In Defence of October

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How to Fight Counter-Revolution

"If you want to do more than merely complain about the counter-revolution, if you want to fight it, you must join us in saying: Down with the ten capitalist Ministers!"

Only a few days ago, Minister Tsereteli declared in his “historic” speech that there was no counter-revolution. Today the ministerial Rabochaya Gazeta strikes an entirely different note in the article “Dangerous Symptoms”.

“There are clear indications that a counter-revolution is afoot .”

Thanks for finally admitting the fact at least.

But the ministerial organ goes on to say: "We do not know where it [the counter-revolution] has its headquarters, nor to what extent it is organised.”

Is that so? You don’t know where the counter-revolution has its headquarters! Permit us to help you out of your ignorance. The counter-revolution which is afoot has its head quarters in the Provisional Government, in the very same coalition Ministry in which you gentlemen have six of your colleagues! The counter-revolution has its headquarters within the walls of the conference hall of the Fourth Duma, where Milyukov, Rodzyanko, Shulgin, Guchkov, A. Shingaryov, Manuilov and Co. rule, for the Cadets in the coalition Ministry are the right hand of Milyukov and Co. The staff of the counter-revolution is recruited from among the reactionary generals. It includes certain retired high-ranking officers.

If you want to do more than merely complain about the counter-revolution, if you want to fight it, you must join us in saying: Down with the ten capitalist Ministers!

Rabochaya Gazeta later points out that the counter-revolution’s chief instrument is the press, which is fomenting anti-semitism, inciting the masses against the Jews. That is correct. But what is the conclusion? You are a ministerial party, gentlemen, aren’t you? What have you done to curb the infamous counter-revolutionary press? Do you think you can, while calling yourselves “revolutionary democrats”, refuse to take revolutionary measures against the unbridled, blatantly counter-revolutionary press? And then, why don’t you start a government organ that would publish advertisements and deprive the infamous counter-revolutionary press of its chief source of income and hence of its main chance to deceive the people? What evidence is there, indeed, that thou sands upon thousands of people must now be kept away from productive labour in order to publish Novoye Vremya, Malenkaya Gazeta,[1] Russkaya Volya[2] and other reptiles?

What have you done to fight the counter-revolutionary press which is doing all it can to bait our Party? Nothing! You yourselves have supplied material for that baiting. You have been busy fighting the danger on the Left.

You are reaping what you have sown, gentlemen.

So it was, so it will be—as long as you continue to vacillate between the bourgeoisie and the revolutionary proletariat.

Notes

[1] Malenkaya Gazeta (The Little Newspaper)—a yellow reactionary newspaper published in Petrograd from September 1914 to July 1917 by A. A. Suvorin, Jr. From May 1917 on, it appeared under the subtitle of “An Extra-Party Socialist Newspaper”, speculating on the people’s sympathy for socialism. After the February bourgeois-democratic revolution of 1917 it opposed the Bolshevik Party and conducted a vicious slander campaign against Lenin.

[2] Russkaya Volya (Russia’s Will)—a bourgeois daily newspaper founded by A. D. Protopopov, the tsarist Minister of the Interior, and financed by the big banks. It was published in Petrograd from December 1916. After the February revolution it carried on a smear campaign against the Bolsheviks. It was closed down by the Military Revolutionary Committee on October 25 (November 7), 1917.

 

Source: Marxist Internet Archive.

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