50 THE CLASS STRUGGLE THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION 51 ess of differentiation of social groups and economic interests.
Thus ended the spring days of the revolution. Not only the bourgeoisie and large land owners but also the well to do peasants and later a part of the Cossacks, who were well provided with land even under the government of the czar, formed separate social economic units and began to organize. And as the Moscow congress has shown, some of these groups are openly counter revolutionary, most of them are against the council and all of them are against extremes. They all oppose the idea of confiscation of private estates, they are all against the unreasonable demands of the workers and soldiers and are all for the war to a finish.
This, the third period of the revolution, beginning with the differentiation of Russia into separate social economic classes and groups and ending with the uprising of the Bolsheviks, was the most trying of all. The republic was threatened, not by the acvities of the counter revolutionary elements, but by the activity of the super revolutionaries, the Bolsheviks. The latter realized, just as did all Russian socialist parties, that Russia is not ripe for socialism. But their activities and their tactics were totally at variance with this realization. The program of action they pursued was a program that presupposed a social revolution but not the revolution that has actually taken place. The aim and purpose of every political party, said Lenin, the brilliant leader of the Bolsheviks at the All Russian Congress cf Councils, is the conquest of political power. It is the duty of the council to take affairs into its own hands, to establish the dictatorship of the proletariat. Arrest all capitalists.
Confiscate the land and hand it over to the local communities, without waiting for the Constituent Assembly.
Take over and operate the industries, Immediately terminate the war. This, briefly, is the program of the Bolsheviks, which, of course, was rejected by the council.
Even more dangerous than the demands formulated by the Leninites was the course of action they pursued, threatening ruin and disaster to the Russian Revolution. While they participated in the deliberations of the council, they carried on an independent agitation among workers and soldiers, often in direct opposition to the mandates and decisions of the council. Conditions in Russia were such that they met with ready response from a large part of the masses of workers and soldiers. The latter, tired of war, seeing no reason for war, left the trenches at the call of the Bolsheviks and fraternized with the officers of Hindenburg General Staff. Workmen in Petrograd and in many other localities responded to the call and expropriated the expropriators. Peasants, longing for land and holding ancient grudges against their landlords, confiscated their estates. This process of anarchy and disintegration of the revolutionary forces steadily grew, and the government was frequently unable to cope with the situation. Not even the council could bring these anarcho socialists to their senses, for the Bolsheviks had been careful to discredit the council wherever they could.
After the council had rejected the program of the Bolsheviks, the latter secretly planned a revolution, an armed revolt for the 24th of June, when the All Russian Congress of Councils was to be in session. But on the eve of the 24th, the plot was divulged. The Bolsheviks, members of the council, apologized, but some three weeks later the long planned and carefully prepared revolution took place. It was planned to capture the bourgeois ministers and to assume full power. The soldiers at the front were to leave the trenches.
For three days the streets of Petrograd were the scene of civil war, soldier fought soldier, worker fought worker. At the same time soldiers at the front were leaving their trenches, allowing Hindenburg to march unobstructed far into Russia.
The revolution of the Bolsheviks was suppressed by force.
Some of the leaders, among them Trotzky, Lunacharsky, Krylenko, were arrested. The chief organ of the Bolsheviks. Pravda, and several other papers, were suppressed. For several days meetings were forbidden. The council sanctioned these measures, though in so doing they struck a blow at the socialist movement, for the masses will always remember that the socialists in Russia sanctioned capital punishment, supported a war that they themselves had branded as imperialistic, arrested and im