1917 Leon Trotsky

Published in Pravda No. 70, June 14 (1), 1917.

First published in Pravda No. 80, June 26 (13), 1917.

"Unemployment is spreading. There is a shortage of goods. The peasants cannot part with their grain without getting anything in return. Famine is imminent. All this because of the capitalists, who are in collusion with the government!"

"The Narodnik and Menshevik ministerialists are spouting phrases about “democracy” in the abstract, about “Revolution” in the abstract in order to cover up their agreement with the imperialist, now definitely counter-revolutionary, bourgeoisie of their own country"

The war conditions are twisting and obscuring the action of the internal forces of the Revolution. But none the less the course of the Revolution will be determined by these same internal forces, namely, the classes.

"They all admit that an unheard-of catastrophe is inevitable. But they do not understand the main thing—that only the revolutionary class can save the country."

An “orgy of pillage”—no other words can describe the behaviour of the capitalists during the war.

''Your iron chain was poor and rusty enough as it is, and now it has several links made not even of wood, but of clay and paper.''

Published in Pravda No. 67, June 9 (May 27), 1917

"Workers and soldiers! Not one vote to the bloc of the Narodniks and Mensheviks, who are shielding and working for Yedinstvo, which is “in unity with the liberal bourgeoisie”!"