Ten Days That Shook the World by John Reed (booksvooks .TXT) š
- Author: John Reed
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On the afternoon of November 25th Tchernov arrived in hot haste from Moghilev, summoned by the Executive Committee. Only two months before considered an extreme revolutionist, and very popular with the peasants, he was now called to check the dangerous drift of the Congress toward the Left. Upon his arrival Tchernov was arrested and taken to Smolny, where, after a short conversation, he was released.
His first act was to bitterly rebuke the Executive Committee for leaving the Congress. They agreed to return, and Tchernov entered the hall, welcomed with great applause by the majority, and the hoots and jeers of the Bolsheviki.
āComrades! I have been away. I participated in the Conference of the Twelfth Army on the question of calling a Congress of all the Peasant delegates of the armies of the Western Front, and I know very little about the insurrection which occurred hereāā
Zinoviev rose in his seat, and shouted, āYes, you were away-for a few minutes!ā Fearful tumult. Cries, āDown with the Bolsheviki!ā
Tchernov continued. āThe accusation that I helped lead an army on Petrograd has no foundation, and is entirely false. Where does such an accusation come from? Show me the source!ā
Zinoviev: āIzviestia and Dielo Naroda-your own paper -thatās where it comes from!ā
Tchernovās wide face, with the small eyes, waving hair and greyish beard, became red with wrath, but he controlled himself and went on. āI repeat, I know practically nothing about what has happened here, and I did not lead any army except this army, (he pointed to the peasant delegates), which I am largely responsible for bringing here!ā Laughter, and shouts of āBravo!ā
āUpon my return I visited Smolny. No such accusation was made against me thereā¦. After a brief conversation I left-and thatās all! Let any one present make such an accusation!ā
An uproar followed, in which the Bolsheviki and some of the Left Socialist Revolutionaries were on their feet all at once, shaking their fists and yelling, and the rest of the assembly tried to yell them down.
āThis is an outrage, not a session!ā cried Tchernov, and he left the hall; the meeting was adjourned because of the noise and disorderā¦.
Meanwhile, the question of the status of the Executive Committee was agitating all minds. By declaring the assembly āExtraordinary Conference,ā it had been planned to block the reelection of the Executive Committee. But this worked both ways; the Left Socialist Revolutionists decided that if the Congress had no power over the Executive Committee, then the Executive Committee had no power over the Congress. On November 25th the assembly resolved that the powers of the Executive Committee be assumed by the Extraordinary Conference, in which only members of the Executive who had been elected as delegates might voteā¦.
The next day, in spite of the bitter opposition of the Bolsheviki, the resolution was amended to give all the members of the Executive Committee, whether elected as delegates or not, voice and vote in the assembly.
On the 27th occurred the debate on the Land question, which revealed the differences between the agrarian programme of the Bolsheviki and the Left Socialist Revolutionaries.
Kolchinsky, for the Left Socialist Revolutionaries, outlined the history of the Land question during the Revolution. The first Congress of Peasantsā Soviets, he said, had voted a precise and formal resolution in favour of putting the landed estates immediately into the hands of the Land Committees. But the directors of the Revolution, and the bourgeois in the Government, had insisted that the question could not be solved until the Constituent Assembly metā¦. The second period of the Revolution, the period of ācompromise,āwas signalled by the entrance of Tchernov into the Cabinet. The peasants were convinced that now the practical solution of the Land question would begin; but in spite of the imperative decision of the first Peasant Congress, the reactionaries and conciliators in the Executive Committee had prevented any action. This policy provoked a series of agrarian disorders, which appeared as the natural expression of impatience and thwarted energy on the part of the peasants. The peasants understood the exact meaning of the Revolution-they tried to turn words into actionā¦.
āThe recent events,ā said the orator, ādo not indicate a simple riot, or a āBolshevik adventure,ā but on the contrary, a real popular rising, which has been greeted with sympathy by the whole countryā¦.
āThe Bolsheviki in general took the correct attitude toward the Land question; but in recommending that the peasants seize the land by force, they committed a profound errorā¦. From the first days, the Bolsheviki declared that the peasants should take over the land āby revolutionary massaction.ā This is nothing but anarchy; the land can be taken over in an organised mannerā¦. For the Bolsheviki it was important that the problems of the Revolution should be solved in the quickest possible manner-but the Bolsheviki were not interested in how these problems were to be solvedā¦.
āThe Land decree of the Congress of Soviets is identical in its fundamentals with the decisions of the first Peasantsā Congress. Why then did not the new Government follow the tactics outlined by that Congress? Because the Council of Peopleās Commissars wanted to hasten the settlement of the Land question, so that the Constituent Assembly would have nothing to doā¦.
āBut also the Government saw that it was necessary to adopt practical measures, so without further reflection, it adopted the Regulations for Land Committees, thus creating a strange situation; for the Council of Peopleās Commissars abolished private property in land, but the Regulations drawn up by the Land Committees are based on private propertyā¦. However, no harm has been done by that; for the Land Committees are paying no attention to the Soviet decrees, but are putting into operation their own practical decisions-decisions based on the will of the vast majority of the peasantsā¦.
āThese Land Committees are not attempting the legislative solution of the Land question, which belongs to the Constituent Assembly aloneā¦. But will the Constituent Assembly desire to do the will of the Russian peasants? Of that we cannot be sureā¦. All we can be sure of is that the revolutionary determination of the peasants is now aroused, and that the Constituent will be forced to settle the Land question the way the peasants want it settledā¦. The Constituent Assembly will not dare to break with the will of the peopleā¦.ā
Followed him Lenin, listened to now with absorbing intensity. āAt this moment we are not only trying to solve the Land question, but the question of Social Revolution-not only here in Russia, but all over the world. The Land question cannot be solved independently of the other problems of the Social Revolutionā¦. For example, the confiscation of the landed estates will provoke the resistance not only of Russian landowners, but also of foreign capital-with whom the great landed properties are connected through the intermediary of the banksā¦.
āThe ownership of the land in Russia is the basis for immense oppression, and the confiscation of the land by the peasants is the most important step of our Revolution. But it cannot be separated from the other steps, as is clearly manifested by the stages through which the Revolution has had to pass. The first stage was the crushing of autocracy and the crushing of the power of the industrial capitalists and landowners, whose interests are closely related. The second stage was the strengthening of the Soviets and the political compromise with the bourgeoisie. The mistake of the Left Socialist Revolutionaries lies in the fact that at that time they did not oppose the policy of compromise, because they held the theory that the consciousness of the masses was not yet fully developedā¦.
āIf Socialism can only be realised when the intellectual development of all the people permits it, then we shall not see Socialism for at least five hundred yearsā¦. The Socialist political party-this is the vanguard of the working-class; it must not allow itself to be halted by the lack of education of the mass average, but it must lead the masses, using the Soviets as organs of revolutionary initiativeā¦. But in order to lead the wavering, the comrades Left Socialist Revolutionaries themselves must stop hesitatingā¦.
āIn July last a series of open breaks began between the popular masses and the ācompromisersā; but now, in November, the Left Socialist Revolutionaries are still holding out their hand to Avksentiev, who is pulling the people with his little fingerā¦. If Compromise continues, the Revolution disappears. No compromise with the bourgeoisie is possible; its power must be absolutely crushedā¦.
āWe Bolsheviki have not changed our Land programme; we have not given up the abolition of private property in the land, and we do not intend to do so. We adopted the Regulations for Land Committees,-which are not based on private property at all-because we want to accomplish the popular will in the way the people have themselves decided to do it, so as to draw closer the coalition of all the elements who are fighting for the Social Revolution.
āWe invite the Left Socialist Revolutionaries to enter that coalition, insisting, however, that they cease looking backward, and that they break with the āconciliatorsā of their partyā¦.
āAs far as the Constituent Assembly is concerned, it is true, as the preceding speaker has said, that the work of the Constituent will depend on the revolutionary determination of the masses. I say, āCount on that revolutionary determination, but donāt forget your gun!āā
Lenin then read the Bolshevik resolution:
The Peasantsā Congress, fully supporting the Land decree of November 8thā¦ approves of the Provisional Workersā and Peasantsā Government of the Russian Republic, established by the second All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workersā and Soldiersā Deputies.
The Peasantsā Congressā¦ invites all peasants unanimously to sustain that law, and to apply it immediately themselves; and at the same time invites the peasants to appoint to posts and positions of responsibility only persons who have proved, not by words but by acts, their entire devotion to the interests of the exploited peasant-workers, their desire and their ability to defend these interests against all resistance on the part of the great landowners, the capitalists, their partisans and accomplicesā¦.
The Peasantsā Congress, at the same time, expresses its conviction that the complete realisation of all the measures which make up the Land decree can only be successful through the triumph of the Workersā Social Revolution, which began November 7th, 1917; for only the Social Revolution can accomplish the definite transfer, without possibility of return, of the land to the peasant-workers, the confiscation of model farms and their surrender to the peasant communes, the confiscation of agricultural machinery belonging to the great landowners, the safeguarding of the interests of the agricultural workers by the complete abolition of wage-slavery, the regular and methodical distribution among all regions of Russia of the products of agriculture and industry, and the seizure of the banks (without which the possession of land by the whole people would be impossible, after the abolition of private property), and all sorts of assistance by the State to the workersā¦.
For these reasons the Peasantsā Congress sustains entirely the Revolution of November 7thā¦ as a social revolution, and expresses its unalterable will to put into operation, with whatever modifications are necessary, but without any hesitation, the social transformation of the Russian Republic.
The indispensable conditions of the victory of the Social Revolution, which alone will secure the lasting success and the complete realisation of the Land decree, is the close union of the peasant-workers with the industrial working-class,
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