Collected Works of V. I. Lenin - Vol. 26 - From Marx to Mao

144V. I. LENINprepare troops, by confusing the masses with the illusionthat a “resolution” of the Congress of Soviets can solve atask which only the insurrectionary proletariat is capable ofsolving by force.5. It is necessary to fight against constitutional illusionsand hopes placed in the Congress of Soviets, to discard thepreconceived idea that we absolutely must “wait” for it, toconcentrate all efforts on explaining to the masses the inevitabilityof an uprising, and on preparing it. With theSoviets of both capital cities in their hands the Bolshevikswould be reducing all their propaganda for the Power-tothe-Sovietsslogan to empty phrases and, politically, wouldbe covering themselves with shame as a party of the revolutionaryproletariat if they refused to carry out this task,and if they became reconciled to the convocation of the ConstituentAssembly (which means a faked Constituent Assembly)by the Kerensky government.6. This is particularly true now, when the Moscow electionshave given the Bolsheviks 49.5 per cent of the votesand when the Bolsheviks, with the support of the LeftSocialist-Revolutionaries, which has long existed in reality,have an undoubted majority in the country.NOTE TO THE RESOLUTION ON POWER TO THE SOVIETSNot everything in the Theses on Power to the Sovietsshould be published, but it is tantamount to the Party’slosing its connections with the vanguard of the proletariat,if we refuse to discuss within the Party and to make clearto the masses those most urgent and important problemsthat cannot be discussed in the open due to the absence offull freedom of the press, or that cannot be brought outopenly before the enemy.Written between September 29and October 4 (October 12 and 17), 1917First published in 1921in N. Lenin (V. Ulyanov), Works,Vol. XIV, Part 2Published accordingto a typewritten copy