V. I. Lenin

Draft Resolution on the Report on The Domestic and Foreign Situation of the Soviet Republic at the Extraordinary Plenary Meeting of the Moscow Soviet of Workers’ and Red Army Deputies

April 3, 1919 {2}

This meeting of representatives of the working class and
peasantry of the R.S.F.S.R. declares that the Soviet Republic has entered
it most difficult month. The Allies are making their last desperate effort
to crush us by force of arms. The food situation in the spring is the most
difficult. The transport system is utterly disrupted.

Only the greatest effort can save us. Victory is possible. The
revolution in Hungary has proved conclusively that the Soviet movement in
Western Europe is growing and its victory is not far off. We have many
allies all over the world, more than we imagine. We must hold on for
another four or five difficult months in order to beat our enemies.

This meeting harshly condemns the Left

Socialist-Revolutionaries, {1} the Mensheviks and the Right S.R.s who, while paying lip-service to Soviet
power or protesting in word against the armed intervention of the Allies,
are in fact helping the whiteguards when they agitate for strikes or for
cessation of the civil war (although we offered peace to all! {3} ) or for concessions to freedom of trade, and so on.

This meeting declares that all those Mensheviks and
Socialist-Revolutionaries who are prepared to help us in our difficult
struggle shall be ensured full liberty as citizens of the Soviet
Republic.

This meeting, however, declares relentless war upon those Mensheviks
and Socialist-Revolutionaries who, like the literary and political groups
Vsegda Vperyod! {4} and

Dyelo Naroda , {5} are actually impeding our struggle, actually assisting
the whiteguards.

This meeting calls upon all workers, all workers’ organisations
and all working peasants to exert every effort to repel the enemies of
Soviet power, to defend that power and improve the food supply and
transport systems.

1. To enlist members of the middle section-i.e., people who are less
experienced than the advanced workers and peasants-to replace the
overworked advanced section.

2. To send more and more contingents of the advanced and rank-and-file
workers out on food supply, transport and army work.

3. To enlist the largest possible number of politically conscious
workers and peasants for work at the People’s Commissariat for
Railways and the State Control, in order to improve the functioning of
these bodies and to eliminate bureaucracy and red tape.

4. To transfer as many people as possible from the starving cities to
agricultural work, to vegetable gardening, to the rural districts, to the
Ukraine, to the Don region, and so forth, in order to increase grain
production.

All efforts to be exerted to assist the middle peasants, to put a stop
to the abuses from which they so often suffer, and to render them comradely
help. Those Soviet officials who refuse to carry out this policy-which is
the only correct one-or who fail to understand it, must be immediately
dismissed,

5. To combat all signs of weariness, faint-heartedness and vacillation,
to enhearten in every way those who show such signs, strengthen their
spirit, consciousness and comradely discipline. The working class and the
peasantry of Russia have borne incredible burdens. The last few months have
been incredibly difficult. But this meeting declares that the workers have
not lost heart, that the working class remains at its post;, that it will
overcome all difficulties and maintain at all costs the victory of the
Soviet Socialist Republic in Russia and throughout the world.

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Notes:
{1}
The first sheet of the manuscript is missing. The text up to the words
"Left Socialist-Revolutionaries" is printed from the typewritten
copy.— Ed .

{2}
The Extraordinary Plenary Meeting of the Moscow Soviet of April 13, 1919, was held jointly with representatives of the district Soviets,
factory committees and trade union executives in connection with the
aggravation of the food situation in Moscow and the consequent agitation
carried on among the railwaymen by the Mensheviks and
Socialist-Revolutionaries. The latter called upon the railwaymen to strike
and sabotage work in the railway repair shops. This counter-revolutionary
agitation led to a strike in the shops of the: Alexandrovsky Railway, as a
result of which the central workshops were closed on March 31 by order of
the People’s Commissariat for Railways and work in them was not resumed
until April 3, after the kulak elements had been dismissed.

Lenin made a report at the meeting on the domestic and foreign situation of the Soviet Republic. A report on the state of railway
transport was made by L. B. Krasin, and on the food policy by
A. I. Svidersky. Speakers in the debate denounced the counter-revolutionary
agitation of the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries. In winding up
the debate, A. V. Lunacharsky moved the resolution on the domestic and
foreign situation of the Soviet Republic drafted by Lenin. This volume
contains the original version of this draft resolution. The meeting of the
Moscow Soviet also adopted a special resolution branding the
counter-revolutionary agitation and approving the measures taken by the
Commissariat for Railways in regard to the Aleiandrovsky railway shops.

For Lenin’s report and resolution see present edition, Vol. 29 pp. 255-74.

{3}
In January 1919 the Soviet Government made two offers of peace (on the
12th and 17th). On February 4 it notified the Governments of Great Britain,
France, Italy, Japan and the U.S.A. by radio that it was ready to attend
the proposed peace conference on Princes Islands.

{4}
Vsegda Vperyod! (Ever Forward!)—a Menshevik newspaper published in Moscow; in 1918 one issue appeared, and in 1919 it was
published from January 22 to February 25.

{5}
Dyslo Naroda (People’s Cause)—organ of the S.R. Party, published in Petrograd, then at intervals in Samara and Moscow under
different names from March 1917 to March 1919. After the October Socialist
Revolution the paper adopted an anti-Soviet attitude. It was closed down
for counter-revolutionary activities.