V. I.

Lenin

Now that the Cabinet of Kerensky, Nekrasov, Avksentyev and
Co. [1] has been formed, the gravest and most disastrous error Marxists could make would be to mistake words
for deeds, deceptive appearances for reality or generally for
something serious.

Let’s leave this pastime to the Mensheviks and
Socialist-Revolutionaries who have already gone as far as to
play the part of clowns around the Bonapartist Kerensky. Indeed, it certainly
is buffoonery on the part of the Chernovs, Avksentyevs and
Tseretelis to start striking postures and uttering fancy words
at a time when Kerensky, clearly at the Cadets’ bidding, forms
something of a secret Directory composed of himself, Nekrasov,
Tereshchenko and Savinkov, keeps quiet about both the
Constituent Assembly and the declaration of
July 8, [2] proclaims the sacred union of classes in his address to the people,
concludes an agreement on terms unknown to anyone with Kornilov,
who has presented a most brazen ultimatum, and continues the
policy of scandalously outrageous arrests.

At a time like this, it certainly is buffoonery on the part of
Chernov to challenge Milyukov to appear before a court of
arbitration, of Avksentyev to shout about the futility of a
narrow class point of view, or of Tsereteli and Dan to push
through the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets the
emptiest resolutions stuffed with utterly meaningless phrases,
resolutions that call to mind the Cadet First Duma during its
worst period of impotence in the face of tsarism.

Just as the Cadets in 1906 prostituted the first assembly of
popular representatives in Russia by reducing it to a miserable
talking shop in face of the growing tsarist counter-revolution,
so the S.R.s and Mensheviks in 1917 have prostituted the Soviets by reducing them to a miserable talking-shop in face
of the growing Bonapartist counter-revolution.

Kerensky’s Cabinet is undoubtedly a cabinet taking the first
steps towards Bonapartism.

We see the chief historical symptom of Bonapartism: the
manoeuvring of state power, which leans on the military clique
(on the worst elements of the army) for support, between two
hostile classes and forces which more or less balance each other
out.

The class struggle between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat
has reached the limit and on April 20 and 21, as well as on July
3–5, the country was within a hair’s breadth of civil war. This
socio-economic condition certainly forms the classical basis for
Bonapartism. And then, this condition is combined with others
that are quite akin to it; the bourgeoisie are ranting and
raving against the Soviets, but are as yet powerless to
disperse them, while the Soviets, prostituted by Tsereteli,
Chernov and Co., are now powerless to put up serious resistance to the bourgeoisie.

The landowners and peasants, too, live as on the eve of civil
war: the peasants demand land and freedom, they can be kept in
check, if at all, only by a Bonapartist government capable of
making the most unscrupulous promises to all classes without
keeping any of them.

Add to this the situation created by a foolhardy offensive and
military reverses, in which fancy phrases about saving the
country are particularly fashionable (concealing the desire to
save the imperialist programme of the bourgeoisie), and you
have a perfect picture of the socio-political setting for
Bonapartism.

Don’t let us be deluded by phrases. Don’t let. us be misled by
the idea that all we have is the first steps of Bonapartism. It
is the first steps we must be able to discern unless we want to
find ourselves in the ridiculous predicament of the stupid
philistine who laments the second step although he himself
helped to take the first.

It would now be nothing short of stupid philistinism to
entertain constitutional illusions, such as, for instance, that
the present Cabinet is probably more Left than all the preceding
ones (see Izvestia ), that well-meaning criticism by the Soviets could rectify the errors of the government, that
the arbitrary arrests and suppression of newspapers were
isolated incidents which, it is to be hoped, will never recur,
or that Zarudny is an honest man and that in republican and
democratic Russia a fair trial is possible and everyone should
appear at it, and so on, and so forth.

The stupidity of these constitutional philistine illusions is
too obvious to require special refutation.

The struggle against the bourgeois counter-revolution demands
soberness and the ability to see and speak of things as they
are.

Bonapartism in Russia is no accident but a natural product of
the evolution of the class struggle in a petty-bourgeois
country with a considerably developed capitalism and a revolutionary proletariat. Historical stages like April 20 and
21, May 6, June 9 and 10, June 18 and 19, and July 3-5 are
landmarks which show clearly how preparations for Bonapartism
proceeded. It would be a very big mistake to think that a
democratic situation rules out Bonapartism. On the contrary, it
is exactly in a situation like this (the history of France has
confirmed it twice) that Bonapartism emerges, given a certain
relationship between classes and their struggle.

However, to recognise the inevitability of Bonapartism does not
at all mean forgetting the inevitability of its down fall.

If we only said the counter-revolution had temporarily gained the upper hand here in Russia we should be dodging the
issue.

If we analysed the origin of Bonapartism and, fearlessly facing
the truth, told the working class and the whole people that the
beginning of Bonapartism is a fact, we should there by start a
real and stubborn struggle to overthrow Bonapartism, a struggle
waged on a large political scale and based on far-reaching class
interests.

The Russian Bonapartism of 1917 differs from the beginnings of
French Bonapartism in 1799 and 1849 in several respects, such as
the fact that not a single important task of the revolution has
been accomplished here. The struggle to settle the agrarian and
the national questions is only just gathering momentum.

Kerensky and the counter-revolutionary Cadets who use him as a
pawn can neither convoke the Constituent Assembly on the appointed
date, nor postpone it, without in both cases promoting the
revolution. And the catastrophe engendered by the prolongation of
the imperialist war keeps on approaching with even greater force
and speed than ever.

The advance contingents of the Russian proletariat succeeded in
emerging from our June and July days without losing too much
blood. The proletarian party has every opportunity to choose the
tactics and form, or forms, of organisation that will in any
circumstances prevent unexpected (seemingly unexpected)
Bonapartist persecutions from cutting short its existence and
its regular messages to the people.

Let the Party loudly and clearly tell the people the whole truth
that Bonapartism is beginning; that the “new” government of Kerensky, Avksentyev and Co. is merely a screen
for the counter-revolutionary Cadets and the military clique
which is in power at present; that the people can get no peace, the peasants no land, the workers no
eight-hour day, and the hungry no bread unless the counter-revolution is completely stamped out. Let the Party say
so, and every step in the march of events will bear it out.

With remarkable speed Russia has gone through a whole epoch in
which the majority of the people put their faith in the
petty-bourgeois Socialist-Revolutionary and Menshevik parties. And now the majority of the working people are
beginning to pay heavily for their credulity.

All indications are that the march of events is continuing at a
very fast pace and that the country is approaching the next
epoch, when the majority of the working people will have to
entrust their fate to the revolutionary proletariat. The
revolutionary proletariat will take power and begin a socialist
revolution; despite all the difficulties and possible zigzags of
development, it will draw the workers of all the advanced
countries into the revolution, and will defeat both war and
capitalism.

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Notes:
[1]
Lenin means the coalition Provisional Government formed on
July 24 (August 6), 1917. It included A. F. Kerensky, Premier and
War and Naval Minister (S.R.), N. V. Nekrasov, Deputy Premier
and Minister of Finance (Cadet), and N. D. Avksentyev, Minister
of the Interior (S.R.). The cabinet was composed of Cadets,
Socialist-Revolutionaries, Mensheviks, Popular Socialists, and
non-party people who were close to the Cadets. In this composition,
it found itself in Cadet hands. At a joint meeting of the Central
Executive Committee of Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies
and the Executive Committee of the Congress of Peasants’ Deputies,
held on July 25 (August 7), the Mensheviks and S.R.s adopted
a resolution urging the most active support for the new coalition
government.

[2]
That is, the declaration issued by the Provisional Government
on July 8 (21), 1917. It contained a number of demagogic promises
which the Provisional Government hoped would reassure the people
after the July events. The government promised to hold elections
to the Constituent Assembly on the appointed date, September 17
(30), guarantee the early introduction of local—urban and Zemstvo
(rural)—self-government, abolish the social estates, take steps
to remedy economic dislocation, and draft legislation on an eight– hour day, labour safety and social insurance, as well as a land
reform, to be considered by the Constituent Assembly. Not one
of these promises was kept.