From October to Brest-Litovsk | Page 2

who chanced to be among them and
who possessed the least bit of knowledge of political affairs and could
make this knowledge articulate. In this way, the petty bourgeois
intellectuals were at once and of necessity raised to great prominence in

the awakening army. Doctors, engineers, lawyers, journalists and
volunteers, who under pre-bellum conditions led a rather retired life
and made no claim to any importance, suddenly found themselves
representative of whole corps and armies and felt that they were
"leaders" of the revolution. The nebulousness of their political ideology
fully corresponded with the formlessness of the revolutionary
consciousness of the masses. These elements were extremely
condescending toward us "Sectarians," for we expressed the social
demands of the workers and the peasants most pointedly and
uncompromisingly.
At the same time, the petty bourgeois democracy, with the arrogance of
revolutionary upstarts, harbored the deepest mistrust of itself and of the
very masses who had raised it to such unexpected heights. Calling
themselves Socialists, and considering themselves such, the
intellectuals were filled with an ill-disguised respect for the political
power of the liberal bourgeoisie, towards their knowledge and methods.
To this was due the effort of the petty bourgeois leaders to secure, at
any cost, a cooperation, union, or coalition with the liberal bourgeoisie.
The programme of the Social-Revolutionists--created wholly out of
nebulous humanitarian formulas, substituting sentimental
generalizations and moralistic superstructures for a class-conscious
attitude, proved to be the thing best adapted for a spiritual vestment of
this type of leaders. Their efforts in one way or another to prop up their
spiritual and political helplessness by the science and politics of the
bourgeoisie which so overawed them, found its theoretical justification
in the teachings of the Mensheviki, who explained that the present
revolution was a bourgeois revolution, and therefore could not succeed
without the participation of the bourgeoisie in the government. In this
way, the natural bloc of Social-Revolutionists and Mensheviki was
created, which gave simultaneous expression to the political
lukewarmness of the middle-class intellectuals and its relation of vassal
to imperialistic liberalism.
It was perfectly clear to us that the logic of the class struggle would,
sooner or later, destroy this temporary combination and cast aside the
leaders of the transition period. The hegemony of the petty bourgeois
intellectuals meant, in reality, that the peasantry, which had suddenly
been called, through the agency of the military machine, to an

organized participation in political life, had, by mere weight of
numbers, overshadowed the working class and temporarily dislodged it.
More than this: To the extent that the middle-class leaders had
suddenly been lifted to terrific heights by the mere bulk of the army,
the proletariat itself, and its advanced minority, had been discounted,
and could not but acquire a certain political respect for them and a
desire to preserve a political bond with them; it might otherwise be in
danger of losing contact with the peasantry. In the memories of the
older generation of workingmen, the lesson of 1905 was firmly fixed;
then, the proletariat was defeated just because the heavy peasant
reserves did not arrive in time for the decisive battle. This is why in this
first period of the revolution even the masses of workingmen proved so
much more receptive to the political ideology of the
Social-Revolutionists and the Mensheviki. All the more so, since the
revolution had awakened the hitherto dormant and backward
proletarian masses, thus making uninformed intellectual radicalism into
a preparatory school for them.
The Soviets of Workingmen's, Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies meant,
under these circumstances, the domination of peasant formlessness over
proletarian socialism, and the domination of intellectual radicalism
over peasant formlessness. The soviet institution rose so rapidly, and to
such prominence, largely because the intellectuals, with their technical
knowledge and bourgeois connections, played a leading part in the
work of the soviet. It was clear to us, however, that the whole inspiring
structure was based upon the deepest inner contradictions, and that its
downfall during the next phase of the revolution was quite inevitable.
The revolution grew directly out of the war, and the war became the
great test for all parties and revolutionary forces. The intellectual
leaders were "against the war." Many of them, under the Czarist regime,
had considered themselves partisans of the left wing of the
Internationale, and subscribed to the Zimmerwald resolution. But
everything changed suddenly when they found themselves in
responsible "posts." To adhere to the policy of Revolutionary Socialism
meant, under those circumstances, to break with the bourgeoisie, their
own and that of the Allies. And we have already said that the political
helplessness of the intellectual and semi-intellectual middle class
sought shelter for itself in a union with bourgeois liberalism. This

caused the pitiful and truly shameful attitude of the middle-class
leaders towards the war. They confined themselves to sighs,