V. I. Lenin

They Are Trying To Frighten Us With Civil War

The bourgeoisie, frightened by the refusal of the Mensheviks and
Socialist-Revolutionaries to join a bloc with the Cadets, and by
the probability of the democrats being quite capable of forming
a government without them and governing Russia against them, are
doing their best to intimidate the democrats.

Scare them as much as you can! This is the slogan of the whole
bourgeois press. Scare them with all your might! Lie, slander,
but frighten them!

Birzhevka does its scaring by fabricating news about Bolshevik
activities. Others by spreading rumours about Alexeyev's
resignation, and about the imminent German offensive against
Petrograd, as if the facts do not prove that it is the Kornilov
generals (to whom Alexeyev undoubtedly belongs) who are capable
of opening the front to the Germans in Galicia and near Riga and
near Petrograd, and that it is the Kornilov generals who are
arousing the greatest hatred in the army against the General
Staff.

To make this method of intimidating the democrats more "solid" and
convincing, they refer to the danger of "civil war". Of all the
methods of intimidation, that of scaring with civil war is
perhaps the most widespread. Here is the way the
Rostov-on-the-Don Committee of the people's freedom party
formulated this widespread idea, heartily welcomed in philistine
circles, in its resolution of September 1 ( Rech No. 210):

"The Committee is convinced that civil war may sweep away all
the gains of the revolution and drown in rivers of blood our
young, still unstable freedom, and is of the opinion that it is
necessary to make an energetic protest against developing the
revolution as proposed by the unrealisable socialist utopias if
we are to save the gains of the revolution."

Here, the fundamental idea which is to be met with innumerable
times in Rech editorials, in the articles of Plekhanov and Potresov, in the editorials of Menshevik papers, etc., etc.,
is expressed in the clearest, most precise, well considered and
substantial form. It will therefore be useful to take up this
idea in greater detail.

Let us try to make a more concrete analysis of the civil war
question, on the basis of the half year's experience of our
revolution, among other things.

This experience, similarly to the experience of all European
revolutions, from the end of the eighteenth century on shows
that civil war is the sharpest form of the class struggle, it is
that point in the class struggle when clashes and battles,
economic and political, repeating themselves, growing, broadening, becoming acute, turn into an armed struggle of one
class against another. More often than not—one may say almost always—in all more or less free and ~. advanced
countries the civil war is between those classes whose antagonistic position towards each other is created and deepened
by the entire economic development of capitalism, by the entire
history of modern society the world over—civil war is between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat.

During the past half year of our revolution, we have experienced
very strong spontaneous outbursts (April 20-21, [1] July 3-4) in
which the proletariat came very close to starting a civil
war. On the other hand, the Kornilov revolt was a military
conspiracy supported by the landowners and capitalists led by
the Cadet Party, a conspiracy by which the bourgeoisie has
actually begun a civil war.

Such are the facts. Such is the history of our own revolution. More than anything we must learn from this history,
we must give a great deal of thought to the course it has taken
and to its class significance.

Let us try to compare the germs of the proletarian civil war and
the bourgeois civil war in Russia from the standpoint of (1) the
spontaneous nature of the movement; (2) its aims; (3) the
political consciousness of the masses participating in it; (4)
the forces in the movement; (5) its tenacity. We think that if
all the parties which are now "unnecessarily throwing about" the
words "civil war" were to approach the question in this way, and
make a real attempt to study the germs of the civil war, the
class-consciousness of the entire Russian revolution would gain
a very great deal.

Let us begin with the spontaneous nature of the movement. For
the July 3-4 movement we have the testimony of such witnesses as
the Menshevik Rabochaya Gazeta and the Socialist-Revolutionary Dyelo Naroda which have recognised the spontaneous origin of the
movement. This testimony I quoted in an article published in

Proletarskoye Dyelo and issued as a separate leaflet entitled An Answer .

For obvious reasons, however, the Mensheviks and the
Socialist-Revolutionaries, who are defending themselves and the
part they played in persecuting the Bolsheviks, officially
continue to deny the spontaneous nature of the outburst of July
3-4.

Let us put the controversial matter aside for the present. Let
us take what is undisputed. No one denies the spontaneous nature
of the April 20-21 movement. The Bolshevik Party joined this
spontaneous movement under the slogan "All Power to the
Soviets"; independently of the Bolsheviks it was joined by the
late Linde, who led 30,000 armed soldiers into the street ready
to arrest the government. (The action of these troops, let us
say in parenthesis, has not been investigated and studied. If it
is examined closely, and April 20 is given its place in the
historic sequence of events, i.e., if it is seen as a link in
the chain which extends from February 28 to August 29, it
becomes clear that the fault and the error of the Bolsheviks was
the insufficient revolutionism of their tactics, and by no means
the excessive revolutionism the philistines accuse us of.)

The spontaneous nature of the movement leading to the proletariat beginning civil war is thus beyond doubt. On the
other hand, there is not even a trace of anything resembling
spontaneity in the Kornilov revolt; it was merely a conspiracy
of generals who hoped by fraud and by the force of military
command to carry part of the army with them.

It is beyond all doubt that the spontaneity of the movement is
proof that it is deeply rooted in the masses, that its roots are
firm and that it is inevitable. The proletarian revolution is
firmly rooted, the bourgeois counter-revolution is without
roots—this is what the facts prove if examined from the
point of view of the spontaneous nature of the movement.

Let us now look at the aims of the movement. The movement of
April 20-21 came very close to adopting the Bolshevik slogans,
whereas that of July 3-4 was directly connected with them, was
under their influence and guidance. The Bolshevik Party spoke
quite openly, definitely, clearly, precisely, for all to hear,
in its papers and in verbal propaganda of the chief aims of the proletarian civil war—the dictatorship
of the proletariat and the poor peasantry, peace and an
immediate offer of peace, confiscation of the landed estates.

We all know the aims of the Kornilov revolt, and no one among
the democrats disputes that those aims were a dictatorship of
the landowners and the bourgeoisie, dispersal of the Soviets,
and preparations for the restoration of the monarchy. The Cadet
Party, this main Kornilovite party (by the way, it ought to be
called from now on the Kornilov party), possesses a larger press
and greater forces for propaganda than the Bolsheviks, but it
has never dared and still does not dare to tell the people
openly either about the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie or about
the dispersal of the Soviets, or about the Kornilovite aims in
general!

As far as the aims of the movement are concerned, the facts tell
us that the proletarian civil war can come out with an open
exposition of its final aims before the people and win the
sympathies of the working people, whereas the bourgeois civil
war can attempt to lead part of the masses only by concealing
its aims; this is the tremendous difference in them as far as
the class-consciousness of the masses is concerned.

The only objective data on this question seem to be those on
party affiliation and elections. There do not appear to be any
other facts which allow a clear judgment of the class-consciousness of the masses. It is clear that the
proletarian-revolutionary movement is represented by the
Bolshevik Party, and the bourgeois counter-revolutionary
movement by the Cadet Party, and this can hardly be disputed
after six months experience of the revolution. Three comparisons
of a factual nature can be made that concern the question under
consideration. A comparison of the May elections to the local
councils in Petrograd with the August elections to the city
council shows a decrease in Cadet votes and a tremendous
increase in Bolshevik votes. The Cadet press admits that, as a
rule, Bolshevism is strong wherever masses of workers or
soldiers are concentrated.

In the absence of any statistics concerning the fluctuation of
the party membership, attendance at meetings, etc., the
conscious support of the party by the masses may be judged only from published data concerning cash collections for
the party. These data show a tremendous mass-scale heroism on
the part of worker Bolsheviks in collecting money for Pravda
for the papers that have been suppressed, etc. The reports of
such collections have always been published. Among the Cadets we
see nothing of the kind; their party work is obviously being
"nourished" by, contributions from the rich. There is no trace
of active aid on the part of the masses.

Lastly, a comparison of the movements of April 20-21 and July
3-4 on the one hand, and the Kornilov revolt on the other, shows
that the Bolsheviks indicated point-blank to the masses who
their enemy in the civil war is, namely, the bourgeoisie, the
landowners and capitalists. The Kornilov revolt has already
demonstrated that the troops who followed Kornilov did so
because they had been completely deceived, a fact made obvious the moment the Savage Division and Kornilov's
contingents came up against the Petrograd masses.

Furthermore, what data indicate the strength of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie in the civil war? The Bolsheviks
are strong only in the numbers and class-consciousness of the
proletarians, in the sympathy with the Bolshevik slogans
displayed by the Socialist-Revolutionary and Menshevik "rank and
file" (i.e., workers and poor peasants). It is a fact that these
slogans actually won over the majority of the active revolutionary masses in Petrograd on April 20-21, [2] June
18,20 and July 3-4.

A comparison of the data on the "parliamentary" elections and
the data on the above-named mass movements fully corroborates,
in respect of Russia, an observation often made in the West,
namely, that the revolutionary proletariat is incomparably
stronger in the extra-parliamentary than in the parliamentary struggle, as far as influencing the
masses and drawing them into the struggle is concerned. This is a very important observation in respect of
civil war.

It is quite clear why in all the circumstances and the entire
situation of parliamentary struggle and elections the strength
of the oppressed classes is less than the strength they can
actually develop in civil war.

The strength of the Cadets and the Kornilov revolt is the
strength of wealth. The press and a long series of political
actions show that Anglo-French capital and imperialism are
in favor of the Cadets and the Kornilov movement. It is
common knowledge that the entire Right wing of the Moscow
Conference21 of August 12 gave frantic support to Kornilov and
Kaledin. It is common knowledge that the French and British
bourgeois press "aided" Kornilov. There are indications of his
having been aided by the banks.

All the power of wealth stood behind Kornilov—and What a
miserable and rapid failure! There are only two social forces
among Kornilov's supporters apart from the wealthy—the
Savage Division and the Cossacks. In the case of the former it
is only the power of ignorance and deception, and this power is the more formidable the longer the press remains in the
hands of the bourgeoisie. After a victory in the civil war, the
proletariat would undermine this source of "power" once
and for all.

As to the Cossacks, they are a section of the population
consisting of rich, small or medium landed proprietors (the
average holding is about 50 dessiatines) in one of those
outlying regions of Russia that have retained many medieval
traits in their way of life, their economy, and their customs. We can regard this as the socio-economic basis for a
Russian Vendée [3] But what have the facts of the
Kornilov-Kaledin movement proved? Not even Kaledin, the "beloved
leader" supported by the Guchkovs, Milyukovs, Ryabushinskys and
Co., has succeeded in creating a mass movement!! Kaledin marched
towards civil war much more "directly", much more forthrightly
than did the Bolsheviks. Kaledin went specifically "to rouse the
Don", and still he has not aroused a mass movement in his "home"
region, in a Cossack region far removed from Russian democracy
in general. On the part of the proletariat, on the contrary, we
observe spontaneous outbursts of the movement in the very centre
of the influence and power of anti-Bolshevik, all-Russia
democracy.

Objective data on the attitude of various strata and economic
groups of the Cossacks towards democracy and towards the
Kornilov revolt are lacking. There are only indications to the
effect that the majority of the poor and middle Cossacks are
rather inclined towards democracy and that only the officers and
the top layer of the well-to-do Cossacks are entirely in favour
of Kornilov.

However that may be, the extreme weakness of a mass Cossack
movement in favour of a bourgeois counter-revolution has been
historically proved since the experience of August 26-31.

There remains the last question, that of the tenacity of the
movement. As far as the Bolshevik, proletarian revolutionary
movement is concerned, we have proof that the struggle against
Bolshevism has been conducted during the six months existence of
a republic in Russia both ideologically, with a gigantic
preponderance of press organs and propaganda forces on the side
of the opponents of Bolshevism (even if we risk classing the
campaign of slander as "ideological" struggle), and by means of
repressions, which include hundreds of people arrested, our main
printing-plant demolished, and the chief newspaper and a number
of other papers suppressed. The result can be seen in the
facts—a tremendous growth of support for the Bolsheviks in
the August Petrograd elections, and in both the
Socialist-Revolutionary and Menshevik' parties, a strengthening
of the internationalist and Left trends that are drawing close
to Bolshevism. This means that the tenacity of the proletarian
revolutionary movement in republican Russia is very great. The
facts tell us that the combined efforts of the Cadets, the
Socialist-Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks have not succeeded
in weakening that movement in the least. On the contrary, it was
the alliance of the Kornilovites with "democracy" that strengthened Bolshevism. The only possible means of struggle
against the proletarian revolutionary trend are ideological
influence and repressions.

Data on the tenacity of the Cadet-Kornilov movement are still
lacking. The Cadets have suffered no persecution at all. Even
Guchkov has been set free and Maklakov and Milyukov were not
even arrested. Rech has not been suppressed. The Cadets are
being spared. The Kornilovite Cadets are being courted by
Kerensky's government. Suppose we put it this way: assuming that
the Anglo-French and the Russian Ryabushinskys will give
millions and millions more to the Cadets, to

Yedinstvo, Dyen, etc., for the new election campaign in Petrograd, is it probable
that the number of their votes will now increase, after the
Kornilov revolt? Judging by meetings, etc., the answer to this
question can hardly be anything but negative.

* * *

Summing up the results of the analysis in which we compared the
data furnished by the history of the Russian revolution, we
arrive at the conclusion that the beginning of the proletariat's
civil war has revealed the strength, the class-consciousness,
deep-rootedness, growth, and tenacity of the movement. The
beginning of the bourgeoisie's civil war has revealed no
strength, no class-consciousness among the masses, no depth
whatsoever, no chance of victory.

The alliance of the Cadets with the Socialist-Revolutionaries
and Mensheviks against the Bolsheviks, i.e., against the
revolutionary proletariat, has been tried in practice for a
number of months, and this alliance of the temporarily disguised
Kornilovites with the "democrats" has actually strengthened and
not weakened the Bolsheviks, and led to the collapse of the
"alliance", and to the strengthening of the Left opposition
among the Mensheviks.

An alliance of the Bolsheviks with the Socialist-Revolutionaries
and Mensheviks against the Cadets, against the bourgeoisie, has
not yet been tried; or, to be more precise, such an alliance has
been tried on one front only, for five days only, from August 26
to August 31, the period of the Kornilov revolt, and this
alliance at that time scored a victory over the counter-revolution with an ease never yet achieved in any
revolution; it was such a crushing suppression of the bourgeois,
landowners', capitalist, Allied-imperialist and Cadet counter-revolution, that the civil war from that side ceased to
exist, was a mere nothing from the very outset, collapsed before
any "battle" had taken place.

In the face of this historic fact the entire bourgeois press and
all its chorus (the Plekhanovs, Potresovs, Breshko
Breshkovskayas, etc.) are shouting with all their might that an
alliance of the Bolsheviks with the Mensheviks and
Socialist-Revolutionaries "threatens" the horrors of civil war!

This would be funny, if it were not so sad. It is sad indeed
that such an open, self-evident, glaring absurdity, such a
flouting of the facts of the whole history of our revolution,
can still find listeners.... This only proves that the selfish
bourgeois lie is still widespread (and this cannot be avoided as
long as the press is monopolised by the bourgeoisie), a lie that
shouts down and drowns the most undoubted, palpably obvious
lessons of the revolution.

If there is an absolutely undisputed lesson of the revolution,
one fully proved by facts, it is that only an alliance of the
Bolsheviks with the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks,
only an immediate transfer of all power to the Soviets would
make civil war in Russia impossible, for a civil war begun by
the bourgeoisie against such an alliance, against the Soviets of
Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies, is inconceivable;
such a "war~~ would not last even until the first battle; the
bourgeoisie, for the second time since the Kornilov revolt,
would not be able to move even the Savage Division, or the
former number of Cossack units against the Soviet Government!

The peaceful development of any revolution is, generally
speaking, extremely rare and difficult, because revolution is
the maximum exacerbation of the sharpest class contradictions;
but in a peasant country, at a time when a union of the
proletariat with the peasantry can give peace to people worn out
by a most unjust and criminal war, when that union can give the
peasantry all the land, in that country, at that exceptional
moment in history, a peaceful development of the revolution is
possible and probable if all power is transferred to the
Soviets. The struggle of parties for power within the Soviets
may proceed peacefully, if the Soviets are made fully democratic, and "petty thefts" and violations of democratic
principles, such as giving the soldiers one representative to
every five hundred, while the workers have one representative to
every thousand voters, are eliminated. In a democratic republic
such petty thefts will have to disappear.

When confronted with Soviets that have given all the land to the
peasants without compensation and offer a just peace to all the
peoples—when confronted with such Soviets the alliance of
the British, French and Russian bourgeoisie, the Kornilovs,
Buchanans, [4]

Ryabushinskys, Milyukovs, Plekhanovs, and Potresovs is quite impotent and is not to be feared.

The bourgeoisie's resistance to the transfer of the land to the
peasants without compensation, to similar reforms in other
realms of life, to a just peace and a break with imperialism,
is, of course, inevitable. But for such resistance to reach the
stage of civil war, masses of some kind are necessary, masses
capable of fighting and vanquishing the Soviets. The bourgeoisie
does not have these masses, and has nowhere to get them. The
sooner and the more resolutely the Soviets take all power, the
sooner both Savage Divisions and Cossacks will split into an
insignificant minority of politically-conscious Kornilov
supporters and a huge majority of those in favour of a democratic and socialist (for it is with socialism that we shall
then be dealing) alliance of workers and peasants.

When power passes to the Soviets, the resistance of the
bourgeoisie will result in scores and hundreds of workers and
peasants "keeping track of", supervising, controlling, and
registering every single capitalist, for the interests of the
workers and peasants will demand struggle against the capitalists' deception of the people. The forms and methods of
this accountancy and control have been developed and simplified
by capitalism itself, by such capitalist creations as banks, big
factories, trusts, railways, the post office, consumers'
societies, and trade unions. If the Soviets punish those
capitalists who evade the most detailed accounting or who
deceive the people, punish them by confiscating all their
property and arresting them for a short time, that will be
sufficient to break all the resistance of the bourgeoisie by
bloodless means. For it is through the banks, once they are
nationalised, through the unions of employees, through t.he post
office, the consumers' societies, and the trade unions, that
control and the accounting will become universal, all-powerful,
and irresistible.

And Russia's Soviets, the alliance of her workers and poor
peasants, are not alone in the steps they take towards socialism. If we were alone, we should not be able to accomplish
this task peacefully, for it is essentially an international
task. But we have enormous reserves, the armies of the most
advanced workers in other countries, where Russia's break with
imperialism and the imperialist war will inevitably accelerate
the workers' socialist revolution that is maturing.

* * *

Some speak about "rivers of blood" in a civil war. This is
mentioned in the resolution of the Kornilovite Cadets quoted
above. This phrase is repeated in a thousand ways by all the
bourgeois and opportunists. Since the Kornilov revolt all the
class-conscious workers laugh, will continue to laugh and cannot
help laughing at it.

However, the question of "rivers of blood" in the present time
of war can and must be studied by an approximate computation of
forces, consequences, and results; it must be taken seriously
and not as an empty stock phrase, not as simply the hypocrisy of
the Cadets, who have done everything in their power to enable
Kornilov to drown Russia in "rivers of blood", and to restore
the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, the power of the landowners, and the monarchy.

"Rivers of blood," they say. Let us analyse this aspect of the
question as well.

Let us assume that the vacillations of the Mensheviks and
Socialist-Revolutionaries continue; that these parties do not
hand over power to the Soviets; that they do not overthrow
Kerensky; that they restore the old rotten compromise with the
bourgeoisie in a somewhat different form (say, "non-partisan"
Kornilovites instead of Cadets); that they do not replace the
apparatus of state power by the Soviet apparatus, do not offer
peace, do not break with imperialism, and do not confiscate the
landed estates. Let us assume that this is the outcome of the
present wavering of the Socialist-Revolutionaries and
Mensheviks, of this present "September 12".

The experience of our own revolution tells us most clearly that
the consequence of this would be a still further weakening of
the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks, their further
separation from the masses, an incredible growth of indignation
and bitterness among the masses, a tremendous growth of sympathy
with the revolutionary proletariat, with the Bolsheviks.

Under such conditions, the proletariat of the capital will be
still closer to a Commune, to a workers' uprising, to the
conquest of power, to a civil war in its highest and most
decisive form, than it is at present; after the experience of
April 20-21 and July 3-4 such a result must be recognised as
historically inevitable.

"Rivers of blood," shout the Cadets. But such rivers of blood
would give victory to the proletariat and the poor peasantry,
and it is a hundred to one that this victory would bring peace
in place of the imperialist war, i.e., that it would save the
lives of hundreds of thousands of men who are now shedding their
blood for the sake of a division of spoils and seizures
(annexations) by the capitalists. If April 20-21 had ended by
the transfer of all power to the Soviets, and the Bolsheviks in
alliance with the poor peasantry had won in the Soviets, it
would have saved the lives of the half million Russian soldiers,
who certainly perished in the battles of June 18, even if it had
cost "rivers of blood".

This is how every class-conscious Russian worker and soldier
figures, this is how he must figure, if he weighs and analyses
the question of civil war now being raised everywhere; and, of
course, such a worker or soldier, who has experienced many
things and given thought to them, will not be frightened by the
cries of "rivers of blood" raised by individuals, parties and
groups willing to sacrifice more millions of Russian soldiers
for the sake of Constantinople, Lvov, Warsaw, and "victory over
Germany".

No "rivers of blood" in an internal civil war can even approximately equal those seas of blood which the Russian
imperialists have shed since June 19 (in spite of the very great
chances they had of avoiding this by handing over power to the
Soviets).

All you Milyukovs, Potresovs and Plekhanovs be careful about
your arguments against "rivers of blood" in civil war while this
present war continues, for the soldiers have seen seas of blood
and know what they mean.

The international situation of the Russian revolution now, in
1917, the fourth year of a terrifically burdensome and criminal
war, that has worn out the peoples, is such that an offer of a
just peace on the part of a Russian proletariat victorious in
the civil war would have a hundred to one chance of achieving an
armistice and peace without the shedding of further seas of
blood.

For a combination of warring Anglo-French and German imperialism
against the proletarian socialist Russian Republic is impossible
in practice, while a combination of British, Japanese and
American imperialism against us is extremely difficult to
realise and is not at all dangerous to us, if only because of
Russia's geographical position. On the other hand, the existence
of revolutionary and socialist proletarian masses in all the
European states is a fact; the maturing and the inevitability of
the worldwide socialist revolution is beyond doubt, and such a
revolution can be seriously aided only by the progress of the
Russian revolution and not by delegations and not by playing at
Stockholm conferences with the foreign Plekhanovs or Tseretelis.

The bourgeoisie wails about the inevitable defeat of a Commune
in Russia, i.e., defeat of the proletariat if it were to conquer
power.

These are false, selfish class wailings.

If the proletariat gains power it will have every chance of
retaining it and of leading Russia until there is a victorious
revolution in the West.

In the first place, we have learned much since the Commune, and
we would not repeat its fatal errors, we would not leave the
banks in the hands of the bourgeoisie, we would not confine
ourselves to defence against the Versaillais (or the
Kornilovites) but would take the offensive against them and
crush them.

Secondly, the victorious proletariat would give Russia peace,
and no power on earth would be able to overthrow a government of
peace, a government of an honest, sincere, just peace, after all
the horrors of more than three years butchery of the peoples.

Thirdly, the victorious proletariat would give the peasantry the
land immediately and without compensation. And a tremendous
majority of the peasantry—worn out and embittered by the
"playing around with the landowners" practised by our government, particularly the coalition government, particularly
the Kerensky government—would support the victorious proletariat absolutely, unreservedly, with every means in its
power.

You Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries are all talking
about the "heroic efforts" of the people. Only recently I came
across this phrase for the nth time in the leading article of
your Izvestia of the Central Executive Committee. With you it is a mere
phrase. But the workers and peasants read it and think about it,
and such deliberation—reinforced by the experience of the
Kornilov revolt, by the "experience" of Peshekhonov's ministry,
by the "experience" of Chernov's ministry, and so forth—every such deliberation inevitably leads to the
conclusion that this "heroic effort" is nothing but confidence
of the poor peasantry in the city workers as their most faithful
allies and leaders. The heroic effort is nothing but the victory
of the Russian proletariat over the bourgeoisie in civil war,
for such a victory alone will save the country from painful
vacillations, it alone will show the way out, it alone will give
land and peace.

If an alliance between the city workers and the poor peasantry
can be effected through an immediate transfer of power to the
Soviets, so much the better. The Bolsheviks will do everything
to secure this peaceful development of the revolution. Without
this, even the Constituent Assembly, by itself, will not save
the situation, for even there the Socialist-Revolutionaries may
continue their "playing" at agreements with the Cadets, with
Breshko-Breshkovskaya and Kerensky (in what way are they better
than Cadets?), and so on, and so forth.

If even the experience of the Kornilov revolt has taught the
"democrats" nothing, and they continue the destructive policy of
vacillation and compromise, we say that nothing is more ruinous
to the proletarian revolution than these vacillations. That
being the case, do not frighten us, gentlemen, with civil
war. Civil war is inevitable, if you do not wish to break with
Kornilovism and the "coalition" right now, once and for
all. This war will bring victory over the exploiters, it will
give the land to the peasants, it will give peace to the
peoples, it will open the right road to the victorious revolution of the world socialist proletariat.

---
Notes:
[1] The
reference is to the following facts. On April 20 (May 3), the
newspapers carried a note from Foreign Minister Milyukov to the
Allied Governments in which the Provisional Government reaffirmed its intention to honour all the treaties of the
Tsarist government and to carry on the war to a victorious
end. There was massive indignation over this imperialist policy,
and on April 21 (May 4), the workers of Petrograd responded to a
call issued by the Bolshevik Party and downed tools. They staged
a demonstration which demanded peace and was attended by more
than 100,000 workers and soldiers. Protest demonstrations were
also staged in Moscow, the Urals, the Ukraine, Kronstadt and
other towns and districts. Resolutions protesting against
Milyukov's note were received by the Petrograd Soviet from many
urban Soviets. The April demonstration led to a government
crisis. Mass pressure forced Milyukov and Guchkov to resign from
the Cabinet. The first coalition government was formed on May 5
(18), and consisted of 10 capitalist ministers and leaders of
the parties collaborating with them, namely, Kerensky and
Chernov from the Socialist-Revolutionary Party; Tsereteli and
Skobelev from the Mensheviks, etc. The bourgeois government was
saved by the Socialist-Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks who
openly sided with the bourgeoisie.

[2] On
June 9 (22), 1917, the First All-Russia Congress of Soviets
prohibited the demonstration set by the Bolshevik Central
Committee for June 10 (23). The decision to stage the demonstration was adopted at an enlarged meeting of the Central
Committee and the Petrograd Committee of the R.S.D.L.P.(B.)
together with delegates from the districts, army units, trade
unions and factory committees. The demonstration was to have
shown the First All-Russia Congress of Soviets that the
Petrograd workers and soldiers wanted the Soviets to take all
state power. The Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries
decided to prevent the demonstration from taking place and
pushed a resolution through congress to that effect. The
Bolshevik Central Committee did not wish to oppose the Congress
decision and at Lenin's suggestion withdrew its decision on the
night of June 9 (22). Members of the Central Committee Petrograd
Committee, and Party activists went to the factories and
barracks to convince the workers and soldiers to stay in. Their
efforts were successful and the workers and soldiers agreed that
a demonstration would be badly timed. The Menshevik and
Socialist-Revolutionary leadership of the Congress of Soviets
decided to stage a demonstration on June 18 (July 30) as an
expression of confidence in the Provisional Government . Lenin
led the Central and Petrograd Committees in a great effort to
prepare a demonstration showing the true feelings of the
masses. On the eve of the demonstration, June 17 (30), Pravda carried an appeal from the Central Committee,
the Petrograd Committee, the Central Committee's Military
Organisation, and the Central Council of Factory Committees
calling on the people to demonstrate the strength of the
revolution. Some 500,000 workers and soldiers took part in the
demonstration on June 18 (July 1), with the overwhelming
majority carrying the revolutionary slogans of the Bolshevik
Party. Only a small group carried the slogans of the collaborating parties, which urged support for the Provisional
Government. The demonstration showed the mounting revolutionary
activity of the masses and the Bolshevik Party's growing
influence, it was a great victory for the Bolshevik Party. It
showed that the masses put no trust in the Provisional
Government, and the Menshevik and Socialist Revolutionary policy
of collaborating with the bourgeoisie.

[3]
Vendée —a province in France, which was a hotbed of counter-revolution during the French bourgeois
revolution at the end of the 18th century. The backward peasants
of the Vendée, who were strongly influenced by the Catholic
clergy, were a tool in the hands of the counter-revolutionaries
in their fight against revolutionary France.

[4]
Buchanan —(1855-1924)—British diplomat and ambassador to Russia
(1910-1918). He helped the reactionaries in their anti-revolutionary fight and in August 1917 gave support to
Kornilov's counter-revolutionary revolt.