V. I.

Lenin

“ The great withdrawal of the bourgeoisie from the government."
This is what the main speaker of the Executive Committee, in a
report he submitted last Sunday, called the formation of the
coalition government and the entry of former socialists into the
Ministry.

Only the first three words in this phrase are correct. "The
great withdrawal" does indeed characterise and explain May 6
(the formation of the coalition government). It was on that day
that "the great withdrawal" really began, or, to be exact,
manifested itself most clearly. Only, it was not a great
withdrawal of the bourgeoisie from the government but a great
withdrawal of the Menshevik and Narodnik leaders from the revolution.

The significance of the Congress of Soviets of Soldiers’ and
Workers’ Deputies now in session lies in the fact that it has
made this circumstance clearer than ever.

May 6 was a triumph for the bourgeoisie. The bourgeois government was on the verge of defeat. The masses were
definitely and absolutely, sharply and irreconcilably opposed to
it. One word from the Narodnik and Menshevik leaders of the
Soviet would have sufficed to induce the government to relinquish its power unquestioningly. Lvov had to admit that
openly at the sitting in the Mariinsky Palace.

The bourgeoisie resorted to a skilful manoeuvre which was new to
the Russian petty bourgeoisie and to Russia’s masses in general,
which intoxicated the intellectual Menshevik and Narodnik
leaders, and which took proper account of their Louis Blanc
nature. The reader may recall that Louis Blanc was a renowned
petty-bourgeois socialist who entered the French Government in
1848 and became as sadly famed in 1871. Louis Blanc imagined
himself to be the leader of the "labour democrats" or
’socialist democrats" (the term “democracy” was used in the
France of 1848 as frequently as in
Socialist-Revolutionary [1] and Menshevik writing in 1917),
but in reality he was the tail-end of the bourgeoisie, a
play thing in their hands.

During the almost seventy years that have elapsed since then,
that manoeuvre, which is a novelty in Russia, has been made many
times by the bourgeoisie in the West. The purpose of this
manoeuvre is to make the "socialist democratic" leaders who
“withdraw” from socialism and from the revolution harmless
appendages of a bourgeois government, to shield this government from the people by means of near-socialist Ministers,
to cover up the counter-revolutionary nature of the bourgeoisie
by a glittering, spectacular faíade of “socialist” ministerialism.

This method has been developed to a veritable art in France. It
has also been tested on many occasions in Anglo-Saxon, Scandinavian, and many of the Latin countries. It is this
manoeuvre that was made in Russia on May 6, 1917.

“ Our” near-socialist Ministers found themselves in a situation
in which the bourgeoisie began to use them as their cat’s paw, to do through them what the bourgeoisie could
never have done without them.

Through Guchkov it would have been impossible to lure the people
into continuing the imperialist, predatory war, a war for redivision of the colonies and annexed territories
in general. Through Kerensky (and Tsereteli, who was busier
defending Tereshchenko than defending the post and telegraph
workers), the bourgeoisie were able, as correctly admitted by
Milyukov and Maklakov, to begin “organising” the continuation of
this kind of war.

Through Shingaryov it would have been impossible to ensure the
preservation of the landed estates system at least until the
convocation of the Constituent Assembly (if an offensive were to
take place, it would “enable Russia to re cover completely",
said Maklakov. That means that the Constituent Assembly itself
would be “healthier”). Through Chernov, this can be brought
about. The peasants have been told, although they have not been
very glad to hear it, that to rent land from the landowners by
agreement with each individual owner is “order”, while to
abolish the landed estates at one stroke and rent from the people, pending the convocation of the Constituent Assembly,
land formerly owned by the landowners is “anarchy”. This
counter-revolutionary idea of the landowners could only be put
into effect through Chernov.

Through Konovalov it would have been impossible to ensure the
safeguarding (and the increase—see what the ministerial newspaper, Rabochaya Gazeta , writes about
the coal industrialists) of the scandalous profits from war
contracts. Through Skobelev, or with his participation, this
safeguarding can be ensured by allegedly preserving the old
order, by near-“Marxist” rejection of the possibility of
“introducing” socialism.

Because socialism cannot be introduced the scandalously
high profits made by the capitalists not from their purely
capitalist business but from supplies to the armed forces, to the state—these profits can be both
concealed from the people and retained!—this is the wonderful Struvean argument which has brought together
Tereshchenko and Lvov, on the one hand, and the “Marxist”
Skobelev, on the other.

Popular meetings and the Soviets cannot be influenced through
Lvov, Milyukov, Tereshchenko, Shingaryov and the rest. But they
can be influenced through Tsereteli, Chernov and Co. in the same
old bourgeois direction. And one can pursue the same old bourgeois-imperialist policy by means of particularly
impressive, particularly “nice”-sounding phrases, to the point
of denying the people the elementary democratic right to
elect local authorities and prevent both their appointment and confirmation from above.

By denying this right, Tsereteli, Chernov and Co. have unwittingly turned from ex-socialists into ex-democrats.

A “great withdrawal", all right!

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Notes:
[1]
Socialist-Revolutionaries (S.R.s)—a petty-bourgeois party founded
in Russia in late 1901 and early 1902 as a result of the
amalgamation of various Narodnik groups and circles. Their views were an
eclectic hodgepodge of Narodnik and revisionist ideas. During
the First World War most of the S.R.s advocated social-chauvinist
views.

After the February bourgeois-democratic revolution of 1917 the
S.R.s and Mensheviks were the mainstay of the counter– revolutionary, bourgeois-landowner Provisional Government, and S.R.
leaders (Kerensky, Avksentyev, Chernov) were members of the
cabinet. The S.R. Party refused to support the peasants’ demand
for the abolition of the landed estates, and advocated their
preservation. The S.R. numbers of the Provisional Government sent
punitive expeditions against peasants who had seized landed
estates.

At the end of November 1917 the Left S.R.s formed an independent party. To retain their influence on the peasants, they
nominally recognised Soviet power and reached agreement with
the Bolsheviks. But shortly afterwards they began to fight against
Soviet rule.

During the foreign military intervention and the Civil War the
S.R.s engaged in counter-revolutionary subversion, actively
supported the invaders and whiteguards, took part in counter–
revolutionary conspiracies, and organised acts of terrorism against Soviet
statesmen and Communist Party leaders. After the Civil War they
continued their hostile activity inside the country and abroad,
where they joined the White émigrés.