Page:The Proletarian Revolution in Russia - Lenin, Trotsky and Chicherin - ed. Louis C. Fraina (1918).djvu/319

 troops and marched upon Petrograd, simultaneously issuing proclamations. The revolutionary troops and masses marched out to meet the invaders, armed with tons of revolutionary literature. There was some fighting and more fraternizing and discussion; Kerensky's "army" melted away, and seeing that all was lost, Kerensky fled, against the advice of his officers who urged that he appear in Petrograd even should he be placed under arrest.

The proletarian revolution had conquered. But it still had to pass through a period of civil war and international complications that was to test its capacity, virility and integrity. Upon the basis of its magnificent achievements culminating in the events of November 7, the proletarian revolution prepared confidently and resolutely to meet coming events.

The problem of the Revolution, that each development and each crisis emphasized, was: the destruction of the Soviets, or all power to the Soviets. But all power to the Soviets necessarily meant a proletarian revolution, the assumption of power by the revolutionary proletariat, leading on the poorest masses of the peasantry. And, considering the Russian Revolution retrospectively and in whole, we realize that its fundamental aspect is the development, through hesitation, compromise, temporary defeat and ultimate victory, of a proletarian revolution.

The rapidity of events should not obscure their developmental character. As a revolutionary process, the proletarian revolution in Russia developed through all the necessary stages. The overthrow of Czarism resulted in the establishment of the imperialistic bourgeois republic of the Milyukov-Guchkov government. But the frankly imperialistic character of this government was incompatible with the stage on which it operated. Imperialism was undermined by the oncoming proletarian revolution, and Imperialism had to camouflage itself in the colors of radical democracy to promote its purposes and preserve Capitalism. The camouflage assumed the form of the "radical-Socialist" government of the coalition and of Kerensky. This is a significant development. That period comes in Capitalism when, shaken by the oncoming proletarian revolution, it adopts as a last bulwark of defense the "radical democracy" of the moderate labor and Socialist movement, which is dominantly the movement of skilled labor and the petit bourgeoisie. This phenomenon assumed the form of "laborism" in Australia, where the "labor" government became the centre of Imperialism and bourgeois reaction against the revolution. It seems, apparently, that a similar development may occur in England, where the Labor Party,