Page:Grigory Zinoviev - Nicolai Lenin, His Life and Work (1918).djvu/50

 Revolutionaries still had a large following. Lenin then, without hesitating long, left his asylum, and without consulting anybody, without considering the fears of his friends, came to Petrograd in order to preach an immediate rising. Kerensky and Avxentyeff were at that time issuing writs for the arrest of Lenin, while Lenin, from his underground hiding, was preparing a rebellion, arguing with those who hesitated, castigating those who were afraid, and writing and agitating for an early rising. And he succeded.

At present everybody sees that Lenin was right. It was all a matter of touch and go. If we had not taken power into our hands, Savinkoff and Paltchinsky would have crushed us a month later, The question was raised by history in no ambiguous manner, Either we or they. Either the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, mad with fear and hatred towards the workers, or the dictatorship of the proletariat mercilessly sweeping away the bourgeoisie.

Now of course, it is all clear, but at the time. amidst the whirlpool of events it required the exact eye of Lenin, his genius and intuition, in order to declare: "Not a week later, now or never." And it also required the unbending strength of will of a Lenin to surmount all the obstacles and to start, at the appointed time the greatest revolution ever known in history. It is not that Comrade Lenin did not realize the tremendous difficulties with which the working class would be confronted after the conquest of power. Lenin knew all this to perfection. From the very first days of his arrival at Petrograd he had been carefully watching the progressive economic ruin. He valued the acquaintance of every bank clerk, trying to penetrate into the details of the bank business, He knew well the food and other difficulties, In one of his most remarkable books: "Will the Bolsheviks be able to keep the State power?" Comrade Lenin dwelt in detail on these difficulties. It is true that the latter proved still more formidable than even Lenin anticipated.

But no other way was open to the working class than the one trodden in November.

Both on the question of the nationalisation of the banks and on that of our food policy, as well as military