Written 23 March, 1922
First Published: Bednota No. 1183, March 26, 1922; Published according to the manuscript
Source: Lenin’s Collected Works, 2nd English Edition, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1965, Volume 33, pages 249-250
Translated: David Skvirsky and George Hanna
Transcription\HTML Markup:
David Walters &
R. Cymbala
Copyleft: V. I. Lenin Internet Archive
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My congratulations to the Editorial Board of Bednota on the occasion of the fourth anniversary of their newspaper.
For four years the paper has worked honourably and successfully to serve the interests of the working peasantry. The war that was forced upon the people by the capitalists and landowners ruined Russia to such an extent that our working peasantry still remain poor. The working people of Russia have still a lot of real hard work to do to over-come the starvation and poverty, the want and ruin that prevail as a consequence of the war.
But the peasants and workers of Russia will get down to this hard work and finish it, come what may. In this effort the workers and peasants will be inspired by the knowledge that they will be working for their own benefit, to improve their own conditions of life, and not for the enrichment of landowners and capitalists.
Soviet power has given us the alliance of workers and peasants. Therein lies its strength. Therein lies the guar-antee of our successes and of our ultimate victory.
This alliance gave us victory over Kolchak and Denikin, who, with the aid of foreign troops sent here by the capitalists, had tried to restore the rule of the landowners in Russia.
Now the foreign capitalists are compelled to conclude trade agreements with Soviet Russia, These agreements will help us to get the agricultural implements, machines and other goods that we need for the restoration of our ruined peasant farms.
We are now experiencing a most difficult spring follow-lug a year of famine. But we shall not be downhearted. Great as the hardships of the workers and peasants may be, we have now won the right and the opportunity to work for our own benefit and not for the benefit of the landowners. And we shall restore and improve our ruined economy.
N. Lenin
March 23, 1922
[1] Lenin wrote this greeting at the request of Bednota's editor V. A. Karpinsky.
Lenin took a keen interest in the work of this newspaper and required Karpinsky to send him regular reports on the number of letters received by the newspaper from peasants and Red Army men, on the general mood expressed in those letters and the main questions raised in them.
Bednota, whose publication was started in Moscow on March 27, 1918, was a newspaper for peasants. On February 1, 1931 it was merged with the newspaper Sotsialisticheskoyc Zenzledeliye.