Lenin’s speech delivered at the conclusion of the Tenth Congress of the Russian Communist Party. The gathering marked a turning point in the Revolution, coming near the end of the Civil War, and after the contentious debate on trade unions, it introduced the N.E.P. and placed a virtual ban on factions. As the congress was underway both Germany’s ‘March Action’ and the Kronstadt Rebellion broke out.

‘Proletarian and Capitalist Solidarity’ by V.I. Lenin from Soviet Russia (New York). Vol. 4 No. 20. May 14, 1921.

COMRADES, we have concluded the work of the party congress, which has met at a critical juncture in our revolution. The civil war, now ended, following upon many years of imperialistic war, so harassed and confused the country that it is recovering with the greatest difficulty. We cannot wonder therefore that the elements of disintegration and ruin, the petty bourgeois and anarchistic elements, are now raising their heads. A circumstance most favorable to them is the unprecedented need of the masses, who see no escape from a very difficult position. But we know, comrades, that the country has endured even more difficult moments. While we recognize the danger thoroughly, while we tell ourselves and our comrades frankly that the danger is great, and do not fall into an easy optimism, we confidently count, at the same time upon the unity of the proletarian vanguard. We know that the only force able to unite millions of scattered small proprietors who are constantly enduring great hardships, the only force able to unite them economically and politically against the exploiters, is the class-conscious proletariat. We feel certain that this force has been sufficiently tempered by the experience of the war and the revolution to triumph in every new trial and difficulty.

Comrades, not only the resolutions adopted by our congress in this spirit but also the resolutions with regard to our relations with the peasants are of the greatest importance. We are giving the most sober consideration to the question of class relations,—and we do not fear to acknowledge openly that it is a very difficult one—the problem of establishing just relations between the proletariat and the predominating peasant population, now when necessary conditions have not yet been fulfilled. Relations will be normal then, and only then, when the proletariat is in possession of a large scale industry with its products, and when it not only meets the needs of the peasant but, besides furnishing him with the necessities of life, so improves his position that its superiority over the capitalistic system will be evident and palpable. This, and nothing else, would constitute the basis of normal Socialistic society. We cannot bring this about immediately—so harassed are we by ruin, need and impoverishment But in order to get rid of this cursed heritage more easily, we react to it in a definite way, in spite of the conditions brought about by the terrible war. We will not pretend that the peasants have not a very real cause for dissatisfaction. We will explain in greater detail and say that we are doing everything in our power to improve the situation, and give more consideration to the needs of the small proprietor. We are going to do everything to bring about the conditions necessary for greater production.

We are not afraid that these measures will develop tendencies hostile to communism—although that will no doubt be the case. Such is the spirit in which we declare our readiness to examine the political situation and even to change its aspect; for, during the course of several years, we have been establishing, for the first time in history, the foundations of Socialist society and a proletarian government.

I think that in this connection the work of our congress will be the more successful that we have achieved absolute agreement from the very beginning on two fundamental questions; the relations of the vanguard of the proletariat with the proletarian masses and its relations with the peasants. Here we showed greater unity than ever, despite the fact that we must vote under very difficult political conditions.

All the more reason then not to display panic as an unprecedented, nervous, hysterical campaign is now being waged against us by world capitalism. Through the kindness of Comrade Chicherin I received yesterday a memorandum covering this question, and I think it will be useful to all of us. This memorandum deals with the campaign of lies regarding Russia’s internal condition.

The Campaign of Lies

Never at any time in the West has there been such an orgy of lying and such a wholesale production of fantastic fictions regarding Soviet Russia as in the past two weeks. From the beginning of March the entire occidental press has been publishing daily floods of fantastic news of revolts in Russia, of victories for the counter-revolutionaries, of the flight of Lenin and Trotsky to the Crimea, of the hoisting of the white flag over the Kremlin, of rivers of blood flowing in the gutters of Petrograd and Moscow, of barricades in the streets, of great crowds of workers descending upon Moscow from the hills to overthrow the Soviet power, of Bunenov’s going over to the side of the power, of Budenny’s going over to the side of the rebels, of the triumph of the. counter-revolution in were included now these cities, now those, so that altogether almost a majority of Russia’s important cities were enumerated.

The fact that this campaign was world-wide and methodical indicates a carefully prepared plan on the part of the leading governments. On March 2 the Foreign Office (British Ministry for Foreign Affairs), through the medium of the Associated Press, declared that it regarded the published news as probably true, and immediately afterwards the Foreign Office itself gave out news of a revolt in Petrograd, the bombardment of Petrograd by the Kronstadt fleet, and fighting in the streets of Moscow.

On March 2 all the British newspapers published telegrams reporting revolts in Petrograd and Moscow; they reported that Lenin and Trotsky had fled to the Crimea, that 14,000 workers in Moscow were demanding a Constituent Assembly, that the Moscow arsenal and the Moscow-Kursk railroad station were in the hands of the revolting workers, and that Vassilyevsky Island in Petrograd was in complete possession of the rebels.

I will give some examples from radios and telegrams of the following days:

March 3. Comrade Klishko telegraphs from London that Renter has picked up absurd rumors of an uprising in Petrograd and is giving them wide circulation.

March 6. Zinoviev has fled to Oranienbaum. In Moscow the Red artillery is bombarding the workers’ quarters. Petrograd b cut off on all sides (radio from Wiegand).

March 7. Klishko telegraphs that according to Information from Reval barricades have been constructed in the streets of Moscow; the newspapers are publishing news from Helsingfors to the effect that Chernigov is taken by anti-Bolshevik forces.

March 7. Both Petrograd and Moscow are in the hands of the rebels. Uprising in Odessa. Semenov at the head of 25,000 Cossacks is advancing through Siberia. The revolutionary committee in Petrograd is in possession of the fortifications and the fleet, (communication from the British radio station at Poldhu).

Nauen, March 7. Revolt of the Petrograd factory districts. Anti-Bolshevik uprising has spread to Volhynia.

Paris, March 7. Petrograd in the hands of the Revolutionary Committee. “Temps” reports that according to news received in London the ‘white flag is hoisted over the Kremlin.

Paris, March 8. The rebels have seized Krasnaya Gorka. Red army regiments have revolted in the government of Pskov. Bolsheviki are sending troops to Petrograd.

March 10: Klishko telegraphs: the newspapers are asking themselves whether Petrograd has or has not fallen; according to information from Helsingfors three quarters of Petrograd are in the hands of the rebels; Trotsky, or, according to some Zinoviev, is directing operations in Tosno or in the fortress of Peter and Paul; according to others the commander-in-chief is Brussilov; according to information from Riga, all of Petrograd was taken on the 9th with the exception of the railroad stations, and the Red Army has retreated to Gatchina; the Petrograd unions have adopted the slogan: “Down with the Soviets and the Communists!” The British War Ministry has issued a statement to the effect that it is not yet certain whether the Kronstadt rebels have joined forces with those of Petrograd, but that to its knowledge Zinoviev is in the fortress of Peter and Paul, where he is in command of the Soviet forces.

From the great number of other fictions circulated at this time here are some examples: Saratov becomes an independent anti-Bolshevik republic (Nauen, March 11). Cruel massacres of Communists in the Volga cities (same). Fighting in the province of Minsk between White divisions and the Red army (same).

Paris, March 15. “Temps” reports uprising of the Kuban and Don Cossacks in great numbers.

Nauen reports on March 14 that Budenny’s cavalry has joined forces with the rebels near Orel. At different times revolts were reported in Pskov, Odessa and other cities. March 9. Krassin telegraphs that the Washington correspondent of the “Times” reports that the Soviet regime is nearing its end and that America is therefore delaying the establishment of relations with the border states. At various times news issues from American banking circles to the effect that under the present circumstances it would be hazardous to trade with Russia.

There is no doubt that the campaign of lies has not only America in view, but also the Turkish delegation in London and the Silesian plebiscite. It is known that this campaign influenced the result of the elections in the second Paris district

Comrades, the picture is very clear. The world press syndicate—freedom of the press consists there in the fact that 99 per cent of the press is owned by financial magnates manipulating hundreds of millions of rubles—opened the world-wide campaigns of the imperialists, with the aim of preventing, first, trade relations with England which were begun by Krassin, and also the imminent conclusion of trade relations with America. This shows that the enemies who surround us, no longer able to bring about intervention, are counting upon a revolt. The events at Kronstadt revealed ties with the international bourgeoisie; and in addition to it we see that more than anything else they now fear, from the practical standpoint of international capital, the sound establishment of trade relations. But they will be unable to prevent it. There are now in Moscow representatives of big capital, who did not believe these rumors, and they have told us how in America a certain group of citizens carried on an unprecedented agitation for Soviet Russia. This group made extracts of everything printed about Russia for a few months in newspapers of the most diverse kinds—about the flight of Lenin and Trotsky, about Lenin’s shooting Trotsky and vice-versa, and they published all this in the form of a pamphlet. Better agitation for the Soviet power cannot be imagined. The contemporary American bourgeois press has completely discredited itself.

Such is the enemy served by two million Russian emigres from among the landowners and capitalists; such is the bourgeois army that is opposed to us. And let them make attempts to destroy the practical success of the Soviet power and prevent trade relations. We know that they will not succeed. And all this information given out by the international bourgeoisie, who are in control of thousands of newspapers, and furnish information to the whole world, reveals once more how we are surrounded by enemies, and how feeble these enemies have grown within the last year. We should understand this, comrades, and I think that most of the members of the congress present have understood what moderation it is necessary for us to observe in our disagreements. Naturally, in the heat of discussion in the congress this moderation could not always be observed. One cannot demand of people who have just participated in a struggle that they should at once practise moderation. But when we look upon our party as the hearth of world revolution, and observe the campaign now being conducted against us by the governments of the world, there is no place for doubt. Let them conduct their campaign; we have examined it; we know the extent of our differences; and we know that, united at this congress, we will undoubtedly settle our differences with absolute concord in the party, which is now more experienced and which will go forward to more and more decisive international victories. (Great applause).

Izvestia, March 20, 1921

Soviet Russia began in the summer of 1919, published by the Bureau of Information of Soviet Russia and replaced The Weekly Bulletin of the Bureau of Information of Soviet Russia. In lieu of an Embassy the Russian Soviet Government Bureau was the official voice of the Soviets in the US. Soviet Russia was published as the official organ of the RSGB until February 1922 when Soviet Russia became to the official organ of The Friends of Soviet Russia, becoming Soviet Russia Pictorial in 1923. There is no better US-published source for information on the Soviet state at this time, and includes official statements, articles by prominent Bolsheviks, data on the Soviet economy, weekly reports on the wars for survival the Soviets were engaged in, as well as efforts to in the US to lift the blockade and begin trade with the emerging Soviet Union.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/srp/v4-5-soviet-russia%20Jan-Dec%201921.pdf