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

LETTER TO COMRADES201prevent two admirals from disappearing before the captureof Esel!That is a fact and facts are stubborn things. The factsprove that admirals are capable of treachery no less thanKornilov. It is an undisputed fact that Field Headquartershas not been reformed, and that the commanding staff isKornilovite in composition.If the Kornilovites (with Kerensky at their head, for heis also a Kornilovite) want to surrender Petrograd, they cando it in two or even in three ways.First, they can, through an act of treachery on the partof the Kornilovite officers, open the northern land front.Second, they can “agree” on freedom of action for theentire German navy, which is stronger than we are; they canagree both with the German and the British imperialists.Moreover, the admirals who have disappeared may havedelivered the plans to the Germans as well.Third, they can, by means of lockouts, and by sabotagingthe delivery of food, bring our troops to complete desperationand impotence.Not a single one of these three ways can be denied. Thefacts have proved that the bourgeois-Cossack party of Russiahas already knocked at all three doors and has tried toforce open each of them.What follows? It follows that we have no right to waituntil the bourgeoisie strangle the revolution.Experience has proved that Rodzyanko’s wishes are notrifle. Rodzyanko is a man of affairs. Rodzyanko is backedby capital. This is beyond dispute. Capital is tremendousstrength as long as the proletariat do not have power. Fordecades, Rodzyanko has faithfully and truly carried outthe policies of capital.What follows? It follows that to vacillate on the questionof an uprising as the only means to save the revolutionmeans to sink into that cowardly credulity in the bourgeoisiewhich is half-Lieberdan, Socialist-Revolutionary-Menshevikand half “peasant-like” unquestioning credulity,against which the Bolsheviks have been battling most of all.Either fold your idle arms on your empty chest, waitand swear “faith” in the Constituent Assembly until Rodzyankoand Co. have surrendered Petrograd and strangled the