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patriots, the local Socialist Revolutionaries and Mensheviks (of whom there are many in every country) recognise in the Russian Workers' Revolution and in the Soviet Government facts that concern them intimately. Why? Because they understand that the government of the Soviets means the government of the workers themselves. It would be quite different if the bourgeoisie, aided by the Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries, had overthrown the Soviet Government, convened the Constituent Assembly, and by its means had organised the government of the bourgeoisie, approximately on the same plan as that which existed before the October coup d'etat. In that case the working class would have lost its country, its fatherland, for it would have lost its power. Then the banks would inevitably have been returned to the bankers, the factories to the manufacturers, and the land to the landowners. The fatherland of profits would have revived, and the workers would not have been interested in the least in defending such a fatherland. On the other hand the West European workers would also have ceased to regard bourgeoisie Russia as the bright beacon showing them their way in the difficult struggle. The development of international revolution would have been retarded. On the contrary, the organisation of the armed forces of the workers and peasants, the organisation of resistance against international robbers who are fighting against Soviet Russia as its class enemies, as owners and capitalists, in a word, as a band of executioners of the Workers' Revolution, the organisation of the Red Army—these are the factors combining to strengthen the revolutionary movement in all European countries.
The better we are organised, the better we arm the battalions of workers and peasants, the stronger will be the proletarian dictatorship in Russia, and the quicker will the cause of international revolution advance.
The Revolution is inevitable, however its progress is hindered by German, Austrian, French and English Mensheviks. The Russian working masses have broken with the compromisers. The workers of Western Europe will also break with them. (They are, as a matter of fact, doing so already.) The maxim of overthrowing the bourgeois fatherlands, of shattering the plundering Governments, and of establishing workers' dictatorships, is steadily gaining ground. Sooner or later we shall have an International Republic of Soviets.
The International Republic of Soviets will free hundreds
