Page:Otto Wilhelm Kuusinen - The Finnish Revolution (1919).pdf/7

 electoral cartels. But, apart altogether from these causes, I am convinced that the nascent disgust at Parliamentarianism amongst the mass of the proletariat contributed to the election results. The Diet's powerlessness, and the uncertainty of the results of its work, its delays and lack of energy, the slackening of the political activity of Social-Democracy at the instance of the CoaliitonCoalition [sic] Government—with the result that electoral enthusiasm amongst the proletariat was in no wise so great as one had a right to expect, in view of the strong political tension then reigning. It became evident that the fine illusions of our Parliamentary Democracy and received this second shock not merely by reason of external causes, but partly as a result of our own mistakes and intrinsic feebleness.

From now onwards the torrent of history rushed with a furious rapidity towards its first place of foaming eddies. As might have been expected, the bourgeoisie sought to make use of the advantage they had gained by seizing dictatorial power and degrading the Diet into a mere mask covering the dictatorship. Tho working class, on the other hand, had lost all hope on immediate help on the part of the Diet, and was tending consciously or unconsciously towards revolution. The Coalition Government had already been dissolved before the elections. The bitterness of the class-struggle could prevent nothing.

Moreover, even in Finland it was felt that Russia was steering towards a new and more complete revolution, the explosion of which might he heard at any moment. Kerensky's Provisional Government was trembling like an aspen in a storm. The power of tho Bolsheviki was growing like a storm-cloud.

Our Social-Democracy, which ought in this crisis to have put forth the whole of its forces in preparing for revolution, sat and waited quite calmly for—the meeting of the Diet! At the beginning of November the union of the bourgeois groups voted a resolution entrusting the supreme power in internal affairs—formerly a prerogative of the monarch—to a triumvirate, but did not dare to put this decision into execution. At the same time they entered into negotiations with the Russian Provisional Government concerning the sharing of power. Nekrasoff, the Governor-General of