Page:The Proletarian Revolution in Russia - Lenin, Trotsky and Chicherin - ed. Louis C. Fraina (1918).djvu/40

 ution being a bourgeois revolution, the proletariat should support the bourgeoisie; they mistrusted the masses and the action of the masses, trying to limit the Revolution with the orbit of the bourgeois democratic regime, legality and parliamentary action. The Mensheviki used the masses only when they considered action necessary, which was when their own petty purposes were in jeopardy: the masses were a tool to be used or discarded at will; independent action of the masses was discouraged and suppressed, if necessary. Instead of encouraging the dynamic action of the masses, bringing the initiative and action of the masses to bear on all the problems of the Revolution and developing the Revolution, the Mensheviki used the masses as an instrument with which to coerce the bourgeoisie into granting petty, illusory concessions.

The Bolsheviki constituted the party of the revolutionary proletriatproletariat [sic]; in the words of Lenin, "the class conscious workers, day laborers, and the poorer classes of the peasantry, who are classed with them (semi-proletariat)." The Bolsheviki were completely revolutionary, not in the sense of revolutionary phrases, but in the sense of representing the industrial proletariat and the great masses which alone constitute the instrument of the revolution.

Representing the interests and ideology of the industrial masses, and in continual and active contectcontact [sic] with them, the Bolsheviki developed that general, creative and dynamic mass action out of which revolutions arise and develop uncompromisingly. Bolshevism insisted that the bourgeoisie was counter-revolutionary; that precisely as the Revolution had been made by the proletariat, it could be established and continued only by the proletariat in a merciless struggle against the bourgeoisie; that this struggle was determined, not by any abstract considerations of whether Russia was ready for Socialism, but by the actual forces of development and the immediate problems of the Revolution; and that, accordingly, the revolutionary proletariat, acting together with the mass of impoverished peasants, must constitute itself into a dictatorship through the assumption by the Soviets of the complete power of government.

The Bolsheviki constituted a practical revolutionary movement, not a group of theoreticians and mongers of dogmas. They worked out a program, a practical program of action in accord with the immediate problems of the Revolution and out of which would necessarily arise the struggle and power for the larger, ultimate objectives. Revolutions do not rally round dogmas, but programs. The sense of reality of the revolutionist is expressed in this, that he translates his revolutionary aspirations into a revolutionary program in accord with the historic conditions, and which can rally and unite the masses for action and the conquest of power. Revolutions make their own laws, their own programs. Revolutions are the great educators and developers of class consciousness and action. It was the great merit of the Bolsheviki that they gauged accurately the prevailing forces, that they were revolutionists in action, using^the situation to educate the masses and awake their consciousness and revolutionary struggles.

After the first two weeks of the struggle against Czarism, the course of the Revolution is determined by the struggles within the Soviets, between the moderates, represented by the Social-Revolutionists and the Mensheviki, and the revolutionists, represented by the Bolsheviki.