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

4551REPORT ON THE ACTIVITIESOF THE COUNCIL OF PEOPLE’S COMMISSARSJANUARY 11 (24)Comrades, on behalf of the Council of People’s CommissarsI must submit to you a report of its activities for thetwo months and fifteen days that have elapsed since theestablishment of Soviet power and the Soviet Governmentin Russia.Two months and fifteen days—that is only five daysmore than the preceding workers’ power lasted and ruledover a whole country, or over the exploiters and the capitalists,the power of the Paris workers at the time of theParis Commune of 1871.We must first of all remember this workers’ power, wemust cast our minds back and compare it with the Sovietpower that was formed on October 25. And if we comparethe preceding dictatorship of the proletariat with the presentone we shall see at once what a gigantic stride the internationalworking-class movement has made, and in whatan immeasurably more favourable position Soviet powerin Russia finds itself, notwithstanding the incredibly complicatedconditions of war and economic ruin.After retaining power for two months and ten days,the workers of Paris, who for the first time in history establishedthe Commune, the embryo of Soviet power, perishedat the hands of the French Cadets, Mensheviks and RightSocialist-Revolutionaries of a Kaledin type. The Frenchworkers had to pay an unprecedentedly heavy price for thefirst experience of workers’ government, the meaning andpurpose of which the overwhelming majority of the peasantsin France did not know.