Theses of the article "The Revolutionary Democratic Dictatorship of the Proletariat and the Peasantry," printed in No. 42 of
"Vperyod," dated April 1 (March 30), 1905 (Works, Vol. VII, pp.
496-502).
MORE ON THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT.
[April 1905]
1. Clarity in revolutionary goals is needed.
Obscuring began by Martov before 9 I. Not an exaggeration of individual aspects of the movement (always possible), but a dragging back.
2. Formulation of the question: (1) Is the participation of Social-Democracy in the provisional government permissible? Yes (Vperyod), no (Iskra).
(2) Is the participation of Social-Democracy together with the revolutionary democracy in the government of the revolutionary democratic dictatorship permissible? Yes (Vperyod), no (Iskra).
"Jaurèsism" = "Jacobinism" 1) (tantum mutatus ab illo!)2).
Seriousness of the question.
3. Iskra's arguments:
the bourgeois order is sanctified: police, prisons, credit, unemployment etc.
(1) to defile one's lips with the combination of words "long live" and government." A phrase. Vulgar Jaurèsism. To implement the minimum program. The consciousness of the bourgeoisie will not allow it (contra Bakunin), it is more convenient to push from the side 3).
4. Its mistakes:
misunderstanding of the military conditions of the task and the moment. Kurz4) = struggle for a republic. For or against? Do you "sanctify"?
A non-dialectical understanding of the "sanctification" of the bourgeois system, prisons, army etc. Ich stimme rückwärts, nicht vorwärts zu 5).

MORE ON THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT
"beat together"—and kill together? Finish off? Beat off? vicissitudes of struggle: The run of the true love is never smooth6)...
"Jaurèsism": learned it, but didn't understand it. Memorized it, but didn't think it through. Grasped the letter, but not the meaning. Is it a principle? (Compare Paris. 1900) 7).
Minimum and maximum program. Is the proletariat sober?
5. Real danger: delay in the tasks of independent organization and independent struggle of the proletariat.
This is absolutely certain.
Will participation in the provisional government hinder this? Freedom of association? Means of agitation? The press? Convenience of resigning under changed conditions?
(2) The difference between (a) a temporary coalition government and (b) a revolutionary dictatorship (created by Iskra) — scholasticism, a = legal form, b = class essence. On the one hand, a is impossible without b. On the other hand, b is inevitably temporary (either a transition to bourgeois dictatorship, to the defeat of the proletariat, or to socialist dictatorship).
Tactical caution. To prepare, to unite ranks, not losschlagen gedankenlos (Draufgänger)8) not "more revolutionary than everyone else" 9)...
Is there a revolutionary democracy? Of course, yes (L. Martov is right contra Trotsky and Parvus and Trotsky). Even L. Martov vainly believes Trotsky that revolutionary democracy is only "growing up," and the proletariat is growing. Rather vice versa (the legal press, broad intelligentsia, its connection with the peasantry etc. will be restored sehr bald) 10).
"Abnormal people" (Frankfurter Zeitung). Bakunin. All legal liberals who are only honest = ready-made revolutionary democrats, all the influence of honest writers, conscientious lawyers, decent teachers, doctors, etc. and etc.
Bessere Einsicht11) of Iskra: Revolution in Permanenz is the revolutionary dictatorship.

"More revolutionary than everyone else." What about the Socialist-Revolutionaries? The struggle between the Socialist-Revolutionaries and the Social-Democrats. It may very well be that the Social-Democrats will have to leave the revolutionary government of the Socialist-Revolutionaries and stand in opposition to "revolutionary adventurism," bring them to Abwirtschaften12). (The inevitability of revolutionary democrats being colored as Socialist-Revolutionaries, taking the Socialist-Revolutionaries as a type.) Here you don't tie your hands in any case. The organization and discipline of the proletariat, the "adventurism" and inconstancy of the revolutionary intelligentsia and the revolutionary petty bourgeoisie...

*) Here Martov's assertion is meant (in the article "On the Agenda," Iskra No. 93) that "one hundred million peasants and a good ten million small producers in industry are a sufficiently broad popular base for Russian Jacobinism." At the same time, Martov considers the entry of representatives of the proletariat together with representatives of this multi-million mass of peasantry into the provisional revolutionary government to be "Jaurèsism."
2) Tantum mutatus ab illo — so changed in connection with this.
3) The arguments of "Iskra" indicated in the plan are developed in the articles by L. Martov: "On the Agenda," Iskra No. 93, and Martynov: "Revolutionary Perspectives" and Nos. 90-93-95.
4) Kurz — short.
5) Translation: "I sanctify in relation to the past, and not in relation to the future." The quoted words belong to Feuerbach, who was asked whether he sanctified the materialism of Büchner, Vogt, and Moleschott. (See Lenin, Works, Vol. IV, p. 200.)
6) Translation: "true love never runs smoothly." Lysander's words from Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream."
7) The Paris Congress of the Second International in 1900, where the so-called "Millerand Affair" was debated, related to the first entry of "socialist" Millerand into the bourgeois government of Waldeck-Rousseau in 1899.
8) Translation: "strike from the shoulder."
9) Parvus' slogan is meant: "to be more revolutionary than everyone else."
10) This refers to Martov's polemic with Trotsky and Parvus, who pointed out the negligible role of the revolutionary bourgeois democracy in the revolution of 1905.
Sehr bald — very soon.
11) Bessere Einsicht — better assumption.
12) Abwirtschaften — the end of management.