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| Title | One year of revolution |
| Alternative Title | One year of revolution: celebrating the first anniversary of the founding of the Russian Soviet Republic, November 7, 1918 |
| Creator (LCNAF) |
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| Publisher | Socialist Publication Society |
| Date | 1918 |
| Subject.Name (LCNAF) |
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| Subject.Geographic (TGN) |
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| Genre (AAT) |
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| Language | English; Russian; German |
| Type (DCMI) |
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| Original Item Extent | 32 pages; 28 cm |
| Original Item Location | DK265.S62 1918 |
| Original Item URL | http://library.uh.edu/record=b8304499~S11 |
| Original Collection | Socialist and Communist Pamphlets |
| Digital Collection | Socialist and Communist Pamphlets |
| Digital Collection URL | http://digital.lib.uh.edu/collection/scpamp |
| Repository | Special Collections, University of Houston Libraries |
| Repository URL | http://libraries.uh.edu/branches/special-collections |
| Use and Reproduction | Public Domain |
| File Name | index.cpd |
| Title | Image 33 |
| Format (IMT) |
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| File Name | uhlib_6770052_032.jpg |
| Transcript | speculation in land (used as a means to cheat the coming distribution) were rejected; the bourgeois Minister of Trade and Industry resigned because he considered Socialist Minister of Labor SkobelefFs measures too radical. The peasants were discontented because of the prevailing chicanery on the land problem, the workers because industry was being consciously demoralized, the mass of the people because an imperialistic war was still being prosecuted. Where was peace, where was land, where was freedom? All that the petty bourgeois Socialist representatives accomplished by accepting coalition (which, in fact, however, was not accepted but forced upon them) was to deceive the masses, to stultify and hamper the class struggle, to provide a popular sanction for the reactionary bourgeois policy of the Provisional Government. The bourgeois-"Socialist" government paltered miserably on all the vital problems of the Revolution. But everywhere the tendency of the masses was at work, the local Soviets assuming more and more the functions of a revolutionary government, peasants seizing the land and workers taking control of the factories. The Bolsheviki, adhering firmly to the class struggle, awakened the masses to class-consciousness and definite revolutionary action. There was never any doubt that the revolutionary Socialism of the Bolsheviki would conquer among the industrial workers; the real task was among the peasants, and the Bolsheviki secured their support by intensifying the agrarian class struggle, by splitting the peasantry and aligning the poorer peasants and the agricultural workers against the conservative, bourgeois-rich peasants. An agrarian revolution was necessary in Russia; but, owing to peculiar historical conditions (development of Capitalism while Czarism persisted) this agrarian revolution could be accomplished only as a phase of the proletarian revolution. On June 18, the Petrograd workers, under the inspiration of the Bolsheviki, determined upon a demonstration against the Provisional Government. The All-Russian Congress of Soviets, then in session in Petrograd, issued a declaration against the demonstration, and the Government prepared to crush it by force. The Soviet moderates had become definitely coun- ter-revolutionarv; the demonstration was abandoned; but it broke out en July 16-17, after the ill-fated July offensive, (determined upon as a diplomatic trick,) and after the bourgeois ministers had resigned because ot a disagreement on Ukrainian autonomy. The demonstration was to have been a peaceful one; but counter-revolutionary gangs and government troops provoked the masses, and for two days there was savage fighting in the streets, resulting in a victory of the Government. Then followed a reign of terror: the masses were disarmed, Bolsheviki arrested, including Trotzky, and an order issued for Lenin's arrest, who went into hiding, from where he continued to direct the revolutionary campaign. The All-Russian Soviet Central Executive Committee, dominated by the moderates, aligned itself with the Government : the moderate Socialists had become the real enemy of the Revolution. The proletariat and poorer peasants, the proletarian revolution, could conquer only by the annihilation of moderate Socialism. But the crisis had become more acute. The pressure of the masses increased; and a new Government was organized with the "Socialist" Kerensky as Premier: "Socialism" was now the last bulwark of defense of Capitalism. The first important act of Kerensky was to restore the death-penalty in the army, a restoration demanded by counter-revolutionary generals as a measure against the soldier democracy, and to call a Conference at Moscow in August, at which convened all the reactionary forces of Russia, and where it was openly declared that the thing: necessarv for Russia was the abolition of the Soviets. It was apparent at this Conference that the counterrevolutionary forces were preparing a coup against the Revolution. The coup materialized early in September in General Kornilov's revolt, which Kerensky had invited to crush the revolutionary masses of Petrograd, but which Kornilov transformed into a coup equally against Kerensky, and which Kerensky thereupon opposed. The revolt was crushed; but it convinced the masses of the force of the Bolshevist contention—either all power to the Soviets, or the defeat of the Revolution. The aftermath was swift and certain: in Soviet 31 |