Civil War after 1917 1917

"The slogan "All Power to the Soviets" is a slogan of insurrection. Whoever uses this slogan without having grasped this and given thought to it will have only himself to blame. And insurrection must be treated as an art." A letter written for the comrades attending the Congress of Soviets of The Northern Region.

"That the bourgeoisie hate us so passionately is one of the most striking proofs that we are showing the people the right ways and means of overthrowing the rule of the bourgeoisie."

 "The proletarian revolution is firmly rooted, the bourgeois counter-revolution is without roots..."

"The issue is not “freedom of the press’ but the exploiters’ sacrosanct ownership of the printing presses and stocks of newsprint they have seized! why should we workers and peasants recognise that sacred right?"

"There is no middle course. This has been shown by experience. Either all power goes to the Soviets and the army is made fully democratic, or another Kornilov affair occurs."

"Our Party's mistake is obvious. The fighting party of the advanced class need not fear mistakes. What it should fear is persistence in a mistake, refusal to admit and correct a mistake out of a false sense of shame."

 "Just as any turn in the life of an individual teaches him a great deal and brings rich experience and great emotional stress, so a revolution teaches an entire people very rich and valuable lessons in a short space of time."

"The whole course of events, all economic and political conditions, everything that is happening in the armed forces, are increasingly paving the way for the successful winning of power by the working class, which will bring peace, bread and freedom and will hasten the victory of the proletarian revolution in other countries."

"We cannot tolerate a fraud of democracy if we call ourselves “democrats”. We are not democrats but unprincipled people if we tolerate this!!"

"We must withdraw from Zimmerwald immediately."

"The compromise on our part is our return to the pre-July demand of all power to the Soviets and a government of S.R.s and Mensheviks responsible to the Soviets."

"The bitterest enemies of socialism sometimes do it a service by the excessive zeal of their “exposures”. They bear down on the very things that deserve sympathy and emulation. They open the people’s eyes to the infamy of the bourgeoisie by the very nature of their attacks."

"At the present moment it is impossible to remain loyal to Marxism, to remain loyal to the revolution unless insurrection is treated as an art."

"At the moment we must campaign not so much directly against Kerensky, as indirectly against him, namely, by demanding a more and more active, truly revolutionary war against Kornilov."

"The law on libel in the press has virtually been suspended in Russia. Slanderers, especially those contributing to the bourgeois papers, have been granted complete freedom."

A Letter to the Central Committee and the Petrograd And Moscow Committees Of The R.S.D.L.P.(B.). 

"The Socialist-Revolutionary Party has betrayed you, comrade peasants. It has betrayed the hovels and deserted to the palaces, if not the royal palaces, then those where the Cadets, those bitter enemies of the revolution, and particularly the peasant revolution, sit in the same government as the Chernovs, Peshekhonovs, and Avksentyevs."

"To be really revolutionary, the democrats of Russia today must march in very close alliance with the proletariat, supporting it in its struggle as the only thoroughly revolutionary class."