Lenin CW-Vol. 23.pdf - From Marx to Mao

LETTERS FROM AFAR327ed in conformity with laws passed by Nicholas the Bloodyand Stolypin the Hangman!! Secondly, although callingit a “people’s militia” in order to throw dust in the eyes ofthe “people”, it does not call upon the entire people to jointhis militia, and does not compel the employers and capitaliststo pay workers and office employees their ordinarywages for the hours and days they spend in the public service,i.e., in the militia.That’s their trick. That is how the landlord and capitalistgovernment of the Guchkovs and Milyukovs manages tohave a “people’s militia” on paper, while in reality, it isrestoring, gradually and on the quiet, the bourgeois, antipeople’smilitia. At first it is to consist of “eight thousandstudents and professors” (as foreign newspapers describe thepresent St. Petersburg militia)—an obvious plaything!—and will gradually be built up of the old and new policeforce.Prevent restoration of the police force! Do not let thelocal government bodies slip out of your hands! Set up amilitia that will really embrace the entire people, be reallyuniversal, and be led by the proletariat!—such is the taskof the day, such is the slogan of the moment which equallyconforms with the properly understood interests of furtheringthe class struggle, furthering the revolutionary movement,and the democratic instinct of every worker, of everypeasant, of every exploited toiler who cannot help hatingthe policemen, the rural police patrols, the village constables,the command of landlords and capitalists over armedmen with power over the people.What kind of police force do they need, the Guchkovs andMilyukovs, the landlords and capitalists? The same kind asexisted under the tsarist monarchy. After the briefest revolutionaryperiods all the bourgeois and bourgeois-democraticrepublics in the world set up or restored precisely sucha police force, a special organisation of armed men subordinateto the bourgeoisie in one way or another, separate fromand opposed to the people.What kind of militia do we need, the proletariat, allthe toiling people? A genuine people’s militia, i.e., onethat, first, consists of the entire population, of all adultcitizens of both sexes; and, second, one that combines the