Vladimir Lenin
A Regrettable Deviation
From the Principles of Democracy
Written: 10 May, 1917
First Published: Pravda No. 53, May 10 (23), 1917
Today's Izvestia carries a report of the meeting of the Soldiers' Section of the
Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies. This meeting, among other things,
"considered the question of whether soldiers could perform the duties of
militiamen. The Executive Committee proposed to the meeting a resolution to the
following effect:
"In view of the fact that soldiers must perform their direct duty, the Executive
Committee of the Soviet of Soldiers' Deputies declared against the soldiers'
participation in the militia, and proposes that all soldiers serving in the
militia be immediately returned to their units.'
"After a brief debate, the resolution was passed with an amendment permitting
soldiers discharged from active service as well as wounded soldiers to perform
militia duties."
It is to be regretted that the exact texts of the resolution and the amendment
have not been published. More regrettable still is the fact that the Executive
Committee proposed and the meeting adopted a resolution which is a complete
abandonment of the fundamental principles of democracy.
There is hardly a democratic party in Russia that does not include in its
programme a demand for the universal arming of the people as a substitute for
the standing army. There is hardly a Socialist-Revolutionary or a Menshevik
Social- Democrat who would dare oppose such a demand. The trouble is that it has
become a "custom" "nowadays", under the cover of high-sounding phrases about
'revolutionary democracy", to accept democratic (the more so socialist)
programmes "in principle", but reject them in practice.
To oppose the participation of soldiers in the militia on the ground that
"soldiers must perform their direct duty" is to forget completely the principles
of democracy and involuntarily, unconsciously, perhaps, to adopt the idea of a
standing army. The soldier is a professional; his direct duty is not social
service at all-such is the point of view of those who are for a standing army.
It is not a democratic point of view. It is the point of view of the Napoleons.
It is the point of view of old supporters of the old regime and the capitalists,
who dream of an easy transition backward, from a republic to a constitutional
monarchy.
A democrat is opposed to such a view on principle. Soldiers' participation in
the militia amounts to breaking down the wall that separates the army from the
people. It amounts to breaking with the accursed 'barrack" past where a special
group of citizens, detached from and opposed to the people, were trained,
"knocked into shape" and drilled for the 'direct task" of following only a
military profession. Soldiers' participation in the militia is a cardinal issue
involving the re-education of the "soldiers" into militiamen citizens, the
re-education of the population into public-spirited armed citizens. Democracy
will remain an idle deceitful phrase, or merely a half-measure, unless the
entire people is given a chance immediately and unqualifiedly to learn how to
handle arms. Without the systematic, regular, and wide spread participation of
the soldiers in the militia this will be impossible.
The objection may be raised that soldiers should not be deflected from their
direct duties. No one said they should. To make a point of this is as ridiculous
as saying that a physician engaged at the bedside of a patient who is
dangerously ill has no right to leave that bedside in order to go and hand in
his voting-paper, or that a worker engaged in production, which admittedly must
not be interrupted, has no right to go away to exercise his political rights
until he is relieved by another worker. Such arguments would simply he frivolous
and even unscrupulous.
Participation in the militia is one of the cardinal and basic principles of
democracy, one of the most important guarantees of freedom. (We might add,
parenthetically, that there is no better way of enhancing the purely military
strength and capacity of the army than by substituting the universal arming of
the people for the standing army, and by using the soldiers to instruct the
people; this method has always been used and always will be used in every truly
revolutionary war.) The immediate, unqualified, universal organisation of a
people's militia and the widest participation of soldiers in that militia are in
the vital interests of the workers, peas ants, and soldiers, that is to say, the
vast majority of the population, a majority that is not interested in
safeguarding the profits of the landowners and the capitalists.
Transcription/Markup: David Walters and Brian Basgen
Online Version: Lenin Internet Archive (marxists.org) 1999
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