The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1925-01-28
.LENIN AND THE
AGRICUL TURAL
WORKERS UNIONS
"Of Exceptional Import
ance," He Says

Laborers Of Russia.
BY N. Lenin, in Pravda, June "a, 1917.
There is one question of exceptional
importance that must be brought be-
fore the All-Russia Trade Union Con
gress now in session in Petrograd.
This is the question of the foundation
of an AlI-Russia Union Of Agricultural
Laborers.
All classes in Russia are organizing.
The most exploited class of all, living
in the greatest poverty the most scat
tered and the most down-trodden, the
hired agricultural laborers of Russia,
seems to have been forgotten. In
some of the non-Russian border states,
in Latvia, for instance, organizations
of hired agricultural laborers exist.
But in the greatest part of the Central
Russian and Ukrainian provinces
there are no class organizations of the
agricultural proletariat.
! The greatest and most urgent duty
Of the vanguard of the Russian pro
letariat, the trade unions Of industrial
workers, is to come to the aid of their
brothers, the agricultural workers. The
difficulties involved in organizing the
agricultural workers are immense
this is evident, and is confirmed by ex
perience in all capitalist countries.
So much the more imperative Is il
then to begin work Immediately and
theoretically for the realization Of pol
itical freedom in Russia, for the found
alton of an AlIRussia Union of Agri
cultural Workers. It is precisely this
Trade Union Congress that can and
must undertake this task. It is just
the more experienced, more developed,
more class conscious representatives
of the proletariat gathered now in con-
ference, who can and must send out a
call to the agricultural laborers, sum
moning them to the ranks Of the in
dependently organized proletaFiat, &c
the ranks Of their trade unions. It is
1 just the factory wage workers who
must take the initiative, making u.s.
of the nuclei, groups and branches OF
i trade unions scattered thruout Rus
STA, in order to arouse the agricultural
workers to independent life, to an &C
tive part in the struggle for the i'm
provement of their own conditions, &c
the defense Of their own class inter-
ests.
1t probably appears to many, and
this is perhaps the prevailing opinion
that just at this moment, when the
,peasantry is organizing thruout Rus.
STA, demanding the abolition of the
private ownership Of land, the "equali-
cation" of its use. the formation of
a trade union Of agricultural workers
is inopportune.
Just the contrary. Precisely at such
a time it is particularly opportune and
urgently necessary. For those who
hold a class, proletarian viewpoint,
there can be no doubt as to the cor
rectness Of the thesis adopted at the
Stockholm session Of the Russian So
cial Democratic Workers Party in
1906 (now Communist Party, on the
initiative Of the Bolsheviki, and which
has ever since been included in the
program of the r. S. d. w. p. The
thesis states:
1.-THE party at all times and under
all circumstances Of democratic agrar-
ian reform, puts as Its aim to advance
undeviatingiy toward the independent
class organization of the agricultural
proletariat, TO explain to them the ir-
reconcilable opposition between their
interests and the interests Of the
bourgeois farmers, TO warn them
against the allurements OF an agricuit.
ural system that under the capitalist
system of production can never de-
stroy the misery of the masses, and
finally, to point out to them the neces-
sity of a complete socialistic overturn,
as the only means for the destruction
Of all misery and all exploitation"
There is not single class conscious
worker, not a single trade union mem
her. who will not acknowledge the
truth OF this thesis. To put this the
sis into effect, insofar as II is a matter
concerning the independent class or
ganization Of the agricultural prole
tariat-ls particularly the task OF the
trade unions.
We hope that just at a revolutionary
juncture, when there is manifesting IT,
self among the toiling mass in general.
among the workers IN particular. a liv.
ing tendency towards breaking their
own trail, towards not permitting the
building OF life anew without the IN.
dependent decision of the workers
themselves ON all questions concern.
ing labor--that just at such a time
the trade unions win not lock them.
selves ND in narrow craft interests
that they win not forget their weaker
brothers, but with all their energy will
come 70 their aid in founding union
OF the agricultural workers Of Russia
n