Page:Nikolai Lenin - On the Road to Insurrection (1926).pdf/129

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TO INSURRECTION
121

times, what has been proved by six months of revolution; let us forget that there is not and cannot be any other solution than the dictatorship of the Kornilovians or of the proletariat; let us forget this, deny it all, and wait. Wait for what? Wait for a miracle; wait for the development of events, which happened so uncontrollably and stormily from April 20 to August 29, to take place suddenly (owing to the prolongation of war and increase of famine) at the peaceful, calm, legal sitting of the Constituent Assembly and the carrying out of its legal decisions.

Here we have real "Marxist" tactics! Wait, ye starving, Kerensky has promised to call the Constituent Assembly together!


"… There is nothing in the international situation, considered as a whole, which obliges us to take immediate action; rather we would damage the cause of the socialist revolution in the West, if we get ourselves shot. …"

This argument is really wonderful: Schiedemann and Renaudel themselves would not be able more cleverly to exploit the sympathy of the workers who wish for the success of the international socialist revolution.

Just consider: under the most difficult conditions, with only Liebknecht (and he still in prison), with no papers, no freedom of meeting, no soviets, in spite of the unchangeable hostility of all classes of the population, even including the better-off peasants, to the idea of internationalism, in spite of the superior organisation of the upper, middle and lower class imperialist bourgeoisie, the Germans, that is the international revolutionary Germans, workers disguised as sailors, have been able to organise an insurrection in the Fleet.

And we, who have dozens of papers, freedom of meeting, a majority in the soviets; we, international proletarians, who, compared to our comrades all over the world, are in an exceptionally favourable position, we would refuse to support, by our own insurrection, the German revolutionaries. We would reason like the Schiedemanns and the Renaudels, would say: "It is better not to attempt a rising, for if we get shot, the world will lose reasonable, model internationalists, incomparable in fact!"

Let us show our wisdom. Pass a motion of sympathy for the German insurgents and keep down insurrection in Russia. This