tempted by the temporary weakness of Russia and incited by the anti-Socialist capitalists.
Under such conditions our real, and not assumed, guaranty of peace lies exclusively in the antagonisms among the various great powers. It is obvious that, in view of the weakness of such guaranty, our Socialist Soviet Republic is in an extremely precarious, undoubtedly critical international position. We must strain all our strength in order to utilize the respite granted to us by this situation to overcome the serious setbacks received by the whole social organism of Russia from the war, and to rehabilitate the economic resources of the country. Without such rehabilitation there can be no serious improvement in our ability to offer any kind of resistance.
It is also obvious that we will give valuable aid to a Socialist revolution in the West, delayed by a number of causes, only to the extent of our success in solving the organization problems confronting us.
A fundamental condition for the successful solution of our most urgent problems of organization is the complete comprehension by the political leaders of the people; i. e., by the members of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks)[1] and then by all true representatives of the toiling masses, of the basic difference between the earlier bourgeois and the present Socialist revolution with respect to the problem under consideration.
- ↑ The Bolsheviks—formerly a faction within the Social-Democratic Labor Party, have recently changed their name to Communist Party to distinguish themselves from the other Social-Democratic groups.
The terms Bolsheviks and Mensheviks date back to 1903, when at a congress of the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party a difference arose on a seemingly unimportant question (editorial supervision of the party organ), when upon a vote which decided the question, there naturally was a majority and minority. Those who were with the majority were nicknamed Bolsheviks and those with the minority Mensheviks, deriving their names from the Russian words Bolshinstvo and Menshinstvo, meaning majority and minority respectively.
