Page:The Proletarian Revolution in Russia - Lenin, Trotsky and Chicherin - ed. Louis C. Fraina (1918).djvu/44

 A fortunate coincidence of favorable conditions in 1917 enabled different social forces opposing Czarism to co-operate in one general faction for power. These forces are:

1.—Anglo-French financial capital, that rules and exploits the whole world through investments and Imperialism. In 1905 it was opposed to the revolution, and helped Czarism crush the revolution by means of the big loan of 1906 (largely engineered by French capital against the despairing protest of the revolutionary democracy). But now Anglo-French finance took an active part in the revolution by organizing the coup d'etat of the Guchkovs and Milyukovs, the bourgeois interests and the leading military groups for the overthrow of the Czar. From the standpoint of world-politics, the Provisional Government of Milyukov-Guchkov is simply the clerk of the banking firm England, France & Co., and a means of prolonging the imperialistic war.

2.—The defeats in the war waged by the government of the Czar. These resulted in clearing out the old guard in control of the army and created a new and young bourgeois group of officers.

3.—The Russian bourgeoisie in its different groups. The bourgeoisie organized itself rapidly between 1905 and 1917, and has united with the nobility in the struggle against the corrupt government of the Czar with the intention of enriching itself by exploiting Armenia, Constantinople and Galicia.

4.—The further power, which combined with the bourgeois, imperialistic forces, and the most important of all, was a strong proletarian movement, the organized and revolutionary workers. The proletariat made the Revolution by demanding peace, bread and liberty. It had nothing in common with the imperialistic government, and it secured the support of the majority of the army, consisting of workers and peasants.

Without the three years, 1905–19171907 [sic], of tremendous class conflicts and revolutionary energy of the Russian proletariat, this second revolution could not possibly have had the rapid progress indicated in the fact that its first phase, the overthrow of Czarism, is accomplished in a few days. The Revolution of 1905 ploughed the ground deeply and wiped out the prejudices of centuries; it awakened to political life and struggle millions of workers and tens of millions of peasants. The 1905 Revolution revealed to the workers and peasants, as well as to the world, all the classes (and all the principal parties) in their true character, the actual alignment of their interests, their powers and modes of action, their immediate and ultimate objects. This first revolution, and its succeeding