prohibited private trading in grain and established the surplus-appropriation system, under which all surplus produce in the hands of the peasants was to be registered and acquired by the state at fixed prices, so as to accumulate stores of grain for the provisioning of the army and the workers. Lastly, it introduced universal labour service for all classes. In the viewpoint of the party, the principle of 'He who does not work, neither shall he eat' was put into practice. Defeat of Germany The First World War ended with the defeat of Germany and the overthrow of the German government. The Soviet Government now annulled its commitment to the Brest-Litovsk agreement and initiated a military and political struggle to reclaim Estonia, Latvia, Byelorussia, Lithuania, Ukraine and Transcaucasia. Foundation of the Third International Ever since the break with the Second International, the Bolsheviks had argued for the creation of a new Third, Communist International. In the new situation in Europe, with Soviet rule established in Russia and revolutionary uprisings taking place in Germany, Austria and Hungary, and with the traditional Social Democracy divided in many countries, a constitutive congress of the Communist International was held in March 1919. The RCP(b) was one of the founding parties of the new international, and its headquarters were in Moscow. 8th Party Congress The Eighth Congress of RCP(b) was held in March 1919. It assembled in the midst war. The congress was attended by 301 delegates with vote, representing 313,766 members of the Party, and 102 delegates with voice but no vote. In his inaugural speech, Lenin paid homage to the memory of Y. M. Sverdlov, who had died on the eve of the congress. The congress adopted a new Party Program. This program included a description of capitalism and imperialism, and compared two systems of state– the bourgeois-democratic system and the Soviet system. It specified the specific tasks of the Party in the struggle for socialism: completion of the expropriation of the bourgeoisie; administration of the economic life of the country in accordance with a single socialist plan; participation of the trade unions in the organization of the national economy; socialist labour discipline; utilization of bourgeois experts in the economic field under the control of Soviet bodies; gradual and systematic enlistment of the middle peasantry in the work of socialist construction. The congress adopted Lenin's proposal to include in the program in addition to