A letter to Pravda Today, Saturday, November 18, in the course of a speech I made at the Peasants' Congress, I was publicly asked a question to which I forthwith replied. It is essential that this question and my reply should immediately be made known to all the reading public, for while formally speaking only in my own name, I was actually speaking in the name of the whole Bolshevik Party. The matter was the following.
Socialism is fully able to meet the interests of both.
Only socialism can meet their interests. Such, for instance, would be the point on equal land tenure and the redistribution of land among the small holders. By abstaining from voting on such a point the Bolsheviks would not be changing their programme in the slightest. The Bolsheviks, in my opinion, would be entitled when the vote was being taken to make a declaration of dissent, to place on record their non-agreement, etc., but to abstain from voting under such circumstances would be to betray their allies in the fight for socialism because of a difference with them on a partial issue. The Bolsheviks would never betray the peasants in such a situation.