V. I. Lenin

Fourth Anniversary Of Bednota [1]

My congratulations to the Editorial Board of Bednota on
the occasion of the fourth anniversary of their newspaper.

For four years the paper has worked honourably and successfully
to serve the interests of the working peasantry. The war that
was forced upon the people by the capitalists and landowners
ruined Russia to such an extent that our working peasantry still
remain poor. The working people of Russia have still a lot of
real hard work to do to over-come the starvation and poverty,
the want and ruin that prevail as a consequence of the war.

But the peasants and workers of Russia will get down to this
hard work and finish it, come what may. In this effort the
workers and peasants will be inspired by the knowledge that they
will be working for their own benefit, to improve their own
conditions of life, and not for the enrichment of landowners and
capitalists.

Soviet power has given us the alliance of workers and peasants. Therein lies its strength. Therein lies the guar-antee
of our successes and of our ultimate victory.

This alliance gave us victory over Kolchak and Denikin, who,
with the aid of foreign troops sent here by the capitalists, had
tried to restore the rule of the landowners in Russia.

Now the foreign capitalists are compelled to conclude trade
agreements with Soviet Russia, These agreements will help us to
get the agricultural implements, machines and other goods that
we need for the restoration of our ruined peasant farms.

We are now experiencing a most difficult spring follow-lug a
year of famine. But we shall not be downhearted.
Great as the hardships of the workers and peasants may be, we have now won the right and the opportunity to work for our own benefit and not for the benefit of the landowners. And we shall restore and improve our ruined economy.

N. Lenin

March 23, 1922

Endnotes

[1]
Lenin wrote this greeting at the request of Bednota's editor
V. A. Karpinsky.

Lenin took a keen interest in the work of this newspaper and
required Karpinsky to send him regular reports on the number of
letters received by the newspaper from peasants and Red Army
men, on the general mood expressed in those letters and the main
questions raised in them.

Bednota, whose publication was started in Moscow on
March 27, 1918, was a newspaper for peasants. On February 1,
1931 it was merged with the newspaper Sotsialisticheskoyc Zenzledeliye.