Date: 1918
Source: ru:PSS/v36

# 1. Report on the Struggle Against Famine
Source: CW vol 36

Comrades! The subject I have to speak about today is the greatest crisis that has descended upon all modern countries, which at present weighs most heavily, perhaps, on Russia and, in any case, is felt immeasurably more acutely here than in other countries. And about this crisis, about the famine that is looming over us, I must speak in accordance with the task set before us in connection with the general situation. And when we speak of the general situation, of course, we cannot confine ourselves to Russia alone, especially since at the present time the countries of modern capitalist civilization are more painfully and more closely interconnected than ever before.

Everywhere, both in the warring and in the neutral countries, the war, the imperialist war between two groups of giant predators, has brought with it a complete exhaustion of productive forces. Ruin and impoverishment have reached such a pitch that even in the most advanced, civilized, and cultured countries, which for not only decades but centuries had not known what hunger was, the war has brought about real, literal hunger. True, in the advanced countries, especially those where large-scale capitalism had long accustomed the population to the maximum possible organization of the economy, it was possible to distribute the hunger more evenly, to postpone it longer, and to make it less acute, but from hunger, from genuine hunger, for example, Germany and Austria have been suffering for a long time, not to mention the defeated and enslaved countries. Now we can hardly open a single newspaper without coming across a whole series of reports from a whole range of advanced, cultured, not only warring but also neutral countries, like Switzerland, like some Scandinavian countries, without encountering news of hunger, of terrible calamities that have befallen humanity as a result of the war.

Comrades, for those who have observed the development of European society, it has long been clear that capitalism will not pass away peacefully, that it leads either directly to an uprising against the yoke of capital among the broad masses, or it leads to the same result through a much more painful, tormenting, and bloody path of war.

For many years before the war, socialists of all countries pointed out and solemnly declared at their congresses that a war between the advanced countries would not only be the greatest crime, that this war over the division of colonies, over the division of the spoils of the capitalists, would not only be a complete break with the achievements of the latest civilization and culture, but that it could lead—and inevitably would lead—to the undermining of the very conditions of human society's existence. Because for the first time in history, the mightiest conquests of technology are being applied on such a scale, so destructively, and with such energy to the mass extermination of millions of human lives. With all the productive forces being turned to the service of war, we see that the bitterest prediction is being fulfilled, and that barbarism, hunger, and the complete decline of all productive forces are engulfing more and more countries.

I am therefore reminded of how right one of the great founders of scientific socialism, Engels, was when, in 1887, 30 years before the Russian revolution, he wrote that a European war would not only lead to crowns, as he put it, flying off the heads of crowned heads by the dozen and no one being left to pick them up, but that this war would bring unheard-of bestiality, barbarism, and backwardness to all of Europe, and at the same time, the war would lead either to the dominance of the working class or to the creation of conditions that make this dominance necessary{147}. The founder of Marxism expressed himself with double caution this time, for he clearly saw that if history were to take this path, it would lead to the collapse of capitalism, to the expansion of socialism, and that a more painful, more severe transition, a more acute need, and a more drastic crisis, undermining all productive forces, could not be imagined.

And now we see vividly what the consequences of the imperialist slaughter of peoples, which has dragged on into its fourth year, mean, when it is felt in all, even the advanced countries, that the war has reached a dead end, that there is no way out of it on the basis of capitalism, that it will lead to agonizing ruin. And if, comrades, if the Russian revolution—which was not brought about by any special merit of the Russian proletariat, but by the course of the general march of historical events, which placed this proletariat temporarily at the forefront and made it, for the time being, the vanguard of the world revolution—has to endure particularly severe, particularly acute pangs of hunger, which are falling upon us more and more heavily, then we must firmly understand that these calamities are, above all and more than anything else, the legacy of this accursed imperialist slaughter, which in all countries has led to unheard-of calamities, and where these calamities are only temporarily hidden from the masses and from the awareness of the vast majority of the people.

As long as the military oppression continues, as long as the war still goes on, and as long as it is still linked, on the one hand, with hopes for victory and the possibility of emerging from this crisis through the victory of one of the imperialist groups, and on the other hand, is determined by the fury of military censorship and the intoxication of the entire people with the war fever, only this hides from the majority of the population in most countries the abyss into which they are falling, into which they have already half-fallen. And we now have to feel this particularly acutely, because nowhere, as in Russia, is there such a glaring contradiction between the enormity of the tasks set by the insurgent proletariat, which understood that it is impossible to defeat the world war of the most powerful imperialist giants of the whole world without a most powerful, equally worldwide, proletarian revolution.

And when, by the course of events, we had to take one of the prominent places in this revolution and, for a long time, at least since October 1917, remain a cut-off detachment, to which events do not allow to come to the aid of other detachments of international socialism with sufficient speed, we now have to endure a tenfold more difficult situation. When we have done everything in the power of the directly insurgent proletariat and the supporting poorest peasantry to overthrow our main adversary, to stand guard over the socialist revolution, we see at the same time how, at every step, the oppression of the surrounding imperialist predatory powers and the legacy of the war are weighing us down more and more. The full consequences of the war have not yet manifested themselves. Before us now, in the summer of 1918, is perhaps one of the most difficult, one of the most severe, and one of the most critical transitions of our revolution, the most difficult transition not only from the international point of view, where we are inevitably condemned to a policy of retreats until our faithful and only ally, the international proletariat, is only preparing for the uprising, only ripening for it, but is not yet able to come out openly and fully, although all the events in Western Europe, all the furious rage of the last battles on the Western front, and the entire crisis intensifying within the warring countries show that the uprising of the European workers is not far off, that, however much it may be postponed, it will inevitably come.

The battles on the Western front, the entire crisis that is intensifying within the warring countries, show that a European workers' uprising is not far off, that no matter how it may be postponed, it will inevitably come.

It is in such a situation that we have to experience the greatest difficulties within the country, which cause the most painful fluctuations, the excruciating food crisis, the terrible famine that is upon us, which sets before us a task requiring the maximum of effort, the greatest organization, and which at the same time does not allow us to approach the solution of this task with old methods. We will approach the solution of this task with the class with which we fought against the imperialist war, with the class with which we overthrew both the imperialist monarchy and the imperialist republican Russian bourgeoisie, with the class that has to forge its own weapons, develop its own forces, and create its own organization amid growing difficulties, growing tasks, and the scale of the revolution.

We now face the most elementary task of all human coexistence – to defeat hunger, to at least immediately reduce the immediate excruciating hunger that has gripped both capitals and dozens of districts in agricultural Russia. And we have to solve this task in the context of a civil war, the most furious, desperate resistance of exploiters of all ranks, all kinds, all colors, and orientations. Undoubtedly, in such a situation, those elements of political parties that cannot break with the old and believe in the new find themselves in a position where the war is used for one purpose: to restore the exploiters.

This question, this connection between hunger and the struggle against the exploiters and the rising counter-revolution, is brought to our attention by any news from any corner of Russia. The task before us is to defeat hunger or, at the very least, to reduce the burden until the next harvest, to defend the grain monopoly, to defend the right of the Soviet state, to defend the right of the proletarian state. We must collect all surplus grain and ensure that all stocks are transported to where they are needed and distributed properly. This is the basic task – the survival of human society (and at the same time an incredible labor) – which can only be solved by a general, intensified increase in labor.

In those countries where this task is solved through war, it is solved through military slavery, the introduction of military slavery for workers and peasants, and by providing new, enhanced benefits for the exploiters. For example, in Germany, where there is such social oppression, where any attempt to protest against the war is suppressed, and where, nevertheless, some sense of reality and socialist hostility to the war still remains, you will not find a more common method of maintaining the situation than the rapid emergence of new millionaires who have profited from the war. These new millionaires have made their fortunes desperately and furiously.

Mass hunger now serves as the best field for the development of the most frenzied speculation, for the acquisition of unheard-of wealth from need and hunger in all imperialist countries.

Imperialist countries encourage this, as, for example, in Germany, where hunger is best organized. And not without reason, it is said that there – the center of organized hunger, where rations and bread crusts are best distributed among the population. We see that new elements of millionaires become a feature of the imperialist state; otherwise, they cannot fight hunger. They offer double, triple, quadruple profits to those who have a lot of grain and know how to speculate and turn organization, rationing, regulation, and distribution into speculation. We do not want to go down this path, no matter who pushes us onto it, consciously or unconsciously. We will say: we stood and will stand hand in hand with the class with which we opposed the war, with which we overthrew the bourgeoisie, and with which we endure all the hardships of the present crisis. We must stand for the grain monopoly to the end, but not to legalize capitalist speculation on a large or small scale, but to fight conscious marauding.

Here we see great difficulties, more serious dangers of the struggle than when we faced the fully armed tsarism or the fully armed Russian bourgeoisie, which did not consider it a crime to shed the blood of thousands and hundreds of thousands of Russian workers and peasants in the June offensive last year, with secret treaties in their pockets, participating in the division of the spoils, and which considers the war of the toilers against the oppressors, the only just, sacred war, about which we spoke at the very beginning of the imperialist slaughter, and which now inevitably links every event with hunger.

We know how, at the very beginning, the tsarist autocracy established fixed prices and raised these prices on bread. Of course! It remained faithful to its allies – the grain traders, speculators, and banking magnates, who made millions from this.

We know how the compromisers from the Cadet party, together with the SRs and Mensheviks, and Kerensky introduced the grain monopoly because all of Europe was saying that without monopolization, it could not be sustained any longer, and how the same Kerensky bypassed the then democratic law in August 1917. That is why there are democratic laws and cleverly interpreted regimes, to bypass them. And we know how the same Kerensky doubled these prices in August, and then socialists of all stripes protested and were outraged by this fact. At that time, there was not a single press organ that was not outraged by Kerensky's behavior and did not expose that behind the ministers of the republican cabinet, the Mensheviks and SRs, were the machinations of speculators, that they gave in, doubling the grain prices, that there was nothing more here than giving in to the speculators. We know this story.

Now we compare how the grain monopoly and the fight against hunger went in the capitalist countries of Europe, how it went with us. We see how the counter-revolutionaries are using this now. We must draw firm and unyielding conclusions from this lesson. Yes, the course of events has led to the fact that the crisis, which has reached the point of excruciating hunger, has only further sharpened the civil war, has only exposed such parties as the right SRs and Mensheviks, who differ from the open capitalist Cadet party in that the Cadet party is a party of direct Black Hundred members. The Cadets have nothing to say and do not need to appeal to the people; they do not need to cover up their goals, but these parties, which agreed with Kerensky and shared power and secret treaties, need to appeal to the people. (Applause.) And therefore, from time to time, despite their wishes and plans, they have to expose themselves.

When we see how, on the ground of hunger, on the one hand, uprisings and riots of people tormented by hunger flare up, and on the other, a line of counter-revolutionary uprisings, knowingly fueled by Anglo-French imperialist money and the efforts of the right SRs and Mensheviks (applause), then we say to ourselves: the picture is clear, let anyone who wants continue to dream about some kind of united fronts.

We now see especially clearly that even after the defeat of the Russian bourgeoisie in open military clashes, after October 1917, and until February and March 1918, all open skirmishes between revolutionary and counter-revolutionary forces showed the counter-revolutionaries, even the leaders of the Don Cossacks, on whom they relied the most, that their cause was lost because the majority of the people everywhere were against them. And every new attempt, even in the most patriarchal regions, with the layer of the most prosperous, most socially closed farmers, like the Cossacks – everywhere, without exception, every attempt at counter-revolution only led to new layers of oppressed toilers standing against them, not in words, but in deeds.

But even in those places where the population was more socially closed, like the Cossacks—everywhere, without exception, any attempt at counter-revolution only led to new layers of oppressed workers standing against them not just in words, but in deeds.

The lessons of the civil war from October to March proved that the working masses of the Russian working class and the peasants who live by their labor, who do not exploit the labor of others, stand overwhelmingly in favor of Soviet power throughout all corners of Russia. But those who thought we had embarked on a path of more organic development must have been convinced of their mistake.

The bourgeoisie saw itself defeated... [47] And here begins the split in the Russian petty bourgeoisie: some are drawn to the Germans, others to the Anglo-French orientation, and both directions converge in that their hunger orientation unites them.

To show you, comrades, clearly how not our party, but its enemies and the enemies of Soviet power, unite the dispute between the German and Anglo-French orientations on one program: to overthrow Soviet power due to hunger—to show you how this happens, I will briefly quote from the report of the last Menshevik conference{148}. This report was published in the newspaper "Life"{149}. (Noise, applause.)

From this report, published in the 26th issue of the newspaper "Life," we learn how the reporter on the economic policy, Cherevanyin, criticizing the policy of the Soviet government, proposed a compromise solution, namely, the involvement of representatives of commercial capital as practical actors on particularly favorable commission terms for them. We also learn from this same report how the chairman of the Northern Food Administration, Groman, who was present at the meeting, using, as it is said there, a huge stock of personal observations and experience of various observations—I add from myself, only in bourgeois circles—drew such conclusions: "We need to apply two measures: first, current prices must be raised, second, a special premium should be set for the prompt delivery of bread," and so on. (Voice: "Why is this bad?") Yes, we will have to hear why this is bad, although the speaker, who did not receive the floor but is using it from that corner (applause), thinks he can convince you that there is nothing bad about it; but he, apparently, forgot the course of the Menshevik conference. In the same newspaper "Life" it is said that after Groman, the delegate Kolokolnikov spoke with such a point of view: "They propose that we participate in Bolshevik food organizations." Is it not true, how bad this is, this is what we will have to say, remembering the intervention of the previous speaker. And if the same, restless, and wordless, but using the floor, speaker shouts that this is a lie because Kolokolnikov never said this, then, taking note of this, I propose that you repeat this refutation clearly and loudly. Let me remind you of the resolution of the conference proposed there by the well-known Martov, which, on the question of Soviet power, says the same thing in other words and turns of phrase. (Noise, shouts.) Yes, no matter how much you laugh at this, but it remains a fact—that the representatives of the Mensheviks, in connection with the food report, call the Soviet power not proletarian, but an unsuitable organization.

At a time when the uprising of counter-revolutionaries in connection with and exploiting hunger has come to the fore, no refutations or deceptions will help, and the fact remains. Before us is the policy in the indicated question, well developed by Cherevanyin, Groman, and Kolokolnikov. Before us is the revival of the civil war, before us is the raising head of counter-revolution, and I am sure that ninety-nine hundredths of Russian workers and peasants have made, or are making, and will make their conclusion from these events—not everyone knows about this yet—and that this conclusion will be precisely that, only by decisively defeating the counter-revolution, only by continuing the socialist policy in the question of hunger, in the struggle against hunger, will we defeat both hunger and the counter-revolutionaries who are exploiting this hunger.

Comrades, we are now approaching the time when, after a long and hard struggle with serious and large counter-revolutionary opponents, the Soviet power defeated them in open clashes and, having overcome both the military resistance of the exploiters and the sabotage resistance of all, took up organizational work. And the entire difficulty of the struggle against hunger, the enormous weight of this task, is explained by the fact that we have directly approached the organizational task.

Victory in an uprising is immeasurably easier. Victory over resisting counter-revolution is a million times easier than victory over the organizational task, especially where we have solved the task in which the insurgent proletarian and the small property owner, broad layers of the petty bourgeoisie, could go to a significant extent together, where there were still many elements of general democratic, general labor. We have now moved from this task to another. The tormenting hunger has forcibly brought us to a purely communist task. Here we face the implementation of the revolutionary-socialist task, here we encounter extraordinary difficulties.

We are not afraid of these difficulties, we knew them, we never said that it would be easy to move from capitalism to socialism. This is an entire era of the most fierce civil war, painful steps, when one detachment of the insurgent proletariat of one country will be joined by the proletariat of another country to correct mistakes through joint efforts. Here before us are organizational tasks, encompassing products of general consumption, encompassing the deepest roots of speculation, encompassing the upper echelons of the bourgeois world and the upper echelons of capitalist exploitation, which cannot be easily removed by mass pressure alone. Here before us are the small and deeply scattered roots and tendrils of this bourgeois exploitation in the form of small property owners, in the form of this entire way of life, habits, and moods of small property and small-scale farming, when we face the small speculator, the unaccustomedness to the new order of life, disbelief in it, despair.

For it is a fact that many representatives of the working masses have succumbed to despair in the face of the extraordinary difficulties posed by the revolution. We are not afraid of this. There has never been a single revolution anywhere where certain layers did not succumb to despair.

If the mass selects a certain vanguard of discipline, if the vanguard knows that this dictatorship, this firm power, will help attract all the poor—this is a long process, a difficult struggle—this is the beginning of the socialist revolution in its full sense. When we see that the united workers, the mass of the poor, who organized themselves against the rich, the speculators, against the mass of people to whom the unconscious or conscious mass of intellectuals repeats the speculative slogans, like Cherevanyins and Gromans, when these workers, confused, speak of free bread sales, of importing cargo transport—we answer that this means coming to the aid of the kulaks. We will not take this path. We say: we will rely on the labor element with whom we won the October victory, and only with our class, only by introducing proletarian discipline among all layers of the working people—the historical task before us—will we solve.

We have to endure gigantic difficulties, to gather all surpluses and reserves, to distribute and organize the supply correctly for tens of millions of people, to establish absolutely regular work, so that the work goes like clockwork, to defeat the devastation supported by speculators and the uncertain, sowing panic. Only conscious workers, facing practical difficulties, are capable of carrying out this organizational task. All forces must be devoted to this task, and a decisive and final battle must be taken. And in this battle, we will win. (Applause.)

Only conscious workers, facing practical difficulties, can accomplish this task. We must devote all our strength to it and wage a decisive and final battle. And in this battle, we will win. (Applause.)

Comrades, the latest decrees on the measures of the Soviet power{150} show us that the path of the proletarian dictatorship – for every socialist who does not mockingly call himself a socialist – is clearly and indisputably a path of severe trials.

The most fundamental question of life, that of bread, has been raised by the latest decrees. They all have three guiding ideas: the first is the idea of centralization, or uniting everyone into one common effort under the guidance of the center; to show seriousness and overcome all despondency, to discard the individual services of all sorts of bagmen, to unite all the forces of the proletariat, because in the struggle against hunger, we rely on the same oppressed classes and see the solution only in their energetic struggle against the exploiters, in the unification of all their activities.

Yes, we are shown how, at every step, the grain monopoly is being undermined through bagging and speculation. More and more often, we hear from the intelligentsia: but the bagmen do render them a service, and they all feed on them. Yes, but the bagmen feed in a kulak manner; they act precisely as is necessary to strengthen, establish, and perpetuate the power of the kulaks, so that those who have power spread it to their surroundings through individuals with their profits. We assert that if the forces of those people, who are now mostly guilty of disbelief, were united, the struggle would be significantly easier. If there existed a revolutionary somewhere who hoped to transition to a socialist system without difficulty, we could say that such a revolutionary, such a socialist, is not worth a bent penny.

We know that the transition from capitalism to socialism is an extremely difficult struggle. But we are ready to endure thousands of difficulties and make thousands of attempts, and after a thousand attempts, we will embark on the thousand and first. We are now drawing all the Soviet organizations into a new creative life, into the mobilization of new forces. We count on overcoming new difficulties by involving new layers, by organizing the rural poor, and here I come to the second main task.

I said that our first idea, which is embodied in all the decrees, is the idea of centralization. Only by gathering all the grain into common bags can we defeat hunger, and even then, there will only be just enough. The former surplus in Russia no longer exists, and it is necessary for communism to penetrate deeply into the consciousness of each person, so that everyone regards the surplus grain as the property of the people, imbued with the interests of the working class. To achieve this, only the method proposed by the Soviet power is necessary.

When we are told about other methods, we respond as we did in the session of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee[48] – when we were told about other paths, we replied: go to Skoropadsky, go to the bourgeoisie. Teach them such methods as raising grain prices, as forming a bloc with the kulaks – there you will find ears willing to listen. But the Soviet power says one thing: the difficulties are immeasurable, and to each difficulty, respond with new and renewed efforts of organization and discipline. Such difficulties are not overcome in a month. In the history of peoples, there have been decades dedicated to overcoming lesser difficulties, and these decades have entered history as the greatest and most fruitful. The failures of the first half-year and the first year of the greatest revolution will never sow despair in us. We will continue our old slogan of centralization, unification, and proletarian discipline on an all-Russian scale.

When we are pointed out, as Groman does in his report: "your detachments, which go to collect grain, get drunk and turn into moonshiners and robbers" – we say: we know very well how often this happens, and in such cases, we do not cover it up, do not embellish it, do not dismiss it with supposedly left-wing phrases and intentions. Yes, the working class is not separated from the old bourgeois society by a Chinese wall. When a revolution comes, things do not happen as they do with the death of an individual, where the deceased is carried out. When the old society perishes, its corpse cannot be nailed into a coffin and buried. It decomposes among us, this corpse rots and infects us ourselves.

No great revolution in the world has ever happened otherwise, nor can it. Precisely what we must fight against, to preserve and develop the shoots of the new in an atmosphere saturated with the miasmas of the decomposing corpse, that literary and political environment, that game of political parties, from the Cadets to the Mensheviks, which are saturated with the miasmas of the decomposing corpse – all this they intend to throw at us like sticks in the wheels. A socialist revolution can never be born otherwise, and no country will pass from capitalism to socialism except in the context of decomposing capitalism and a painful struggle against it. Therefore, we say: our first slogan is centralization, our second slogan is the unification of the workers. Workers, unite and unite! This is old, it does not seem impressive or new, it does not promise the charlatan successes that people like Kerensky, who doubled prices in August 1917, or the German bourgeoisie, who also doubled and multiplied them, promise you. People who promise you immediate and direct successes, just give more and more concessions to the kulaks. Of course, we will not go this way, but we say: our second means, it is old, but at the same time, it is an eternal means: Unite! (Applause.)

We are in a difficult situation: the Soviet republic may be going through one of its most severe transitions. New layers of workers will come to our aid. We have no police, we will not have a special military caste, we have no other apparatus except the conscious unification of the workers. They will lead Russia out of the desperate and immensely difficult situation. (Applause.) The unification of workers, the organization of worker detachments, the organization of the hungry from non-agricultural, starving districts – we call them to help, to them our Commissariat of Food appeals, and to them we say: a crusade for bread, a crusade against speculators, against the kulaks, to restore order.

A crusade was a campaign where physical force was supplemented by faith in what, centuries ago, torture forced people to consider sacred. But we want and think, and we are convinced, and we know that the October Revolution has made it so that advanced workers and advanced peasants from the poorest peasantry now consider it sacred to maintain their power over the landlords and capitalists. (Applause.) They know that physical force alone is not enough to influence the masses. We need physical force because we are building a dictatorship, we are building violence against the exploiters, and anyone who does not understand this, we contemptuously cast aside, not wasting words on talking about the form of socialism. (Applause.)

But we say: before us is a new historical task. We need to make this new historical class understand that we need detachments of agitators from the workers. We need workers from various districts of non-producing provinces. We need them to go there as conscious preachers of Soviet power, and to sanctify, legitimize, and make possible the conduct of socialist propaganda in our food war, our war with the kulaks, our war with disorder. They must bring to the countryside the distinction between the poor and the rich, which every peasant understands and which is the deepest source of our strength, a source that is difficult to raise and make flow fully, because we have numerous exploiters, and these exploiters subjugate the masses with the most diverse methods, starting with the bribery of the poor, so that representatives of the poor profit from moonshine or speculation, making several rubles on one. These are the means by which the kulaks and the bourgeoisie act on the masses in the countryside!

The notes, so that they, the representatives of the poor, could profit from moonshine or speculation, making several rubles on one. This is how the kulaks and the bourgeoisie act in the countryside to influence the masses!

We cannot blame the poor for this, because we know that for decades, for millennia, they were in slavery, that they experienced serfdom and lived under the conditions left by Russia after serfdom. We must go to them not only with a weapon directed against the kulaks, but also with the preaching of conscious workers who would bring their organizational strength there. Unite, representatives of the poor—this is our third slogan. This is not courting the kulaks and not an absurd measure of raising prices. If we double the prices, they will say: they are raising prices because they are starving, let's wait, they will raise them even more. (Applause.)

This is the well-trodden path, the path of pleasing the kulaks and speculators, it is easy to take and to paint an attractive picture. The intelligentsia, calling themselves socialists, is ready to paint such pictures for us, and there is no shortage of such intelligentsia. But we tell you: those who want to follow the Soviet power, who value it and consider it the power of the toilers, the power of the exploited class, we call them to another path. This new historical task is a difficult thing. To solve it means to raise a new layer, to give a new form of organization to those representatives of the toilers and the exploited, who in the majority are oppressed, dark, and least united, and who still need to unite.

Throughout the world, the advanced detachments of urban and industrial workers have united, united en masse. But almost nowhere in the world have there been systematic, selfless, and self-sacrificing attempts to unite those who live in villages, in small-scale agricultural production, in the backwoods and darkness, numbed by all the conditions of life. Here we face a task that unites not only the struggle against hunger, but also the struggle for the entire deep and important structure of socialism. Here we face such a battle for socialism, for which it is worth giving all our strength and putting everything on the line, because this is a battle for socialism (applause), because this is a battle for the system of the toilers and the exploited.

Let us look at the toiling peasants as our supporters on this path. On it, we await solid conquests, and not only solid, but also inalienable. This is our third significant slogan!

These are the three basic slogans: centralization of the food supply, unification of the proletariat, organization of the rural poor. And our appeal, the appeal of our Commissariat of Food to every trade union, to every factory committee, says: comrades, it is hard for you, so help us, combine your efforts with ours, pursue every violation of order, every deviation from the grain monopoly. This is a difficult task; but at the same time, again and again, for the hundredth and thousandth time, stand up against bagging, speculation, and the kulaks, and we will win, because the majority of workers, through the course of their lives and through all the hard lessons of our food shortages and food trials, are being led to this path. They know that if, at a time when there was not yet absolute scarcity of bread in Russia, the shortcomings of food organizations were compensated for by isolated individual actions, this will not be the case any longer. Only common efforts, only the unification of all who suffer most in the hungry cities and provinces, will help us, and this is the path on which the Soviet power calls you: the unification of workers, their advanced detachments for agitation on the ground, for the war for bread against the kulaks.

Not far from Moscow, in the neighboring provinces: Kursk, Orel, Tambov, according to the calculations of cautious specialists, we still have up to 10 million poods of surplus grain. We are far from able to collect these surpluses into state reserves and combine them.

Let us take up this task with greater effort. Wherever despair temporarily prevails, where people, tormented by hunger, are ready to rush and throw themselves at the charlatan slogans of those who turn back to Kerensky's methods, to the raising of fixed prices, let a conscious worker go and say: we see people who have despaired of the Soviet power—come to our detachment of combat agitators, do not be dismayed by the many examples of these detachments breaking up and getting drunk. With each such example, we will prove not that the working class is unfit, but that the working class has not yet rid itself of the vices of the old robber society and will not rid itself of them immediately. Let us combine our efforts, create dozens of detachments, coordinate their actions, and put an end to these vices. Comrades, allow me to conclude by pointing out some telegrams that are received both by the Council of People's Commissars and, especially, by our Commissariat of Food. (Reads telegrams.)

Comrades, in connection with the food crisis, in connection with the torment of hunger that envelops all the cities, we have to observe, as the saying goes: "good news lies, bad news runs." I want to read out documents that have been received by the organs and institutions of Soviet power after the decree of May 13 on food dictatorship, in which it is said that we rely on the same as before—only on the proletariat. The telegrams indicate that on the ground, they have already embarked on the path of a crusade against the kulaks, on the path of organizing the rural poor, to which we call. Evidence of this is provided by the telegrams we have received.

Let the trumpets sound, let panic be sown from the Cherevanin-Gromov bell tower, with voices calling for the destruction and overthrow of Soviet power. Those who are engaged in work will be least concerned by this sowing of panic: they will focus on the facts, they will see that the work is going on and that new ranks are uniting, that such ranks exist.

A new form of struggle against the kulaks is taking shape, a form of the union of the poor, whom we need to help, whom we need to unite. We must help when we are offered bonuses for the delivery of grain. We agree to give this bonus to the poor, and we have already done so. To the kulaks, the criminals who torment the population with hunger, because of whom tens of millions suffer, we apply force. We give all kinds of bonuses to the rural poor, they have a right to this. The rural poor have for the first time gained access to the benefits of life, and we see that life is poorer for them than for the workers. We are coming to the aid of this rural poor and we will give all kinds of bonuses, we will help if they help us organize the collection of grain, the acquisition of grain from the kulaks, and to make this a reality in Russia, we must not spare any means.

We have already embarked on this path. Every experience of conscious workers and new detachments will develop it further and further.

Comrades, the work has begun and is ongoing. We do not expect dizzying success, but success will come. We know that we are now entering a period of new destruction, a period of the most difficult, the heaviest periods of the revolution. It does not surprise us at all that the counter-revolution is raising its head, that the number of waverers, the number of those who have despaired in our ranks, is increasing. We say: stop wavering, bid farewell to your mood of despair, which the bourgeoisie wants to exploit, for it is in its interest to sow panic, get to work, we stand with our food decrees, with a plan based on the poor, on the only true path. In the face of new historical tasks, we call on you again and again to a new rise. This is a task of immeasurable difficulty, but I repeat once again, an extraordinarily rewarding task. Here we are fighting for the foundation of communist distribution, for the real creation of solid foundations of a communist society. Let's all work together. We will defeat hunger and win socialism. (Stormy applause, turning into an ovation.)