Postscript
Послесловие
Date: 1917-04-10
Source: ru:PSS/v31
Translated by: AI (Claude)

My pamphlet has become outdated due to economic disruption and the inability of the printing houses in Petersburg to function. The pamphlet was written on April 10, 1917, and today is May 28, and the pamphlet still has not been published!

The pamphlet was written as a draft platform for propaganda of my views before the All-Russian Conference of our Party, the Russian Social-Democratic Workers' Party of Bolsheviks. Typed on a typewriter and distributed to Party members in several copies before and during the conference, the pamphlet nevertheless did some of its work. But now the conference of April 24-29, 1917 has already taken place, its resolutions have long been published (see the appendix to No. 13 of "Soldatskaya Pravda"), and the attentive reader will easily notice that my pamphlet quite often serves as the initial draft of these resolutions.

It remains for me only to express the hope that the pamphlet will still bring some benefit in connection with these resolutions, in explaining them—and then to dwell on two points.

I proposed, on page 27, to remain in Zimmerwald only for information. The conference did not agree with me on this point, and I had to vote against the resolution on the International. Already now it is becoming clearly visible that the conference made a mistake and that the course of events will quickly correct it. By remaining in Zimmerwald, we (even against our will) participate in delaying the creation of the Third International; we indirectly hinder its creation, being tied to the dead weight of the already ideologically and politically dead Zimmerwald.

The position of our Party—before all the workers' parties of the whole world—is now precisely such that we are obliged to immediately found the Third International. Besides us, there is now no one to do this, and delays are harmful. By remaining in Zimmerwald only for information, we would immediately free our hands for such creation (being at the same time in a position to use Zimmerwald if circumstances made such use possible).

Now, however, thanks to the mistake made by the conference, we are forced to wait passively at least until July 5, 1917 (the deadline for convening the Zimmerwald Conference; it's good if they don't postpone it again! It has already been postponed once...).

But the decision, unanimously adopted by the Central Committee of our Party after the conference and printed in No. 55 of "Pravda," May 12, half-corrected the mistake: it was decided that we leave Zimmerwald if it goes to confer with ministers. I will allow myself to express the hope that the second half of the mistake will be corrected soon, as soon as we convene the first international meeting of "the left" ("the third current," "internationalists in deed," see above, pp. 23-25).

The second point that needs to be addressed is the formation of a "coalition ministry" on May 6, 1917. The pamphlet seems especially outdated in this respect.

In fact, it is precisely in this respect that it has not become outdated at all. It builds everything on class analysis, which the Mensheviks and Narodniks fear like fire, having given 6 ministers as hostages to 10 capitalist ministers. And precisely because the pamphlet builds everything on class analysis, it has not become outdated, for the entry of Tsereteli, Chernov and Co. into the ministry changed only to a negligible degree the form of the agreement of the Petrograd Soviet with the government of the capitalists, and I deliberately emphasized in the pamphlet, on page 8, that "I have in mind not so much the formal agreement as the actual support."

With each day it becomes clearer that Tsereteli, Chernov and Co. are merely hostages of the capitalists, that the "renewed" government does not want and cannot fulfill even one of its pompous promises in either foreign or domestic policy. Chernov, Tsereteli and Co. have politically killed themselves, having proved to be helpers of the capitalists, in fact strangling the revolution. Kerensky has descended to the application of violence against the masses (cf. page 9 of the pamphlet: "Guchkov is only threatening to apply violence against the masses," while Kerensky had to carry out these threats...). Chernov, Tsereteli and Co. have politically killed themselves and their parties, the Mensheviks and the Socialist-Revolutionaries. With each day the people will see this more and more clearly.

The coalition ministry is only a transitional moment in the development of the basic class contradictions of our revolution, briefly analyzed in my pamphlet. It cannot continue like this for long. Either backward—to counter-revolution along the whole line, or forward—to the transfer of power into the hands of other classes. To stand still in a revolutionary time, in the conditions of a world imperialist war, is impossible.

Petersburg. May 28, 1917.