Comrades, the speeches of the factional orators have demonstrated, in my view, exactly what was to be expected.

Despite the differences existing between the Bolsheviks and certain parties and groups, we have ascertained that an enormous upsurge in the masses is uniting us in the struggle against hunger, and uniting not only Bolshevik organizations. And we have no doubt that the further the struggle against hunger advances, and the further the counter-revolution lurking behind the Czechoslovak and other bands reveals itself, the more sharply the demarcation line will be drawn between the supporters of the Bolsheviks, the toiling workers and peasant masses, and those enemies—whatever they may be called—whose arguments we dispute. These enemies continue to advance the same old, worn-out arguments about the Brest Peace and the civil war, as if in the three months that have passed since the Brest Peace, events have not convincingly demonstrated the correctness of those who said that only the tactics of the Communists will give the people peace and liberate them for work on organizing and consolidating forces, for preparation for the new and great wars that must commence under different circumstances. Events show fully that the European proletariat, which at that time was still unable to come to our aid, with each month—and now one can say without exaggeration, with each month—is approaching a position in which insurrection is recognized as fully inevitable. Events have shown completely that there was only one choice, what is called a violent, predatory peace.

Any thinking person felt that at the Fourth Congress of Soviets the Right Social-Revolutionaries introduced a counter-revolutionary resolution;{151} any thinking person must feel the same about the Mensheviks' resolution, those who still cry out: Down with the Brest Peace!, and pretend not to know in practice that by this very thing they wish to draw us into war with German capital through Czechoslovak rebels{152} and hired agents.

It is hardly worth dwelling on accusations against the Communists, alleging that they are guilty of the hunger. It was exactly the same during the October Revolution. And no sane socialist or anarchist, whatever you choose to call them, could bring themselves to say before any assembly that one can arrive at socialism without civil war.

You can review the entire literature of all the more or less responsible socialist parties, factions, and groups, and you will find no responsible and serious socialist who would utter such an absurdity as that socialism could ever come about in any way other than through civil war, and that landowners and capitalists will voluntarily surrender their privileges. This is naïveté bordering on stupidity. And now, after a series of defeats of the bourgeoisie and its supporters, we hear such admissions as, for example, from Bogayevsky, who had the best soil for counter-revolution in all of Russia on the Don, who also acknowledged that the majority of the people are against them—and therefore no bourgeois schemes without foreign bayonets can help them. Yet here they assail the Bolsheviks for the civil war. This means going over to the side of the counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie, whatever slogans one may use to cover it up.

Both before the revolution and now we point out that when international capital throws war into the order of history, when hundreds of thousands of people perish, when war reshapes morals and accustoms people to deciding questions by military force, at such a time to think that one can emerge from war in any way other than by transforming it into civil war is more than strange. And that which is ripening in Austria, and in Italy, and in Germany shows that civil war will occur there in even sharper forms, will be even more acute. There is no other path for socialism. Whoever wages war against socialism betrays socialism completely.

As for food supply measures, I was pointed out that I did not dwell in detail on these measures. But this was not at all part of my task. The food supply report was made by my comrades{153} who worked specifically on this question and worked not for months but for years, studying it not only in the offices of Petrograd and Moscow, but on the ground, and practically engaged in studying the question of how to collect grain, how to equip collection points, and so forth. These reports were presented in the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and in the Moscow Soviet, and there are materials on this question. As for practical criticism and practical suggestions, these did not enter into my task. My task was to outline in principle the task that stands before us, and I have not heard here any criticism worth attention or any sensible remark that deserved a principled evaluation. I will say in conclusion, comrades, that in my conviction—and I am confident this will be the conviction of the vast majority—since the task of our assembly is not merely to adopt a particular resolution, though this is of course important, as it will demonstrate how the proletariat is able to consolidate its forces, but this is insufficient, infinitely insufficient: we must now decide practical tasks.

We know, especially you worker comrades know, how at every step of practical life, at every factory, at every meeting, at every chance gathering in the street, the same question about hunger is raised and increasingly sharply posed. And therefore our principal task must be such that this assembly too, where we have gathered together with representatives of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, the Moscow Soviet of Deputies, and the trade unions—that this assembly should serve as the starting point for a revolution in all our practical work. Everything else must be entirely subordinated to ensuring that our propaganda, our agitation, our organic work are successful, so that the question of the struggle against hunger is placed entirely in the foreground and entirely unified with the question of a proletarian and ruthlessly firm war against kulaks and speculators.

Our Food Commissariat has already turned to factory committees, trade unions, and those major proletarian centers in which we must act directly, to those close and numerous connections uniting Moscow workers with hundreds of thousands of organized factory workers throughout all the great industrial regions.

All the more must we utilize this.

The situation is critical. Hunger not only threatens, it has arrived. It is necessary that every worker, every party worker immediately make it their practical task to change the fundamental direction of their activity.

Everyone to the factories, everyone to the masses, everyone must now practically take up the work! It will give us a mass of practical suggestions far richer in methods, and at the same time it will identify and bring forward new forces. With these new forces we will broadly unfold our work, and we are firmly convinced that three months, far more difficult than the previous ones, will serve to temper our forces, and they will lead us to complete victory over hunger and facilitate the implementation of all the plans of Soviet power. (Stormy applause.)