On the Road to Insurrection/One of the Fundamental Questions of Revolution

by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

One of the Fundamental Questions of
Revolution

September 14, 1917.

THE most important question of all revolution is undoubtedly that of political power. In the hands of which class does power lie? There is the whole question on which depends the destiny of the country. And when the principal governing party of Russia complains in its organ (cf. Dielo Naroda, No. 147) that the discussions about power overlook the question of the Constituent Assembly and that of the food supply, one can justly answer: Gentlemen of the Social-Revolutionary Party, speak for yourselves only. It is the hesitations, the irresolution of your party which have most contributed to the prolongation of "ministerialism" and to the endless postponement of the convocation of the Constituent Assembly, and have allowed the capitalists to scrap the measures elaborated and adopted for effectively enforcing the cereals' monopoly^[1] and revictualling the country.

The question of power cannot be evaded or relegated to the background, for it is the fundamental question which determines the whole development of the revolution in both its foreign and its domestic politics. Our revolution has lost half a year in hesitations over the organisation of power; that is an incontestable fact, and this fact has its origin in the political oscillations of the Social Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks. Now, the policy of these parties has been itself determined, in the last analysis, by the character of the petit-bourgeoisie, by its economic instability in the struggle between Capital and Labour.

The whole question at present is to know whether the democratic petit-bourgeoisie has learnt anything during six months so extraordinarily rich in events. If it has learnt nothing, the revolution is lost, and only the victorious insurrection of the proletariat will be able to save it. If it has learnt anything, it will have to set about creating immediately a firm and stable power. During a popular revolution it is only a power which relies openly and without reserve on the majority of the population that can be a stable power, that is to say, capable of appealing to the life of the masses, the majority of the workers and peasants. At the present moment, political power in Russia still rests in the hands of the bourgeoisie, who are obliged to make merely partial concessions (to withdraw them the next day), to scatter promises (which are never kept), and to find ways of masking their domination (to deceive the people by the appearance of "a loyal coalition," &c.). In words, we have a popular, democratic, revolutionary Government; in reality, we are in the presence of a Government anti-popular, anti-democratic, counter-revolutionary, bourgeois. There lies the fundamental contradiction existing hitherto, which has caused this instability, these oscillations of power, and which has provoked this succession of ministries to which Messieurs the Social Revolutionaries and Mensheviks have lent themselves with a zeal so disastrous (to the people).

Either the dissolution of the Soviets and their inglorious death, or all power to the Soviets; that is what I said before the All-Russia Congress of Soviets at the beginning of the month of June, 1917, and the history of the months of July and August have fully confirmed the truth of those words. Only Soviet power can be stable and actually depend on the majority of the people, whatever may say the flunkeys of the bourgeoisie, Potresov,^[2] Plekhanov and others, whose explanations of an "enlargement of the basis of power" result in effect in a transmission of power to an infinitesimal minority of the population, to the bourgeoisie, to the exploiters.

Soviet power alone can be stable; it alone cannot be overthrown even in the most tortured hours of the most stormy revolution, it only will be able to assure a wide and steady development of the revolution, with the peaceful concurrence of all parties inside the Soviets. But if it does not exist, there will be hesitations, irresolution, instability, innumerable crises, comedies of ministerial resignations and new shufflings of portfolios, explosions to the right and to the left.

But frequently, if not invariably, the slogan "Power to the Soviets" is understood in a completely false fashion. In effect it is taken to mean a ministry recruited by the parties forming the majority of the Soviets, and it is this profoundly erroneous opinion that we wish to examine in detail.

"A ministry recruited from the parties forming the majority of the Soviets," that is to say, a change in the personal composition of the Cabinet, that is to say, the integral conservation of all the former machinery of State power, machinery essentially bureaucratic, essentially undemocratic, incapable of realising a single serious reform, even those that figure in the programmes of the Social Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks.

The slogan "Power to the Soviets" signifies a radical transformation of all the former machinery of State, of this apparatus of officialdom which fetters all democratic initiative; it implies the suppression of this machinery and its substitution by a new popular, truly democratic machinery, that is to say, by the machinery of the Soviets, which represent the organised and armed majority of the people—workers, soldiers and peasants. "Power to the Soviets," it is this that gives free scope to the initiative of the majority of the people, not only in the election of deputies, but in the administration of the State, in the realisation of reforms and social transformation.

To make this difference still more clear and more perceptible we will recall a fact avowed a short time ago, by the newspaper of the leading party, the Dielo Naroda, organ of the Social Revolutionaries. "Even in the ministries in which Socialists have had a share," writes this paper during the famous coalition with the Cadets, when the Mensheviks and the Social Revolutionaries held ministerial portfolios, "even in these ministries, all the administrative machinery remained absolutely unaltered, and this machinery curbed all their work."

This indeed is comprehensible. The whole history of parliamentary bourgeois countries shows that the changes of ministry have only very little importance, for all effective work, all the administration, is in the hands of a gigantic army of bureaucrats. Now, this army is impregnated to the marrow with a spirit essentially anti-democratic, it is attached by thousands and thousands of ties to the big property-holders and to the bourgeoisie, on whom it depends in every sphere. This army swims in a bourgeois atmosphere from which it is absolutely impossible for it to escape. Bound by immobile, mummified forms it is unable to modify in anything its habits of thought, feeling and action. It is based on the hierarchical principle, on certain privileges reserved to the functions of State; by the intervention of banks, the upper-grade bureaucrats become subservient to finance-capital, of which they are, to a certain degree, the agents, whose interests they defend and whose influence they propagate.

To believe that by means of this State machinery such social transformation as the suppression without compensation of the big property-holders in the cereal monopoly, &c., can be brought about is utterly to delude oneself, and is at the same time to fool the people. A republican bourgeoisie could use this machinery to create a republic of the type of "a monarchy without a monarch," like the Third French Republic, but it is absolutely incapable of achieving radical reform; I do not say of abolishing, but simply of limiting in a more or less effective way the rights of capital and the "sacred rights" of individual property. It is for this reason that, in all the coalition ministries in which "Socialists" participated, the latter, even if they were of good faith, were only a vain ornament or a screen for the bourgeois Government, a buffer against popular indignation, an instrument for duping the masses. That had been the rôle of Louis Blanc in 1848; that had been, since then, the rôle of innumerable coalition ministries in England and France; that had been the rôle of Tchernov and of Tseretelli in 1917^[3] and so it will remain as long as the bourgeois regime lasts and the old bourgeois State apparatus based on bureaucracy exists in its integrity.

Now, one of the fundamental merits of the Soviets, of the workers', soldiers' and peasants' deputies, is that they represent a type of State machinery infinitely superior and incomparably more democratic. The Social Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks undertook the impossible in their endeavour to transform the Soviets (particularly that of Petrograd, as also the All-Russian Soviet, that is, the Central Executive Committee) into vague talking shops, occupied solely, under cover of "control," in voting impotent resolutions on what they desire, the realisation of which the Government, with the most exquisite urbanity, postpones to the Greek Kalends.^[4] But it only needed the escapade of Kornilov, that fresh breeze, forerunner of a good storm, temporarily to purify from all its miasmas the atmosphere of the Soviets and to restore the initiative of the revolutionary masses which is revealed in all its grandeur, in all its power, in all its invincibility.^[5]

May this historical example be a lesson for all men of little faith. Shame on those who say, "We have no machinery to replace the old machinery, which tends inevitably to the defence of the bourgeoisie." This machinery does exist. This machinery is the Soviets. Do not mistrust the initiative of the masses, have confidence in the revolutionary organisations and you will see the workers and peasants bring to bear in every sphere of public life the force, the majesty, the invincibility of which they gave proof in their union, in their enthusiasm against Kornilov.^[6]

The Social Revolutionary and Menshevik leaders have not had confidence in the masses, they have doubted their initiative, they have trembled before their revolutionary energy instead of supporting it without reserve; that has been their great crime. It is there that one must seek the principal cause of their indecision, of their hesitation, of their perpetual—and perpetually vain—attempts to pour new wine into the old bottles of the former bureaucratic machine.

Take the history of the democratisation of the army in the Russian revolution of 1917, the history of the Minister Tchernov,^[7] the history of the "reign" of Paltchinsky, the history of the resignation of Piecheckovon,^[8] and you will see in each a striking confirmation of what I have just said. The lack of confidence towards the organisations elected by the soldiers, the incomplete realisation of the principle of election of officers by the soldiers, have had the result of leaving the Kornilovs, Kaledins and counter-revolutionary officers at the head of the army. That is a fact, and, short of deliberately shutting one's eyes, it is impossible not to see that, after the insurrection of Kornilov, the Kerensky Government allowed the former situation to continue and, in fact, restored "Kornilovism." The nomination of Alexéiev, the "peace" with Klembovsky, Gagavine, Bagration and other "Kornilovians," the indulgence to Kornilov and Kaledin themselves, all goes to show as clear as day that Kerensky in fact restored "Kornilovism."

There is no middle course, experience has demonstrated that. Either all power to the Soviets and the complete democratisation of the army—or reaction.

Take the history of the Minister Tchernov. Was it not shown that every attempt, however frivolous, to satisfy the needs of the peasants in a real fashion, that every act of confidence towards them and their mass organisations was accepted with the utmost enthusiasm by the entire peasant class? And Tchernov was forced for nearly four months "to bargain with the Left," with the Cadets and officials, who by their shufflings and perpetual adjournments compelled him at the end of the deal to give in his resignation having been able to achieve nothing. During those four months the landlords and capitalists gained their end; they saved, for the moment, the big landed properties, retarded the convocation of the Constituent Assembly and even launched a campaign of repression against the agrarian committees.

There is no middle term. All power to the Soviets at the centre and in the provinces, all land to the peasants, immediately, according to the decision of the Constituent Assembly, otherwise the landed nobility and the capitalists will crab everything, restore their power, exasperate the peasants so far that they will unloose the most furious jacquerie.

In the same way the capitalists (with the help of Paltchinsky) have made hay of all serious control over production, and the merchants have obstructed the operation of the cereal monopoly and the regulated democratic rationing of bread and food products undertaken by Piecheckonov.

It is not the time now, in Russia, to invent "new" reforms, to evolve plans for a general transformation the capitalists, the Potressovs, the Plekhanovs, who clamour against "the installation of socialism," against "the dictatorship of the proletariat," would cunningly have you believe. In reality, the insupportable burdens and scourges of the war, the formidable dangers of disorganisation and of famine have already shown where the situation is leading; they have already indicated—what am I saying!—they have already forced an urgent realisation of such indispensable reforms and adjustments as are the cereal monopoly, the control of production and rationing, the restriction of the issue of paper money, a regular exchange of corn for merchandise, &c.

These measures everybody recognises^[9] are an absolute necessity, nd they have begun to be applied in many places. But the realisation of these policies is trammelled by the resistance of the big proprietors and of the capitalists, resistance exercised through the agency of the Kerensky Government (a government at bottom bourgeois and bonapartist), through the agency of the administrative apparatus of the former Government by means of the direct or indirect pressure of Russian and Allied finance-capital.

Deploring the resignation of Piecheckonov and the failure of the taxation and of the cereal monopoly, I. Prilejaïev wrote quite recently in the Dielo Naroda (No. 147): "The absence of courage and the spirit of decision, which has marked all our governments, has been due to their composition. … The democratic revolution ought not to hesitate, it ought itself to exhibit initiative and to interfere systematically in the economic chaos. … If ever the necessity of a positive and absolute power made itself felt, it is now."

That is the truth. Here are words of gold. Only, there is one thing that has not struck the author: it is that the firm line, the courage and the spirit of decision are not questions of persons, they depend on the class that is capable of showing these qualities. Now this class is uniquely the proletariat. A courageous, resolute authority which takes a firm line, what is it but the dictatorship of the proletariat and of the poorer ranks of the peasant class? Without doubt I. Prilejaïev yearns after that dictatorship.

What will this dictatorship actually signify? The definite wiping out of "Kornilovians" and the democratisation of the army. The day following its installation it will be welcomed with enthusiasm by 99 per cent. of the army. In that it gives the land to the peasants and full power to the local committees of peasants, will not the dictatorship be supported without reserve by the latter? What Piecheckonov only promises ("the capitalist resistance is destroyed" said he in his famous speech in the Soviet Congress), the dictatorship will actually realise, and to do that it will not demolish the democratic organisations which are beginningto be set up for the revictualling, control, &c.; on the contrary, it will support them and develop them in suppressing all that hampers their operation.

Only the dictatorship of the proletariat and the poor peasants is capable of conquering the resistance of the capitalists, of showing in the exercise of power the maximum of courage and decision, of obtaining the enthusiastic, complete and heroic support of the great mass of the army and also of the naval population.

Power to the Soviets, that is the only means of assuring gradual, peaceful evolution, unscathed by events; of carrying through this evolution side by side with the development of consciousness; of the power of decision and of experience in the majority of the masses of the population. Power to the Soviets, that is the entire transmission of the country and of economic control to the workers and peasants, to which none dare offer resistance and which learns rapidly, by practice, how to distribute to the best advantage the land, products and corn.

1. Decree of March 25.
2. One of the founders of Social Democracy, leader of the Menshevik liquidators, partisan-like Plekhanov, of simple bourgeois democracy.
3. Tchernov, Social Revolutionary leader, Minister of Agriculture; Tseretelli, Social Democrat, Minister of Posts and Telegraphs in the Coalition Cabinet of May 6.
4. This is the opinion not only of Lenin, but also of the anti-Bolshevik Social Democrat Soukhanov given in his Memoirs of the Revolution.
5. The victory over Kornilov was less the work of the Government than of the Soviets and of the initiative of the workers themselves. Miliukov recognised this in his History of the Second Revolution, Vol. II.
6. See the development of these ideas on the rôle of the Soviets in Can the Bolsheviks Maintain power? and in The State and Revolution.
7. He refused to let the peasants take the land of the big proprietors.
8. Minister of Supply, he retired on August 26 because Kerensky, at the demand of the big proprietors, wished to double the State purchase price of corn.
9. Even the Mensheviks and the Social Revolutionaries; they were a party to the programme adopted by the majority of the State Conference on August 14.