have the verdict of such witnesses as the Menshevik Rabotchaia Gazette and the Social Revolutionary Dielo Naroda of the spontaneous character of the movement. I have quoted these reports in an article in the Proletarskoie Dielo, which afterwards appeared in a special pamphlet entitled An Answer to the Slanderers. But for perfectly obvious reasons the Mensheviks and the Social Revolutionaries, who defend themselves for having shared in persecutions carried on against the Bolsheviks, continue to deny the spontaneity of the outbreak of July 3 and 4.
Let us leave aside for the moment disputal points and stick to the indisputable. The spontaneity of the movement of April 20 and 21 is not disputed by anyone. It is to this spontaneous movement that the Bolshevik Party allied itself and proclaimed the slogan "All power to the Soviets." And independent of the Bolshevik Party, the late Linde[1] was also whole-heartedly attached to the movement and brought 30,000 soldiers on the scene to arrest the Provisional Government. (It may be mentioned in passing that this incident of the troops' intervention has not been adequately brought to light.) The more one thinks about this, the more one connects April 20 with the historical course of events; that is, when one regards it as a link in the chain between February 28 and August 29, the clearer it appears that the Bolsheviks erred then through insufficient revolutionarism, although the philistines continue to accuse them of the reverse.
Hence one cannot question the spontaneity of a movement which nearly brings the proletariat to civil war. Meanwhile Kornilov's insurrection presents no shadow of the resemblance of spontaneity. All we have there is a conspiracy of generals who hope to drag after them a section of the troops by means of deception and the prestige of authority.
Beyond a doubt the spontaneity of a movement reveals its grip on the masses and its fundamental soundness. Thus the summing up of events from the point of view of spontaneity demonstrates the firm basis of the proletarian revolution and the lack of this basis in the bourgeois counter-revolution.
Let us pass now to the aims. The movement of April 20–21
- ↑ A soldier who led the Finnish regiment, 180, and the Moscow regiment to surround the Town Hall where the Government were besieged.
