Autocracy of the Cadets or autocracy of the people?

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Autocracy of the Cadets or autocracy of the people?

A source: Stalin I.V. Works. - T. 2. - M.: OGIZ; State Publishing House of Political Literature, 1946, pp. 20–21.

Notes 13–14: Ibid. S. 379.


Who should take power into their hands during the revolution, what classes should be at the helm of social and political life? The people, the proletariat and the peasantry! - the Bolsheviks answered and now answer. In their opinion, the victory of the revolution is the dictatorship (autocracy) of the proletariat and the peasantry in order to win an eight-hour working day, confiscate all landowners' land and establish a democratic order. The Mensheviks reject the autocracy of the people and so far have not given a direct answer to the question of who should take power into their hands. Now, however, when the Mensheviks have clearly turned towards the Cadets, they declare more boldly that the Cadets, and not the proletariat and the peasantry, should take power. Listen:

“The dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry is ... a paradox” (absurdity) ... It is a “tendency towards Socialist-Revolutionary views” (see the Menshevik organ “On the Line”13 No. 4, pp. 4-5, article byPotresov).

True, the greatest Marxist K. Kautsky clearly says that the democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry is necessary, but where is K. Kautsky ? compete with Potresov: everyone knows that Potresov is a genuine Marxist, but Kautsky is not!

Another Menshevik adds:

“The slogan of a responsible ministry will become the slogan of the struggle for power, the struggle for the transfer of power from the hands of the bureaucracy to the hands of the people” (see ibid., p. 3, article by Koltsov ).

As you can see, according to Koltsov, the slogan of a responsible ministry should become the slogan of the struggle of the people, i.e. the proletariat and the peasantry must fight precisely under this slogan and must shed their blood not for a democratic republic, but for a Cadet ministry.

That, it turns out, is what the Mensheviks call the conquest of power by the people!

Just think: it turns out that the dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry is harmful, while the dictatorship of the Cadets is useful! We, they say, do not want the autocracy of the people, but the autocracy of the Cadets!

Yes Yes! It is not in vain that the enemies of the people, the Cadets, praise the Mensheviks!


Newspaper “Dro” (“Time”)14 № 2,

March 13, 1907

Article without signature

Translation from Georgian

NOTES

13 "On the Queue" - Menshevik weekly; published in St. Petersburg from December 1906 to March 1907. Four issues have been published. - 20 .
14 "Dro"("Time") - a daily Bolshevik newspaper; published in Tiflis after the closure of the newspaper "Chveni Tskhovreba" from March 11 to April 15, 1907. The head of the newspaper was I.V. Stalin. M. Tskhakaya and M. Davitashvili were also members of the editorial office of the newspaper. Issue 31 came out. -21.