36 THE CLASS STRUGGLE THE PROLETARIAN REVOLUTION 37 ness. Each strike, each mass action, was beaten down, but the totality of results was the weakening of the Czarism and the strengthening of the proletariat, which turned to its own activity in revolutionary mass action. Then came that sweeping unity of general means into one mighty, revolutionary mass action of the workers of Petrograd which overthrew the government. The bonds of authority were broken. The soldiers and peasants acted in harmony with the Petrograd workers, and the revolution geoisie, but their representatives in the Duma began to criticize the policy of the government, a criticism, mark you, strictly within the limits of legality, parliament and the existing system.
Not only was the criticism not at all revolutionary, it was distinctly counter revolutionary. The bourgeoisie, represented by the Cadets and the Octobrists, did not want a revolution, nor did they want an overthrow of the Czarism; their policy insisted upon an aggressive war against Germany, upon bourgeois representation in the government, upon an international policy in accord with the Imperialism of Britain and France. With the support of British French capital and the governments of the Entente, the bourgeoisie plotted to compel the abdication of the Czar and to put in his place the Grand Duke Nicholas, after repeated, futile attempts to make the Czar recognize the prevailing situation and accept the guidance of the bourgeoisie. The bourgeois policy was not revolution: it was intrigue, a palace revolt.
was on, III.
While the war was not producing victory for the imperialistic bourgeoisie of Russia, it was producing an increasing and agonizing mass of misery among the workers and peasants. Just prior to the declaration of war, the proletariat was entering upon a new revolutionary phase, consisting of aggressive mass action and general strikes. During the war itself, the workers refused to yield up their independence and action; strike after strike was declared in war industries, bitterly suppressed equally by the Czarism and the bourgeoisie. These strikes, supplemented by the general Socialist opposition to the war, and particularly by the aggressive agitation for a civil war carried on by the Bolshevist groups. developed intense revolutionary actions and conscious.
The fact must be emphasized that it was the workers of Petrograd that made the revolution; it was their action that acted as a signal for the general uprising of the soldiers and peasants. The bourgeoisie did not participate in the making of the revolution; its contribution was the passive one of not opposing the workers and soldiers. The bourgeoisie was between the devil and the deep sea: its efforts to compromise with the Czarism had failed miserably, and it feared the revolution. It was forced to allow events to take their course. While the workers of Petrograd were fighting in the streets, making the revolution at the cost of their lives, the Cadets and the bourgeoisie generally acted as spectators; and when the fighting was over, they accepted the accomplished fact of revolution and tried to control it in their own class interests.
The Czar abdicated in favor of one of the Grand Dukes; this was acceptable to the bourgeois representatives, but the revolution had gotten beyond their control, and they realized the wisdom of abandoning the plan for a constitutional monarchy, and temporarily, at least, becoming republicans.
This first stage of the revolution is identical with and yet dissimilar to the earlier, bourgeois revolutions. It is identical in this, that the bourgeoisie does not make the revolution but steps in and tries to control its course and policy; it is dissimilar, in that the There was a vital, a fundamental difference in the oppositional attitude of the Bolsheviki, on the one hand, and the Mensheviki and Social Revolutionists a difference in policy that persisted into the revolution and determined the antagonisms between the two groups. The opposition of the bourgcois classes to czarism upon an imperialistic foundation, however, had, even before the revolution, provided the necessary basis for a rapprochement between the opportunist Socialists and the propertied classes. In the Duma, Kerensky and Tscheidse built up their policy as an annex to the progressive bloc, and the Gvozdyevs and Bogdanovs merged with the Gutchkovs on the War Industry committees. But the existence of czarism made an open advocacy of the government patriotism standpoint very difficult. The revolution cleared away all the obstacles of this nature.
Capitulating to the capitalist parties was now called a democratic unity, and the discipline of the bourgeois state suddenly became revolutionary discipline, and finally, participation in a capitalist war was looked upon as a defense of the revolution from external defeat. Leon Trotzky, The Farce of Dual Authority, in the Petrograd period of June 15, 1917.