In the *Izvestia of the Central Executive Committee* of February 2 there appeared a letter from peasant G. Gulov, who raises the question of the attitude of our workers’ and peasants’ government to the middle peasants and tells about rumours being spread that Lenin and Trotsky do not get along, that there are serious differences between them, and precisely on the question of the middle peasant.

Comrade Trotsky has already given his answer in a “Letter to the Middle Peasants,” printed in the *Izvestia of the Central Executive Committee* of February 7. In this letter Comrade Trotsky says that the rumours about differences between him and me are the most monstrous and unscrupulous lie spread by the landowners and capitalists, or their willing and unwilling abettors. For my part, I fully confirm Comrade Trotsky’s statement. There are no differences between us, and with regard to the middle peasants there are no differences, not only between Trotsky and me, but in general in the Communist Party, to which we both belong.

In his letter Comrade Trotsky explained in detail and clearly why the Communist Party and the present workers’ and peasants’ government, elected by the Soviets and belonging to this party, do not consider the middle peasants their enemies. I subscribe with both hands to what Comrade Trotsky said.

There is not a single decree (law), not a single enactment of the Soviet power, in which a distinction is not made between the three main groups of peasants: the first group – the poor (proletarians and semi-proletarians, as it is customary to say in economic science). There are very many of these. When the landowners and capitalists were in power, the whole of their oppression fell above all on the poor. In all countries of the world the most stable support of the genuine socialist movement is the workers and the rural poor who support them. The second group – the kulaks, i.e., the rich peasants who exploit the labour of others, either by hiring labourers or by lending money at interest, and so on. This group sides with the landowners and capitalists, enemies of the Soviet power. The third group – the middle peasants. These are not enemies of the Soviet power. They can be its friends, we are striving for this and shall achieve it. All the teachers of socialism have always recognised that the workers will have to overthrow the landowners and capitalists in order to bring about socialism, but with the middle peasants an agreement is possible and necessary.

Under the rule of the landowners and capitalists, very few of the middle peasants, perhaps one in a hundred, achieved lasting prosperity, and even then only by becoming kulaks, by riding on the back of the poor. And the vast majority of the middle peasants, under the power of the landowners and capitalists, will inevitably experience want and humiliation at the hands of the rich. In all capitalist countries the situation is like this.

Under socialism, complete and lasting prosperity is possible for all workers and all middle peasants without exception, without any robbery of the labour of others. Never has any Bolshevik, any communist, any reasonable socialist even entertained the thought of using violence against the middle peasant. All socialists have always spoken of agreement with them, of the gradual voluntary transition of the middle peasants to socialism.

Our country has been ruined by the four-year criminal war of the capitalists more than other countries. Ruin and disorganisation are everywhere, there are no goods, in the towns and non-agricultural gubernias there is a terrible, agonising famine. We have to strain every effort to overcome the ruin, to conquer the famine, to defeat the troops of the landowners and capitalists who are trying to bring about the restoration of the old power of the tsar, of the rich and the exploiters. In the South, on the Don and in the Ukraine, the Whiteguards have been defeated, the road to fuel (coal) and to grain is being cleared. A few more final efforts, and we shall be able to save ourselves from famine. But the ruin left by the war is enormous, and only long and self-sacrificing work by all the working people can set our country on the road to lasting prosperity.

Of the complaints that are heard among the middle peasants, two kinds must be noted. Firstly, complaints about the excessively “boss-like,” undemocratic behaviour, and sometimes downright outrageous conduct, of the local authorities, particularly in the backwoods. There is no doubt that in the villages it is more difficult to establish proper control and supervision over the local authorities, that sometimes the worst elements, unscrupulous people, manage to worm their way into the communists. A ruthless struggle must be waged against such people who, contrary to the laws of the Soviet power, treat the peasantry unjustly; they must be immediately removed and brought to the strictest trial. All the efforts of honest workers and peasants are directed to cleansing Russia of such “survivals” of the landowner and capitalist regime, who allow themselves to behave like “bosses” when, according to the laws of our workers’ and peasants’ republic, they are obliged to be elected by the Soviets and to set an example of conscientiousness and strict observance of the laws. The Soviet power has already shot not a few such officials who were caught, for example, in bribe-taking, and the struggle against such scoundrels will be carried through to the end.

Complaints of another kind are heard concerning the seizure of grain and the strict prohibition of free trade in grain. Our government fights implacably against arbitrary actions and departures from the law. But can free trade in grain be permitted? In a ruined country there is not enough grain, or just barely enough, and on top of that the railways have been so damaged by the war that haulage is proceeding extremely badly.

When grain is in short supply, free trade in grain means frenzied speculation and a rise in prices to hundreds of rubles a pood, for a starving man will give everything for a crust of bread. Free trade in grain in a starving country means frenzied profiteering by the kulaks, by the unscrupulous rich peasants who stuff their pockets on the people’s want and hunger. Free trade in grain in a starving country means the victory of the rich over the poor, for the rich will buy grain even at insane, frenzied prices, while the poor will be left with nothing. Free trade in grain means freedom to profit for the rich, freedom to die for the poor. Free trade in grain is a retreat back to the domination and omnipotence of the capitalists.

No. We do not want to go back, and we shall not go back, to the restoration of the power of the capitalists, the power of money, to freedom to profiteer. We want to go forward to socialism, to the correct distribution of grain among all working people. All surplus grain must be given to the Soviet state at a fair price, and the state must distribute it equally among the working people. This cannot be achieved at once, it is not easy to establish such a just, socialist order. We must toil much and work for a long time, establish a strict comradely discipline of workers and peasants, in order to root out the old, capitalist freedom of trade, freedom to profiteer, freedom of squabbling, freedom of oppression, which has drenched the whole earth in blood.

But millions upon millions of workers and peasants have now set about this hard work. Every honest, conscientious peasant and worker has understood the meaning of socialism and is steadfastly fighting for it.

The socialist revolution is growing all over the world. The power of the capitalists, “freedom of trade,” will not return. Socialism will win.

February 14, 1919.

*Pravda* No. 35 and *Izvestia VTsIK* No. 35, February 15, 1919.

Printed from the manuscript.