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. 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.