Lessons of the Revolution/The Lessons of the Revolution

by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

The Lessons of the Revolution.

A revolution marks a critical transition in the life of great popular masses. Of course, only a fully matured crisis renders a real revolution possible and necessary. Moreover, even as a transition period in the life of a single individual teaches him much, leads him through an emotional stage suffused with new rich content, so also does a revolution teach a whole nation in a relatively short time highly instructive and valuable lessons.

During a revolution millions and tens of millions of people learn in a single week incomparably more than in a whole year of everyday sluggish life. For at such critical moments in the life of a nation it becomes markedly evident which classes pursue certain aims, what are their relative forces, and the means at their command.

Every conscious workman, soldier and peasant should attentively ponder the lessons taught by the Russian Revolution; the more so now, at the end of July, when it is manifest that the first phase of our revolution has ended in failure.

I.

Indeed, let us see what the masses of workmen and peasants have been fighting for in carrying the revolution into life. What have they been expecting from the revolution? We all know that a;l along they hoped for freedom, peace, bread, land.

Now what are the actual facts?

Instead of freedom the arbitrary rule of the past is being restored. Capital punishment is being introduced at the front, peasants are brought to trial for «wilfully» seizing the landlords' lands. The printing establishments of the Labor press are raided. The Bolsheviks are arrested, not infrequently, without accusation, or on the pretext of charges which are simply calumnious.

It may be argued that the persecution of the Bolsheviks is by no means a violation of freedom, since only certain persons on specific charges are thus persecuted. But such arguments bear the earmarks of premeditated untruth. For why, should printing offices be raided, newspapers suppressed for the crimes of individuals, even if these crimes are proven and sustained by law? It would be altogether different if the government declared criminal the entire Bolshevik party, its ideas and views. But every one knows that the government of free Russia never could, and indeed never attempted to do anything of the kind.

And look at the venomous slanders launched against the Bolsheviks! The newspapers of both landlords and capitalists have been furiously attacking the Bolsheviks for their campaign against the war, against the landlords and against the capitalists. These newspapers openly demanded the arrest and prosecution of the Bolsheviks even before there was a single charge against a single Bolshevik.

The people desire peace. But the revolutionary government of free Russia has resumed the war of annexations, on the basis of those very, secret treaties which the former Tsar Nicholas II concluded with the English and French capitalists, aimed at the spoliation of foreign nations by the Russian financial magnates. These secret treaties have never yet been made public. The government of free Russia has entrenched itself behind wiles and tricks, but it has not yet proposed a just peace to all nations.

Bread there is none. The menace of famine is imminent. It is an open secret how the capitalists and the rich loot the treasury on war orders (the war costs the people 50,000,000 roubles a day! They reap enormous profits from the high cost of living, and absolutely nothing is being done toward improving the production and distribution of goods by and for the working class. The capitalists are mere and more daring in locking out the workmen, throwing them on the street at a time when the people suffer from underproduction.

The overwhelming majority of the peasants throughout a long series of conferences have loudly and unequivocally announced their decision to proclaim as a crying injustice,—nay more, as direct plunder—the ownership of the soil by the powerful landlords. And the government which calls itself revolutionary and democratic persists in foiling the peasants' desires, in deceiving them with promises and delays. The capitalists for months harrassed Minister of Agriculture Tchernoy's measures for enacting laws prohibiting the sale and purchase of land; and when a law of this type was finally promulgated, the capitalists began a despicable campaign of calumny against Tchernov, which continues unabated. In its defense of the landlords the government has not recoiled from knavery; it has determined to proceed by law against the peasants for the «wilful» seizure of land!

Yes, the peasents are deceived, they are persuaded to await the convocation of the Constituent Assembly; but the capitalists keep on postponing it. Now that the date for convocation has bean, under pressure by the Bolsheviks, set for the 30-th of September, the capitalists openly resent such an «impossibly» short interval, and again insist upon postponing the Constituent Assembly. The most influential members of the party of capitalists and landlords,—the «Cadet» party, or the «Party of People's»—such as (Countess) Panina, openly preach the postponement of the Constituent Assembly until the end of the war.

Have patience with the land question until the Constituent Assembly! With the Constituent Assembly wait until the end of the war! With the end of the war wait until complete victory is won! This is the program. So do the capitalists and landlords, holding as they do the majority in the government, laugh and scoff at the poor peasants.

 

II.

But how did all this come to pass in a land where the rule of Tsardom has been overthrown? In a country that is not free the people are governed by a Tsar and a handful of capitalists, landlords, and bureaucrats elected by no one.

In a free country. the people are governed by those whom they themselves have chosen for this very purpose. At the elections the people divide themselves into parties, and as a rule every class of the population forms its own party; thus the landlords, the capitalists, the peasents, the workmen have each their own parties. So, in free countries the government of a nation is shaped and influenced by the open struggle between parties and by their final agreements among themselves.

After the overthrow of the Tsar's regime, Feb. 27, 1917, Russia for about four months was governed like a free country, namely by means of an open struggle between freely organized parties and of free agreements among themselves. In order therefore to understand the development of the Russian revolution it is most important to scrutinize the nature of the various parties, the interests they have been defending, and finally, the relations of these parties to one another.

 

III.

After the overthrow of the Tsar's rule the power passed into the hands of the Provisional Government. The Provisional Government consisted of representatives of the bourgeoisie—that is to say the capitalists, with whom the landlords too joined hands. The party of the Cadets, the leading capitalist party, occupied first place as the ruling and state party of the bourgeoisie.

It was not by sheer accident that the power came into the hands of this party, though of course it was not the capitalists who fought the Tsar's troops, who shed blood for freedom's sake, but the workmen, peasants, sailors and soldiers. The ruling power nevertheless fell into the hands of the capitalistic party, because the capitalist class had at its command the power of wealth, of organization, and of education. Since 1905, and particularly during the war, the capitalist class, together with its joint partner the landlord class, won great success in its work of organization.

The Cadet party, has always been monarchistic, in 1905 as well as all the years until 1917. After the people's victory over the tyranny of Tsardom, this party proclaimed itself republican. Historic experience teaches that whenever the people vanquishes its ruling dynasty, the capitalist class is ready to be converted to republicanism, in order to preserve the privileges of capitalism and to assert its hegemony over the people.

The Cadet party in words stands for the «People's Freedom». In deeds this party stands for all that is capitalistic. No wonder all the landlords, the monarchists, the Black Hundreds were quick to join it. Proof? The press and the elections. Immediately after the revolution all the bourgeois press and all the Black Hundred press sang in complete unison with the Cadets. All the monarchist parties, fearful of overt acts, supported the Cadets in the elections—at least in Petrograd.

Having thus seized the power, the Cadets spared no effort to continue the war of annexation and spoliation begun by Nicholas II, who had concluded secret treaties of alliance with the English and French capitalists. According to these agreements the Russian capitalists are promised, in case of victory, the occupation of Constantinople, Galicia, Armenia etc. As to the people, the Cadet government fed it profusely, on promises, postponing the solution of questions most important to the workmen and peasants until the Constituent Assembly, without however setting a date for its convocation.

Making use of their liberty the people began to organize. The chief organizations of the workmen and peasants, representing the overwhelming majority of Russia's population, were the Soviets of Workmen's, Soldiers' and Peasants' Delegates. These Soviets sprang into existence during the days of the February revolution, and after a few weeks, in most of the large cities of Russia, as well as in many of the townships, all the conscious leading elements of the working class and the peasantry were united in the Soviets.

The Soviets were elected without any restrictions whatever. The Soviets were the real organization of the masses of the nation, of the workers and of the peasants. The Soviets were the real organizations of the enormous majority, of the people. The workmen and peasants, in military uniform were under arms.

It is manifest that the Soviets both could and must take over the entire governing power. Indeed there could and should have been no other government but that of the Soviets until the convocation of the Constituent Assembly. Only then would our revolution securely occupy the position of a really popular, really democratic revolution. Only then would the toiling masses, who really crave peace, who really are not interested in wars of annexation, be able resolutely and unflinchingly to enter upon a course of action which would immediately put an end to the war of annexations and bring about peace. Only then could the workers and peasants check and bridle the capitalists who pile up collossal war profits, having brought the country to the verge of collapse and famine. But within the Soviets only the minority of the delegates were on the side of the revolutionary party of the workers—the Bolsheviks, who demanded the transfer of all the ruling power to the Soviets. The majority of the delegates sided with the Mensheviks and «Essers», who opposed such a transfer of power. Instead of superseding the government of the bourgeoisie by that of the Soviets, these parties advocated the support of the bourgeoisie by means of a coalition government. This policy of alliance with the bourgeoisie, pursued by the very parties which the nation blindly trusted and followed, the Essers and Mensheviks, reflects the whole revolutionary, process undergone by the Revolution since its inception five months ago.

IV.

Let us first examine the history of this Esser and Menshevik policy of alliance with the bourgeoisie; then we shall consider the circumstances which led the people to repose confidence in these parties.

V.

The mutual understanding between the capitalists and the Essers and Mensheviks has become manifest, now in one form, now in another, all through the course of the Russian revolution.

In the latter part of February, 1917, soon after the nation had conquered and the rule of the Tsar had been overthrown, the capitalist Provisional Government included Kerensky, as the «Socialist» member. Now Kerensky in point of fact has never been a Socialist; he was only a «Troudovik». Only in March, 1917, did he begin to figure among the Social Revolutionists, when such a position was no longer dangerous nor unprofitable. It was, of course, the aim of the capitalist Provisional Government to use Kerensky, then Vice-President of the Petrograd Soviet, as a link by which it could chain to itself the whole Soviet. The Soviet—that is to say, its majority—consisting of Essers and Mensheviks, took the bait, and soon after the formation of the Provisional Government consented to support it «in as much as it fulfills its promises».

The Soviet regrded itself as the accountant, the comptroller of the deeds of the Provisional Government. But during all this time the Provisional Government did not make a single serious effort to foster the development of the revolution. It did absolutely nothing with regard to its own immediate task of convoking the Constituent Assembly; it has not yet presented the question to the locals, nor has it even established a central commission to elaborate this question. The government's only care was: clandestinely to renew the predatory international treaties which the Tsar had concluded with the capitalists of England and France, cautiously and insensibly to thwart the course of the revolution, to promise everything and to accomplish nothing. The Essers and Mensheviks of the «contact committee» played the role of fools lavishly fed on grand phrases, promises, «tomorrows»… Like the crow in the fable, the Essers and Mensheviks succumbed to flattery, listened complacently to the capitalists' assurances that they highly esteemed the Soviets, and that they would not move a step without them.

In reality, however, time passed and still the capitalist government did nothing to further the revolution. On the contrary, it succeeded, against the revolution, in renewing or rather confirming the secret predatory treaties, and in «reviving» them by additional no less secret negotiations with the diplomats of Anglo-French imperialism. It succeeded, against the revolution, in laying the foundation for a counter-revolutionary organization of the generals and officers of the active army,—or at all events in bringing them closer together. It succeeded, against the revolution, in calling into existence an organization of merchants and manufacturers who, gradually yielding under the pressure of the workmen, began at the same time to harrass production, and to prepare its complete cessation at the propitious moment.

But the organization of the more advanced workmen and peasants within the Soviets unswervingly went forward. The best men of the oppressed classes felt that the government, in spite of its understanding with the Petrograd Soviet, in spite of Kerensky's grandiloquence, in spite of the «contact committee», remained as ever the enemy of the people, the enemy of the revolution. The masses, too, felt that if the resistance of the capitalists remained unbroken, the cause of peace, the cause of freedom, the very cause of the revolution would be irreparably lost. Impatience and vindictive passions rose high in the masses.

VI.

On April 20–21 it burst. The movement broke forth elementally, spontaneously. It was so rigorously directed against the government that one regiment fully armed went straight to the Marinsky Palace to arrest the Ministers. It was universally apparent that the government could no longer hold out. The Soviets at that time could (and ought to) have taken the power into their hands without the least resistance from any quarter. Instead, the Essers and Mensheviks have supported the toppling capitalist government, have ever more entangled themselves in their «alliance policy», have taken ever more fatal steps leading to the ruin of the revolution.

The revolution teaches all classes with a rapidity and thoroughness unknown in times of peace and everyday life. The capitalists, who are better organized, more expert in the business of class struggle and class politics, learned the lesson more readily than the other classes. Seeing that the position of the government was untenable, they resorted to a method which since 1848 has been for decades practised by the capitalists in order to befog, divide and finally to overpower the working class. This method is the so-called «coalition ministry», composed of bourgeois and of renegades from the Socialist camp.

In those countries where freedom and democracy, have existed side by side with the revolutionary movement of the workers—for example in England and France—the capitalists make use of this subterfuge, and very successfully too, The «Socialist» leaders upon entering the bourgeois ministries invariably prove mere figureheads, puppets, simply a shield for the capitalists, a tool with, which to defraud the workers, The «democratic and republican» Russian capitalists set in motion the very same scheme. The Essers and Mensheviks fell a victim to it, and on May 6 a «coalition» ministry, with the participation of Tchernov, Tseretelli & Co. became an accomplished fact.

The fools of the Esser and Menshevik parties were jubilant, complacently basking as they did in the radiance emanating from the Ministerial glory of their leaders. The capitalists congratulated themselves on having obtained such formidable allies against the people as the «leaders of the Soviets»—on having received from them the promise to support «aggressive action on the front»; in other words, the renewal of imperialistic predatory, war, which had been interrupted for a while. Well did the capitalists know the impotence of these leaders; well did they know that the promises of the bourgeoisie—regarding control’ and organization of production, peace policy, etc.—would never be kept.

And so it happened. The second phase of the development of the revolution, extending over the period between May 6 and June 18, fully satisfied the expectations of the capitalists as to their success in deceiving the Essers and Mensheviks.

While Pechekhonov and Skobelev (of the duped parties) were fooling both themselves and the people into believing highflown phrases that they would take away the capitalists' 100% profit, that «their resistance is broken», etc.,—the capitalists went on fortifying themselves. Nothing, absolutely nothing was done to check them, all during that time. The renegade Ministers proved to be mere talking machines to blind the oppressed classes, and the entire governmental apparatus remained in the hands of the bureaucrats and the bourgeoisie. The notorious Palchinsky, assistant Minister of Commerce, was a typical representative of this machine, blocking as he did any and every measure directed against the capitalists. The Ministers kept on chatting—and all remained as before.

Minister Tseretelli was especially utilized by the bourgeoisie in its fight against the revolution. He was dispatched to «pacify» Cronstadt, where the revolutionists had dared to remove the commissar appointed by the government. At that time the bourgeois press launched an incredibly clamorous, malicious, furious campaign of falsehood and invective against Cronstadt, accusing it of intending to «split off from Russia»; repeating this and similar absurdities in a thousand variations, to frighten the petty bourgeoisie and the unsophisticated philistines. The most typical representative of this dull, panic-stricken class, Tseretelli, innocently took the bait and energetically went to work to «subdue and pacify», Cronstadt, without realizing his own position as a minion of the counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie. In fact this man was, a tool in bringing about an «understanding» with revolutionary Cronstadt, according to which the commissar of the place was not to be appointed by. the Government, but elected by the local citizens and only confirmed by the Government. With such miserable compromises, the Ministers who had deserted Socialism to please the bourgeoisie, spent all their time.

Thus, whenever a bourgeois Minister could not possibly appear in defense of the Government, as for example before revolutianary workers, or the Soviets, a «Socialist» Minister appeared or rather, was sent by the bourgeoisie—such as Skobelov, Tseretelli, Tchernov, etc. He conscientiously accomplished the bourgeoisie's job, defended the Ministry, white-washed the capitalists, befogged the minds of the people by repeating promises, promises, only promises,—and ended by advising them to wait, wait, wait.

Minister Tchernov was kept particularly busy bargaining with his bourgeois colleagues. Down to this very month of July, when after the shake-up of July 3–4 the new «crisis of power» took place, and the Cadets left the Cabinet, Minister Tchernov was always occupied with the useful, interesting, profoundly national work of «persuading» his bourgeois colleagues, of exhorting them to consent at least to a law prohibiting the purchase of land. Such a law had been solemnly. promised to the peasantry at the All-Russian Congress of Peasants' Soviets in Petrograd, but it remained only a promise. Tchernov was unable to fulfill it either in May, or in June. Only, at the moment of the elemental wave of revolutionary explosion on July 3–4, when the Cadets left the Ministry—only then was the law put in force. But it proved to be a solitary measure, incapable of seriously aiding the peasants in their struggle with the landlords for possession of the soil.

Meanwhile the «revolutionary democrat» Kerensky, this newlyfledged member of the Social-Revolutionist party, was brilliantly accomplishing at the front the counter-revolutionary task of resuming the imperialistic, predatory, war; the task in which Gutchkov, the despised of the people, had utterly failed. Kerensky was intoxicated with his own eloquence; the imperialists who used him burned incense to him—he was flattered, worshipped. And all this fer his loyal, devoted service to the capitalists—exhorting the «revolutionary armies» to consent to a renewal of a war avowedly waged in fulfilment of Tsar Nicholas' treaties with the capitalists of England and France—a war to conquer for the Russian capitalists Constantinople and Lemberg, Erzerum and Trebizond.

Thus passed the second phase of the Russian revolution, from May 6 to June 9. The counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie having strengthened its position and fortified itself under cover and protection of the «Socialist» Ministers, was preparing an onslaught upon both the external and the internal enemy,—the revolutionary workmen.

 

VII.

On June 9 the party of the revolutionary workers, the Bolsheviks, arranged for a demonstration in Petrograd to give articulate expression to the ever-growing dissatisfaction and indignation of the masses. The leaders of the Essers and Mensheviks, entangled in their alliances with the bourgeoisie, bound hand and foot by their imperialistic war-policy, became alarmed, feeling that they were losing their hold upon the masses. A general outcry was raised against this demonstration—an outcry in which the Essers and Mensheviks joined the counter-revolutionary Cadets. Under the guidance of the Essers and Mensheviks, as a result of their policy of alliance with the capitalists, the tendency of the petty bourgeoisie to unite with the grand conter-revolutionary bourgeoisie defined itself with amazing clearness. In this very fact is contained the historic significance, the profound class-meaning of the crisis of July 9.

The Bolsheviks, unwilling to lead the workmen into a desperate battle against the united Cadets, Essers and Mensheviks, decided to give up the demonstration. But the Essers and Mensheviks, hoping to retain at least a little of their waning influence among the masses, felt impelled to order a general demonstration for June 18. As for the bourgeoisie, it lost its wits out of sheer rage,—recognizing in this move the leaning of the petty bourgeoisie toward the side of the proletariat,—and determined to paralyze the action of the democracy by a military movement on the front.

Indeed, the 18-th of June gave an awe-inspiring victory to the slogans of the revolutionary proletariat, the rallying cries of the Bolsheviks among the Petrograd masses; so on June 19-th the bourgeoisie and the Bonapartist Kerensky announced that the military offensive at the front had begun on that very 18-th of June!

This meant practically the resumption of a war of spoliation, in the interests of the capitalists, against the will of the great majority of the toiling masses. With this renewed belligerency, there was connected, on the one hand, the tremendous growth of chauvinism and the passage of military—and consequently of political—power into the hands of a gang of Bonapartists; on the other hand, the recourse to violent repression of the masses, persecution of the internationalists, abolition of the freedom of propaganda, arrests and wholesale shooting of those who opposed the war.

If the 6-th of May tied the Essers and Mensheviks to the triumphal chariot of the bourgeoisie by a rope, the 19-th of June shackled them with chains.

 

VIII.

The resentment of the masses upon the renewal of the war of spoliation naturally grew and grew. On July 3–4 their indignation burst forth in an explosion which the Bolsheviks tried to mitigate, of course attempting to direct it into organized channels.

The Essers and Mensheviks, as the slaves of the bourgeoisie fettered to their masters consented to everything; to the bringing of reactionary troops to Petrograd, the restoration of capital punishment, the disarming of the workmen and of the revolutionary, soldiers—to arrests, persecutions, the suppression of newspapers. The power which the bourgeoisie, inside the Government, could not entirely usurp, which the Soviets refused to take, fell into the hands of a military clique of Bonapartists, who were of course supported by the Cadets and the landlords, by the Black Hundreds and the Capitalists.

Step by step downward. Once on the inclined plane of alliances with the bourgeoisie, the Essers and Mensheviks irretrievably went onward and down to the very bottom. On February 28-th, in the Petrograd Soviet, they had promised the Provisional Government only conditional support. On May 6 they saved it from collapse, and allowed themselves to become its hirelings and defenders, unreservedly countenancing an aggressive campaign on the front. On June 9-th, they united with the counter-revolutionary, boergeoisie in a campaign of falsehood and calumny against the revolutionary proletariat. On June 19, they approved the renewal of the predatory war. July 3, they assented to the calling in of the reactionary regiments,—the beginning of the final and complete surrender of the power to the Bonapartists. Step by step downward.

The disgusting fate of these parties, the Essers and Mensheviks, is by no means an accident; European experience has many times proven it to be the outcome of the economic situation of the small property holders,—the petty bourgeoisie.

 

IX.

It is a matter of common observation how the small proprietor uses all his energies to get into the society of the wealthy, to reach the rank of «captain of industry», to become one of the «400», to enter the plane of the bourgeoisie. So long as capitalism reigns supreme, the petty property holder will be confronted with two alternatives: either to succeed in climbing to the heights of the capitalist class (at best possible for one percent)—or to remain for a while struggling in the position of a ruined little «boss», a semi-proletarian, and to land at last with a crash in the ranks of the proletariat. It is likewise in politics. The petty bourgeois democracy, especially in the persons of its leaders, clings to the skirts of the bourgeoisie. These leaders console their followers with promises and assurances of the plausibility of alliance with the grand bourgeoisie. For a short time at best they are favored by the capitalists with some tid-bits of concession to the few top layers of the toiling masses; but in everything decisive, in every matter of importance, the petty—bourgeoisie—democracy remains floating in the penumbra of the bourgeoisie, an impotent appendage, an obedient tool in the hands of the financial magnates. The experience of England and France has often proven this.

During the Russian revolution, when under the pressure of the imperialistic war and the momentous crisis created by it, events unfolded with extraordinary, swiftness, the period of February–July, 1917, has fully corroborated the old Marxist theory regarding the instability of the position occupied by the petty bourgeoisie.

The ultimate lesson of the Russian revolution: There is mo salvation for the toiling masses in the iron jaws of war, of famine, of enslavement by; landlords and capitalists except in complete rupture with the parties of the Essers and Mensheviks, in the clear realization of their treacherous role, in the enunciation of any and all alliances with the bourgeoisie, in decisive union with the revolutionary workers. Supported by the poorest peasants, only the revolutionary workers can overcome the resistance of the capitalists, lead the nation to the winning of the soil without compensation, to complete liberty, victory over starvation, victory over the war, a just and secure peace.

 

N. Lenin.