If we take the writer N. Sukhanov from *Novaya Zhizn'*, then surely everyone will agree that he is not the worst, but one of the best representatives of petty-bourgeois democracy. He possesses a sincere striving toward internationalism, which he has demonstrated in the most difficult times, in the height of tsarist reaction and chauvinism. He possesses knowledge and the desire to examine serious questions independently, which he has proven through his long evolution from Socialist-Revolutionary sentiments toward revolutionary Marxism.

All the more characteristic, then, that even such people can, at the most critical moments of the revolution, on its fundamental questions, treat readers to such frivolous judgments as the following:

"…However many revolutionary conquests we have lost in recent weeks, still one of them, and perhaps the most important, remains in force: the government and its policy can stand only by the will of the Soviet majority. All the influence of revolutionary democracy has been surrendered by it of its own volition; the democratic organs could still return it quite easily; and with proper understanding of the requirements of the moment could without difficulty direct the policy of the Provisional Government into the proper channel" (*Novaya Zhizn'* No. 106 of August 20th).

In these words there is contained the most frivolous, the most monstrous untruth on the most important question of the revolution, and moreover precisely the kind of untruth that was most frequently disseminated in the most various countries among the petty-bourgeois democracy and that has ruined more revolutions than anything else.

When one reflects upon the sum total of petty-bourgeois illusions contained in the cited argument, one cannot help but think: surely the citizens of *Novaya Zhizn'* are sitting at the "unifying" congress{64} together with ministers, ministerial socialists, together with Tsereteli and the Skobele­vs, together with government comrades Kerensky, Kornilov and Co., not at all by chance. Not by chance at all. They genuinely share one common ideological basis: senseless, uncritically adopted from the philistine milieu, bourgeois credulousness toward good intentions. For precisely this credulousness permeates all of Sukhanov's argument, as well as all the activity of those Menshevik defensists who act in good faith. In this petty-bourgeois credulousness lies the root of evil in our revolution.

Surely Sukhanov would sign with both hands to the requirement that Marxism makes of any serious politics, namely: that it be based upon, take as its foundation, facts admitting precise objective verification. Let us attempt, from the standpoint of this requirement, to approach Sukhanov's assertion in the cited quotation.

What facts underlie this assertion? By what could Sukhanov prove that the government "can stand only by the will" of the Soviets, that it is "quite easy" for them to "return all their influence," that they could without "difficulty" change the policy of the Provisional Government?

In the first place, Sukhanov could refer to his general impression, to the "obviousness" of Soviet strength, to Kerensky's appearance in the Soviet, to the pleasant words of one minister or another, and so forth. This would be, of course, altogether poor evidence, or rather an admission of the complete absence of evidence, the complete absence of objective facts.

In the second place, Sukhanov could refer to the objective fact that a gigantic majority of resolutions from workers, soldiers, and peasants expresses itself decisively for the Soviets and in support of them. These resolutions, so to speak, prove the will of the majority of the people.

Such reasoning is as common in the philistine milieu as the first. But it is completely untenable.

In all revolutions the will of the majority of workers and peasants—that is, undoubtedly, the will of the majority of the population—has been for democracy. And yet the overwhelming majority of revolutions has ended in the defeat of democracy.

Taking into account the experience of the majority of revolutions and especially the revolution of 1848 (which most resembles our present one), Marx mercilessly ridiculed the petty-bourgeois democrats who wanted to overcome by means of resolutions and by appeal to the will of the majority of the people.

Our own experience confirms this even more vividly. In the spring of 1906, undoubtedly, the majority of resolutions from workers and peasants was for the First Duma. The majority of the people undoubtedly stood for it. And yet the tsar managed to dissolve it, because the upsurge of the revolutionary classes (worker strikes and peasant unrest in the spring of 1906) proved too weak for a new revolution.

Reflect upon the experience of the present revolution. Both in March-April and in July-August 1917, the majority of resolutions was for the Soviets, the majority of the people was for the Soviets. And yet all and each see, know, feel that in March-April the revolution was moving forward, while in July-August it is moving backward. This means that reference to the majority of the people decides nothing whatsoever in the concrete questions of the revolution.

Such a reference alone, as evidence, is precisely a specimen of petty-bourgeois illusion, an unwillingness to recognize that in a revolution one must vanquish hostile classes, must overthrow the state power defending them, and for this it is insufficient to have "the will of the majority of the people," but there is necessary the force of revolutionary classes, willing and capable of fighting, moreover a force that at the decisive moment and in the decisive place would crush the hostile force.

How many times has it happened in revolutions that a small, but well-organized, armed, and centralized force of the commanding classes, of landlords and the bourgeoisie, has suppressed piecemeal the force of the "majority of the people," poorly organized, poorly armed, fragmented.

To substitute concrete questions of class struggle at the moment of its particular sharpening in revolution with "general" references to "the will of the people" would be worthy only of the stupidest petty bourgeois.

Third, in the cited argument Sukhanov adduces one "argument," also fairly common in the philistine milieu. He refers to the fact that "all the influence of revolutionary democracy has been surrendered by it of its own volition." From this one might supposedly infer that what was surrendered "of its own volition" is easy to return as well...

Reasoning altogether useless. First of all, the return of voluntarily surrendered influence presupposes the "voluntary consent" of the one who received the surrender. From this it follows that such voluntary consent exists. Who received the "surrender"? Who took advantage of the "influence" surrendered by "revolutionary democracy"?

It is extremely characteristic that Sukhanov completely sidesteps this question, fundamental for any politician not devoid of brains... For herein lies the crux, the essence of the matter: in whose hands in reality is that which "revolutionary" (excuse the expression) "democracy" "voluntarily surrendered."

It is precisely this essence of the matter that Sukhanov sidesteps, as all Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries sidestep it, all petty-bourgeois democrats in general.

Further. Perhaps in children's games a "voluntary surrender" indicates ease of return: if Katya voluntarily surrendered her ball to Masha, then it is possible that one could "return" it "quite easily." But to politics, to class struggle, to transfer these notions few dare except a Russian intellectual.

In politics, a voluntary surrender of "influence" demonstrates such impotence of the surrenderer, such flabbiness, such lack of character, such rag-like quality, that one can generally draw from this only one conclusion: whoever voluntarily surrenders influence is "worthy" of having not only influence but even the right to exist taken from him. Or, in other words, the fact of voluntary surrender of influence, in itself, merely "proves" only the inevitability of that whoever received this voluntarily surrendered influence will take from the surrenderer even his rights.

If "revolutionary democracy" voluntarily surrendered influence, then it was not revolutionary, but bourgeois-base, cowardly, not freed from serfdom democracy, which (precisely after this surrender) its enemies will be able to disperse or simply reduce to nothing, leave it to die just as "of its own volition" it "voluntarily surrendered" influence.

To examine the actions of political parties as whimsy is to renounce all study of politics. But such an action as the "voluntary surrender of influence" by two enormous parties, which, by all accounts, reports, and objective electoral data, have a majority among the people—such an action must be explained. It cannot be accidental. It cannot but stand in connection with the definite economic position of some large class of the people. It cannot but stand in connection with the history of the development of these parties.

Sukhanov's argument is remarkable as typical for thousands and thousands of similar philistine arguments precisely because it is based, in essence, on the concept of good will ("own volition"), ignoring the history of the parties under consideration. Sukhanov simply struck from his consideration this history, forgot that voluntary surrenders of influence began, properly speaking, on February 28th, when the Soviet expressed confidence in Kerensky and approved the "agreement" with the Provisional Government. And May 6th was a surrender of influence on a positively gigantic scale. Taken as a whole, before us lies an obviously clear phenomenon: the parties of Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks at once took the downward slope and rolled down with ever greater and greater speed. They rolled down after July 3–5 entirely into a pit.

And now to say: the surrender was made of their own volition, one can "quite easily" turn great political parties to the right about-face, one can "without difficulty" compel them to take a direction opposite to their direction of many years (and many months of revolution), one can "quite easily" climb out of the pit and climb up the downward slope—is this not the height of frivolousness?

Finally, in the fourth place, Sukhanov could have referred, in defense of his opinion, to the fact that workers and soldiers, expressing confidence in the Soviet, are armed, and that therefore it is "quite easy" for them to return all their influence. But it is precisely on this, perhaps the most important point, that things are particularly poorly arranged in the philistine arguments reproduced by the writer of *Novaya Zhizn'*.

To be as concrete as possible, let us compare April 20–21 with July 3–5.

On April 20 the indignation of the masses with the government breaks through. An armed regiment comes out onto the streets of Petrograd and proceeds to arrest the government. The arrest does not take place. But the government clearly sees that it has no one to lean upon. There are no troops behind it. To overthrow such a government is indeed "quite easy," and the government delivers an ultimatum to the Soviet: either I will go, or support me.

On July 4 there is such an explosion of popular indignation, an explosion that all parties were restraining, but which broke through despite all restraint. Such an armed anti-government demonstration. But a gigantic difference in the following: the confused and alienated from the people Socialist-Revolutionary and Menshevik leaders already on July 3rd agree with the bourgeoisie on summoning Kaledin's troops to Petrograd. Here lies the crux!

Kaledin said this with a soldier's frankness at the Moscow conference: after all, you yourselves, socialist ministers, summoned "us" on July 3rd for help!.. No one dared to refute Kaledin at the Moscow conference, because he spoke the truth. Kaledin derided the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries, who were forced to remain silent. A Cossack general spat them in the face, and they wiped their faces and said: "God's dew"!

The bourgeois newspapers cited Kaledin's words, but the Menshevik *Rabochaya Gazeta* and the Socialist-Revolutionary *Delo Naroda* concealed from readers this most essential political statement made at the Moscow conference.

It turned out that the government for the first time received Kaledin's troops specifically, while the decisive, genuinely revolutionary troops and workers were disarmed. Here is the fundamental fact which Sukhanov "quite easily" overlooked and forgot, but which remains a fact. And this is the decisive fact for this period of the revolution, for the first revolution.

Power passed, at the decisive place at the front and then in the army, into the hands of the Kaledins. This is a fact. The most active of the troops hostile to them have been disarmed. That the Kaledins do not use power immediately to establish complete dictatorship in no way refutes the fact that power is in their hands. Did the tsar not have power after December 1905? And did not circumstances force him to use power so carefully that he convoked two Dumas before taking all power, i.e., before carrying out a coup d'état?{65}

Power must be judged by deeds, not by words. The deeds of the government from July 5th onward prove that power is in the hands of the Kaledins, who slowly but steadily advance further, receiving daily "concessions" and "little concessions": today the impunity of junkers smashing *Pravda*, killing Truth supporters, making arbitrary arrests; tomorrow a law on closing newspapers, likewise a law on dissolving meetings and conferences, on expulsion without trial abroad, on imprisonment for insulting "friendly ambassadors," on hard labor for encroachments on the government, on the introduction of capital punishment at the front, and so on and so forth.

The Kaledins are not fools. Why go necessarily head-on, by storm, risking defeat, when they daily receive in pieces precisely what they need? But the fool Skobele­vs and Tsereteli, the Chernovs and Avksentevs, the Dans and Liberts cry out: "triumph of democracy! victory!" at each step of the Kaledins forward, discerning "victory" in the fact that the Kaledins, Kornilovs, and Kerensky do not swallow them at once!!

The root of evil lies precisely in the fact that the petty-bourgeois mass by its very economic position is prepared for astonishing credulousness and unconsciousness, that it still half-sleeps and moans in its sleep: "quite easy" to return what was voluntarily surrendered! Go ahead and try to return it, try to take it voluntarily from the Kaledins and Kornilovs!

The root of evil lies in the fact that "democratic" journalism supports this sleepy, bourgeois, stupid, servile illusion, instead of struggling against it.

If one looks at things as a historian of politics generally should look at them, and a Marxist especially, that is, examining events in their connection, then it becomes absolutely clear that a decisive turn now is not only not "easy," but on the contrary absolutely impossible without a new revolution.

I am not touching here at all upon the question of whether such a revolution is desirable, I am not examining at all whether it can occur peacefully and legally (in history, generally speaking, there have been examples of peaceful and legal revolutions). I merely state the historical impossibility of a decisive turn without a new revolution. For power is already in other hands, no longer in the hands of "revolutionary democracy," power is already seized and consolidated. And the conduct of the Socialist-Revolutionary and Menshevik parties is not accidental; it is a product of the economic position of the petty bourgeoisie and the result of a long chain of political events, from February 28th to May 6th, from May 6th to June 9th, from June 9th to June 18th and 19th (the offensive) and so on. A turn here requires change in the entire position of power, in its entire composition, in all the conditions of activity of the largest parties, and in the "tendency" of the class that nourishes them. Such turns are historically unthinkable without a new revolution.

Instead of explaining to the people all the chief historical conditions of the new revolution, its economic and political prerequisites, political tasks, the corresponding correlation of classes, and so on, instead of this Sukhanov and a vast multitude of petty-bourgeois democrats lull the people to sleep with a game of "spillikins," self-deception that we-say "without difficulty will return everything," "quite easily," that we-say have "the most important" revolutionary conquest "remaining in force" and similar frivolous, ignorant, downright criminal nonsense.

Signs of a profound social turn are at hand. They indicate clearly the direction of work. Among the proletariat, an obvious decline in the influence of the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks, an obvious growth in the influence of the Bolsheviks. Incidentally, even the elections of August 20th gave an increase in the share of Bolsheviks compared with the June elections in the same Petrograd in district Dumas{66}, and this despite the summoning of "Kaledin's troops to Petrograd"!

Among the petty-bourgeois democracy, which cannot but waver between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, an objective indicator of a turn is the strengthening, consolidation, development of revolutionary internationalist currents: Martov and others among the Mensheviks, Spiridonova, Kamkov, and others among the Socialist-Revolutionaries. Needless to say, the impending famine, ruin, military defeats are capable of extraordinarily accelerating this turn in the direction of the transfer of power to the proletariat, supported by the poorest peasantry.