Page:The Proletarian Revolution in Russia - Lenin, Trotsky and Chicherin - ed. Louis C. Fraina (1918).djvu/286

 the departure of this "vigilant strategist," in whose place there is put the "cavalryman" who knows no such thing as reflection. By forcing an offensive, the Cadets saved themselves in time from an imputation of cavalry policy or strategy, and prepared for their ostentatious departure from the July 15th Ministry. And the "Socialist" ministers explained in confidential whispers addressed to the ear of the "revolutionary democracy," that the change in military leaders which actually resulted from the gamble of the offensive, meant a substitution of the "true democrat" Brussilov for the "monarchist" Alekseieff. Thus is History made!

After having "hurled unprepared forces into slaughter"—to use the language of Novoye Vremya,—and having come into collision with the frightful consequences, there was nothing left for it but to entrust to Dan, Liber, and the other patriotic gentlemen, the task of inaugurating a systematic pogrom against the Bolshevikl. This is a portion of that same "creative labor" for national defense which is so well adapted to the shoulders of the afore-mentioned "leaders." In their effort to outdo all the bourgeois rowdies, the Dans and Libers fumed against the "demagogues" who scatter among the "ignorant masses of the soldiers" such slogans as the publication of the secret treaties, a complete break with the imperialists, etc. "That's right," the bourgeois rowdies contemptuously corroborate them, but that applies just as well to Order No. 1 and to the manifesto of April, which were demagogically circulated by you among the ignorant masses of the soldiers." And when the Dans and Libers, wiping the cold sweat from their brows, strain every effort to recall the most elementary principles of revolutionary thought in defense of the sins of their youth, they discover to their terror that they need only to repeat our words. And that is a fatal point : for our slogans contain nothing but the necessary inferences from the development of the Revolution, in the course of which Order No. 1 and the manifesto of the Soviet are merely the first milestone.

But the most remarkable thing about the whole business is, at first glance, that in spite of the frightful results of the offensive the "Socialist" ministers continue to set it down to the credit side of their account, and, in their conferences with the bourgeoisie, to refer to the offensive as their great patriotic contribution.

"I ask of you," shouted Tseretelli at the Moscow Conference, "who could more easily have moved forward the forces of revolu-