The Stalin school of falsification - Marxists Internet Archive

Stalin School of Falsification - Chapter 14
from the side of England and France. Their semi- official organs have launched a veritable offensive
against the revolution. The offensive against dual power has begun, and in proportion as the revolution
develops the Provisional Gov ernment must (it must objectively) become transformed into the bulwark of
counter-revolution, not a Czarist counter-revo lution-we face no danger from that side-but an imperialist
counter-revolution. To prepare for repelling it-that is our task. In view of this, the question becomes more
complex. The question of support-let us even allow that support is not permissible. In so far as the
Provisional Government fortifies the steps of the revolution, to that extent we must support it; but in so
far as it is counter-revolutionary, sup port to the Provisional Government is not permissible. Many
comrades who have arrived from the provinces ask whether we shouldn't immediately pose the question
of the seizure of power. But it is untimely to pose the question now. The Pro visional Government is not
so weak. The strength of the Provisional Government lies in the support of Anglo-French capitalism, in
the inertia of the provinces and in the [wide-spread] sympathy for it. It is being showered with telegrams
[of congratulation]. We must bide our time until the Provisional Government exhausts itself, until the
time when in the process of fulfilling the revolutionary program it discredits itself. The only organ
capable of taking power is the Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies on an All- Russian scale. We,
on the other band, must bide our time until the moment when the events will reveal the hollowness of the
Provisional Government; we must be prepared, when the time comes, when the events have matured, and
until then we must organize the center-the Soviet of Workers' and Sol diers' Deputies-and strengthen it.
Therein lies the task of the moment.
***
Comrade Stalin reads the resolution on the Provisional Government adopted by the Bureau of the Central
Committee, but states that he is not in complete agreement with it, but is rather in accord with the
resolution of the Krasnoyarsk Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies.
THE RESOLUTION OF THE BUREAU OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE
"The Provisional Government, brought forward by the moderate bourgeois classes of our society and
linked through all its interests with Angl-French capitalism, is incapable of solving the tasks posed by the
revolution. Its resistance to the further development and deepening of the revolution is being para!yzed
only by the growth of the revolutionary forces and their own organizations. The focal point for their
consolidation must be the Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies in the cities and the Soviet of
Peasants' and Farmhands' Deputies in the country, which, as the embryos of revolutionary power, are
prepared, in the course of the further development and at a given moment in the develop ment of the
revolution, to realize in full the power of the proletariat in an alliance with the revolutionary democracy,
so that the demands of the insurrectionary people may be wholly put into effect. Even at the present
moment these Soviets shou!d exercize the most decisive control over al! the actions of the Provisional
Government and its agents both in the center and in the provinces; and they should themselves assume a
number of functions cf state and of an economic character arising from the complete disorganization of
eco nomic life in the country and from the urgent necessity to apply the most resolute measures for
safeguarding the famine -- stricken population whom war has ruined. Therefore the task of the day is:
The consolidation of all forces around the Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies as the embryo of
revolutionary power, alone capable both of repelling the attempts on the part of the Czarist and bourgeois
counter-revolution as well as of realizing the demands of revolutionary democracy and of explaining the
true class nature of the present government.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1937-st2/sf14.htm (6 of 25) [06/06/2002 15:07:27]