Page:William Zebulon Foster - The Russian Revolution (1921).pdf/11

 over what kind of a society the new Russia should be. Each tried to warp the revolution according to its political interests and conceptions. The Cadets (Constitutional Democrats), a typical capitalist party, wanted a bourgeois democracy. The Mensheviki, moderate, right-wing Socialists, advocated political and industrial reforms for the workers and a share for them in a bourgeois democracy. The Social Revolutionists, a peasants' party, stood for land reform and petty bourgeois Socialism in general. The Bolsheviki, who were Communists, demanded a complete proletarian revolution. The first three parties proposed, in varying degrees, social reform, the collaboration of classes, and the preservation of the democratic state. The last, the Bolsheviki, differing fundamentally from the others, declared for the immediate abolition of capitalism and the democratic state, the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and the delegation of all power to the Soviets. In practice, however much the first three quarrelled among themselves over details of their programs, they were always united against their arch enemy, the Bolsheviki.

In the political turmoil that followed the February revolution each of the important groups had a taste of power and an opportunity to test out its program. The first were the Cadets. Being the only recognized opposition party under the Czar's regime, they alone had any appreciable organization when the crash came. So, under the leadership of Milyukov, they took command of the political power and set up the Provisional Government. Then, true to their capitalistic interests, they prepared to continue Russia in the world war and to launch her forth in an imperialistic drive to capture Constantinople. But they little recked of the strength and character of the revolution. The people, massed in the Soviets and stirred by the Bolsheviki, demonstrated against them and forced Milyukov and several other ministers to resign. The Bolsheviki demanded the realization of the great slogan of the revolution, "Peace, Bread, and Liberty." The next to come to the political helm was a coalition Government of bourgeois and Socialists. But it fared no better than its predecessor, and had to make way for a new Coalition Gov-