Collected Works of V. I. Lenin - Vol. 26 - From Marx to Mao

CAN THE BOLSHEVIKS RETAIN STATE POWER?103because even the internationalist Mensheviks (with whomNovaya Zhizn formed a bloc during the last City Councilelections in Petrograd) have on this question shown someproximity to the Bolsheviks. So, in the declaration of theSoviet majority made by Comrade Martov at the DemocraticConference, we read:“The Soviets of Workers’, Soldiers’ and Peasants’ Deputies, setup in the first days of the revolution by a mighty burst of creativeenthusiasm that stems from the people themselves, constitute the newfabric of the revolutionary state that has replaced the outworn statefabric of the old regime....”This is a little too flowery; that is to say, rhetoric herecovers up lack of clear political thinking. The Soviets havenot yet replaced the old “fabric”, and this old “fabric” isnot the state fabric of the old regime, but the state fabricof both tsarism and of the bourgeois republic. But at any rate,Martov here stands head and shoulders above NovayaZhizn.The Soviets are a new state apparatus which, in the firstplace, provides an armed force of workers and peasants;and this force is not divorced from the people, as was theold standing army, but is very closely bound up with thepeople. From the military point of view this force is incomparablymore powerful than previous forces; from the revolutionarypoint of view, it cannot be replaced by anythingelse. Secondly, this apparatus provides a bond withthe people, with the majority of the people, so intimate, soindissoluble, so easily verifiable and renewable, thatnothing even remotely like it existed in the previous stateapparatus. Thirdly, this apparatus, by virtue of the factthat its personnel is elected and subject to recall at thepeople’s will without any bureaucratic formalities, is farmore democratic than any previous apparatus. Fourthly,it provides a close contact with the most varied professions,thereby facilitating the adoption of the most varied and mostradical reforms without red tape. Fifthly, it provides an organisationalform for the vanguard, i.e., for the mostclass-conscious, most energetic and most progressive sectionof the oppressed classes, the workers and peasants, and soconstitutes an apparatus by means of which the vanguard of