Page:The Proletarian Revolution in Russia - Lenin, Trotsky and Chicherin - ed. Louis C. Fraina (1918).djvu/247

 and in reality this majority is the majority of the party which is realizing the deception of the majority by the bourgeoisie?

And, surely—here we come to the second "correction," to the second of the fundamental conditions previously indicated—surely, it is possible to interpret that deception properly, if only we clear out its class roots and reveal its class meaning. It is not an individual deception, it is not "trickery" (I express myself roughly). It is a deception and idea which results from the economic environment of the class. A petty bourgeois finds himself in such an economic situation, his life conditions are such, that he cannot help deceive himself; he vacillates involuntarily and inevitably between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. There cannot be any any [sic] such thing as an independent course economically for the petty bourgeois. His past draws him to the bourgeoisie, his future to the proletariat. His reason urges him to the latter course, his prejudice (according to a well-known Marxian expression) to the former. That the majority govern the state, be the real beneficiary of the majority interests, the real guardian of its rights, etc., a definite class condition is necessary: the coalition of the majority of the petite bourgeoisie, at least during the decisive moment and at the decisive place, with the revolutionary proletariat.

Without this class condition, the majority is a fiction, which may exist for some time, shine, sparkle, make noise, win laurels, but which is destined to crash to disaster with absolute inevitability. That, by the way, is precisely the disaster awaiting the majority of the Social-Revolutionists and Mensheviki, as determined by the Russian Revolution in July, 1917.

Let us proceed. A revolution differs from "the ordinary condition" of affairs in government in that disputable questions concerning society are of necessity solved by the class struggle and the mass struggle until the moment of establishing its definite and determining forms. There is no other alternative if the masses are free and armed. From that basic fact it follows that, in a real revolution, it is not enough to announce "the will of the majority"—no, it is necessary to prove yourself stronger at the decisive moment and at the decisive place; it is necessary to conquer. Beginning with the peasants' revolts in the middle ages in Germany and continuing through all the great revolutionary movements and epochs up to 1848 and 1871, to the year 1905, we see countless examples of how the better organized, the more conscious, the better armed minority imposes its will upon the majority and defeats it.