Written: February 7, 1920
First Published: Pravda No. 28, February 8, 1920; Published according to
the Pravda text
Source: Lenin’s Collected Works, 4th English Edition, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1965, Volume 30, pages 347-348
Translated: George Hanna
Transcription/HTML Markup: David Walters & Robert Cymbala
Copyleft: V. I. Lenin Internet Archive (www.marx.org) 2002. Permission is granted to copy and/or distribute this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License
The landowners and capitalists, who have been over-thrown by the workers and peasants of Russia, have forced two years of civil war upon us with the help of the capital-ists of the whole world.
We are ending this war victoriously.
We have already gained the first peace, which has demon-strated the superiority of our foreign policy over the pol-icy of the united capitalists of all countries. These cap-italists did their utmost to prevent peace between Estonia and us. We have beaten them. We have concluded peace with Estonia—the first peace; it will be followed by others, opening up for us the possibility of trading with Europe and America.
The bloody war which the exploiters forced upon us we are ending victoriously. During these two years we have learned how to win; and we have won.
Now comes the turn of a bloodless war.
Let us work for victory on the front of the bloodless war against hunger and cold, against typhus and destruction, against ignorance and economic chaos!
This bloodless war has been forced upon us by the de-struction caused by four years of imperialist war and two years of civil war. In order to defeat the poverty and want, the hunger and hardships caused by these wars, we must keep firmly in mind, must thoroughly grasp and everywhere and at all costs observe the maxim, à la guerre comme à la guerre!
The workers and peasants were able to create a Red Army without the landowners and capitalists and against them, and were able to defeat the exploiters.
The workers and peasants will be able to create Red armies of peaceful labour—they will be able to win new happiness for themselves by restoring agriculture and in-dustry.
The first and chief step towards this is the restoration of the transport rystern which must be done at all costs, immedi-ately, with revolutionary energy, and must be carried out with military determination, solidarity, speed and selfless devotion.
Let’s get on with the job, comrades!
Let us show that in the sphere of peaceful labour we can display even greater marvels of heroism and victory than in the arena of war against the exploiters!
February 7, 1920