Page:Lenin - The State and Revolution.pdf/39

 to pollute even the Soviets, after the model of the most despicable middle-class parliamentarism, by turning them into hollow talking shops. In the Soviets the Right Honorable "Socialist" ministers are fooling the confiding peasants with phrases and resolutions. In the Government itself a sort of.incessant quadrille is going on in order that, on the one hand, as many Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks as possible may get at the "pie," that is, the "cushy" jobs, and, on the other hand, that the attention of the people may be occupied. All the while the real "State" business is being done in the chancellories and the departments.

Dielo Naroda, the organ of the ruling party, the Socialist-Revolutionaries, recently admitted, in an editorial article, with the incomparable candor of people of "good society" in which "all" are engaged in political prostitution, that even in those ministerial departments which belong to the "Socialists" (pray, excuse the term) the whole official apparatus remains essentially the same as of old, working as before, and obstructiong every revolutionary initiative without let or hindrance. And indeed, even if we did not have this admission, would not the actual history of the participation of the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks in the Government prove this? It is only characteristic that, while in ministerial company with the Cadets, Messrs. Tchernoff, Roussanoff, Zenzinoff, and a herd of the Dielo Naroda staff have so completely lost all shame that they unblushingly proclaim as if it were a mere bagatelle, that. in "their" ministries everything remains as of old. Revolutionary and democratic phrases to gull the Simple Simons; bureaucracy and red tape in the Government departments for the "benefit" of the capitalists—here you have the essence of the present "honorable" coalition.

For the mercenary and corrupt parliamentarism of capitalist Society the Commune substitutes institutions in which freedom of opinion and discussion does not become a mere delusion, for the representatives must themselves work, must themselves execute their own laws, must themselves verify their results in actual practice, must themselves be directly responsible to their electorate. Representative institutions remain, but parliamentarism as a special system, as a division of labor between the legislative and the executive functions, as creating a privileged position for its deputies, no longer exists. Without representative institutions we cannot imagine a Democracy, even a proletarian Democracy; but we can and must think of Democracy without parliamentarism, if our criticism of capitalist society is not mere words, if to overthrow the supremacy of the capitalists is for us