V. I.

Lenin

“ When a real Cavaignac comes, we shall fight in the same
ranks with you," we were told in No. 80 of Rabochaya Gazeta , organ of the very same Menshevik party whose
member, Minister Tsereteli, in his notorious speech, went to such
lengths as to threaten to disarm the Petrograd workers.

The above-quoted statement clearly brings out the fundamental
errors of Russia’s two ruling parties, the Mensheviks and
Socialist-Revolutionaries, and therefore deserves attention. The
ministerial organ’s arguments mean that you are looking for
Cavaignacs at the wrong time and in the wrong place.

Remember the class role played by Cavaignac. In February 1848
the French monarchy was overthrown. The bourgeois republicans
came to power. Like our Cadets, they wanted “order”, by which they meant the restoration and strengthening of
monarchic instruments for oppressing the masses:

the police, the standing army and the privileged bureaucracy. Like our Cadets, they wanted to put an end to the
revolution, for they hated the revolutionary workers with their
“social” (i. e., socialist) aspirations, at that time very hazy. Like our Cadets, they were implacably hostile to
the policy of extending the French Revolution to the rest of
Europe, the policy of transforming it into a world proletarian
revolution. Like our Cadets, they skilfully used the petty-bourgeois “socialism” of Louis Blanc by making
him a Minister and so transforming him from leader of the
socialist workers, which he had wanted to be, into an appendage,
a hanger-on, of the bourgeoisie.

These were the class interests, the position and policy of the
ruling class.

The petty bourgeoisie, vacillating, frightened by the red
spectre, and falling for the outcries against the “anarchists”, were another basic social
force. Dreamily and bombastically “socialist” in their aspirations, and readily calling themselves
“socialist democrats” (even this term is now taken up by the Socialist-Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks!), the
petty bourgeoisie were afraid to entrust themselves to the
leadership of the revolutionary proletariat, and did not realise
that fear condemned them to entrusting themselves to the
bourgeoisie. For there can be no “middle” course in a society rent by bitter class struggle between the
bourgeoisie and the proletariat, particularly when this
struggle is inevitably aggravated by a revolution. And the whole
essence of the class position and aspirations of the petty
bourgeoisie is that they want the impossible, that they aspire
to
the impossible, i. e., to a “middle course”.

The third decisive class force was the proletariat, which
aspired not to “reconcile itself” with the bourgeoisie, but to defeat them, to fearlessly promote the
revolution, doing so, moreover, on an international scale.

That was the objective historical soil which brought forth Cavaignac. The vacillation of the petty bourgeoisie
“debarred” them from an active role, and the French
Cadet, General Cavaignac, taking advantage of the petty
bourgeoisie’s fear of entrusting themselves to the proletariat,
decided to disarm the Paris workers and shoot them down
en masse .

The revolution ended in that historic shooting. The petty
bourgeoisie, while numerically superior, had been and remained
the politically impotent tail of the bourgeoisie, and three
years later France saw the restoration of a particularly vile
form of Caesarist monarchy.

Tsereteli’s historic speech on June 11, clearly inspired by the
Cadet Cavaignacs (perhaps directly inspired by the bourgeois
Ministers, or perhaps indirectly prompted by the bourgeois press
and bourgeois public opinion—it does not matter which),
was remarkable and historic in that Tsereteli let out ,
with inimitable naïveté, the “secret malady” of the entire petty bourgeoisie, both Socialist-Revolutionary and
Menshevik. This ’secret malady” consists, first, in a complete inability to pursue an independent policy; secondly, in
the fear to entrust themselves to the revolutionary proletariat
and wholeheartedly support the independent policy of the latter; thirdly, in a drift—inevitably following
from this—towards submitting to the Cadets or to the bourgeoisie in general ( i.e., submitting to the Cavaignacs ).

This is the heart of the matter. Tsereteli, Chernov and even
Kerensky are not destined as individuals to play the role of
Cavaignacs. There will be other people to do that, people who at
the right moment will tell the Russian Louis Blancs:

"Step aside." But the Tseretelis and Chernovs are leaders
pursuing a petty-bourgeois policy that makes the appearance of
Cavaignacs possible and necessary.

“ When a real Cavaignac comes, we shall be with you"—an excellent promise, a splendid intention! Only, it is a pity
that it reveals a misunderstanding of the class struggle,
typical of the sentimental or timid petty bourgeoisie. For a
Cavaignac is not an accident, his “advent” is not an isolated development. A Cavaignac represents a class (the
counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie) and carries out the policies
of
that class. And it is that class and those policies that you
Socialist-Revolutionary and Menshevik gentlemen support
today. It is to that class and its policies that you , who at the moment admittedly command a majority in
the country, give predominance in the government,
i. e., an excellent basis on which to work.

Indeed, the All-Russia Peasant Congress was almost entirely
dominated by the Socialist-Revolutionaries. At the All-Russia
Congress of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies, the
Socialist-Revolutionary and Menshevik bloc had a vast majority. The same is true of the elections to the Petrograd
district councils. The fact is there: the
Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks are the ruling party
now. And this ruling party is voluntarily ceding power (the majority in the
government) to the party of the Cavaignacs !!

Wherever there’s a swamp there’s sure to be the devil. Once
there is a shaky, vacillating petty bourgeoisie dreading the
revolution’s progress, the Cavaignacs are sure to appear.

In Russia there are many things now that make our revolution
different from the French Revolution of ’1848: the imperialist
war, the proximity  of more advanced countries (and not of more
backward ones, as was the case of France at the time), an
agrarian and a national movement. But all this may modify only the form in which the Cavaignacs come
forward, the moment, the external causes, etc. It cannot change
the essence of the matter, for the essence lies in the class relationships .

In words, Louis Blanc, too, was as far removed from Cavaignac as
heaven is from earth. Louis Blanc, too, made countless promises
“to fight in the same ranks" as the revolutionary workers
against the bourgeois counter revolutionaries. Nevertheless, no
Marxist historian, no socialist, would venture to doubt that it
was the weakness, the instability, the credulity of the Louis
Blancs with regard to the bourgeoisie that brought forth
Cavaignac and assured his success.

The Russian Cavaignacs are inevitable products of the counter-revolutionary character of the Russian bourgeoisie led
by the Cadets and of the instability, timidity and vacillation
of the petty-bourgeois parties of the Socialist-Revolutionaries
and the Mensheviks. Whether the Russian Cavaignacs will win or
lose the battle depends solely on the staunchness, vigilance,
and strength of Russia’s revolutionary workers.

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