Published 1 (14) June 1917
Algeria let them down… Our ministerial ‘Socialist-Revolutionaries’ had almost succeeded in stunning the public – and themselves – into believing all their talk about ‘peace without annexations’, but… Algeria let them down. Dyelo Naroda, a newspaper to which two Socialist-Revolutionary ministers, Kerensky and Chernov, contribute, was incautious enough to invite the views of three Allied cabinet ministers (belonging to the same near-socialist camp) on Algeria. How terribly careless this was on the part of the newspaper of the Kerenskys and Chernovs will be seen from the following.
The three Allied ministers – Henderson, Thomas and Vandervelde of Britain, France and Belgium, stated that they did not want “annexation”, but only “liberation of territories”. The paper of the Kerenskys and Chernovs described this – quite rightly – as a “sleight of hand” on the part of the ‘tamed socialists’, and poured out on them the following angry and sarcastic tirade:
True, they [the three ministers] demand the liberation of territories only “in conformity with the will of the population”. Very well! But in that case we ought to demand that they, and we, be consistent and recognise the ‘liberation’ of Ireland and Finland on the one hand and Algeria or Siam on the other. It would be very interesting to hear the opinion of, say, the socialist Albert Thomas on ‘self-determination’ for Algeria.
Indeed, “it would be very interesting to hear the opinion” also of Kerensky, Tsereteli, Chernov and Skobelev on “self-determination” for Armenia, Galicia, Ukraine and Turkestan.
Don’t you see, you Narodnik and Menshevik members of the Russian Government, that by citing the example of Ireland and Algeria you have exposed the whole lie and falsity of your own position and behaviour. You have shown that ‘annexation’ cannot be interpreted merely as the seizure of territory in this war. In other words, you have refuted yourselves and Izvestia of the Petrograd Soviet, which only the other day declared with proud ignorance that the term annexation could be applied only to territories seized in the present war. But who does not know that Ireland and Algeria were annexed decades and centuries before the outbreak of this war?
Careless, very careless of Dyelo Naroda! It has exposed its utter confusion of ideas, and that of the Mensheviks and Izvestia, on such a key issue as annexations.
Nor is that all. You question Henderson about Ireland and Albert Thomas about Algeria; you contrast the views on annexation of the “French bourgeoisie now in power” with the views of the French people; you call Henderson and Albert Thomas “tamed socialists” – but what about yourselves?
What are you, Kerensky, Tsereteli, Chernov, Skobelev, if not “tamed socialists”? Did you raise the question of the Russian Ireland and the Russian Algeria, i.e. of Turkestan, Armenia, Ukraine, Finland, etc., before the government of the ‘Russian bourgeoisie now in power’? When did you raise this question? Why don’t you tell the Russian ‘people’ about it? Why don’t you qualify as “sleight of hand” the Russian Narodniks’ and Mensheviks’ blether about “peace without annexations” in the Soviet, in the government and before the people, without raising, clearly and unambiguously, the question of all Russian annexations of the same type as Ireland and Algeria?
The Russian ministeriable Narodniks and Mensheviks are in a hopeless muddle; every passing day adds to their self-exposure.
Their ‘final’ stock argument is that we are having a revolution. But that argument is false from beginning to end. For our revolution so far has only brought the bourgeoisie to power, as in France and Britain, with a ‘harmless minority’ of ‘tamed socialists’, as in France and Britain. What our revolution will produce tomorrow – whether a return to the monarchy, the strengthening of the bourgeoisie, or the transfer of power to more advanced classes – neither we nor anyone else knows. Consequently, the plea of ‘revolution’ in general is a gross deception of the people and of oneself.
The annexation issue is a good touchstone for the Narodniks and Mensheviks, who are entangled in a web of lies. They are just as muddled as Plekhanov, Henderson, Scheidemann and co.; they are distinguishable from each other only in words, for as far as deeds are concerned they are all alike – dead to socialism.
Published 7 (20) June 1917
Plekhanov’s Yedinstvo (which even the Socialist-Revolutionary Dyelo Naroda justly calls a newspaper at one with the liberal bourgeoisie) has recently recalled the law of the French Republic of 1793 relating to enemies of the people. A very timely recollection.
The Jacobins of 1793 belonged to the most revolutionary class of the eighteenth century, the town and country poor. It was against this class, which had in fact (and not just in words) done away with its monarch, its landowners and its moderate bourgeoisie by the most revolutionary measures, including the guillotine – against this truly revolutionary class of the eighteenth century – that the monarchs of Europe combined to wage war.
The Jacobins proclaimed enemies of the people those “promoting the schemes of the allied tyrants directed against the Republic”.
The Jacobins’ example is instructive. It has not become obsolete to this day, except that it must be applied to the revolutionary class of the twentieth century, to the workers and semi-proletarians. To this class, the enemies of the people in the twentieth century are not the monarchs, but the landowners and capitalists as a class.
If the ‘Jacobins’ of the twentieth century, the workers and semi-proletarians, assumed power, they would proclaim enemies of the people the capitalists who are making thousands of millions in profits from the imperialist war, that is, a war for the division of capitalist spoils and profits.
The ‘Jacobins’ of the twentieth century would not guillotine the capitalists – to follow a good example does not mean copying it. It would be enough to arrest fifty to a hundred financial magnates and bigwigs, the chief knights of embezzlement and of robbery by the banks. It would be enough to arrest them for a few weeks to expose their frauds and show all exploited people ‘who needs the war’. Upon exposing the frauds of the banking barons, we could release them, placing the banks, the capitalist syndicates and all the contractors ‘working’ for the government under workers’ control.
The Jacobins of 1793 have gone down in history for their great example of a truly revolutionary struggle against the class of the exploiters by the class of the working people and the oppressed who had taken all state power into their own hands.
The miserable Yedinstvo (with which the Menshevik defencists were ashamed to form a bloc) wants to borrow Jacobinism in letter and not in spirit, its exterior trappings and not the content of its policy. This amounts in effect to a betrayal of the revolution of the twentieth century, a betrayal disguised by spurious reference to the revolutionaries of the eighteenth century.
Published 8 (21) June 1917
“The great withdrawal of the bourgeoisie from the government.” This is what the main speaker of the Executive Committee, in a report he submitted last Sunday, called the formation of the coalition government and the entry of former socialists into the Ministry.
Only the first three words in this phrase are correct. “The great withdrawal” does indeed characterise and explain 6 (19) May (the formation of the coalition government). It was on that day that “the great withdrawal” really began, or, to be exact, manifested itself most clearly. Only, it was not a great withdrawal of the bourgeoisie from the government but a great withdrawal of the Menshevik and Narodnik leaders from the revolution.
The significance of the Congress of Soviets of Soldiers’ and Workers’ Deputies now in session lies in the fact that it has made this circumstance clearer than ever.
6 May was a triumph for the bourgeoisie. The bourgeois government was on the verge of defeat. The masses were definitely and absolutely, sharply and irreconcilably opposed to it. One word from the Narodnik and Menshevik leaders of the Soviet would have sufficed to induce the government to relinquish its power unquestioningly. Lvov had to admit that openly at the sitting in the Mariinsky Palace.
The bourgeoisie resorted to a skilful manoeuvre which was new to the Russian petty bourgeoisie and to Russia’s masses in general, which intoxicated the intellectual Menshevik and Narodnik leaders, and which took proper account of their Louis Blanc nature. The reader may recall that Louis Blanc was a renowned petty-bourgeois socialist who entered the French Government in 1848 and became as sadly famed in 1871. Louis Blanc imagined himself to be the leader of the ‘labour democrats’ or ‘socialist democrats’ (the term ‘democracy’ was used in the France of 1848 as frequently as in Socialist-Revolutionary and Menshevik writing in 1917), but in reality he was the tail-end of the bourgeoisie, a play thing in their hands.
During the almost seventy years that have elapsed since then, that manoeuvre, which is a novelty in Russia, has been made many times by the bourgeoisie in the West. The purpose of this manoeuvre is to make the ‘socialist democratic’ leaders who ‘withdraw’ from socialism and from the revolution harmless appendages of a bourgeois government, to shield this government from the people by means of near-socialist Ministers, to cover up the counter-revolutionary nature of the bourgeoisie by a glittering, spectacular facade of ‘socialist’ ministerialism.
This method has been developed to a veritable art in France. It has also been tested on many occasions in Anglo-Saxon, Scandinavian and many of the Latin countries. It is this manoeuvre that was made in Russia on 6 May 1917.
‘Our’ near-socialist Ministers found themselves in a situation in which the bourgeoisie began to use them as their cat’s paw, to do through them what the bourgeoisie could never have done without them.
Through Guchkov it would have been impossible to lure the people into continuing the imperialist, predatory war, a war for redivision of the colonies and annexed territories in general. Through Kerensky (and Tsereteli, who was busier defending Tereshchenko than defending the post and telegraph workers), the bourgeoisie were able, as correctly admitted by Milyukov and Maklakov, to begin ‘organising’ the continuation of this kind of war.
Through Shingarev it would have been impossible to ensure the preservation of the landed estates system at least until the convocation of the Constituent Assembly (if an offensive were to take place, it would “enable Russia to recover completely”, said Maklakov. That means that the Constituent Assembly itself would be ‘healthier’). Through Chernov, this can be brought about. The peasants have been told, although they have not been very glad to hear it, that to rent land from the landowners by agreement with each individual owner is ‘order’, while to abolish the landed estates at one stroke and rent from the people, pending the convocation of the Constituent Assembly, land formerly owned by the landowners is ‘anarchy’. This counter-revolutionary idea of the landowners could only be put into effect through Chernov.
Through Konovalov it would have been impossible to ensure the safeguarding (and the increase – see what the ministerial newspaper, Rabochaya Gazeta, writes about the coal industrialists) of the scandalous profits from war contracts. Through Skobelev, or with his participation, this safeguarding can be ensured by allegedly preserving the old order, by near-‘Marxist’ rejection of the possibility of ‘introducing’ socialism.
Because socialism cannot be introduced, the scandalously high profits made by the capitalists – not from their purely capitalist business but from supplies to the armed forces, to the state – these profits can be both concealed from the people and retained! This is the wonderful Struvean argument which has brought together Tereshchenko and Lvov, on the one hand, and the ‘Marxist’ Skobelev, on the other.[1]
Popular meetings and the Soviets cannot be influenced through Lvov, Milyukov, Tereshchenko, Shingarev and the rest. But they can be influenced through Tsereteli, Chernov and co. in the same old bourgeois direction. And one can pursue the same old bourgeois-imperialist policy by means of particularly impressive, particularly ‘nice’-sounding phrases, to the point of denying the people the elementary democratic right to elect local authorities and prevent both their appointment and confirmation from above.
By denying this right, Tsereteli, Chernov and co. have unwittingly turned from ex-socialists into ex-democrats.
A “great withdrawal”, all right!
Published 11 (24) June 1917
Editor’s note:
Early in June, tensions in Petrograd grew. The prolongation of the war by the Provisional Government, preparations for an offensive at the front and food shortages caused resentment and indignation among the workers and soldiers. The government’s order for troops to take over the Durnovo country-house and evict the workers’ organisations of the Vyborgskaya Storona district from it gave rise to a strike. On 7 (20) June four factories went on strike and the next day, twenty-eight. The masses were eager to hold a street demonstration.
To ward off provocation and unnecessary loss of life, a joint meeting of the Central and Petrograd Committees, the Military Organisation, district delegates from the workers, and delegates from troop units, held on 8 (21) June, carried Lenin’s motion to organise a peaceful organised demonstration. The action was set for Saturday 10 (23) June.
The Bolshevik’s decision to hold a demonstration brought a ready response from the masses and alarmed the government, as well as the Mensheviks and SRs, who resolved to foil the demonstration. On the evening of 9 (22) June the First All-Russia Congress of Soviets, led by the Mensheviks and SRs, passed a resolution banning all street demonstrations for three days.
On a motion by Lenin, the CC of the Bolshevik Party, not wishing to go against the Congress decision, resolved that night to call off the demonstration. Members of the Central and Petrograd Committees and other prominent members of the Party were sent to factories and barracks to dissuade the workers and soldiers from demonstrating. As a result of their explanatory work, the workers and soldiers agreed that it would be unwise to hold a demonstration at that time.
* * *
The atmosphere in Petrograd is one of fright and confusion reaching truly unparalleled dimensions.
This was illustrated by a small incident prior to the big incident of banning the demonstration fixed by our Party for Saturday.
This small incident was the seizure of Durnovo’s country house. Minister Pereverzev first ordered the house cleared, but then declared at the Congress that he was letting the people use the garden and that the trade unions were not to be evicted from the house! All that was necessary, he said, was to arrest certain anarchists.[2]
If the seizure of Durnovo’s country house was unlawful, then it was wrong either to leave the garden for the people’s use or to allow the trade unions to remain in the house. If there were lawful grounds for arrest, the arrest had no bearing on the house, for it could have occurred either in the house or outside it. As it happened, the house was not ‘vacated’, nor were any arrests made. The government found itself confused and frightened. Had they not become nervous, there would have been no ‘incident’, for nothing has changed anyway.
The big incident was the demonstration. Our Party’s Central Committee, together with a number of other organisations, including the Trade Union Bureau, resolved to call a peaceful demonstration, a march through the streets of the capital. In all constitutional countries, the holding of such a demonstration is an absolutely incontestable civil right. A peaceful street demonstration calling, incidentally, for an amendment of the Constitution or a change in the government is in no way regarded as unlawful by the legislation of any free country.
People who were confused and frightened, including, in particular, the majority at the Congress of Soviets, made an awful ‘fuss’ over the demonstration. The Congress majority adopted a devastating resolution against the demonstration, full of abuse against our Party, and prohibited all demonstrations, including peaceful ones, for three days.
When this formal decision had been adopted, the Central Committee of our Party, as early as 2 am on Saturday, resolved to cancel the demonstration. The cancellation was effected on Saturday morning at an emergency meeting with district representatives.
The question remains: how does our second ‘government’ the Congress of Soviets, explain its ban? Agreed that every party in a free country has the right to hold demonstrations, and every government can, after proclaiming a state of emergency, prohibit them. But the political question remains: why was the demonstration banned?
Here is the only political motive, clearly stated in the resolution of the Congress of Soviets:
We know that concealed counter-revolutionaries want to take advantage of your demonstration [i.e. the one planned by our Party]…
That is the reason why the peaceful demonstration was banned. The Congress of Soviets ‘knows’ that there are ‘concealed counter-revolutionaries’ and that they wanted to ‘take advantage’ of the action which our Party had planned.
This statement by the Congress of Soviets is highly significant. And we must re-emphasise this factual statement, which by virtue of its factualness stands out from the spate of abuse levelled at us. What measures is our second government taking against the ‘concealed counter-revolutionaries’? What exactly does this government ‘know’? How exactly did the counter-revolutionaries want to take advantage of one pretext or another?
The people cannot and will not wait patiently and passively until those concealed counter-revolutionaries act.
If our second government does not want to remain like people who by bans and torrents of abuse try to cover up their confusion and the fact that they have allowed themselves to be frightened by the Right, it will have to tell the people a great deal about the “concealed counter-revolutionaries” and do a great deal to combat them seriously.
Delivered at a Meeting of the Petrograd Committee of the RSDLP(B)
11 (24) June 1917
The dissatisfaction voiced by most comrades over the cancellation of the demonstration is quite natural, but the Central Committee had no alternative for two reasons: first, we were formally banned from holding the demonstration by the semi-organ of power; secondly, the motive for the ban was stated as follows:
We know that concealed forces of the counter-revolution want to take advantage of your demonstration.
In support of this motive, we were given names, such as that of a general, whom they promised to arrest within three days, and others. And they declared that a demonstration of the Black Hundreds had been arranged for 10 (23) June with the intention of breaking into our demonstration and turning it into a skirmish.
Even in ordinary warfare, it sometimes happens that a planned offensive has to be cancelled for strategic reasons. This is all the more likely to occur in class warfare, depending on the vacillation of the middle, petty-bourgeois groups. We must be able to take account of the situation and be bold in adopting decisions.
The cancellation was absolutely necessary, as subsequent developments proved. Today Tsereteli has delivered his historical and hysterical speech.[3] Today the revolution has entered a new phase of its development. They began by banning our peaceful demonstration for three days, and now they want to ban it for the entire duration of the Congress. They demand that we obey the decision of the Congress under threat of expulsion from the Congress. But we have declared that we prefer arrest rather than renounce freedom of propaganda.
Tsereteli, whose speech showed him up as a blatant counter-revolutionary, declared that the Bolsheviks must not be fought by words and resolutions, but must be deprived of all the technical means they have at their disposal. The result of all bourgeois revolutions is: first arm the proletariat and then disarm it to prevent it from going any further. The fact that a peaceful demonstration had to be banned shows that the situation must be very serious.
Tsereteli, who emerged from the depths of the Provisional Government to attend the Congress, clearly expressed a desire to disarm the workers. He was savagely furious in demanding that the Bolshevik Party be ousted from the ranks of the revolutionary democrats. The workers must clearly realise that there can now be no question of a peaceful demonstration. The situation is far more serious than we thought. We were going to hold a peaceful demonstration in order to exercise maximum pressure on the decisions of the Congress – that is our right – but we are accused of hatching a plot to arrest the government.
Tsereteli says that there are no counter-revolutionaries apart from the Bolsheviks. The meeting that passed judgment on us was organised with particular solemnity. It consisted of the Congress Steering Committee, the Executive Committee of the Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies in full force and the bureaus of the groups of all the parties attending the Congress. At that meeting they blurted out the whole truth, namely, that they are calling an offensive against us.
The proletariat must reply by showing the maximum calmness, caution, restraint and organisation, and must remember that peaceful processions are a thing of the past.
We must give them no pretext for attack. Let them attack, and the workers will realise that it is an attack on the very existence of the proletariat. But reality is on our side, and it is a moot point whether their attack will succeed – at the front there are the troops, among whom discontent is very strong, and in the rear there is the high cost of living, economic dislocation and so on.
The Central Committee does not want to force your decision. Your right, the right to protest against the actions of the Central Committee, is a legitimate one, and your decision must be a free one.
Published 13 (26) June 1917
At the first stage of its development the Russian revolution transferred power to the imperialist bourgeoisie, and created, alongside of that power, the Soviets of Deputies, with the petty-bourgeois democrats in the majority. The second stage of the revolution (6 (19) May) formally removed from power the cynically frank spokesmen of imperialism, Milyukov and Guchkov, and virtually transformed the majority parties in the Soviets into governing parties. Our Party remained, before and after 6 May, a minority opposition. This was inevitable, for we are the party of the socialist proletariat, a party holding an internationalist position. A socialist proletariat whose outlook during an imperialist war is internationalist cannot but be in opposition to any power waging that war, regardless of whether that power is a monarchy or republic, or is held by defencist ‘socialists’. And the party of the socialist proletariat is bound to attract an increasingly large mass of people who are being ruined by the protracted war and are growing distrustful of ‘socialists’ committed to the service of imperialism, in the same way as they previously grew distrustful of imperialists themselves.
The struggle against our Party, therefore, began in the very first days of the revolution. And however infamous and abominable the forms of struggle carried on by the Cadets and the Plekhanov people against the party of the proletariat, the meaning of the struggle is quite clear. It is the same struggle as the imperialists and the Scheidemann people waged against Liebknecht and Adler (both of whom were, in fact, declared ‘mad’ by the central organ of the German ‘socialists’, to say nothing of the bourgeois press, which described these comrades simply as ‘traitors’ working for Britain). This is a struggle of the whole of bourgeois society, including the petty-bourgeois democrats, however r-r-revolutionary they may be, against the socialist, internationalist proletariat.
In Russia, this struggle has reached a stage where the imperialists are trying, through the petty-bourgeois-democratic leaders, the Tseretelis, Chernovs, etc. to destroy the growing power of the workers’ party at a single hard and decisive blow. As a pretext for this decisive blow, Minister Tsereteli has struck upon a method repeatedly used by counter-revolutionaries: the charge of conspiracy. This charge is a mere pretext. The point is that the petty-bourgeois democrats, who take their cue from the Russian and the Allied imperialists, need to do away with the internationalist socialists once and for all. They think that the moment is ripe for the blow. They are agitated and frightened, and under the whip of their masters they have made up their minds: now or never.
The socialist proletariat and our Party must be as cool and collected as possible, must show the greatest staunchness and vigilance. Let the future Cavaignacs begin first.[4] Our Party conference has already given warning of their arrival. The workers of Petrograd will give them no opportunity to disclaim responsibility. They will bide their time, gathering their forces and preparing for resistance when those gentlemen decide to turn from words to action.
Published 16 (29) June 1917
“When a real Cavaignac comes, we shall fight in the same ranks with you”, we were told in No. 80 of Rabochaya Gazeta, organ of the very same Menshevik party whose member, Minister Tsereteli, in his notorious speech, went to such lengths as to threaten to disarm the Petrograd workers.
The above-quoted statement clearly brings out the fundamental errors of Russia’s two ruling parties, the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries, and therefore deserves attention. The ministerial organ’s arguments mean that you are looking for Cavaignacs at the wrong time and in the wrong place.
Remember the class role played by Cavaignac. In February 1848 the French monarchy was overthrown. The bourgeois republicans came to power. Like our Cadets, they wanted ‘order’, by which they meant the restoration and strengthening of monarchic instruments for oppressing the masses: the police, the standing army and the privileged bureaucracy. Like our Cadets, they wanted to put an end to the revolution, for they hated the revolutionary workers with their ‘social’ (i.e. socialist) aspirations, at that time very hazy. Like our Cadets, they were implacably hostile to the policy of extending the French Revolution to the rest of Europe, the policy of transforming it into a world proletarian revolution. Like our Cadets, they skilfully used the petty-bourgeois ‘socialism’ of Louis Blanc by making him a Minister and so transforming him from leader of the socialist workers, which he had wanted to be, into an appendage, a hanger-on, of the bourgeoisie.
These were the class interests, the position and policy of the ruling class.
The petty bourgeoisie, vacillating, frightened by the red spectre, and falling for the outcries against the ‘anarchists’, were another basic social force. Dreamily and bombastically ‘socialist’ in their aspirations, and readily calling themselves ‘socialist democrats’ (even this term is now taken up by the Socialist-Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks!), the petty bourgeoisie were afraid to entrust themselves to the leadership of the revolutionary proletariat, and did not realise that fear condemned them to entrusting themselves to the bourgeoisie. For there can be no ‘middle’ course in a society rent by bitter class struggle between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, particularly when this struggle is inevitably aggravated by a revolution. And the whole essence of the class position and aspirations of the petty bourgeoisie is that they want the impossible, that they aspire to the impossible, i.e. to a ‘middle course’.
The third decisive class force was the proletariat, which aspired not to ‘reconcile itself’ with the bourgeoisie, but to defeat them, to fearlessly promote the revolution, doing so, moreover, on an international scale.
That was the objective historical soil which brought forth Cavaignac. The vacillation of the petty bourgeoisie ‘debarred’ them from an active role, and the French Cadet, General Cavaignac, taking advantage of the petty bourgeoisie’s fear of entrusting themselves to the proletariat, decided to disarm the Paris workers and shoot them down en masse.
The revolution ended in that historic shooting. The petty bourgeoisie, while numerically superior, had been and remained the politically impotent tail of the bourgeoisie, and three years later France saw the restoration of a particularly vile form of Caesarist monarchy.
Tsereteli’s historic speech on 11 (24) June, clearly inspired by the Cadet Cavaignacs (perhaps directly inspired by the bourgeois Ministers, or perhaps indirectly prompted by the bourgeois press and bourgeois public opinion – it does not matter which), was remarkable and historic in that Tsereteli let out, with inimitable naivety, the ‘secret malady’ of the entire petty bourgeoisie, both Socialist-Revolutionary and Menshevik. This ‘secret malady’ consists, first, in a complete inability to pursue an independent policy; secondly, in the fear to entrust themselves to the revolutionary proletariat and wholeheartedly support the independent policy of the latter; thirdly, in a drift – inevitably following from this – towards submitting to the Cadets or to the bourgeoisie in general (i.e. submitting to the Cavaignacs).
This is the heart of the matter. Tsereteli, Chernov and even Kerensky are not destined as individuals to play the role of Cavaignacs. There will be other people to do that, people who at the right moment will tell the Russian Louis Blancs: “Step aside”. But the Tseretelis and Chernovs are leaders pursuing a petty-bourgeois policy that makes the appearance of Cavaignacs possible and necessary.
“When a real Cavaignac comes, we shall be with you” – an excellent promise, a splendid intention! Only, it is a pity that it reveals a misunderstanding of the class struggle, typical of the sentimental or timid petty bourgeoisie. For a Cavaignac is not an accident, his ‘advent’ is not an isolated development. A Cavaignac represents a class (the counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie) and carries out the policies of that class. And it is that class and those policies that you Socialist-Revolutionary and Menshevik gentlemen support today. It is to that class and its policies that you, who at the moment admittedly command a majority in the country, give predominance in the government, i.e. an excellent basis on which to work.
Indeed, the All-Russia Peasant Congress was almost entirely dominated by the Socialist-Revolutionaries. At the All-Russia Congress of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies, the Socialist-Revolutionary and Menshevik bloc had a vast majority. The same is true of the elections to the Petrograd district councils. The fact is there: the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks are the ruling party now. And this ruling party is voluntarily ceding power (the majority in the government) to the party of the Cavaignacs!!
Wherever there’s a swamp there’s sure to be the devil. Once there is a shaky, vacillating petty bourgeoisie dreading the revolution’s progress, the Cavaignacs are sure to appear.
In Russia there are many things now that make our revolution different from the French Revolution of 1848: the imperialist war, the proximity of more advanced countries (and not of more backward ones, as was the case of France at the time), an agrarian and a national movement. But all this may modify only the form in which the Cavaignacs come forward, the moment, the external causes, etc. It cannot change the essence of the matter, for the essence lies in the class relationships.
In words, Louis Blanc, too, was as far removed from Cavaignac as heaven is from earth. Louis Blanc, too, made countless promises “to fight in the same ranks” as the revolutionary workers against the bourgeois counter-revolutionaries. Nevertheless, no Marxist historian, no socialist, would venture to doubt that it was the weakness, the instability, the credulity of the Louis Blancs with regard to the bourgeoisie that brought forth Cavaignac and assured his success.
The Russian Cavaignacs are inevitable products of the counter-revolutionary character of the Russian bourgeoisie led by the Cadets and of the instability, timidity and vacillation of the petty-bourgeois parties of the Socialist-Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks. Whether the Russian Cavaignacs will win or lose the battle depends solely on the staunchness, vigilance and strength of Russia’s revolutionary workers.
Published 20 June (3 July) 1917
Editor’s note
On 12 (25) June, the SR and Menshevik leadership of the Congress of Soviets decided to hold a demonstration on 18 June (1 July) – the day when the Russian troops were to start an offensive – as proof of the people’s ‘confidence’ in the Provisional Government.
Under Lenin’s personal leadership, the Central and Petrograd Committees did a great deal to ensure that the demonstration reflected the true sentiment of the people and win that important peaceful battle against the Mensheviks and SRs for influence among the people.
Lenin took part in preparations for the demonstration by formulating slogans, checking the preparation of streamers and banners, giving directions to correspondents, writing telegrams to be sent to local Bolshevik organisations, taking steps to guarantee that there would be an adequate number of Bolshevik speakers, and putting his own name on the speakers list.
On 18 June (1 July) the demonstration brought some 500,000 Petrograd workers and soldiers out into the streets. By far most of the demonstrators carried Bolshevik revolutionary slogans. Only small groups carried the conciliating parties’ slogans expressing confidence in the Provisional Government. The demonstration revealed the heightened revolutionary spirit of the people and the vastly increased influence and prestige of the Bolshevik Party. It also revealed the complete failure of the petty-bourgeois conciliating parties backing the Provisional Government. Lenin dealt with the June demonstration in this article, ‘Three Crises’ and in other articles.
* * *
In one way or another, 18 June (1 July) will go down as a turning-point in the history of the Russian revolution.
The mutual position of the classes, their correlation in the struggle against each other, their strength, particularly in comparison with the strength of the parties, were all revealed so distinctly, so strikingly, so impressively by last Sunday’s demonstration that, whatever the course and pace of further development, the gain in political awareness and clarity has been tremendous.
The demonstration in a few hours scattered to the winds, like a handful of dust, the empty talk about Bolshevik conspirators and showed with the utmost clarity that the vanguard of the working people of Russia, the industrial proletariat of the capital and the overwhelming majority of the troops support slogans that our Party has always advocated.
The measured step of the battalions of workers and soldiers. Nearly half a million demonstrators. A concerted onslaught. Unity around the slogans, among which overwhelmingly predominated: ‘All power to the Soviets’, ‘Down with the ten capitalist Ministers’, ‘Neither a separate peace treaty with the Germans nor secret treaties with the Anglo-French capitalists’, etc. No one who saw the demonstration has any doubt left about the victory of these slogans among the organised vanguard of Russia’s workers and soldiers.
The demonstration of 18 June was a demonstration of the strength and policy of the revolutionary proletariat, which is showing the direction for the revolution and indicating the way out of the impasse. This is the tremendous historical significance of last Sunday’s demonstration, and its essential difference from the demonstrations during the funeral of the victims of the revolution and on May Day. Then it was a universal tribute to the revolution’s first victory and to its heroes. The people looked back over the first stage of the road to freedom, which they had passed very rapidly and very successfully. May Day was a holiday of hopes and aspirations linked with the history of the world labour movement and with its ideal of peace and socialism.
Neither of the two demonstrations was intended to point the direction for the revolution’s further development, nor could it do so. Neither demonstration put before the people, or raised in the name of the people, specific, definite and urgent questions as to how and in what direction the revolution should proceed.
In this sense, 18 June was the first political demonstration of action, an explanation of how the various classes act, how they want to and will act, in order to further the revolution – an explanation not given in a book or newspaper, but on the streets, not through leaders, but through the people.
The bourgeoisie kept out of the way. They refused to participate in that peaceful demonstration of a clear majority of the people, in which there was freedom of party slogans, and the chief aim of which was to protest against counter-revolution. That is natural. The bourgeoisie are the counter-revolution. They hide from the people. They organise real counter-revolutionary conspiracies against the people. The parties now ruling Russia, the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks, clearly showed themselves on that historic day, 18 June, as waverers. Their slogans spoke of wavering, and it was obvious to all that the supporters of their slogans were in a minority. By their slogans and wavering they advised the people to remain where they were, to leave everything unchanged for the time being. And the people felt, and they themselves felt, that that was impossible.
Enough of wavering, said the vanguard of the proletariat, the vanguard of Russia’s workers and soldiers. Enough of wavering. The policy of trust in the capitalists, in their government, in their vain attempts at reform, in their war, in their policy of an offensive, is a hopeless policy. Its collapse is imminent. Its collapse is inevitable. And that collapse will also be the collapse of the ruling parties, the Socialist-Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks. Economic disruption is coming nearer. There is no escaping it except by the revolutionary measures of the revolutionary class which has taken power.
Let the people break with the policy of trust in the capitalists. Let them put their trust in the revolutionary class – the proletariat. The source of power lies in it and only in it. It alone is the pledge that the interests of the majority will be served, the interests of the working and exploited people, who, though held down by war and capital, are capable of defeating war and capital!
A crisis of unprecedented scale has descended upon Russia and the whole of humanity. The only way out is to put trust in the most organised and advanced contingent of the working and exploited people, and support its policy.
We do not know whether the people will grasp this lesson soon or how they will put it into effect. But we do know for certain that apart from this lesson there is no way out of the impasse, that possible waverings or brutalities on the part of the counter-revolutionaries will lead nowhere.
There is no way out unless the masses put complete confidence in their leader, the proletariat.
Published 21 June (4 July) 1917
Editor’s note:
At the insistence of the Russian and Anglo-French imperialists, the Provisional Government launched an offensive, ordered by the War Minister Kerensky on 16 (29) June. On 18 June (1 July) the Russian troops went on the offensive on the South-Western Front. The operation was successful at first, but later, given inadequate technical preparation as well as the troops’ fatigue and lack of understanding of the purpose of the offensive, the German troops forced the Russian troops into a disorderly retreat. The Russian Army sustained a crushing defeat, losing about 60,000 men and officers in ten days.
The news of the enormous casualties angered the working people and hastened a new political crisis in the country.
* * *
“The Russian revolution has reached a turning-point”, said Tsereteli informing the Congress of Soviets that the offensive had begun. Yes, the whole course of the world war as well as the Russian revolution has reached a turning-point. After three months of vacillation the Russian Government has actually come to the decision demanded by the ‘Allied’ governments.
The offensive has been declared in the name of peace. And it is also ‘in the name of peace’ that the imperialists of the world send their troops into battle. Every time there is an offensive the generals in every belligerent country try to raise their troops’ morale by holding out the real hope of that particular offensive leading to early peace.
The Russian ‘socialist’ Ministers have garnished this common imperialist method with very high-sounding phrases in which words about socialism, democracy and revolution sound like rattles in the hands of a clever juggler. But no high-sounding phrases can conceal the fact that the revolutionary armies of Russia have been sent into battle in the name of the imperialist designs of Britain, France, Italy, Japan and America. No arguments from Chernov, once a Zimmerwaldist and now Lloyd George’s[5] partner, can conceal the fact that while the Russian Army and the Russian proletariat do not really pursue any annexationist aims, this does not in the least change the imperialist, predatory nature of the struggle between the two world trusts. Until the secret treaties binding Russia to the imperialists of other countries are revised, and as long as Ribot,[6] Lloyd George and Sonnino,[7] Russia’s allies, continue to talk about the annexationist aims of their foreign policy, the offensive of the Russian troops will continue to serve the imperialists.
Tsereteli and Chernov object, however, that they have repeatedly declared their renunciation of all annexations. So much the worse, we reply. That means your actions do not accord with your words, for your actions serve both Russian and foreign imperialism. And when you begin to cooperate actively with the imperialist ‘Allies’ you render splendid service to the Russian counter-revolution. The joy of all the Black Hundreds and all counter-revolutionaries over the decisive turn in your policy is the best evidence of that. Yes, the Russian revolution has come to a turning-point. Through its ‘socialist’ Ministers, the Russian Government has done something which the imperialist Ministers, Guchkov and Milyukov, could not do. It has put the Russian Army at the disposal of the general staffs and the diplomats who act in the name and on the basis of unabrogated secret treaties, in the name of designs frankly proclaimed by Ribot and Lloyd George. The government could only fulfil its task, however, because the army trusted and followed it. The army marched to death because it believed it was making sacrifices for freedom, the revolution and early peace.
But the army did so because it is only a part of the people, who at this stage of the revolution are following the Socialist-Revolutionary and the Menshevik parties. This general and basic fact, the trust of the majority in the petty-bourgeois policy of the Mensheviks and the Socialist-Revolutionaries which is dependent on the capitalists, determines our Party’s stand and conduct.
We shall keep up our efforts to expose government policy, resolutely warning the workers and soldiers, as in the past, against pinning their hopes on uncoordinated and disorganised actions.
It is a question of a phase in the people’s revolution. The Tseretelis and Chernovs, having become dependent on imperialism, are putting into effect a phase of petty-bourgeois illusions and petty-bourgeois phrases, which serve to disguise the same old cynical imperialism.
This phase must be brought to an end. Let us help to end it as speedily and as painlessly as possible. This will rid the people of the last petty-bourgeois illusions and bring about the transfer of power to the revolutionary class.
Published 22 June (5 July) 1917
They have brought it to a state of subjection to the imperialists.
The offensive is a renewal of the imperialist war. Nothing essential has changed in the relations between the two gigantic capitalist blocs waging war on one another. Even after the revolution of 27 February, Russia remains under the complete sway of the capitalists, who are bound to Anglo-French imperialist capital by alliance and by the old, tsarist, secret treaties. Both the economics and politics of the continuing war are the same as before: the same old imperialist banking capital dominating economic life, and the same old secret treaties, the same old foreign policy of alliances of one group of imperialists against another.
The empty phrases of the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries are still empty phrases, in practice only serving to adorn the resumption of the imperialist war, which quite naturally meets with enthusiastic howls of approval from all the counter-revolutionaries, the whole bourgeoisie and Plekhanov, “who tails after the bourgeois press”, as the Menshevik Rabochaya Gazeta put it, which itself tails after the whole horde of social-chauvinists.
But we must not overlook the distinguishing features of this particular resumption of the imperialist war. The resumption came after three months of hesitation, during which time the mass of workers and peasants thousands of times expressed their condemnation of a war of conquest (while continuing in practice to support the government of the predatory Russian bourgeoisie bent on conquest). The masses hesitated, as though they were about to carry out at home the advice which the 14 (27) March appeal to the peoples of the world gave to other peoples, namely: “Refuse to serve as tools of conquest and violence in the hands of the bankers!” But here at home, in ‘revolutionary-democratic’ Russia, the masses have remained in effect an instrument of conquest and violence in ‘the hands of the bankers’.
A distinguishing feature of this situation is that it was created by the Socialist-Revolutionary and Menshevik parties at a time when the people enjoyed a comparatively large measure of freedom of organisation. It is these parties that have gained the majority at the moment: the All-Russia Congress of Soviets and the All-Russia Peasants’ Congress have undoubtedly proved this.
It is these parties that are at present responsible for Russia’s policy.
It is these parties that are responsible for the resumption of the imperialist war, for more hundreds of thousands of lives sacrificed virtually with the aim of enabling certain capitalists to ‘overcome’ other capitalists, and for the further aggravation of the economic dislocation inevitably resulting from the offensive.
Here we had, in the purest form, the self-deception of the petty-bourgeois masses and the deception of them by the bourgeoisie with the aid of the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks. These parties both claim to be ‘revolutionary democrats’. But in fact it was they who placed the people’s fate in the hands of the counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie, the Cadets; it was they who deserted the revolution to continue the imperialist war, who deserted democracy to make ‘concessions’ to the Cadets on the issue of power (take, for instance, the ‘confirmation’ from above of the election of authorities by the local population), on the land issue (the Mensheviks’ and Socialist-Revolutionaries’ renunciation of their own programme, namely, to support the revolutionary actions of the peasants, including confiscation of the landed estates) and on the national question (defence of the undemocratic attitude of the Cadets towards the Ukraine and Finland).
The petty-bourgeois masses cannot help vacillating between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. This has been the case in all countries, especially between 1789 and 1871. And it is also the case in Russia. The Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries have induced the masses to submit to the policy of the counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie.
That is the heart of the matter. That is the meaning of the offensive. That is the peculiarity of the situation: it was not violence, but trust in the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks that led the people astray.
Will it be for long?
No, not long. The masses will learn from their own experience. The sad experience of the new stage of the war (a stage already begun), of further ruin accentuated by the offensive, will inevitably lead to the political downfall of the Socialist-Revolutionary and Menshevik parties.
The task of the workers’ party is, first of all, to help the masses realise and take proper account of this experience, to prepare properly for this great downfall, which will show the masses their true leader – the organised urban proletariat.
Published 27 June (10 July) 1917
Every revolution, if it is a real revolution, amounts to a class shift. Therefore, the best way of enlightening the people, and of fighting those who deceive the people by invoking the revolution, is to analyse the class shift that has taken or is taking place in the present revolution.
From 1904 to 1916, in the last years of tsarism, the relative positions of the classes in Russia became particularly clear. A handful of semi-feudal landowners, headed by Nicholas II, was in power and maintained the closest alliance with the financial magnates who were reaping profits unheard of in Europe and for whose benefit predatory treaties were concluded with foreign countries.
The liberal bourgeoisie, led by the Cadets, were in opposition. They were more afraid of the people than of reaction and were moving closer and closer to power by compromising with the monarchy.
The people, i.e. the workers and peasants, whose leaders had been driven underground, were revolutionary. They constituted the ‘revolutionary democrats’ – proletarian and petty-bourgeois.
The revolution of 27 February 1917 swept away the monarchy and put the liberal bourgeoisie in power, who, operating in direct concord with the Anglo-French imperialists, had wanted a minor court revolution. Under no circumstances were they willing to go beyond a constitutional monarchy with an electoral system conditioned by various qualifications. And when the revolution actually went further, completely abolishing the monarchy and establishing Soviets (of Workers’, Soldiers’ and Peasants’ Deputies), the entire liberal bourgeoisie became counter-revolutionary.
Now, four months after the revolution, the counter-revolutionary character of the Cadets, the main party of the liberal bourgeoisie, is as clear as day. Everyone sees that. And everyone is compelled to admit it. But not nearly everyone is willing to face up to it and think about what it implies.
Russia today is a democratic republic governed by a free agreement between political parties which are freely advocating their views among the people. The four months since 27 February have fully consolidated and given final shape to all parties of any importance, showed them up during the elections (to the Soviets and to local bodies), and revealed their links with the various classes.
In Russia, the counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie are in power today, while the petty-bourgeois democrats, namely, the Socialist-Revolutionary and Menshevik parties, have become ‘His Majesty’s opposition’. The policy of these parties is essentially one of compromise with the counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie. The petty-bourgeois democrats are rising to power by filling local bodies to begin with (just as the liberals did under tsarism – by first winning places in the zemstvos).[8] These petty-bourgeois democrats want to share power with the bourgeoisie but not overthrow them, in exactly the same way as the Cadets wanted to share power with the monarchy but not overthrow it. The petty-bourgeois democrats (the Socialist-Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks) compromise with the Cadets because of the close class kinship between the petty and the big bourgeoisie, just as the class kinship between the capitalist and the landowner, living in the twentieth century, made them embrace each other at the feet of their ‘adored’ monarch.
It is the form of compromise that has changed. Under the monarchy it was crude, and the tsar allowed a Cadet no further than the Duma backyard. In a democratic republic, compromise has become as refined as in Europe, the petty bourgeoisie being permitted, in a harmless minority, to occupy harmless (for capital) posts in the Ministry.
The Cadets have taken the place of the monarchy. The Tseretelis and Chernovs have taken the place of the Cadets. Proletarian democracy has taken the place of a truly revolutionary democracy.
The imperialist war has hastened developments fantastically. Had it not been for this war, the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks might have sighed for decades for ministerial posts. The same war, however, is hastening further developments. For it poses problems in a revolutionary rather than a reformist manner.
The Socialist-Revolutionary and Menshevik parties could have given Russia many a reform by agreement with the bourgeoisie. But the objective situation in world politics is revolutionary and it cannot be dealt with by reforms.
The imperialist war is crushing the peoples and threatens to crush them completely. The petty-bourgeois democrats can perhaps stave off disaster for a while. But it is only the revolutionary proletariat that can prevent a tragic end.
Endnotes
[1] Referring to Peter Struve, who before the turn of the twentieth century was a member of the RSDLP. He moved progressively to the right, working first exclusively as a leading ‘Legal Marxist’, a trend of intellectuals in the RSDLP who spread their ideas in a watered-down form in legal journals. He continued this shift and in 1905 co-founded the Cadets.
[2] After the victory of the February Revolution the workers’ organisations of the Vyborgskaya Storona district (the bakers’ union, the district branch of the people’s militia, etc.), joined by the anarchists, took over the vacant country house of tsarist ex-Minister Durnovo and the adjoining garden (20 dessiatins in area), re-purposing the property as recreation grounds.
On 7 (20) June the Provisional Government, backed by the SR and Menshevik majority in the Petrograd Soviet and then by the First All-Russia Congress of Soviets, ordered the property to be vacated. The order brought protests from the Petrograd workers, particularly those of Vyborgskaya Storona. Several factories went on strike. The government yielded, but on the night of 18-19 June (1-2 July) it sent a contingent of Cossacks and soldiers which took the country house by assault, killing two anarchists and arresting fifty-nine people. As the overwhelming majority of the arrested had nothing to do with the anarchists, they had to be released shortly after. The raid deeply angered the workers.
For several weeks the bourgeois press was busy playing up the ‘horrors’ which it alleged to have taken place at the country house and used this particular incident to campaign against the revolutionary-minded masses and the Bolsheviks.
[3] Reference is to the speech made by the Menshevik Irakli Tsereteli, member of the Provisional Government, on 11 (24) June 1917. In his speech, Tsereteli said the demonstration which the Bolsheviks had scheduled for 10 (23) June was “a Bolshevik conspiracy to overthrow the government and seize power”. The speech was slanderous and counter-revolutionary throughout.
[4] Louis-Eugène Cavaignac was the notorious French general who, as Minister of War, led the suppression of the Paris workers’ uprising in June 1848. Appointed Chief of the Executive Power in France from June-December 1848.
[5] Welsh MP for the Liberal Party from 1890 to 1945. British Prime Minister from 1916-22.
[6] Four-time French Prime Minister including during 1914 and from March to September 1917.
[7] Prime Minister of Italy in 1909-10 and Minister of Foreign Affairs in 1914-19.
[8] Zemstvos – rural self-government bodies set up in the central gubernias (“governorates”, administrative subdivisions) of tsarist Russia in 1864. They were dominated by the nobility, and their jurisdiction was limited to purely local economic and welfare matters: hospital and road building, statistics, insurance, etc.