Collected Works of V. I. Lenin - Vol. 16 - From Marx to Mao

182V. I. LENINthat the counter-revolution is still holding fast to the standpointof civil war, the standpoint that the suppression ofthe popular indignation by military means is an immediateand urgent need. Just consider the following phrases ofStolypin’s:“History ... teaches that an army falls into disorder whenit ceases to be united in submission to a single sacred will.Insert into this principle the poison of doubt, instil in thearmy even only fragments of the idea that its organisationdepends on collective will and its power will no longerrest on an immutable force—supreme power.” And inanother passage: “I know, many wanted ... to excite disputesruinous to our army, concerning prerogatives” (namely, theprerogatives of the Duma, the prerogatives of “collectivewill”).Just as murderers are haunted by the ghosts of theirvictims, so do the heroes of the counter-revolution recollectthe “ruinous” influence of “collective will” on the army.Stolypin, as a true servant of the Black Hundreds, sees inevery Octobrist a “Young Turk” working for the “disorganisationof the army” by making it subordinate to collectivewill, by permitting “fragments of the idea” about suchsubordination!The executioners and assassins of the June 3 monarchymust be suffering from hallucinations, they must have goneclean out of their minds if they take the Octobrists forYoung Turks. But these delirious fancies, these extravaganciesof the mind are a political malady engendered by afeeling of the insecurity of their position and by acutenervousness about the army. If these gentry, the Stolypins,Romanovs and Co. were able to view with the slightest degreeof composure the question of the relation of “collectivewill” to the army they would see at once that if the tsar hadtacitly approved the decisions of the Duma and the Councilof State on the naval estimates this would have been tentimes less noticeable to the army than Duma debates on thequestion of the prerogatives of the Duma, the question of thepossible “disorganisation of the army”. But it is characteristicof our counter-revolution that it gives itself away byits fears. It is no more able to consider the question of thedisorganisation of the army calmly than a murderer can