One device of the bourgeois press has always and in all countries proven to be the most effective and "infallible" in its operation. Lie, make noise, shout, repeat the lie – "something will stick."

"Lenin is making a racket in the Kshesinskaya Palace, making a real ruckus," writes *Rech'*. "Lenin is speaking at the Modern meeting from the roof," write a number of newspapers.

And it's all – a lie. Lenin was not at the Modern meeting. Lenin made no racket whatsoever, since he gave one lecture before the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks and a series of small articles in the little newspaper *Pravda*.

The capitalists and the capitalist press are making the racket – those are the ones "making a real ruckus," trying to shout down the truth, prevent it from being heard, drown everything in a torrent of abuse and outcries, obstruct businesslike explanation.

This is the essence of the capitalists' attempt at the present moment, as well as of those wretched socialists who have gone over completely to the side of the capitalists, like Mr. Plekhanov.

*Rech'* today in its editorial, screaming especially loudly about matters of "state importance," shouts again against the "preaching of anarchy" – and in doing so, particularly clearly defeats itself – for anyone who thinks over what they read and hear.

"…The Great Revolution swept away the entire old organization of power…". False. It has not yet swept away nearly all of it. "Only a break in popular (in the broad sense) psychology can restore it – or better put, that new psychology which recognizes the necessity of power and the obligatoriness of submission to it."

Here you have it – manifest lies, manifest alliance of lies of capitalists with Messrs. Plekhanov, Cherevarin and Co., screaming about anarchy.

Both in science and in practical everyday discourse, it is established beyond dispute that anarchism is called the negation of the state for the transitional period from capitalism to socialism.

That socialism leads to the "withering away" of the state – this Marxism teaches; this the unified league of liars – Milyukov, Plekhanov, Cherevarin and others – cannot help but know.

Do the Truth-tellers or Lenin deny the necessity of the state now? – the necessity of "organization of power"? – "the obligatoriness of submission to it"?

All literate people, except the alliance of liars, know perfectly well that they do not.

As clearly as can be, both *Pravda* and Lenin have said and repeated that we are unconditionally for the necessity of a state and organization of power not only at the present time, but also for the later historical moment of transition from capitalism to socialism.

Only the alliance of lies can deny this or fail to see it.

The question is: what "organization of power" do we propose to the people?

Not the old organization of power, not the police, not bureaucracy, not a standing army, but a new one – Soviets of workers', soldiers', peasants' and other deputies.

Such Soviets already exist, already born of the revolution, already recognized as a quasi-power by everyone, even by the government of capitalists.

And we have said as clearly as possible that such Soviets are the only possible form of a revolutionary government.

What could be more unambiguous than this?

Since they are "the only possible form," it means one must act only through explanation, as long as someone has not resorted to violence against the masses.

The necessity of power and the obligatoriness of submission – the Truth-tellers recognize all of this and preach it to the people.

Milyukov, Plekhanov, Cherevarin and Co. lie in order to conceal the truth from the people; they lie in order to silence the main point: the question of the class character of one or another organization of power.

This is the essence.

The capitalist calls "anarchy" the Soviets of workers' and other deputies, because such an organization of power does not bind the people in advance and unconditionally to the yoke of capitalists, but gives freedom and order together with the possibility of a peaceful and gradual transition to socialism.

It is by this – and only by this – that the capitalists are discontent, outraged, and embittered. Hence – the alliance of lies. Hence – seas of slander and howls of malice.

Hence the disguised, hint-concealed pogrom agitation that *Rech'* conducts in the aforementioned editorial, calling for "opposition," for the renunciation of "indifference," "passivity," and so forth.

If the majority of the people are with you, gentlemen, if your alliance with the Soviets is solid (in which the majority is not yet ours: we have said this clearly) – then what are you afraid of, gentlemen, why do you lie?

We want only to explain to workers and the poorest peasants the errors of their tactics. We recognize the Soviets as the only possible power. We preach the necessity of power and the obligatoriness of submission to it.

What then do you fear? Why do you lie?

You fear precisely the truth. You lie in order to bury, through pogroms, slander, violence, and filth, the possibility of explaining the truth.

This is already seen by even some of our opponents. Read today *Delo Naroda*{117}, the organ of the Socialist Revolutionary party, the organ in which Minister Kerensky participates.

This organ writes of Plekhanov, the most reliable ally of *Russkaya Volya* and *Rech'*: "…such words, such a method of struggle we are accustomed to seeing on the pages of *Russkaya Volya*. And to see them in the articles of socialists – in all conscience – is painful and distressing…".

Thus write our opponents.

Thus write democrats whose democratic conscience has awakened.

To shame the Milyukovs, Plekhanovs, and Cherevarins is a hopeless task, but if even a newspaper in which Minister Kerensky participates turns away squeamishly from the rabidly-chauvinist, slander-filthy, pogrom-reeking methods of Plekhanov, then we can say:

Dead men are the heroes of such methods.

Written April 13 (26), 1917

Published April 14, 1917 in the newspaper *Pravda* No. 32

Printed from the newspaper text