The response of the French and English governments has confirmed with particular clarity the justice of our repeated indications that neither the Russian, nor the French, nor the English, nor the German capitalist government can renounce annexations (seizures), that all such promises are empty deception of the peoples{94}.

"We are waging war for the seizure by force of arms of Alsace and Lorraine, for victory," answered the French. "Be so kind as to fulfill the treaty and wage war for Russian and German Poland," answered the English.

A bitter truth—the truth about the irreconcilability of capitalism with the renunciation of annexations—has been exposed again and again. The collapse of the policy of "conciliators," those who would reconcile capitalism with the proletariat, the policy of ministerial-minded Populists and Mensheviks—is utterly manifest. All their hopes for a coalition government have crumbled to dust, all their promises are exposed as the emptiest verbiage.

And most harmful now for the cause of revolution, for the interests of the laboring masses, is the striving to gloss over the matter with phrases. Two shades of this stream of phrases have become apparent, and truly—"both are worse."

*Rabochaya Gazeta*, the organ of ministerial-minded Mensheviks, pours water "under the Cadet." On the one hand, "on such ground" (on the ground of the responses of the two Powers of the Entente) "there can be no agreement between us and them"… Between "us"? That is, between Russian capitalists? The theory of class struggle has been jettisoned; it is more profitable to phraseologize about "democracy" in general, trampling underfoot the elementary truth of Marxism, that precisely within "democracy" the abyss between capitalists and proletarians is deepest.

On the other hand, *Rabochaya Gazeta* wishes to make an "attempt at revision" (of agreements and treaties) "by means of a specially convened conference of representatives of the allied governments." Again and again: conciliation with capitalists, which in fact means the deception of workers through the game of negotiations with their class enemies.

"The pressure of broad strata of French and English democracy, the pressure even of the proletariat of France and England alone on their governments," writes *Rabochaya Gazeta*. In Russia the Mensheviks support their imperialist government, in other countries they call for pressure… is this not lying, from the first word to the last, phraseology?

"We are preparing it (peace on an international scale) by convening an international socialist conference"… with the participation of ministers from among those former socialists who have gone over to the side of their governments!! A splendid "preparation" for deceiving the people on a grand scale by means of a series of deceits on a smaller scale—nothing to say.

*Delo Naroda* phraseologizes "in Jacobin fashion." A menacing tone, striking revolutionary exclamations… "we know enough"… "faith in the victoriousness of our Revolution" (obligatorily with a capital letter), "on this or that step… of the Russian revolutionary democracy… depend the fates… of the whole Uprising (obligatorily with a capital letter) of the laboring masses, so happily, so victoriously raised…"

Of course, if one writes the words: Revolution and Uprising with capital letters, then it comes out "terribly" frightening, just like the Jacobins. Both cheap and effective. Because these words are written by people who in reality help to strangle the revolution and hinder the growth of the uprising of the laboring masses by supporting the Russian imperialist government, supporting their methods of concealing secret treaties from the people, their methods of delaying the immediate liquidation of landlord land tenure, their methods of military "offensive" policy, their crude shouting in the direction of local elected institutions, their pretensions to appoint or confirm officials chosen by the local population, and so forth and so forth without end.

Gentlemen heroes of phrase! Gentlemen knights of revolutionary bombast! Socialism requires distinguishing the democracy of capitalists from the democracy of proletarians, the revolution of the bourgeoisie from the revolution of the proletariat, the uprising of the rich against the tsar and the uprising of the laboring masses… against the rich… Socialism requires distinguishing the bourgeois revolution that has ended with us (the bourgeoisie is now counterrevolutionary) and the growing revolution of proletarians and poorest peasants. The first revolution is for war, for the preservation of landlord land tenure, for the "subordination" of local self-government to the center, for secret treaties. The second revolution has begun to strangle war both through revolutionary fraternization and through the liquidation of the power of landlords in the localities, and through the increase in number and strengthening of the power of Soviets, and through the complete implementation of the principle of electivity.

The ministerial-minded Populists and Mensheviks phraseologize about "democracy" in general, about "Revolution" in general, in order to cover with this their agreement with the imperialist, already in fact counterrevolutionary, bourgeoisie of their own country, an agreement that in fact is turning into a struggle against the revolution of proletarians and semi-proletarians.

*Pravda* No. 69, June 13 (May 31), 1917

Printed from the text of the newspaper *Pravda*