Written in late September 1917, this article was first printed in Rabochy Put on October 22 (9) and is a summary of Lenin’s position going into the seizure of power. Augmented by experiences in the summer and fall, it is interesting to read this alongside Lenin’s earlier April Thesis.

‘The Aims of the Revolution’ (1917) by V. I. Lenin from Selected Works, Vol. 6. International Publishers, New York. 1937.

Russia is a petty-bourgeois country. The vast majority of the population belongs to this class. Its vacillation between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat is inevitable. Only when it joins the proletariat will the victory of the cause of the revolution, of the cause of peace, freedom and land for the toilers, be secured—easily, peacefully, swiftly and smoothly.

The course of our revolution reveals this vacillation in practice. Let us then not harbour any illusions concerning the Socialist-Revolutionary and Menshevik parties; let us keep firmly to our class proletarian path. The poverty of the poor peasants, the horrors of the war, the horrors of the famine—all these are bringing home more and more clearly to the masses the correctness of the proletarian path, the necessity of supporting the proletarian revolution.

The “peaceful” petty-bourgeois hopes in a “coalition” with the bourgeoisie, in compromises with the bourgeoisie, in the possibility of “calmly” waiting for an “early” convocation of the Constituent Assembly and so forth—these hopes are being mercilessly, cruelly and implacably dashed to the ground by the course of the revolution. The Kornilov affair was the last cruel lesson, a great lesson, a lesson which supplemented thousands and thousands of small lessons of deception practised on the workers and peasants by the local capitalists and landlords, of deception practised on the soldiers by the officers, and so on and so forth.

Discontent, indignation and bitterness are spreading in the army and among the peasants and workers. The “coalition” of the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks with the bourgeoisie, which promises everything and does nothing, is irritating the masses, opening their eyes to the truth and driving them to revolt.

The opposition of the “Lefts” is growing among the Socialist Revolutionaries (Spiridonova and others) and among the Mensheviks (Martov and others), and already embraces 40 per cent of the “Council” and “Congress” of these parties,” while below, among the proletariat and the peasantry, particularly the poor peasantry, the majority of the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks are “Lefts.”

The Kornilov affair is instructive. The Kornilov affair has proved very instructive.

One does not know whether the Soviets can now go farther than the leaders of the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks, and thus secure a peaceful development of the revolution, or whether they will continue to mark time, and thus render a proletarian uprising inevitable.

That one does not know.

It is our business to help in every possible way to secure a “last” chance for a peaceful development of the revolution. We can help to bring this about by expounding our programme, by explaining its general national character and its absolute harmony with the interests and demands of the enormous majority of the population.

The following lines are an attempt at such an exposition of our programme.

Let us take this programme to the rank and file, to the masses, to the office employees, to the workers, to the peasants, not only to our own, but particularly to those who follow the Socialist-Revolutionaries, to the non-party elements, to the unenlightened. Let us endeavour to inspire them to form their independent judgment, to make their own decisions, to send their own delegations to the Conference, to the Soviets, to the government. Then our work will not have been in vain, no matter what the outcome of the Conference may be. It will prove useful for the Conference, for the elections to the Constituent Assembly, and for every political activity generally.

Events are proving that the Bolshevik programme and tactics are correct. From May 3 (April 20) to the Kornilov affair—what a crowded span!

Experience during that span taught the masses, the oppressed classes, a great deal; the leaders of the Socialist-Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks have completely parted ways with the masses. This will be revealed best of all by a concrete programme, if we succeed in securing its discussion among the masses.

THE FATAL DANGER OF COMPROMISE WITH THE CAPITALISTS

1) To leave even a few representatives of the bourgeoisie in the government, to leave such notorious Kornilovists in power as Generals Alexeyev, Klembovsky, Bagratyon and Gagarin, or such as have proved their utter impotence when confronted by the bourgeoisie and their penchant for Bonapartist action, like Kerensky, is to throw the door wide open to famine and inevitable economic catastrophe, which the capitalists are intentionally accelerating and intensifying, and to a military catastrophe; for the army hates the general staff and has no enthusiasm for the imperialist war. Moreover, if the Kornilovist generals and officers remain in power they will, undoubtedly, deliberately open the front to the Germans, as they did in the case of Galicia and Riga. Only by the formation of a new government on a new basis, as explained below, can this be prevented. After all we have gone through since May 3 (April 20), were the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks to continue any kind of compromise with the bourgeoisie it would be not so much a mistake as a direct betrayal of the people and the revolution.

POWER TO THE SOVIETS

2) The entire power of the state must pass exclusively to the representatives of the Soviets of Workers’, Soldiers’ and Peasants’ Deputies, acting in accordance with a definite programme, and the government must be fully answerable to the Soviets. New elections to the Soviets must be held immediately, both in order to register the experiences gained by the people during the recent weeks of revolution, which have been so rich in events, and in order to eliminate crying injustices that have in places remained uncorrected (non-proportional and unequal elections, etc.).

In the localities, where democratically elected institutions still do not exist, and in the army, the power must be transferred exclusively to the local Soviets and to commissars elected by them, and to other exclusively elective institutions.

The arming of the workers and of the revolutionary troops, i.e., those who have in practice proved their ability to suppress the Kornilovists, must be effected unconditionally and universally with the full support of the state.

PEACE TO THE NATIONS

3) The Soviet government must immediately make proposals to all the belligerent nations (i.e. simultaneously both to their governments and to the masses of workers and peasants) for the conclusion without delay of a general peace on democratic conditions, and an immediate armistice (at least for three months).

The chief condition for a democratic peace is the renunciation of annexations—not in the mistaken sense that all the powers are to receive back what they have lost, but in the only correct sense that every nationality, without a single exception, both in Europe and in the colonies, shall obtain the freedom and the possibility of deciding for itself whether it shall become a separate state or whether it shall form part of another state.

Proposing these conditions of peace, the Soviet government must itself immediately proceed to put them into effect, i.e., it must publish and repudiate the secret treaties by which we are still bound, treaties which were concluded by the tsar and which promise the Russian capitalists the pillage of Turkey, Austria, etc. Then, it is our duty immediately to satisfy the demands of the Ukrainians and the Finns. We must guarantee them, as well as all the other non-Russian nationalities in Russia, full freedom, including freedom of secession. The same must apply to the whole of Armenia; we must undertake to evacuate it, as well as the Turkish lands occupied by us, and so forth.

Such conditions of peace will not be favourably received by the capitalists; but they will be received by all the peoples with such tremendous sympathy, they will cause such a great, world-historic outburst of enthusiasm and such general indignation against the dragging out of this predatory war, that it is most probable that we shall at once obtain an armistice and consent to the commencement of peace negotiations. For the workers’ revolution against the war is irresistibly growing everywhere; and it can be advanced not by talk of peace (with which the workers and peasants have so long been deceived by all the imperialist governments, including our own, the Kerensky government) but by breaking with the capitalists and making proposals for peace.

If the most improbable eventuates, viz., if not a single belli. gerent state consents even to an armistice, then, as far as we are concerned, the war will really become a war forced upon us, a really just and defensive war. The mere recognition of this fact by the proletariat and the poor peasantry will render Russia many times stronger even from the military point of view, especially after we have completely broken with the capitalists, who are robbing the people; not to mention the fact that under such conditions the war on our part will in actual fact be a war in alliance with the oppressed classes of all countries, a war in alliance with the oppressed nations of the whole world.

In particular, the people must be cautioned against the assertion of the capitalists, which sometimes influences the more timorous and the philistines, that in the event of a rupture of the present predatory alliance with the British and other capitalists the latter are capable of doing serious damage to the Russian revolution. That assertion is utterly false, for the “financial aid of the Allies,” while enriching the bankers, “supports” the Russian workers and peasants as the rope supports the hanged man. There is plenty of bread, coal, oil and iron in Russia; it is only necessary to get rid of the landlords and the capitalists who are robbing the people in order to secure a proper distribution of these products. As to the danger of a war against the Russian people on the part of their present Allies, the assumption that the French and Italians are capable of combining their armies with the Germans in order to attack Russia, when she has proposed a just peace, is utterly absurd. And as for England, America, and Japan, even were they to declare war on Russia (which would be extremely difficult for them, both in view of the unpopularity of such a war among the masses and in view of the divergence of the material interests of the capitalists of those countries as to the partition of Asia, and particularly as to the plundering of China), they could not cause Russia a hundredth part of the damage and misery which the war with Germany, Austria, and Turkey entails.

THE LAND TO THE TOILERS

4) The Soviet government must immediately proclaim the abolition of private property in the landed estates without compensation, and place these lands under the control of peasant committees, pending the decision of the Constituent Assembly. These peasant committees shall also be entrusted with the control of the farm property of the landed estates, which shall unconditionally be placed principally at the disposal of the poor peasants free of charge.

These measures, which have long been demanded by the vast majority of the peasants, both in resolutions of their congresses and in hundreds of instructions from local peasants’ assemblies (as may be seen, for instance, from the summary of 242 Instructions published in the Izvestiya of the Soviet of Peasants’ Deputies), are absolutely essential and urgent. Procrastination, from which the peasantry suffered so much during the “coalition” government, cannot further be tolerated.

Any government that delayed in putting these measures into effect would have to be recognised as a government hostile to the people and deserving of being overthrown and crushed by the revolt of the workers and peasants. Conversely, only a government that carries these measures into effect will be a government of the people.

MEASURES AGAINST FAMINE AND ECONOMIC RUIN

5) The Soviet government must immediately introduce throughout the state workers’ control over production and consumption. As has been shown by the experience of May 19 (6), failing such control all promises of reform and all attempts at reform are futile, and famine and catastrophe of unprecedented dimensions threaten the country from week to week.

The immediate nationalisation of the banks and the insurance business is essential, as well as of the more important branches of industry (oil, coal, metal, sugar, etc.). This must be accompanied by the abolition of commercial secrets and the establishment of unrelaxing vigilance by the workers and peasants over that insignificant minority, the capitalists, who wax rich on government contracts and who evade furnishing returns of and paying fair taxes on their profits and properties.

These measures, which will not deprive the middle peasants, or the Cossacks, or the small artisans, of a single kopek of their property, are absolutely fair from the point of view of the equitable distribution of the burden of the war and are absolutely urgent as measures against famine. Only by curbing the marauding tendencies of the capitalists and by putting a stop to their deliberate interruption of production will it be possible to increase the productivity of labour, establish universal labour service, regulate the exchange of grain for industrial products, and secure the return to the treasury of many billions of paper money now hoarded by the wealthy.

Unless these measures are taken, the abolition of private property in the landed estates without compensation will also be impossible, for the landed estates are for the most part mortgaged to the banks, and the interests of the landlords and capitalists are inseparably interwoven.

The recent resolution of the Economic Section of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies (Rabochaya Gazeta, No. 152) records not only the “balefulness” of the government’s measures (such as the raising of the price of grain with the purpose of enriching the landlords and kulaks), not only “the fact of the complete passivity of the central bodies created by the government for the regulation of economic life,” but also the “violation of the law” by that government. Such an admission on the part of the ruling parties, the Socialist-Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks, is one more proof of the criminal nature of the policy of compromise with the bourgeoisie.

MEASURES AGAINST THE COUNTER-REVOLUTION OF THE LANDLORDS AND CAPITALISTS

6) The uprising of Kornilov and Kaledin was supported by the entire landlord and capitalist class, headed by the party of the Cadets (the “People’s Freedom” Party). This has been fully proved by the facts published in the Izvestiya of the Central Executive Committee.

But nothing has been done to completely suppress this counterrevolution, or even to investigate it, and, indeed, nothing of any value can be done unless the power passes to the Soviets. No commission is capable of instituting a full investigation, of arresting the guilty, etc., unless it is endowed with government powers. This can and must be undertaken by a Soviet government alone. Only such a government, by arresting the Kornilovist generals and the leaders of the bourgeois counter-revolution (Guchkov, Milyukov, Ryabushinsky, Maklakov, etc.), by disbanding the counter-revolutionary organisations (the State Duma, the officers’ leagues, etc.), by placing their members under the surveillance of the local Soviets, and by disbanding the counter-revolutionary regiments, can make Russia secure against an inevitable repetition of “Kornilov” attempts.

Such a government alone can set up a commission for the purpose of a complete and public investigation of the Kornilovist case, as well as of all other cases, even those against which action has already been started by the bourgeoisie; and only to such a commission would the Party of the Bolsheviks, in its turn, call upon the workers to give full obedience and co-operation.

Only a Soviet government can successfully combat such a flagrant injustice as the seizure by the capitalists, with the aid of the millions filched from the people, of the largest printing plants and the majority of the papers. The bourgeois counter-revolutionary papers (Rech, Russkoye Slovo, etc.) must be suppressed and their printing plants confiscated, private advertisements in the papers must be declared a state monopoly and transferred to the government paper published by the Soviets, which tells the peasants the truth. Only in this way can, and must, this powerful medium of unpunished lies and slander, serving to deceive the people, mislead the peasantry, and prepare for counter-revolution, be wrested from the hands of the bourgeoisie.

PEACEFUL DEVELOPMENT OF THE REVOLUTION

7) The democracy of Russia, the Soviets and the Socialist-Revolutionary and the Menshevik parties, are now confronted with the opportunity, very seldom to be met with in the history of revolution, of securing the convocation of the Constituent Assembly at the appointed date without further delay, of saving the country from military and economic catastrophe, and of securing a peaceful development of the revolution.

If the Soviets now take the full and exclusive power of the state into their own hands, with the purpose of carrying out the programme set forth above, they will not only be guaranteed the support of nine-tenths of the population of Russia—the working class and the vast majority of the peasantry—but will also be guaranteed the great revolutionary enthusiasm of the army and the majority of the people, without which victory over famine and war is impossible.

There could be no question of resistance being offered to the Soviets now if they did not themselves vacillate. No class would dare to raise a rebellion against the Soviets, and the landlords and capitalists, chastened by the experience of the Kornilov affair, would peacefully surrender their power upon the ultimatum of the Soviets. In order to overcome the resistance of the capitalists to the programme of the Soviets, it would be sufficient to establish supervision by the workers and peasants over the exploiters and to punish recalcitrants by such measures as the confiscation of their entire property, coupled with a short term of imprisonment.

By seizing power now—and this is probably their last chance— the Soviets could still secure a peaceful development of the revolution, the peaceful election of deputies by the people, the peaceful struggle of parties within the Soviets, the testing of the programmes of the various parties in practice, and the peaceful transfer of power from party to party.

If this opportunity is allowed to pass, the entire course of development of the revolution, from the movement of May 3 (April 20) to the Kornilov affair, points to the inevitability of a bitter civil war between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. Inevitable catastrophe will bring this war nearer. To judge by all the signs and considerations comprehensible to the human mind, this war is bound to terminate in the complete victory of the working class and its support by the poor peasantry in carrying out the programme set forth above. The war may prove arduous and bloody and cost the lives of tens of thousands of landlords and capitalists, and of army officers who sympathise with them. The proletariat will stop at no sacrifice in order to save the revolution, which is impossible apart from the programme set forth above. On the other hand, the proletariat would support the Soviets in every way if they were to avail themselves of their last chance of securing a peaceful development of the revolution.

October 9-10 (September 26-27), 1917.

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