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

134V. I. LENINrequires: (1) growth of the revolution on a country-widescale; (2) the complete moral and political bankruptcy ofthe old government, for example, the “coalition” government;(3) extreme vacillation in the camp of all middlegroups, i.e., those who do not fully support the government,although they did fully support it yesterday.Why did Novaya Zhizn, when speaking of the “lessons”of July 3-5, fail even to note this very important lesson?Because a political question was not dealt with by politiciansbut by a circle of intellectuals who had been terrifiedby the bourgeoisie.To proceed. Thirdly, the facts show that it was afterJuly 3-4 that the rot set in among the Socialist-Revolutionariesand Mensheviks, precisely because the Tseretelis hadexposed themselves by their July policy, precisely becausethe mass of the people realised that the Bolsheviks weretheir own front-rank fighters and that the “social-bloc”advocates were traitors. Even before the Kornilov revoltthis rot was fully revealed by the Petrograd elections onAugust 20, which resulted in a victory for the Bolsheviksand the rout of the “social-bloc” advocates (Dyelo Narodarecently tried to refute this by concealing the returns forall parties, but this was both self-deception and deceptionof its readers; according to the figures published in Dyenof August 24, covering only the city, the Cadets’ share ofthe total vote increased from 22 to 23 per cent, but theabsolute number of votes cast for the Cadets dropped 40 percent; the Bolsheviks’ share of the total vote increased from20 to 33 per cent, while the absolute number of votes castfor the Bolsheviks dropped only 10 per cent; the share of all“middle groups” dropped from 58 to 44 per cent, but theabsolute number of votes cast for them dropped 60 percent!).That a rot had set in among the Socialist-Revolutionariesand Mensheviks after the July days and before the Kornilovdays is also proved by the growth of the Left wings inboth parties, reaching almost 40 per cent: this is “retribution”for the persecution of the Bolsheviks by the Kerenskys.In spite of the “loss” of a few hundred members, theproletarian party gained enormously from July 3-4, for itwas precisely during those stern days that the people real-