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

REPORT ON THE RIGHT OF RECALL339nature of the Soviets is evident in the fact that every peasantsends his representatives to the Soviet and is also entitledto recall them.Various parties in this country have been in power. Thelast time power passed from one party to another there wasa revolution, a rather stormy revolution, but if we hadhad the right of recall, a simple vote would have sufficed.There is this word freedom. In the old days it meantfreedom for the bourgeoisie to manipulate its millions forswindling, freedom to use its forces through such swindling.We have done with the bourgeoisie and that kind of freedom.The state is an institution for coercion. In the old days,it was the coercion of the whole people by a handful ofmoney-bags. We want to turn the state into an institutionenforcing the will of the people. We want to institute coercionin the working people’s interests.Failure to grant the right of recall from the ConstituentAssembly is failure to elicit the revolutionary will of thepeople, it is usurpation of the people’s rights. We do haveproportional representation, which is indeed the most democratic.Under this system it may be somewhat difficultto introduce the right of recall but the difficulties entailedare purely technical and are fairly easy to overcome. Inany case there is no contradiction between proportionalrepresentation and the right of recall.The people do not cast their votes for individuals butfor parties. The party spirit is rather strong in Russia, andas far as the people are concerned each party has a definitepolitical character. That is why any party split must bringconfusion unless the right of recall is provided for. TheSocialist-Revolutionary Party enjoyed great influence. Buta split occurred after the election lists had been put out.The lists cannot be altered, nor can the convocation of theConstituent Assembly be postponed. As a result, the peopleactually voted for a party which had ceased to exist. Thiswas proved by the Left-wing Second Peasant Congress. 129It turned out that the peasants were not misled by individualsbut by the party split. This state of things needs to beset right. The direct, consistent and immediate democraticprinciple, namely, the right of recall, must be introduced.