LENIN'S SPEECH
At the First All-Russian Congress of Land Departments (of
Soviets), Committees of the Poor, and Communes.
Comrades,
The very composition of the present Congress indicates, in my opinion, the important change and the great step forward which has been made by us, the Soviet Republic, in the domain of Socialist reconstruction, especially in its agrarian aspect, the most important for our country. The present Congress unites in its body representatives of the Land Departments of the Soviets, of the committees of the Poor, and of agricultural communes; and this unity show short space of one year, has already gone far in the task of reconstructing those relations of society which always are hardest to alter, which in all previous revolutions more than anything else obstructed the path of Socialism, and which it is necessary to reconstruct most radically of all, in order to guarantee the victory of Socialism.
The first stage in the development of our Revolution after November was mainly devoted to the task of crushing the common enemy of the whole peasant class—the landowners.
You all know well, comrades, that even the March revolution, the revolution of the bourgeoisie and of the party of "compromise," promised the peasants this victory over the landowners. But it did not keep its promise. Only the November Revolution, only the victory of the working class in the towns, only the authority of the Soviets, made it possible really to free the whole of Russia, from end to end, from the mischievous heritage of our former serfdom—from the economic exploitation of the peasantry by the landowning bourgeoisie, whose yoke pressed impartially on all peasants without distinction.
5
