Date: 1917
Source: ru:PSS/v32

The Department of International Relations under the Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies sent a message to Huysmans—a well-known secretary of the bankrupt Second International, which had now defected to the “own” national governments—to the effect that it had been published in No. 78 of Izvestia.

This message attempts to prove that the entry of Russian Narodniks and Mensheviks into a bourgeois, imperialist government cannot be “equated” with the entry of Western European socialists who had betrayed socialism into their own “national” governments. The “department’s” arguments are so weak, so pitiful, so ludicrously inept that it is necessary once again to expose them in all their unseemly nakedness.

Argument 1: In other countries, entry into government occurred “under entirely different conditions.” This is untrue. The differences between England, France, Denmark, Belgium, Italy, and so on, on the one hand, and present-day Russia, on the other, are “entirely” insignificant—because anyone who has not abandoned socialism knows that the crux of the matter lies in the dominance of the bourgeois class. In this respect, the conditions in all the aforementioned countries are not “different”; they are identical. National peculiarities, in themselves, change nothing in the fundamental question of bourgeois class domination.

Argument 2: Our ministers have entered a “revolutionary” government. This is the most shameful deception of the people, perpetrated under the grand banner of “revolution”—a term to which the Mensheviks and Narodniks repeatedly appeal in order to cloak their betrayal of socialism. For everyone knows that of the 16 ministers in the current “revolutionary” government, 10 belong to parties of landowners and capitalists who stand firmly behind the imperialist war and the non-disclosure of secret treaties—and these very same parties are now pursuing counter‑revolutionary policies. This was made especially clear by the elections to the district councils of Petrograd on May 27–29, when all the Black Hundreds united in support of the majority backing our “revolutionary” government.

Argument 3: Our ministers entered “with a specific mandate to achieve universal peace through the agreement of nations, rather than to prolong the imperialist war in the name of liberating nations by means of arms.” First, this mandate is anything but “specific,” since it neither specifies a concrete program nor outlines any definite course of action—it is mere empty rhetoric. It is like a union secretary accepting a salary of 10,000 rubles as a member of the board of a capitalist union, claiming a “specific mandate” to promote the welfare of workers while simultaneously seeking to perpetuate the rule of capitalism. Second, all imperialists—Wilhelm, Poincaré, and others—are striving for “the agreement of nations”; this too is nothing more than hollow phrase-mongering. Third, since May 6, 1917, Russia’s war has clearly been “prolonged”—not least because our imperialist government has still not disclosed, nor proposed, the precise and clear terms of peace, the terms of an actual agreement.

Argument 4: Our goal is “not to end class struggle, but to continue it by means of the instruments of political power.” How splendid! So if you can clothe a vile act in noble aims—or present a good “starting point” for participation in vice—then the deed is done! Participation in a bourgeois, imperialist government that, in reality, wages an imperialist war can, you see, be called “the continuation of class struggle by means of the instruments of political power.” This is simply a masterpiece of hypocrisy. We would advise every worker’s meeting, every popular assembly, to raise a cheer in honor of Chernov, Tsereteli, Peshekhonov, Skobelev—those who lead the “class struggle” against Tereshchenko and Lvov and Co.

You will burst into laughter, gentlemen of the “department,” defending ministerialism with such arguments. In truth, you are hardly original: the famed Vandervelde—Plekhanov’s friend (whom you denounce, lacking even the slightest moral right to do so after entering the ministry)—Vandervelde long ago declared that he too had entered the ministry “in order to continue the class struggle.”

Argument 5: Our ministers entered after the overthrow of tsarism and the expulsion of the “enemies of the Russian proletariat” (i.e., Milukov, Guchkov) “through the revolutionary mass movement of April 20–21.”

What, then, is the fault of the French, if they overthrew autocracy not 100 days ago, but 122 years ago? Or the English, more than 260 years ago? Or the Italians, decades ago? And what did April 20 accomplish—driving out Milukov and replacing him with Tereshchenko, thereby changing absolutely nothing in terms of classes or parties? New promises are not new policy.

To expel a metropolitan bishop and replace him with the Pope does not mean that one has ceased to be a cleric.

Argument 6: In Russia, there is “complete freedom for the proletariat and the army.” This is untrue—far from complete. While it is indeed more extensive than in other countries, it is all the more shameful to besmirch this young, still fresh freedom by sullying it with the dirty business of participating in a bourgeois-imperialist government.

Russian traitors to socialism differ from their European counterparts no more than a rapist differs from a child molester.

Argument 7: “Moreover, the Russian proletariat possesses the means to exercise full control over its elected representatives.”

This is untrue. Party life in Russia is still so nascent; the splits within the Menshevik and Socialist-Revolutionary parties are so stark—Martov’s semi‑secession, Kamkov’s protests, his electoral alliance with us against his own party; the Menshevik–SR bloc with “Unity,” which they themselves acknowledge as imperialist, and so forth—that not only is there no “full” control, but not even any serious oversight whatsoever on the part of the proletariat over its ministers.

And the proletariat is a class concept that the Mensheviks and Narodniks have no right to invoke, since they rely far more on the petty bourgeoisie. If you speak of classes, then be precise!

Argument 8: “The entry of representatives of the Russian socialist (??) proletariat (???) into government by no means signified a weakening of the bonds that tie it to socialists of all countries who are waging the struggle against imperialism—but, on the contrary, marked a strengthening of those bonds in the joint struggle for universal peace.”

This is untrue. The statement itself is false.

Everyone knows that entering the ministry in Russia has strengthened the ties that bind supporters of imperialism—social‑shovinists, social‑imperialists of every country—from Henderson and Co. to Thoma and Co. to Scheidemann and Co.

Yes, even Scheidemann! For he understood that German social‑imperialism would be saved from its pernicious influence on the world’s labor movement—if even the Russians, despite their great freedom, despite their revolution, were to enter into that shameful alliance with their own imperialist bourgeoisie.

“Pravda,” No. 70, June 14 (1), 1917.

Printed according to the text of the newspaper “Pravda.”