came very near to the Bolsheviks' policy, while on July 3 and 4 the movement sprang up under the immediate influence of that policy which was its real guide. Dictatorship of the proletariat and peasants, immediate peace proposals, confiscation of the land of the large owners—these are the principal aims of proletarian civil war which the Bolshevik Party declared openly and as definitely as possible in its Press and in spoken propaganda.
Concerning the aims of Kornilov and his supporters we all know, and no democrat will deny, that they consist of the dictatorship of the landlords and of the bourgeoisie, the suppression of the Soviets and the restoration of the monarchy. The Cadets, the principal Kornilovian party (it would be quite a good thing, by the way, to begin now to call them simply the "Kornilovian Party"), who own a Press and other methods of agitation superior to the Bolsheviks, have never dared, nor dare yet, to speak openly to the people of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie or of the dissolution of the Soviets—the aims of Kornilov's supporters.
Events show that the proletarian civil war can fearlessly display its final objects before the people, for they are certain to attract the workers, while it is only by dissimulation that the bourgeois civil war can drag after it a portion of the masses. Hence the extreme importance of the degree of consciousness in the masses. …
The only relevant information that one has on this question is in connection with the party and the elections. There seem to be no other facts which enable us to judge precisely the mass consciousness. It is obvious, and no one would dream of denying it after six months of revolution, that the proletarian revolutionary movement is led by the Bolshevik Party and the bourgeois counter-revolutionary movement is led by the Cadets. Three comparisons based on fact allow us to throw some light on the question of the development of mass consciousness.
In the first place, the elections; the central Duma elections of August, compared with the district municipal elections of May, show a considerable decrease of Cadet votes and an enormous increase of the number of votes secured by the Bolsheviks.[1] The Cadet Press admits that where the masses of workers and soldiers are collected the strength of Bolshevism is usually demonstrated.
- ↑ On May 27–29 the Cadets had 185 seats out of 801. On August 20, 42 out of 200. The Bolsheviks exceeded from 22 per cent. to 33 per cent. of the votes.
