(Applause.) Comrades, I shall have to limit myself to brief remarks concerning the speeches and declarations you have just heard. One of the notes I received expresses perplexity and asks what benefit a Congress of Soviets could derive from hearing such declarations and speeches. I think that the majority of you will not agree with this opinion. Undoubtedly, a reminder of where certain—perhaps now fairly popular—turns of phrase in our political situation, as set forth by those parties, parts of which have just proclaimed their declarations, a reminder of this can never be useless. For example, take the arguments of the representative of the Menshevik party, or rather, of a certain section of that party. It is not our fault that the Menshevik and Socialist-Revolutionary parties, while still retaining their names, represent such a conglomeration of disparate sections, such a constant transition of one part to another, which makes them—willing or unwilling, conscious or unconscious—accomplices of international imperialism. This is evident from the declarations and speeches heard by the Congress.

I was reproached, for instance, with having advanced a new theory about an impending new period of wars. I do not need to go far back into history to demonstrate the basis for my words. We have only just finished with Wrangel, but Wrangel's troops exist somewhere, not very far from the borders of our republic, and are waiting for something. Therefore, whoever forgets about the constant danger threatening us, a danger that will not cease as long as world imperialism exists—whoever forgets this forgets about our labor republic. To tell us that we are conducting secret diplomacy, to tell us that we should wage only defensive war, when a knife is still held over us, when, despite hundreds of our proposals and the unprecedented concessions to which we have agreed, not a single major power has yet concluded peace with us—to say this to us is to repeat the old phrases of petty-bourgeois pacifism that have long lost all meaning. If before such constantly actively hostile forces we were to give an oath, as we are being urged to do, that we shall never resort to certain actions which, in military-strategic terms, might prove offensive in character, then we would be not only fools but criminals. To this these pacifist phrases and resolutions lead us. They lead to wanting to bind the hands and feet of Soviet power, surrounded by enemies, and to deliver it to the mercy of world imperialist predators.

When there is further talk about proletarian unity, about how we are violating it, it is difficult to listen without smiling. We here at home have heard about proletarian unity and have now seen in practice that proletarian unity in the epoch of social revolution can be achieved only by the most extreme revolutionary party of Marxism, only by a merciless struggle against all other parties. (Stormy applause.)

We are further told about arming the whole people, repeating the hackneyed old bourgeois-democratic slogan, when among this very people the most decisive class struggle is raging.

Yesterday I had the pleasure—unfortunately not for as long as I would have wished—of attending a small private meeting of non-party delegates to our Congress—peasants—and I gained an extraordinary amount from their debates on the most urgent questions of village life, questions of food, ruination, and want, which you all know.{82} From these debates what struck me most forcefully was the extent to which profound is the struggle between the poor peasant, the genuinely laboring peasant, the kulak, and the loafer. The greatest significance of our revolution lies in the fact that we have helped at the very depths of the village, in the masses of the least politically conscious, in the masses of non-party peasantry, to pose this fundamental question of social revolution not merely theoretically but widely in practice. Now in all the villages and hamlets of the vast Soviet Russia, people are analyzing, arguing, and becoming convinced about who benefit from our political and economic measures; everywhere in the most remote corners they are analyzing the question of the laboring peasantry and the kulak. Sometimes they accuse each other too hotly and passionately, but in any case, one way or another, they are analyzing and understanding that it is necessary and obligatory to help the laboring peasant and set him on his feet, and to parry all the sallies of the overzealous kulak.

Class struggle has become a reality in the village, in the thick of the peasant masses, and we have done and do everything so that this struggle is conscious. And when after this some leaders of a special "International"{83} appear before us and speak about arming the people, one feels as if one has been transformed into a pupil in a preparatory class on questions of Marxism and socialism. To forget the class struggle that is raging throughout the world—that means unwittingly to aid the imperialists of the whole world against the struggling proletariat. The slogan of our enemies is the arming of the people, but we stand on the basis of class arming, and on that basis we have conquered and on that basis we shall always conquer. (Stormy applause.)

The representatives of the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries spoke to us here about how we can permit such a thing as concessions without a special popular conference, and they asked us why we do not place labor equality at the head of our economic policy (in the resolution of the Socialist-Revolutionaries this labor equality was called "labor-rule," and in the resolution of the Mensheviks it was rephrased and called equality of the toilers of city and country). But what do these phrases about "labor-rule" mean if not agitation for the independence of the trade unions from class proletarian power? About this "independence" of the trade unions, together with the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries, the entire West European bourgeois press frets and laments.

When Martov appeared at the Congress of Independents in Halle and spoke there, untrammeled by the dictatorship of the Bolsheviks, which was unpleasant to him, about everything he wished to speak about, what came of it? What came of it was that within a few days Martov's speech found itself in full, as a choice morsel, in the most reactionary and imperialist press of England. This press thanked Citizen Martov (though there they say not "citizen" but "gentleman") for having revealed the designs of the Bolsheviks. When such speeches are made in the context of a world struggle against us, what are they if not a morsel of the policy of the Entente? You may, of course, say that this is the expression of your idea about labor-rule and so on—petty-bourgeois nonsense—but in fact it is, I repeat, nothing other than a morsel of the policy of the Entente. Tomorrow, if there is an Entente intermediary here, this speech of yours will be delivered to all the capitalist countries and will be printed there in millions of copies, so that your speech, Citizen Dan, may be used to deceive and lead astray a part of the unconscious European workers.

It has worked out for Citizen Dan in such a way that from my words about labor discipline I defend only compulsion; the representative of the Socialist-Revolutionary party was more precise and said that I defend compulsion on the basis of conviction. Our entire policy clearly answers this. We do not at all claim that we are conducting our work without error, but, please, show us these errors, show us these other approaches—but we have not heard of these other approaches here. Neither the Mensheviks nor the Socialist-Revolutionaries say: "Here is the want, here is the poverty of peasants and workers, and here is the path of how to get out of this poverty." No, they do not say this. They only say that what we are doing is compulsion. Yes, this cannot be denied. But we ask you, Citizen Dan: do you support this or not? That is the crux, that is the heart of the matter. Answer concretely: yes or no? "Neither yes nor no." They, you see, only wish to talk about labor-rule, about how we are infringing upon the freedom of peasants. But who are these peasants? Does not our Soviet Constitution state that peasants are toilers, people of labor? We respect such peasants and regard them as full brothers of the workers. Without such peasantry we could not have taken a single step in our Soviet policy. There is a fraternal compact between the laboring peasant and the worker, concluded in our Constitution. But there is another element of peasantry, the element that comprises the multi-million-strong "Sukharevka."{note} I hope that any assembly, even a non-party one, will be able to figure this out carefully. Are those peasants who engage in speculation truly representatives of the toiling masses? There is the whole essence of the economic questions of the village. Peasants, small proprietors, and workers—these are different classes, and we shall erase the difference between them when we erase the foundations of small-scale economy and create new foundations of gigantic large-scale machine economy, as I have already indicated in my report. This is economically inevitable, while the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries who spoke here helplessly stammer about some sort of labor equality of all peasants and workers. But this is merely words, moreover, words that are economically incorrect and repudiated by scientific Marxism. Take our revolution in Siberia, in Georgia, take the experience of the international revolution, and you will see with your own eyes that these loud words about labor equality are a lie. They are the policy of the bourgeoisie against us, and nothing else.

Dan spoke here as if in the office of the Cheka there is a piece of paper stating that Mensheviks are not subject to the October amnesty, and Citizen Dan draws the conclusion from this that the Cheka instructs and rules over the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. We who stand in power—can we believe this? Do not the 70–80% Communists present here know that at the head of the Cheka stands a member of the Central Executive Committee and the Central Committee of our party, Comrade Dzerzhinsky, and in the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee there are six members of the Central Committee of our party? To think that under such conditions the Presidium of the Cheka or the operational administration of the Cheka instructs and rules over the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee is, of course, not to be considered—it is simply ridiculous. In this, plainly, there is nothing interesting, and the representative of the Menshevik party here simply played a game. But I would like you to look in a few days at some bourgeois newspaper in Western Europe or America with a circulation of half a million or a million copies, and you will see that there will be printed in huge, yard-long letters that Citizen Dan has revealed that the Cheka gives instructions and rules over the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee.

Published 29 December 1920 in the bulletin "VIII Congress of Soviets. Daily Bulletin of the Congress" No. 9

Printed from the text of the bulletin, collated with the stenographic record