Page:Boris Zakharovich Shumyatsky - The Aims of the Bolsheviki (1919).djvu/18

 We must look forward, say the Bolsheviki, and not backward, to such a republic as will only serve to consolidate the reign of capitalism, by making use of all the old monarchic organs of government, such as the police, the army and the bureaucracy; we must look forward, making use of these new forms and institutions brought into being by the Russian Revolution.

The Soviets and the power of the Soviets are a transitional step on the road to Socialism. It is the power of the workers and peasants created for the purpose of arousing and achieving the revolt of the poor of all countries against the capitalist system. And this workers' power will in the end destroy all arbitrary power, namely, the mastery of man over man, and will establish on earth equality and fraternity, i.e., Socialism.

As on the two previous questions of the land and of the war, so on this all-important question of the organisation of the country, the Mensheviki and Right Social-Revolutionaries were once again found to differ widely from the Bolsheviki. They said that the revolution was being made, not only by the one class of workers of town and country, but also by other classes, and that power must consequently be representative of the interests of all classes. On the strength of this argument, both these parties fraternised with the capitalists in power and formed the Provisional Government of Kerensky, which has since been driven from power.

Such are, in the main, the aims of the Bolsheviki, and such are the causes of their quarrel with the Mensheviki and Right Social Revolutionaries.

And now, reader, do you not understand how completely right was that unsophisticated person, who, when asked what a Bolshevist was, answered:—

"A Bolshevik is that kind of Socialist who wants the people to acquire, by means of revolution, all the good things of this world, and not to postpone till to-morrow what it can do to-day."