(The appearance of Comrade Lenin is met with prolonged applause. All rise from their seats and greet Comrade Lenin.) Comrades! We are celebrating the anniversary of our revolution at a moment when the greatest events of the international workers' movement are unfolding, and when even the most skeptical, even the most doubtful elements of the working class and toilers have come to see clearly that the world war will not end through agreements or the violence of the old government and the old ruling class of the bourgeoisie, that it leads not only Russia, but the whole world toward worldwide proletarian revolution, toward the victory of workers over capital, which has drenched the earth in blood, and reveals—after all the violence and atrocities of German imperialism—the very same policy on the part of Anglo-French imperialism, supported by Austria and Germany.

On the day when we celebrate the anniversary of the revolution, we must cast a glance at the path that it has traveled. We had to begin our revolution under extraordinarily difficult conditions, conditions in which none of the subsequent workers' revolutions in the world will find themselves, and therefore it is especially important that we attempt to illuminate as a whole the path we have traveled, to see what has been achieved in this time and how far we have prepared ourselves in this year for our main, true, our decisive, fundamental task. We must be part of the detachments, part of the worldwide proletarian and socialist army. We have always understood that if it fell to us to begin a revolution growing out of worldwide struggle, this was in no way owing to any merits of the Russian proletariat, or to the fact that it was ahead of others; on the contrary, only the particular weakness and backwardness of capitalism, and especially the constricting military-strategic circumstances, created the situation where we found ourselves, by the course of events, occupying the place ahead of other detachments, without waiting for those detachments to approach, to rise up. We are now accounting to ourselves to learn how far we have prepared ourselves to meet those battles that now lie ahead in our impending revolution.

And so, comrades, when we ask ourselves the question: what have we accomplished on a large scale in this year?—we must say that the following has been accomplished: from workers' control, those initial steps of the working class, from the mastery of all the country's means by workers, we have come close to the creation of workers' management of industry; from the all-peasant struggle for land, from the peasants' struggle with landowners, from a struggle that bore a general-national, bourgeois-democratic character, we have come to the point where proletarian and semi-proletarian elements have been distinguished in the village, those have been distinguished who labor especially, those who are exploited, who have risen up to the construction of new life; the most oppressed part of the village has entered into struggle to the end against the bourgeoisie, including against its village kulak bourgeoisie.

Further, from the first steps of soviet organization we have come to what Comrade Sverdlov, who opened the congress, justly remarked—that there is not in Russia such a remote backwater where the soviet organization has not taken root, where it does not constitute an integral part of the Soviet constitution, worked out on the basis of prolonged experience of struggle by all toilers and the oppressed.

From our complete defenselessness, from the last four-year war, which left in the masses not only the hatred of oppressed people, but also revulsion, and terrible exhaustion, and torment, which condemned the revolution to the most difficult, arduous period, when we were defenseless before the blows of German and Austrian imperialism,—from this defenselessness we have come to a mighty Red Army. Finally, the most important thing: we have come from international isolation, from which we suffered in October and at the beginning of the current year, to a situation where our sole, but firm ally—the toilers and oppressed of all countries—has, at last, risen up; when the leaders of Western European proletariat, such as Liebknecht and Adler—leaders who through long months of hard labor paid for their bold, heroic attempts to raise their voices against the imperialist war—we see these leaders at liberty, because the Vienna and Berlin workers' revolution, which is growing not by the day but by the hour, has forced their liberation. From isolation we have come to a situation where we stand hand in hand, shoulder to shoulder with our international allies. This is the fundamental achievement of this year. And I will permit myself to dwell briefly on this path, to dwell on this transition.

Comrades, our slogan at the beginning was workers' control. We said: despite all the promises of the Kerensky government, capital continues to sabotage the country's production, destroying it ever further. We see now that things were heading toward decomposition, and the first fundamental step, obligatory for any socialist, workers' government, must be workers' control. We did not immediately decree socialism throughout our industry because socialism can only form and take root when the working class learns to manage, when the authority of the workers' masses becomes established. Without this, socialism is merely a wish. Therefore we introduced workers' control, knowing that this was a contradictory step, an incomplete step, but it was necessary that the workers themselves take up the great work of building industry in a vast country without exploiters, against exploiters, and, comrades, whoever participated directly or even indirectly in this construction, whoever lived through all the oppression and atrocities of the old capitalist regime, that person learned much—very much. We know that we have gained little. We know that in the most backward and ruined country, where obstacles were placed before the working class at every turn to prevent it from learning to manage industry, it will need a long period. We consider most important and valuable the fact that the workers themselves took up this management, that from workers' control, which was to remain chaotic, fragmented, artisanal, incomplete in all the main branches of industry, we have come to workers' management of industry on a nationwide scale.

The position of trade unions has changed. Their main task became to advance their representatives into all the chief administrations and centers, into all those new organizations that took over from capitalism a ruined, deliberately sabotaging industry, and took it up not with the help of all those intellectual forces who set themselves the task from the very beginning of using knowledge and higher education—this product of humanity's accumulated store of knowledge—they used all this in order to wreck the cause of socialism, to use science not to help the masses in organizing public, national economy without exploiters. These people set themselves the task of using science in order to throw stones under the wheels, to hinder the workers, the least prepared for this work, who took up the task of management, and we can say that the main obstacle has been broken. This was extraordinarily difficult. The sabotage of all elements gravitating toward the bourgeoisie has been broken. Despite enormous obstacles, the workers managed to take this fundamental step, which has laid the foundation for socialism. We are not exaggerating in the slightest, and we do not fear to tell the truth. Yes, little has been accomplished from the standpoint of achieving the end, but much has been accomplished—extraordinarily much—from the standpoint of establishing the foundation. When speaking of socialism, one cannot speak of conscious construction of the foundation in the broadest workers' masses in the sense that they took books, read a pamphlet; rather, the consciousness here lies in the fact that they took it up with their own energy, with their own hands for an extraordinarily difficult task, made thousands of mistakes, and suffered from each mistake themselves, and each mistake forged and hardened them in that work of organizing the management of industry, which is now created and stands on a firm foundation. They brought their work to completion. Now this work will be done not as it was then—now the entire workers' mass, not only leaders and forerunners, but truly the broadest strata know that they themselves, with their own hands, are building socialism, have laid the foundation, and no force within the country will prevent bringing this work to completion.

If we encountered such great difficulties with respect to industry, if there we had to live through what seemed to many a long, but was in fact a short path, leading from workers' control to workers' management, then in the village, the most backward of all, we had to accomplish much more preparatory work. And whoever has observed village life, whoever has had contact with peasant masses in the village, says: the October revolution of the cities became for the village a true October revolution only in the summer and autumn of 1918. And here, comrades, when the Petrograd proletariat and soldiers of the Petrograd garrison took power, they understood perfectly well that for construction in the village great difficulties would be encountered, that here one must proceed more gradually, that here to attempt to introduce through decrees, through legislation the public working of land would be the greatest absurdity, that only a negligible number of conscious people could be counted on for this, while the vast majority of peasants did not set themselves this task. And therefore we limited ourselves to what was absolutely necessary in the interests of developing the revolution: in no case to outpace the development of the masses, but to wait until from the masses' own experience, from their own struggle, a movement forward would grow. We limited ourselves in October to the fact that we immediately swept away the old age-long enemy of the peasants, the landlord-serf-owner, the proprietor of latifundia. This was an all-peasant struggle. There was not yet, within the peasantry itself, any division between proletariat, semi-proletariat, the poorest part of the peasantry, and the bourgeoisie. We socialists knew that without this struggle there is no socialism, but we also knew that our knowledge alone was not enough, that it was necessary for it to penetrate into millions not through propaganda, but from the masses' own experience, and therefore when the entire peasantry as a whole conceived the upheaval only on the basis of equalitarian land use, we openly declared in our decree of October 26, 1917, that we take as our foundation the peasants' mandate on land[6].

We openly said that it does not correspond to our views, that it is not communism, but we did not impose on the peasantry what did not correspond to their views, but corresponded only to our program. We declared that we go with them as with laboring comrades, convinced that the course of the revolution would lead to the very same situation to which we ourselves had come, and as a result we see the peasant movement. The agrarian reform began with that very socialization of land which we ourselves carried out, with our own votes, saying openly that it does not correspond to our views, knowing that the idea of equalitarian land use was shared by the vast majority, not wishing to impose anything on them, waiting for when the peasantry itself would outgrow this idea and move further forward. And we waited and managed to prepare our forces.

The law which we then adopted proceeds from general-democratic principles, from that which unites the rich peasant-kulak with the poor—hatred of the landlord, from the general idea of equality, which was, certainly, a revolutionary idea against the old monarchical order—from this law we had to transition to division within the peasantry. We passed the law on socialization of land with general agreement. It was unanimously adopted both by us and by those who did not share the views of the Bolsheviks. On the question of who should own the land, we gave first place in deciding this question to agricultural communes. We left the road open for agriculture to develop on socialist principles, understanding perfectly that at that time, in October 1917, it was not in a position to take this road. Through our preparation we achieved what we achieved—a gigantic world-historical step, one that has not yet been taken by any of the most democratic, republican states. This step was taken in the present summer by the entire mass of peasantry, even in the most remote Russian villages. When it came to food disorder, to hunger, when owing to the old legacy and the accursed four years of war, when through the efforts of counter-revolution and civil war the very bread-producing regions were taken away, when all this reached its highest point, and hunger threatened danger to the cities,—then the sole and surest, firm bulwark of our power, the advanced workers of the cities and industrial regions, moved out united into the village. Those slander who say that workers moved in order to introduce armed struggle between workers and peasants. Events refute this slander. They went in order to deal a blow to the exploitative elements of the village—the kulaks, who had amassed unprecedented wealth through speculation in grain at a time when the people were dying of hunger. They went to help the laboring poor, the majority of the villages, and that they did not go in vain, that they extended the hand of alliance, that their preparatory work merged with the masses—this was fully demonstrated by July, the July crisis, when a kulak uprising ran through all of Russia. The July crisis ended with the fact that in villages everywhere there rose up the laboring, exploited elements, rose up together with the proletariat of the cities. Today Comrade Zinoviev reported to me by telephone that in Petrograd the regional congress of committees of the poor reached 18,000 people and that there an extraordinary enthusiasm and exultation reign{63}. As matters took a more visible form, as what is happening throughout all Russia becomes clear, when the village poor rose up, they saw from their own experience the struggle with kulaks, saw that in order to ensure food supply in the city, to restore commodity exchange, without which the village cannot live, one cannot go together with village bourgeoisie and kulaks. One must organize separately. And by us is now accomplished the first and greatest step of the socialist revolution in the village. In October we could not have done this. We understood this moment when we could go to the masses, and we have now achieved the fact that the socialist revolution in the villages has begun, that there is not such a remote village where they do not know that their own brother, the wealthy man, their own brother the kulak, if he speculates in grain—looks at all the events happening from the old remote-village perspective.

And so village economy, village poverty, growing stronger together with their leaders, with city workers, gives only now the final and firm foundation for genuine socialist construction. Only now will socialist construction begin in the villages. Only now are being formed those Soviets and economies that systematically strive toward public working of land on a large scale, toward the use of knowledge, science, and technology, knowing that on the basis of the old, reactionary, dark times not even simple, elementary human culture is possible. Here is even more difficult work than in industry. Here even more mistakes are being made by our local committees and Soviets on the spot. They learn from mistakes. We do not fear mistakes when they are made by masses who relate consciously to construction, because we rely only on their own experience and their own application of hands.

And so the greatest upheaval, which in such a short time has led us to socialism in the village, shows that all this struggle has crowned success. This is demonstrated most strikingly by the Red Army. You know what position we found ourselves in during the world imperialist war, when Russia found itself in such a position that the people's masses could not endure it. We know that we then found ourselves in the most helpless position. We openly told the workers' masses the full truth. We exposed the secret imperialist treaties, the policy which served as the greatest instrument of deception, which now in America, the most advanced democratic republic of bourgeois imperialism, deceives the masses as never before, leads the masses by the nose. When the war, its imperialist character, became obvious to all, at that time the sole country which broke the secret bourgeois foreign policy down to its foundation was the Russian Soviet Republic. It exposed the secret treaties and said through Comrade Trotsky, addressing the countries of the whole world: we call you to end this war by a democratic path, without annexations and contributions, and we speak openly and proudly the heavy truth, but still the truth, that in order to end this war, revolution against bourgeois governments is needed. Our voice remained solitary. For this we had to pay with the incredibly heavy and difficult peace that was imposed by the violent Brest Treaty, which among many sympathetic people sowed despondency and despair. This was because we were alone. But we fulfilled our duty; we told all: such are the aims of the war! And if an avalanche of German imperialism descended upon us, it is because a long interval of time was required while our workers and peasants came to firm organization. Then we had no army; we had the old disorganized army of the imperialists, driven to war for aims which the soldiers did not hold, which they did not sympathize with. Here it turned out that we had to live through a most painful period. This was a period when the masses had to rest from the most agonizing imperialist war and understand that a new war was beginning. We have the right to call our own war that war in which we defend our socialist revolution. Millions and tens of millions of people needed to understand this from their own experience. Months went into this. Through a long and arduous path this consciousness made its way through. But in the summer of the present year it became clear to all that it had finally broken through, that the turning-point had arrived, that an army, which is a product of the people's mass, an army which sacrifices itself, which after four years of bloody slaughter goes again to war—in order that such an army should go for the Soviet republic, our country needs the exhaustion and despair in the mass going to this war to be replaced by clear consciousness that they are going to die truly for their own cause: for workers' and peasants' Soviets, for the socialist republic. This has been achieved.

The victories which we gained in the summer over the Czechoslovaks, and the reports of victories which are received and which reach very large dimensions, prove that the turning-point has arrived and that the most difficult task—the task of creating a conscious socialist organized mass after a four-year painful war—this task has been accomplished. This consciousness has penetrated deeply into the masses. Tens of millions have understood that they are engaged in a difficult task. And in this lies the pledge that although now the forces of worldwide imperialism are gathering against us, which are stronger than us at the present moment, although we are now surrounded by soldiers of imperialists who have understood the danger of Soviet power and burn with desire to throttle it, in spite of the fact that we are telling the truth now, are not concealing that they are stronger than us—we do not give way to despair.

We say: we are growing, the Soviet republic is growing! The cause of the proletarian revolution grows faster than the forces of imperialists draw near. We are full of hope and confidence that we are defending the interests not only of the Russian socialist revolution, but we are waging war defending the worldwide socialist revolution. Our hopes for victory are growing faster because the consciousness of our workers is growing. What was Soviet organization in October of last year? These were the first steps. We could not adapt it, bring it to a definite, proper condition, but now we have the Soviet Constitution. We know that this Soviet Constitution, which was affirmed in July, was not invented by some commission, was not composed by jurists, was not copied from other constitutions. In the world there have not been constitutions such as ours. In it is recorded the experience of the struggle and organization of proletarian masses against exploiters both within the country and throughout the whole world. We have a store of experience in struggle. (Applause.) And this store of experience has given us clear confirmation of the fact that organized workers created Soviet power without officials, without a standing army, without privileges, de facto created for the bourgeoisie, and created in factories and plants the foundation of new construction. We are setting about work, attracting new collaborators, who are necessary for carrying out the Soviet Constitution. For this we now have ready cadres of new recruits, young peasants, whom we must attract to work, and they will help us bring the work to completion.

Now the last point on which I wish to dwell is the question of international situation. We stand shoulder to shoulder with our international comrades and now we have convinced ourselves how decisively and energetically they express their confidence that the Russian proletarian revolution will go together with them as an international revolution.

As the international significance of the revolution grew, so too grew and intensified the frenzied consolidation of imperialists of all the world. In October 1917 they considered our republic a curiosity, not worth paying attention to; in February they considered it a socialist experiment not worth reckoning with. But the army of the republic grew, took root: it resolved the most difficult task of creating a socialist Red Army. In consequence of the growth and success of our cause, grew the frenzied resistance and frenzied hatred of imperialists of all countries, which came to the point that Anglo-French capitalists, shouting that they were enemies of Wilhelm, are close to uniting with Wilhelm himself in the struggle to throttle the Socialist Soviet Republic, because they saw that it had ceased to be a curiosity and a socialist experiment, but had become a hearth, a real, factual hearth of worldwide socialist revolution. That is why as the successes of our revolution grew, the number of our enemies grew. We must account to ourselves, concealing in no way the heaviness of our position, an accounting of what lies ahead of us. But we will go forth into this, and we are already going not alone, but together with the workers of Vienna and Berlin, who are rising up for the same struggle and will bring, perhaps, greater discipline and consciousness to our common cause.

Comrades, in order to show you how the clouds are gathering against our Soviet republic and what dangers threaten us, allow me to read to you the complete text of the note which the German government communicated to us through its consulate:

"To the People's Commissar of Foreign Affairs G. V. Chicherin. Moscow. November 5, 1918.

By direction of the German Imperial Government, the Imperial German Consulate has the honor to communicate to the Russian Federative Soviet Republic the following: The German Government has already been compelled a second time to protest against the circumstance that, through the activity of Russian official institutions, contrary to the provision of Article 2 of the Brest Peace Treaty, there is being conducted impermissible agitation against German state institutions. It no longer considers it possible for itself to limit itself to protests against this agitation, which signifies not only a violation of the indicated treaty provisions, but also a serious deviation from international customs. When, after the conclusion of the peace treaty, the Soviet Government established its diplomatic representation in Berlin, the appointed Russian plenipotentiary Mr. Ioffe was explicitly pointed to the necessity of avoiding all agitational and propagandistic activity in Germany. He replied to this that he was aware of Article 2 of the Brest Treaty and that he knew that, as a representative of a foreign power, he should not interfere in Germany's internal affairs. Mr. Ioffe and the organs subordinate to him therefore enjoyed in Berlin that attention and confidence with which one ordinarily treats exterritorial foreign representations. This confidence was, however, betrayed. Already for some time it has been becoming clear that the Russian diplomatic representation, through intimate communication with certain elements working in the direction of overthrowing the state order in Germany, and through the employment of such elements in its service, was interested in a movement directed toward the overthrow of the existing order in Germany. Thanks to the following incident, which occurred on the 4th of this month, it has been clarified that the Russian representation is taking even active participation in movements having the aim of overthrowing the existing order, through the importation of leaflets with calls to revolution, thereby violating the privilege of using diplomatic couriers. As a result of damage sustained during transport by one of the boxes belonging to the official baggage of a Russian courier who arrived in Berlin yesterday, it was established that these boxes contained revolutionary leaflets composed in the German language and intended by their content for distribution in Germany. Further grounds for a complaint to the German Government are given by the attitude which the Soviet Government has shown toward the question of how the murder of the Imperial envoy Count Mirbach should be atoned for. The Russian Government solemnly promised to do everything to subject the guilty parties to punishment. The German Government, however, could not establish any signs that the persecution or punishment of the guilty has already begun or even that there is an intention to carry it out. The murderers fled from a house surrounded on all sides by organs of public safety of the Russian Government. The initiators of the murder, openly admitting that it was by them ordered and prepared, have remained until now unpunished and, judging by the information received, were even amnestied. The German Government protests against these violations of the treaty and public law. It must demand from the Russian Government guarantees that agitation and propaganda running counter to the peace treaty will not be conducted in the future. It must, moreover, insist on atonement for the murder of the envoy Count Mirbach through the punishment of the murderers and initiators of the murder. Until the moment when these demands are fulfilled, the German Government must request the Government of the Soviet Republic to recall from Germany its diplomatic and other official representatives. The Russian plenipotentiary in Berlin was today informed that a special train will be ready for the departure of diplomatic and consular representatives in Berlin and other Russian official persons in this city tomorrow evening, and measures will be taken to ensure the unimpeded departure of all personnel to the Russian border point. The Soviet Government is asked to take care to provide at the same time German representatives in Moscow and Petrograd the possibility of departure observing everything required by the demands of courtesy. Other Russian representatives found in Germany, as well as German official persons found in other places of Russia, will be informed that within a week the former should leave for Russia, the latter for Germany. The German Government permits itself to express the expectation that with respect to the latter German official persons all requirements of courtesy will be observed in their departure and that to other German subjects or persons under German protection, in case of their request, will be provided the possibility of unimpeded departure."

Comrades, we all know perfectly well that the German Government knew excellently that in the Russian embassy there was hospitality extended to German socialists, and not to those who stood for German imperialism—such people never crossed the threshold of the Russian embassy. Its friends were those socialists who were against the war, who sympathized with Karl Liebknecht. From the very beginning of the embassy's existence they were its guests, and only with them were we in communication. This German Government knew this splendidly. They keep watch on each representative of our government with the same care with which the government of Nicholas II kept watch on our comrades. And if now the government makes this gesture, it is not because anything has changed, but because it formerly considered itself stronger and did not fear that from one house set on fire on the streets of Berlin, all of Germany would catch fire. The German Government has lost its head, and when all of Germany is burning, it thinks it will extinguish the fire by directing its police dogs at one house. (Stormy applause.)

This is only ridiculous. If the German Government is preparing to announce a rupture of diplomatic relations, then we will say that we knew this, that it strives with all its might toward a union with the Anglo-French imperialists. We know that the Wilson government has been deluged with telegrams requesting that it leave German troops in Poland, on the Ukraine, in Estonia, and Livonia, because although they are enemies of German imperialism, these troops are doing their work: they are suppressing the Bolsheviks[7]. Let them only withdraw when anti-Entente "liberation forces" appear, in order to throttle the Bolsheviks.

We know this perfectly well; from this side there is nothing unexpected for us here. We say only that now, when Germany has caught fire, and Austria is entirely burning, when they were forced to release Liebknecht and provide him the possibility of traveling to the Russian embassy, where there was a general assembly of Russian and German socialists headed by Liebknecht—now such a step on the part of the German Government testifies not so much that they wish to wage war, but rather that they have completely lost their heads, that they are thrashing about between various decisions, because the fiercest enemy has descended upon them—Anglo-American imperialism, which has crushed Austria a hundred times more violently through peace than was the Brest Peace. Germany sees that they also wish to throttle, torment, torture it, these "liberators." But at the same time the worker of Germany is rising. The German army proved unfitted, non-combat-worthy, not because discipline was weak, but because soldiers, refusing to fight, were transferred from the Eastern Front to the Western German front, and they brought with them what the bourgeoisie calls worldwide Bolshevism.

That is why the German army proved non-combat-worthy, and that is why this document proves above all this thrashing about. We say that it will lead to a rupture of diplomatic relations, and perhaps would lead to war, if they had the forces to conduct White Guard wars. Therefore we sent a telegram to all Soviets{64}, which ends with a call to be on guard, to prepare, it is necessary to strain all forces; this is one manifestation of the fact that international imperialism makes its main task the overthrow of Bolshevism. This does not mean to defeat only Russia,—it means to defeat their own workers in each country. They will not succeed in doing this, whatever atrocities and violence may follow this decision. And they, these beasts, are preparing, they are preparing an invasion of Russia from the south, through the Dardanelles, or through Bulgaria and Rumania. They are conducting negotiations in order to form White Guard armies in Germany and hurl them against Russia. We are fully aware of this danger and speak openly: comrades, we have not labored in vain for a year; we have laid the foundation, we have approached the decisive battles, which will truly be decisive. But we go not alone: the proletariat of Western Europe has risen and has not left one stone upon another in Austro-Hungary. The government there is distinguished by the same helplessness, the same wild confusion, the same complete loss of head, which distinguished, at one time, at the end of February 1917, the government of Nicholas Romanov. Our slogan must be: strain all your forces again and again, remembering that we are approaching the last, decisive battle, not for the Russian, but for the international socialist revolution!

We know that the beasts of imperialism are still stronger than us, they can still cause us and our country much violence, atrocities, and suffering, but they cannot defeat the international revolution. They are full of wild hatred, and therefore we say to ourselves: come what may, and each worker and peasant of Russia will fulfill his duty and will go to die, if this is required in the interests of defending the revolution. We say: come what may, but whatever disasters the imperialists may yet bring down, they will not save themselves thereby. Imperialism will perish, and the international socialist revolution, whatever happens, will be victorious! (Stormy applause, passing into prolonged ovation.)