Preface to the Collection "On the Roads to October" (before 1925)

The present booklet is a collection of articles and speeches by the author from March to October 1917. Everything of any importance that has been preserved has been included in the collection. The only items not included are the author's topical notes and minor articles from the "Responses" and "Press Review" sections in Pravda, Rabochy Put, and so forth for August-October 1917, since it seemed to me that they would, while increasing the volume of the booklet, not give the reader anything new in comparison with the main articles. I must say that I long hesitated to publish even the main articles of the pre-October period, for it was clear to me that they could not hold for the reader even a hundredth of the interest that, say, Volume XIV of Lenin's works holds. And is it generally worthwhile to engage in publishing articles and speeches of individual authors after the party has received from Lenin such a legacy as Volume XIV of his works? And if I have nevertheless decided to publish this collection now, it is because recently the interest in October, especially in connection with the last discussion, has grown immensely among party members. I think that for comrades who wish to study the October Revolution, the present collection could provide useful material.

All the material for the collection was gathered by Comrade Tovstukha, without whose help the collection could not have appeared at all. This material is published, of course, without changes, if one does not count certain stylistic corrections introduced into the "political report" at the July citywide conference of the Leningrad organization and at the VI Party Congress, which the author had not previously reviewed. This, in essence, explains why the publication of the collection got by without a special editorial review for that purpose.

Two necessary remarks. The first remark concerns the first three articles in the collection. These articles reflect the well-known vacillations of the majority of our party on the questions of peace and Soviet power that took place, as is well known, in March-April 1917. This was a period of sharp breaking with old positions. The old platform of the direct overthrow of the government no longer corresponded to reality. It was now impossible to go for the immediate overthrow of a government linked with the Soviets, for whoever wished to overthrow the Provisional Government at that time had to overthrow the Soviets as well. But neither was it possible to pursue a policy of supporting the Provisional Government, since that government was a government of imperialism. A new orientation for the party was needed. It is no wonder that the Bolsheviks, who had been scattered by tsarism among prisons and places of exile and had only now obtained the opportunity to come together from different corners of Russia to work out a new platform, were unable at one sitting to sort out the new situation. It is no wonder that in seeking a new orientation the party stopped halfway on the questions of peace and of Soviet power. Lenin's famous "April Theses" were needed in order for the party to emerge at one stroke onto the new road. I have already said once in my speech to the VTsSPS fraction that I shared this erroneous position at that time with the majority of the party and renounced it completely in mid-April, joining Lenin's "April Theses"...

Za Rodinu, za Stalina!
Moscow edition. 1997. No. 4(8). P. 1.