Who Are They?

Yesterday we wrote that the Cadets were the moving spirit of the counter-revolution. We affirmed this on the basis not only of “rumours” but of generally known facts—the resignation of the Cadets from the government at the critical moments of the “surrender” of Tarnopol in July and of the Kornilov conspiracy in August. For it could not have been fortuitous that both in July and in August the Cadets were in one camp with the traitors at the front and the most rabid counter-revolutionaries in the rear against the Russian people.

Today, Izvestia and the defencists, those inveterate compromisers with the Cadets, unreservedly confirm what we said about the Cadets yesterday.

“Lvov did not conceal,” write the defencists, “that this (a military dictatorship) is desired not only by General Kornilov, but also by a certain group of public men who at the present moment are at General Headquarters” (Izvestia). And so:

It is a fact that General Headquarters are the headquarters of the counter-revolution. It is a fact that the general staff of the counter-revolution consists of “certain public men.” Who are these “public men”?

Let us see:

“It has been established beyond a doubt that a number of public mem who have very close ideological and personal connections with representatives of the Cadet Party are implicated in the plot” (Izvestia).

And so:

It is a fact that Messieurs the defencists, who only yesterday were embracing the “virile forces” of the country in the person of “representatives of the Cadet Party,” are today compelled to rank them as plotters against the revolution.

It is a fact that the plot has been organized and is being directed by “representatives of the Cadet Party.” Our Party was right when it asserted that the first condition for the victory of the revolution was a rupture with the Cadets.

What Are They Counting on?

Yesterday we wrote that the Kornilov party is the sworn enemy of the Russian revolution; that, after having surrendered Riga, Kornilov would not hesitate to surrender Petrograd in order to ensure the victory of the counter-revolution.

Today Izvestia unreservedly confirms our statement Chief of Staff General Lukomsky, who is the actual soul of the revolt, states that “in the event of the Provisional Government rejecting General Kornilov’s demand, internecine warfare at the front may lead to a breach in the front and the appearance of the enemy in places where we least expect him.”

This sounds, does it not, very much like a threat to surrender Petrograd, say?

And here is an even more explicit statement: “Evidently, in his effort to secure the success of the conspiracy, General Lukomsky will not shrink from downright treason. His threat that the rejection of General Kornilov’s demand may lead to civil war at the front, to the opening of the front to the enemy, and the disgrace of a separate peace can only be regarded as signifying his firm determination to come to an arrangement with the Germans in order to secure the success of the conspiracy.” Do you hear this?—“an arrangement with the Germans,” “opening of the front,” a “separate peace.” . . . There you have the real “traitors” and “treasonmongers”—the Cadets, who “are implicated in the plot,” and who are lending their presence at General Headquarters to hide the threat of an “opening of the front” and an “arrangement with the Germans.”

For months on end these “front-opening” heroes have been reviling our Party, accusing it of “treason” and talking about “German gold.” For months on end the yellow hirelings of the banks, Novoye Vremya and Birzhovka, Rech and Russkaya Volya, have been playing up these vile allegations. And what do we find? Even the defencists are now obliged to admit that the treachery—at the front—is the work of the commanders and their ideological inspirers. Let the workers and soldiers remember this!

Let them know that the provocative howls of the bourgeois press about the “treachery” of the soldiers and the Bolsheviks were only a camouflage for the actual treachery of the generals and the “public men” of the Cadet Party.

Let them know that when the bourgeois press raises a howl about the “treachery” of the soldiers, it is a sure sign that the moving spirits behind that press have already planned treachery and are trying to throw the blame on the soldiers.

Let the workers and soldiers know this and draw the proper conclusions.

Do you want to know what they are counting on? They are counting on “opening the front” and an “arrangement with the Germans,” hoping to capture the war-weary soldiers with the idea of a separate peace and then march them against the revolution.

The workers and soldiers will realize that these traitors at General Headquarters must be shown no mercy. The Conspiracy Continues. . .

Events are moving quickly. Facts and rumours come thick and fast. There are rumours, as yet unconfirmed, that Kornilov is negotiating with the Germans. There is definite talk of a skirmish between Kornilov regiments and revolutionary soldiers near Petrograd. Kornilov has issued a “manifesto” proclaiming himself dictator, the enemy and gravedigger of the conquests of the Russian revolution.

And the Provisional Government, instead of meeting the enemy as an enemy, prefers to confer with General Alexeyev and keeps on negotiating with Kornilov, keeps on pleading with the conspirators who are openly betraying Russia. And the so-called “revolutionary democracy” is preparing for another “special conference on the lines of the
Moscow Conference, to be attended by representatives of all the virile forces of the country” (see Izvestia). And at the same time the Cadets, who only yesterday were howling about a “Bolshevik plot,” are today disconcerted by the exposure of the Kornilov plot, and are appealing for “common sense” and “harmony” (see Rech).

Evidently they want to “arrange” another compromise with those “virile forces” who, while howling about a Bolshevik plot, are themselves conspiring against the revolution and the Russian people. But the compromisers are reckoning without their host; for the real host in the country, the workers and soldiers, want no conferences with enemies of the revolution. The information coming in from the districts and regiments uniformly shows that the workers are mustering their forces, that the soldiers are standing ready to arms. The workers, apparently, prefer to talk with the enemy as an enemy.

Nor could it be otherwise: you don’t confer with enemies, you fight them. The conspiracy continues. Prepare to resist it! Rabochy, No. 5,

2nd, special edition,

August 28, 1917

Editorial