The Proletarian Revolution in Russia/Part 3/Chapter 10

by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

X

LESSONS OF THE REVOLUTION

(Lenin)

Every revolution means a sudden break in the lives of great masses of people. Unless such a break matures, no real revolution can take place. And, just as every break in the life of an individual teaches him something, causes him new experiences and new sensations, so a revolution imparts to the whole people in a short time lessons of great import and value.

In revolutionary epochs, millions and tens of millions of people learn more in a week than in a year of ordinary, every-day somnolent existence. For, a sharp crisis in the life of a whole people shows with exceptional clarity which classes exist and what ends they pursue, what forces they may utilize in their work, and by what means of action they proceed.

Every class conscious worker, soldier and peasant should seriously consider the lessons of the Russian Revolution, particularly now, when, early in August, it is perfectly clear that the first phase of our Revolution has ended disastrously.

 

I

What were the masses of the workers and peasants after when they accomplished the Revolution? What did they expect from the Revolution?

It is clear that the workers and peasants expected liberty, peace, bread and land.

But what did they get?

Instead of liberty, we see the former tyranny being re-established. The death penalty is introduced for soldiers at the front. Peasants are haled to court for undertaking, of their own accord, to seize the land of the landholders. The printing offices of the workers' papers are wrecked. Bolsheviki are being arrested, either on no charges at all, or on charges that are manifestly framed-up.^[1]

The defense is offered that it is not the Bolsheviki who are being prosecuted, but only certain definite persons and on definite accusations. But these declarations are deliberately and manifestly untrue, for how can printing offices be wrecked for the transgressions of individual persons, even if these persons have been found guilty and duly sentenced in court? Unless, indeed, the government should legally have found guilty the whole Bolshevist party, its views and its tendencies. But the government of free Russia could not, and never did, do anything of the sort.

The clearest exposure of the fictitious character of the accusations directed against the Bolsheviki is in the fact that the newspapers of the landholders and the capitalists have been rabidly denouncing the Bolsheviki for their agitation against the war, against the landholders and against the capitalists, and demanding the arrest and prosecution of the Bolsheviki—before even a single accusation had been lodged against even one Bolshevik.

The people want peace. But the "revolutionary" government of Russia continued to wage a war of conquest, on the basis of the same secret treaties which the late Czar Nicholas II concluded with the English and French capitalists, in the interests of the subjection of foreign races by the Russian capitalists. The government of free Russia has been very prolific in its excuses, but it has not offered a righteous peace to all the nations.

We have no bread. Hunger again approaches. Everybody knows that the capitalists and the wealthy are cheating ruthlessly on the prices of war materials, are making unheard-of profits out of high prices, but nothing at all has been done toward a serious study of the production of commodities and their distribution by the workers. The capitalists are becoming more and more impudent, even throwing the workers out of the factories into the streets, and that at a time when there is a famine of manufactured articles among the people.

The great majority of the peasants have declared loudly and plainly in a long series of congresses, that they consider the feudal ownership of land to be unjust—mere usurpation. But a government styling itself revolutionary and democratic continues for months to hoodwink the peasants and deceive them with promises and excuses. The capitalists for months do not permit the Chernov ministry to issue laws prohibiting the transfer of land by sale.^[2] And no sooner is this law finally promulgated than the capitalists begin a vile and baseless legal hounding of Chernov, and continue it up to the present time. In its defense of the landholders, the government was even bold enough to bring peasants to court for their "irresponsible" seizure of land.

The peasants are hoodwinked and persuaded to wait for the Constituent Assembly. But the capitalists continue to postpone the opening of this Assembly. Now, when at last the Assembly is summoned for the 30th of September, the capitalists raise a howl and declare that it is "impossible" to convene the Constituent Assembly in so short a time and demand another postponement of its convocation. The most influential members of the capitalist and landholding party, the "Cadet" Party, for example, openly advocate postponing the Constituent Assembly until after the war.

Land? Wait for the Constituent Assembly. . . . Constituent Assembly? Wait until after the war. . . . End of the war? Wait until we have reached a victorious conclusion.

That is the satisfaction we get. The capitalists and landholders, who have their majority in the government, thus make sport of the peasants.

But how is it possible for such things to go on in a free country, a country that has overthrown its Czar?

After the downfall of the Czarist power, state power passed into the hands of the first Provisional Government. The party of the revolutionary workers, the Bolsheviki, demanded a transfer of all state power to the Soviets. The greater number of delegates in the Soviets were on the side of the Mensheviki or with the Social-Revolutionists, who were against a transfer of power to the Soviets. Instead of brushing aside the bourgeois government and substituting a Soviet government in its place, the Mensheviki and Social-Revolutionists advocated support of the bourgeois government and a coalition with it, in other words, the formation of a new government composed of representatives of the bourgeoisie, Mensheviki and Social-Revolutionists. This policy of coalition with the bourgeoisie, on the part of the Social-Revolutionists and Mensheviki, who enjoyed the confidence of a majority of the people, contains the gist of the whole course of the Revolution in the five months that have elapsed since its inception.

An agreement of the Social-Revolutionists and Mensheviki with the capitalists has been manifest, in one form or another, at every stage of the Russian Revolution.

When the people, in March, had barely won their victory and Czarism had been overthrown, the Provisional Government of the capitalists added to their number the "Socialist" Kerensky. As a matter of fact, Kerensky had never been a Socialist; he had simply been a Laborite, and counted himself a "Socialist-revolutionary" only since March, 191 7, when the thing was already safe and valueless. It was through Kerensky, in his capacity of Vice-Chairman of the Petrograd Soviet, that the Provisional Government of the capitalists now tried to win over and domesticate the Soviet. The Soviet, that is, the Social-Rievolutionists and Mensheviki who controlled it, permitted themselves to be soft-soaped, and agreed, immediately after its formation, to "support" the Provisional Government of the capitalists, "provided" it would carry out its promises.

The Soviet considered itself to be a sort of auditing commission, checking up the activities of the Provisional Government. The heads of the Soviets established the so-called "Consulting Committee," that is, a committee to secure contact and understanding with the Government. Through this Consulting Committee, the Social-Revolutionist and Menshevist leaders of the Soviet conducted continual conversations with the government of the capitalists, since they were, properly speaking, in the situation of ministers without portfolios, unofficial ministers.

Most of March and all of April passed with this state of affairs prevailing. The capitalists, in order to gain time, took refuge in delays and subterfuges. During this time the capitalist government did not take a single step of any consequence for the advancement of the Revolution. Even in its most elementary duty, the calling of the Constituent Assembly, the government did absolutely nothing, not even proposing the question of time and place nor appointing a central committee to consider the question. The government was concerned with one thing only, namely, to renew, surreptitiously, the predatory international treaties which the Czar had concluded with the capitalists of England and France; and to block the Revolution as carefully and imperceptibly as they could, to promise everything and deliver nothing. The Social-Revolutionists and Mensheviki in the Consulting Committee played the part of simpletons who are fed on fine phrases, promises, "lunches"; the Social-Revolutionists and Mensheviki, like the raven in the fable, lent a willing ear to flattery, delightedly swallowing the assurances of the capitalists that they would not undertake a single step without consulting the Soviets, esteeming the Soviets, of course, very highly.

As a mater of fact, time was passing, and the government of the capitalists had done absolutely nothing for the Revolution. But against the Revolution—they had already succeeded in renewing the secret predatory treaties, or rather, in emphasizing and "resurrecting" them by means of supplementary agreements, just as secret, with the diplomats of Anglo-French Imperialism. Against the Revolution—they had already succeeded in laying the foundations of a counter-revolutionary organization (or, at least, understanding) of the generals and officers of the old army. Against the Revolution—they had already begun to organize captains of industry, owners of factories and works, who, under the blows of the workers, had been compelled to make one concession after another, but who were now beginning to sabotage, production and prepare for its absolute stoppage, merely waiting for an appropriate moment.

But the organizing of the advanced workers and peasants into Soviets was proceeding inexorably. The best among the oppressed classes felt that the government, in spite of the agreement with the Petrograd Soviet, in spite of the eloquence of Kerensky, in spite of the "Consulting Committee" remained an enemy of the people, an enemy of the Revolution. The masses felt that if they did not break the resistance of the capitalists, the cause of peace, of freedom, of the Revolution would be lost forever. The impatience and ill-will of the masses was daily increasing.

 

II

On May 2 and 3 the masses burst forth. The cataclysm came with a sort of elemental fury, for no one had expected it. It appeared all the more distinctly directed against the government since one regiment marched out armed and appeared at the Marinsky Palace in order to arrest the ministers. To every one it was clear, to the point of axiomatic truth, that the government could not hold on. The Soviets could (and should) have taken the state power into their hands, without the slightest opposition from any side whatever. Instead of which the Social-Revolutionists and Mensheviki supported the tottering government of the capitalists, entangled themselves more completely with the government by means of further agreements, and took other, even more fatal, steps to the complete undoing of the Revolution.

Revolution teaches all classes with a rapidity and thoroughness never possible in ordinary, peaceful times. The capitalists, being better organized and more experienced in the class struggle and in class policy, learned more quickly than the others. Seeing that the position of the government was insecure, they resorted to a method that has been practiced by the capitalists of other countries through all the decades since 1848, to hoodwink, disunite and weaken the workers. This method is the method of "coalition," that is, a ministry formed by combining bourgeois elements with renegades from Socialism.

In countries characterized more than others by the presence of liberty and democracy side by side with a revolutionary working class movement, namely, in England and France, capitalists have frequently resorted to "coalition" with great success. "Socialist" leaders who enter a bourgeois ministry inevitably become mere figure-heads, puppets, capitalist camouflage, tools for the deception of the workers. The "democratic and republican" capitalists of Russia put this same device into practice. The Social-Revolutionists and Mensheviki simultaneously permitted themselves to be fooled, and on May 19 the "coalition" ministry, including Chernov, Tseretelli & Co., became a fact.

The dupes of the Social-Revolutionary and Menshevist parties love to bask in the light of the ministerial haloes of their leaders. The capitalists rubbed their hands in glee when they found they had obtained accomplices against the people in the persons of the "Soviet leaders," who had promised they would support "an offensive at the front," that is, a renewal of the war of imperialistic aggression that had been suspended. The capitalists were aware of the puffed-up impotence of these leaders; they were aware that the promises made by the bourgeoisie (concerning the control and even organization of industry, the policy of peace, etc.) never would be kept.

And so it transpired. The second phase of the Revolution, from May 19 to June 18, fully justified the calculation of the capitalists as to the ease with which they could deceive the Social Revolutionists and Mensheviki.

As soon as Pyeshekhonov and Skobeleff begn fooling themselves and the people with fine phrases to the effect that they would take 100 per cent profits away from the capitalists, that the resisance of the capitalists was broken, etc., the capitalists began to take heart. No one, absolutely no one, was at that moment occupied in curbing, the capitalists. Ministers recruited from Socialist deserters made good talking machines to divert the oppressed masses, but the entire apparatus of state supervision actually remained in the hands of the bureaucracy and the bourgeoisie. The celebrated Palchinsky, an associate of the Minister of Industry, was a typical representative of this system: he sidetracked every attempt to curb the power of the capitalists. The ministers continued their emissions of hot air, but conditions remained unchanged.

Particularly was Minister Tseretelli used by the bourgeoisie to act against the Revolution. He was sent to "placate" Cronstadt when the revolutionists there had the colossal cheek to remove a commissioner appointed by the Provisional Government. The bourgeois press launched out into an incredibly base, malicious, insane campaign of deception and persecution against Cronstadt, accusing the city of a desire to "secede from Russia," repeated absurdities of ths and similar varieties in a thousand forms, terrifying the petite bourgeoisie and the philistines. Tseretelli, who is the most typical representative of the dull, intimidated philistines, fell most good-naturedly of all for the bait of the bourgeois persecution, and, more angrily than anyone else, "berated and calmed" Cronstadt, being in no way aware that he was playing the role of a flunkey to the counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie. The outcome was that he became the instrument for bringing about an "agreement" with revolutionary Cronstadt, providing that the Cronstadt commissioner was not to be appointed by the government, but elected by the city and confirmed by the government. In the accomplishment of such miserable compromises the ministers who deserted from Socialism to the bourgeoisie are now spending their time.

There are situations in which no bourgeois minister would dare to come out in defense of the government before the revolutionary workers or in the Soviets. But in such places there appeared (or rather, was sent by the bourgeoisie) a "Socialist" minister, a Tseretelli, Chernov, Skobeleff, or some other, who would willingly carry out the bourgeois task and work himself into a fury defending the ministry, would whitewash the capitalists and deceive the workers by grinding out promises, promises, promises, and advising the workers to wait, wait, wait.

Minister Chernov was particularly busy trading with his bourgeois colleagues. Up to the very month of July, up to the new "crisis of power" which was developing at that time, after the movement of July 16–17, up to the departure of the Cadets from the Cabinet, Minister Chernov was constantly occupied with the useful, interesting, profoundly working class task of "wheedling" his bourgeois colleagues, trying to persuade them to agree at least to abolish transactions of purchase and sale of land. This abolition was solemnly promised to the peasants at the All-Russian Congress (Soviet) of Peasants' Delegates at Petrograd. But the promise simply remained a promise. Chernov was unable to carry out the measure either in May or in June, and not until after the revolutionary wave, in the elemental uprising of July 16–17, simultaneously with the departure of the Cadets from the ministry, which provided the possibility of carrying out such measures. But even then this measure remained isolated and impotent to introduce any serious improvement in the peasants' struggle for land against the landholders.

At the same time at the front, the counter-revolutionary task of renewing the imperialistic predatory war, which Guchkov, hated by the people, had not succeeded in achieving, was accomplished brilliantly by the "revolutionary democrat" Kerensky, the newly-baked member of the Social-Revolutionary Party. Kerensky intoxicated himself with his own oratory, while the capitalists burned incense in his honor, worshiped him while using him as a puppet. And the reason was simple: Kerensky had been a true and faithful friend of the capitalists, persuading the "revolutionary troops" to consent to a renewal of the war, as a means of carrying out the treaties signed by Czar Nicholas II with the capitalists of England and France, a war having as its object the conquest, for the capitalists, of Constantinople and Lemberg, Erzerum and Trebizond.

Thus passed the second phase of the Russian Revolution, from the 19th of May to the 18th of June. The counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie was being strengthened and invigorated under the cover and with the active defense of the "Socialist" ministers, who had prepared an offensive both against the external enemy and the enemy within, the revolutionary workers.

 

III

On June 18 the party of the revolutionary workers, the Bolsheviki, prepared a demonstration in Petrograd in order to afford an organized expression to the irresistibly growing dissatisfaction and indignation of the masses. Fettered by their agreements with the bourgeoisie, entangled in the imperialistic policy of an offensive, the 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.^[3]

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 Mensheviki to the victorious chariot of the bourgeoisie with ropes, the 1st of July bound them with chains to serve the capitalists.

The anger aroused in the masses by the renewal of the war of conquest naturally increased more rapidly and became very powerful. On July 16–17 their indignation vented itself in an explosion, which the Bolsheviki had tried to restrain, and which it was their duty to organize.

The Social-Revolutionists and Mensheviki, faithful slaves of the bourgeoisie, chained to their masters, agreed to everything,—the sending of reactionary troops to Petrograd, the re-establishment of the death penalty in the army, the disarming of the workers and the revolutionary troops, arrests and persecutions, closing up the newspapers without trial. The bourgeoisie could not entirely assume power in the government and the Soviets did not want to take it; and this power, accordingly, was seized by the war clique, the Bonapartists, fully supported, of course, by the Cadets and the Black Hundreds, the landholders and the capitalists.

The thing went on step by step. Once moving along the inclined plane of an agreement with the bourgeoisie, the Social-Revolutionists and Mensheviki slid downward without stopping until they reached the bottom. On March 12 they promised, in the Petrograd Soviet, a conditional support of the bourgeois Provisional Government. On May 19 they saved themselves from ruin and consented to transform themselves into servants and defenders of the government, consenting to an offensive. On June 18 they united with the counter-revolutionary bourgeois in a crusade of insane malice, falsehood and libel against the revolutionary proletariat. On July 2 they approved the renewal of the predatory war, already accomplished. On July 16 they agreed to a summoning of the reactionary troops against the workers,—the beginning of a complete cession of power to the Bonapartists.

This disgraceful finale of the Social-Revolutionary and Menshevist party is not an accident, but the natural result, often seen in the experience of Europe, of the economic position of the petty employers, of the petite bourgeoisie. Every one must have observed how the petty business man exhausts himself to make his way in the world, to become a real business man and a "substantial" owner, a real bourgeois. Under the rule of Capitalism there is no other choice for the petty business man: either he must himself advance to the position of the capitalists (and in the most favorable circumstances this may be possible, for one in a hundred), or he must drop into the class of has-beens, the semi-proletariat, later the proletariat. In politics, also, the petit bourgeois democracy, particularly in the persons of its chiefs, leans towards the bourgeoisie. The leaders of the petit bourgeois democracy pacify the masses with promises and assurances of the possibility of coalition with the great capitalists, and, under the most favorable conditions, they may, for an exceedingly short time, obtain concessions from the capitalists for the not very numerous upper layers of the working masses; but in all decisive matters the petit bourgeois democracy has always been an appendage of the bourgeoisie, an impotent satellite, an obedient tool in the hands of the captains of finance. The experience of England and France has confirmed this.

The experience of the Russian Revolution, from March to July, emphasizes the old Marxist truth concerning the instability of the petite bourgeoisie, very clear and comprehensibly, particularly when events, under the influence of the imperialistic war and its consequent profound crisis, began to develop with unusual rapidity.

The lesson of the Russian Revolution is this: There is for the toiling masses no way out of the iron ring of war, of hunger, of enslavement to the landholders and capitalists, except in a complete break with the parties of the Social-Revolutionists and Mensheviki, in a clear understanding of the treacherous role they have played, in the renunciation of every kind of coalition with the bourgeoisie, in a decisive stand by the side of the revolutionary workers. The revolutionary workers alone, if they are supported by the poorest peasants, will be in a position to break the resistance of the capitalists, lead the people to a seizure of the land without compensation, to full liberty, to a victory over hunger and over war, and to a just and permanent peace.

 

***

 

Postscript

This article, as may be seen from the text, was written early in August. Its arguments have been fully confirmed by the history of the Revolution since. And then the Komilov uprising produced a new turn in the Revolution, making evident to the whole nation that the Cadets, in alliance with the counter-revolutionary generals, are aiming to disband the Soviets and re-establish the monrachy. How powerful is this new turn in the Revolution, whether it will succeed in finally putting an end to the disastrous policy of coalition with the bourgeoisie—this the near future will show.

September 19, 1917.N. Lenin.

1. This pictures the situation after the July uprising, when the Provisional Government and the moderates in the Soviet co-operated to disarm and crush the "left wing" of the Revolution, Trotzky was under arrest and Lenin in hiding—in Petrograd, from whence he continued to direct the agitation of the Bolsheviki!—L. C. F.
2. Chernov was the Social-Revolutionist Minister of Agriculture in the Coalition Cabinet of the Provisional Government He resigned in June, becoming again a member in August in the Cabinet of Premier Kerensky. The prohibition of the transfer of land by sale was a very important measure, as through these sales the bourgeois and feudal agrarians schemed to draw the teeth out of the proposed distribution of land by the Constituent Assembly—when the Constituent Assembly finally did meet!—L. C. F.
3. 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.