V. I.

Lenin

All the papers have published, in full or in part, the speech
which I. G. Tsereteli delivered on April 27 at the ceremonial session
of the deputies of all the Dumas, past and present.

It was quite a ministerial speech. The speech of a minister
without a portfolio. Still, we think there is no harm, even when ministers without portfolios make
ministerial speeches, in sparing a thought for socialism,
Marxism and the class struggle. To each his own. It behooves the
bourgeoisie to shun all talk about the class struggle, to avoid
analysing it, studying it, and making it a basis for determining
policies. It behooves the bourgeoisie to dismiss these “disagreeable” and “tactless” subjects—as they say in
parlours—and to sing the praises of “unity” of “all friends
of freedom”. It behooves the proletarian party not to forget the
class struggle.

To each his own.

Two basic political ideas underlie I. G. Tsereteli’s speech. First, that a line can and should be drawn between two
“sections” of the bourgeoisie. One section “has come to an
agreement with the democrats”; the position of this bourgeoisie
insecure. The other consists of “irresponsible elements of the
bourgeoisie who are provoking civil war”, or, as Tsereteli
describes them, “many people from among the moderate elements of
the property-owners”.

The speaker’s second political idea is this: “Any attempt right
now to proclaim [!?] the dictatorship of the proletariat and the
peasantry” would be a “desperate” attempt, and he, Tsereteli,
would agree to such a desperate attempt only if he could believe
for one minute that Shulgin’s ideas were really “shared by all
the property-owning bourgeoisie”.

Let us examine these two political ideas of I. G. Tsereteli,
who, as befits a minister without a portfolio or a candidate for
the ministry, has taken a middle-of-the-road stand—neither
for reaction nor for revolution, neither with Shulgin nor with
the adherents of ’desperate attempts”.

What class distinctions between the two indicated sections of
the bourgeoisie did Tsereteli make? None at all. It did not
even occur to Tsereteli that there would be no harm in shaping
policies on the basis of the class struggle. Both “Sections” of
the bourgeoisie, in class substance, are landowners and
capitalists. Tsereteli did not mention a word about Shulgin
not representing the same classes or sub-classes as
Guchkov represents—the latter a member of the Provisional
Government and an important one at that. Tsereteli singles out
the ideas of Shulgin from those of the “entire” property-owning
bourgeoisie, but gives no reasons for doing so. Nor could he give any. Shulgin stands for the undivided power of the
Provisional Government; he is against supervision of that
government by the armed soldiers; he is against “anti-British
propaganda”, against the soldiers being “set on” the “officer
class”, against the propaganda of Petrogradskaya Storona ,  [2] etc. These ideas are to be found every day in the
columns of Rech , in the speeches and manifestos of the
ministers with portfolios, etc.

The only difference is that Shulgin speaks more “glibly”, while
the Provisional Government, being a government, speaks more discreetly; Shulgin speaks in a deep voice, Milyukov in a
falsetto. Milyukov is for an agreement with the Soviet, and
Shulgin, too, has nothing against such an agreement. Both Shulgin and Milyukov are for “other methods of
control” (not control by armed soldiers).

Tsereteli has thrown overboard all ideas of the class struggle. He has made no mention of class
distinctions or any serious political distinctions between “the
two sections” of the bourgeoisie, nor did he think of mentioning
them.

By “democrats”, referred to in his speech. Tsereteli meant “the
proletariat and the revolutionary peasantry”. Let us examine
this class definition. The bourgeoisie has entered into an
agreement with these democrats. One is entitled to ask, what
forms the basis of this agreement, by what class interests is it upheld?

Not a word about this in Tsereteli’s speech. All he speaks
about is a “common democratic platform which has now proved
acceptable to the whole country”, i.e., evidently to the
proletarians and the peasants, since the “country” is really the
workers and peasants minus the property-owners.

Does this platform exclude, say, the question of the land? It
does not. The platform side-steps it. Do class interests and
their conflicts disappear by being side-stepped in diplomatic
documents, deeds of “agreement”, and the speeches and statements of ministers?

Tsereteli “forgot” to raise this question, forgot a “trivial
detail”—he “merely” forgot the class interests and the class struggle....

“ All the problems of the Russian revolution,” expatiates
I. G. Tsereteli, “the very crux of it [!?] depend on whether
the propertied classes [i.e., the landowners and capitalists]
will understand that this is a national platform and not a
specially proletarian platform.”

Poor landowners and capitalists! They are so slow-witted. They
“do not understand”. They need a special minister of the
democracy to teach them what’s what.

Maybe this spokesman of the “democrats” has forgotten the class
struggle, has adopted the stand of Louis Blanc, and is dismissing the conflict of class interests with mere phrases?

Is it Shulgin and Guchkov with Milyukov who “do not understand” that the peasant can be reconciled with
the landowner on a platform that side-steps the land question?
Or is it I. G. Tsereteli who “does not understand” that this
cannot be done?

The workers and peasants must confine themselves to what is
“acceptable” to the landowners and capitalists—that is the
real gist (the class, not the verbal, gist) of the Shulgin
Milyukov-Plekhanov position. And they “understand” it better
than Tsereteli does.

This brings us to Tsereteli’s second political idea—that
the dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry (a
dictator ship, by the way, is won, not “proclaimed”) would be a
desperate attempt. In the first place, to speak so simply of
this dictatorship nowadays is likely to land Tsereteli in the
archives of the “old
Bolsheviks”. [1]

Secondly, and most important of all, the workers and peasants
constitute the vast majority of the population. And does not
“democracy” mean carrying out the will of the majority?

How then can one be a democrat, and yet be opposed to the “dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry”? flow
can one fear “civil war” from it? (What kind of civil war?

That of a handful of landowners and capitalists against the workers and peasants? That of an
insignificant minority against an overwhelming majority?)

I. G. Tsereteli is hopelessly muddled. He has even forgotten
that Lvov and Co. carry out their promise to convene the
Constituent Assembly, the latter would become a “dictatorship”
of the majority. Or must the workers and peasants, even in the
Constituent Assembly, confine them selves to what is “acceptable” to the landowners and the capitalists?

The workers and peasants are the vast majority. All power to
this majority is, if you please, a “desperate attempt”....

Tsereteli is in a muddle because he has completely over looked
the class struggle. lie has abandoned the standpoint of Marxism
for that of Louis Blanc, who talked himself out of the class
struggle.

The task of a proletarian leader is to clarify the difference in
class interests and persuade certain sections of the petty
bourgeoisie (namely, the poor peasants) to choose between the
workers and the capitalists, to take sides with the workers.

The task of petty-bourgeois Louis Blancs is to play down the
difference in class interests and persuade certain sections of
the bourgeoisie (mainly the intellectuals and parliamentarians)
to “agree” with the workers, to persuade the workers to “agree”
with the capitalists, and the peasants to “agree” with the
landowners.

Louis Blanc tried hard to persuade the Paris bourgeoisie, and,
as we know, all but persuaded it to refrain from the mass
shootings of 1848 and 1871.

---
Notes:
[1]
See my " Letters on Tactics ”.

(See pp. 45–46 of this volume.— Ed .)
— Lenin

[2]