complete inaction of those central organs for the "regulation of economic life" that have been formed around the Government.
Can one imagine a more eloquent testimony to the bankruptcy of the Menshevist and S.R. policy than this, signed as it is by the Mensheviks and the S.R.'s themselves?
Even under Tsarism the necessity of regulating economic life had been recognised and some institutions had been created for this purpose.[1] But they could not put a stop to the disorganisation, which never ceased to grow and finally reached monstrous proportions. Also from the beginning of the Revolution it was recognised that the first task of a republican revolutionary government was to take decisive measures to put an end to the disorganisation. When the "coalition " Government was formed, with the participation of the Mensheviks and S.R.'s, it gave, in its solemn declaration to the whole Russian people on May 6, its formal promise to establish the control and regulation of economic life by the State. The Tseretellis and Tchernovs as well as all the leading Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries swore then with great oaths that they would not only answer for the Government but that the "plenipotentiary organs of the revolutionary democracy," which were in their hands, would effectively supervise the Government and control it.
Four months have rolled by since May 6: four long months in the course of which Russia has sacrificed hundreds of thousands of soldiers for an absurd imperialist "offensive"; four months during which disorganisation has not ceased to grow, so that the catastrophe is now imminent; four months which the hot season allowed us to use for river-transport, for agriculture, mines, &c.; and after these four months, the Mensheviks and the S.R.'s are compelled to admit officially "the complete inaction" of the institutions for control that were formed around the Government!
And now these same Mensheviks and S.R.'s, with the most serious air, like true statesmen, are going to tell us (we write on the eve of the opening of the Democratic Conference, September 12) that the way to remedy the situation is to replace the coalition with
- ↑ During the war from 1915 on, there appeared "Special Committees"; for Defence, controlling metallurgical industries; for Food Supplies, Transport and Fuel, regulating the corresponding branches. Further, there were functioning central and local bureaux for sugar, leather and flour; and these can be considered substantially as the forerunners of the Soviet organs of 1918–1921.
