revolution or an effective inquiry without the transfer of power to the Soviets. A commission that had not power at its disposal could neither carry through a complete inquiry nor arrest the guilty.
The Soviet Government alone could and should do it. It alone could save Russia from the inevitable repetition of the Kornilovian attacks by arresting the Kornilovian generals and the leaders of the bourgeois counter-revolution (Goutchkov, Miliukov, Riabouchinsky, Maklakov and their associates), by dissolving the counter-revolutionary societies (Duma of the Empire, League of Officers, &c.), by submitting their members to the inspection of the local Soviets and by disbanding the counter-revolutionary units. It alone could create a commission capable of making a full public inquiry into the Kornilovian and other affairs, even those stirred up by the bourgeoisie. It is moreover to such a commission that the Bolshevik party from its side will ask the workers to submit completely and to lend their co-operation. The Soviet Government is the only one that could struggle successfully against such an appalling injustice as the seizure, by means of the millions stolen from the people, of the big printing presses and the majority of the newspapers perpetrated by the capitalists. The counter-revolutionary bourgeois papers (Rietch, Royskoye Slovo, &c.) must be closed down, their presses confiscated; advertisements must be declared a State monopoly and reserved for a governmental paper, published by the Soviets to offer truth to the peasants. This is the only way to snatch from the hands of the bourgeoisie the powerful weapon of the Press which they use to lie, slander and deceive the people, lead the peasants astray and to prepare the counter-revolution.
7.—The Peaceful Development of the Revolution
The Russian democracy, the Soviets, the Social Revolutionary and Menshevik parties have before them now an opportunity which is extremely rare in the history of revolution. They I can assure the convocation of the Constituent Assembly on the date fixed without further adjournment; they can preserve the country from military and economic disaster; they can safeguard the peaceful development of events.
If the Soviets seize power now in order to carry out the programme expounded above, they can be certain not only of the
