V. I. Lenin

Letter of the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) to
Party Organisations

Main Task of the Moment
The Truth About Kolchak and Denikin Must Be Explained to the People
Work Among Men Called Up for Service
Work Among the Deserters
Direct Aid to the Army
Curtailment of Work Not for the War
Work in the Front Zone
Attitude Towards Military Experts
The Fight Against Counter-Revolution in the Rear
The Population Must Be Mobilised for War to a Man “Work in a Revolutionary Way”

Comrades, This is one of the most critical, probably even the most
critical moment for the socialist revolution. Those who defend
the exploiters, the landowners and capitalists, in Russia and
abroad (primarily in Britain and France) are making a desperate
effort to restore the power of those who seize the results of
the people’s labour, the landowners and exploiters of
Russia, in order to bolster up their power, which is waning all
over the world. The British and French capitalists have failed
in their plan to conquer the Ukraine using their own troops;
they have failed in their support of Kolchak in Siberia; the Red
Army, heroically advancing in the Urals with the help of the
Urals workers who are rising to a man, is nearing Siberia to
liberate it from the incredible tyranny and brutality of the
capitalists who rule there. Lastly, the British and French
imperialists have failed in their plan to seize Petrograd by
means of a counter-revolutionary conspiracy with the participation of Russian monarchists, Cadets, Mensheviks and
Socialist-Revolutionaries (not excluding even Left
Socialist-Revolutionaries).

The foreign capitalists are now making a desperate effort to
restore the yoke of capital by means of an onslaught by Denikin,
whom they have supplied with officers, shells, tanks, etc., etc.,
as they once did Kolchak.

All the forces of the workers and peasants, all the forces of
the Soviet Republic, must be harnessed to repulse Denikin’s
onslaught and to defeat him, without checking the Red Army’s
victorious advance into the Urals and Siberia. That is the

Main Task Of The Moment

All Communists first and foremost, all sympathisers with them,
all honest workers and peasants, all Soviet officials must
pull themselves together like soldiers and concentrate to the maximum their work , their efforts and their
concern directly on the tasks of the war , on the speedy
repulse of Denikin’s attack, curtailing and rearranging
all their other activities to allow for this task.

The Soviet Republic is besieged by the enemy. It must become
a single military camp , not in word but in deed.

All the work of all institutions most be adapted to the war and
placed on a military footing!

Collegiate methods are essential for the conduct of the affairs
of the workers’ and peasants’ state. But any expansion of these methods, any distortion of them resulting in red tape and
irresponsibility, any conversion of collegiate bodies into
talk-shops is a supreme evil, an evil which must be halted at all
costs as quickly as possible and by whatever the means.

Collegiate methods must not exceed an absolutely indispensable
minimum in respect both to the number of members in the committees
and to the efficient conduct of work; “speechifying” must be prohibited, opinions must be exchanged as rapidly as
possible and confined to information and precisely formulated
practical proposals.

Whenever there is the slightest possibility, such methods must
be reduced to the briefest discussion of only the most important
questions in the narrowest collegiate bodies, while the
practical management of institutions, enterprises, undertakings or tasks should be entrusted to one comrade ,
known for his firmness, resolution, boldness and ability to
conduct practical affairs and who enjoys the greatest confidence. At any rate, and under all circumstances without
exception, collegiate management must be accompanied by the
priciest definition of the personal responsibility of every individual for a precisely defined job. To
refer to collegiate methods as an excuse for irresponsibility is a
most dangerous evil, threatening all who have not had very
extensive experience in efficient collective work; in the army it
all too often leads to inevitable disaster, chaos, panic, division
of authority and defeat.

A no less dangerous evil is organisational fuss or organisational fantasies. The reorganisation of work necessitated
by the war must under no circumstances lead to the reorganisation
of institutions, still less to the hasty formation of new
institutions. That is absolutely impermissible and would only lead
to chaos. The reorganisation of work should consist in suspending
for a time institutions which are not absolutely essential, or in
reducing their size to a certain extent. But all war work must be
conducted entirely and exclusively through already existing military institutions, by improving, strengthening,
expanding and supporting them. The creation of special “defence committees” or “revcoms”
(revolutionary or revolutionary military committees) is
permissible, first, only by way of exception, secondly, only with
the approval of the military authority concerned or the superior
Soviet authority, and, thirdly, only provided this last condition
is complied with.

The Truth About Kolchak And Denikin
Must Be Explained To The People

Kolchak and Denikin are the chief, and the only serious,
enemies of the Soviet Republic. If it were not for the help they
are getting from the Entente (Britain, France, America) they would
have collapsed long ago. It is only the help of the Entente which
makes them strong. Nevertheless, they are still forced to deceive
the people, to pretend from time to time that they support
“democracy”, a “constituent assembly”, “government by the people”, etc. The Mensheviks and
Socialist-Revolutionaries are only too willing to be duped.

The truth about Kolchak (and his double, Denikin) has now been
revealed in full. The shooting of tens of thousands of workers. The shooting even of Mensheviks and
Socialist-Revolutionaries. The flogging of peasants of entire
districts. The public flogging of women. The absolutely unbridled
power of the officers, the sons of landowners. Endless looting. Such is the truth about Kolchak and Denikin. Increasing
numbers of people even among the Mensheviks and
Socialist-Revolutionaries, who themselves betrayed the workers and
sided with Kolchak and Denikin, are forced to admit this
truth.

All our agitation and propaganda must serve to inform the
people of the truth. It must be explained that the alternative is
either Kolchak and Denikin or Soviet power, the power (dictatorship) of the workers. There is no middle course; there
can be no middle course. Particular use must be made of the
testimony of non-Bolshevik eyewitnesses, of Mensheviks,
Socialist-Revolutionaries, and non-party people who have been in the areas overrun by Kolchak or Denikin. Let every
worker and peasant know what the issue of the struggle is, what
awaits him in the event of a victory for Kolchak or Denikin.

Work Among Men Called Up For Service

One of our chief concerns must now be work among those liable to
mobilisation, in aid of mobilisation, and among those already
mobilised. Wherever mobilised men are concentrated, or where
there are garrisons, and especially training depots, etc., every
single Communist and sympathiser must be brought into action. They must all without exception unite and work, some
daily, others, say, four or eight hours per week, in aid of
mobilisation and among mobilised men, among the soldiers of the
local garrison; it must be done in a properly organised manner,
of course, each person being assigned appropriate work by the
local Party organisation and the military authorities.

Non-party people or members of parties other than the Communist
Party are naturally not in a position to carry on ideological work
against Denikin or Kolchak. But to release them for that reason
from all work would be impermissible. Every means must be sought
that would compel the whole population (and the wealthier sections , both in town and country, in the first place) to
contribute their share, in one form or another, to help
mobilisation or the mobilised.

Measures to further the quickest and most effective training of
the mobilised should form a special category of aid. The Soviet
government is calling up all ex-officers, non-commissioned
officers, etc. The Communist Party, as well as all sympathisers
and all workers, must assist the workers’ and peasants’ state, first, by helping to round up all
ex-officers, non-commissioned officers, etc., who do not report
for service, and, secondly, by organising, under the control of
the Party organisation or attached to it, groups of those who have
had theoretical or practical (e.g., in the imperialist war)
military training and who are capable of doing their share.

Work Among Deserters

An obvious change for the better has latterly taken place in the
fight against desertion. In a number of gubernia s deserters have begun to return to the army en masse; it is no
exaggeration to say that deserters are flocking to the Red
Army. The reasons are, first, that Party comrades are working
more efficiently and systematically, and, secondly, the
peasants’ growing realisation that Kolchak and Denikin mean the restoration of a regime which is worse than the
tsarist, the restoration of slavery for the workers and
peasants, and of floggings, robbery and insults on the part of
the officers and scions of the nobility.

We must therefore everywhere lay special stress on the work
among deserters to bring them back into the army, and must
spare no effort in this work. That is one of the primary
and urgent tasks of the day.

Incidentally, the fact that deserters can be influenced by
persuasion and that the persuasion can be effective shows
that the workers’ state has a special attitude towards the peasants, and in this it differs from the landowner or
capitalist state The rule of the bludgeon or the rule of
hunger—that is what constitutes the sole source of discipline of the latter two forms of state. A different
source of discipline is possible in the case of the workers’
state, or the dictatorship of the proletariat—that of persuasion of the peasants by the workers, a comradely alliance
between them. When you hear the accounts of eyewitnesses that in
such-and-such a gubernia (Ryazan, for instance) thousands
upon thousands of deserters are returning voluntarily, that the
appeal at meetings to “comrades deserters” sometimes has a success which beggars all description, you begin to realise
how much untapped strength there is in this comradely alliance between workers and peasants. The peasant has his
prejudice , which makes him inclined to support the capitalist, the Socialist-Revolutionary, and “freedom to
trade”, but he also has his sound judgement , which is impelling him more and more towards an alliance with the
workers.

Direct Aid To The Army

What our army needs most is supplies —clothing, foot wear, arms, shells. With the country impoverished as it is,
an immense effort has to be made to satisfy the army’s needs, and it is only the assistance which the capitalist
robbers of Britain, France and America are so lavishly rendering
Kolchak and Denikin that saves them from inevitable disaster due
to shortage of supplies.

But impoverished though Russia is, she still has endless
resources which we have not yet utilised, and often have shown
no ability to utilise. There are still many undisclosed
or uninspected military stores, plenty of production potentialities which are being overlooked, partly owing to the
deliberate sabotage of officials, partly owing to red tape,
bureaucracy, inefficiency and incompetence—all those “sins of the past” which so inevitably and so
drastically weigh upon every revolution which makes a “leap” into a new social order.

Direct aid to the army in this respect is particularly important. The institutions in charge of it are particularly in
need of “fresh blood”, of outside assistance, of the voluntary, vigorous and heroic initiative of the workers
and peasants in the localities.

We must appeal as widely as possible to the initiative of all
class-conscious workers and peasants, and of all Soviet officials;
we must test in different localities and in different fields of
work different forms of assistance to the army in this respect. “Work in a revolutionary way” is far less in
evidence here than in other spheres, yet “work in a revolutionary way” is needed here far more.

The collection of arms from the population is an integral part
of this work. It is natural that plenty of arms should have been
hidden by the peasants and the bourgeoisie in a country which has
been through four years of imperialist war followed by two
people’s revolutions—it was inevitable that this should happen. But we must combat it with all our might
now, in face of Denikin’s menacing onslaught whoever conceals or helps to conceal arms is guilty of a grave crime
against the workers and peasants and deserves to be shot, for he
is responsible for the death of thousands upon thousands of the
finest Red Army men, who not infrequently perish only because of a
shortage of arms at the fronts.

The Petrograd comrades succeeded in unearthing thousands and
thousands of rifles when they conducted mass searches in a
strictly organised way. The rest of Russia must not lag behind
Petrograd and must at all costs over take and outstrip it.

On the other hand, there is no doubt that the largest numbers
of rifles are hidden by the peasants, and often without the least
evil intention, but solely from an ingrained distrust of any
“state”, etc. If we have been able to do much, very much (in the best gubernia s) by means of
persuasion , skilful agitation and a proper approach to
get deserters to return to the Red Army voluntarily, there can be
no doubt that just as much, if not more, can be done, and should
be done, to secure a voluntary return of arms.

Workers and peasants, look for concealed rifles and turn them
over to the army! By doing so you will save yourselves from being
massacred, shot, flogged wholesale and robbed by Kolchak and
Denikin!

Curtailment Of Work Not For The War

To carry out even a part of the work briefly outlined above we
shall need more and more workers, drawn, moreover, from the
ranks of the most reliable, devoted and energetic
Communists. But where are they to come from, bearing in mind the
universal complaints about the dearth of such workers and the
over-fatigue they are suffering from?

There can be no doubt that these complaints are largely
justified. If anyone were to gauge exactly how thin is that
stratum of advanced workers and Communists who with the support
and sympathy of the worker and peasant masses have administered
Russia in these last twenty months, it would seem truly
incredible. Yet we administered with signal success, building
socialism, overcoming unparalleled difficulties, and vanquishing
enemies, directly or indirectly connected with the bourgeoisie,
that raised their heads everywhere. We have already vanquished all
enemies except one—the Entente, the all-powerful imperialist
bourgeoisie of Britain, France and America. And we have broken one
of the arms of this enemy too—Kolchak. We are only threatened by his other arm—Denikin.

Fresh labour-power for the administration of the state and to
carry out the tasks of the dictatorship of the proletariat are
rapidly emerging in the shape of the worker and peasant youth who
are most earnestly, zealously and fervidly learning, digesting the
new impressions of the new order, throwing off the husk of old,
capitalist and bourgeois democratic prejudices, and moulding
themselves into even firmer Communists than the older generation.

But however rapidly this new stratum may be emerging, however
rapidly it may be learning and maturing in the fire of the Civil
War and the frantic resistance of the bourgeoisie, all the same it
cannot, in the next few months, supply us with a trained
staff for the administration of the state. Yet it is precisely the
next few months, the summer and autumn of 1919, that count, for it
is essential to decide the struggle against Denikin, and
it must be done immediately.

In order to obtain a large number of well-trained workers to
strengthen the war effort we must reduce in size a whole
number of branches and institutions, not doing war work, or,
rather, those not directly connected with the war, but doing
Soviet work; we must reorganise on these lines (i.e., on
the lines of reduction) all institutions and enterprises which are
not absolutely indispensable.

Take, as a case in point, the Scientific and Technological
Department of the Supreme Economic Council. This is a highly
valuable institution, one indispensable for the building of
full-scale socialism and to account for and distribute all our
scientific and technological forces properly. But is such an
institution absolutely indispensable? Of course not. To assign to
it people who could and should be immediately employed in urgent
and absolutely indispensable communist work in the army
or directly for the army would, at the present juncture,
be a downright crime.

There are quite a number of such institutions and departments
of institutions in the centre and in the localities. In our
efforts to achieve socialism in full we had to begin to set up
such institutions immediately. But we would be fools or criminals,
if, in the face of Denikin’s formidable attack, we were
unable to reform our ranks in such a way as to suspend or reduce everything that is not
absolutely indispensable.

We must not give way to panic or succumb to the organisational
urge and must not reorganise any institutions nor close them down
altogether nor—which is particularly harmful when being done
in haste—must we begin to build new institutions. What we
must do is to suspend for three, four or five months all institutions or departments of institutions, both in
the centre and in the localities, which are not absolutely
indispensable, or, if it is not possible to suspend them
altogether, reduce them for the same (approximately)
period, reduce them to the greatest possible extent, in other
words, reduce the work to an absolutely indispensable minimum.

Inasmuch as our main purpose is to secure at once a large
number of well-trained, experienced, devoted and tested Communists
or socialist sympathisers for military work, we can incur the risk
of temporarily leaving many of the heavily curtailed institutions
(or departments of institutions) without a single Communist , of placing them exclusively in the hands of
bourgeois executives. That is not a big risk, for it is only
institutions which are not absolutely indispensable that are
involved, and while there will certainly be a loss from the
weakening of their (semi-suspended) activities, it will not be a
great loss, and one which at any rate will not be fatal to
us. Whereas insufficient energy in strengthening war work, and
strengthening it immediately and considerably, may prove fatal to
us. This must be clearly understood and all the necessary
conclusions drawn from it.

If every manager of a government department or of a division of
a government department in every gubernia , uyezd, etc.,
if every Communist nucleus, without losing a moment, asks, is
such-and-such an institution, such-and-such a department
absolutely indispensable, shall we perish if we suspend it or
reduce its activities by nine-tenths and leave no Communists in it
at all?—if the posing of this question is followed by speedy
and resolute reduction of work and withdrawal of Communists
(together with their absolutely reliable assistants among the
sympathisers or non-party people), in a very short time we shall
have hundreds upon hundreds of persons for work in the political
departments of the army, as commissars, etc. And then we shall
have a very good chance of defeating Denikin, just as we have
defeated the much stronger Kolchak.

Work In The Front Zone

The front zone in the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet
Republic has greatly increased in the past few weeks and has
undergone an extremely rapid change. This is a harbinger or
concomitant of the decisive moment of the war, of its approaching concluding phase.

On the one hand, a vast front zone west of the Urals and in the
Ural Mountains proper has become our front zone owing to the
victories of the Red Army, the disintegration of Kolchak, and the
growth of revolution in Kolchakia. On the other hand, an even larger zone near Petrograd and in the South has become a
front zone owing to our losses, owing to the immense advance made
by the enemy towards Petrograd and the advance from the South into
the Ukraine and towards the centre of Russia.

Work in the front zone is assuming cardinal importance.

In the Cis-Urals area, where the Red Army, is rapidly advancing, there is a natural desire among army
workers—commissars, members of political departments, etc.—as well as among local workers and peasants, to settle
down in the newly won localities for constructive Soviet work, a
desire which is the more natural, the greater the war fatigue and
the more distressful the picture of the destruction wrought by
Kolchak. But nothing could be more dangerous than to yield to this
desire. It would threaten to weaken our offensive, to retard it,
and to increase Kolchak’s chances of recovering his strength. It would be a downright crime against the revolution on
our part.

Under no circumstances must a single extra worker be taken from
the Eastern Army for local work! [Unless there is urgent need none at all should be taken, but people should be transferred from the central gubernia s! ] Under no
circumstances can the offensive be weakened! The only chance we
have of complete victory is for the entire population of the Urals
area, who have experienced the horrors of Kolchak “democracy”, to take part in it to a man, and to
continue the offensive into Siberia until the complete victory of the revolution in Siberia.

Let organisational work in the Cis-Urals and the Urals area be
delayed, let it proceed less intensively, being done by local,
young, inexperienced and weak forces alone. We shall not perish
from that. But if we weaken the offensive against the
Urals and Siberia we shall perish. We must strengthen that offensive with the forces of the
insurgent workers in the Urals, with the forces of the Cis-Urals
peasants, who have now learned to their cost the meaning of the
“constituent” promises of the Menshevik Maisky and the
Socialist-Revolutionary Chernov, and the real meaning of these
promises, i.e. , Kolchak.

To weaken the offensive against the Urals and Siberia would be
to betray the revolution, to betray the cause of the emancipation
of the workers and peasants from the Kolchak yoke.

It should be remembered in connection with the work in the
front zone which has only just been liberated that the main task
there is to make not only the workers, but the peasants as well,
put their faith in Soviet power, to explain to them in practice
that Soviet power means the power of the workers and peasants, and
at once to take the right course, the course adopted by the Party
from the experience of twenty months of work. We must not repeat
in the Urals the mistakes which were sometimes made in Great
Russia and which we are rapidly learning to avoid.

In the front zone outside Petrograd and in that vast front zone
which has been growing so rapidly and menacingly in the Ukraine
and in the South, absolutely everything must be put on a war
footing, and all work, all efforts, all thoughts subordinated to
the war and only the war. Otherwise it will be impossible to
repulse Denikin’s attack. That is clear. And this must be
clearly understood and fully put into practice.

Incidentally. A feature of Denikin’s army is the large number of officers and Cossacks in it. This is an element which,
having no mass force behind it, is extremely likely to engage in
swift raids, in gambles, in desperate ventures, with the object of
sowing panic and causing destruction for destruction’s sake.

In fighting such a foe military discipline and military
vigilance of the highest degree are necessary. To be caught
napping or to lose one’s head means losing everything. Every
responsible Party and Soviet worker must bear this in mind.

Military discipline in military and all other matters!

Military vigilance and strictness, and firmness in the adoption
of all measures of precaution!

Attitude Towards Military Experts

The vast conspiracy hatched at Krasnaya Gorka and whose purpose
was the surrender of Petrograd has again brought forward and with
particular emphasis the question of the military experts and of
combating counter-revolution in the rear. There can be no doubt
that the aggravation of the food and war situation is inevitably
stimulating, and will continue to stimulate in the immediate
future, still greater efforts by the counter-revolutionaries (in
the Petrograd plot there participated the League of Regeneration,
Cadets, Mensheviks and Right Socialist-Revolutionaries; the Left
Socialist-Revolutionaries also participated, as a separate group,
it is true, but they did participate nevertheless). Nor can there
be any doubt that the military experts, like the kulaks, the
bourgeois intellectuals, the Mensheviks and the
Socialist-Revolutionaries, will in the near future give a bigger
proportion of traitors.

But it would be an irreparable mistake and unpardonable
weakness of character to raise on this account the question of
changing the fundamental principles of our army policy. Hundreds
and hundreds of military experts are betraying us and will betray
us; we will catch them and shoot them, but thousands and tens of
thousands of military experts have been working for us systematically and for a long time, and without them we could not
have formed the Red Army, which has grown out of the guerrilla
force of evil memory, and has been able to score brilliant
victories in the East. Experienced people who head our War
Department rightly point out that where the Party policy in regard
to the military experts and the extirpation of the guerrilla
spirit has been adhered to most strictly, where discipline is
firmest, where political work among the troops and the work of the
commissars is conducted most thoroughly, there, generally
speaking, the number of military experts inclined to betray us is
the lowest, there the opportunities for those who are so inclined
to carry out their designs are the slightest, there we have no
laxity in the army, there its organisation and morale are best,
and there we have the most victories. The guerrilla spirit, its
vestiges, remnants and survivals have been the cause of
immeasurably greater misfortune, disintegration, defeats,
disasters and losses in men and military equipment in our army and
in the Ukrainian army than all the betrayals of the military
experts.

Our Party Programme, both on the general subject of bourgeois
experts, and on the particular problem of one of their varieties,
the military experts, has defined the policy of the Communist
Party with absolute precision. Our Party is waging and will
continue to wage “a relentless struggle against the pseudo-radical but actually ignorant and conceited opinion that
the working people are capable of overcoming capitalism and the
bourgeois social system without learning from bourgeois
specialists, without making use of their services and without
undergoing the training of a lengthy period of work side
by side with them”.

At the same time, of course, the Party does not make the
“slightest political concession to this bourgeois section of
the population”, the Party suppresses and will continue
“ruthlessly to suppress any counter-revolutionary attempts
on its part”. Naturally, whenever such an “attempt” is made or becomes more or less probable,
its “ruthless suppression” requires other qualities than the deliberateness, the cautiousness of an apprentice, which
are demanded for lengthy training, and which the latter
inculcates. The contradiction between the attitude of people
engaged in the “lengthy period of work side by side” with the military experts, and the attitude of people absorbed in
the direct task of “ruthlessly suppressing a counter-revolutionary attempt” of military experts might
easily lead, and does lead, to friction and conflict. The same
applies to the necessary changes of personnel, the shifting around
sometimes of large numbers of military experts which is
necessitated by instances of counter-revolutionary “attempts”, and all the more by large-scale
conspiracies.

We settle, and will continue to settle, such friction and
conflicts in the Party way, demanding the same of all the Party
organisations and insisting that not the slightest damage to
practical work, not the slightest delay in the adoption of
essential measures, not a shadow of hesitation in the observance
of the established principles of our military policy be
tolerated.

If some of our Party bodies adopt an incorrect tone towards the
military experts (as was recently the case in Petrograd), or if in
some cases “criticism” of military experts turns into direct hindrance to the systematic and persistent work of
employing them, the Party immediately rectifies, and will rectify,
such mistakes.

The chief and principal means of rectifying them is to intensify political work in the army and among the mobilised, to
improve the work of the commissars in the army, to have more
highly qualified commissars, to raise their level, to have them
carry out in practice that which the Party Programme demands and which only too often is carried out far too
inadequately, i.e., “the concentration of all-round control over the commanders (of the army) in the hands of the
working class”. Criticism of the military experts by outsiders, attempts to correct matters by “lightning
raids” are too easy, and therefore hopeless and harmful. All
those who recognise their political responsibility, who take the
defects of our army to heart, let them join its ranks, either as
privates or commanders, as political workers or commissars; let
each work—every Party member will find a place suited to
his abilities—inside the army organisation for its improvement.

The Soviet government has long been paying the greatest
attention to making it possible for workers, and also peasants,
Communists in particular, to master the art of war in all
seriousness. This is being done at a number of establishments,
institutions and courses, but still far too little is being
done. There is still a lot of room here for personal initiative
and personal energy. Communists, in particular, should persistently study the handling of machine guns, artillery,
armoured vehicles, etc., for here our backwardness is more
telling, here the enemy’s superiority, with his larger number of officers, is greater, here it is possible for an
unreliable military expert to do grave harm, here the role of the
Communist is important in the extreme.

The Fight Against Counter-Revolution In The Rear

Counter-revolution is raising its head in our rear and in our
midst just as it did in July of last year.

Counter-revolution has been defeated, but by no means destroyed, and is naturally taking advantage of Denikin’s
victories and of the aggravation of the food shortage. And, as
always, in the wake of direct and open counter-revolution, in the
wake of the Black Hundreds and the Cadets, whose strength lies in
their capital, their direct connections with Entente imperialism,
and their understanding of the inevitability of dictatorship and
their ability to exercise it (on Kolchak lines)—in their
wake follow the wavering, spineless Mensheviks, Right
Socialist-Revolutionaries and Left Socialist-Revolutionaries, who
embellish their deeds with words.

There should be no illusions on this score! What is the
“nutritive medium” which engenders counter-revolutionary activities, outbreaks, conspiracies and so
forth we know full well. The medium is the bourgeoisie, the
bourgeois intelligentsia, the kulaks in the countryside, and,
everywhere, the “non-party” public, as well as the
Socialist-Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks. We must redouble, we
must increase tenfold our watch over this medium. We must
multiply tenfold our vigilance, because counter-revolutionary
attempts from this quarter are absolutely inevitable, precisely at
the present moment and in the near future. For this reason, too,
repeated attempts to blow up bridges, to foment strikes, to engage
in every kind of espionage and the like, are natural. All
precautions of the most intense, systematic, repeated, wholesale
and unexpected kind are essential in all centres without exception
where the “nutritive medium” of the counter-revolutionaries has the least chance of existing.

In regard to the Mensheviks and the Right and Left
Socialist-Revolutionaries, we must draw a lesson from our most
recent experience. Among their “periphery”, among the public which gravitates towards them, there is an undoubted
shifting away from Kolchak and Denikin towards Soviet power. We
have taken cognisance of this shift, and every time it has assumed
any real shape we, on our part, have taken a step to meet it. This
policy of ours we shall not change under any circumstances, and
generally speaking, there will no doubt be an increase in the
number of “migrants” from the type of Menshevism and
Socialist-Revolutionarism which leans towards Kolchak and Denikin
to the type of Menshevism and Socialist-Revolutionarism which
leans towards Soviet power.

But at the present juncture the petty-bourgeois democrats,
headed by the Socialist-Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks,
spineless and wavering as always, are watching to see which way
the wind blows, and are swinging in the direction of the victor,
Denikin. This is especially true of the “political leaders” of the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries of the
Mensheviks (of the type of Martov and Co.), of the Right
Socialist-Revolutionaries (of the type of Chernov and Co.), and of
their “literary groups” in general, whose members, apart from all else, are deeply offended at their political
bankruptcy, and for whom hazardous ventures against Soviet power,
therefore, have an attraction that is hardly likely to be
eradicated.

We must not allow ourselves to be deceived by the words and
ideology of their leaders, by their personal integrity or
hypocrisy. This is important from the standpoint of their
individual biographies. But it is not important from the
standpoint of politics, i.e., of the relations between classes, of
the relations between millions of people. Martov and Co.,
“in the name of the Central Committee”, solemnly condemn their “activists” and threaten (eternally
threaten!) to expel them from the party. But this by no means does
away with the fact that the “activists” are the strongest of all among the Mensheviks, hide behind them, and carry
on their work on behalf of Kolchak and Denikin. Volsky and
Co. condemn Avksentyev, Chernov and Co., but this does not in the
least prevent the latter from being stronger than Volsky, nor does
it prevent Chernov from saying, “If it is not we who are to
overthrow the Bolsheviks, and not now, then who is, and
when?” The Left Socialist-Revolutionaries may “work independently” without any agreement with the reactionaries,
with the Chernovs, but actually they are just as much allies of
Denikin and pawns in his game as the late Left
Socialist-Revolutionary Muravyov, the ex-commander-in-chief, who
for “ideological” reasons opened the front to the
Czechoslovaks and to Kolchak.

Martov, Volsky and Co. fancy themselves “superior” to both contending sides; they fancy themselves capable of
creating a “third side”.

This desire, even when it is sincere, still remains the
illusion of the petty-bourgeois democrat, who to this day, seventy
years after 1848, has still not learned the most elementary thing,
namely, that in a capitalist environment only the dictatorship of
the bourgeoisie or the dictatorship of the proletariat is
possible, and that no third course can exist. Martov and Co. will
evidently die with this illusion. That is their affair. And it is
our affair to remember that in practice vacillations on the part
of these people are inevitable, today in the direction of Denikin,
tomorrow in the direction of the Bolsheviks. And today we must do
the task of this day.

Our task is to put the question bluntly. What is better? To
ferret out, to imprison, sometimes even to shoot hundreds of
traitors from among the Cadets, non-party people, Mensheviks and
Socialist-Revolutionaries, who “come out” (some with arms in hand, others with conspiracies, others still with
agitation against mobilisation, like the Menshevik printers and
railwaymen, etc.) against Soviet power, in other words , in favour of Denikin ? Or to allow matters to
reach such a pass that Kolchak and Denikin are able to slaughter,
shoot and flog to death tens of thousands of workers and peasants?
The choice is not difficult to make.

That is how the question stands, and not otherwise.

Whoever has not yet understood this, whoever is capable of
whining over the “iniquity” of such a decision, must be given up as hopeless and held up to public ridicule and
shame.

The Population Must Be Mobilised
For War To A Man

The Soviet Republic is a fortress besieged by world capital. We can concede the right to use it as a refuge from
Kolchak, and the right to live in it generally, only to those who
take an active part in the war and help us in every way. Hence our
right and our duty to mobilise the whole population for the war to
a man, some for army work in the direct meaning of the term,
others for subsidiary activities of every kind in aid of the
war.

To carry this out in full, an ideal organisation is required. And since our government organisation is very far from
perfect (which is not in the least surprising in view of its
youth, its novelty and the extraordinary difficulties which
accompany its development), to attempt at once and on a wide scale
anything complete or even very considerable in this sphere would
be a most dangerous indulgence in fantastic organisational
schemes.

But much can be done in a partial way to bring us nearer to
this ideal, and the “initiative” shown by our Party workers and Soviet officials in this respect is very, very far
from enough.

It will suffice here to raise this question and to draw the
attention of comrades to it. There is no need to give any specific
instructions or proposals.

Let us only observe that the petty-bourgeois democrats who
stand nearest to the Soviets and who call themselves, by force of
habit, socialists—some of the “Left” Mensheviks and the like, for example—are particularly disposed to wax
indignant at the”barbaric”, in their opinion, practice of taking hostages.

Let them wax indignant, but unless this is done war can not be
waged, and when the danger grows acute the use of this means must
be extended and multiplied in every sense. Not infrequently, for
instance, Menshevik or yellow printers, higher railway employees
or secret profiteers, kulaks, the wealthy sections of the urban
(and rural) population and similar elements look upon defence
against Kolchak and Denikin with an infinitely criminal and
infinitely brazen attitude of indifference which grows into
sabotage. Lists of such groups must be drawn up (or they must be
compelled themselves to form groups in which each answers for
everybody), and they must not only be put to work digging
trenches, as is sometimes practised, but assigned to the most
diverse and comprehensive duties for material aid to the Red
Army.

The fields of the Red Army men will be better cultivated, the
supply of food, tobacco and other necessities to the Red Army men
will be better arranged, the danger to the lives of thousands upon
thousands of workers and peasants resulting from a single
conspiracy, etc., will be considerably reduced if we employ this
method more widely, more comprehensively and more skilfully.

“Work In A Revolutionary Way”

Summing up what was said above, we arrive at a simple conclusion. What is demanded immediately and in the course of
the next few months of all Communists, of all class-conscious
workers and peasants, of everyone who does not want to see
Kolchak and Denikin win, is an extraordinary accession of
energy; what is needed is “work in a revolutionary way”.

The starving, exhausted and worn-out Moscow railwaymen, both
skilled and unskilled, have for the sake of victory over Kolchak
inaugurated “communist subbotniks”—work without pay for several hours a week to continue until victory
over Kolchak is complete—and have, moreover, developed unprecedented labour productivity, exceeding the usual
productivity many times over; this goes to show that much, very
much can still be done.

And we must do it.

Then we shall win.

Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks)