Page:The Proletarian Revolution in Russia - Lenin, Trotsky and Chicherin - ed. Louis C. Fraina (1918).djvu/63

 gradually to be replaced by the national militia and its various divisions.

12.—Must officers be elected by the soldiers?

A and B. No, it would be bad for the landholders and the capitalists. If the soldiers cannot otherwise be contented, we must promise them this reform and afterwards take it away from them.

C. Yes.

D. Not only elected, but every step of every officer and general must be subject to control by special soldiers' committees.

13.—Are arbitrary removals of their superiors by the soldiers desirable?

A and B. They are very bad. Guchkov has already forbidden them, even threatening the use of force. We must support Guchkov.

C. Yes, but it remains to be decided wheather they must be removed before or after consulting the Advisory Commission.

D. They are in every respect indispensable. The soldiers will obey only the powers of their own choice; they can respect no others.

14.—In favor of this war or against it?

A and B. Unquestionably in favor, for it brings in unheard of profits to the capitalists and promises to perpetuate their rule, thanks to dissension among the workers, who are egged on against each other. The workers must be deceived by calling the war a war for national defence, with the special object of dethroning Wilhelm.

C In general, we are opposed to imperialistic wars, but we are willing to permit ourselves to be fooled, and to call this a war of "revolutionary defense," and to support an imperialistic war waged by the imperialistic government of Guchkov, Milyukov & Co.

D. Absolutely opposed to all imperialistic wars, to all bourgeois governments which wage them, among them our own Provisional Government; absolutely opposed to "revolutionary defense" in Russia.

15.—Are we in favor of or against the predatory international treaties concluded between the Czar and England, France, etc.? (For the strangling of Persia, the division of China, Turkey, Austria, etc.)

A and B. Absolutely in favor. At the same time we must not