Page:Lenin - The Soviets at Work (1919).pdf/15

Rh and Bogajevsky. Military resistance can be crushed only by military means, and the Red Guards were contributing to the noblest and greatest cause in history, the cause of emancipation of the exploited toilers from the oppression of the exploiters.

Secondly, we could not then give preeminence to the method of management instead of the methods of suppression because the art of management is not inherent in people, but is gained through experience. At that time we did not have this experience. We have it now!

Thirdly, then we could not have at our disposal specialists in different branches of science, for they were either fighting in the ranks of the Bogajevskys, or were still in a position to offer systematic and persistent passive resistance through sabotage.

Does this mean that the "Red Guard" attack on Capital is the right method always in all circumstances, and that we have no other methods of combating capitalism? To think so would be too naive. We have won with light cavalry, but we also have heavy artillery at our disposal. We have been winning by methods of suppression. We will be able to win also by methods of management. We should be able to change the methods of fighting with the change of circumstances. We do not for a moment reject the "Red Guard" suppression of the Savinkovs and Gegechkoris as well as of any other bourgeois counter-revolutionist. But we will not be so stupid as to give preeminence to the "Red Guard" methods.

At present, when the epoch of "Red Guard" attacks is in the main completed (and completed victoriously), it is becoming urgent for the proletarian state authority to make