Dawn was already breaking when the remaining deputies, representing the elected majority, started to read their decrees. Chernov was reading the decree on land when a sailor seized him by the arm and said, “It's time to finish. We have an order from the People's Commissar."

*

The guards continued to shout: "Come on, time to finish. We'll turn off the lights." . . . When the chair finally recessed the meeting, it was morning.

Before noon, when the Assembly was slated to reconvene, the deputies. found the entrance to the Tauride Palace barred by a detachment of troops with rifles, machine guns, and two fieldpieces. On the same day-January 19, 1918—a decree of the Sovnarkom abolished the Constituent Assembly."

78

Chapter III. The Program of the First Soviet Regime

1. Peace, Land, Equality

The numerous public announcements, decrees, and orders issued during the first few weeks of the new government contained a grandiose program for the political and economic transformation of Russia. They were also intended to appeal to leftist movements in the West; the outbreak of the world revolution (starting in Germany) was expected in a matter of weeks. The most important of the initial Soviet reforms are mentioned below; they are significant because they furnish a standard to measure the extent to which the actual course of the Soviet governments in subsequent decades deviated from the pledges and plans of its initial era.

Turning its attention first to the war situation, Lenin's government denied that it would conclude a separate peace with Germany. On the government's initiative, the Second Congress of Soviets adopted a "Decree on Peace," which contained an appeal to all the warring peoples to conclude "a just and democratic peace," and to begin by declaring an immediate 3-month armistice.

The workers' and peasants' government created by the revolution of November 6-7 [October 24-25] and backed by the Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies calls upon all the belligerent peoples and their governments to start immediate negotiations for a just and democratic peace.

By a just, or democratic, peace, for which the vast majority of the working and toiling classes of all belligerent countries, exhausted, tormented and racked by the war, are craving, a peace that has been most definitely and insistently demanded by the Russian workers and peasants ever since the overthrow of the tsarist monarchy-by such a peace the government means an immediate peace without annexations (i.e., the seizure of foreign lands, or the forcible incorporation of foreign nations) and indemnities.1

1V. I. Lenin, Decree on Peace contained in "Report on the Peace Question," Delivered November 8 [October 26], 1917 at the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, Selected Works (Moscow: Co-Operative Publishing Society of Foreign Workers in the U.S.S.R., 1935), vol. VI, p. 401. The Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies was held November 7 and 8 [October 25 and 26], 1917.

On the subject of annexation by force of foreign lands and independent nations, the decree (written by Lenin) contained the following state

ment:

In accordance with the sense of justice of the democracy in general, and of the toiling classes in particular, the government interprets the annexation, or seizure, of foreign lands as meaning the incorporation into a large and powerful state of a small or feeble nation without the definitely, clearly and voluntarily expressed consent and wish of that nation, irrespective of the time such forcible incorporation took place, irrespective of the degree of development or backwardness of the nation forcibly annexed to, or forcibly retained within, the frontiers of the given state, and finally, irrespective of whether the nation inhabits Europe or distant, overseas countries.2

Violently opposed to "secret diplomacy," the new government promised to make public and to void all "predatory" international treaties. signed by Russia; by implication this meant, of course, that no secret treaties would be concluded in the future.

The government abolishes secret diplomacy and, for its part, expresses its firm determination to conduct all negotiations quite openly before the whole people. It will immediately proceed to the full publication of the secret treaties ratified or concluded by the government of landlords and capitalists during the period March [February] to November 7 [October 25], 1917.3

The "Decree on the Land" was promulgated at the same session. This decree shrewdly followed the outline of reforms that had been proposed by Lenin's main adversaries, the Socialist-Revolutionaries— a fact that Lenin openly acknowledged. In his effort to win the support of the peasantry and the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries, Lenin incorporated in his decree such ideas (rejected earlier by Russian Marxists) as equalitarian land tenure, "socialization" of the land, and abolition of private land property. The decree stated:

The question of the land in its full scope can be settled only by a National Constituent Assembly.

The most just settlement of the land question is as follows:

1) The right of private property in land shall be abolished in perpetuity; land shall not be purchased, sold, leased, mortgaged, or otherwise alienated.

All land, whether state, appanage, tsar's, monastic, church, factory, primogenitory, private, public, peasant, etc., shall be taken over without

2 Ibid.

8

Ibid., p. 402. Concerning subsequent developments in the war and in the peace negotiations, see ch. IX.

compensation and become the property of the whole people, to be used by those who cultivate it.

2) All mineral wealth, e.g., ore, oil, coal, salt, etc., as well as forests and waters of state importance, shall be reserved for the exclusive use of the state.

7) Land tenure shall be on an equality basis, i.e., the land shall be distributed among the toilers in conformity with either the labour standard or the consumption standard, as local conditions shall warrant.

There shall be absolutely no restriction as to the forms of land tenure: household, farm, communal, or co-operative, as shall be determined in each individual village.*

In his speech before the congress Lenin said:

I hear voices stating that the decree itself and the Instructions were drawn up by the Socialist-Revolutionaries. Be it so. Does it matter who drew it up? As a democratic government, we cannot ignore the decision of the rank and file of the people, even though we may disagree with it. . . .5 A few days later, in an official statement, Lenin indicated the essence of his agrarian upheaval:

all landed estates pass wholly and entirely into the hands of the Soviets of Peasants' Deputies.

The rural area Land Committees must immediately take all landed estates under their control, keeping a strict inventory....

The Council of People's Commissars calls upon the peasants themselves to take the whole power in their localities into their own hands.

The first steps toward organization of a "Socialist national economy" were the decrees' of December 14 [1] concerning the creation of a Supreme Council of National Economy, and December 27 [14] concerning the "nationalization of banks":

1. The Supreme Council of National Economy is established [as an organ] attached to the Soviet of People's Commissars.

2. The work of the Supreme Council of National Economy is to organize the national economy and state finances....

Lenin, "Report on the Land Question," Delivered November 8 [October 26], 1917 at the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, Selected Works, vol. VI, pp. 407, 408.

"Ibid., p. 409.

Lenin, "Reply to Peasants' Questions" (November 18 [5], 1917), Lenin Stalin 1917, Selected Writings and Speeches (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1938), pp. 643, 644.

'These decrees were issued by the Central Executive Committee, elected by the Congress of Soviets; see ch. II, p. 59, note 57.

3. The Supreme Council of National Economy has the right to confiscate, requisition, sequester, and consolidate various branches of industry, commerce, and other enterprises in the field of production, distribution, and state finance.

The decree on banking read as follows:

1. Banking is hereby declared a state monopoly.

2. All existing private joint-stock banks and other banking houses are to become a part of the State Bank.

3. Assets and liabilities of establishments in the process of liquidation will be assumed by the State Bank.

6. The interests of small depositors will be fully protected."

In addition to these two socializing measures, "Workers' Control" 10 was introduced by the Council of People's Commissars on November 27 [14], 1917. It tended toward elimination of private enterprise.

1. In the interests of a systematic regulation of national economy, Workers' Control is introduced in all industrial, commercial, agricultural [and similar] enterprises which are hiring people to work for them in their shops or which are giving work to take home. This control is to extend over the production, storing, buying and selling of raw materials and finished products as well as over the finances of the enterprise.

The

2. The workers will exercise this control through their elected organizations, such as factory and shop committees, Soviets of elders, etc. office employees and the technical personnel are also to have representation in these committees.

8. The rulings of the organs of Workers' Control are binding on the owners of enterprises and can be annulled only by decisions of the higher organs of Workers' Control.11

On February 10 [January 28], 1918, the Central Executive Committee promulgated a decree annulling all state loans, both internal and external. The decree read in part:

1. All state loans made by the governments of the Russian landowners and bourgeoisie. are hereby annulled (abolished) as from December

1917....

3. All foreign loans without exception are unconditionally annulled."

* James Bunyan and H. H. Fisher, The Bolshevik Revolution 1917–1918 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1934), p. 314.

'Ibid., p. 323.

10 The word "control" in Russian implies less power than does the word in English; its meaning in Russian is approximately "check," "revision," "supervision."

"Ibid., pp. 308, 309.

" Ibid., p. 602.