Page:Vladimir Ilyich Lenin - Lessons of the Revolution (1918).djvu/20

 The Cadet party  stands for the «People's Freedom». this party stands for all that is capitalistic. No wonder all the landlords, the monarchists, the Black Hundreds were quick to join it. Proof? The press and the elections. Immediately after the revolution all the bourgeois press and all the Black Hundred press sang in complete unison with the Cadets. All the monarchist parties, fearful of overt acts, supported the Cadets in the elections—at least in Petrograd.

Having thus seized the power, the Cadets spared no effort to continue the war of annexation and spoliation begun by Nicholas II, who had concluded secret treaties of alliance with the English and French capitalists. According to these agreements the Russian capitalists are promised, in case of victory, the occupation of Constantinople, Galicia, Armenia etc. As to the people, the Cadet government fed it profusely, on promises, postponing the solution of questions most important to the workmen and peasants until the Constituent Assembly, without however setting a date for its convocation.

Making use of their liberty the people began to organize. The chief organizations of the workmen and peasants, representing the overwhelming majority of Russia's population, were the Soviets of Workmen's, Soldiers' and Peasants' Delegates. These Soviets sprang into existence during the days of the February revolution, and after a few weeks, in most of the large cities of Russia, as well as in many