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

529123The letters on pp. 19- 21 and 22- 27 were discussed by the CentralCommittee on September 15 (28), 1917, which decided to calla meeting shortly to discuss tactics. The following question wasput to the vote: preservation of only one copy of Lenin’s letters.The vote was 6 in favour, four against and six abstentions.Kamenev, an opponent of the Party’s course towards a socialistrevolution, motioned a resolution aimed against Lenin’s proposalsto organise an armed uprising. Kamenev’s motion was defeated.p. 19May 6: announcement of the first coalition Provisional Government;August 31: the Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputiespassed a Bolshevik resolution calling for the establishment ofa Soviet Government; September 12: the date set by the CentralExecutive Committee of the Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’Deputies and the Executive Committee of the All- Russia Sovietof Peasants’ Deputies, both dominated by Socialist- Revolutionariesand Mensheviks, for the convocation of a Democratic Conference.The Democratic Conference took place in Petrograd, September14- 22 (September 27- October 5), 1917. For details seepp. 43-51 and 52-58 of this volume. p. 19Socialist- Revolutionaries—a petty- bourgeois party founded in late1901 and early 1902 through the merger of various Narodnikgroups and circles (League of Socialist- Revolutionaries, Socialist-Revolutionary Party, etc.) which professed a hotch- potch ofNarodnik and revisionist ideas. During the First World War,most of its members held social-chauvinist views.After the bourgeois- democratic revolution in February 1917,the Socialist- Revolutionaries, together with the Mensheviks, werethe mainstay of the bourgeois- landowner Provisional Government,and the Party’s leaders (Avksentyev, Kerensky and Chernov) werein the Cabinet. The Party refused to support the peasant demandfor the abolition of landed estates and favoured the preservation oflarge holdings; its ministers in the Provisional Government sent