Counter-Revolution Takes the Offensive

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“JACOBINS WITHOUT THE PEOPLE”

The counter-revolution has mustered strength enough to assume the offensive. With the aid of the Narodnik and Menshevik ministers the capitalists are organising an assault on liberty.

The decision to disband the “45th, 46th, 47th and 52nd regiments” of the 12th and 13th divisions, the decision to “prosecute” the “instigators” (what an odd word! Are “instigators” more important than “perpetrators” in war?), and side by side with this, the news of the arrest of Ensign Krusser for a speech made at a meeting in Skuliany, and finally, the Provisional Government’s extremely insulting tone in regard to Kronstadt (for example, that orders “must be obeyed without question”—is that the way to talk to citizens who, so far, have not been accused of anything, not of a single act of disobedience?)—all this, taken together, and highlighted by that gloating defender of the counter-revolutionary capitalists, Rech (“the government at last has spoken up in the language of authority”)—all this clearly points to the fact that the counter-revolution is taking the offensive.

This “offensive” creates a strange impression. At the front the instigators, those guilty of “inciting to insubordination”, are arraigned before the court, and four regiments are “disbanded” (four out of the two divisions’ eight regiments mentioned in the telegram, although, according to the same telegram reported in Izvestia of the Petrograd Soviet No. 76, only one regiment out of the eight “came out in full force” and another one “almost in full force”). If you gentlemen of the government inform the people that you are disbanding certain regiments, if you find this useful, if you allow a telegram about it to go through, then why don’t you tell us, clearly and plainly, in at least a few lines, what the reasons for insubordination were on the part of those you are prosecuting?

One of two things, gentlemen: either you work in silence—you have a military censorship—and do not bother about informing the public, or bothering it with your reports; or, if you do decide to keep the public informed, then tell it what it’s all about, give it the why and the wherefore of the case, let it know whether the people you are prosecuting are guilty of insubordination on a particular or general point.

Vagueness is a bad thing.

In the case of Krusser’s arrest, everything is quite clear. To hustle a man off to prison for a speech he has made at a meeting is hardly reasonable. Does it not signify that you have simply lost your heads? Why, you Cadets and Rights who share the cabinet with the Narodniks and Mensheviks have ten if not a hundred times more newspaper circulation than your opponents! And with such superiority in chief propaganda weapons, you hustle a man off to prison for “a speech at a meeting”! Have you gone berserk with fear, gentlemen?

We are not opposed to the use of revolutionary force in the interests of the nation’s majority.

When Plekhanov the other day mentioned the Jacobins of 1793 and their forthright statement that “such-and-such persons are enemies of the people”, we thought in this connection: No party should draw the line at imitating the Jacobins of 1793 on this point cited by Plekhanov.

The trouble is that there are Jacobins and Jacobins. A witty French saying, which Plekhanov was fond of quoting twenty years ago, when he was still a socialist, pokes fun at the “Jacobins without the people” (jacobins moins le peuple).

The historical greatness of the true Jacobins, the Jacobins of 1793, is that they were “Jacobins with the people”, with the revolutionary majority of the nation, with the revolutionary advanced classes of their time.

They are ridiculous and pitiful, the “Jacobins without the people”, they who merely pose as Jacobins, who are afraid to declare clearly, openly and for all to hear that the exploiters, the oppressors of the people, the servants of the monarchy in all countries, the defenders of the landowners in all countries, are enemies of the people.

You have studied history, Messrs. Milyukovs and Plekhanovs—can you deny that the great Jacobins of 1793 were not afraid to denounce precisely the members of the reactionary exploiting minority of their time as enemies of the people? Precisely the members of the reactionary classes of their time?

You, the present government, its backers, Its defenders, its servants—can you say openly, clearly, and officially which classes you consider “enemies of the people” all over the world?

But how can you! You are Jacobins without the people. You are merely posing as Jacobins. You look more like ordinary representatives of ordinary landowner and capitalist reaction.

Workers and soldiers! All toiling people! The counter revolution of the landowners and capitalists is assuming the offensive. Not a single vote for a single government party, for any parties participating in the government!

Vote for the Bolsheviks!