The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1926-05-22
Short Stories of His Life

explains can the peasant achieve his real liberia
ton. The workers must aid the peasants in their
fight against the remnants of feudalism, and Elk
ploitation. There are two class conflicts in the
country between the landlords and the peas
ants, and between the employers and the prole-
tariat. The former controversy is now in the
foreground. The liberation of the peasants
means the furthering of capitalist development.
This is the immediate aim of the peasants and
they must be supported in it.
In 1902 Lenin wrote pamphlet in which he
explains to the peasants the questions of the
workers in the cities. By means of statistics he
shows how the poor peasants are compelled to
turn to wagelabor and how they for their own
sake must be interested in the fights of the work
ers The program of the Workers Party in the
peasants question must be: with all the peasants
against the remnants of serfdom; with the poor
| and the middle peasants against the bourgeois
| landlords and the big peasants. Immense lands
are in the hands of the landlords, the church and
the crown. large part of them had been peas
ants lands before their CELEBRATION" in 1861.
After that the peasants were compelled to buy
or rent those lands. Therefore the return of the
land and the hundreds of millions of rubles ex-
torted from them must be the first demand. The
pastures, the fishing -grOunds and the forests
| taken away from them, must be given back. The
committees of peasants must divide up the lands
I and adjust the grievances of the peasants Those
are the general demands of all peasants They
have in some places started to realize them, but
have been declared robbers and rebels. The car
list troops have raided the villages. Now it us up
to the workers to help the peasants and organize.
United they will win.
"What Is to Be Done?"
! TN 1902 Lenin's pamphlet "What Is to Be Donef
About the Burning Questions of the Labor
Movement" was published 1t was a summary
IzeL tt L
on ssEc0nomism," which had gotten new sencOur-s
agement from Bernstein's attack on "Marxian
/ doctrinairism." The Economists had explained
/ that the movement must be limited to immediate
economic demands because the workers instinct
lively incline to that, and the political fight
| too dangerous. Lenin explains how the workers.
of their own initiative come only to trade
unionism The Socialist consciousness must be
given to them by science All bowling down to
the elementary instinctiveness of the workers.
the lowering of the socialist policy into pure
trade uniOnism, prepares the way for the utiliza-
/ ton of the labor movement a tool in the hands
of capitalism. (How terribly this prophecy was
realized during the warD
"Lenin points out the dangers of the sponta-
neOus labor movement growing faster than the
group of experienced leading elements. So much
good fighting spirit and energy will be lost.
I Therefore it is urgently necessary to create a
party which is able to react Immediately to the
Questions of the day and to give the slogan which
unites the whole working people in action
Afterwards, to the critics who said that he had
in this pamphlet Overemphasized the Importance
of professional revolutionists Lenin answered in
1907 with a comparison drawn from military
life. He asked how man would be looked upon
who would say that the japanese Overestimated
the necessity of an adequate army before the
war! Don't these critics understand that in
OQfr re ofiO &c
to concentrate all the forces on the main task?
That was the case at that time-the creation of
the organization of professional revolutionists
was the main task and it could not be overesti-
mated.
The next short story from Lenin's life
will appear in the coming issue of the