Page:The Proletarian Revolution in Russia - Lenin, Trotsky and Chicherin - ed. Louis C. Fraina (1918).djvu/268

 the Social-Revolutionists, to compromise them by this collaboration, and to bide his time. And, behind Milyukov's back, the Czarist Gourko is biding his time.

The pseudo-democracy of the Social-Revolutionist and Menshevik type rests on the peasant masses, the petite bourgeoisie of the cities and the more backward workers. On this connection it should be noted that the further events develop, the clearer it becomes that the strength of the combination is in the Social-Revolutionists, while the Mensheviki are the fifth wheel on the wagon. Being led by these two parties, the Workmen's and Soldiers' Soviets, which were elevated to tremendous heights by the cataclysmic convulsions of the masses, are rapidly losing their importance and retrograding to oblivion. And why? Marx has pointed out that when History bestows a heavy punch on the nose of the petty "big guns" of the Philistines, they never seek the cause of their undoing in their own insolvency, but invariably uncover someone's malice or intrigue. Accordingly, Tseretelli grasps at the "conspiracy" of July 16–18, as the "straw" that explains the miserable failure of his whole policy. When the Social-Revolutionary and Menshevik Liebers, Getzes and Voitinskys preserved order from "anarchy," which, by the way, was not being threatened, these gentlemen firmly believed that, like unto the geese that had saved the Capitol, they should be given a reward. And, when they observed that the contempt the bourgeoisie showed them increased in direct proportion to their peace-making zeal toward the proletariat, they were dum-founded. Tseretelli, the same Tseretelli who was such an accomplished juggler with trite commonplaces, found himself cast to the waves as too revolutionary an incumbrance. It was perfectly plain: the Machine-Gun Regiment had "spoiled" the Revolution [by refusing to obey Kerensky's order to march to the front except under certain conditions and by participating in the events of July 16–17].

And if Tseretelli and his party appeared in the ranks of the counter-investigators, of Polovtsov and the military cadets, helping them to disarm the workers in the interests of the counter-revolution, the fault cannot lie with Tseretelli's political game, but rests on the shoulders of the Machine-Gun Regiment which the Bolsheviki had led astray. Such is the philosophy of history professed by the political bankers of the Philistines!

As a matter of fact, the days of July 16, 17 and 18 became a turning-point in the development of the Revolution, for the reason that they exposed the complete inability of the leading parties of