Page:The Red Dawn (George).pdf/17

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RED DAWN
15

accomplished, let us settle down, allow the bourgeoisie to organize the machinery of government, putting their men in the Cabinet, etc., and begin to rule the state; because, on the existing economic base, the power to rule belongs to them; we socialists can now send our representatives to parliament—let us begin a system of political campaigning as the "Opposition Party."

Both factions said: "We will not share responsibility with the bourgeoise as Cabinet Ministers or Managerial Officers of the State." But—the Mensheviki not wishing to seize full power to the exclusion of the Bourgeois elements—were compelled to share power with the bourgeoisie and compromise with it against the proletariat and its spokesmen the Bolsheviki and Maximalists. Not going forward, they went backward. Especially is this illustrated by makeup and activity of the Kerensky Ministerium. The Bolsheviki, on the contrary, intended from the start to exclude the Bourgeoisie and seize full power, and, if appearances do not deceive "they got the goods."

But the fact that, thru the Bolsheviki, Russia's proletariat has come to undivided control of power is not so singularly gigantic as how they rose to power and to what end it has been wielded—in what direction used.

The Revolution and General Strike of 1905 was controlled by an extra parliamentary body, the Federation of Federations (Soyous Soyousof), which furnished the idea to the proletariat of 1917.

Even before the March Revolution broke upon a startled world, the workers in the great cities and vast armies had developed a General Organization—ONE BIG UNION—with a common representative body of their own, The Council of Workers' and Sol-