Page:Vladimir Ilyich Lenin - Lessons of the Revolution (1918).djvu/38

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One of the Radical Questions of the Revolution.

The most serious question of every revolution is plainly that of the governing power. Everything depends upon the question of what class holds that power. Now if the organ of the leading government party in Russia (Essers), the Dielo Naroda («Cause of the People»), recently complained (№ 147) that in the struggle for power the questions of bread and the Constituent Assembly are forgotten, the Essers may be answered: «Blame yourselves. It is the hesitancy, the irresolution of your party which is to blame for the continuous performance pf Ministerial leap-frog—for the repeated postponement of the Constituent Assembly, for the undermining by, the capitalists of the measures undertaken to monopolize bread, and thus supply the country with it.

The question of the governing power can be neither obviated nor dismissed, for it is just this fundamental question which determines the development of the revolution, both in its external and internal policy. It certainly cannot be disputed that our revolution has lost in vain halt a year squabbling over the establishment of power, but this is