"The point is that the petty-bourgeois democrats, who take their cue from the Russian and the Allied imperialists, need to do away with the internationalist socialists once and for all."

The atmosphere in Petrograd is one of fright and confusion reaching truly unparalleled dimensions.

This was illustrated by a small incident prior to the big incident of banning the demonstration fixed by our Party for Saturday.^[1]

This incident was the seizure of Durnovo’s country-house. Minister Pereverzev first ordered the house cleared, but then declared at the Congress that he was letting the people use the garden and that the trade unions were not to be evicted from the house! All that was necessary, he said, was to arrest certain anarchists.

The dissatisfaction voiced by most comrades over the cancellation of the demonstration is quite natural, but the Central Committee had no alternative for two reasons: first, we were formally banned from holding the demonstration by the semi-organ of power; secondly, the motive for the ban was stated as follows: "We know that concealed forces of the counter-revolution want to take advantage of your demonstration." In support of this motive, we were given names, such as that of a general, whom they promised to arrest within three days, and others. And they declared that a demonstration of the Black Hundreds

First published in Pravda No. 79, June 24 (11), 1917.

Those who rant and rage and fulminate, who gnash their teeth and pour a ceaseless torrent of abusive and riot-raising words upon our Party, do not accuse us of anything directly. They merely “insinuate”.

What is the difference between an ordinary bourgeois government and a government which is extraordinary, revolutionary, and which does not regard itself as bourgeois?

We hold that the unique institution known as the Soviets of Workers’, Soldiers’ and Peasants’ Deputies is the nearest approach to a popular body expressing the will of the majority of the people, to a revolutionary parliament.

It has been decided and laid down that socialism cannot be introduced in Russia. This was proved, in near-Marxist fashion, by Mr. Milyukov at a meeting of the June 3 diehards, following the ministerial Menshevik Rabochaya Gazeta.And it was subscribed to by the largest party in Russia in general and in the Congress of Soviets in particular, the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, which, besides being the largest party, is also the party with the greatest ideological (disinterested) fear of seeing the revolution develop towards socialism.

Minister Peshekhonov uttered many beautiful and high-sounding phrases in his speech. He said that "we must divide equitably all we have", that "the resistance of the capitalists has apparently been broken", and many more phrases of that kind.

“The great withdrawal of the bourgeoisie from the government." This is what the main speaker of the Executive Committee, in a report he submitted last Sunday, called the formation of the coalition government and the entry of former socialists into the Ministry.

“Comrades, the resistance of the capitalists has apparently been broken.”

Dear comrades writing for Novaya Zhizn, you resent our criticism, which you call angry. We shall try to be mild and kind.

Plekhanov’s Yedinstvo (which even the Socialist-Revolutionary Dyelo Naroda justly calls a newspaper at one with the liberal bourgeoisie) has recently recalled the law of the French Republic of 1793 relating to enemies of the people.

Is there a way to peace without an exchange of annexations, without the division of spoils among the capitalist robbers?

There is: through a workers’ revolution against the capitalists of the world.

A note by Lenin in response to an attack in the Novoye Vremya paper. First published in Pravda No. 74 June 20 (7), 1917.