against nationalisation of the banks, to invent thousands of pretexts and bad arguments against this urgent and all-important measure; although even from the point of view of "national defence," that is from the military point of view, it would bring immense advantages and would increase the "military strength" of Russia.
But, it will be objected, why do such advanced States as Germany and the U.S.A. regulate their economic life quite well without ever dreaming of nationalising the banks?
Because these States, whether they be monarchical or republican are not merely capitalist, but also imperialist. As such, they carry through the necessary transformations in the reactionary bureaucratic way, and what we have in mind here is the revolutionary democratic way.
This "slight difference" is of primary importance. The words "democratic revolutionary" have almost become conventional expressions amongst us (particularly amongst the S.R.'s and the Mensheviks), just like the expression "Thank God!" that is used very often by people who are not so ignorant as to believe in a God; or like the phrase "honourable citizen" that is sometimes used in addressing contributors to Den and Edinstvo, although almost everyone knows that these periodicals were founded and are maintained by capitalists in the interests of capitalism and that it is far from being honourable for Socialists to contribute to these organs.
So it is we use the words "revolutionary democratic" as a conventional expression, a cliche; but if we reflect upon their meaning we see that to be democratic is to take into consideration the interests of the majority of the people and not of the minority, and that to be revolutionary is to crush pitilessly all that is harmful, all that has had its day.
No more in America than in Germany does the government and the ruling class lay claim, I am sure, to the title "revolutionary democratic," which our Mensheviks and S.R.'s have given themselves (and have prostituted).
In Germany there exist only four big private banks of national importance; in America only two. It is easier, more convenient and profitable for the lords of these banks to organise amongst themselves, secretly, in the reactionary and not the revolutionary manner,
