Soviet democracy does not merely not exclude the workers’ organisations from government, but it actually makes of them the instruments of government. But since the soviets and the other organisations of the working class and the peasantry number their members by the million, the Soviet Power entrusts with new functions innumerable masses of persons who were formerly oppressed and degraded. To an ever greater extent the masses of the people, the workers and the poor peasants, come to participate in the joint labours of the soviets, the trade unions, and the factory committees. This is going on everywhere. In the country towns and in the villages, people who never did anything of the kind before are now actively participating in the work of administration and in the upbuilding of a new life. In this way the Soviet Power secures the widest self-government for the various localities, and at the same time summons the broad masses of the people to participate in the work of government.
It is evident that our party must devote itself to promoting the world-wide development of this new proletarian democracy. We must do our utmost to secure that the widest strata of the proletarians and the poor peasants shall participate to the utmost of their power in the work of the soviets. In one of his pamphlets, published before the November revolution, Comrade Lenin wrote very truly that our task was to see that every cook should be taught to take her share in governmental administration. Of course this is by no means an easy job, and there are many hindrances to its realisation. First among such obstacles comes the low cultural level of the masses. The workers’ vanguard is but a small body. In this vanguard, the metal workers, for instance, are conspicuous. But a large proportion of the workers are backward, and this is especially true of the country districts. They lack initiative, they lack creative faculty; they stand aside and let others take the first steps. The task of our party consists in the systematic and gradual attraction of these backward strata to participate in the general work of administration. Of course the only way of bringing new strata to participate in the work is to raise their cultural level and their capacity for organisation. This, likewise, is the task of our party.