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

476V. I. LENINtional, creative work in full swing, you will see the stir ofa life that is being renewed and hallowed by the revolution.The peasants are taking over the land in the countryside,the workers are seizing the factories, and all kinds of organisationsare springing up everywhere.“Soviet power is striving to bring the war to an end, andwe are confident that it will achieve this goal earlier thanKerensky government spokesmen have promised. For therevolution has become a factor in the matter of ending thewar, a factor which has denounced treaties and repudiatedloans. The war will come to an end due to the internationalrevolutionary movement.”In conclusion, the speaker commented in a few words oncounter-revolutionary saboteurs, saying that they weregroups bribed by the bourgeoisie, which showered its giftson the sabotaging officials who declared war on the Sovietstate, for the triumph of reaction. To them it was doomsday,the irrevocable end of everything when they saw the peoplestriking vigorously at the bourgeoisie with a peasants’ andworkers’ axe. “Our only fault, if any, is that we were muchtoo humane, much too kind-hearted, towards the monstrouslytreacherous representatives of the bourgeois-imperialistsystem.“A few days ago some Novaya Zhizn writers visited me,saying they had come on behalf of bank employees who wantedto take up service and submit fully to Soviet power,stopping the policy of sabotage. High time, I answered.*But, speaking confidentially, if they imagine that havingbegun those talks, we shall cede our revolutionary positionsone iota, they are sorely mistaken.“The world has never seen anything like that which isnow taking place here in Russia, in this vast country brokenup into a number of separate states and containing an enormousnumber of heterogeneous nationalities and peoples.I refer to the immense organisational work in every uyezdand region, the organisation of the lower strata, the workof the masses themselves, the creative, constructive activity,which encounters obstacles raised by various bourgeoisrepresentatives of imperialism. They, the workers and* See p. 501 of this volume.—Ed.