Concluding Remarks on the Political Situation, 31 July (13 August) 1917

Translated from: ru/1917/1917-08-13_zaklyuchitelnoe_slovo_31_iyulya_13_avgusta.txt

Comrades, first of all I must introduce several factual corrections.

Comrade Yaroslavsky, disputing my assertion that the Russian proletariat is the most organized, pointed to the Austrian proletariat; but, comrades, I was speaking of "red" organization, and there is no country where such organization exists to the same degree as among the Russian proletariat.

Comrade Angarsky is entirely wrong in stating that I was supposedly promoting the idea of uniting all forces. But we cannot fail to see that, for various reasons, not only the peasantry and the proletariat but also the Russian bourgeoisie and foreign capital turned their backs on tsarism. This is a fact. It is not good for Marxists to flinch before a fact.

But then the first two forces took their stand in the camp of revolution, the latter two in the camp of counter-revolution.

I turn to the substance. The question was posed most seriously by Comrade Bukharin, but even he did not follow it through to the end. Comrade Bukharin maintains that the bourgeois-imperialist has concluded a bloc with the muzhik. But with which muzhik? We have different muzhiks. A bloc has been concluded with the right-wing ones, but we have the lower-class muzhiks, representing the poorest strata of the peasantry. With them, no such bloc could have been concluded. They have not concluded a bloc with the big bourgeoisie, but follow it out of ignorance -- they are simply being deceived, led along.

Against whom, then, is the bloc?

Comrade Bukharin did not say. It is a bloc of Allied and Russian capital, the officer corps, and the peasant upper strata in the person of the Socialist-Revolutionaries of the Chernov type. This bloc has been formed at the expense of the peasant lower strata, at the expense of the workers.

What is Comrade Bukharin's perspective? His analysis is wrong in its very foundation. In his view, in the first stage we are heading toward a peasant revolution. But this revolution cannot fail to coincide with the workers' revolution. It is impossible for the working class, which constitutes the vanguard of the revolution, not to fight at the same time for its own demands. I therefore consider Comrade Bukharin's schema insufficiently thought through.

The second stage, according to Comrade Bukharin, is a proletarian revolution with the support of Western Europe, without the peasants, who have received land and are satisfied. But against whom is this revolution directed? Comrade Bukharin, in his toy-like schema, gives no answer to this. No other approaches to the analysis of what is happening have been proposed.

Meanwhile, the situation is clear. Now nobody speaks of dual power. If formerly the Soviets represented a real force, now they are merely organs for rallying the masses, possessing no power whatsoever. Precisely for this reason it is impossible to "simply" transfer power to them. Comrade Lenin in his pamphlet goes further, explicitly stating that dual power does not exist, since all power has passed into the hands of capital, and to put forward now the slogan "All Power to the Soviets" means to engage in Quixotism.

If formerly, without the sanction of the Executive Committee, no laws had force, now there is not even talk of dual power.

Take over all the Soviets right now, and you will have no power!

We mocked the Cadets during the elections to the district Dumas, since they were the most pitiful group, receiving 20% of the vote. Now they mock us.

What is the matter? The matter is that power has passed, with the connivance of the Central Executive Committee, into the hands of the bourgeoisie.

The comrades are in too great a hurry with the question of organizing power. But you do not yet have power!

The main task is the propagation of the idea of the necessity of overthrowing the existing government. We are still insufficiently prepared for this idea. But we must prepare.

The workers, the peasants, and the soldiers must understand that without the overthrow of the present government they will receive neither freedom nor land!

Thus, the question is not one of organizing power but of overthrowing it, and when we obtain power, we shall know how to organize it.

Now a few words to Comrades Angarsky and Nogin on the subject of socialism. Already at the April Conference, we said that the moment had come to begin taking steps in the direction of socialism.

(Reads the conclusion of the resolution of the April Conference "On the Current Situation.")

"The proletariat of Russia, operating in one of the most backward countries of Europe, amid a mass of petty-peasant population, cannot set itself the aim of immediately realizing socialist transformations.

"But it would be a most serious mistake, and in practice a complete desertion to the bourgeoisie, to deduce therefrom the necessity for the working class to support the bourgeoisie, or the necessity of confining its activity to the framework of what is acceptable to the petty bourgeoisie, or a renunciation of the leading role of the proletariat in the matter of explaining to the people the urgency of a number of practical steps toward socialism."

The comrades have fallen three months behind. What then has happened during these three months? The petty bourgeoisie has become stratified; the lower strata are departing from the upper ones; the proletariat is becoming organized; the dislocation is growing, placing the question of workers' control on the agenda with even greater urgency (for example, in Petrograd, the Donets Basin, and so on). Everything is working in favor of the positions adopted as early as April. Yet the comrades are pulling backward.

Now about the Soviets. By dropping the former slogan of Soviet power, we do not declare ourselves against the Soviets. On the contrary, one can and must work in the Soviets, even in the Central Executive Committee, that organ of counter-revolutionary camouflage. Although the Soviets are now merely organs for rallying the masses, we are always with the masses and shall not leave the Soviets until we are driven out. After all, we also remain in the factory-plant committees and in the municipalities, even though they do not have power in their hands. But, remaining in the Soviets, we continue to expose the tactics of the Socialist-Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks.

After the counter-revolution, with full clarity, laid bare the connection between our bourgeoisie and Allied capital, it became all the more obvious that in our revolutionary struggle we must rely on three factors: the Russian proletariat, the peasantry, and the international proletariat, since the fate of our revolution is closely linked with the Western European movement.

(Applause.)