V. I. Lenin

Speech At A Meeting Of

Working Men And Women, Red Army Men And Young People

Of Kijamovniki District, Moscow, Held To Mark The Fourth Anniversary Of The October Revolution

November 7, 1921 (The orchestra plays The Internationale. General
applause.) Comrades, I cannot share with you reminiscences that
would he as instructive and interesting as those of the comrades
who were present in Moscow and personally engaged in this or
that struggle. I was not in Moscow at the time, so I think I
shall confine myself to a brief message of greetings.

One of the previous comrades finished his speech with an appeal
for the workers themselves to work hard in trade union and
Soviet bodies and to put all their energies into that work. I
should like to support that appeal.

Comrades, during these four years we have experienced an
unparalleled struggle. And had we been told four years ago that
the foreign worker was not so near to world revolution, that we
would have to wage hitter civil war for three years, nobody at
that time would have believed that we would withstand it. However, even though we were attacked on all sides, we
withstood the onslaught, and if we succeeded in doing so it was
not because some miracle took place (for intelligent people
don’t believe in miracles), but because the troops that
were sent against us were unreliable. Had the British not
departed from Archangel and the French sailors not left Odessa,
and had the foreign worker dressed in soldier’s uniform
and sent against us not become a sympathiser of Soviet rule, we
would not be guaranteed even now against the possibility of an
offensive against us. But we are not afraid of that, because
we

know that we have many allies in every country. And the comrade
who appealed to you here to work as a team was right, and I
whole-heartedly support him, because you know that famine has
attacked us at our most difficult hour, and the capitalists of
the whole world are trying to use this situation to drive us
into bondage. But there are masses of workers who are making it
possible for us to carry on the fight against them.

Take, for example, the seed help being given to the peasants. You know that the surplus-food appropriation system
has been replaced by a tax in kind, and you can now see how well
that tax and the seed loan are coming in.

The other day we discussed how to help the peasants of the
famine-stricken areas to sow the spring-crop fields, and we
found that the quantity of seeds possessed by the state is far
from enough to sow even as much as was sown this year. To do
that the state needs 30 million poods of grain, whereas
the tax in kind will only yield us 15 million poods , so
that we shall have to buy the remaining 15 million poods abroad. Lately we have seen that the British
bourgeoisie are campaigning for the cancellation of the trade
agreement with Soviet Russia, but the British workers are
opposed to that. We know that agreements are being concluded
with other countries, and difficult as it may be to purchase 15
million poods of grain, we shall be able to do so.

In all foreign countries we see industrial crises and unemployment on a huge scale. Germany, crushed by the shameless
Versailles Treaty, has been forced for long out of the international arena. She has been crushed to such an extent by
the Versailles peace that she cannot trade. The Allies concluded
the unprecedented Versailles peace, and in spite of it are
perishing themselves.

Our economic position is improving with every passing day.

What I would ask is that you respond to the previous comrade’s appeal and work harder inside our country. The
necessity for doing so must be fully appreciated, for we are
working to improve the peasants’ husbandry, and that requires far greater effort than before. We are confident that
we shall be able to do this. (Applause. The orchestra plays “The Internationale.”)