Page:The Proletarian Revolution in Russia - Lenin, Trotsky and Chicherin - ed. Louis C. Fraina (1918).djvu/236



The most important problem in every revolution is the problem of state power. In whose hands is this power—that is decisive in all things. And if Dyelo Naroda, the newspaper of the main government party in Russia, the Social-Revolutionary Party, complains as it did recently that while arguing about power the question of bread is forgotten,—then this is their answer: You have yourselves to blame, since it is precisely the hesitation and indecision of your party, more than anything else, that is to blame both for the ministerial delays and the never-ending postponements of the Constituent Assembly; you are to blame for the dropping of the decisive measures to establish state monopoly of bread, thus destroying the country's chances of obtaining bread.

The problem of power can not be set aside or evaded, as that is precisely the fundamental question determining all conditions in the development of the Revolution, in its external and internal policies. That six months of our Revolution have been "spent in vain" hesitating about the arrangements of power is a fact which one can't argue about; it is a fact determined by the hesitating policy of these parties that was, in the long run, defined by the class position of the petite bourgeoisie and its economic instability in the struggle between proletariat and bourgeoisie.

The whole question now is this: Has the petit bourgeois democracy learned anything during these six vital months of the Revolution, or has it not? If not, then the Revolution is doomed, and only the victorious uprising of the proletariat can save it. If yes, then it is necessary to begin anew with the immediate creation of a stable power and end the period of vacillation.

In a popular revolution, that is, a revolution brought about by the masses, the majority of workers and peasants, the only power that can be permanent and decisive is a power based consciously and without reservation on the majority of the people. Up until