
DECLARATION OF THE RIGHTS OF THE TOILING AND
EXPLOITED PEOPLES
PART 1
CHAPTER ONE
- 1. Russia is proclaimed a Republic of Soviets
of Workers', Soldiers', and Peasants' Deputies. All central and local authority
is vested in these Soviets.
- 2. The Russian Soviet Republic is established
on the basis of a free union of free nations, a federation of National
Soviet Republics.
CHAPTER TWO
The Constituent Assembly sets for itself as a
fundamental task the suppression of all forms of exploitation of man by
man and the complete abolition of class distinctions in society. It aims
to crush unmercifully the exploiter, to reorganize society on a socialistic
basis, and to bring about the triumph of Socialism throughout the world.
It further resolves:
- 1. In order to bring about the socialization
of land, private ownership of land is abolished. The entire land fund is
declared the property of the nation and turned over free of cost to the
toilers on the basis of equal right to its use. All forests, subsoil resources,
and waters of national importance as well as all live stock and machinery,
model farms, and agricultural enterprises are declared to be national property.
- 2. As a first step to the complete transfer of
the factories, shops, mines, railways, and other means of production and
transportation to the Soviet Republic of Workers and Peasants, and in order
to ensure the supremacy of the toiling masses over the exploiters, the
Constituent Assembly ratifies the Soviet law on workers' control and that
on the Supreme Council of National Economy.
- 3. The Constituent Assembly ratifies the transfer
of all banks to the ownership of the workers' and peasants' government
as one of the conditions for the emancipation of the toiling masses from
the yoke of capitalism.
- 4. In order to do away with the parasitic classes
of society and organize the economic life of the country, universal labor
duty is introduced.
- 5. In order to give all the power to the toiling
masses and to make impossible the restoration of the power of the exploiters,
it is decreed to arm the toilers, to establish a Socialist Red Army, and
to disarm completely the propertied classes.
CHAPTER THREE
- 1. The Constituent Assembly expresses its firm
determination to snatch mankind from the claws of capitalism and imperialism
which have brought on this most criminal of all wars and have drenched
the world with blood. It approves whole-heartedly the policy of the Soviet
Government in breaking with the secret treaties, in organizing extensive
fraternisation between the workers and peasants in the ranks of the opposing
armies and in its efforts to bring about, at all costs, by revolutionary
means, a democratic peace between nations on the principle of no annexation,
no indemnity, and free self-determination of nations.
- 2. With the same purpose in mind tlie Constituent
Assembly demands a complets break with the barbarous policy of bourgeois
civilization which enriches the exploiters in a few chosen nations at the
expense of hundreds of millions of the toiling population in Asia, in the
colonies, and in the small countries. The Constituent Assembly welcomes
the policy of the Soviet of People's Commissars in granting complete independence
to Finland, of removing the troops from Persia and allowing Armenia the
right of self-determination. The Constituent Assembly considers the Soviet
law repudiating the debts contracted by the government of the Tsar, landholders,
and the bourgeoisie a first blow to international banking and finance-capital.
The Constituent Assembly expresses its confidence that the Soviet Government
will follow this course firmly until the complete victory of the international
labour revolt against the yoke of capital.
CHAPTER FOUR
- 1. Having been elected on party lists made up
before the November Revolution, when the people were not yet in a position
to rebel against the exploiters whose powers of opposition in defence of
their class privileges were not yet known, and when the people had not
yet done anything practical to organize a socialistic society, the Constituent
Assembly feels that it would be quite wrong even technically to set itself
up in opposition to the Soviet.
- 2. The Constituent Assembly believes that at
this present moment of decisive struggle of the proletariat against the
exploiters there is no place for the exploiters in any organ of government.
The government belongs wholly to the toiling masses and their fully empowered
representatives, the Soviets of Workers', Soldiers', and Peasants' Deputies.
- 3. In supporting the Soviet and the decrees of
the Soviet of People's Commissars, the Constituent Assembly admits that
it has no power beyond working out some of the fundamental problems of
reorganizing society on a socialistic basis.
4. At the same time, desiring to bring about a
really free and voluntary, and consequentlv more complete and lasting,
union of the toiling classes of all nations in Russia, the Constituent
Assembly confines itself to the formulation of the fundamental principles
of a federation of the Soviet Republics of Russia, leaving to the workers
and peasants of each nation to decide independently at their own plenipotentiary
Soviet Congresses whether or not they desire, and if so on what conditions,
to take part in the federated government and other federal Soviet institutions.