NICOLAI LENIN
noticeable at that time, as it has been in the present revolution. You are aware that the first Petrograd Soviet of the Workers' Delegates in 1905 was formed by the Mensheviks, but in all its practical actions it followed, as a rule, the lead of the Bolsheviks. When the tide rose and the waters flooded the banks, the working class became aware that to form Soviets was virtually the same thing as to fight for power. Thereby the working class became Bolshevik.
After the revolution was defeated and the counter-revolution set in, when we began summing up our experiences, Martoff and his friends sat down by the waters of Babylon and started bemoaning the course of the first revolution. The Mensheviks themselves then had to admit that, alas, the revolution had been proceeding according to Bolshevik precepts; that the working class had unfortunately submitted to the lead of the Bolsheviks.
The Moscow armed insurrection, though defeated and crushed, had nevertheless been the apotheosis of the Bolshevik tactics during the revolution. We were defeated, and Plekhanoff's only comment on the event was the philistine phrase: "These people ought not to have taken up arms." Lenin's attitude towards that insurrection was different. To him there was no nobler and more honorable page in the history of the revolution than the Moscow armed insurrection. The first thing he did was to collect all the material relating to the affair. He wanted to elucidate all its features, down to the very smallest, and all its technical details. He wanted to ascertain the biography of everyone who took part in the insurrection. He endeavored to interrogate every military expert who had taken part in it. He invited all those who took part in it to come forward and to explain to the working class and to the world at large, how the Moscow insurrection had been prepared
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