On the Road to Insurrection/The Bogy of Civil War

by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

The Bogy of Civil War

September 16, 1917.

THE refusal of the Mensheviks and the Social Revolutionaries to join with the Cadets—although the democracy could perfectly well form a government and rule Russia without them, and even against them—alarmed the bourgeoisie into preparing schemes to frighten the democracy.

"Spread terror to the utmost!" Such is the watchword of the whole bourgeois Press. "Terrify as much as you can! Lie, slander—above all things terrify!"

The Stock Exchange Gazette attempts to stir up panic by means of forged information about Bolshevik plots. The rumour is spread that Alexiev has resigned and that the Germans have broken through the Russian lines in the direction of Petrograd—as if it had not been proved that it was just the "Kornilovian" generals (with whom Alexiev is undoubtedly connected) who have no hesitation in throwing open the front to the Germans in Galicia, before Riga^[1] and before Petrograd, and stirring up in the army violent hatred against G.H.Q. To incite the danger of civil war you are forced to use intimidation of the democracy in the most consistent and convincing way. In fact, the stirring up of the civil war bogy is the most widespread method of intimidation. Observe how this idea, very prevalent in petty bourgeois centres, is described by the Rostov-on-the-Don local committee of the party of Freedom for the People.^[2] To quote from their resolution of September 1 (cf. Ryetch No. 210):—

"… Considering that civil war would abolish all the victories of the revolution and drown in rivers of blood our young and as yet unestablished freedom, the committee considers it necessary for the good of the revolutionary victories to protest strongly against the tendency to extend the revolution, a tendency which is dictated by the impracticable Socialist utopians."

We see here the clearest, the most distinct, detailed and most thought-out expression of the fundamental thought that appears continually in the publications of the Ryetch, in the articles by Plekhanov, by Potressov, in Menshevik newspapers, &c. In passing it would do us no harm to stop and consider a little this idea.

Let us try to examine the question of civil war as concretely as possible, basing ourselves on the experience of the six months of our revolution.

This experience, which corresponds absolutely with that of all European revolutions since the end of the eighteenth century, shows us that civil war is the most acute form of class struggle. After a series of conflicts and economic and political battles, increasingly numerous and violent, it becomes transformed inevitably into an armed struggle of two classes, one against the other.

What one sees most frequently, one might say invariably, in all countries, however little advanced, is civil war between the classes (that is between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat). This antagonism has been created and is accentuated by the whole economic development of capitalism, and can be seen by the whole history of society all over the world. Thus, during the six months of our revolution we had on April 20 and 21, and on July 3 and 4, vigorous spontaneous outbursts which almost amounted to the beginning of civil war. Kornilov's insurrection is a military plot, supported by the large landed proprietors and capitalists, and directed by the Cadets. This conspiracy has effectively brought about the beginning of civil war, started this time by the bourgeoisie.

Such are the facts. Such is the history of our revolution. Now, it is chiefly from this history that we must extract guidance; it is to its development and social significance that we must give special thought. Let us try to compare the beginnings of proletarian and bourgeois civil wars in Russia from the following points of view: (1) The spontaneity of the movement; (2) Its aims; (3) The class consciousness of the masses who take part; (4) The strength of the movement; (5) Its tenacity. We believe that if all the parties who now talk at random about "civil war" should formulate the question thus, and try to study the outbreak of civil war from the basis of the facts, the Russian revolution would gain vast knowledge of itself.

Let us take first the spontaneity. Concerning July 3 and 4 we have the verdict of such witnesses as the Menshevik Rabotchaia Gazette and the Social Revolutionary Dielo Naroda of the spontaneous character of the movement. I have quoted these reports in an article in the Proletarskoie Dielo, which afterwards appeared in a special pamphlet entitled An Answer to the Slanderers. But for perfectly obvious reasons the Mensheviks and the Social Revolutionaries, who defend themselves for having shared in persecutions carried on against the Bolsheviks, continue to deny the spontaneity of the outbreak of July 3 and 4.

Let us leave aside for the moment disputal points and stick to the indisputable. The spontaneity of the movement of April 20 and 21 is not disputed by anyone. It is to this spontaneous movement that the Bolshevik Party allied itself and proclaimed the slogan "All power to the Soviets." And independent of the Bolshevik Party, the late Linde^[3] was also whole-heartedly attached to the movement and brought 30,000 soldiers on the scene to arrest the Provisional Government. (It may be mentioned in passing that this incident of the troops' intervention has not been adequately brought to light.) The more one thinks about this, the more one connects April 20 with the historical course of events; that is, when one regards it as a link in the chain between February 28 and August 29, the clearer it appears that the Bolsheviks erred then through insufficient revolutionarism, although the philistines continue to accuse them of the reverse.

Hence one cannot question the spontaneity of a movement which nearly brings the proletariat to civil war. Meanwhile Kornilov's insurrection presents no shadow of the resemblance of spontaneity. All we have there is a conspiracy of generals who hope to drag after them a section of the troops by means of deception and the prestige of authority.

Beyond a doubt the spontaneity of a movement reveals its grip on the masses and its fundamental soundness. Thus the summing up of events from the point of view of spontaneity demonstrates the firm basis of the proletarian revolution and the lack of this basis in the bourgeois counter-revolution.

Let us pass now to the aims. The movement of April 20–21 came very near to the Bolsheviks' policy, while on July 3 and 4 the movement sprang up under the immediate influence of that policy which was its real guide. Dictatorship of the proletariat and peasants, immediate peace proposals, confiscation of the land of the large owners—these are the principal aims of proletarian civil war which the Bolshevik Party declared openly and as definitely as possible in its Press and in spoken propaganda.

Concerning the aims of Kornilov and his supporters we all know, and no democrat will deny, that they consist of the dictatorship of the landlords and of the bourgeoisie, the suppression of the Soviets and the restoration of the monarchy. The Cadets, the principal Kornilovian party (it would be quite a good thing, by the way, to begin now to call them simply the "Kornilovian Party"), who own a Press and other methods of agitation superior to the Bolsheviks, have never dared, nor dare yet, to speak openly to the people of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie or of the dissolution of the Soviets—the aims of Kornilov's supporters.

Events show that the proletarian civil war can fearlessly display its final objects before the people, for they are certain to attract the workers, while it is only by dissimulation that the bourgeois civil war can drag after it a portion of the masses. Hence the extreme importance of the degree of consciousness in the masses. …

The only relevant information that one has on this question is in connection with the party and the elections. There seem to be no other facts which enable us to judge precisely the mass consciousness. It is obvious, and no one would dream of denying it after six months of revolution, that the proletarian revolutionary movement is led by the Bolshevik Party and the bourgeois counter-revolutionary movement is led by the Cadets. Three comparisons based on fact allow us to throw some light on the question of the development of mass consciousness.

In the first place, the elections; the central Duma elections of August, compared with the district municipal elections of May, show a considerable decrease of Cadet votes and an enormous increase of the number of votes secured by the Bolsheviks.^[4] The Cadet Press admits that where the masses of workers and soldiers are collected the strength of Bolshevism is usually demonstrated.

Secondly, the facts concerning the parties; with no statistics of the strength of the parties, attendance at meetings, &c., we can only measure the participation of the masses therein by the results of the money collections in support of each. From all accounts the Bolshevik workers have shown extraordinary heroism and collected comparatively considerable sums for the Pravda, for suppressed or suspended newspapers, &c. We have always published the accounts of our collections.^[5] This is not the case with the Cadets. It is obviously the wealth of the rich that supports their party. There is no trace among them of any active aid from the masses.

Finally, in comparing the movements of April 20–21 and of July 3-4 on the one hand, and the escapade of Kornilov on the other, it is demonstrated that in civil war the Bolsheviks always openly reveal their enemy to the masses: the bourgeoisie, the big landed proprietors and the capitalists. The troops behind Kornilov, on the contrary, were deceived in the literal sense of the word, and this deception was laid bare after the first encounter of the "barbarian division" and other Kornilovian battalions with the Petersburgians.^[6]

Let us consider now the facts concerning the strength of the workers and the bourgeoisie in civil war. The strength of the Bolsheviks rests in the numbers of the proletarians, in their consciousness; it also depends on the sympathy of the "lower orders" (that is to say, the workers and poor peasants) and of the Social Revolutionaries and Mensheviks towards Bolshevik slogans. It is these slogans which on April 20 and 21, June 18, and July 3 and 4 in Petrograd won over the majority of the effective revolutionary masses. Here we have an indisputable fact.

Further, the comparison of the data provided by the mass movements with those concerning the elections entirely confirms, in connection with Russia, that observation which is frequently made in the West: the strength of the revolutionary proletariat from the point of view of its influence on the masses and on their enthusiasm for the contest is immeasureably greater in the struggle outside than inside Parliament. This is a very important observation on the question of civil war.

It is easily understood why the conditions of the struggle in Parliament and the elections prevent the oppressed classes from utilising all the strength that they can effectively muster in civil war.

The power of the Cadets and Kornilovians is the power of wealth. Anglo-French capital and imperialism are on the side of the Cadets and Kornilovians, as has been demonstrated both in the Press and by a series of political interventions. It is notorious that the whole of the right wing at the Moscow Conference (August 12–14) was resolutely on the side of Kornilov and Kaledin.^[7] It is further notorious that the bourgeois and French Press "assisted" Kornilov. And there are certain signs to indicate that the latter was supported by the banks.

All the power of wealth was ranged on behalf of Kornilov, and none the less what a speedy and lamentable downfall was his! Beyond money there are only two social forces that the Kornilovians can depend upon: the "barbarian division"^[8] and the Cossacks. The strength of the former relies upon ignorance and deception, and this power is all the more appalling because the bourgeoisie hold most of the Press. The proletariat, after having conquered in the civil war, will obviously destroy this source of power once for all.

As regards the Cossacks, we are dealing with a portion of the population that is composed of small, medium and big landed proprietors (the average extent of the Cossack estate is about 50 hectares) who have preserved the economic and moral characteristics of the Middle Ages. The Cossacks might provide the social and economic foundation of a Russian Vendée.^[9] But what have the relevant facts shown in the Kornilov-Kaledin movement? Although supported by Goutchkov, Miliukov, Riabouchinsky and their associates, Kaledin himself, the "well-beloved leader," could not let loose a movement of the masses! And nevertheless he went much more directly towards civil war than the Bolsheviks! Out to "stir up the Don," which purpose he did not conceal, he failed to rouse any mass disturbance in "his" region, in this Cossack area, utterly isolated from the Russian democracy! Very much the reverse: revolutionary explosions broke out among the proletarians in the very centre of the anti-Bolshevik Russian democratic stronghold.

We have no relevant information concerning the attitude of the various economic grades and groups of the Cossacks towards the democracy and the Kornilovian regime. We can only gather from certain indications that the majority of poor and middle-class Cossacks incline rather towards the democracy, and that only the officers and the most wealthy are entirely Kornilovian.

At all events, it is historically manifested after the experience of August 26 to 31 that the Cossack movement in support of the bourgeois counter-revolution is extremely weak.

There remains one final question, namely, the tenacity of the movement. In connection with the Bolshevik proletarian revolutionary movement, it has been proved that its adversaries carried on the ideological struggle with a great advantage of Press organs and methods of agitation. But they did not limit themselves there; they brought into action a furious campaign of calumnies at the same time as methods of repression, arrests by the hundred, pillage of our printing presses, suppression of our principal organ and of our other newspapers.^[10] Events have demonstrated the result. There was a formidable strengthening of Bolshevism at the August elections in Petrograd, there was a pronounced growth of the international and left wing tendencies in the very heart of the Socialist Revolutionary^[11] and Menshevik parties and an approach nearer to Bolshevism. Thus the tenacity of the proletarian revolutionary movement in republican Russia is shown to be very great. The united efforts of the Cadets, Social Revolutionaries and Mensheviks did not succeed in weakening it. On the contrary, the coalition of the Kornilovians with the "democracy" only strengthened Bolshevism.^[12] Moreover, all these methods of combat were exhausted because no other method of opposing the proletarian revolutionary movement except the struggle of ideas and repression can exist.

We have as yet no details about the tenacity of the Cadet-Kornilovian movement. The Cadets have never experienced persecution. Goutchkov himself has been released; Maklakdeov and Miliukov have not even been arrested. The Ryetch has never been suppressed. The Cadets, in fact, have been spared. The Kerensky Government pays little attention to them and the Kornilovians. Granted that the Anglo-French and Russian Riabouchinskys still fling millions into the Edinstvo^[13] and the Dien^[14] for a new electoral campaign, will that increase their votes now after the Kornilov insurrection? It is very unlikely. To judge from their conferences, meetings, &c., it is almost certain that the number of their partisans will rest approximately the same.

As a result of our comparison we are driven to the conclusion that the beginning of the civil war initiated by the proletariat demonstrated the strength, consciousness, basis, growth and organisation of the movement. And the beginning of the bourgeois civil war, on the other hand, revealed that it had no strength, no mass consciousness, no foundation, no chance of victory.

We have had practical experience for many months of the union of the Cadets with the Social Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks against the Bolsheviks, that is to say, against the revolutionary proletariat; and this alliance of the temporarily silenced Kornilovians with the democracy in reality provoked not the weakening but the reinforcement of the Bolsheviks, the crash of the coalition, the strengthening of the left opposition even among the Mensheviks.

A Bolshevik alliance with the Social Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks against the Cadets, against the bourgeoisie, has not yet been tried. Or to be exact, it has only been experienced for five days—from August 26 to 31—and at one point against Kornilov's revolt. And this alliance made it possible to conquer the counter-revolutionary forces with supreme ease, unexampled in any other revolution. It inflicted such a defeat on the counter-revolutionaries, the bourgeoisie, the landed proprietors, the capitalists, the Allied imperialists and the Cadets, that the civil war (which was initiated by the bourgeoisie) was held up from the start, crushed at birth, annihilated without a shot being fired. In spite of this historical fact the whole bourgeois Press with its auxiliaries (the Plekhanovs, Potressovs, Brechko-Brechkovskaias, &c.) continues to declare that a union of the Bolsheviks with the Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries would threaten Russia with the horrors of civil war!

It would be laughable if it were not so sad. It is pitiful that anything so obviously absurd, so appalling, and which evinces such a contempt for the facts, such a misreading of the whole history of our revolution should still be believed. It only goes to prove how widely spread are the bourgeois lies (inevitable since the bourgeoisie monopolise the Press) which smother the most indisputable and tangible lessons of the revolution.

If the revolution teaches anything, incontestably and definitely proved by facts, it is that only the alliance of the Bolsheviks with the Social Revolutionaries and Mensheviks, only the immediate handing over of all power to the Soviets, can prevent civil war. The bourgeoisie could not even dream of launching this alliance into civil war against the Soviets of elected workers, soldiers and peasants, for this war would not even get so far as one battle. After Kornilov's adventure the bourgeoisie would not even find a "barbarian division."

The peaceful development of a revolution such as this is on the whole an extremely unusual and difficult process. For revolution is the culminating point in the antagonism of the classes. But in a fundamentally agrarian country where the alliance of the proletariat and the peasants can give peace to the masses exhausted by an unjust and criminal war, and all the land to the peasants—given such an exceptional moment historically, the peaceful growth of the revolution would be both possible and probable if all power were given over to the Soviets. The struggle of the parties for power could develop peacefully in the heart of the Soviets on condition that the latter cease to distort democratic principles, as, for example, granting the soldiers one representative per 200 and the workers one per 1,000.^[15] In a democratic republic these departures from principles would not be tolerated.

Against the Soviets who would give the land to the peasants without compensation, and who would propose a just peace to all the peoples, no alliance of the Anglo-French and Russian bourgeoisie, or of the Kornilovs, the Buchanans, the Riabouchinskys and the Miliukovs with the Plekhanovs and the Potressovs could do anything. For such an alliance would be doomed to impotence.

Certainly the bourgeoisie would oppose giving up the land to the peasants without indemnity, similar rearrangements in other spheres, a just peace and the rupture with imperialism. But to carry this resistance as far as civil war there would need to be a mass capable of warring against the Soviets and conquering them. Now, the bourgeoisie does not possess these masses and can therefore take no action. Moreover, the Soviets will speedily and resolutely seize power; the "barbarian divisions" and Cossacks will be disintegrated; and fast enough the masses will divide themselves into a meagre minority of conscious Kornilovians and an immense majority of workers and peasants, partisans in the democratic and Socialist democracy (for it will then have to do with Socialism).

The bourgeois resistance, after the Soviets have seized power, will result in every capitalist being watched, inspected and controlled by tens and hundreds of workers and peasants whose interests it will be to prohibit the deception of the people by the capitalists. The forms and machinery of this registration and control have been invented and simplified by capitalism itself, by its very creations—the banks, large factories, trusts, railways, post office, consumers' associations and syndicates. It will be enough to break all resistance without bloodshed for the Soviets to punish by means of confiscation or a short-term imprisonment the capitalists who refuse to give an account of themselves or who continue to trick the people. For it is precisely by means of the banks, which will be nationalised, the associations of employers and civil servants, the post office, the consumers' societies and the syndicates that the control and registration will become universal, all-powerful and invincible.

The Soviets, the workers and poor peasants of Russia, are not alone in their march towards Socialism. If we were alone we would not reach the goal of our task, even peacefully, for it is properly speaking international. But we have a powerful reserve in the army of the most advanced workers of other countries. Russia's break-away from imperialism and the imperialistic war will accelerate everywhere the ripening of the Socialist—the workers'—revolution.

One talks of the "rivers of blood" that civil war would provoke. This phrase, which we have already cited in the resolution of the Cadet-Kornilovians, is repeated on all sides by the bourgeoisie and opportunists of every shade. After Kornilov's insurrection it does and can only excite laughter among all class-conscious workers.

But during the time of actual war the question of bloodshed must be regarded from this perspective: the approximate evaluation of the forces, the calculation of the consequences. It must be taken seriously, not just as an empty phrase, as a simple hypocrisy of the Cadets who did their best to allow Kornilov to flood Russia with blood in order to restore the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, the power to the big landed proprietors and the monarchy. "Rivers of blood" they say to us. Let us also examine that side of the question.

Let us admit that the Social Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks continue in their eternal falterings, that they do not give over the power to the Soviets, do not overthrow Kerensky; that they re-establish, in a scarcely different form, the old compromise with the bourgeoisie (discarding, for example, the Cadets for the Kornilovians "without party"), that they do not substitute the existing machinery of power for the Soviet machinery, that they make no peace proposals, that they do not break with imperialism or confiscate the estates of the big proprietors. Let us face all this as the result of the present shilly-shallying of the Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries.

The experience of our revolution shows with blinding evidence that such a state of affairs would bring the Social Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks to an even feebler condition. They would become more and more separated from the masses, whose indignation and fury would retaliate and whose sympathies for the revolutionary party the Bolsheviks would considerably increase. The proletariat in the capital would be nearer related than at present to the Commune, to the workers' insurrection, the conquest of power, and to civil war in its most definite and decisive form. After the experience of the occasion of April 20 and 21 and July 3 and 4 this consequence should be regarded historically as inevitable. "Rivers of blood" cry the Cadets! But "rivers of blood" would grant victory to the proletariat and poor peasants. This victory would have ninety-nine chances out of a hundred to substitute peace for the imperialist war, that is to save the lives of hundreds of thousands of men who shed their blood at this moment to settle the question of the division of profits and territorial conquests (annexations) among the capitalists. If the movement of April 20 and 21 had ended the transference of power to the Soviets and had given the victory in them to the Bolsheviks allied to the poor peasants, that seizure of power, even suppose that it had let flow "rivers of blood," would at least have saved the lives of the half-million soldiers which the disastrous offensive of June 18 certainly cost us.

All the conscious workers and soldiers, when they seriously approach the question of civil war, about which there is so much noise at present, will make this reckoning. And surely the workers and soldiers who have gained a certain amount of experience and acquired the habit of thought will not be frightened by the shouts of the men, parties and groups who argue about "rivers of blood," while they themselves prepare again to sacrifice the lives of millions of Russian soldiers for Constantinople, Lvov, Varsovie—for the victory over Germany. All the rivers of blood caused by civil war would not bear the remotest comparison with the seas of blood which the Russian imperialists have shed since June 18 (in spite of the considerable opportunity that they had to avoid these hecatombs by transferring the power to the Soviets).

Be a little more discreet in your reasoning about the "rivers of blood" of civil war, my gentlemen—Miliukov, Potressov, Plekhanov and others, for during the war the soldiers have already seen seas of blood.

Now in 1917, in the fourth year of a frightful and criminal war that has exhausted all the peoples, the international situation of the Russian revolution is such that proposals for a just peace through the Russian proletariat, victorious in civil war, would have ninety-nine chances out of a hundred to end in an armistice and peace—without it being necessary to shed any more seas of blood.

In fact, the alliance of the rival Anglo-French and German imperialisms against a Russian Socialist proletarian republic cannot be realised, whereas the alliance of English, Japanese and American imperialism is almost impossible, and in any case in no way formidable considering the geographic situation of Russia. Besides, the existence of the revolutionary and Socialist proletarian masses in the bosom of all the European States is a fact; there is no doubt about the growth and inevitability of the world-wide Socialist revolution. Surely it is not through delegations and conferences at Stockholm with the foreign Plekhanovs or Tseretellis that one can seriously assist the development of this world-wide revolution, but only by the progression of the Russian revolution.

The bourgeoisie talks of the inevitable defeat of the Commune, that is of the proletariat, if they seize power.

These are lying assertions, dictated by class interest.

Once power is captured, the Russian proletariat has every chance to retain it and to lead Russia right on to the triumph of the revolution in the West.

For, in the first place, we have learnt a lot since the Commune, and we shall not repeat its fatal mistakes. We shall not leave the State Bank in the hands of the bourgeoisie, we shall not limit ourselves to a defence against our Versaillais (the Kornilovians), but we shall take the offensive and crush them.

In the second place, the victorious proletariat will give Russia peace. After all the horrors of that methodical extermination of the peoples which has lasted already more than three years, no force will be in a condition to overthrow the government of peace, the government of honest, sincere, just peace.

In the third place, the victorious proletariat will immediately present the land to the peasants without indemnity. And, tired and exasperated by the way our Government has flirted with the large landowners, especially the coalition Government, Kerensky's Government, the vast majority of the peasant class will support the victorious proletariat whole-heartedly and heroically in every way.

You speak incessantly of the "heroic effort" of the people, my Menshevik and Social Revolutionary gentlemen. I have recently seen for the nth time this phrase in the editorial of your Izvestia of the Central Executive Committee. For you it is nothing but a catch-phrase. But the workers and peasants read it and think about it, and all their thinking, fortified by the experience of Kornilov's adventure, by the "experiences" of the Minister Piecheckonov, the Minister Tchernov and so forth—all their thinking, I say, leads them inevitably to this conclusion: this "heroic effort" is nothing else but the confidence of the poor peasants in the workers in the towns, whom they regard as their allies and faithful leaders. This heroic effort is nothing else but the victory of the Russian proletariat over the bourgeoisie in the civil war, for that victory alone will put an end to the agonising hesitations, it alone will resolve the situation and it alone will give peace.

If the union of the town workers with the poor peasants can be realised by the immediate transference of power to the Soviets, so much the better! The Bolsheviks will do everything to assure that opportunity for a peaceful development of the revolution. If not, the Constituent Assembly itself will not bring salvation because the Social Revolutionaries can carry on in its bosom their policy of compromise with the Cadets and with Brechko-Brechkoskaia and Kerensky, who are no better.

If the Kornilov experience has not enlightened the democracy, if it continue to carry on its policy of oscillation and conciliation, we shall say: Nothing is more fatal to the proletarian revolution than these oscillations. Do not seek, gentlemen, to frighten us with the spectre of civil war—it is inevitable unless you decide to break with the Kornilovians and the "Coalition" immediately and definitely. And that war which will terminate in victory over the exploiters, and which will give the land to the peasants and peace to the peoples, will throw open the way for a victorious Socialist proletarian revolution to the whole world.

1. It is probable that the fall of Riga was due to the incapacity or to the connivance of the military staff. The troops fought bravely as the bourgeois journalist Naudeau admits.
2. Name taken by the Cadet party after the March revolution (French translator's note).
3. A soldier who led the Finnish regiment, 180, and the Moscow regiment to surround the Town Hall where the Government were besieged.
4. On May 27–29 the Cadets had 185 seats out of 801. On August 20, 42 out of 200. The Bolsheviks exceeded from 22 per cent. to 33 per cent. of the votes.
5. In May and June the subscription for the printing of the Pravda came to about 200,000 roubles. The same in Moscow for the Social Democrat.
6. Kornilov made his troops believe that there was a Bolshevik revolt in Petrograd. As soon as they were disabused by the Soviet propagandists sent from Petrograd to meet them, they refused to fight. The enterprise was thus settled without a single shot. General Krasnov, who was in command of the cavalry corps that marched on Petrograd, recounts these events in his memoirs.
7. These two generals made unveiled protestations in their speeches at the Conference against the Soviets and soldiers' committees, &c., and were frequently applauded by the whole right wing.
8. A division of Caucasian cavalry, made up of mountaineers, naturally warlike and blindly devoted to their officers—as long as they had not deceived them.
9. This happened more or less in February, 1920, when the representatives of all the Cossacks (from the Don, Kuban, Orenbourg, Amur, &c.) declared themselves on the side of the Soviets.
10. After the July days, amongst others, Trotsky, Kamenev, Lunasharsky, Kollontai, Raskolnikov, &c., were arrested. Pravda was shut down on July 5, afterwards the Pravda des Tranchees of Riga, the Bolshevik paper of Cronstadt, &c. The campaign of calumny, launched by Bourtsev, financed by the Allies, consisted in representing the Bolsheviks as German agents.
11. In the S.R. organisation of Petrograd, for example, the Left had the majority from that time.
12. Particularly in the army.
13. Plekhanov's organ.
14. Liberal-Socialist organ, started in Petrograd towards the end of 1916, and subsidised by high finance.
15. A regulation which has been allowed since the formation of the Petrograd Soviet; one deputy for each company or thousand workers. The Social-Democrats and even the Mensheviks have tried scores of times, but always in vain, to do away with this anomaly.