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      V.I. Lenin       x####xxxxxx-   
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The Bolsheviks, having obtained a majority in the Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies of both capitals, can and must take state power into their own hands.

They can because the active majority of revolutionary elements in the two chief cities is large enough to carry the people with it, to overcome the opponent's resistance, to smash him and to gain and retain power. For the Bolsheviks, by immediately proposing a democratic peace, by immediately giving the land to the peasants and by reestablishing the democratic institutions and liberties which have been mangled and shattered by Kerensky, will form a government which nobody will be able to overthrow.

The majority of the people are on our side. This was proved by the long and painful course of events from May 6 to August 31 and to September 12. The majority gained in the Soviets of the metropolitan cities resulted from the people coming over to our side. The wavering of the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks [1] and the increase in the number of internationalists within their ranks prove the same thing.

The Democratic Conference [2] represents not a majority of the revolutionary people, but only the compromising upper strata of the petty bourgeoisie. We must not be deceived by the election figures; elections prove nothing. Compare the elections to the city councils of Petrograd and Moscow with the elections to the Soviets.

Compare the elections in Moscow with the Moscow strike of August 12. Those are objective facts regarding the majority of revolutionary elements that are leading the people.

The Democratic Conference is deceiving the peasants; it is giving them neither peace nor land.

A Bolshevik government alone will satisfy the demands of the peasants.

* * *

Why must the Bolsheviks assume power at this very moment?

Because the impending surrender of Petrograd [3] will make our chances a hundred times less favourable.

And it is not in our power to prevent the surrender of Petrograd while the army is headed by Kerensky and Co.

Nor can we "wait" for the Constituent Assembly, [4] for by surrendering Petrograd Kerensky and Co. can always frustrate its convocation. Our Party alone, on taking power, can secure the Constituent Assembly's convocation; it will then accuse the other parties of procrastination and will be able to substantiate its accusations.

A separate peace between the British and German imperialists must and can be prevented, but only by quick action.

The people are tired of the waverings of the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries. It is only our victory in the metropolitan cities that will carry the peasants with us.

* * *

We are concerned now, not with the "day", or "moment" of insurrection in the narrow sense of the word. That will be only decided by the common voice of those who are in contact with the workers and soldiers, with the masses.

The point is that now, at the Democratic Conference, our Party has virtually its own congress, and this congress (whether it wishes to or not) must decide the fate of the revolution.

The point is to make the task clear to the Party. The present task must be an armed uprising in Petrograd and Moscow (with its region), the seizing of power and the overthrow of the government. We must consider how to agitate for this without expressly saying as much in the press.

We must remember and weigh Marx's words about insurrection, "Insurrection is an art", [5]etc.

* * *

It would be naive to wait for a "formal" majority for the Bolsheviks. No revolution ever waits for that. Kerensky and Co. are not waiting either, and are preparing to surrender Petrograd. It is the wretched waverings of the Democratic Conference that are bound to exhaust the patience of the workers of Petrograd and Moscow! History will not forgive us if we do not assume power now.

There is no apparatus? There is an apparatus -- the Soviets and the democratic organisations. The international situation right now, on the eve of the conclusion of a separate peace between the British and the Germans, is in our favour. To propose peace to the nations right now means to win.

By taking power both in Moscow and in Petrograd at once (it doesn't matter which comes first, Moscow may possibly begin), we shall win absolutely and unquestionably.

N. Lenin

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NOTES

1. Socialist-Revolutionaries (S.R.s) -- a petty-bourgeois party in Russia founded in late 1901 and early 1902 through the merger of various Narodnik groups and circles.

   After the February 1917 bourgeois-democratic revolution, the Socialist-Revolutionaries, together with the Mensheviks, were the mainstay of the counter-revolutionary bourgeois-landowner Provisional Government, and the Party's leaders (Avksentyev, Kerensky and Chernov) were in the Cabinet.

   At the end of November 1917 the Left wing of the Socialist-Revolutionaries formed a separate party of Left S.R.s., which in an effort to retain its influence among the peasants, formally recognised Soviet power and entered into an agreement with the Bolsheviks. Soon, however, they began to fight against Soviet power.

   During the foreign armed intervention and Civil War the Socialist-Revolutionaries engaged in subversion and gave active support to the interventionists and whiteguards; they took part in counter-revolutionary plots and staged terrorist acts against Soviet Government and Communist Party leaders.

   Mensheviks -- Russian opportunist Social-Democrats. They got their name in 1903 at the Second Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. when in the elections to the Party central bodies the revolutionary Social-Democrats led by Lenin obtained the majority (bolshinstvo in Russian; hence the Bolsheviks) while the opportunists remained in the minority (menshinstvo in Russian; hence the Mensheviks).

   After the February 1917 bourgeois-democratic revolution Mensheviks entered the bourgeois Provisional Government and supported its imperialist policy. After the October Socialist Revolution they organised plots and mutinies to overthrow the Soviet Government.

2. The All-Russia Democratic Conference was held in Petrograd from September 14 to 22 (September 27 to October 5), 1917 and was attended by more than 1,500 delegates. It was convened by the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets, then dominated by Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries, to decide on the question of state power. The Menshevik and Socialist-Revolutionary leaders did their utmost to reduce the number of workers' and peasants' delegates and increase that of representatives of various petty-bourgeois and bourgeois organisations, thereby securing a majority for themselves.

   The Democratic Conference elected a Pre-parliament, which was to be the Provisional Government's consultative body.

   The Bolsheviks took part in the Democratic Conference to expose the Mensheviks and the Socialist-Revolutionaries and win over the masses.

3. The reference is to the Provisional Government's intention to surrender Petrograd to the Germans in order to strangle the revolution.

4. The Provisional Government announced the convocation of the Constituent Assembly in its declaration of March 2 (15), 1917. On June 14 (27), it adopted a decision to hold the elections to the Constituent Assembly on September 17 (30), but in August postponed them to November 12 (25). The elections were held on that day, after the victory of the October Socialist Revolution, but on the lists drawn up before the revolution and in accordance with the Provisional Government's regulations. At that time the bulk of the people had not yet realised the significance of the socialist revolution, a fact which the Right Socialist-Revolutionaries used to win a majority of votes in the gubernias and regions remote from the capital and the industrial centres. The Constituent Assembly was convened by the Soviet Government in Petrograd on January 5 (18), 1918. Its counter-revolutionary majority rejected the Declaration of Rights of the Working and Exploited People placed before it by the All-Russia Central Executive Committee and refused to recognise Soviet power. It was dissolved on January 6(19) by a decree of the All-Russia Central Executive Committee.

5. Frederick Engels, Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Germany (see Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Collected Works, Vol. 11,. Moscow, 1979, p.85).