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

66V. I. LENINSTRUGGLE AGAINST THE COUNTER-REVOLUTIONOF THE LANDOWNERS AND CAPITALISTS6. The Kornilov and Kaledin revolt was supported bythe entire class of the landowners and capitalists, with theparty of the Cadets (“people’s freedom” party) at theirhead. This has already been fully proved by the facts publishedin Izvestia of the Central Executive Committee.However, nothing has been done either to suppress thiscounter-revolution completely or even to investigate it,and nothing serious can be done without the transfer ofpower to the Soviets. No commission can conduct a fullinvestigation, or arrest the guilty, etc., unless it holdsstate power. Only a Soviet government can do this, andmust do it. Only a Soviet government can make Russiasecure against the otherwise inevitable repetition of “Kornilov”attempts by arresting the Kornilovite generalsand the ringleaders of the bourgeois counter-revolution(Guchkov, Milyukov, Ryabushinsky, Maklakov and Co.),by disbanding the counter-revolutionary associations (theState Duma, the officers’ unions, etc.), by placing theirmembers under the surveillance of the local Soviets andby disbanding counter-revolutionary armed units.This government alone can set up a commission to makea full and public investigation of the Kornilov case andall the other cases, even those started by the bourgeoisie;and the party of the Bolsheviks, in its turn, would appealto the workers to give full co-operation and to submit onlyto such a commission.Only a Soviet government could successfully combatsuch a flagrant injustice as the capitalists’ seizure of thelargest printing presses and most of the papers with theaid of millions squeezed out of the people. It is necessaryto suppress the bourgeois counter-revolutionary papers(Rech, Russkoye Slovo, 39 etc.), to confiscate their printingpresses, to declare private advertisements in the papersa state monopoly, to transfer them to the paper publishedby the Soviets, the paper that tells the peasants the truth.Only in this way can and must the bourgeoisie be deprivedof its powerful weapon of lying and slandering, deceivingthe people with impunity, misleading the peasantry, andpreparing a counter-revolution.