V. I.

Lenin

The Provisional Government’s Note

The cards are on the table. We have every reason to be grateful
to Guchkov and Mllyukov for their Note, printed today in all the newspapers.

The majority of the Executive Committee of the Soviet of
Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies, the Narodniks, Mensheviks, all
those who until now have appealed for confidence in the
Provisional Government, have received fitting punishment. They
hoped, expected, and believed that the Provisional Government,
under the beneficent influence of “ contact ” with Chkheidze, Skobelev, and Steklov, would for ever repudiate
annexations. Things have turned out somewhat differently....

In its Note of April 18, the Provisional Government speaks of “the desire of the whole nation [!] to
fight the world war out to a decisive victory ”.

“ Needless to say,” the Note adds, “the Provisional Government
... will fully stand by its obligations towards our Allies.”

Short and clear. War to a decisive victory. The alliance with
the British and French bankers is sacred....

Who concluded this alliance with “our” Allies, i.e., with the British and French multimillionaires? The tsar,
Rasputin, the tsar’s gang, of course. But to Milyukov and
Co. this treaty is sacred.

Why?

Some say: because Milyukov Is insincere, he is a crafty person
and so on.

But that is not the point. The point is that Guchkov, Milyukov,
Tereshchenko, and Konovalov are spokesmen of the capitalists . And the seizure of foreign lands is
necessary to the capitalists. They will receive new markets, new
places to export capital to, new opportunities to arrange
profitable jobs for tens of thousands of their sons, etc. The
point is that at the present moment the interests of the Russian capitalists are identical with those of the British
and French capitalists. That, and that alone, is the reason why
the tsar’s treaties with the British and French capitalists are
precious to the Provisional Government of the Russian capitalists.

The new Note of the Provisional Government will pour oil on the
flames. It can only arouse a bellicose spirit in Germany. It
will help Wilhelm the Brigand to go on deceiving “his own”
workers and soldiers and drag them into a war “to a finish”.

The new Note of the Provisional Government puts the issue
squarely: what next?

From the very first moment of our revolution, the British and
French capitalists have been assuring us that the Russian
revolution was made solely and exclusively in order to fight the
war out “to a finish”. The capitalists want to plunder Turkey,
Persia, and China. If this should entail the slaughter of
another ten million or so Russian muzhiks—what of it?
What we need is a “decisive victory”.... And now the Provisional
Government, with utter frankness, has adopted the same course.

“ Fight—because we want to plunder.”

“ Die in your tens of thousands every day—because ‘we’ have
not yet fought it out and have not yet got our share of the
spoils!”

No class-conscious worker, no class-conscious soldier will
support the policy of “confidence” in the Provisional Government
any longer. The policy of confidence is bankrupt.

Our Social-Democratic City Conference stated in its resolution that
the correctness of our view would be corroborated now every
day. [1]

But not even we had expected events to move so fast.

The present Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies is faced
with the alternative: either to swallow the pill offered by
Guchkov and Milyukov, which would mean renouncing an independent
political role once and for all, for tomorrow Milyukov would put
his “feet on the table” and reduce the soviet to a mere cipher;
or to reject Milyukov’s Note, which would mean breaking with the
old policy of confidence and adopting the course proposed by
Pravda .

Naturally, a middle-of-the-road course might be found. But would
it be for long?

Workers and soldiers, you must now loudly declare that there
must be only one power in the country—the Soviets of
Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies, The Provisional Government, the
government of a handful of capitalists, must make way for these
Soviets.

---
Notes:
[1]



— Ed .