RECONSTRUCTION IN RUSSIA 485 484 THE CLASS STRUGGLE The separation of church and state was carried out all over Russia without any upheaval; the peasants have adopted civil marriage without much ado.
14. The class struggle was carried into the villages, the question of furnishing the inhabitants of the cities with means of life being made the point of contact. Instead of the usual method of increased prices that obtains in other countries, instead of paying premiums for prompt delivery and other bribes for the wealthy farmer, the most oppressed elements in the towns were mobilized against the wealthy farmers, supported by armed divisions from the cities. The more bread the poor farmers of a given country district were able to get out of the rich farmers for the urban population, the greater the supply of manufactured and industrial products that were assigned to the district. Only in this way was it possible to save the cities and manufacturing towns of Russia from actual starvation, although the Czecho Slavs had cut them off from the grain supplies in Siberia and German troops closed the North Caucasus by their conquest of Rostov.
VII.
DECLARATION OF RIGHTS AND DUTIES OF TOILING HUMANITY that it is necessary to destroy the existing social structure, which rests upon private property in the soil and the means of production, in the spoliation and oppression of the laboring masses, and to substitute for it a socialistic structure. Then the whole earth, its surface and its depths, and all the means and instruments of production, created by the toil of the laboring classes, will belong by right of common property to the whole people, who are united in a fraternal association of laborers.
Only by giving society a socialistic structure can the division of it into hostile classes be destroyed, only so can we put an end to the spoliation and oppression of men by men, of class by class; and all men placed upon an equality as to rights and duties will contribute to the welfare of society according to their strength and capacities, and will receive from society according to their requirements.
The complete liberation of the laboring classes from spoilation and oppression appears as a problem not locally or nationally limited, but as a world problem, and it can be carried out to its end only through the united exertions of workingmen of all lands. Therefore, the sacred duty rests upon the working class of every country to come to the assistance of the workingmen of other countries. who have risen against the capitalistic structure of society.
The working class of Russia, true to the legacy of the International, overthrew their bourgeoisie in November, 1917, and, with the help of the poorest peasantry, seized the powers of government. In establishing a dictatorship of the proletariat and the poorest peasantry the working class resolved to wrest capital from the hands of the bourgeoisie, to unite all the means of production in the hands of the socialistic state and thus to increase as rapidly as possible the mass of productive forces.
The first steps in that direction were: Abolition of property in land, declaration of the entire soil as national property, and the distribution of it to the workmen without purchase money, upon the principle of equality in utilizing it. Declaration as national property of all forests, treasures of the earth and waters of general public utility, and all the belongings, whether animals or things, of the model farms and agricultural undertakings. Introduction of a law for workmen control of industry, and for the nationalization of a number of branches of industry. Nationalization of the banks, which heretofore were one of the mightiest instruments for the spoliation of society by capital, We, the laboring people of Russia, workmen, peasants, Cossacks, soldiers and sailors, united in the councils of the Workmen Soldiers. Peasants and Cossacks Delegates, declare in the persons of our plenipotentiary representatives, who have assembled at the All Russian Congress of Soviets, the following rights and duties of the working and despoiled people: The economic subjection of the laboring classes by the possessors of the means and instruments of production, of the soil, machines, factories, railways and raw materials those basic sources of life appears as the cause of all sorts of political oppression, economic spoliation, intellectual and moral enslavement of the laboring masses.
The economic liberation of the working classes from the yoke of Capitalism represents therefore the greatest task of our time and must be accomplished at all cost, The liberation of the working classes must and can be the work of those classes themselves, who must unite for that purpose in the Soviets of the Workmen s, Soldiers. Peasants and Cossacks Delegates.
In order to put an end to every ill that oppresses humanity and in order to secure to labor all the rights belonging to it, we recognize