A little while ago a “most commonplace” incident occurred in Tashkent, “the like of which there are many” in Russia nowadays. The Tashkent workers and soldiers, swayed by the revolutionizing logic of events, expressed their lack of confidence in the old Executive Committee of the Soviets, elected a new Revolutionary Committee, dismissed the Kornilov authorities and appointed others in their place, and took the power into their own hands. That was sufficient for the PerekhvatZalikhvats* of the Provisional Government to declare war on the “anarchist” Tashkent Soviet. True, the facts show that the majority of the Soviet are Socialist-Revolutionaries, not Anarchists. But that means nothing to the Provisional Government “pacifiers.” And the Socialist-Revolutionary Hamlets of Delo Naroda, who meekly follow at Kerensky’s heel, proclaimed in their sagacity that the Tashkent Soviet was

* Perekhvat-Zalikhvatsky—a character in History of a Town by the Russian satirist Saltykov-Shchedrin.—Tr.

“counter-revolutionary,” demanded the recall of the Socialist-Revolutionaries from the Soviet in Tashkent, and declared that “revolutionary order” must be established in Turkestan. Even the decrepit Central Executive Committee considered it necessary to have a kick at the poor Tashkenters. . . .

Our Party alone vigorously and unreservedly supported the revolutionary Tashkent Soviet against the counter-revolutionary attacks of the government and its agents.

And what do we find?

Only a few weeks have elapsed since then, “passions have subsided,” and a delegate who arrived yesterday from Tashkent tells us the true story of the Tashkent “incident”—and it turns out that the Tashkenters honestly performed their revolutionary duty, notwithstanding the counter-revolutionary exercises of the agents of the Provisional Government.

The Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies has unanimously passed a resolution of confidence in the Tashkent comrades and, by the vote “of all its groups, the Soviet expresses its full readiness to support the just demands of the Tashkent revolutionary democracy.” Moreover, explaining her vote, Shirokova declared on behalf of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party that it would vote for the Bolshevik resolution. Well, then, what about the recall of the Socialist-Revolutionaries from the Tashkent Soviet? What has become of the “counter-revolutionary character” of that Soviet and its “unseemly conduct”?

All this is now forgotten. . . .

Very good, we welcome the Socialist-Revolutionaries’ “change of heart.” Better late than never. But do the Delo Naroda leaders realize that they mercilessly chastised themselves a fortnight ago when they pusillanimously turned their backs on the
Tashkent Soviet?

Rabochy Put, No. 27,

October 4, 1917

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