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

CAN THE BOLSHEVIKS RETAIN STATE POWER?131AFTERWORDThe foregoing lines were already written when the leadingarticle in Novaya Zhizn of October 1 produced anothergem of stupidity which is all the more dangerous because itprofesses sympathy with the Bolsheviks and offers mostsagacious philistine admonitions “not to allow yourselves tobe provoked” (not to allow ourselves to be caught in thetrap of screams about provocation, the object of which isto frighten the Bolsheviks and cause them to refrain fromtaking power).Here is this gem:“The lessons of movements, like that of July 3- 5, on the one hand,and of the Kornilov days, on the other, have shown quite clearlythat the democracy, having at its command organs that exercise immenseinfluence among the population, is invincible when it takesa defensive position in civil war, and that it suffers defeat, loses allthe middle vacillating groups when it takes the initiative and launchesan offensive.”If the Bolsheviks were to yield in any form and in theslightest degree to the philistine stupidity of this argumentthey would ruin their Party and the revolution.For the author of this argument, taking it upon himselfto talk about civil war (just the subject for a lady withmany good points), has distorted the lessons of history onthis question in an incredibly comical manner.This is how these lessons, the lessons of history on thisquestion, were treated by the representative and founderof proletarian revolutionary tactics, Karl Marx:“Now, insurrection is an art quite as much as war or anyother art, and is subject to certain procedural rules which,