The Proletarian Revolution in Russia/Part 3/Chapter 1
I
CLASS CHARACTER OF THE REVOLUTION
(Lenin)
The historical period through which we are passing is characterized by the following fundamental features:[1]
1.—The Imperial government, which represented only a small group of large landholders having in its control all the machinery of power, army, police and bureaucracy, has been defeated and overthrown, but not entirely done away with. Monarchism, as such, has not been destroyed. The Romanoff coterie is still engaged in monarchistic intrigues. The grip of the large landholders on the land has not been definitely broken.
The powers of government in Russia have passed into the hands of a new class: the bourgeoisie and the bourgeois-inclined landholders. To that extent the bourgeois democratic revolution in Russia is a closed chapter.
The bourgeoisie in power concluded an alliance with purely monarchistic elements which, from 1906 to 1914, had shown themselves unusually faithful to Nicholas the Bloody and Stolypin the Hangman. The new bourgeois government of Lvov and his associates (Guchkov and other politicians more conservative than the Cadets) actually initiated negotiations with the Romanoffs aiming at a restoration of the monarchy in Russia, while using the revolutionary vocabulary. And that government has appointed to positions of authority partisans of the old regime.
All the governmental machinery, army, police and bureaucracy, is being turned over to the bourgeoisie by this government with the least possible modifications and reforms.
The new government is trying to prevent by every means at its disposal the development of mass action and the assumption of power from below by the people, which alone would insure the success of the Revolution.
The government has not as yet announced the convocation of the Constituent Assembly. Neither does it interfere with the landholding machine, the solid foundation of feudal Czarism. The government is not considering investigating or regulating the financial organizations of a monopolistic character, large banks, syndicates, trusts, etc.
The most important and influential cabinet posts in the new government, the ministry of the interior and the ministry of war, that is, the direction of the army, police and bureaucracy and of the whole machinery for the oppression of the masses, have been given to well-known monarchists and supporters of the large landholding system.
The Cadets, the republicans of yesterday, republicans much against their inclination, have been offered positions of secondary importance, in no way affecting the ruling of the nation and the machinery of government. Kerensky, a representative of the Laborites and "also a Socialist," does very little besides lulling the people asleep with well-sounding phrases and causing them to relax their attention and their watchfulness.
For all these reasons, the new bourgeois government does not deserve the proletariat's confidence in the field of national politics and is not worthy of any confidence.
In the domain of foreign politics, which for obvious reasons is very much to the front, the new government stands for the continuation of an imperialistic war waged in concert with imperialistic nations, England, France, and others, a war waged to secure a share of the imperialistic booty and aiming at the strangling of smaller and weaker nations. The new government is subservient to the interests of Russian capitalists and of their powerful protectors and masters, the capitalists of England and France, the wealthiest in the world. It turns a deaf ear to the desires expressed by the Council of Workers' and Soldiers' Delegates, expressing a clear majority of the Russian people, and has neglected to take any genuine measures to end the international slaughter organized in the interests of Capitalism.
The new government has failed to publish the secret agreements of frankly predatory character, which, as everybody knows, have been concluded between Russia and the imperialistic and predatory capitalists of England and France. It has confirmed the agreements concluded by Czarism, a system which in the course of several centuries overpowered and oppressed more nationalities than any other system of tyranny and despotism, and which has brutalized and demoralized the Great-Russian people, transforming it into a tormentor of other races.
The new government, having confirmed those shameful and piratical agreements, refuses to suggest to all the belligerents an immediate armistice, in spite of the wishes of the large majority of the Russian people voiced by the Council of Workers and Soldiers. It has evaded the issue by confining itself to solemn, sonorous, platitudinous phrases and declarations, all of them perfectly empty but of the kind which bourgeois diplomats have always used to deceive the gullible and naive masses of oppressed nations.
And, therefore, the new government does not deserve the slightest confidence in the domain of international politics.
Moreover, it would be a waste of time to expect the government to make known the peace hunger of the peoples of Russia, or to renounce all annexations; for this would simply deceive the people, awaken in them hopes which cannot be fulfilled, retard their intellectual enlightenment, and gradually reconcile them with the idea of a continuation of the war. Socially, the present war is not characterized by any noble aims; it only reflects the class character of the government waging it, the alliance between the class represented by that government and the imperialistic financiers of Russia, England and France, and the actual policy of their class.
- ↑ This chapter describes the situation prevailing until the end of April, 1917.—L. C. F.