Just as in July of last year, counter-revolution in our rear, among us, is raising its head.

Counter-revolution has been defeated, but is far from destroyed, and naturally it is taking advantage of Denikin's victories and the intensification of food shortages. And behind the direct and open counter-revolution, behind the Black Hundreds and the Cadets, who are strong in their capital, their direct ties with Entente imperialism, their understanding of the inevitability of dictatorship and their ability to implement it (in Kolchak fashion)—behind them there trail, as always, the vacillating, spineless Mensheviks, Right SRs and Left SRs, embellishing their deeds with fine words.

No illusions on this account! We know the "nutrient medium" that spawns counter-revolutionary enterprises, outbursts, conspiracies and the rest—we know it very well indeed. It is the medium of the bourgeoisie, bourgeois intellectuals, in the villages the kulaks, everywhere—the "non-party" public, and then the SRs and Mensheviks. We must triple and tenfold our supervision of this medium. We must tenfold our vigilance, for counter-revolutionary encroachments from this quarter are absolutely inevitable at precisely this moment and in the immediate future. On this soil, repeated attempts at bridge explosions, organization of strikes, espionage of all kinds and the like are equally natural. All precautionary measures—the most intensive, systematic, repeated, massive and sudden—are necessary in every single center where the "nutrient medium" of counter-revolutionaries has even the slightest possibility of "nestling."

Regarding the Mensheviks, Right and Left SRs, we must take into account recent experience. Among their "periphery," among the public that gravitates toward them, there is undoubtedly a shift away from Kolchak and Denikin toward a rapprochement with Soviet power. We have taken this shift into account, and each time it manifests itself in anything real, we have taken a certain step to meet it from our side. We shall in no way change this policy of ours, and the number of "defections" from Menshevism and SR-ism, gravitating toward Kolchak and Denikin, to Menshevism and SR-ism, gravitating toward Soviet power, will undoubtedly, generally speaking, grow.

But at the present moment petty-bourgeois democracy with the SRs and Mensheviks at its head, spineless and vacillating as always, is keeping its nose to the wind and wavering in the direction of the victor Denikin. This is particularly true with regard to the "political leaders" of the Left SRs, Mensheviks (like Martov and Co.), Right SRs (like Chernov and Co.) and their "literary groups" in general, whose members, apart from everything else, are deeply offended by their complete political collapse and therefore have what is scarcely an eradicable "propensity" for adventures against Soviet power.

We must not allow ourselves to be deceived by the words and ideology of their leaders, their personal honesty or hypocrisy. This matters for the biography of each of them. It does not matter from the standpoint of politics, that is, from the standpoint of the relationship between classes, the relationship between millions of people. Martov and Co. "in the name of the CC" solemnly condemn their "activists" and threaten (eternally threaten!) to expel them from the party. This does not in the slightest make disappear the fact that the "activists" are the strongest among the Mensheviks, hide behind them, and conduct their Kolchak-Denikin work. Volsky and Co. condemn Avksent'ev, Chernov and Co., but this does not in the slightest prevent these latter from being stronger than Volsky, does not prevent Chernov from saying: "If not we and if not now, then who and when will overthrow the Bolsheviks?" The Left SRs may "work" "independently," without any collusion with reaction, with the Chernovs, but in reality they are just as much allies of Denikin and pawns in his game as the late Left SR Muravyov, former commander-in-chief, who for "ideological" motives opened the front to the Czechs{18} and Kolchak.

Martov, Volsky and Co. fancy themselves "above" both warring sides, fancy themselves capable of creating a "third side."

This aspiration, even if it were sincere, remains an illusion of a petty-bourgeois democrat, who even now, seventy years after 1848, has not learned the ABCs—namely, that in a capitalist environment there is possible either the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie or the dictatorship of the proletariat, and it is impossible for anything else to exist. The Martovs and Co. will apparently die with this illusion. That is their business. Our business is to remember that in practice the vacillations of such people are inevitable—today toward Denikin, tomorrow toward the Bolsheviks. And today we must do the work of today.

Our business is to pose the question directly. What is better? To catch and put in prison, sometimes even shoot hundreds of traitors from among the Cadets, non-party people, Mensheviks, SRs, who are "acting" (some with weapons, some with conspiracy, some with agitation against mobilization, like printers or railwaymen among the Mensheviks and so forth) against Soviet power, that is, for Denikin? Or to allow things to reach the point where we permit Kolchak and Denikin to slaughter, shoot and flog to death tens of thousands of workers and peasants? The choice is not difficult.

The question stands thus and only thus.

Whoever has not understood this until now, whoever is capable of whining about the "injustice" of such a decision—we must wave our hand at him, we must consign him to public ridicule and disgrace.