indisputable for the majority and for the opposition; I think that there
cannot be any other interpretations. I consider it more practical merely to confirm that it
must be kept secret. And in addition, to adopt supplementary measures and on this account to
take the personal signature of each person present in the hall.

## Endnotes

[23] G. Y. Zinoviev proposed
instructing the new Central Committee to find a form for the publication of the resolution on
war and peace. Zinoviev’s amendment was not accepted; by a majority vote the Congress
affirmed Lenin’s proposed addition to the resolution.

V. I. Lenin

## Extraordinary Seventh Congress of the R.C.P.(B.)

MARCH 6-8, 1918

## Section Eight

8

## Proposal Concerning The Resolution On War And Peace March 8

I

In view of the fact that the resolution has been distributed, can we not at once adopt a
decision that everyone who has received a copy should bring it to this table immediately?
That is one means of preserving a military secret.

II

I ask for the vote to be taken. Our Party centres consist of adult people who will
understand that communications containing a military secret are made orally. Therefore I
absolutely insist that all texts of the resolution in anyone’s possession shall
immediately be put on the table here.

## Endnotes

V. I. Lenin

## Extraordinary Seventh Congress of the R.C.P.(B.)

MARCH 6-8, 1918

## Section Nine

9

## Report on the Review of the Programme and on Changing the Name of the Party [24] March 8

Comrades, as you know, a fairly comprehensive Party discussion on changing the name of the
Party has developed since April 1917 and the Central Committee has therefore been able to
arrive at an immediate decision that will probably not give rise to considerable
dispute—there may even be practically none at all; the Central Committee proposes to
you that the name of our Party be changed to the Russian Communist Party, with the word
“Bolsheviks” added to it in brackets. We all recognise the necessity for this
addition because the word “Bolshevik” has not only acquired rights of citizenship
in the political life of Russia but also throughout the entire foreign press, which in a
general way keeps track of events in Russia. It has already been explained in our press that
the name “Social-Democratic Party” is scientifically incorrect. When the workers
set up their own state they realised that the old concept of democracy—bourgeois
democracy—had been surpassed in the process of the development of our revolution. We
have arrived at a type of democracy that has never existed anywhere in Western Europe. It has
its prototype only in the Paris Commune, and Engels said with regard to the Paris Commune
that it was not a state in the proper sense of the word. [25] In short, since the working people themselves
are undertaking to administer the state and establish armed forces that support the given
state system, the special government apparatus is disappearing, the special apparatus for a
certain state coercion is disappearing, and we cannot therefore uphold democracy in its old
form.

On the other hand, as we begin socialist reforms we must have a clear conception of the
goal towards which these reforms are in the final analysis directed, that is, the creation of
a communist society that does not limit itself to the expropriation of factories, the land
and the means of production, does not confine itself to strict accounting for, and control
of, production and distribution of products, but goes farther towards implementing the
principle “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs”.
That is why the name of Communist Party is the only one that is scientifically correct. The
objection that it may cause us to be confused with the anarchists was immediately rejected by
the Central Committee on the grounds that the anarchists never call themselves simply
Communists but always add something to that name. In this respect we may mention the many
varieties of socialism, but they do not cause the confusion of the Social-Democrats with
social reformers, or national socialists, or any similar parties.

On the other hand, the most important argument in favour of changing the name of the Party
is that up to now the old official socialist parties in all the leading European countries
have still not got rid of their intoxication with social-chauvinism and social-patriotism
that led to the complete collapse of European official socialism during the present war, so
that up to now almost all official socialist parties have been a real hindrance to the
working-class revolutionary socialist movement, a real encumbrance to it. And our Party,
which at the present time undoubtedly enjoys the greatest sympathy of the masses of the
working people of all countries—our Party must make the most decisive, sharp, clear and
unambiguous statement that is possible to the effect that it has broken off connections with
that old official socialism, for which purpose a change in the name of the Party will be the
most effective means.

Further, comrades, the much more difficult question was that of the theoretical part of
the Programme and of its practical and political part. As far as the theoretical part of the
Programme is concerned, we have some material—the Moscow and Petrograd symposia on the
review of the Programme, which have been published [26] ; the two main theoretical organs of our Party, Prosveshcheniye published in Petrograd, and Spartak published in Moscow, have carried articles substantiating
certain trends in changing the theoretical part of the Programme
of our Party. In this sphere we have a certain amount of
material. Two main points of view are to be seen which, in my
opinion, do not diverge, at any rate radically, on matters of
principle; one point of view, the one I defended, is that we
have no reason to reject the old theoretical part of our
Programme, and that it would be actually incorrect to do so. We
have only to add to it an analysis of imperialism as the highest
stage of the development of capitalism and also an analysis of
the era of the socialist revolution, proceeding from the fact
that the era of the socialist revolution has begun. Whatever may
be the fate of our revolution, of our contingent of the
international proletarian army, whatever may be the future
complications of the revolution, the objective situation of the
imperialist countries embroiled in a war that has reduced the
most advanced countries to starvation, ruin and barbarity, that
situation, in any case, is hopeless. And here I must repeat what
Frederick Engels said thirty years ago, in 1887, when appraising
the probable prospects of a European war. He said that crowns
would lie around in Europe by the dozen and nobody would want to
pick them up; he said that incredible ruin would fall to the lot
of the European countries, and that there could be only one
outcome to the horrors of a European war -- he put it this
way—“either the victory of the working class or the creation of conditions that would make that victory possible and
necessary”. [27] Engels expressed himself on this score with exceptional precision and caution. Unlike those
people who distort Marxism and offer their belated pseudo-philosophising about socialism being impossible in
conditions of ruin, Engels realised full well that every war,
even in an advanced society, would create not only devastation,
barbarity, torment, calamities for the masses, who would drown
in blood, and that there could be no guarantee that it would
lead to the victory of socialism; he said it would be “either the victory of the working class or the creation
of conditions that would make that victory possible and
necessary”, i.e., that there was, consequently, the possibility of a number of difficult stages of transition in
view of the tremendous destruction of culture and the means of
production, but that the result could be only the rise of the
working class, the vanguard of all working people, and the
beginning of its taking over power into its own hands for the
creation of a socialist society. For no matter to what extent
culture has been destroyed, it cannot be removed from history;
it will be difficult to restore but no destruction will ever
mean the complete disappearance of that culture. Some part of
it, some material remains of that culture will be indestructible, the difficulties will be only in restoring
it. There you have one point of view—that we must retain
the old Programme and add to it an analysis of imperialism and
of the beginning of the social revolution.

I expressed that point of view in the draft Programme that I
have published [See Materials Relating to the Revision of the Party Programme ].

Another draft was published by Comrade Sokolnikov in the Moscow
symposium. The second point of view has been expressed in our
private conversations, in particular by Comrade Bukharin, and by
Comrade V. Smirnov in the press, in the Moscow symposium. This
point of view is that the old theoretical part of our Programme
should be completely or almost completely eliminated and
replaced by a new part that does not analyse the development of
commodity production and capitalism, as the present Programme
does, but analyses the contemporary, highest stage of capitalist
development—imperialism—and the immediate transition to the epoch of the social revolution. I do not think that these
two points of view diverge radically and in principle, but I
shall defend my point of view. It seems to me that it would be
theoretically incorrect to eliminate the old programme that
analyses the development from commodity production to capitalism. There is nothing incorrect in it. That is how things
were and how they are, for commodity production begot capitalism
and capitalism led to imperialism. Such is the general historical perspective, and the fundamentals of socialism should
not be forgotten. No matter what the further complications of
the struggle may be, no matter what occasional zigzags we may
have to contend with (there will be very many of them— we
have seen from experience what gigantic turns the history of the
revolution has made, and so far it is only in our own country;
matters will be much more complicated and proceed much more
rapidly, the rate of development will be more furious and the
turns will be more intricate when the revolution becomes a
European revolution)—in order not to lose our way in these
zigzags, these sharp turns in history, in order to retain the
general perspective, to be able to see the scarlet thread that
joins up the entire development of capitalism and the entire
road to socialism, the road we naturally imagine as straight,
and which we must imagine as straight in order to see the
beginning, the continuation and the end—in real life it
will never be straight, it will be incredibly involved—in
order not to lose our way in these twists and turns, in order
not to get lost at times when we are taking steps backward,
times of retreat and temporary defeat or when history or the
enemy throws us back—in order not to get lost, it is, in
my opinion, important not to discard our old, basic Programme;
the only theoretically correct line is to retain it. Today we
have reached only the first stage of transition from capitalism
to socialism here in Russia. History has not provided us with
that peaceful situation that was theoretically assumed for a
certain time, and which is desirable for us, and which would
enable us to pass through these stages of transition speedily. We see immediately that the civil war has made many
things difficult in Russia, and that the civil war is interwoven
with a whole series of wars. Marxists have never forgotten that
violence must inevitably accompany the collapse of capitalism in
its entirety and the birth of socialist society. That violence
will constitute a period of world history, a whole era of
various kinds of wars, imperialist. wars, civil wars inside
countries the intermingling of the two, national wars liberating
the nationalities oppressed by the imperialists and by various
combinations of imperialist powers that will inevitably enter
into various alliances in the epoch of tremendous state-capitalist and military trusts and syndicates. This epoch,
an epoch of gigantic cataclysms, of mass decisions forcibly
imposed by war, of crises, has begun—that we can see clearly—and it is only the beginning. We therefore have no
reason to discard everything bearing on the definition of
commodity production in general, of capitalism in gen- eral. We
have only just taken the first steps towards shaking off
capitalism altogether and beginning the transition to socialism. We do not know and we cannot know how many stages of
transition to socialism there will be. That depends on when the
full-scale European socialist revolution begins and on whether
it will deal with its enemies and enter upon the smooth path of
socialist development easily and rapidly or whether it will do
so slowly. We do not know this, and the programme of a Marxist
party must be based on facts that have been established with
absolute certainty.  The power of our Programme—the programme that has found its confirmation in all the
complications of the revolution—is in that alone. Marxists
must build up their programme on this basis alone. We must
proceed from facts that have been established with absolute
certainty, facts that show how the development of exchange and
commodity production became a dominant historical phenomenon
throughout the world, how it led to capitalism and capitalism
developed into imperialism; that is an absolutely definite fact
that must first and foremost be recorded in our Programme. That
imperialism begins the era of the social revolution is also a
fact, one that is obvious to us, and about which we must speak
clearly.  By stating this fact in our Programme we are holding
high the torch of the social revolution before the whole world,
not as an agitational speech, but as a new Programme that says
to the peoples of Western Europe, “Here is what you and we
have gathered from the experience of capitalist development. This is what capitalism was, this is how it
developed into imperialism, and here is the epoch of the social
revolution that is beginning, and in which it is our lot to
play, chronologically, the first role.” We shall proclaim
this manifesto before all civilised countries; it will not only
be a fervent appeal but will be substantiated with absolute
accuracy and will derive from facts recognised by all socialist
parties. It will make all the clearer the contradiction between
the tactics of those parties that have now betrayed socialism
and the theoretical premises which we all share, and which have
entered the flesh and blood of every class-conscious worker—the rise of capitalism and its development into
imperialism. On the eve of imperialist wars the congresses at
Chemnitz and Basle passed resolutions defining imperialism, and
there is a flagrant contradiction between that definition and
the present tactics of the social-traitors.. [28] We must, therefore, repeat that which is basic in order to show the
working people of Western Europe all the more clearly what we
accuse their leaders of.

Such is the basis which I consider to be the only theoretically correct one on which to
build a programme. The abandoning of the analysis of commodity production and capitalism as
though it were old rubbish is not dictated by the historical nature of what is now happening,
since we have not gone farther than the first steps in the transition from capitalism to
socialism, and our transition is made more intricate by features that are specific to Russia
and do not exist in most civilised countries. And so it is not only possible but inevitable
that the stages of transition will be different in Europe; it would be theoretically
incorrect to turn all attention to specific national stages of transition that are essential
to us but may not be essential in Europe. We must begin with the general basis of the
development of commodity production, the transition to capitalism and the growth of
capitalism into imperialism. In this way we shall occupy and strengthen a theoretical
position from which nobody without betraying socialism can shift us. From this we draw the
equally inevitable conclusion—the era of the social revolution is beginning.

We draw this conclusion without departing from our basis of definitely proved facts.

Following this, our task is to define the Soviet type of state. I have tried to outline
theoretical views on this question in my book The State and
Revolution .

It seems to me that the Marxist view on the state has been
distorted in the highest degree by the official socialism that
is dominant in Western Europe, and that this has been splendidly
confirmed by the experience of the Soviet revolution and the
establishment of the Soviets in Russia. There is much that is
crude and unfinished in our Soviets, there is no doubt about
that, it is obvious to everyone who examines their work; but
what is important, has historical value and is a step forward in
the world development of socialism, is that they are a new type
of state. The Paris Commune was a matter of a few weeks, in one
city, without the people being conscious of what they were
doing. The Commune was not understood by those who created it;
they established the Commune by following the unfailing instinct
of the awakened people, and neither of the groups of French
socialists was conscious of what it was doing. Because we are
standing on the shoulders of the Paris Commune and the many
years of development of German Social-Democracy, we have
conditions that enable us to see clearly what we are doing in
creating Soviet power. Despite all the crudity and lack of
discipline that exist in the Soviets—this is a survival of
the petty-bourgeois nature of our country—despite all that
the new type of state has been created by the masses of the
people. It has been functioning for months and not weeks, and
not in one city, but throughout a tremendous country, populated
by several nations. This type of Soviet power has shown its
value since it has spread to Finland, a country that is
different in every respect, where there are no Soviets but where
there is, at any rate, a new type of power, proletarian power. [29] This is, therefore, proof of what
is theoretically regarded as indisputable—that Soviet power is a new type of state without a bureaucracy, without
police, without a regular army, a state in which bourgeois
democracy has been replaced by a new democracy, a democracy that
brings to the fore the vanguard of the working people, gives
them legislative and executive authority, makes them responsible
for military defence and creates state machinery that can
re-educate the masses.

In Russia this has scarcely begun and has begun badly. If we are conscious of what is bad
in what we have begun we shall overcome it, provided history gives anything like a decent
time to work on that Soviet power. I am therefore of the opinion that a definition of the new
type of state should occupy an outstanding place in our Programme. Unfortunately we had to
work on our Programme in the midst of governmental work and under conditions of such great
haste that we were not even able to convene our commission, to elaborate an official draft
programme. What has been distributed among the delegates is only a rough sketch, and this
will be obvious to everyone. A fairly large amount of space has been allotted in it to the
question of Soviet power, and I think that it is here that the international significance of
our Programme will make itself felt. I think it would be very wrong of us to confine the
international significance of our revolution to slogans, appeals, demonstrations, manifestos,
etc. That is not enough. We must show the European workers exactly what we have set about,
how we have set about it, how it is to be understood; that will bring them face to face with
the question of how socialism is to be achieved. They must see for themselves—the
Russians have started on something worth doing; if they are setting about it badly we must do
it better. For that purpose we must provide as much concrete material as possible and say
what we have tried to create that is new. We have a new type of state in Soviet power; we
shall try to outline its purpose and structure, we shall try to explain why this new type of
democracy in which there is so much that is chaotic and irrational, to explain what makes up
its living spirit—the transfer of power to the working people, the elimination of
exploitation and the machinery of suppression. The state is the machinery of suppression. The
exploiters must be suppressed, but they cannot be suppressed by police, they must be
suppressed by the masses themselves, the machinery must be linked with the masses, must
represent them as the Soviets do. They are much closer to the masses, they provide an
opportunity to keep closer to the masses, they provide greater opportunities for the
education of those masses. We know very well that the Russian peasant is anxious to learn;
and we want him to learn, not from books, but from his own experience. Soviet power is
machinery, machinery that will enable the masses to begin right away learning to govern the
state and organise production on a nation-wide scale. It is a task of tremendous difficulty.
It is, however, historically important that we are setting about its fulfilment, and not only
from the point of view of our one country; we are calling upon European workers to help. We
must give a concrete explanation of our Programme from precisely that common point of view.
That is why we consider it a continuation of the road taken by the Paris Commune. That is why
we are confident that the European workers will be able to help once they have entered on
that path. They will do what we are doing, but do it better, and the centre of gravity will
shift from the formal point of view to the concrete conditions. In the old days the demand
for freedom of assembly was a particularly important one, whereas our point of view on
freedom of assembly is that nobody can now prevent meetings, and Soviet power has only to
provide premises for meetings. General proclamations of broad principles are important to the
bourgeoisie: “All citizens have freedom to assemble, but they must assemble in the
open, we shall not give them premises.” But we say: “Fewer empty phrases, and
more substance.” The palaces must be expropriated—not only the Taurida Palace,
but many others as well—and we say nothing about freedom of assembly. That must be
extended to all other points in the democratic programme. We must be our own judges. All
citizens must take part in the work of the courts and in the government of the country. It is
important for us to draw literally all working people into the government of the state. It is
a task of tremendous difficulty. But socialism cannot be implemented by a minority, by the
Party. It can be implemented only by tens of millions when they have learned to do it
themselves. We regard it as a point in our favour that we are trying to help the masses
themselves set about it immediately, and not to learn to do it from books and lectures. If we
state these tasks of ours clearly and definitely we shall thereby give an impetus to the
discussion of the question and its practical presentation by the European masses. We are
perhaps making a bad job of what has to be done, but we are urging the masses to do what they
have to. If what our revolution is doing is not accidental (and we are firmly convinced that
it is not), if it is not the product of a Party decision but the inevitable product of any
revolution that Marx called “popular”, i.e., a revolution that the masses
themselves create by their slogans, their efforts and not by a repetition of the programme of
the old bourgeois republic—if we present matters in this way, we shall have achieved
the most important thing. And here we come to the question of whether we should abolish the
difference between the maximum and minimum programmes. Yes and no. I do not fear this
abolition, because the viewpoint we held in summer should no longer exist. I said then, when
we still had not taken power, that it was “too soon”, but now that we have taken
power and tested it, it is not too soon.[See Revision of
the Party Programmed ]

In place of the old Programme we must now write a new
Programme of Soviet power and not in any way reject the use of bourgeois parliamentarism. It
is a utopia to think that we shall not be thrown back.

It cannot be denied historically that Russia has created a Soviet Republic. We say that if
ever we are thrown back, while not rejecting the use of bourgeois parliamentarism—if
hostile class forces drive us to that old position—we shall aim at what has been gained
by experience, at Soviet power, at the Soviet type of state, at the Paris Commune type of
state. That must be expressed in the Programme. In place of the minimum programme, we shall
introduce the Programme of Soviet power. A definition of the new type of state must occupy an
important place in our Programme.

It is obvious that we cannot elaborate a programme at the moment. We must work out its
basic premises and hand them over to a commission or to the Central Committee for the
elaboration of the main theses. Or still more simply—the elaboration is possible on the
basis of the resolution on the Brest-Litovsk Conference, which has already provided
theses.

[See here ]

Such a definition of Soviet power should be given on the basis of the experience of the Russian revolution, and followed by a proposal for
practical reforms. I think it is here, in the historical part, that mention should be made
that the expropriation of the land and of industrial enterprises has begun. [30] Here we shall present the concrete
task of organising distribution, unifying the banks into one universal type and converting
them into a network of state institutions covering the whole country and providing us with
public book-keeping, accounting and control carried out by the population itself and forming
the foundation for further socialist steps. I think that this part, being the most difficult,
should be formulated as the concrete demands of our Soviet power—what we want to do at
the moment, what reforms we intend to carry out in the sphere of banking policy, the
organisation of production, the organisation of exchange, accountancy and control, the
introduction of labour conscription, etc. When we are able to, we shall add what great or
small measures or half-measures we have taken in that direction. Here we must state with
absolute precision and clarity what has been begun and what has not been completed. We know
full well that a large part of what has been begun has not been completed. Without any
exaggeration, with full objectivity, without departing from the facts, we must state in our
Programme what we have done and what we want to do. We shall show the European proletariat
this truth and say, this must be done, so that they will say, such-and-such things the
Russians are doing badly but we shall do them better. When this urge reaches the masses the
socialist revolution will be invincible. The imperialist war is proceeding before the eyes of
all people, a war that is nothing but a war of plunder. When the imperialist war exposes
itself in the eyes of the world and becomes a war waged by all the imperialists against
Soviet power, against socialism, it will give the proletariat of the West yet another push
forward. That must be revealed, the war must be described as an alliance of the imperialists
against the socialist movement . These are the general considerations that think should be
shared with you, and on the basis of which I now make the practical proposal to exchange
basic views on that question and then, perhaps, elaborate a few fundamental theses here on
the spot, and, if that should be found difficult, give up the idea and hand the question of
the Programme over to the Central Committee or to a special commission that will be
instructed, on the basis of the material available and of the shorthand or secretaries’
detailed reports of the Congress, to draw up a Programme for the Party, which must
immediately change its name. I am of the opinion that we can do this at the present time, and
I think everybody will agree that with our Programme in the editorially unprepared state in
which events found it, there is nothing else we can do. I am sure we can do this in a few
weeks. We have a sufficient number of theoreticians in all the trends of our Party to obtain
a programme in a few weeks. There may be much that is erroneous in it, of course, to say
nothing of editorial and stylistic inaccuracies. because we have not got months in which to
settle down to it with the composure that is necessary for editorial work.

We shall correct all these errors in the course of our work in the full confidence that we
are giving Soviet power an opportunity to implement the programme. If we at least state
precisely, without departing from reality, that Soviet power is a new type of state, a form
of the dictatorship of the proletariat, that we present democracy with different tasks, that
we have translated the tasks of socialism from a general abstract formula—“the
expropriation of the expropriators”—into such concrete formulas as the
nationalisation of the banks [31] and the land, that will be an important part of the
Programme.

The land question must be reshaped so that we can see in it the first steps of the small
peasantry wanting to take the side of the proletariat and help the socialist revolution, see
how the peasants, for all their prejudices and all their old convictions, have set themselves
the practical task of the transition to socialism. This is a fact, although we shall not
impose it on other countries. The peasantry have shown, not in words but by their deeds, that
they wish to help and are helping the proletariat that has taken power to put socialism into
effect. It is wrong to accuse us of wanting to introduce socialism by force. We shall divide
up the land justly, mainly from the point of view of the small farm. In doing this we give
preference to communes and big labour co-operatives. [32] We support the monopolising of the grain trade.
We support, the peasantry have said, the confiscation of banks and factories. We are prepared
to help the workers in implementing socialism. I think a fundamental law on the socialisation
of the land should be published in all languages. This will be done, if it has not been done
already. [33] That is an idea we shall state concretely in the Programme—it must be expressed theoretically
without departing one single step from concretely established facts. It will be done
differently in the West. Perhaps we are making mistakes, but we hope that the proletariat of
the West will correct them. And we appeal to the European proletariat to help us in our
work.

In this way we can work out our Programme in a few weeks, and the mistakes we make will be
corrected as time goes on—we shall correct them ourselves. Those mistakes will be as
light as feathers compared with the positive results that will be achieved.

## Endnotes

[24] The question of revising
the Party Programme was put forward by Lenin after the bourgeois-democratic revolution of
February 1917. In his “Rough Draft for the Fifth Letter from Afar ” he
defined the basic directions in which the Programme should be changed, and added that
“this work must be started at once”. Lenin developed the propositions contained
in this draft in his April Theses, in his report on the question
of revising the Party Programme at the Seventh (April) All-Russia Conference of the R.S.D.L.P.(B.) and in other documents (see present
edition, Vol. 24, pp. 277-79;. For the April Conference Lenin
wrote the Proposed Amendments to the Doctrinal, Political
and Other Sections of the Programme , which contained a number of amendments to the
R.S.D.L.P. Programme of 1903. The proofs of this draft were handed out to delegates to the
April Conference, which gave the Central Committee two months to draw up a draft Party
Programme for the Sixth Party Congress.

The Sixth Congress of the R.S.D.I,.P.(B.), which sat from July 26 to
August 3 (August 8-16), 1917, endorsed the decision of the April Conference on the need to
revise the Programme and instruct- ed the Central Committee to organise a broad discussion on
the problems involved (see The C.P.S.U. in the Resolutions and Decisions of
Congresses , Conferences and Plenums of the Central Committee , Part I, Russ.
ed., 1954, pp. 387-88). Before the Congress opened, in June 1917 a pamphlet prepared by Lenin
on the Central Committee’s instructions and called Materials Relating to the
Revision of the Party Programme , was published; it contained all the Programme materials
in the possession of the Central Committee. Almost simultaneously the Regional Bureau of the
Moscow Industrial Area of the R.S.D.L.P. published “Materials Relating to the Revision
of the Party Programme. Collected Articles by V. Milyutin, G. Sokolnikov, A. Lomov and V.
Smirnov”. A theoretical discussion developed within the Party in the summer and autumn
of 1917. A critical analysis of the articles that had appeared in the periodical press and
the Moscow collection was given by Lenin in his article “Revision of the Party
Programme ”, published in October 1917, in the magazine Prosveshcheniye No.
1-2 (see present edition, Vol. 26, pp. 149-78).

After several discussions on the question of tho Party Programme, the
Central Committee at a meeting on October 5 (18), 1917 set up under Lenin’s
chairmanship a commission to revise the Party Programme for the next Party Congress which was
due to be held in the autumn of 1917. Eventually, by a decision of the Central Committee of
January 24 (February 6), 1918 the drafting of the new Programme was entrusted to a new
commission also headed by Lenin. Lenin wrote the “Rough Outline of the Draft
Programme”, which was handed out to the delegates to the Seventh Congress as material
for discussion. The Congress did not, however, discuss the Programme in detail; the drafting
of the final version was entrusted to a seven-man commission elected by the Congress. The
commission was headed by Lenin. The Congress charged the commission to be guided in its
revision of the Programme by the instructions laid down in Lenin’s resolution, which
had been unanimously adopted by the Congress. The new, second Party Programme was passed only
by the Eighth Congress of the R.C.P.(B.) in March 1919.

The question of changing the name of the, Party had been raised by Lenin
as early as 1914, at the beginning of the First World War (see present edition, Vol. 21, p.
93;. Lenin showed why this was necessary in his April Theses and in the
pamphlet and in a number of other works and speechs in 1917. In the April Theses Lenin wrote: “Instead of
’Social-Democracy’, whose official leaders throughout the world have
betrayed socialism and deserted to the bourgeoisie (the ’defencists’ and the
vacillating ’Kautskyites’), we must call ourselves the Communist
Party. ”

This question was not considered at the April Conference of the
R.S.D.L.P.(B.) of 1917 or at the Sixth Party Congress. The decision to change the name of the
Party was taken only at the Seventh Party Congress, at which Lenin made a report on the
subject.

[25] Lenin is referring to a
proposition put forward by Engels in a letter to August Bebel of March 18-28, 1875 (see Karl
Marx and Frederick Engels, Selected Correspondence , 1953, p. 357).

[26] The reference is to the
symposia Materials Relating to the
Revision of the Party Programme .

Edited and with an Introduction by N. Lenin, Petrograd, Priboi Publishers, 1917 and Materials Relating to the Revision of the Party
Programme. Collected Articles by V. Milyutin, G. Sokolnikov, A. Lomov und V. Smirnov.
Published by the Regional Bureau of the Moscow Industrial Area of the R.S.D.L.P.(B.),
1917.

[27] Lenin is giving an account
of Introduction to Borkheim’s Pamphlet “In Memory of the German Arch-Patriots
of 1806-1807” , written by Engels on December 15, 1887 (Marx/Engels, Werke , Band 21, S. 351, Dietz Verlag, Berlin, 1962). Lenin refers more fully to
Engels’s propositions in the article “Prophetic Words” (see this volume,
pp. 494-99).

[28] Chemnitz Congress of the
German Social-Democrats, of September 15-21, 1912, passed a resolution “On
Imperialism”, in which it described the policy of the imperialist states as a
“barefaced policy of robbery and aggression” and called on the working class
“to fight with redoubled energy against imperialism until it is overthrown”.

Basle Extraordinary International Socialist Congress (November
24-25, 1912) unanimously adopted a manifesto calling on the workers of all countries to wage
a resolute flght for peace and to “pit against the might of capitalist imperialism the
international solidarity of the working class”. The manifesto recommended that if
imperialist war broke out, socialists should use the economic and political crisis it would
cause in the struggle for a socialist revolution.

During the world imperialist war of 1914-18 the leaders of the
Social-Democratic parties in the countries of Western Europe broke the decisions of the
international socialist congresses, aescended to positions of social-chauvinism and sided
with their imperialist governments. Lenin exposed this betrayal by the leaders of the Second
International in his works The Collapse of the Second
International , and Socialism and War (see present edition, Vol. 21, pp.
205-65, 295-338) and elsewhere.

[29] Lenin has in mind the
revolutionary government of Finland—the Council of People’s
Representatives—set up on January 29, 1918 after the overthrow of Svinhufvud’s
bourgeois government. In addition to the Council of People’s Representatives there was
also the Main Council of Workers’ Organisations, which was the supreme organ of
government. State power was based on the “seims of workers’ organisations’,
which were elected by the organised workers.

Lenin’s conclusion that the Soviets were not the only form of the
dictatorship of the proletariat was subsequently fully confirmed. After the Second World War
a new form of dictatorship of the proletariat arose in a number of countries of Europe and
Asia. This was people’s democracy, which reflected the distinctive development of
socialist revolution at a time when imperialism had been weakened and the balance of forces
had tilted in favour of socialism” (Programme of the Communist Party of the Soviet
Union, Moscow, 1961, p. 20).

[30] Nationalisation of the land
in Soviet Russia was brought about by the Decree on Land of October 26 (November 8), 1917,
which announced the expropriation of the landed estates and abolished private ownership of
land. After the victory of the October Socialist Revolution the Soviet Government gradually
nationalised industry and the basic means of production. By the spring of 1918 the largest
metallurgical and machine-building works of Petrograd, Moscow and other districts, and the
mining industry of the Urals and the Donets Basin had become public property. In May 1918,
such important branches of industry as oil and sugar began to be nationalised. At the same
time the Soviet Government was preparing to nationalise all large-scale industry, and a
decree to this effect was issued on June 28, 1918.

[31] The decree on the
nationalisation of the banks, which was based on Lenin’s draft, was endorsed by the
All-Russia Central Executive Commitlee on December 14 (27), 1917 and published on December 15
(28) in Izvestia TsIK No. 252 (see Decrees of the Soviet Government , Russ.
ed., Vol. 1, 1957, pp. 225-30).

[32] The Decree on Land of
October 26 (November 8). 1917 and the Fundamental Law on the Socialisation of the Land of
January 18 (31), 1918 envisaged equalitarian distribution of the land (“according to a
labour or subsistence standard”), a demand which had been put forward by the peasantry.
This was a concession on the part of the Soviet Government to the middle peasant and it was
aimed at consolidating the alliance of the working class and the peasantry. At the same time
the law on the socialisation of the land proposed “the development of collective
farming as the most profitable with regard to economising labour and produce, at the expense
of individual farms and with the aim of going over to a socialist economy”.

[33] At the beginning of 1918
the Bureau of International Revolutionary Propaganda of the People’s Commissariat for
Foreign Affairs started publishing the Decree on Land in foreign languages. In February 1918
the decree was published in Petrograd in English in the book Decrees Issued by the
Revolutionary People’s Government , Vol. 1, Petrograd, February 1918.

V. I. Lenin

## Extraordinary Seventh Congress of the R.C.P.(B.)

MARCH 6-8, 1918

## Section Ten

10

## Resolution on Changing the Name of the Party and the Party Programme

The Congress resolves that our Party (the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party of
Bolsheviks) be named hence forth the Russian Communist Party, with the word
“Bolsheviks” added in brackets.

The Congress resolves to change the Programme of our Party, re-editing the theoretical
part or adding to it a definition of imperialism and the era of the international socialist
revolution that has begun.

Following this, the change in the political part of our Programme must consist in the most
accurate and comprehensive definition possible of the new type of state, the Soviet Republic,
as a form of the dictatorship of the proletariat and as a continuation of those achievements
of the world working-class revolution which the Paris Commune began. The Programme must show
that our Party does not reject the use even of bourgeois parliamentarism, should the course
of the struggle push us back, for a time, to this historical stage which our revolution has
now passed. But in any case and under all circumstances the Party will strive for a Soviet
Republic as the highest, from the standpoint of democracy, type of state, as a form of the
dictatorship of the proletariat, of abolition of the exploiters’ yoke and of
suppression of their resistance.

The economic, including agrarian, and educational and other parts of our Programme must be
recast in the same spirit and direction. The centre of gravity must be a precise definition
of the economic and other reforms begun by our Soviet power, with a definite statement of the
immediate definite tasks which Soviet power has set itself, and which proceed from the
practical steps we have already taken towards expropriating the expropriators.

The Congress instructs the special commission to compile, with the utmost urgency, a
programme for our Party based on the points laid down and to have it approved as the
Programme of our Party.

## Endnotes

V. I. Lenin

## Extraordinary Seventh Congress of the R.C.P.(B.)

MARCH 6-8, 1918

## Section Eleven

11

## Proposal Concerning The Revision Of The Party Programme March 8 (Evening)

Comrades, allow me to read the draft of a resolution which formulates a somewhat different
proposal, but which in substance is somewhat similar to what the last speaker has said. [34] I request the
Congress’s attention to the following resolution. ( He reads it. )

Comrades, the distinguishing feature of this proposal is that I want first of all to
defend my idea of accelerating the publication of the Programme and directly instruct the
Central Committee to publish it or set up a special commission.

The tempo of development is so furious that we ought not to delay. In view of the
difficulties of the present time, we shall have a programme in which there will be many
mistakes, but that does not matter—the next Congress will correct it, even if it is a
too rapid correction of the Programme; but events move so swiftly that if it is necessary to
make a series of alterations to the Programme, we shall make them. Our Programme now will be
constructed not so much according to the books as from practice, from the experience of
Soviet power. Accordingly, I believe that it is in our interests to approach the
international proletariat not with ardent appeals, not with exhortatory speeches at meetings,
not with shouts, but with the precise, concrete Programme of our Party. Let the Programme be
less satisfactory than one which would result from being worked on in a number of commissions
and endorsed by the Congress.

I venture to hope that we shall pass this resolution unanimously because I have avoided
the disagreement to which Comrade Bukharin has referred; I have formulated it in such a way
as to leave the question open. We can hope that if too great changes do not occur we shall be
in a position to have a new programme which will be a precise document for the All-Russia
Party, and shall not be in the nasty position in which I found myself when at the last
Congress one of the Left Swedes asked me: “But what is the programme of your
Party—is it the same as that of the Mensheviks?” [35] You ought to have seen the expression of
surprise on the face of this Swede, who fully understood how immensely far we had gone away
from the Mensheviks. We cannot allow such a monstrous contradiction to remain. I think that
this will be of practical benefit to the international working-class movement, and that what
we shall gain will undoubtedly outweigh the fact that the
programme will have mistakes.

That is why I propose that this be accelerated, without
being in the least afraid of the Congress having to correct
it.

## Endnotes

[34] The “last
speaker” was the delegate to the Congress for the Petrograd Party organisation Y. G.
Fenigstein (Doletsky). On the grounds that the draft programme had not been discussed in the
Party organisations, he proposed setting up at the Congress a commission to consider
Lenin’s draft and to work out a programme for the next Congress.

[35] This appears to be a
reference to a conversation with the leader of the Swedish Left Social-Democratic Party
Höglund, who visited Soviet Russia in February 1918.

V. I. Lenin

## Extraordinary Seventh Congress of the R.C.P.(B.)

MARCH 6-8, 1918

## Section Twelve

12

## Speech on Mgeladze’s Proposal for Drawing the Chief Party Organisations Into the Work of Drafting the Party Programme March 8 (Evening)

Under the conditions in which Russia is at present—in a
state of civil war, of being cut up into parts—this is impermissible. It goes without saying that if it is at all
possible the commission which will make corrections will print
them immediately, and on each occasion the local organisations
will be able to express their opinion and must do so, but
formally to bind ourselves to do something that cannot be
carried out in the near future will entail still greater delay
than a congress.

## Endnotes

V. I. Lenin

## Extraordinary Seventh Congress of the R.C.P.(B.)

MARCH 6-8, 1918

## Section Thirteen

13

## Speech Against Larin’s Amendment To The Name Of The Party [36] March 8 (Evening)

Comrades, I agree with Comrade Larin that the change of title
and the dropping of the term Labour Party, will certainly be
made use of, but that should not worry us. If we were to reckon
with every drawback, we should be immersed in trifles.  What we
are doing is to return to a good old model that is known
throughout the world. We all know the Manifesto of the Communist Party the whole world knows it; the
purpose of the correction is not to state that the proletariat
is the only class which is revolutionary to the end, and that
all other classes, including the working peasantry, can be
revolutionary only in so far as they come over to the point of
view of the proletariat. That is so fundamental, such a
world-renowned thesis of the Communist Manifesto , that
there cannot be any honest misunderstandings here, and as for
dishonest ones, there is no keeping up with false interpretations in any case. That is why we must return now to
the old, good, undoubtedly correct model which has played its
part in history, spreading to all countries, to the whole world;
I think that there are no grounds for departing from this best
of all models.

## Endnotes

[36] In a speech at the Congress Y. Larin proposed including in the
name of the Party the word “workers’”. His amendment was rejected by the Congress.

V. I. Lenin

## Extraordinary Seventh Congress of the R.C.P.(B.)

MARCH 6-8, 1918

## Section Fourteen

14

## Speech Against Pelshe’s Amendment To The Resolution On The Party Programme March 8 (Evening)

I think that the last speaker is wrong. [37] The masses are not
children and they understand that the struggle is extremely
serious. They saw how we were thrown back previously, for
example in July. It is impossible to delete these words. We
ought not in any way to give the impression that we attach
absolutely no value to bourgeois parliamentary institutions. They are a huge advance on what preceded them. By
rejecting these words we create an impression of something that
does not yet exist—of the absolute stability of the stage
achieved. We know that this is not so yet. It will be so when
the international movement gives its support I am ready to
delete the words “under no circumstances” it is possible to leave the words “the Party will not reject the
use”, but we cannot leave the way open for a purely anarchist denial of bourgeois parliamentarism. These are stages
directly linked one with another, and any repulse can throw us
back to that stage. I do not consider that this would cause the
masses to be despondent. If by the masses we mean people who are
politically quite uneducated—they will not understand, but
the Party members and sympathisers will understand, they will
realise that we do not regard the positions won as definitely
consolidated. If by a gigantic effort of will we arouse the
energy of all classes, and consolidate this position, then we
shall cease to recall the past But that requires the support of
Europe. But to say now that we may work under worse circumstances will not result in any despondency among the
masses.

## Endnotes

[37] The “last speaker” was R. A. Pelshe, who proposed
removing from the Party Programme the proposition on using the
parliamentary struggle. His amendment was rejected by the
Congress.

V. I. Lenin

## Extraordinary Seventh Congress of the R.C.P.(B.)

MARCH 6-8, 1918

## Section Fifteen

15

## Speech Against Bukharin’s Amendment To The Resolution On The Party Programme [38] March 8 (Evening)

I

I cannot agree at all to Comrade Bukharin’s amendment. The
Programme characterises imperialism and the era of social
revolution that has begun. The era of social revolution has
begun—this has been established with absolute accuracy. What, however, does Comrade Bukharin want?—That
we should give a description of socialist society in its
developed form, i.e., communism. Here he is inaccurate. At
present we certainly uphold the state and to say we should give
a description of socialism in its developed form where the state
will cease to exist—you couldn’t do anything about that except say that then the principle would be realised: from
each according to his ability, to each according to his
needs. But this is still a long way off, and to say that means
not saying anything except that we have no firm ground to go
on. We shall arrive there in the long run if we reach socialism. It is enough for us to set to work on what we have
said. If we were to do this it would be a tremendous historic
achievement. We cannot give a description of socialism; what
socialism will be like when its completed forms are arrived
at—this we do not know, we cannot tell. To say that the
era of social revolution has begun, that we have done this or
that, and that we want to do this or that—this we do know
and will say, and it will show the European workers that we do
not in any way exaggerate, so to speak, our strength; this is
what we have begun to do and what we intend to do. But as to
knowing at the present time what social-  ism will look like
when completed—this we do not know. Theoretically, in theoretical works, in articles, speeches and lectures, we shall
expound the view that the struggle against the anarchists is
being waged by Kautsky incorrectly, but we cannot put this in
the Programme because we do not yet have the data for a
description of socialism. The bricks of which socialism will be
composed have not yet been made. We cannot say anything further,
and we should be as cautious and accurate as possible. In that
and only in that will lie our Programme’s power of attraction. But if we advance the slightest claim to something
that we cannot give, the power of our Programme will be
weakened. It will be suspected that our Programme is only a
fantasy. The Programme describes what we have begun to do and
the succeeding steps that we wish to take. We are not in a
position to give a description of socialism and it was incorrect
that this task was formulated.

II

Since the formulation was not in writing, misunderstanding, of
course, is possible. But Comrade Bukharin did not convince
me. The name of our Party indicates sufficiently clearly that we
are advancing towards complete communism, thus we are putting
forward such abstract propositions as that each of us will work
according to his ability and will receive according to his
needs, without any military control and compulsion. It is
premature to speak about this now. Just when will the state
wither away? We shall have managed to convene more than two
congresses before the time comes to say: see how our state is
withering away. It is too early for that. To proclaim the
withering away of the state prematurely would distort the
historical perspective.

## Endnotes

[38] Bukharin’s proposal, which the Congress rejected, was that
the theoretical part of the Programme should include an
extensive description of socialism and communism and an
indication that the state would wither away in the very near
future. His proposition on the withering away of the state was
connected with his theoretically incorrect and semi-anarchistic
attitude concerning the problem of the state which Lenin had
pointed out as early as 1916. Criticising Bukharin’s mistaken thesis that the Social-Democrats should stress their
fundamental hostility to the state in general, Lenin wrote that
Bukharin had “absolutely wrongly” defined the difference between Marxists and anarchists over the question of
the state (see present edition, Vol. 35, “To
N. Bukharin). Lenin also criticised Bukharin’s theory of
the state in his notes on Bukharin’s articles on the state
and on Bukharin’s book The Economics of the
Transitional Period (see V. I. Lenin, “Notes on the
Articles by N. I. Bukharin on the State”, Russ. ed., Moscow, 1933, and Lenin Miscellany XI ,
pp. 345-403). Posing the question of the withering away of the
state as a short-term aim, soon after the victory of the October
Revolution, meant, in effect, weakening the new state based on
the dictatorship of the proletariat.

V. I. Lenin

## Extraordinary Seventh Congress of the R.C.P.(B.)

MARCH 6-8, 1918

## Section Sixteen

16

## Speech On The Question Of Elections To The Central Committee [39] March 8 (Evening)

Lomov very cleverly referred to my speech in which
I demanded that the Central Committee should be capable of
pursuing a uniform line. This does not mean that all those in
the Central Committee should be of one and the same opinion. To
hold that view would be to go towards a split; therefore I
proposed that the Congress should not accept this declaration,
in order to enable the comrades, after consulting their local
organisations, to think over their decision. I, too, was in the
Central Committee in such a position at the time when a proposal
not to sign the peace treaty was adopted, and I kept silent,
without in any way closing my eyes to the fact that I was not
accepting responsibility for it. Every member of the Central
Committee is able to disclaim responsibility without ceasing to
be a member and without raising an uproar. Of course, comrades,
in certain circumstances it is permissible, sometimes it is
inevitable, but that this should be necessary now with the
present organisation of Soviet power, which enables us to check
how far we are keeping contact with the masses—this I doubt. I think that if the question of Vinnichenko arises, the
comrades can defend their point of view without resigning from
the Central Committee. If we are going to uphold the standpoint
of preparing for a revolutionary war and of manoeuvring, it is
necessary to enter the Central Committee; one can state that
disagreements have arisen from below, we have an absolute right
to make a statement about that. There is not the slightest
danger that history will impose responsibility on Uritsky and
Lomov for not rejecting the title of members of the Central
Committee. We must try to find some kind of restraint that will
do away with the fashion for resigning from the Central
Committee. It should be stated that the Congress expresses the
hope that comrades will formulate their disagreement through
their protests but not by resigning from the Central Committee,
and that the Congress, taking its statement into account, will
vote against removal of the candidatures of the group of
comrades and will hold the elections, calling on them to take
back their declarations.

## Endnotes

[39] When the new Central Committee was elected the “Left
Communists” refused to serve on it. On behalf of a group of
“Left Communists” M. S. Uritsky stated at the Congress that they would not serve on the Central Committee because they
did not wish to take responsibility for the policy it was
conducting. The “Left Communists” even refused to vote during the election of the Central Committee. The Congress voted
its condemnation of this disruptive step and passed a decision
that the Party organisations that had delegated the “Left
Communists” were to be informed of their conduct. When it
met this resistance from the Congress, the group took part in the
voting and the Congress rescinded its decision.

V. I. Lenin

## Extraordinary Seventh Congress of the R.C.P.(B.)

MARCH 6-8, 1918

## Section Seventeen

17

## Resolution On The Refusal Of The “Left Communists” To Be Members Of The Central Committee

The Congress is of the opinion that a refusal to enter the
Central Committee in the situation at present obtaining in the
Party is particularly undesirable, since such a refusal is in
general impermissible in principle to those who desire the unity
of the Party, and would today be a double threat to unity.

The Congress declares that everyone can and should deny his
responsibility for any step taken by the Central Committee, if
he does not agree with it, by means of a declaration to that
effect but not by leaving the Central Committee.

The Congress is firm in the hope that the comrades will, after a
consultation with the mass organisations, withdraw their
resignation; the Congress will, therefore, carry through
elections without taking the statement of resignation into
consideration.

## Endnotes

V. I. Lenin

## Extraordinary Seventh Congress of the R.C.P.(B.)

MARCH 6-8, 1918

## Section Eighteen

18

## Rough Outline Of The Draft Programme

My draft to be taken as the basis [40] (pamphlet, p.19 et seq. ).

The theoretical part to remain, after discarding the last
paragraph of the first part (p. 22 of the pamphlet, from the
words “The urgent task of the day” to the words “the substance of the socialist revolution”, [41] i.e., 5 lines).

In the next paragraph (p. 22), beginning with the words
“The fulfilment of this task”, insert the alteration indicated in the article “Concerning a Revision of the
Party Programme” in Prosveshcheniye (No. 1-2, September-October 1917), p.93.***

In the same paragraph in two places insert instead of “social-chauvinism":

(1) “ opportunism and social-chauvinism"; (2) “between opportunism and social-chauvinism,
on the one hand, and the revolutionary internationalist struggle
of the proletariat for the realisation of the socialist system
on the other.”

Further on, everything has to be re-written, approximately as follows:

The Revolution of October 25 (November 7), 1917 in Russia
brought about the dictatorship of the proletariat, which has
been supported by the poor peasants or semi-proletarians.

This dictatorship confronts the Communist Party in Russia with
the task of carrying through to the end, of completing, the
expropriation of the landowners and bourgeoisie that has already
begun, and the transfer of all factories, railways, banks, the
fleet and other means of production and exchange to ownership by
the Soviet Republic; utilisation of the alliance of urban workers and poor peasants,
which has already abolished private ownership of land, and
utilisation of the law on the transitional form between
small-peasant farming and socialism, which modern ideologists of
the peasantry that has put itself on the side of the proletarians have called socialisation of the land, for a
gradual but steady transition to joint tillage and large-scale
socialist agriculture; consolidation and further development of the Federative Republic
of Soviets as an immeasurably higher and more progressive form
of democracy than bourgeois parliamentarism, and as the sole
type of state corresponding, on the basis of the experience of
the Paris Commune of 1871 and equally of the experience of the
Russian revolutions of 1905 and 1917-18, to the transitional
period between capitalism and socialism, i.e., to the period of
the dictatorship of the proletariat; thorough utilisation in every way of the torch of world
socialist revolution lit in Russia in order, by paralysing the
attempts of the imperialist bourgeois states to intervene in the
internal affairs of Russia or to unite for direct struggle and
war against the socialist Soviet Republic, to carry the
revolution into the most advanced countries and in general into
all countries.

## Ten Theses On Soviet Power

Consolidation and Development of Soviet Power

The consolidation and development of Soviet power as the form of
the dictatorship of the proletariat and poor peasantry (semi-proletarians), a form already tested by experience and
brought to the fore by the mass movement and the revolutionary
struggle.

The consolidation and development must consist in the accomplishment (a broader, more general and planned
accomplishment) of those tasks which historically devolve on
this form of state power, on this new type of state, namely:

(1) union and organisation of the working and exploited masses
oppressed by capitalism, and only them, i.e., only the workers
and poor peasantry, semi-proletarians, with automatic exclusion
of the exploiting classes and rich representatives of the petty
bourgeoisie; (2) union of the most vigorous, active, class-conscious part of
the oppressed classes, their vanguard, which must educate every
member of the working population for independent participation
in the management of the state, not theoretically but practically; (4) (3) abolition of parliamentarism (as the separation of
legislative from executive activity); union of legislative and
executive state activity. Fusion of administration with
legislation; (3) (4) closer connection of the whole apparatus of state power
and state administration with the masses than under previous
forms of democracy; (5) creation of an armed force of workers and peasants, one
least divorced from the people (Soviets = armed workers and
peasants). Organised character of nation-wide arming of the
people, as one of the first steps towards arming the whole
people;

(6) more complete democracy, through less formality and making
election and recall easier; (7) close (and direct) connection with occupations and with
productive-economic units (elections based on factories, and on
local peasant and handicraft areas). This close connection makes
it possible to carry out profound socialist changes; (8) (partly, if not wholly, covered by the preceding)—the
possibility of getting rid of bureaucracy, of doing without it,
the beginning of the realisation of this possibility (9) transfer of the focus of attention in questions of democracy
from formal recognition of a formal equality of the bourgeoisie
and the proletariat, of poor and rich, to the prac-  tical
feasibility of the enjoyment of freedom (democracy) by the
working and exploited mass of the population; (10) the further development of the Soviet organisation of the
state must consist in every member of a Soviet being obliged to
carry out constant work in administering the state, alongside
participation in meetings of the Soviet;—and furthermore
in each and every member of the population being drawn gradually
both into taking part in Soviet organisation (on the condition
of subordination to organisations of the working people) and
into serving in state administration.

## The Fulfilment of These Tasks Requires:

a) in the political sphere: development of the Soviet Republic.

Advantages of Soviets  ( Prosveshcheniye , pp. 13-14); (six items); extension of the Soviet Constitution in so far as the
resistance of the exploiters ceases to the whole population; federation of nations, as a transition to a conscious and closer unity of the working people, when they have learnt voluntarily to rise above national dissension; necessarily ruthless suppression of the resistance of the
exploiters; standards of “general” ( i.e. , bourgeois) democracy are subordinate to this aim, give way to
it:

“Liberties” and democracy not for all, but for the working and exploited masses, to emancipate
them from exploitation; ruthless suppression of exploiters; NB: chief stress is shifted from formal recognition of liberties (such as existed under
bourgeois parliamentarism) to actually ensuring the enjoyment of liberties by the working people who are
overthrowing the exploiters, e.g., from recognition of freedom of assembly to the handing over of all the best
halls and premises to the workers, from recognition of freedom
of speech to the handing over of all the best printing presses
to the workers, and so forth.

A brief enumeration of these “liberties” from the old minimum programme.

[Arming the workers and disarming the bourgeoisie.]

Transition through the Soviet state to the gradual abolition of the state by systematically drawing an ever greater
number of citizens, and subsequently each and every citizen, into direct and daily performance of their
share of the burdens of administering the state.

b) In the economic sphere:

Socialist organisation of production on the scale of the whole
state: management by workers’ organisations (trade unions, factory committees, etc.) under the general
leadership of Soviet power, which alone is sovereign.

The same for transport and distribution (at first state monopoly
of “trade”, subsequently replacement, complete and final, of “trade” by planned, organised distribution through associations of trading and
industrial office workers, under the leadership of Soviet
power).

—Compulsory organisation of the whole population in consumer and producer communes.

While not (for the time being) abolishing money and not
prohibiting individual purchase and sale transactions by
individual families, we must, in the first place, make it
obligatory by law to carry out all such transactions through the
consumer and producer communes.

—An immediate start to be made on full realisation of universal compulsory labour service, with the most cautious and
gradual extension of it to the small peasants who live by their
own farming without wage labour; the first measure, the first step towards universal compulsory
labour service must be the introduction of consumers’ work
(budget) books (compulsory introduction) for all well-to-do ( =
persons with an income over 500 rubles per month, and then for
owners of enterprises with wage-workers, for families with
servants, etc.).

Buying and selling is also permissible not through one’s
commune (during journeys, at markets, etc.), but with compulsory
entry of the transaction (if above a definite sum) in the
consumers’ work book.

—Complete concentration of banking in the hands of the state and of all financial operations of trade in the banks.
Standardisation of banking current accounts; gradual transition
to the compulsory keeping of current accounts in the bank, at
first by the largest, and later by all the country’s enterprises. Compulsory deposit of money in the
banks and transfer of money only through the banks.

—Standardisation of accounting and control over all production and distribution of output; this accounting and
control must be carried out at first by workers’ organisations and subsequently by each and every member
of the population.

—Organisation of competition between the various (all)
consumer and producer communes of the country for steady
improvement of organisation, discipline and labour productivity,
for transition to superior techniques, for economising labour
and materials, for gradually reducing the working day to six
hours, and for gradually equalising all wages and salaries in all occupations and categories.

—Steady, systematic measures for (transition to Massenspeisung [A form of Public
catering] replacement of the individual domestic economy
of separate families by joint catering for large groups of
families.

In the educational sphere the old items, plus.

In the financial sphere replacement of indirect taxes by a progressive income and
property tax, and equally by deduction of a (definite) revenue
from state monopolies. In this connection, remittance in kind of
bread and other products to workers employed by the state in
various forms of socially necessary labour.

## INTERNATIONAL POLICY

Support of the revolutionary movement of the socialist proletariat in the advanced countries in the first instance.

Propaganda. Agitation. Fraternisation.

Ruthless struggle against opportunism and social-chauvinism.

Support of the democratic and revolutionary movement in all
countries in general, and especially in the colonies and
dependent countries.

Liberation of the colonies. Federation as a transition to voluntary fusion.

## Endnotes

The Congress voted in favour of Lenin’s resolution condemning the “Left Communists’” refusal to
serve on the Central Committee. In the belief that they would
submit to Party discipline, the Congress elected their representatives (N. I. Bukharin, A. Lomov and M. S. Uritsky) to
the Central Committee. All three, however, demonstratively
stated before the Congress that they refused to serve on the
Central Committee. The refusal was not accepted and the Congress
decided without a debate to postpone the question of providing
deputies in place of the elected “Left Communists” until the Central Committee met.

After the Party Congress and the Extraordinary Fourth All-Russia
Congress of Soviets, which ratified the peace treaty with
Germany, the “Left Communists”, in spite of the
Central Committee’s insistent demands, refused to begin
work for several months. For Lenin’s appraisal of the disruptive activities of the “Left Communists” after
the Seventh Party Congress see “ Comment on the Behaviour
of the ‘Left Communists’.

[40] The name of the Party simply: “Communist Party”
(without addition of “Russian"), but in brackets: (Party of
Bolsheviks).

[41] See Materials Relating to the Revision of the Party
Programme