7. Before Russia’s democracy, before the Soviets, before the Socialist-Revolutionary and Menshevik parties, there now opens up an opportunity—extremely rare in the history of revolutions—to convene the Constituent Assembly on schedule, without further delays; to safeguard the country from military and economic catastrophe; to ensure the peaceful unfolding of the revolution.

If the Soviets now seize state power entirely and exclusively, in order to implement the program outlined above, then the Soviets will not only secure the support of nine-tenths of Russia’s population—the working class and the vast majority of the peasantry—but also command the highest revolutionary enthusiasm among the army and the great mass of the people—a fervor without which victory over famine and war is impossible.

There could be no question of any resistance to the Soviets, were it not for the hesitations that have arisen on their part. No class would dare to rise up in rebellion against the Soviets; and the landowners and capitalists, having been thoroughly chastened by the experience of the Kornilov affair, will yield power peacefully in response to the Soviets’ ultimatum. To overcome the capitalists’ resistance to the Soviets’ program, it will suffice to subject the exploiters to close oversight by workers and peasants—and to mete out such penalties to those who defy the authorities as the confiscation of all their property, coupled with brief periods of detention.

By assuming full power, the Soviets could still—indeed, this may well be their last chance—ensure the peaceful development of the revolution, the peaceful election of the people’s deputies, the peaceful struggle among the parties within the Soviets, the practical testing of the various parties’ programs, and the peaceful transfer of power from one party to another.

Should this opportunity be squandered, the entire course of the revolution—from the movement of April 20 onward, right through to the Kornilov affair—points inexorably toward the outbreak of the sharpest civil war between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. The impending catastrophe will bring this war ever closer. As all human reason and available evidence suggest, it must end in the complete victory of the working class, supported by the poorest strata of the peasantry, in the implementation of the program laid out here—but it may prove exceedingly harsh, bloody, and costly in terms of the lives of tens of thousands of landowners, capitalists, and officers sympathetic to them. The proletariat will stop at nothing to save the revolution, which cannot be preserved apart from the program set forth herein. Yet the proletariat would wholeheartedly support the Soviets—if only they would seize their final chance for the peaceful development of the revolution.

Written in the first half of September 1917.

Printed on October 9 and 10 (September 26 and 27), 1917, in the newspaper “Rabochiy Put,” Nos. 20 and 21. Signed: N. K.

Reprinted from the newspaper’s text.