In Defence of October

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Demonstration Slogans

Demonstration slogans suggested by Lenin.

To the demonstration slogans published on 28.XI., I advise adding:

Shame to the Right S.R.s and Chernovites{2} who have broken away from the peasant congress!

Long live the Second All-Russia Congress of Peasant Deputies, which has sided with the Soviet power!

The working people demand that the Constituent Assembly recognise Soviet power and the Soviet Government!

Long live the nationalisation of the banks!

Down with the saboteurs and striking officials! Boycott them, use revolutionary terrorism against them!

Lenin

Notes

{1} Lenin’s notes “Demonstration Slogans” are an amendment to the appeal of the Petrograd Soviet “To the Workers and Soldiers of Petrograd” which was published on November 28 (December 11), 1917, in Pravda and Izvestia, The Cadets had arranged a demonstration for that day with the intention of forcing the opening of the Constituent Assembly and carrying out a counter-revolutionary coup.

The attempt of the counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie, under the leadership of the Cadets, to seize power was frustrated by the measures taken by the Council of People’s Commissars and the Petrograd Soviet.

{2} Chernov, V. M. (1876-1952)—one of the leaders of the S.R. Party. In 1917 lie was Minister of Agriculture in the bourgeois Provisional Government. After the October Revolution he was one of the organisers of anti-Soviet revolts.

 

Source: Marxist Internet Archive.

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Strikes and protests erupt on women's day in Petrograd and develop into a mass movement involving hundreds of thousands of workers; within 5 days the workers win over the army and bring down the hated and seemingly omnipotent Tsarist Monarchy.
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