A Tactful Approach to the Peasantry Is Needed

One thing or the other: either we succeed in adopting the correct Leninist approach to the non-Party peasants in order to direct the growing political activity of the peasantry into the channel of constructive Soviet work and thus ensure that the peasants are led by the workers, or we fail to do this, in which case the political activity of the masses will by-pass the Soviets, will pass over the heads of the Soviets, and take the form of bandit revolts like that which occurred in Georgia. That is how the question stands, comrades.
A TACTFUL APPROACH
TO THE PEASANTRY IS NEEDED
To illustrate how tactlessly the peasants are approached sometimes, a few words must be said about anti-religious propaganda. Occasionally, some comrades are inclined to regard the peasants as materialist philosophers and to think that it is enough to deliver a lecture on natural science to convince the peasant of the nonexistence of God. Often they fail to realise that the peasant looks on God in a practical way, i.e., he is not averse to turning away from God sometimes, but he is often torn by doubt: “Who knows, maybe there is a God after all. Would it not be better to please both the Communists and God, as being safer for my affairs?” He who fails to take this peculiar mentality of the peasant into account totally fails to understand what the relations between Party and non-Party people should be, fails to understand that in matters concerning anti-religious propaganda a careful approach is needed even to the peasant’s prejudices.