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

REVOLUTION IN RUSSIA AND TASKS OF WORKERS357of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies. And it is not fornothing that the agents of Anglo-French capital, thecorrespondents of The Times and Le Temps, are so anxiousto discredit it.A close study of the press reports relating to theSoviet of Workers’ Deputies led Lenin to conclude that therewere three distinct trends in it. The first comes nearest tosocial-patriotism. It puts its trust in Kerensky, that heroof the empty phrase, that pawn in the hands of Guchkovand Milyukov, that representative of the worst type of“Louis Blanc politics”, past master of the empty promise andof the sonorous phrase in the spirit of the European socialpatriotsand social-pacifists à la Kautsky and Co. In reality,however, he “reconciles” the workers to the continuationof the predatory war. Through Kerensky the imperialistbourgeoisie tells the workers: We shall give you a republic,the eight-hour day (which has already been establishedin St. Petersburg), we promise you all the freedoms—but all this for the express purpose that you will help usrob Turkey and Austria, snatch from German imperialismits booty, and assure Anglo-French imperialism itsbooty.The second trend is represented by the Central Committeeof our Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party. Thepapers have published an extract from the Manifesto of ourCentral Committee, issued in St. Petersburg on March 18.It demands a democratic republic, the eight-hour day,confiscation of the landed estates and their transfer to thepeasants, confiscation of grain stocks, immediate peacenegotiations, conducted not by the government of Guchkovand Milyukov, but by the Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’Deputies. This Soviet, in the view of the Manifesto, is the realrevolutionary government (Lenin added that The Timescorrespondent, too, speaks of two governments in Russia).Peace negotiations are to be conducted not with the bourgeoisgovernments, but with the proletariat of all thewarring countries. The Manifesto calls upon all workers,peasants and soldiers to elect delegates to the Soviet ofWorkers’ Deputies.These are the only really socialist, really revolutionarytactics.