Social-Revolutionist and Menshevist leaders were beside themselves in terror when they felt they were losing their influence over the masses. A great howl was raised against the demonstration, a howl joined in by counter-revolutionary elements as well as such as were Social-Revolutionists and Mensheviki. Under the leadership of the Social-Revolutionists and Mensheviki, as a result of their policy of agreement with the capitalists, the inclination of the petit bourgeois masses to ally themselves with the counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie was further stimulated, until it was made strikingly manifest as an accomplished fact. This is the historical significance, the class interpretation, of the crisis of June 18.
The Bolsheviki called off the demonstration, having no desire to lead the workers at the appointed moment, into a desperate slaughter, against the united Cadets, Social-Revolutionists and Mensheviki. But the latter, in order to preserve what shreds they still held of the confidence of the masses, were obliged to call a general demonstration for the 1st of July. The bourgeoisie, enraged and rightly considering this to be a vacillation on the part of the petit bourgeois democracy toward the side of the proletariat, decided upon an offensive on the front in order to paralyze the action of democracy.
As a matter of fact, the 1st of July afforded a remarkably imposing victory to the revolutionary proletariat and its slogans, the slogans of the Bolsheviki, among the Petrograd masses; and on the 2nd of July the bourgeoisie and the Bonapartist Kerensky solemnly announced that an offensive had been started on the 1st.[1]
The offensive of July 1 actually meant a renewal of the predatory war in the interest of the capitalists and was opposed to the will of the great majority of the workers. Inevitably connected with the offensive, consequently, was a gigantic outburst of chauvinism and a passing of the military (and, of course, the national) power into the hands of the Bonapartist war clique; and a resort to force in dealing with the masses, a persecution of the internationalists, prohibition of the freedom of agitation, the arrest and execution of all opposed to the war.
If the 19th of May attached the Social-Revolutionists and Men-
- ↑ Bonapartism, from the name of the two French emperors, is a name applied to a government that attempts to be impartial, thus availing itself of the extremely sharp conflict between capitalists and workers. In reality serving Capitalism, a "Bonapartist" government deceives the workers worse than any other by means of promises and petty concessions.
