THE COUNCIL OF WORKERS AND SOLDIERS.

Alongside of the Guchkov-Milyukov government, representing the imperialistic bougeoisie, there is developing a new, unofficial, as yet undeveloped and comparatively weak government, representing the interests of the proletariat and of the entire poorer elements of the city and country population. This is the government of the Soviets, the Councils of Workers and Soldiers' Delegates.

I

The actual facts in the political situation, on which we must base our Marxist tactics, are clear:

The monarchy of the Czar has been overthrown, but not as yet necessarily for good.

The Cadet, bourgeois government, wishing to carry on the imperialistic war "to the end," and in reality being the agent of the financial house of England, France & Co., was compelled to promise to the people the fullest measure of liberty and rights, compatible, however, with the preservation of power by this government and the carrying on of the war.

The Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Delegates constitutes the form of a government by the workers, and represents the interests of all the poorest of our people, of nine-tenths of the population, aiming to secure peace, bread and liberty.

The conflict between these forces defines the situation as it is at present, the transition stage from the first phase of the revolution to the second.

In order that there may be a real struggle against Czarism and its restoration, in order that the newly-won freedom may really be secured, and not exist simply in words and in the promises of rhetorical "liberals," it is necessary not that the workers should support the government, but that the government should support the workers! The only guarantee of liberty and of a complete abolition of Czarism is the arming of the proletariat, the strengthening, broadening, and development of the role and power of the Soviets of Work

ers and Soldiers. Accomplish this, and the fiberty of Russia will be invincible, the monarchy incapable of restoration, and the republic assured.

Any other course will mean a deception of the people. Promises are cheap; promises are worth nothing. It is on promises that all the bourgeois politicians in all the bourgeois countries have been "feeding" the people and "fooling" the workers.

"Our revolution is a bourgeois revolution, therefore the workers should support the bourgeoisie,"-this is the cry of the worthless politicians in the camp of the "Socialist" compromiser and opportunist.

"Our revolution is a bourgeois revolution," say we Marxists, "therefore the Socialist workers should open the eyes of the people to the deceptive practices of the bourgeois politician, should teach the people not to believe in words, but to depend wholly on their own strength, on their own organization, on their own unity, and on their own military equipment."

The government of the Cadets, of the Guchkovs and Milyukovs, cannot give peace because it is the government for war; it is the government that wishes and prepares for a continuation of the imperialistic slaughter, the government of conquest, since it has not even hinted at renouncing the Czarist policy of conquest in Armenia, Galicia, Turkey, of capturing Constantinople, of reconquering Poland, Courland, etc. This government is bound hand and foot to Anglo-French imperialistic capital. Russian capital is merely one of the sub-divisions of the "concern" known under the firm name of "England, France & Co.," with its annual turnover of hundreds of milliards of roubles.

This government cannot give bread, since it is a bourgeois government. At best it may give the people, as the government of Germany has already done, "a magnificently organized hunger." But the people will not put up with hunger. The people will learn, and they will learn it very soon, that the bread exists and can be had, but by no other means than refusing to bend the knee before the sacred rights of capital and of private ownership in land.

And this government cannot give liberty, since it is a government of junkers and capitalists, who are afraid of the people and people's oppressors.

But this is a transition period. We are emerging from the first period of the Revolution into the second, from the revolt against Czarism into the revolt against the bourgeoisie, against the imperialistic war. In this transition the "order of the day" is: "Workers,

you have displayed marvels of proletarian heroism in the civil war against Czarism; you must now display marvels of proletarian organization and international action in order to secure your victory in the second stage of the revolution."

The specific task of the present period is to organize the proletariat, not according to the old standards of organization with which the betrayers of Socialism, the pro-war social-patriots and opportunists in all countries, are satisfied, but into a revolutionary organization. This organization, in the first place, must be general; and, in the second place, it must combine the functions of the army and the state. The Council of Workers' and Soldiers' Delegates is developing precisely this revolutionary organization.

II

If we scrutinize the Council of Workers and Soldiers we find that it represents three groups:

The first group is the one nearest to the social-patriots, the betrayers of Socialism. They trust Kerensky, the master of hollow words, a tool in the hands of Guchkov and Milyukov. In harmony with the social-patriots of the western European countries, Kerensky mouths plenty of fine phrases. Actually he reconciles the workers with the continuation of the imperialistic war of conquest. Through Kerensky, the imperialistic bourgeoisie addresses the workers as follows: "We give you the republic, the eight-hour day (which actually exists in Petrograd), we promise you this and that liberty, but only because we want you to help us take away the booty from German Imperialism and turn it over to English and French Imperialism."

The second group is represented by our party of the "Central Committee of the S. D. P." in Russia, the Bolsheviki. On March 18th the Central Committee issued a Manifesto which contains the following demands: Democratic republic; eight hour day; confiscation of the landed estates of the nobility in favor of the peasants; confiscation of stocks of grain; immediate preparations for peace negotiations, not through the government of Guchkov and Milyukov, but through the Council of Workers and Soldiers. This Council, according to the Manifesto, constitutes the actual revolutionary government. Peace negotiations should not be carried on by and with bourgeois governments, but with the proletariat in each of the warring countries. The Manifesto appeals to all workers and peasants to send delegates to the Council.

These are the only possible Socialist and revolutionary tactics to pursue.

The third group is represented by Cheidse and his friends, the Mensheviki generally. They are drifting to and fro. In refusing to join the second Provisional Government (the government of Guchkov-Milyukov) if the latter declared the war an imperialistic war, Cheidse was in harmony with the revolutionary proletarian policy. But the fact that Cheidse participated in the first Provisional Government (the Duma Committee), his demand that a sufficient number of representatives of the Russian workers participate in this government (which would mean that Internationalists would assume responsibility for a government waging an imperialistic war), and his further demand, together with Skobeleff, that this imperialistic government initiate peace negotiations (instead of showing the workers that the bourgeoisie is tied hand and foot to the interests of finance, capital and incapable of renouncing Imperialism), then Cheidse and his friends pursue the worst bourgeois policy against the interests of the Revolution.

The differences between the Bolsheviki and the Social-Revolutionists, as well as the Mensheviki, manifest themselves in three important issues,-issues that the Council of Workers and Soldiers must solve in the right way before it can carry on its revolutionary task. These issues are: the land problem, the organization of the state, and the problem of the war.

All the land must belong to the people. All the land of the large owners must be confiscated by the peasants, without compensation. But the vital tactical difference is whether the peasants should immediately and locally take possession of the land without paying any more rent to the owners, or whether they should wait for the convening of the Constituent Assembly?

Our party is of the opinion that the peasants should take immediate possession of the land. They should do this as much as possible in an organized way, without causing damage to the property, and should use all efforts to increase the production of grain and wheat, as the people suffer immensely from hunger. A temporary division of land for the coming harvest is only possible through the local Councils of Peasants' Delegates. In order that the rich peasants, who are also capitalists of a sort, shall be prevented from injuring and deceiving the day-laborers on the farms and the poorest peasant, it is necessary that these should consult, unite and cooperate apart from the others by forming their own Councils of Farm Laborers' Delegates.

The Council of Workers and Soldiers represents a new republic in the making, a republic other than the bourgeois republic, more in accord with the interest of the people. The revolutionary workers and soldiers of Petrograd dethroned the Czar and cleared the capital of the police. Having begun the Revolution, we must strengthen and complete it through the Council assuming all functions of the state. The police must not be restored. All the power of government, from the smallest villages up to Petrograd, must be vested in the Councils of Workers' and Peasants' Delegates. Neither the police nor officials not responsible to the people and placed over the people,—but the people itself shall govern the country, the people fully armed and united by the Soviets. The Soviet alone shall establish the necessary order, its power alone be obeyed and respected by the workers and peasants. Only by means of a Soviet government will Russia move forward firmly and surely to the liberation of our country and of all humanity from the horrors of this war and from the yoke of Capitalism,

Out of the experience of the Paris Commune of 1871, Marx shows that "the working class cannot simply lay hold of the readymade machinery of the state, and wield it for its own purposes." The proletariat must break down this machinery. And this has been either concealed or denied by the opportunists. But it is the most valuable lesson of the Paris Commune and of the Russian Revolution of 1905. The difference between us and the Anarchists is, that we admit the state is a necessity in our revolution. Our difference with the opportunists and the disciples of Karl Kautsky is, that we claim we do not need the machinery of the bourgeois state as established in the "democratic" bourgeois republics, but the direct power of armed and organized workers. Such was the character of the Commune of 1871 and of the Council of Workers and Soldiers of 1905 and 1917. On this basis we build.1

'Lenin uses Karl Kautsky, the intellectual leader of German Socialism and of the Second International that collapsed during the war, as typifying the attitude of moderate Socialism. Moderate Socialism in action conceives the present state as the starting point of the introdustion of Socialism, through the extension of the industrial functions of the state, which is to be captured by the workers through political action. The Bolsheviki, and revolutionary Socialists generally, maintain that the extension of the industrial functions of the state is not and never can become Socialism, simply strengthening Capitalism; that the proletariat must overthrow the bourgeois state, with its parliamentary regime and territorial representation, and organize the new state of the organized producers functioning as a "dictatorship of the proletariat" in the preliminary stage of the Social Revolution.-L. C. F.