* See this volume, pp. 247-48. --Ed.
"forget" such an important "detail" and thus slur over a most important issue is impermissible for a Bolshevik.
   
From your letter it is evident that you counterpose what Lenin said about the support of the peasantry as a whole to the Party's slogan of "Dictatorship of the proletariat and poor peasantry," which was also advanced by Lenin. But in order to counterpose these words of Lenin to the previous quotations from the works of Lenin, in order to have grounds for refuting the previous quotations from Lenin on the slogan of dictatorship of the proletariat and poor peasantry by the words you quote from Lenin about the peasantry as a whole, two things, at least, must be proved.
   
Firstly. It must be proved that the completion of the bourgeois revolution was the main thing in the October Revolution. Lenin considered that the completion of the bourgeois revolution was a "by-product " of the October Revolution, which fulfilled this task "in passing." You must first of all refute this thesis of Lenin's and prove that the main thing in the October Revolution was not the overthrow of the power of the bourgeoisie and the transfer of power to the proletariat, but the completion of the bourgeois revolution. Try to prove that, and if you do I shall be ready to admit that from April to October 1917 the Party's slogan was not the dictatorship of the proletariat and poor peasantry, but the dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry.
   
From your letter it is evident that you do not think it possible to undertake this more than risky task; you try, however, to prove "in passing" that on one of the most important questions of the October Revolution, the question of peace, we were supported by all the peasantry as a whole. That, of course, is untrue. It is quite untrue. On the question of peace you have slipped into the viewpoint of the philistine. As a matter
of fact the question of peace was for us at that time a question of power, for only with the transfer of power to the proletariat could we count on extricating ourselves from the imperialist war.
   
You must have forgotten Lenin's words, that "the only way to stop the war is by the transfer of power to another class," and that " 'Down with the war' does not mean flinging away your bayonets. It means the transfer of power to another class." (See Lenin's speech at the Petrograd City Conference, April 1917, Vol. XX, pp. 181 and I78.)
   
Thus, one thing or the other: either you must prove that the main thing in the October Revolution was the completion of the bourgeois revolution, or you cannot prove it; in the latter case the obvious conclusion is that the peasantry as a whole could support us in October only in so far as we carried the bourgeois revolution to completion, doing away with the monarchy, and with the property and regime of the landlords.
   
Secondly. You must prove that the Bolsheviks could have secured the support of the peasantry as a whole in October and after October, in so far as they carried the bourgeois revolution to completion, without systematically putting into effect the slogan of dictatorship of the proletariat and poor peasantry during the whole period of preparation for October; without a systematic struggle, arising from this slogan, against the compromising policy of the petty-bourgeois parties; without a systematic exposure, arising from the same slogan, of the vacillations of certain strata of the peasantry and of their representatives in the Soviets.
   
Try to prove that. In point of fact, why did we succeed in securing the support of the peasantry as a whole in October and after October? Because we had the possibility of carrying the bourgeois revolution to completion.
   
Why did we have that possibility? Because we succeeded in overthrowing the power of the bourgeoisie and replacing it by the power of the proletariat, which alone is able to carry the bourgeois revolution to completion.
   
Why did we succeed in overthrowing the power of the bourgeoisie and establishing the power of the proletariat? Because we prepared for October under the slogan of dictatorship of the proletariat and poor peasantry; because, proceeding from this slogan, we waged a systematic struggle against the compromising policy of the petty-bourgeois parties; because, proceeding from this slogan, we waged a systematic struggle against the vacillations of the middle peasantry in the Soviets; because only with such a slogan could we overcome the vacillations of the middle peasant, defeat the compromising policy of the petty-bourgeois parties, and rally a political army capable of waging the struggle for the transfer of power to the proletariat.
   
It scarcely needs proof that without these preliminary conditions, which determined the fate of the October Revolution, we could not have won the support of the peasantry as a whole for the task of completing the bourgeois revolution, either in October or after October.
   
That is how the combination of peasant wars with the proletarian revolution should be understood.
   
That is why to counterpose the support of the peasantry as a whole in October and after October as regards completing the bourgeois revolution to the fact that the preparation for the October Revolution was made under the slogan of the dictatorship of the proletariat and poor peasantry means to understand nothing of Leninism.
   
Your principal error is that you have failed to understand either the fact of the interweaving during the October Rev-
olution of socialist tasks with the tasks of completing the bourgeois revolution, or the mechanics of fulfilling the various demands of the October Revolution arising from the Party's second strategic slogan, the slogan of the dictatorship of the proletariat and poor peasantry.
   
Reading your letter one might think that it was not we who took the peasantry into the service of the proletarian revolution, but, on the contrary, that is was "the peasantry as a whole," including the kulaks, who took the Bolsheviks into their service. Things would go badly with the Bolsheviks if they so easily "entered" the service of non-proletarian classes.
   
Kamenev's ideas of the period of April 1917 -- that is what is fettering you.
   
3) You assert that Stalin does not see any difference between the situation in 1905 and the situation in February 1917. That, of course, is not to be taken seriously. I never said that, and could not have said it. In my letter I said merely that the Party's slogan on the dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry, issued in 1905, received confirmation in the February Revolution of 1917. That, of course, is true. That is exactly how Lenin described the situation in his article "Peasants and Workers" in August 1917:
   
"Only the proletariat and the peasantry can overthrow the monarchy -- such was the fundamental definition of our class policy for that time (i.e., 1905 -- J. St.). And that definition was a correct one. February and March have confirmed this once again."* (See Vol. XXI, p. 111.)
   
You simply want to find fault.
   
4) You try, further, to convict Stalin of contradicting himself, by counterposing his thesis on the compromising policy of the middle peasant before October to a quotation from
   
* My italics. -- J. St.
Stalin's pamphlet Problems of Leninism, which speaks of the possibility of building socialism jointly with the middle peasantry after the dictatorship of the proletariat has been consolidated.
   
It does not require much effort to prove that such an identification of two different phenomena is utterly unscientific. The middle peasant before October, when the bourgeoisie was in power, and the middle peasant after the dictatorship of the proletariat has been consolidated, when the bourgeoisie has already been overthrown and expropriated, when the co-operative movement has developed and the principal means of production are concentrated in the hands of the proletariat, are two different things. To identify these two kinds of middle peasant and to put them on a par means to examine phenomena out of connection with their historical setting and to lose all sense of perspective. It is something like the Zinoviev manner of mixing up all dates and periods when quoting.
   
If that is what is called "revolutionary dialectics," it must be admitted that Pokrovsky has broken all records for "dialectical" quibbling.
   
5) I shall not touch on the remaining questions, for I think they have been exhaustively dealt with in the correspondence with Yan-sky.
May 20, 1927
NOTES
[52]
Novaya Zhizn (New Life ) -- a Menshevik newspaper published in Petrograd from April 1917 to July 1918.
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