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Lenin’s Struggle for a Revolutionary Government (Quote of the Week) The 1917 February Revolution in Russia overthrew the autocratic rule of Tsar Nicholas II amid the interimperialist First World War. However, the Provisional Government that emerged afterward was capitalist and continued to prosecute the war. Against the petty-bourgeois Socialist-Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks, whose representatives (such as Victor Chernov and Irakli Tsereteli) joined the Provisional Government, the Bolshevik Party led by V. I. Lenin fought for proletarian revolution to sweep away capitalist rule. When people speak about “revolution,” “the revolutionary people,” “revolutionary democracy,” and so on, nine times out of ten this is a lie or self-deception. The question is—what class is making this revolution? A revolution against whom? Against tsarism? In that sense most of Russia’s landowners and capitalists today are revolutionaries. When the revolution is an accomplished fact, even reactionaries come into line with it. There is no deception of the masses at present more frequent, more detestable, and more harmful than that which lauds the revolution against tsarism. Against the landowners? In this sense most of the peasants, even most of the well-to-do peasants, that is, probably nine-tenths of the population in Russia, are revolutionaries. Very likely, some of the capitalists, too, are prepared to become revolutionaries on the grounds that the landowners cannot be saved anyway, so let us better side with the revolution and try to make things safe for capitalism. Against the capitalists? Now that is the real issue. That is the crux of the matter, because without a revolution against the capitalists, all that prattle about “peace without annexations” and the speedy termination of the war by such a peace is either naïveté and ignorance, or stupidity and deception.... The conclusion is obvious: only assumption of power by the proletariat, backed by the semi-proletarians, can give the country a really strong and really revolutionary government. It will be really strong because it will be supported by a solid and class-conscious majority of the people. It will be strong because it will not, of necessity, have to be based on a precarious “agreement” between capitalists and small proprietors, between millionaires and petty bourgeoisie, between the Konovalovs-Shingaryovs and the Chernovs-Tseretelis. It will be a truly revolutionary government, the only one capable of showing the people that at a time when untold suffering is inflicted upon the masses it will not be awed and deterred by capitalist profits. It will be a truly revolutionary government because it alone will be capable of evoking and sustaining the revolutionary enthusiasm of the masses and increasing it tenfold. —V. I. Lenin, “A Strong Revolutionary Government” (May 1917)
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