The organ of "socialist thought" (no joking!) — the bourgeois and chauvinist *Den* — returns in No. 91 to a genuinely interesting editorial from *Rech* of June 18. *Den* has completely failed to understand this editorial, in which a historian appeared alongside an embittered counter-revolutionary bourgeois. *Den* reads into the editorial "a firmly determined intention of the Cadets to withdraw from the coalition government."

This is trifling. The Cadets are making threats in order to intimidate Tsereteli and Chernov. This is not serious.

What is serious and interesting is how the June 18 editorial of *Rech* posed the question of power from the standpoint of a historian.

"If," he wrote, "under the former composition of the government some guidance of the course of the Russian revolution was possible, then now, apparently, it is fated to develop further according to the spontaneous laws of all revolutions… The question of the inexpediency of the further existence of a governmental combination that has failed to justify itself is now being raised not only by Bolsheviks" (note this: not only by Bolsheviks!)… "and not only by the majority of the Soviet… The question must be raised by the capitalist ministers themselves."

A correct recognition by the historian that not the Bolsheviks alone, but the entire interrelationship of classes, all of society's life, has placed on the agenda the question of "the inexpediency of the further existence of a governmental combination that has failed to justify itself." Wavering — such is reality. An offensive — a possible outcome leading to the victory of the imperialist bourgeoisie. Another possible outcome?

The historian in *Rech* answers this last question:

"Having taken 'all power,' the Soviets will soon be convinced that they have very little power. And they will have to make up for the lack of power by means tested in history — Young Turk or Jacobin methods… Will they, having raised the question anew, slide down into Jacobinism and terror, or will they attempt to wash their hands? That is the urgent question that must be decided in the coming days."

The historian is right. In the coming days or not, but soon this very question must be decided. Either an offensive, a turn toward counter-revolution, the success (for how long?) of the imperialist bourgeoisie's cause, the "hand-washing" of Chernov and Tsereteli.

Or — "Jacobinism." Historians of the bourgeoisie see in Jacobinism a decline ("slide down"). Historians of the proletariat see in Jacobinism one of the highest surges of the oppressed class in its struggle for liberation. The Jacobins gave France the finest examples of democratic revolution and resistance to the coalition of monarchs against the republic. Complete victory was not destined for the Jacobins to achieve, principally because eighteenth-century France was surrounded on the continent by countries that were too backward and because France itself lacked the material foundations for socialism — it had no banks, capitalist syndicates, machine industry, or railways.

"Jacobinism" in Europe or on the border of Europe and Asia in the twentieth century would be the rule of the revolutionary class, the proletariat, which, supported by the poorest peasantry and relying upon the existence of material foundations for the movement toward socialism, could not only give all that is great, ineradicable, and unforgettable which the Jacobins of the eighteenth century gave, but also lead, on a world scale, to the durable victory of the toiling masses.

It is inherent in the bourgeoisie to hate Jacobinism. It is inherent in the petty bourgeoisie to fear it. Conscious workers and toilers believe in the transfer of power to the revolutionary, oppressed class, for therein lies the essence of Jacobinism — the only way out of the crisis, deliverance from ruin and from war.

*Pravda* No. 90, July 7 (June 24) 1917

Printed from the text of the newspaper *Pravda*