Vladimir Lenin
Mad Capitalists or Weak-Minded Social-Democrats?
Rabochaya Gazeta writes today:
"We have been strongly opposed to the civil warmongering by Lenin's followers.
But now the signal for civil war no longer comes from Lenin's followers but from
the Provisional Government, which has published a statement that makes a mockery
of democratic aspirations. This is truly a mad step, and immediate determined
action by the Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies is needed if we are to
avert the dire consequences of this madness."
What can be more absurd and ridiculous than this fairy- tale about "civil
warmongering" on our part, when we have declared in the clearest, most formal
and unequivocal manner that all our work should be focused on patiently
explaining the proletarian policy as opposed to the petty-bourgeois defencist
craze with its faith in the capitalists?
Does Rabochaya Gazeta really fail to understand that these outcries about civil
war are now raised by the capitalists in order to break the will of the majority
of the people?
Is there a grain of Marxism in proclaiming the conduct of the capitalists
"madness", when, caught in the vise of Russian and Anglo-French imperialist
capital, they cannot act otherwise?
Mr. Plekhanov, in today's Yedinstvo, is more forthright in expressing the policy
of the entire petty-bourgeois-defencist bloc when he calls upon the Soviet to
come "to an agreement" with the Provisional Government. An amusing appeal, this.
It is like serving mustard after dinner.
Don't we all know that an agreement was concluded long ago? That it has been in
existence since the beginning of the revolution? The whole thing is that the
present crisis is due to the fact that the agreement has proved to be a scrap of
paper, an empty promise! To answer the "accursed questions" with which the
failure of the existing agreement has now squarely confronted the people by
calling for an "agree ment" in general, without saying a word about its terms or
about real guarantees for it, to answer by sighing and crying "0 ye Madmen!"-is
this not a tragicomedy of the petty- bourgeois Louis Hianes? (Louis Blanc was a
labour leader only in words, in reality he was the tail of the bourgeoisie.)
"Immediate determined action is needed," Rabochaga Gazeta importantly declares.
'What kind of "action", my dear fellow-citizens? You cannot say what, you do not
know what yourselves. All you do know is to declaim, because, like Louis Blanc
[See also: Blancism], you have forgotten about the class struggle, you have
side-tracked the class struggle under cover of petty-bourgeois phraseology and
declamation.
Written: April 21, 1917
First Published: Pravda No. 38, April 22 (May 5), 1917
Transcription/Markup: Brian Basgen and David Walters
Online Version: Lenin Internet Archive (marxists.org) 1999
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