Page:The Proletarian Revolution in Russia - Lenin, Trotsky and Chicherin - ed. Louis C. Fraina (1918).djvu/231

 July i6 for the repression of the Bolsheviki was merely "incidental" or "unusual?" After all, there are limits to the corruption of unquestionable historic truths.

It is sufficient to compare the movement of May 2 and 3 with that of July 16 and 17, to be convinced immediately of their similarity: the mass outburst of dissatisfaction, the impatience and action of the masses, the provocative shots from counter-revolutionary gangs, the dead on the Nevsky, and especially the howls of the bourgeoisie and Cadets that "those Leninites were shooting on the Nevsky;" the acute and bitter character of the battle between the proletarian mass and the bourgeoisie; the complete confusion of the petty bourgeois class, Social-Revolutionists and Mensheviki, the hesitation in their politics and on the question of political power in general—all these objective facts characterize both the movement of May 2–3 and the movement of July 16–17. And events in June and the July offensive show us in another form the same class alignment. The course of events is perfectly clear: the struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie becoming continually more acute, particularly because of the influence on the masses of the petite bourgeoisie, and in connection with it the most pertinent historic events determining the dependence of the Social-Revolutionists and Mensheviki upon the counter-revolutionary Cadets. These events are: the coalition ministry of May 18 n which the Social-Revolutionists and Mensheviki have proved to be servants of the bourgeoisie, involving themselves more and more in compromise and agreements with the bourgeoisie and in a thousand "favors" to them; postponing the most urgent revolutionary measures; and, again, the resumption of the offensive at the front. The offensive meant an unavoidable resumption of the imperialistic war, a gigantic strengthening of the influence, power and role of the imperialistic bourgeoisie, the extensive growth of chauvinism among the masses, and, last but not least, the transfer of power, first the military and then the political power in general, to the counter-revolutionary heads of the army.

Such is the course of historic events, deepening and sharpening class antagonisms, from May 2–3 to July 16–17. and permitting the counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie to carry out, after the 17th of July, that which on May 3 was indicated with such clarity as its program and tactics, its immediate aim and its "clean" means for attaining this aim.

There is historically nothing more petty, theoretically nothing