Because the next surrender of Petrograd will considerably lessen our chances.[1]
Now, with an army led by Kerensky and his associates, it is absolutely impossible for us to avoid this surrender.
Nor can one "wait for" the Constituent Assembly, for, by means of the Petrograd surrender, Kerensky and his acolytes will always be in a position to postpone its summons. Our party alone, once in power, could assure the convocation of the Constituent, and then we will accuse the other parties of having delayed it and we will prove our assertion.
It is only through rapid action that one must and can bring about the conclusion of a separate peace between the English and German imperialists.[2]
The people are tired of the Menshevik and Social-Revolutionary hesitations. Only our triumph in the capital cities will attract the peasants to our side.
It is not a case of "the day" nor of "the moment" of insurrection in the narrow sense of the word. The exact date can only be fixed by the agreement of those who are in contact with the workers and soldiers, with the masses.
The point is this our party has now at the Democratic Conference its own congress, and this congress must, whether it wishes to or not, decide the fate of the revolution. It is necessary to make clear to the party its task for issuing marching orders for the armed insurrection at Petrograd and at Moscow (and in the neighbourhood), the conquest of power and the overthrow of the government. Our party must consider how to accomplish this aim without open proclamation of it in the Press.
Remember, ponder deeply on the words of Marx on insurrection: "Insurrection is an art …"
It would be childish on the part of the Bolsheviks to wait for a "formal" majority. Kerensky and his associates, they will not wait but prepare the surrender of Petrograd. It is precisely the pitiable hesitations of the Democratic Conference which should arouse, and will thoroughly arouse the workers of Petrograd and
