Page:The Proletarian Revolution in Russia - Lenin, Trotsky and Chicherin - ed. Louis C. Fraina (1918).djvu/229

 greatest measure of organization attainable under the circumstances, and thus to reduce to a minimum the number of probable victims. The facts are well known. Blood has been spilled. And now the "influential" press of the bourgeoisie, and the other newspapers serving the bourgeoisie, are attempting to put on our shoulders the entire burden of responsibility for the consequences—for the poverty, the exhaustion, the disaffection and the rebelliousness of the masses. To accomplish this end, to complete this labor of counter-revolutionary mobilization against the party of the proletariat, there issue forth rascals of anonymous, semi-anonymous, or publicly branded varieties, who circulate accusations of bribery: blood has flowed because of the Bolsheviki, and the Bolsheviki were acting under the orders of Wilhelm.

We are at present passing through days of trial. The steadfastness of the masses, their self-control, the fidelity of their "friends," all these things are being put to the acid-test. We are also being subjected to this test, and we shall emerge from it more strengthened, more united, than from any previous trial. Life is with us and fighting for us. The new reconstruction of power, dictated by an inescapable situation, and by the miserable half-heartedness of the ruling parties, will change nothing and will solve nothing. We must have a radical change of the whole system. We need revolutionary power.

The Tseretelli-Kerensky policy is directly intended to disarm and weaken the left wing of the Revolution. If, with the aid of these methods, they succeeedsucceed [sic] in establishing "order," they will be the first—after us, of course—to fall as victims of this "order." But they will not succeed. The contradiction is too profound, the problems are too enormous to be disposed of by mere police measures.

After the days of trial will come the days of progress and victory.