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

574 NOTES163164165166The Congress approved the basic provisions of the law on thesocialisation of land worked out on the basis of the Decree onLand.It elected an All- Russia Central Executive Committee consistingof 160 Bolsheviks, 125 Left Socialist- Revolutionaries,2 Social- Democrat internationalists, 3 anarchist Communists,7 Socialist- Revolutionary Maximalists, 7 Right Socialist- Revolutionariesand 2 Mensheviks.In a summing- up speech, Lenin said that the Congress “hasopened a new epoch in world history” and by establishing theorganisation of a new state power created by the October Revolution“has projected the lines of future socialist construction forthe whole world, for the working people of all countries” (p. 479).p. 453The reference is to the talks between the All- Russia LeatherWorkers Union with their employers for wider workers’ representationin the Central Leather Committee and its remouldingon democratic lines. The Central Committee and the district committeeswere reorganised in early 1918 with the workers gettingtwo- thirds of the votes. On April 6, 1918, a telegram signed byLenin was sent to all Soviets on the need to democratise the localorgans of the leather industry, and fulfil precisely the instructionsissued by the Central and district committees for the leatherindustry. p. 470Marx’s letter to Engels of February 12, 1870. p. 471The reference is to the anti- war general strike by Italian workersin Turin in August 1917, and the strikes staged by Austrian workersin January 1918 in connection with the peace talks in Brest-Litovsk. The strikes in Austria were held under slogans demandinga general peace and improvement of food supplies for the workers.p. 471The reference is to the Message of the Revolutionary FinnishGovernment to the Council of People’s Commissars of the RussianRepublic, published in Pravda (evening edition) No. 13, on January17 (30), 1918.The revolution in Finland broke out in mid- January 1918 inthe southern industrial areas. On January 15 (28), the FinnishRed Guard occupied Helsingfors, the capital, and overthrew thereactionary bourgeois government of Svinhufvud. A revolutionarygovernment of Finland, the Council of People’s Representativeswas set up on January 16 (29). Power in the towns and villagesin the south of Finland passed into the hands of the workers.The Svinhufvud government was entrenched in the north andappealed to the German Government for help. Following theintervention of the German armed forces and a bitter civil war,the revolution in Finland was crushed in May 1918. p. 480