THE POLITICAL CURRENTS AND
ECONOMIC FORCES WITH WHICH
THE REVOLUTION MUST CONTEND
A Speech delivered by Lenin to the Plenary Sitting
of the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets.
Comrades,—The subject of the present report I have already expounded in the article on the immediate tasks of the Soviet Power which appeared in the Press on Sunday. I therefore assume that the majority of those present are familiar with it. Consequently I reed not repeat myself. The theme of the article on the immediate tasks of the Soviet Power is but an amplification of the resolution already adopted by the All-Russian Congress of Soviets in Moscow on March 16th. This resolution did not limit itself to the then paramount question of Peace, but also emphasised the chief task of the present moment; the task of organisation, self-discipline, and the struggle with disorganisation.
It seems to me that lately our political currents have flown in that direction; and I therefore think that in a polemical form it will be easiest to emphasise clearly what I endeavoured to outline in my article on immediate tasks.
Comrades, in order to estimate correctly, let us endeavour to survey all the political currents as a whole, for only thus can we guard against mistakes when forming our conclusions on each separate case. We can, of course, find any number of precedents in support of no matter what situation, but only by examining all the currents in their entity and their interdependence shall we be able to make an attempt to explain the connection between the future of the political currents in the country and the future of class interests, which are always an outcome of all serious and vast political movements.
As I survey the important political movements in Russia, I observe that they are clearly and indisputably divided into three large groups. In the first we have the whole bourgeoisie, having closely amalgamated, as one man, for a determined—nay, unreasoning—opposition to the Soviet Power. The word "opposition," as applied in this instance, can, of course, only be used in inverted commas, for we have here a frenzied struggle, which at once attracted to the side of the bourgeoisie all those lower middle-class Parties which were in agreement with Kerenski through the whole period of the revolution. The Mensheviki, the Novozhiznentzie (Party of "The New Life"), and the social revolutionaries of the Right have surpassed even the bourgeoisie in the virulence of their attacks upon us. But the fierceness of the attacks and the loudness of the bark are often in converse proportion to the strength of the political party from which they emerge. The whole bourgeoisie, with all its satellites and servants of the type of Tchernoff and Tseretelli, have united in their mad attacks on the Soviet Power. They are all hankering after the pleasant prospect of concluding, like their friends and fellow politicians in the Ukraine have, a peace which would enable them, with the help of German bayonets and the patriotic bourgeoisie, to destroy the influence of the Bolsheviki. This fact is too well known. A fine illustration of such friends we have in Ichkhenkeli in the Caucasus.
This is only natural. It is clear that the proletariat could not expect anything else, once they had assumed power and had begun to put into force the dictatorship of the workers against the oppressors and exploiters. In
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