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

62V. I. LENINbeen particularly eventful, and to eliminate crying injustices(lack of proportional representation, unequal elections,etc.) which in some cases still remain.All power locally, wherever there are not yet any democraticallyelected institutions, and also in the army, mustbe taken over exclusively by the local Soviets and by commissarsand other institutions elected by them, but onlythose that have been properly elected.Workers and revolutionary troops, i.e., those who havein practice shown their ability to suppress the Kornilovites,must everywhere be armed, and this must be done with thefull support of the state.PEACE TO THE PEOPLES3. The Soviet Government must straight away offer toall the belligerent peoples (i.e., simultaneously both totheir governments and to the worker and peasant masses)to conclude an immediate general peace on democraticterms, and also to conclude an immediate armistice (evenif only for three months).The main condition for a democratic peace is the renunciationof annexations (seizures)—not in the incorrect sensethat all powers get back what they have lost, but in theonly correct sense that every nationality without anyexception, both in Europe and in the colonies, shall obtainits freedom and the possibility to decide for itself whetherit is to form a separate state or whether it is to enter intothe composition of some other state.In offering the peace terms, the Soviet Government mustitself immediately take steps towards their fulfilment, i.e.,it must publish and repudiate the secret treaties by whichwe have been bound up to the present time, those whichwere concluded by the tsar and which give Russian capitaliststhe promise of the pillaging of Turkey, Austria,etc. Then we must immediately satisfy the demands ofthe Ukrainians and the Finns, ensure them, as well as allother non-Russian nationalities in Russia, full freedom,including freedom of secession, applying the same to allArmenia, undertaking to evacuate that country as wellas the Turkish lands occupied by us, etc.