Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov 1924 Lenin

The Soviet of People's Commissaries.—The rising against the Provisional Government coincided with the opening of the second Congress of the Soviets on Oct. 25. Lenin, after being in hiding for three and a half months, appeared in the Smolny Insti tute and directed the fight. In the night sitting of Oct. 27 he pro posed a draft decree about peace which was passed unanimously and another about the land, which was passed with one dissentient and eight abstentions. The Bolshevik majority, supported by the left wing of the Socialist revolutionaries, declared that supreme power was now vested in the Soviets. The Soviet of People's Com missaries was appointed, with Lenin at the head.

Having obtained the land of the estate owners, the peasants supported the Bolsheviks. The Soviets became masters of the situation. The constituent assembly which was elected in Nov. and met on Jan. 5 was an anachronism. The conflict between the two stages of the revolution was at hand. Lenin did not hesitate for an instant. On the night of Jan. 7 the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, on Lenin's motion, passed a decree dissolv ing the constituent assembly. The dictatorship of the proletariat, said Lenin, meant the greatest possible degree of democracy for the toiling majority of the people, putting in the hands of labour all those material goods (buildings for meetings, printing presses and so on) lacking which "liberty" remains an illusion. The dic tatorship of the proletariat in Lenin's view is a necessary stage in the abolition of class divisions in society.

The question of war and peace provoked a new crisis. A con siderable proportion of the party demanded a "revolutionary war" against the Hohenzollerns, leaving out of account altogether the economic situation of Russia and the temper of the peasantry. Lenin felt that it was necessary for propaganda purposes to drag out negotiations with the Germans for as long as possible. But he demanded that, in the event of a German ultimatum, peace should be signed even at the price of a loss of territory or the payment of an indemnity. The revolution kindling in the west would sooner or later undo the hard terms of peace. Lenin's political realism manifested itself in all its strength in regard to this question. The majority of the Central Committee in opposition to Lenin made a further attempt to avoid yielding to German imperialism by de claring the state of war at an end, but refusing at the same time to sign an imperialistic peace. This led to a renewed attack by the Germans. After heated debates in the Central Committee at the sitting of Feb. 18 Lenin won a majority for his proposal that negotiations should be reopened forthwith, and that the Ger man terms which were now still more unfavourable should be signed.

The Soviet Government on Lenin's initiative transferred it self to Moscow. Peace having been attained, Lenin now brought

before the party and the country the whole question of its eco nomic and cultural organization.

The greatest trials, however, were still to come. By the end of the summer of 1918 Central Russia found itself surrounded by a ring of fire. Hand in hand with the Russian counter-revolution there came the rising of the Czechoslovaks on the Volga ; on the north and south came the British intervention (in Archangel on Aug. 2, in Baku on Aug. 14). Food supplies were cut off. Lenin never ceased to direct his party and the Government. He carried on propaganda work, roused the masses, organized the getting of corn ; followed the enemy's movements, was in direct communi cation with the Red Army. He followed the international situa tion, finding his bearings by the dissensions in the camps of the imperialists. He found time for interviews with foreign revolu tionaries and with Soviet engineers and economists.

On Aug. 3o the Social-Revolutionary Kaplan aimed two shots at Lenin when on his way to a workers' meeting. This attack in tensified the civil war. Lenin's strong constitution quickly re covered from the effect of his wounds. During his convalescence he wrote a pamphlet, The Proletarian Revolution and the Rene gade Kautsky, directed against the most prominent theorist of the Second International. By Oct. 22 he was again speaking in public.

The New Economic Policy.

The war on the home fronts remained his chief occupation. Economic and administrative problems had necessarily to take a subordinate place. The civil war fed from abroad was at its height. The struggle ended at the beginning of 1921 with the utter defeat of the counter-revolution and the Government grew in strength. The fact that the War had not led immediately to a proletarian revolution in Europe had enormously increased the difficulties of Socialist reconstruction, which was impossible without agreement between the proletariat and the peasantry. The system of requisitioning superfluities from the peasants must be replaced by a tax correctly assessed. Private interchange of commodities must be allowed. These measures began a new phase in the development of the Oct. (Nov.) revolution, that known as the "new economic policy." In his policy within the Soviet Federation Lenin tried in every way to create for the nationalities which had been oppressed under Tsarism, conditions of free national development. He made unsparing war against all imperialist tendencies especially within the party itself—the purity of whose ideas he guarded with the utmost jealousy. The charges of oppressing nationalities made against Lenin and his party with reference to Georgia, etc., were the product of the sharp class warfare within the nation.