Newspaper Report
Газетный отчет
Date: 1917
Source: PSS vol 31
Translated by: AI (Claude)

Comrade Lenin came out with a report on the current moment.

Having outlined the position of the Party on the question of dual power, pointing out that the forms of class struggle change depending on objective conditions, that the victory of the armed people over tsarism and the establishment - by spontaneous action - of the fullest political freedom made unnecessary and even harmful any other struggle with the class enemies of the proletariat, except struggle by means of political education and socialist enlightenment of the masses (of course, insofar as the capitalists themselves do not resort to violence against the majority), the rapporteur proceeded to consider the objective situation created by the war at home and in the West.

All humanity is entangled in one bloody knot and there is no exit individually. It is impossible to end the war by a unilateral refusal of soldiers of any of the warring sides to continue it. The way out is in the transfer of power from the hands of the imperialist bourgeoisie into the hands of the proletariat and the semi-proletarian strata adjoining it according to their class position.

The Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, more and more extending their network over all Russia, represent a new peculiar organization of state power, at least in embryo. These organizations differ essentially from all hitherto existing ones and are in no case suitable for the arrangement of bourgeois institutions, for the establishment of a bourgeois parliamentary republic with a standing army, police and bureaucracy.

Now power is directly in the hands of the organized and armed people. The instruments of force are at the disposal of the majority. The government holds on by the unconsciously trustful attitude toward it of this majority. Therefore the task of the day is the work of enlightenment, explanation of the necessity of transferring power into the hands of the revolutionary class, attracting the masses to the side of revolutionary social-democracy.

If the Soviets of Workers', Soldiers', Peasants' and Farm Laborers' Deputies become the power, they will apply it in a completely different way than it is applied by the ruling classes. The transition to concrete measures, prepared by the development of capitalism and corresponding to the interests of the majority of the population - in Russia with the overwhelming predominance of the petty bourgeoisie - is inevitable.

The socialist revolution growing in the West is not directly on the agenda in Russia, but we have already entered a transitional state to it. The Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and other Deputies are that organization of power with which the socialist revolution will have to operate. There is nothing like them in the West.

Hence our task of strengthening them. Hence the concrete tasks of the Soviet of Workers' and other Deputies: 1) nationalization of land (removal from private property of the main instrument of production) - the peasants demand it, 2) merger of private banks into one state-wide bank, nationalization of branches of production united in syndicates, 3) introduction of universal labor duty.

If the Soviets of Workers', Soldiers', Peasants' and Farm Laborers' Deputies refuse to fulfill these tasks, then their fall is inevitable. They will suffer the same fate that befell a number of institutions put forward by the bourgeois revolutions of the 19th century: they will either be simply dissolved or dispersed, or else they will fall apart themselves, not having coped with the tasks set before them by the revolution itself (example of the Commune). There are only two paths: forward to decisive economic and political measures or backward - to non-being. There is no third way.

"Pravda" No. 40, May 8 (April 25) 1917
Printed from the text of the newspaper "Pravda"