Advice from One Absent
I WRITE these lines on October 8, without any great hope that they will have reached comrades at Petrograd by the 9th. It is possible that they will arrive too late for the Congress of Soviets of the North, which is fixed for October 10. All the same I shall try to give my advice as a man removed from the main current of events, counting on the fact that the probable action of the workers and soldiers of Petrograd and neighbourhood, which is soon to take place, has not yet occurred.
All power must pass to the soviets—this is clear. It must similarly be indisputable for all Bolsheviks that the revolutionary proletarian power (or the Bolshevik power, which is now absolutely the same thing) is assured of the most ardent sympathy and the unreserved support of the whole of the workers and exploited masses throughout the world, particularly in the belligerent countries, and above all amongst the Russian peasant class. These truths are too well known and have been demonstrated for too long to make it worth while to dwell on them.
On the other hand, it is necessary to dwell on a fact that more than one comrade probably does not take completely into account—viz., that the seizure of power by the soviets now of necessity implies armed insurrection. This, it seems, should have been evident; but all have not yet grasped it thoroughly. To renounce armed insurrection now would mean giving up the chief watchword of Bolshevism ("All Power to the Soviets"), and also all revolutionary working-class internationalism.
But armed insurrection is a special form of political struggle. It is subject to special rules which must be deeply reflected upon. Karl Marx expressed this thought with particular clearness when he said that "armed insurrection, like warfare, is an art."
The principal rules of this art, as laid down by Marx, are as follows:—
(1) Never play with insurrection; and, when it is once begun, understand clearly that it must be carried through to the end.
(2) Collect, at the decisive place and time, forces which are greatly superior to those of the enemy; otherwise the latter, better prepared and better organised, will annihilate the insurgents.
111
