V. I. Lenin

Plenary Meeting Of The All-Russia Central Coucncil Of Trade Unions

April 11, 1919 [1]

I

Report on the Tasks of the Trade Unions
In The Mobilisation For The Eastern Front

Comrades, you, of course, are all familiar with the decree
published today on the mobilisation in the nonagri-cultural
gubernias, and there is no need for me to deal at length with
the reasons for this decree at a meeting like this; we may take
it that you are well aware from what you have read in the
newspapers that Kolchak’s victories on the Eastern Front have suddenly made our position
extremely grave.

You are aware that, in view of the situation at the front, all
government instructions have for a long time been directed towards
concentrating our main forces on the Southern
Front. Krasnov’s forces were concentrated in such large
numbers on the Southern Front, and the avowedly counter-revolutionary Cossacks, who since 1905 have remained as
monarchist as ever, were so strongly entrenched there, that
without a victory on the Southern Front, the consolidation of
Soviet proletarian power at the centre would have been impossible. It was in the South, in the Ukraine, that the Allied
imperialists attempted to launch an offensive, and wanted to
convert the Ukraine into a springboard against the Soviet
Republic, making the Southern Front still more important for us;
consequently, we have no reason to repent of having concentrated
our attention and our forces on the Southern Front. I think that
we were not mistaken in so doing. The latest news about the
capture of Odessa, and the news received today about the capture
of Simferopol and Eupatoria show the situation there; this region,
which has played the decisive role throughout the war, has now
been cleared.

You know perfectly well what tremendous effort it is costing to
continue the Civil War after four years of imperialist war, how
weary the masses are, how incredibly vast the sacrifices which the
workers have been making during two years of Civil War. You know
that this war is imposing an immense strain upon us. This
concentration of all forces on the Southern Front greatly weakened
the Eastern Front. We were unable to send reinforcements there and
the army on the Eastern Front endured incredible hardships and
sustained heavy losses. It fought for months, and a number of
comrades working there sent us telegrams stating that it was
becoming exceedingly difficult for the embattled Red Army to bear
such an extremely heavy strain; the strength of our forces on the
Eastern Front had been over-taxed. Meanwhile, Kolchak, by means of
tsarist or “big stick” discipline, had mobilised the
Siberian peasants. He weeded all men who had seen active service
out of his army, and succeeded in concentrating there the old
officers, as leaders, and the counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie. Relying o these, he has lately achieved successes on
the Eastern Front which place the Volga in jeopardy; it must be
admitted that to force him back we shall have to go all
out. Forces must be sent from here, for we cannot shift any from
the South; that would mean leaving the field to the main enemy,
who has not yet been completely smashed.

Since our victories in the South and in the Don region, and
because of the international situation, our general position has
been improving daily. Not a day passes but what we receive news
which indicates that our international situation is improving.

Three months ago, the British, French and American capitalists
not only appeared to be, but actually were, a tremendous force,
which, of course, could have crushed us had they at that time been
in a position to use their vast material resources against
us—they could have but did not and now it is obvious that
they cannot. Their recent defeat in Odessa clearly shows that vast
as the material resources of the imperialists were, from the
purely military point of view, their campaign against Russia has
collapsed completely. If we bear in mind that there are Soviet
Republics in the heart of Europe, and that the growth of the

Soviet form of government is becoming irresistible, we may say
without exaggeration, taking an absolutely sober view of the
situation, that our victory on an international scale is
absolutely certain.

If this were all, we could speak calmly, but in view of
Kolchak’s recent successes, it must be said that several
months of strenuous effort still lie ahead of us before we can
defeat his forces. There can be no doubt that we shall fail if we
stick to the old methods; during the eighteen months of Soviet
power our methods have become so familiar, sometimes even routine,
that as a result, the energy of the advanced section of the
working class has been largely exhausted. We do not shut our eyes
to the extreme weariness that is felt among certain sections of
the working class, and to the increasing difficulty of the
struggle, but now our prospects are much simpler and clearer. Even
those who do not side with Soviet power, and who regard themselves
as rather important figures in politics, clearly see that on an
international scale our victory is certain.

We have to go through one more phase of fierce civil war
against Kolchak. We have therefore decided that the All-Russia
Central Council of Trade Unions—a most authoritative body,
which unites the broad masses of the proletariat—should, on
its part, propose a number of most rigorous measures which should
help us to finish off the war within the next few months. This is
quite feasible, because our international situation is improving,
we need have no doubts on that score. The European and American
rear is in the best possible state for us, although five months
ago we could not even dream of such a thing. We might say that
Messrs. Wilson and Clemenceau have set out to help us. The cables
which every day bring us news about their quarrels, about their
desire to slam the door in each other’s faces, show that
these gentlemen are at each other’s throats.

But the more clear it becomes that the victory of our cause on
an international scale is certain, the more desperate and fierce
become the efforts of the Russian landowners, capitalists and
kulaks who fled across the Urals. This disreputable crowd is
fighting desperately. You, of course, have read in the newspapers
about how far white-guard terror has gone in Wa; there is no doubt
that these whiteguard elements, these bourgeois, are staking
everything on a last attempt. The bourgeoisie are desperate. They
believe that by their desperate attack they will compel us to
divert part of our forces from the decisive Southern Front. We
shall not do that, and we say openly to the workers that this
involves ever greater efforts in the East.

Permit me to propose a number of practical measures which, in
my opinion, should create a regrouping of forces and set the trade
unions new and definite tasks, and which I consider essential in
view of the situation I have briefly outlined to you. There is no
need for me to deal with this any further, you are all aware of
it. It is possible in this situation—looking at it most
soberly—to put an end to the war, both internal and international, within the next few months. But during those few
months we shall have to bend every effort. The first task that
should be set to the trade unions is the following:

“1. Support in every way the mobilisation ordered on
April 11, 1919.

“All the forces of the Party and the trade unions must be
mobilised Immediately so as to render, within the next few days,
without the slightest delay, the most energetic assistance to the
mobilisation decreed by the Council of People’s Commissars
on April 10, 1919.

“The mobilised men must at once be made to see the active
participation of the trade unions and to feel that they have the
support of the working class.

“In particular, it must be made clear to every mobilised
man that his immediate departure for the front will mean an
improvement in his food situation; firstly, because of the better
ration received by the soldiers in the grain-producing front-line
zone; secondly, because of the fact that the food brought into the
hungry gubernias will be distributed among fewer people; thirdly,
because of the widely organised dispatch of food parcels by Red
Army men in the front areas to their families at home
....”

Of course, I have referred to the food situation here only very
briefly; but you all realise that this is our main, internal
difficulty, and were it not for the possibility of linking up the
mobilisation with our rapid advance in the areas near the front
and the grain-producing districts, with the organisation of the
units there, and not here, were it not for this possibility, the
mobilisation would be hopeless; that is to say, it would be no use
hoping for success. But at present we have this possibility. The
mobilisation is to take place mainly in the non-agricultural
gubernias, in the districts where the workers and peasants are
suffering most from hunger. We can shift them primarily to the
Don—the whole of the Don region is now in our hands, the
fight against the Cossacks has been going on for a long tune; we
shall be able to improve the food supplies of our advanced units
on the spot, and also organise the sending home of food
parcels. Steps have already been taken in this direction, and
permission has been given to send food parcels weighing twenty
pounds twice a month. An agreement on this point has been
reached. Thus, the privilege we were obliged to grant last year in
the form of the right to carry one-and-a-half poods [2] can be
compared with this wider measure, namely, the sending of food
parcels, by means of which the men of the Red Army will be able to
support their families at home.

By developing activities of this nature we shall combine
assistance to the front with an improvement in the food situation
in the chief non-agricultural districts, which are suffering most
in this respect. Naturally, the dispatch of men to the Don will be
linked up with the movement of men to the Volgaside area, where
the enemy has now inflicted such a severe blow on us that beyond
the Volga, in the East, we have already lost several million poods
of grain that had been collected. There, the war is directly an
out-and-out war for grain. The task of the trade unions is to see
to it that this mobilisation is not carried out on the ordinary
lines, but that it should be combined with trade union assistance
to the Soviets. The thesis I have just read to you does not define
this concretely enough. I think that this all-round assistance
should be at first embodied in a series of tentative measures,
which should be followed by definite instructions and a practical
plan showing how, the trade unions, by mobilising all their
forces, should promote the mobilisation in such a way that it
assumes the character of a major political measure rather than a
mere military and food supply measure, in such a way that it is
made the task of a working class which realises that we can end
the war within the next few months, because on an International
scale we are assured of the arrival of fresh allies. Only
proletarian organisations, only trade unions, can do this. I
cannot enumerate the practical measures, I think that only the
trade unions can do it. They can carry out the task, making
allowances for specific local conditions, and organising the whole
business on a practical basis. Our job is to give the main
political directions to the working class, which must rally once
again and take cognisance of this bitter truth; there will be new
burdens to bear, but this is at the same time a truth that
indicates the real and practical way to overcome our difficulties
as quickly as possible. By sending large numbers of workers to the
fertile South, we shall reinforce our forces there, and if the
whiteguard and landowners’—forces count on being able by their victories in the East to compel us to weaken the South, I
think we shall prove to them that they are mistaken. I am quite
sure that we shall not weaken the South and shall be able to
provide support for the East. The enemy has mobilised the young
men of Siberia and has avoided taking men who had seen active
service—he is afraid of them and has mobilised the Siberian
peasants. That is his last effort, his last resource. He has no
support and no manpower. The Allies were unable to help him. It
was beyond their power.

That is why I appeal to the representatives of the trade union
movement to devote the greatest possible attention to this
question and to see to it that the mobilisation is not carried out
on the old lines. This must be a huge working-class political
campaign; it is not merely a military and food supply campaign,
but also a great political campaign.

If the situation is weighed up soberly in the light of factors
of the war and of class relationships, nobody can doubt that the
issue should be settled within the next few months. To achieve
this, the trade unions must not confine themselves to activity
within the old limits. If they do they will be unable to carry
out this task, which requires activity on a wider scale. They
must act not only as trade unionists, but also as revolutionaries deciding the basic question of the Soviet
Republic, a question similar to the one decided in
October—that of bringing the imperialist war to a close
and launching socialist construction. Today, the trade unions
must work as revolutionaries, on a mass scale; they must not
keep within the old limits in settling the practical question of
ending the Civil War in Russia. The end is very near, but it is
extremely difficult. To proceed:

“2. In the areas near the front, especially in the
Volga-side region, trade union members must be armed to a man, and
in the event of a shortage of arms, they must all be mobilised to
render every possible aid to the Red Army, to replace casualties,
etc.

“3. The most serious attention must be given to intensifying agitational work, especially among those to he
mobilised, those already mobilised and Red Army men. The usual
methods of agitation—lectures, meetings, etc.—are not enough; agitation should b carried on among Red Army men by
workers, singly or in groups; such groups of ordinary workers,
members of trade unions, should be appointed specifically to
barracks, Red Army units and factories. The trade unions must
institute a check to see that every one of their members takes
part in house-to-house agitation, distribution of leaflets and
personal talks.”

We, of course, have grown somewhat unaccustomed to the methods
of agitation we employed in the old days when we as a party were
persecuted, or were fighting for power. Political power has placed
a vast state machine in our hands, and through it agitation has
been organised on new lines. During the past eighteen months it
has been conducted on a different scale; but you know that because
of the chaos we inherited from the imperialist war and which was
intensified by the Civil War, and the terrible difficulties caused
by the invasion of a number of Russian gubernias, our agitation
has not done all that it should have done. Compared with past
agitation it has done wonders but it is not all that is needed,
and things have not been carried through to the end. Vast masses
of peasants and workers are practically untouched by our
agitation. That is why we must not keep within the old limits;
under no circumstances must we depend on our having state Soviet
organisations for this purpose. If we were to rely on that, we
would not be able to solve our problem. In this respect we should
recall the past, pay more attention to personal initiative arid
say that if this personal initiative is developed on a mass scale,
we shall do more than we did in the past, because the working
class, even though most of its members are exhausted, has now
instinctively understood the nature of the task. Even the
Merisheviks and the Socialist-Revolutionaries who owing to their
political ideology fought tooth and nail to prevent themselves
from understanding the situation, who hid behind an iron fence and
failed to understand reality—even these people now realise
that all over the world the struggle is going on between the old
bourgeois system and the new Soviet system. Ever since the German
revolution revealed its real character, ever since the German
Government showed that all it could do was murder the best leaders
o the proletariat with the support of the social-patriots of the
majority, and ever since Soviet power triumphed in a number of
European countries, this question has been settled in practice. The question is—Soviet power or the old bourgeois
order? It has been settled in practice on a historical scale. The
workers’ instinct decided the issue; this must be embodied
in agitation increased tenfold.

We cannot increase food supplies when there is no food; we
cannot increase the number of professional agitators and
intellectuals tenfold when none are available. This we cannot
do. But we can tell the broad masses of the workers that today
they are not what they were until yesterday. If you set out to
conduct personal agitation you will win by sheer weight of
numbers.

And we shall have a mobilisation that is not an ordinary one,
but is a real campaign to decide the ultimate fate of the working
class which realises that only the next few months separate us
from the last and decisive battle—not in the sense that this
is meant in song and verse, but in the literal sense of the word,
for we have weighed up our practical forces in other spheres and
not only insofar as concerns the whiteguards.

During this year we have made a practical estimate of our
forces relative to international imperialism. At one time the
Germans tried to throttle us, but we knew that they were hampered,
that the British and French imperialists were hanging on to them
with one hand. At one time we had the British arid French against
us. They had both hands free. Had they attacked us in December
1918, we could not have held out; we have now stood up to them for
several more trying months and we know that their bourgeois order
is decaying. Even their best troops were not fit for anything but
to retreat before units of insurgents operating in the
Ukraine. Our reasoning, therefore, is perfectly clear, and the
working class has instinctively realised that we are on the eve of
the last battle, that the next few months will decide whether we
shall achieve final victory, or whether we shall have to go
through fresh difficulties.

I shall read to you those of the other measures that are
outlined here:

“4. All male office workers are to be replaced by women,
for which purpose a new registration, both Party and trade union,
shall be carried out ....

“5. Aid Bureaus or Committees of Action, local and central, are to be instituted immediately
through the trade unions, factory committees, Party organisations,
co-operative societies, etc. Their addresses shall be published. The public shall be informed of them in the widest
possible manner. Every man liable to mobilisation, every Red Army
man, and every person desirous of leaving for the South, for the
Don or the Ukraine for food supply work should know that there is
an aid bureau or a committee of action nearby; that it is
accessible to every worker and peasant and he can obtain advice or
instruction there, that contact with the army authorities will be
facilitated for him, etc.

“It shall be the special task of these bureaus to help to equip the Red Army. We can greatly increase the
strength of our army if we improve the supply of arms, clothing,
etc. And among the population there are still considerable
quantities of arms which have been hidden or are not being used
for the army. There are still considerable factory stocks of goods
of various kinds needed by the army, and they must be quickly
found and dispatched to the army.. The army organisations in
charge of supplies should be given immediate, broad and effective
assistance by the general public. Every effort must be devoted to
this matter.”

I shall now touch upon the several different periods of our war
tasks. Our first war problem we tackled by guerrilla, irregular
insurrections such as the comrades in—Ukraine are now resorting to. There is not so much a regular war in the Ukraine as
a guerrilla movement and spontaneous insurrection. It results in
very rapid attacks and creates extreme chaos in the midst of which
the job of using stocks of food is one of incalculable difficulty. There is no old machinery, not even of the kind that
we inherited from the Smolny period of our rule—and that was
bad enough, and worked against us rather than for us. But why is
there no such machinery in the Ukraine? Because it has not yet
passed out of the phase of partisan warfare and spontaneous
insurrection into the regular army phase, which is always
characteristic of the consolidated power of every class, including
the proletariat. We created our machinery after several months of
untold difficulties.

We set up special food supply organisations. For a time we made
some use of the services of the food supply experts, keeping them
under Party supervision; now, however, we have everywhere army
organisations in charge of supplies. When a period of extreme
exertion of effort sets in, we say that we shall not revert to the
old partisan methods, we have suffered enough from them; we urge
that members of the working class shall be enlisted into the
existing organised bodies, the regular organisations for supplying
the Red Army. The working class In the mass can do that. You know
that chaos reigns in the matter of equipment, in the matter of
finding this equipment, of dispatching it, and so forth. Here help
is needed in the work of supplying the Red Army. Our army exports
say that we shall make progress if we mobilise a large number of
soldiers who will speedily and finally decide the issue on the
Eastern Front. But this is being held up mainly by the shortage of
supplies, which is not surprising in view of the state of ruin we
inherited from the imperialist war and the Civil War. But this
means that we must appreciate and understand the new situation
with its new tasks. A year ago we began to establish regular
organisations, but this is not enough; these regular organisations
must receive the assistance of the mass movement, of the mass
energy of the working class. Here we have an approximate outline
of what the trade unions could do in this matter. The trade unions
alone can do this, because they are closest to industry, and head
the largest section of the workers, a section numbering
millions. This task calls for a change in the tempo and the
character of their activities for the next few months. In this way
we shall be certain of complete victory within a few months.

“6. The trade unions must organise the extensive enlistment of peasants, especially of peasant youths in the nou
agricultural gubernias, for the ranks of the Red Army, for the
formation of food detachments and for the food army in the Don and
the Ukraine.

“This activity can and should be expanded to many times
its present volume; it helps both to assist the hungry population
of the metropolitan cities and the non-agricultural gubernias and
to strengthen the Red Army.”

I have already said that our food supply and war tasks are
closely connected, and you understand perfectly well that they
must be. They must be linked up. One cannot be carried out without
the other.

“7. As regards the Mensheviks and
Socialist-Revolutionaries, the Party line in the present situation
is to imprison those who assist Kolchak, whether deliberately or
unwittingly. In our republic of working people we shall not
tolerate anybody who does not help us by deeds in the fight
against Kolchak. Among the Mensheviks and
Socialist-Revolutionaries there are people who are willing to
render such help. These people should be encouraged and given
practical jobs, principally in the way of technical assistance to
the Red Army in the rear, and their work must be strictly
supervised ....”

In this respect we must say that lately we have been through an
exceedingly severe and unpleasant experience. You know that the
leading groups of the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries
looked at the matter in this way”In spite of everything, we
want to remain parliamentarians and condemn the Bolsheviks and
Kolchak’s followers alike.” We had to tell them politely that this is not the time for parliaments. Our enemies
are trying to get us by the throat, and we are fighting the last
and decisive battle. We shall not joke with them. When they foment
strikes like this, they commit a heinous crime against the working
class. Every strike costs the lives of thousands and thousands of
Red Army men as we can see. The cessation of arms production in
Tula means the death of thousands of workers and peasants; to
deprive us of a number of factories in Tula means depriving
thousands of workers of their lives. We say that we are fighting,
we are spending our last ounce of strength, we regard this war as
the only just and 1egitihate war. We have lit the torch of
socialism at home and all over the world. We shall fight
ruthlessly against anyone who hinders this struggle in the
slightest. He who is not for us is against us. But what if there
are people—and we know that there are such among the
Mensheviks—who cannot, or will not understand what is taking
place in Russia? Who are not yet convinced that although in Russia
the “wicked” Bolsheviks made such a revolution, in
Germany, the birthpangs of the revolution are immeasurably more
severe? The democratic republic there—what is it? What is
German freedom? It is freedom to murder the genuine leaders of the
proletariat—Karl Liebknecht, Rosa Luxemburg, and scores of
others. In this way the Scheidemann gang is only putting off the
hour of its defeat. Obviously, those people cannot govern. Since
November 9 there have been five months of freedom in the German
Republic, and either the Scheidemann gang or their accomplices
have been in power. But you know there is more squabbling among
them than ever. This example proves that the only alternative is
either the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie or the dictatorship of
the proletariat. The fact that there is no middle course is shown,
for example, by what we read today in the Frankfurter Zeitung. It says that the example of Hungary shows we
must go forward to socialism. Hungary has proved that the
bourgeoisie voluntarily surrenders power to the Soviets when they
know that the country is in such a desperate position that nothing
can save it, that nothing can lead the people along the difficult
path of salvation but the Soviets. And to those who, wavering
between the old and the new, say that although ideologically they
do not recognise the dictatorship of the proletariat they are,
nevertheless, prepared to assist oviet power and keep their
convictions to themselves because they understand that in the
midst of fierce war we must not argue, but fight—to those
people we say: “If you want to engage in politics, meaning
by politics that you, in front of the. weary and tormented masses,
will freely criticise Soviet power, not realising that in this way
you are helping Kolchak—we say there will be ruthless war
against you.” It is not easy to grasp the significance of
and carry out such a policy at one stroke. We cannot pursue the same policy with regard to all of them. We tell them
that if they want to engage in their politics, we shall provide
a place for them in prison, or in other countries which are
willing to receive them. We shall make these countries a present
of several hundred Menshevjks. Or do you, at last, want to offer
to help Soviet power, because otherwise there will be several
more years of untold disaster, and in the end Soviet power will
be victorious anyway. To people who talk like that we must give
every encouragement; and we must give them practical work to
do. This policy cannot be defined so easily and at one stroke as a policy which proceeds in one, single
direction. But I am sure that every worker who has had practical
experience of what the burden of war means, who knows what
supplying the Red Army means, who knows the horrors every Red
Army man at the front must go through—every worker will
fully appreciate this lesson in jolitics. That is why I ask you
to adopt these theses, and to concentrate all the efforts of the
trade unions on the task of putting them into operation as
speedily and vigorously as possible.

2

Reply To A Question On The Tula Strike

I have no definite information about Tula and cannot speak as
authoritatively on this matter as the preceding comrades
did. But I do know the political physiognomy of the newspaper
Vsegda Vperyod! This Is nothing more nor less than incitement to strike. It is aiding and abetting our enemies, the
Mensbeviks, who are fomenting strikes. Somebody asked me if this
had been proved. My reply is that if I were a barrister, a
solicitor, or a member of Parliament, I would be obliged to
present proof. But I am not the first, the second, or the third,
and so I do not intend to and there is no reason why I should. Even supposing the Menshevik Central Committee is better
than the Mensheviks in Tula who have been definitely exposed as
fomentors of strikes—in fact I have no doubt some of the
regular members of the Menshevik Committee are better—in a
political struggle, when the whiteguards are trying to get us by
the throat, is it possible to draw distinctions? Have we time
for it? Facts are facts. Let us suppose that they were not
aiding and abetting, but were weak and yielded to the Right
Mensheviks; so what of it? The Right Mensheviks foment strikes,
and Martov, or others, condemned these Rights in the newspapers. What does this teach us? We get a note saying
“I, too, condemn, but”... ( A voice : “What else can they do?”). They can do what the Bolshevik Party
does take their stand, not in words, but in deeds. Does not
propaganda abroad take advantage of the conduct of the
Mensheviks here? Did not the Berne Conference support all the
imperialists when they said that the Bolsheviks were usurpers?
We say—you have taken this stand at a time when Kolchak’s gangs are striking a blow that is
causing the death of thousands of Red Army men in a country
which the imperialists of the whole world are trying to
crush. In two years’ time, perhaps, after we have beaten
Kolchak, we shall examine this matter, but not now. Now we must
fight in order to defeat the enemy within the next few months;
and you know what this enemy will do to the workers. You know
this from what happened at

Ivashchenkovo. [3] You know what Kolchak is doing.

3

Speech Closing The Discussion

Comrades, one of the speakers, who was called the speaker for
the Opposition, demanded in a resolution that we should turn to
our Constitution. When I heard that I wondered whether the speaker
was not confusing our Constitution with the Scheidemann
Constitution. Scheidemann’s, like that of all democratic
republics, promises all citizens all sorts of liberties. Bourgeois
republics have promised this to everybody for hundreds and
thousands of years. You know what became of these bourgeois
republics; you know that on a world-wide scale they have all
collapsed. The vast majority of the workers side with the
Communists. The word “Sovietist”, which does not exist in the Russian language, is heard everywhere in the world. And we
can say that no matter what country we go to, if we say the word
“Sovietist”, everybody will understand us and follow our lead. Clause 23 of the Constitution says:

”Guided by the interests of the working class as a whole,
the R.S.F.S.R, deprives individual persons and individual groups
of rights used to the detriment of the socialist revolution.”

We did not promise liberties right and left; on the contrary,
we, in our Constitution, which has been translated into all
languages—into German, English, Italian and
French—said definitely that we shall deprive socialists of
their liberties if they use them to the detriment of the
socialist revolution, if they are used to cover up liberties for
the capitalists. That is why this reference to the Constitution
was wrong even from the formal point of view. We have openly
stated that in the transition period, the period of fierce
struggle, we not only refrain from promising liberties right and
left, but say in advance that we shall deprive of their
liberties those citizens who hinder the socialist revolution. Who will judge whether they do so or not? The
proletariat will.

Attempts have been made here to turn the question into one of
parliamentary struggle. I have always said: parliamentarism is an
excellent thing, but these are not parliamentary times. Hearing
the government declare that the situation is grave, Comrade
Lozovsky says that this is exactly the time for the people to
present scores of demands. That is what all parliamentarians did
in the “good old days”; but this is not the time for that sort of thing. I know that we suffer from a host of defects,
I know that in Hungary Soviet power will be better than in this
country. But when we are told in a period of mobilisation that
this, that and the other are proposed, and that we should bargain
over it, I say that these old parliamentary methods are useless;
the class-conscious workers have already rejected them. This is
not what we want.

We defined our main line as class struggle against the kulaks,
against the rich elements who are opposed to us. Success in this
being assured, we say that we must now establish more correct
relations with the middle peasants. This is a very difficult
job. In a period of grave danger you must help Soviet power,
such. as it is. We shall not change within the next few
months. Here there is not and cannot be any middle course. Any
attempt to create this middle course by artificial parliamentary
methods would be stepping on to slippery ground. When one speaker
said that the peasants are all opposed to us, this was one of
those “little” exaggerations which in practice encourage the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks. The
vast majority of the people know that by far most of the peasants
are with us. For the first time they have Soviet power. Even the
slogans of the insurrection (in which only an insignificant
section of the peasant masses was involved) were “For Soviet
power. For the Bolsheviks. Down with the cornmunia”. We say
that the fight against this will be a very stubborn one, because
the intelligentsia are sabotaging us on the sly. We have been
obliged to take a larger number of bad elements than good. Since
the better elements of the intelligentsia turned their backs on
us, we were obliged to take those that are not so good.

Comrade Romanov proposed a resolution which he himself formulated after his comrades had been arrested. “We demand
freedom for all...” they declare. (Lenin reads the resolution.) The workers later resumed work, but this cost us
several thousands of lost days and several thousands of lives of
Red Army men, workers and peasants, on the Eastern Front.

I ask calmly and categorically which is better, to imprison
several scores or hundreds of instigators, guilty or innocent,
deliberate or unwitting, or lose thousands of Red Army men and
workers? The first is better. I don’t care. whether I am
accused of committing every mortal sin imaginable and of violating
liberties, I plead guilty, but the interests of the workers will
be furthered. At a time like this, when the people are exhausted,
politically conscious elements should help them to hold on for the
next few months. It was not we who were victorious in Odessa. It
is ridiculous to think that we were victorious. We captured Odessa
because their soldiers refused to go into battle. I received a
telegram from the Northern Front saying, “Send the British
prisoners of war to the front.” The comrades here say that
the British are wailing and saying they will not go back into the
army. What does that show? Their troops refuse to go into
battle. They are ten times stronger than we are, and yet they
refuse to fight.

That is why, when we are told that we promised a lot, but have
done nothing, we say that we have done the main thing. We promised
to start a revolution which will become a world revolution; it has
begun, and it now stands so firmly on its feet that our
international position is splendid. We fulfilled our main promise
and, evidently, the vast majority f the class-conscious workers
realise this. They realise that now only a few months separate us
from victory over the capitalists all over the world. What are we
to do in these few months if certain elements are exhausted; what
should we do, play with them, incite them or, on the contrary,
help the exhausted to hold out for those few months that will
decide the fate of the entire war. You can see that in the South
we shall get the war over in less than a few months, we shall
finish it off completely and release the army for the East. It is
obvious, therefore, that the plans or the Entente—of the
British, French and Americans—have gone awry. In Odessa,
they had ten thousand men and a fleet—that is what the position was. This is not a matter of parliamentarism, or of
concessions—on this we make no promises and undertake no
obligations. We put the question this way—when the people
are war weary, and are hard pressed by hunger, what should the
class-conscious proletariat, the class-conscious section of the
workers do? Permit people to play on this weariness, for it is
beoming a game. If we say stop the war, the ignorant masses will
vote for it, but the class-conscious section of the masses says
that we can bring the war to a close within the next few
months. The weary must be encouraged, sustained and led. The
comrades themselves see that every class-conscious worker leads
scores of tired people. We say this and we demand it. This is
exactly what the dictatorship of the proletariat means—one
class leads the other, because it is more organised, more solid
and more class-conscious. The ignorant masses fall to every bait,
and because of their weariness are ready to yield to anything. But
the class-conscious section says that we must hold out, because in
a few months we shall be victorious all over the world. This is
how the matter stands. I take the liberty of thinking that the
time has not yet come for parliamentary debates. We must make
another big effort to achieve victory, and this time final
victory, within the next few months.

Endnotes

[1]
Following Lenin s report to this Plenary Meeting on the tasks of
the trade unions in connection with the mobilisation for the
Eastern Front, Lenin’s Theses of the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) on the Situation on the Eastern Front were adopted and were
next day published in Pravda.

[2]
The Moscow Soviet (August 24) and the Petrograd Soviet (September
5, 1918) passed decisions permitting factory and office workers of
those cities, in view of the grave food situation, to transport up
to one-and-a-half poods of foodstuffs for their personal use. A
resolution of the Council of People’s Commissars made these
decisions effective until October 1, 1918.

[3]
Lenin refers to the whiteguards’ brutal treatment of workers
from the Sergievsky Plant and the Tomylovo Artillery Warehouses at
the station of Ivashehenkovo, near Samara, on October 1 and 2,
1918. On the approach of Red Army units the workers decided to
prevent the whiteguards from removing factory equipment. With the
aid of the Czechoslovaks the whiteguards broke the resistance of
the workers and shot over a thousand of them.