V. I. Lenin

Speech Delivered At An Enlarged Conference Of

Moscow Metalworkers [1]

February 4, 1920

I regret that I am unable to participate in the work of your
Conference and that I must confine myself to a brief statement of my
views.

From the speeches the comrades have delivered here I gather that you
want to know all about the sowing campaign. Very many people think that
there is something tricky about the Soviet government’s policy
towards the peasants. Our policy in this sphere is one that we are always
ready to reveal to the masses. The fundamental problem of the Soviet power
is that our own victories have not yet been followed by victories in other
countries. If you give our Constitution a careful reading, you will see
that we have not made any fantastic promises, but insist on the need for
dictatorship, because the whole bourgeois world is against us.

We are told: the peasants’ condition is not the same as that of
the workers, there is some trick in this. But it is one that we have
openly proclaimed.

Anyone who has stopped to think of the relation of forces between
ourselves and the bourgeoisie knows that they are stronger; yet, for three
years, they have been unable to crush us. That is not a miracle; we do not
believe in miracles. The simple truth is that they cannot unite, and are
quarrelling over the division of the spoils. Most of the oppressed
countries are colonies, and a minority live on their labour, but atop a
volcano.

They are stronger, but the movement is growing over there as well. The
capitalists have a stronger military force, but they have had a set-back,
and we say: the worst is over, but the enemy will make further attempts. Of the Europeans who
have visited us none has claimed that his country could have avoided the
rags and the queues; and they all agree that, after six years of war, even
Britain would have been in a similar state.

We must do our best to establish proper relations between the wor1srs
and the peasants. The peasants are another class. We shall have socialism
when there are no classes, when all the means of production belong to the
working people. We still have classes, it will take many, many years to
abolish them, and only a quack will promise to do it overnight. The
peasants prefer to go it alone, each one on his own farm, and with his own
stock of corn. This givss them power over everybody. An armed enemy is
lying in wait for us, and if we are to prevent him from overthrowing us,
we must establish proper relations between the workers and the
peasants.

If you take the workers and the peasants, you will find that the latter
are more numerous. The capitalists claim to have a democracy under which
workers and peasants enjoy equal rights. So long as the peasants follow
the bourgeoisie and the workers are isolated, they will be defeated. If we
forget that, the capitalists will beat us. We have not promised equality,
and we have not got it. There can be no equality so long as one has plenty
of corn and the other has none.

The capitalists realised that you can share out the land, but not the
factories. We have a dictatorship of the prole-tariat, a term that scares
the peasants, but it is the only means of uniting them and making them
fellow the lead of the workers. We believe this is the correct solution,
and the working class will succeed in uniting the peasantry. Only then
will the road be open to further advance towards the abolition of
classes.

What is the policy of the American capitalists? They are doling out
land, and the peasants follow them and are lulled by their talk of
equality. Either you are duped in this fashion, or you see through it,
unite with the workers and drive out the capitalists.

This is our policy, and you will find it in our Constitu-tion. 1 was
told here that we ought to review the sowing campaign plans. I know that
this spring the peasants are having it very bad. For the workers, the
worst is over. We have not promised equality to anyone: if you want to be
with the workers, come with us, come over to the socialist side; if not,
go over to the Whites. We never promised a liberal regime; the one we have
has helped us to escape the bondage of the landowners and capitalists.
During these three years the workers starved and froze, and took over the
idle factories. But they also got the power. Even the peasants in the
fertile areas came to see the difference between the workers’ rule
and Denikin’s, and they have made their choice. Our victory over
Denikin was not a miracle; it was due to the fact that even the rich
peasants realised what the Constituent Assembly had come to; this drove
home the point that the proof of the pudding was in the eating.

The peasants realised that the more territory the Whites seized, the
more peasants would he drafted into the army, and as soon as enough of
them had been collected in the army, they overthrew Denikin.

We do not promise a land flowing with milk and honey. But over there
you are promised equality, and get saddled with a landowner. That is why
we won.

We are told we ought to review our plans for the sowing campaign. I
say: nobody has suffered as much as the workers. During this period, the
peasants received land and could obtain corn. This winter the peasants are
in desperate straits and their discontent is understandable.

Let us review the relations between the workers and the peasants. We
have said that the workers have made incredible sacrifices. This year the
peasants are in a terrible plight, and we know it. We are not opposed to
reviewing these relations. What is the main goal of the sowing cam-paign?
It is to sow all the land, otherwise we are surely doomed. Do you know how
much grain has been taken from the peasants this year? About three hundred
million poods. What would the working class have done without it? Even so
it starved. We know that the conditions of the peasants are hard, but
there is no other way out of the situation. We have completely suspended
the surplus grain appropriation system in thirteen gubernias. Last year we
supplied eight million poods of seed grain, and after the harvest we got
back six million poods. Now we have supplied approximately fifteen million.
To cancel the sowing campaign would be like jumping out of a fifth storey
window. We cannot promise the peasants to relieve them of want at a stroke;
to do that our factories would have to multiply their output a
hundredfold.

If we did not give the workers even the short ration they are now
getting, industry would have ground down to a stop.

It is true that for three years the workers got nothing at all. But
there is no cure-all.

The working class has been exhausted by these three years, and this
spring will be a very hard one for the peasants. But you help us with the
sowing campaign-to sow all the fields-then we shall manage to overcome our
difficulties.

In Hungary, the peasants failed to help the Hungarian workers and fell
under the power of the landowners.

There is the alternative before you. What is the way out of this
difficult situation? It is to concentrate efforts on the sowing campaign,
point out the mistakes, and make corrections; otherwise there is no way
out of the difficulties.

Endnotes

[1] The Conference was held in Trade Union House on February 4, 1921, arid was attended by about 1,000 delegates from Moscow and Moscow Gubernia. In view of the acute food crisis, the main reports dealt with the food situation and the working-class atti-tude to the peasantry. Wage rates and the trade unions’ role in production were also discussed. A resolution adopted on the report about the relations between the workers and the peasants stressed the need to substitute a tax in kind for the surplus appropriation system. The Menshevik and S. R. delegates tried to use the country’s difficulties to incite the delegates against the Soviet Government’s economic policy and against the Communist Party but were rebuffed by the Conference. At the delegates’ request, Lenin addressed the final sitting of the Conference.