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

44V. I. LENINhypocrisy to advance them seriously. First of all, the CentralExecutive Committee was elected by the Soviets, andits refusal to deliver a report and relinquish office to theSoviets, is a Bonapartist fraud. Secondly, the Sovietsrepresent revolutionary democracy insofar as they are joinedby those who wish to fight in a revolutionary way. Theirdoors are not closed to members of the co-operatives andcity dwellers. Those same Socialist-Revolutionaries andMensheviks ran the Soviets.Those who remained only in the co-operatives, whoconfined themselves only to municipal (city and Zemstvo)work, voluntarily separated themselves from the ranks ofrevolutionary democracy, thereby attaching themselves toa democracy that was either reactionary or neutral. Everybodyknows that co-operative and municipal work is donenot only by revolutionaries, but also by reactionaries;everybody knows that people are elected to co-operativesand municipalities primarily for work that is not of generalpolitical scope and importance.The aim of the Lieberdans, Tsereteli, Chernov and Co.when they rigged the Conference was to bring up reservessecretly from among the adherents of Yedinstvo and “nonpartisan”reactionaries. That was the fraud they perpetrated.That was their Bonapartism, which allies them withthe Bonapartist Kerensky. They robbed democracy whilehypocritically keeping up democratic appearances—thisis the essence of the matter.Nicholas II stole, figuratively, large sums from democracy.He convened representative institutions but gavethe landowners a hundredfold greater representation thanthe peasants. The Lieberdans, Tseretelis, and Chernovssteal petty sums from democracy; they convoke a DemocraticConference where both workers and peasants pointwith full justice to the curtailment of their representation,to lack of proportionality, to discrimination in favour ofmembers of the co-operatives and municipal councilsclosest to the bourgeoisie (and reactionary democracy).The Lieberdans, Tseretelis and Chernovs have parted wayswith the masses of poor workers and peasants. They savedthemselves by the fraud that keeps their Kerenskygoing.