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it, the result is evidently due not to the sailor, but to the storm. He may have done his duty during the voyage with zeal and courage, but he did not know how to use his maps and his compass, given to him expressly that he might steer in the right direction.
The modern S.-D. Party, whose activity should be based on a Marxian and consequently scientific policy, has less than any other, any reason or point of honour for carrying this symbolism to the barricade. For, worst of all, it was for us a weakness and a hindrance in the struggle. The knowledge that the fight is for a definite object is sufficient in it self to raise the morale and endurance of the fighters, but the lack of a clear aim induces uncertainty, hesitation and weakness. Such was the case with the February revolution in Finland. We did not keep order with enough energy. For example, at Helsingfors we gave too free a rein to the bourgeoisie, which allowed them to carry on a campaign of plotting-against us. Domiciliary visits and imprisonment of offenders were not carried out with sufficient energy. Counter-revolutionaries, who had been proved guilty, were punished with too much leniency. We did not put these gentlemen of leisure early enough under the obligation of working, and we should certainly have acted with more insight if we had put forward the dictatorship of the proletariat as the evident aim of the revolution. From the very moment that this was not done, our action held to a middle, dangerous way, which fact, was in itself sufficient to make the bourgeoisie bolder in their plots, and at the same time to encourage certain anarchic elements which had found their way into the Red Guards to commit "motu propue" murders, robberies, and other misdeeds—a lack of discipline which tended to produce disorder in the ranks even of the revolutionaries.
The result of the Finnish revolution did not, however, depend upon these circumstances. It was impossible to avoid defeat when the German Government had joined the other hangmen. But suppose the German Government had not interfered, what would have happened? We cannot say with certainty, but it is possible that the result of the struggle might have depended on whether revolutionary order was to be severely maintained for a considerable time as an intentional dictatorship, or whether it was to be merely a humanitarian stage on the road lending to the haven of peaceful
