WeeklyWorker

06.11.2025
Lev Kamenev: took over as editor-in-chief of Pravda

Duelling editorials

After the February 1917 revolution overthrowing the tsar, the question facing every political party in the soviet system, as well as the mass soviet constituency as a whole, was straightforward: how can we best achieve our revolutionary goals? Lars T Lih hones in on the polemical battle between Mensheviks and Bolsheviks before the return of Irakli Tsereteli and Vladimir Lenin to Russia

In March 12 1917 - barely two weeks after the February revolution - the Menshevik party newspaper, Rabochaia Gazeta (The Worker Paper), published an editorial entitled ‘The Provisional Government and the working class’. A couple of days later, the Bolshevik newspaper, Pravda (‘Truth’), published an editorial with a similar title: ‘The Provisional Government and revolutionary Social Democracy’. These two editorials usefully set forth directly opposed answers to a key question confronting the soviet constituency: can we achieve our revolutionary goals by means of a political agreement with census (educated elite) society? The Menshevik editorial answered ‘yes’, and the Bolshevik editorial ‘no’.

The two editorials are short; the full text of each is provided at the end of this article.1 From them we can learn about an essential clash of outlooks - a clash that had its roots in the past and continued throughout the revolutionary year. When these editorials were published in mid-March 1917, the chief spokesmen for and against the agreement tactic - Irakli Tsereteli and Vladimir Lenin - had not yet arrived in Petrograd. Thus our duelling editorials help us see the inner logic of the conflict apart from the influence of these strong personalities.

After the February revolution overthrowing the tsar, the question facing every political party in the soviet system, as well as the mass soviet constituency as a whole, was straightforward: how can we best achieve our revolutionary goals? In the concrete circumstances of March 1917, this question translated into defining the proper relation between the two new institutions created during the February days: the Petrograd soviet and the Provisional Government. The new government desperately needed the legitimacy that only the soviet could provide, and they received it - in return for the government’s commitment to carry out sweeping revolutionary policies. This treaty - or ‘agreement’ (soglashenie), as it was usually called - provided what seemed like a path toward radical reform with the smallest possible political and social cost. But was this agreement tactic really workable? From the beginning, Russian socialists were divided between those who were pro-agreement, who thought the tactic could indeed work, and anti-agreement, who were sure that it could not.

For the time being, I will use ‘Menshevik’ and ‘Bolshevik’ more or less synonymously with ‘pro-agreement’ and ‘anti-agreement’ respectively, since the official party newspapers endorsed these policies. Nevertheless, we should not fully equate the partisan institution with the political outlook. There were strong anti-agreement contingents within the Menshevik party as well as within the Socialist Revolutionaries - the other party with an official pro-agreement stand. There was even an evanescent pro-agreement group among the Bolsheviks that made a brief appearance in late March.

The reader should be aware that there exists a strong academic and activist consensus that what I call ‘duelling editorials’ are actually saying the same thing. The Bolshevik editorial, although unsigned, was drafted by Lev Kamenev, a Bolshevik leader who had just returned from internal exile in Siberia. According to the consensus, Kamenev advocated something called ‘conditional support’ for the Provisional Government, thus making him a ‘semi-Menshevik’. I will return to this consensus later. I will only remark here that, by putting Kamenev’s editorial side-by-side with a Menshevik editorial of around the same date, we will have a good opportunity to test the confident assertions we find in the historians.

A thorough analysis of any political document requires two tasks: subjecting it to a close textual and even linguistic reading, but also placing it in the larger environment of what might be called its various interlocutors: that is, the other political pronouncements to which it is responding. As I show later, western academic specialists on 1917 have largely failed to take on these two tasks in their portrait of the Bolshevik outlook prior to Lenin’s return in early April. The result has been major distortions - not only of Kamenev’s and Stalin’s activities during March, but also the meaning and impact of Lenin’s April theses.

Given this situation, our examination of two short articles from mid-March 1917 takes on an unexpected weight. Underneath what may seem like a fleeting episode are two clashing positions that defined revolutionary politics throughout the year. These two editorials thus provide the reader without access to Russian-language documents one of the few opportunities to grasp the contours of a central issue - perhaps the central issue - dividing socialists: for or against the agreement tactic.

Postolku, poskolku

Postolku, poskolku - ‘insofar as’ - is a famous phrase from the first days of the February revolution. As the Menshevik editorial accurately states, ‘insofar as’ was the official policy of the Petrograd soviet: “The Soviet of Worker and Soldier Deputies issued a decree to support the Provisional Government to the extent and insofar as [postolku, poskolku] it carries out its programme.” Here is the crucial language from the Soviet resolution of March 2 that granted recognition to the new government. In this early resolution, issued when the February revolution was still unfolding, we do not find the canonical phrase postolku, poskolku, but rather the equivalent expression, ‘to the extent that’:

Comrade citizens!

The new vlast,2 created from the more middle-of-the-road strata of [elite] society, has today made an announcement of all those reforms that it has committed itself to carrying out - some of them even while in the process of fighting against the old regime, some after this fight is over. Among these reforms are several that are to be welcomed by the broad circles of the democracy: political amnesty, a commitment to undertake the task of preparing the Constituent Assembly, implementation of civil liberties, and the removal of nationality restrictions. And we believe that, to the extent that the vlast being born will act toward realising these commitments and undertakes a decisive struggle against the old vlast, the democracy should give this vlast its support.3

At first sight, the phrase ‘insofar as’ might seem banal to the point of tautology: I will support you if you adopt policies that I support. But, in the context of the time, the formula was in fact highly subversive. I remember reading an anecdote about a cabinet minister of the new post-February government patiently listening to one of the innumerable worker/soldier delegates, as they greeted the government, until the delegate spokesman got to the phrase ‘insofar as’, whereupon the minister got up and stalked out. Why was he so upset? Because the formula, ‘We support you insofar as you carry out revolutionary policies’, has a direct negative implication: ‘We will remove our support if you do not carry out revolutionary policies - and we decide if this is the case.’

When you or I announce our lack of support for a government, we mean that we will not vote for it, that we will complain about it, that we will mobilise public opinion against it. But the Petrograd soviet was less like an interest group and more like a legislature and, as such, denying support and confidence to the government was a good deal more serious. It meant to remove crucial legitimacy from the government, without which (at least in the eyes of the soviet) it could not function. ‘Insofar as’ was, in fact, a declaration of the de facto sovereignty of the soviet, even though it claimed to grant de jure sovereignty to the government. And, in reality, the soviet did have the final say about the personnel and programme of the government - and everybody knew it.

The Menshevik editorial advocated loyal support for the ‘agreement’ (soglashenie) between the soviet and the Provisional Government. But, in order to make a persuasive case, it felt compelled to acknowledge that there were solid grounds to distrust the revolutionary inclinations of the representatives of ‘census society’ - the educated elite who helmed the government. The editorial furthermore made clear that, if the soviet refused its support and the government fell, the only alternative was a revolutionary vlast that was based on the soviets and therefore excluded any representatives of ‘bourgeois’ society.

The Bolshevik editorial also faced constraints in its efforts to be persuasive. The ‘insofar as’ formula was official soviet policy, and to reject it was evidently to reject the soviet. And indeed it would be rather odd to oppose otherwise desirable policies, given the fact that the government was doing them at the behest of the soviet.

Furthermore, as the Menshevik author stated, “Up to the present time, the Provisional Government is fulfilling its programme.” We shall later look at events that transpired on March 9 (a couple of days before the Menshevik editorial) that seemed to provide a dramatic confirmation. And so the Bolshevik editorial published on March 14 could not yet point to any concrete example of the Provisional Government defying the soviet. All it could do was to confidently predict that such defiance was inevitable in the near future.

To sum up, the duelling editorials agreed on some basic features of the post-February political situation:

n If the ‘agreement’ between soviet and Provisional Government falls through, then the only logical alternative is a revolutionary vlast based on the soviet and excluding censitarian influence.

These areas of overlap only bring out the underlying clash on the crucial question confronting the soviet constituency: what is the best tactic for achieving our revolutionary goals? Will the agreement tactic now in place actually achieve those goals?

According to the Menshevik editorial, the agreement tactic will work. Furthermore, the only alternative - an anti-agreement revolutionary vlast - will not work. An attempt to install such a vlast would be disastrous, now or at any time in the future.

According to the Bolshevik editorial, the agreement tactic will not and cannot work. Furthermore, the anti-agreement alternative will work, in fact, it is the only way of achieving basic revolutionary goals. Admittedly, an attempt to install at the present time an anti-agreement vlast would be disastrous. The Bolsheviks must wait until the soviet constituency shares their view that the Provisional Government is a counterrevolutionary sham. Fortunately (the editorial assured its readers), this realisation will happen sooner rather than later.

Will the agreement tactic work?

Granted, says the Menshevik editorial, while the workers were the ones who actually carried out the February revolution, the new vlast quickly fell into the hands of “the representatives of the progressive gentry and bourgeoisie, of the liberal-democratic intelligentsia”. Yes, the new government published a revolutionary programme, but “Good intentions pave the way to hell, and we have more than once witnessed how even the most excellent promises remain on paper. [Therefore,] whether or not the programme of the Provisional Government is put into practice in the real world depends on the workers themselves and on the revolutionary democracy as a whole.”

Not to worry! If the soviet applies “unremitting pressure”, the government will indeed carry out the promised democratic reforms. And, insofar as this is the case, we workers are committed to greet and support these reforms; we must agitate to obtain support for them from the dark masses, especially the peasants: “Our task, the task of the working class as a whole, is to help the government in this work. Then, and only then, will it be solid and fruitful.” Luckily, the impetus of the revolution guarantees the cooperation of census society: “Under the pressure of the whirlwind of events, under the influence of the unstoppable historical flood that in two weeks has carried away the rotten mainstays of centuries-old slavery - this government, against the will of the majority of its members, has become a revolutionary government” (original emphasis).

Granted (says the Bolshevik editorial, on the other hand), the Provisional Government has promised to carry out many reforms. Granted, right now we cannot point to any concrete examples of a clash between the soviet and an openly counterrevolutionary government. And, of course, it goes without saying that, as loyal members of the soviet, we accept the injunction to support government policies of which we otherwise would approve anyway.

But, workers and soldiers, don’t be fooled! This very unstable situation will last only until the bourgeoisie gets its act together. And then the government will inevitably move against the soviet in the near future. You cannot count on the Provisional Government to help you achieve your goals - in fact, you can count on the opposite:

The Provisional Government, in accordance

with the social nature of the strata from which it came, would like to hold back the development of the revolution at its first steps. If they haven’t done so as yet, it is only because they don’t have the strength for it …

We must realise that the paths of the democracy and of the Provisional Government will diverge - that, when the bourgeoisie comes to its senses, it will inevitably attempt to halt the revolutionary movement and not permit it to develop to the point of satisfying the essential needs of the proletariat and the peasantry [my emphasis].

As we see, Kamenev cannot point to any concrete proof of the Provisional Government’s counterrevolutionary intentions, but he confidently asserts that this proof will be forthcoming in the near future. And indeed, a couple of weeks later, at the March All-Russia Soviet Conference, Kamenev thought he had found a smoking gun. A speech by a supporter of the agreement tactic, Iurii Steklov, spilled the beans by listing all the conflicts, all the kicking and screaming emanating from the Provisional Government before it signed on to the agreement in the first place. The Bolshevik leaders at the March Bolshevik party conference immediately renounced any talk of support of any kind:4

Kamenev: In Steklov’s resolution [that is, the original draft proposed by the pro-agreement leadership], the point dealing with support is absolutely inacceptable. It is impermissible to have any expression of support, even to hint at it. We cannot support the government because it is an imperialist government - because, despite its own declaration, it remains in an alliance with the Anglo-French bourgeoisie.

Stalin: The speaker [Stalin] proposes that a resolution that does not support the Provisional Government be accepted as a basis. The government is organising the army [against us], it is arousing the hostility of the soldiers against the workers, and it relies on the strength of Anglo-French capital: it is already organising the counterrevolution.

There is, of course, no contradiction between these statements at the end of the month and what Kamenev and Stalin were saying earlier in mid-March, no more than there is a contradiction between the statement, ‘I predict A will happen’, and a later statement that says, ‘I assert that A has happened’. But, whatever the motivation of the Bolshevik leaders, it is crucial to note that Kamenev and Stalin denounced all support for the Provisional Government prior to the April theses on the basis of their own political logic. On this central point, the party did not need to be rearmed.

Will soviet power work?

The Bolshevik editorial argues that only an anti-agreement vlast based on the narod [people] will achieve revolutionary goals:

The proletariat and the peasantry and the army composed of these classes will consider the revolution now begun as completed only when it has satisfied their demands entirely and in full - when all remnants of the former regime, economic as well as political, have been torn up to their very roots. This full satisfaction of their demands is possible only when the full and complete vlast [vsia polnota vlasti] is in their own hands. Insofar as the revolution is going to develop and to deepen, it will come to this: to the dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry.

The phrase, “the full and complete vlast” [vsia polnota vlasti], means exactly what it says. The abdication manifesto of Mikhail Romanov (the tsar’s brother) used the same phrase to describe the new Provisional Government, just as Kamenev’s editorial used the phrase to describe its projected replacement. The Bolshevik editorial went on to argue that an attempt to replace the Provisional Government right now (seichas zhe) would be premature. Such an attempt would make political sense only after the Provisional Government had thoroughly discredited itself in the eyes of the soviet constituency, at which time the ‘insofar as’ formula would turn its blade against the government. In the following crucial passage, Kamenev outlines a scenario for the future development of the revolution:

We must be on the alert and ready to act. Calmly and cold-bloodedly weighing our forces, we must use all our energy to gather, organise and consolidate the revolutionary proletariat. But there is no reason to force events. They are developing with immense speed by themselves.

And, precisely for this reason, it would be a political mistake to pose the question right now of replacing the Provisional Government.

The active forces of the great revolution are working for us; they are exposing the inadequacy and the limitations of any attempt to solve the tasks of the revolution by means of compromise.

And only then, when the Provisional Government of the liberals has discredited itself before the face of the democracy of Russia, will the question of the transfer of vlast into its own hands stand before the democracy as a practical question.

We see that in this passage Kamenev is addressing impatient revolutionaries on his own side. He wants to sober them up without discouraging their revolutionary ardour. He therefore tells them that, even though the government is indeed composed of the class enemy, now is not the time. But don’t give up on further revolution, he hastens to add: events are moving rapidly in our favour.

Let us ask: when Lenin returned in April, whose side did he take in this dispute? Obviously, Kamenev’s! I select the following from a multitude of relevant Lenin pronouncements (Lenin’s emphases throughout). Compare the Bolshevik editorial of March 14 to Lenin’s argument from April 9:

It should be clear from this why our comrades, too, make so many mistakes when putting the question ‘simply’: Must the Provisional Government be overthrown immediately?

My answer is: (1) it must be overthrown, for it is oligarchic and bourgeois, rather than reflecting the narod as a whole; it cannot provide peace, bread, or full freedom; (2) it must not be overthrown right now [seichas], for it maintains itself by a direct and indirect, a formal and actual agreement with the soviets of worker deputies, and, first of all, with the main soviet, the one in Petrograd; (3) generally, it cannot be ‘overthrown’ in the ordinary way, for it rests on the ‘support’ given to the bourgeoisie by the second government - the soviet of worker deputies, and this government is the only possible revolutionary government, which directly expresses the mind and will of the majority of the workers and peasants.5

Did the actual course of events in 1917 resemble the scenario set out in the Bolshevik editorial of March 14? I think it did. As the weeks rolled on, the commitment of census society to achieve the revolutionary goals of the soviet grew less and less plausible. The soviet constituency grew more and more disillusioned with the results of the agreement tactic, so that the term ‘agreementisers’ (soglashateli) became an angry insult. By September/October, the Provisional Government was indeed thoroughly discredited, so that ‘the question of the transfer of the vlast’ now stood before the soviet constituency as a practical question. As we know, Lenin and Kamenev had their differences about some of these practicalities, but their October disputes have nothing to do with the essential accuracy of Kamenev’s March scenario.

The Menshevik editorial argues that any attempt, now or later, to install an anti-agreement vlast would surely be a disaster. It lists a host of reasons why a vlast based solely on the workers, one that rejected the agreement, would spell ruin for the revolution:

1. Russia is not yet at the level of political and economic development needed for carrying out the final [krainye: literally, ‘extreme’] demands of the workers. ‘Russia stands before a long period of bourgeois-democratic development.’

2. Any attempt by the workers to install their own vlast would alienate the huge mass of ordinary people, “the rural and urban petty bourgeoisie”. In fact, even to criticise the Provisional Government or to deny it confidence will in itself “fracture the forces of the Russian Revolution”.

3. The mass of the population is still fairly benighted in its political outlook. Remember, they have been liberated for only a week or so.

4. Although the political slogans of the workers may find mass support, their economic demands are too advanced for the majority of the population.

5. The Provisional Government has promised to achieve the ‘minimum programme’ of the socialist proletariat, which by definition is “the highest limit of what can be achieved within the framework of bourgeois society”.

A number of comments on this argument is in order. First, the very fact that the pro-agreement editorial gives such passionate attention to the demand of their anti-agreement rivals shows that, even at this early date, an anti-agreement vlast based exclusively on ‘revolutionary democracy’ was an acknowledged option that had to be taken seriously.

The Menshevik argument is to a large extent aimed at a straw man, since the Bolsheviks did not then or later advocate a regime based exclusively on the workers: that is, one that would carry out worker demands exclusively, as opposed to the interests of the ‘urban and rural petty bourgeois’. The longtime Bolshevik ‘hegemony’ scenario was that the socialist proletariat would lead the peasantry and other sections of the narod to achieve common goals. This scenario may be unrealistically romantic and utopian in its own right, but the Menshevik critique did not take it on.

The Menshevik editorial clothed its polemic against an anti-agreement vlast in the abstract terms of Marxist theory, but (in my view) the Menshevik point of view was more fundamentally based on a strong empirical reading of Russian society in 1917. To declare war on educated society just seemed like a very bad idea (something like the USA in the Trump era). Indeed, anyone reading this editorial will feel that its Menshevik author was much more passionate and emotional about the horrors of an anti-agreement vlast than enthusiastic and confident about the agreement itself.

Which leads to a dilemma facing the Mensheviks in 1917. Their strategy to make the agreement tactic work was to threaten a withdrawal of soviet support. But this threat was hollow - a bluff, given the evident terror they felt at the prospect of a genuinely anti-agreement vlast. And, since the censitarian politicians were perfectly aware of this, they had one less motive for carrying out their end of the bargain.

Arrest of ex-tsar

On March 9 - that is, just a few days before our duelling editorials were published on March 12 and 14 - there occurred a dramatic episode that illustrates the logic of ‘insofar as’ on the ground: the arrest of ex-tsar Nicholas Romanov by the soviet executive committee.6 The details of this episode are worth examining, not only because of its manifest influence on the duelling editorials: it was the first of the spiralling ‘crises’ that challenged and eventually destroyed the agreement tactic.

Tsar Nicholas abdicated on Thursday March 2. No immediate decision was made about his status, and the embittered ex-tsar seemed to be wandering around the army front at his leisure. On Friday March 3, the Petrograd soviet called for his arrest and hinted that the soviet itself would carry out the arrest, if need be.7 On Monday March 6, the issue came up again: the executive committee of the soviet was starting to get impatient about the arrest. But (the session was told) an individual minister had promised to facilitate the arrest. The next day, the Provisional Government finally took action to put Nicholas under house arrest at his luxurious residence in Tsarskoe Selo, about 20 or so kilometres south of Petrograd.

The government delegation with its ex-royal prisoner arrived in Tsarskoe Selo on the morning of Thursday March 9, a week after the abdication.

On that same day, the soviet executive committee received through unofficial channels some very unsettling news: the Provisional Government planned to ship the entire ex-imperial family off to England! In the eyes of the outraged members of the executive committee, this move was clearly counterrevolutionary in intent: keeping the tsar safe and sound in readiness for a monarchical restoration. The soviet leaders also had to face heavy pressure from the soviet constituency, who were already angry at what they considered kid-glove treatment of Nicholas. In response, the soviet’s executive committee passed a hard-hitting resolution, which invoked the sharp edge of the ‘insofar as’ policy:

It was decided to inform the Provisional Government at once of the unswerving determination of the executive committee not to permit the departure of Nicholas Romanov for England, and to arrest him … It was decided to carry out the arrest of Nicholas Romanov at all costs, even if this threatens to break relations with the Provisional Government.8

The committee further demanded that the tsar be imprisoned in the Peter and Paul Fortress, and an armed delegation was sent to Tsarskoe Selo to check up on the exact whereabouts of Nicholas. This delegation was headed by Sergei Mstislavskii, an ‘internationalist’ and anti-agreement left SR, who later wrote a marvellously vivid description of his mission, available in English.9 Mstislavskii used his credentials as a representative of the Petrograd Soviet to bully his way past various palace guards and to see with his own eyes that the ex-tsar was physically present in the palace (a grimly hilarious scene). He ascertained that security arrangements were extremely tight and that the local troops were loyal to the soviet.

On his way into the palace, Mstislavskii passed a room crowded with ordinary soldiers and addressed them with these words: “Greetings, comrades. Best wishes from the Petrograd garrison and the soldier section of the soviet.” After he told the soldiers about the plan to whisk away the ex-tsar, the mood became tense and angry. But Mstislavskii calmed them down: “Peacefully, without bloodshed, comrades. But firmly: what the revolutionary narod wants, that’s what will happen.”

After Mstislavskii reported back to the executive committee that the situation was well in hand, house arrest was deemed sufficient, and the earlier soviet demand that the ex-tsar be thrown into a dungeon was quietly shelved. A few months later, the ex-imperial family was finally sent off - not to England, but to Tobolsk, Siberia. Now let us take a look at these events in the way they were seen at the time: as a test case for the agreement tactic.

On the one hand, the episode showed that the Provisional Government would reluctantly carry out its side of the agreement only after “kicking and screaming”, as Kamenev put it in the Bolshevik editorial. On the other hand, the episode showed that the tools at the disposal of the soviet - kontrol (keeping close tabs on what the government was up to) and pressure - were sufficient to make the government cooperate. As the chair of the executive committee, the Menshevik, Nikolai Chkheidze, informed the soviet: “Under the pressure of the executive committee, the Provisional Government has rejected the idea of permitting Nicholas Romanov to leave for England without the special consent of the executive committee … In the future, the question of Nicholas Romanov will be resolved in agreement with the executive committee.”10

Observers on the other side of the social demarcation line came to the same conclusion about the lessons of the mini-crisis. George Buchanan, the UK ambassador to Russia, wrote to his home office that the Provisional Government had failed to overcome the opposition of the soviet, since they were not “masters in their own house”.11

The events of March 9 had a major impact on what we might call the ‘plausibility constraints’ facing the two editorials published in its immediate aftermath. In order to be plausible, the Menshevik editorial had to concede that the government could indeed harbour dangerous counterrevolutionary designs. The Bolshevik editorial likewise had to concede that, at least in some cases, when the soviet told the government to jump, it jumped.

What does the saga of the ex-tsar’s arrest tell us about the workability of the agreement tactic? Did it show that, given proper vigilance by the soviet, the two vlasti could work together effectively? Or did even this fairly minor matter reveal strains that would prove fatal in crises to come? Let us imagine what our duelling editorials might have said, if asked about these implications.

Implications

‘You have identified some textual, some linguistic, differences between the Menshevik and Bolshevik editorials: thank you for that. But, in the context of March 1917, were there really any practical differences? After all, both editorials endorse “insofar as”, both call for pressure and kontrol, both reject the idea of replacing the government, both exhort activists to organise, organise, organise - and nothing more.’

In responding to the understandable objection I have paraphrased above, I take my lead from Vitaly Startsev, the Soviet-era historian whose monographs in March/April 1917 are still irreplaceable. Startsev surveys the whole political landscape of Russia in the immediate aftermath of the February revolution and concludes: “All parties promised their support for the government, with a single exception” (the Bolsheviks). When discussing the various documents circulating in soviet and party circles during this time, Startsev warns historians against equating the political content of these documents merely on the basis of ‘grammatical’ similarities, by which he meant the presence of isolated vocabulary items such as postolku, poskolku.12

Following up this line of argument, we shall take up the various vocabulary items mentioned in the objection described above and put them into the framework of the overall point of view found in the two editorials. Recall the concrete situation: both Menshevik and Bolshevik editorials are responding to the agreement between the soviet and the Provisional Government, whereby the Provisional Government undertakes to carry out revolutionary policies and the soviet undertakes to provide essential legitimacy. The soviet constituency was thus faced with a fundamental choice: was the agreement tactic the best way to achieve their revolutionary goals?

The Menshevik editor writes in the hope and expectation that the agreement tactic could achieve these goals. Here is the key passage: “The working class must remember that only by keenly observing the activity of the government, only by applying unremitting pressure, will the working class achieve the promised democratic reforms. But, insofar as these reforms are really put into practice, we need to greet them and support them.”

The Bolshevik editor (Kamenev) writes in the hope and expectation that the agreement tactic could not achieve those goals. In the following passage, I have rearranged the order of clauses in order to bring out the logic:

For us, revolutionary Social Democrats [= Bolsheviks], there is no need even to state that, insofar as the Provisional Government actually struggles against the remnants of the old regime, to that extent it is assured of support from the revolutionary proletariat.

[But] the Provisional Government, in accordance with the social nature of the strata from which it came, would like to hold back the development of the revolution at its first steps. If they have not done so as yet, it is only because they do not have the strength for it.

This full satisfaction of [worker/peasant] demands is possible only when the full and complete vlast [vsia polnota vlasti] is in their own hands.

These two passages give us that framework for each of the duelling editorials that in turn allows us to judge the meaning of specific vocabulary items. And, as we shall see, these items have dramatically opposed political implications - based on whether they are used by a socialist who supported the agreement tactic or by a socialist who rejected it.

1. ‘Insofar as’: The Menshevik editorial uses this formula to urge the workers to accept an ongoing commitment to the agreement tactic. The editorial says to the workers: the soviet decreed support for the government, insofar as it carries out its obligations, and now you must live up to the commitment made in your name. In contrast, the Bolshevik editorial says: obviously, we support government policies insofar as they genuinely advance revolutionary goals, but - we do not ‘tie our hands’, we do not promise any sort of commitment, because the Provisional Government will inevitably fail to meet its own commitments, and so we look forward to a vlast based on the revolutionary narod.

2. Pressure: Both editorials remark that the Provisional Government adopted a revolutionary programme only due to energetic pressure from below:

As usual, the consensus on the facts only serves to bring out the deep contrast in the evaluation of these facts. The Menshevik editorial aims at giving the reader a sense of the power of applied pressure. In this way, ‘pressure’ becomes an argument to help persuade the soviet constituency to support the agreement. We realise (says the editorial) that you have good grounds to distrust Russia’s new rulers - but don’t worry, we’re on the case, we’re keeping a keen eye on its doings, and, if the government strays from the revolutionary path, we will apply ‘unremitting pressure’ to set them straight. Pressure is thus an indispensable tool for making the agreement tactic work. No wonder that the editorial mentions ‘pressure’ four times in this short article. The editorial wants to drive home the moral of the story: pressure worked before and it will work again.

The Bolshevik editorial has a completely different attitude. When it asserts that the Provisional Government was compelled from below to move forward, the aim is to demonstrate the ingrained reluctance of the Provisional Government to act in a revolutionary manner. Any hope of using pressure to enforce the agreement for any length of time is therefore futile. The moral of the story is: yes, pressure worked once or twice - but only because the bourgeoisie is temporarily discombobulated. So don’t expect pressure to work so well in the future. Accordingly, Kamenev’s editorial mentions ‘pressure’ only this one time. His whole argument is meant to show that no amount of pressure will succeed in really bringing the government to heel.

Just days later, both Kamenev and Stalin advocated launching a campaign to ‘pressure’ the Provisional Government to open immediate peace negotiations. But this campaign was not launched with the slightest idea of actually persuading longtime imperialists such as Miliukov and Guchkov - an expectation that truly would have been non-Bolshevik (indeed, non-sensible). On the contrary, the whole campaign was predicated on the inevitable failure of putting pressure on the imperialist government, and in this way to show the utter unworkability of the agreement tactic. As Stalin explained a few years later, looking back on this episode, the aim of the campaign was “to enable the soviets to discern the actual imperialist nature of the Provisional Government on the basis of the concrete question of peace, and in this way to wrest the soviets from the Provisional Government”.13

The Mensheviks also did not believe that any amount of pressure could make the Provisional Government alienate its international allies by unilaterally offering to open peace negotiations. For this very reason, they voted down the corresponding Bolshevik proposal when it was put forward at the All-Russian Soviet Conference at the end of March. They realised that pressure on this issue would put a great strain on the agreement. Many observers today find it plausible that Kamenev and Stalin actually believed that pressure from below could get Miliukov and Guchkov to offer to open immediate negotiations. If that were true, these two longtime Bolsheviks would be more Menshevik than the Mensheviks. Far from being merely ‘semi-Mensheviks’, they would be Mensheviks on steroids.14

3. Kontrol: We repeat once more our basic point about context: the political meaning of a word such as kontrol changes when it is used by a socialist who supports the agreement tactic, as distinct from a socialist who opposes the agreement tactic. While we do not find the actual word kontrol in the Menshevik editorial, a verbal formula found therein - “keenly observing the activity of the government” - is a good working definition of this key term (taken over from the German Kontrolle). For the pro-agreement socialist, kontrol is an essential tool for demonstrating that the agreement tactic can work. If the soviet constituency keeps close tabs on the government, it can help ensure the smooth workings of the agreement.

In stark contrast, for the anti-agreement socialist, kontrol is a tool for exposing the inevitable counterrevolutionary doings of the government, and thus of demonstrating that the agreement cannot work. In Kamenev’s words:

We call upon the revolutionary democracy, headed by the proletariat, to the most unwearying kontrol on all the actions of the vlast, whether in the centre or in the localities.

We must realise that the paths of the democracy and of the Provisional Government will diverge - that, when the bourgeoisie comes to its senses, it will inevitably attempt to halt the revolutionary movement and not permit it to develop to the point of satisfying the essential needs of the proletariat and the peasantry.

4. Transfer of the vlast: In a manner of speaking, both editorials counsel against the idea of replacing the Provisional Government with a soviet-based vlast. The Bolshevik editorial asserts that “it would be a political mistake to pose the question right now of replacing the Provisional Government”. The Menshevik editorial says flatly “the proletariat cannot and should not aspire to the vlast”. But, obviously, in their attitude to the possibility of replacing the Provisional Government with a soviet-based vlast, the two editorials differ as night from day. For the Menshevik, the idea of a worker-based vlast is a non-starter in every possible way. It flagrantly contradicts Russia’s historical stage of development, it will surely alienate a majority of the Russian population - in a word, it would spell the ruin of the revolution.

For the Bolshevik, the transfer of the vlast into the hands of the revolutionary narod is indeed premature in March 1917 - but it remains the only way the narod can achieve its goals. Further, events are developing “with immense speed”, so that what is now premature will soon be a practical question. Kamenev does not want an uprising in March 1917 precisely because he does want an uprising later. As he said to fellow Bolsheviks a few days after drafting this editorial, “What’s important is not to take the vlast: what’s important is to keep it.”15

5. Organise! Both editorials call on the soviet constituency to organise - just as generals of opposing armies each call on their troops to mobilise. For the Menshevik, to organise means to support the Provisional Government: “Organise yourselves, pull the rug from under the feet of the counterrevolution by enlightening those in whom the old vlast still hopes to find support. This means, at one and the same time, to support the Provisional Government in its revolutionary work and to obstruct any and all counterrevolutionary designs from its side.”

The Bolshevik editorial also calls for energetic organisation: “… the slogan of the moment still remains: organisation of the forces of the proletariat”. But, for Kamenev, the point of organising is to be ready on the great day when the agreement tactic is fully discredited, when the course of events has persuaded the soviet constituency of the fact that “the tasks of the revolution [cannot be solved] by means of compromise”, and therefore when the transfer of the vlast to the narod has finally become a practical question.

Despite the overlapping vocabulary items, then, the practical implications of the two editorials are completely opposed. As a matter of method, the general rule is this: the individual vocabulary item does not determine the overall message: rather, the overall message determines the meaning of the vocabulary item. And, furthermore, these contrasting implications for practice were not confined to the editorial pages of party newspapers: the contrast between pro-agreement and anti-agreement socialists was made vividly clear in concrete policies already during March 1917, prior to Lenin’s return and the April theses. An essential example is Bolshevik agitation against the war.

In March, the Bolsheviks launched two major agitation campaigns. One was organised around the slogan of demanding that the government make an official offer to start peace negotiations; the other was organised around the slogan of publishing the secret treaties signed by the tsar with Russia’s allies. The ultimate aim of these campaigns was, of course, not to induce the government to actually carry out these policies, since (among other reasons) the Bolshevik slogans were carefully calculated to offend the government and to alienate the allies. No, the aim was to open the eyes of the soviet constituency to the government’s counterrevolutionary nature. Mensheviks were therefore naturally opposed to the slogans of both Bolshevik campaigns. At the March All-Russia Soviet Conference, the most prominent pro-agreement spokesman, Irakli Tsereteli, explained at length why acting on these slogans would be disastrous for the revolution.

Unsurprisingly, Bolshevik amendments and resolutions based on their campaign slogans were voted down by large majorities at the Soviet conference. These vote tallies should not obscure the fact that the diametrically opposed viewpoints of Menshevik vs Bolshevik, pro-agreement vs anti-agreement, were put on display for a national audience. Everyone could see that the revolutionary democracy did not present a united front and that to equate Mensheviks and Bolsheviks was nonsense.

Tone of voice

Startsev gives us another piece of useful advice: we should be alert to the contrasting tone of voice used by various interlocutors when they make their case. We will here detail some of the ways by which readers at the time would instantly recognise where each of the two editorials were coming from and where they were going. We can start with their description of the social forces behind the Provisional Government:

The Menshevik editorial refrains from using the kind of prejudicial words that we find in the Bolshevik article - words such as “people of property”. Similarly, the Bolshevik editorial eschews words like “progressive” or “intelligentsia”, used by the Menshevik author to make the censitarian government sound more acceptable. Both editorials refer to ‘liberals’, but the Menshevik speaks benignly of the “liberal-democratic intelligentsia”, while the Bolshevik grimly ties ‘liberal’ to “people of property”. And, of course, the Bolshevik author makes no mention of the presence in the government of Aleksandr Kerensky - “the vozhd of the genuine democracy”, as he is described by the Menshevik editorial.

In describing the social forces behind the Provisional Government, both sides make concessions to objections they expect to hear from their audience. The Mensheviks concede that the government might harbour counterrevolutionary designs; the Bolsheviks concede that the government might still carry out a revolutionary policy or two. But these concessions are of the ‘yes, but’ variety, whereby the concession is cancelled out by the following ‘but’ clause, as in the following paraphrase:

We next turn to contrasting rhetorical portraits of the social forces that supported the soviet. At the beginning of the Menshevik editorial, we read that the February revolution was carried out by “the proletariat and the rebellious army”, but the overwhelming thrust of the rest of the editorial is to contrast the proletariat to the rest of the mass soviet constituency. According to the editorial, “the democratic peasants and the army coming out of its ranks” will not accept the economic leadership of the proletariat: only its political leadership. Why? Because “the working class is the most revolutionary class of contemporary society, and its interests are opposed to the interests of the entire bourgeoisie as a whole”. And, by “the entire bourgeoisie”, the Menshevik editorial means to include the great mass of ordinary people, the obyvateli, because they are one and the same as “the rural and urban petty bourgeoisie”. The editorial emphasises, then, a conflict of interests between the workers and the “still dark masses! (eshche temnye massy).

In stark contrast, the Bolshevik editorial treats “the proletariat and the peasantry and the army composed of these classes” as a united mass, as “the revolutionary narod”. The Russian word narod, the people, has strongly positive connotations, as opposed to the somewhat contemptuous term, obyvateli, used by the Menshevik editorialist. The word narod is not found in the Menshevik editorial.

At one point, the Menshevik editorial asserts that “this government, against the will of the majority of its members, has become a revolutionary government”. Translation: I grant you that the censitarian ministers are far from revolutionaries, but ‘the whirlwind of events’ has turned them into a ‘revolutionary government’. In contrast, the Bolshevik editorial, even while granting that the government might possibly carry out a revolutionary policy or two, would never talk about a ‘revolutionary government’.

We can list other contrasts that attest to the strong difference in the tone of voice of our two editors. When we see phrases like “help the government in its work”, so that it will be “fruitful” [plodotvornyi], we know we are reading a Menshevik editorial. When we read phrases like “the dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry” or “full and complete vlast”, we know we are reading a Bolshevik editorial.

As remarked earlier, a shared aim of the two editorials is to respond to the talking points of the other side in order to get them out of the way, allowing the editorial as a whole to define the situation along pro- or anti-agreement lines. Oddly enough, both editorials choose to end their text with one last reference to a central talking point of the opposing side. Here are the final words of the two editorials:

It seems very paradoxical! The Menshevik editorial warns of the counterrevolutionary designs of the Provisional Government, while the Bolshevik editorial promises support for genuinely revolutionary policies. The world turned upside down! But, when we read the two perorations as a whole, the world rights itself.

In the final paragraph, we see the real message of the Menshevik editorial to its readers: support the Provisional Government in its revolutionary work, ward off any non-revolutionary policy by organised pressure, and enlighten the dark masses to support the government as well. In contrast, the closing passages of the Bolshevik editorial call for “consolidation [splochenie] of the forces of the proletariat, peasantry and army” around the soviets and for keeping eyes on the prize - on the day when “the question of the transfer of vlast into its own hands stands before the democracy as a practical question”.

What should we think of historians who present the paradoxical final phrases in isolation and who build their picture of the Menshevik/Bolshevik contrast entirely on these half-sentences? But this is essentially what has happened, as we shall see in the next section.

Conditional support

If there is one thing on which post-war western academic specialists on 1917 agree, it is that Kamenev’s editorial of March 14 advocated a policy of ‘conditional support’ (or some equivalent phrase) for the Provisional Government.21 Should I be worried about challenging such an impressive consensus? Not particularly. A closer look reveals that this consensus is a glittery facade with nothing behind it, so that it resembles a movie set that portrays no more than the front of an office building.

In the gallery of quotations above, I have not singled out summary or illustrative sentences. No, what you see is what you get: the quotations above constitute the entire discussion by these historians of Kamenev’s alleged ‘conditional support’. So far, in the entire western secondary literature, I have found only two writers who actually quote Kamenev’s editorial of March 14: myself and Eric Blanc. And we both challenge the consensus.22

The historians are so confident in their description of Kamenev and the March Bolsheviks that they sometimes see things that are not there. Consider this striking assertion by Geoffrey Swain as quoted above: “From March 14 onwards, Pravda editorials used the phrase ‘conditional support’ when referring to the Provisional Government.”

This statement is unconnected with reality. In fact the words, ‘conditional support’, are nowhere to be found, not in Kamenev’s editorial of March 14, nor anywhere in Pravda.

At most, then, ‘conditional support’ is a label for an interpretation of Kamenev’s editorial. Who was first to use this phrase to portray Kamenev’s outlook? One candidate for this honour is Iosif Stalin. The notorious Short course of party history, issued in 1938, contains the following passage about March 1917, drafted personally by Stalin: “Kamenev and several activists in the Moscow organisation - for example, Rykov, Bubnov and Nogin - held a semi-Menshevik position of conditional support for the Provisional Government and the policy of the defencists.”

When Stalin wrote that description, Kamenev was a recently executed ‘enemy of the people’ who could not reply. Western historians have energetically pushed back against Stalin’s slander of such former comrades as Lev Trotsky and Nikolai Bukharin, and yet, for their own reasons, they have let Kamenev twist slowly, slowly in the wind.

When looking over the historical literature about March 1917, the most surprising thing is the lack of surprise. Imagine: here is a longtime Bolshevik, one of Lenin’s top two lieutenants, with a decade’s worth of Bolshevik polemics under his belt, a man who before the war had specifically attacked such future ministers of the Provisional Government as Aleksandr Guchkov and Pavel Miliukov, who had passionately insisted that the liberals were the most dangerous enemy of the revolution - and then, when he shows up in Petrograd after February, he urges the workers to trust their longtime class enemies and to pin their hopes on those nice imperialists in the Provisional Government!

The historians blithely tell us Kamenev advocated ‘conditional support’, and yet they express no surprise and offer no explanation (except, perhaps, with a gesture toward an alleged post-February ‘euphoria’). Fundamentally, the historians are simply not that interested in Kamenev nor in the alleged ‘sharp right turn’ he is supposed to have instigated. Kamenev in March is only mentioned in passing in order to get to other more intriguing matters, such as the April theses. I therefore feel no need to defend myself against arguments supporting the ‘conditional support’ interpretation, because such arguments are not to be found.23

The short text of Kamenev’s editorial is appended here. Readers can see for themselves that it argues that the agreement tactic could not possibly work and that the only way to achieve revolutionary goals was through the full and undivided vlast of the revolutionary narod. A strange sort of ‘conditional support’! I have no idea what the historians quoted above would say if asked to comment on the relevant passages, because they show no awareness that such passages even exist.

One reason the historians have painted such a surprising and prima facie implausible portrait of Kamenev is because they evidently felt they did not have to bother with a lowly textual or ‘merely’ linguistic analysis of the relevant texts. They have also failed in another task: putting Kamenev and his Pravda articles into the context of its immediate interlocutors. Instead, they have resorted to a device that I call gerrymandering, to use a term now in the news. For our purposes, gerrymandering consists of manufacturing a misleading similarity or a misleading contrast by means of strained and artificial boundaries.

A typical example of gerrymandering is the way ‘insofar as’ is employed by historians to turn Kamenev into what Stalin called a ‘semi-Menshevik’. Essentially they argue that, since Kamenev used the same phrase as did the Mensheviks, he agreed with them on essentials. They are able to do this simply by giving us descriptions that leave out the italicised section of the following paraphrases (I will let the reader guess which is Menshevik and which is Bolshevik):

1. Insofar as the Provisional Government carries out revolutionary policies, we must support those policies - but we confidently predict that any such policies are a passing phenomenon, since the government’s inherently counterrevolutionary nature will inevitably come to the fore in the near future.

2. Insofar as the Provisional Government carries out revolutionary policies, we must support those policies - and we are confident that, if the soviet applies pressure and kontrol, the government will continue to carry out revolutionary policies, thus earning our enthusiastic support.

If you think the italicised words are irrelevant for understanding Bolsheviks and Mensheviks during the revolution, then you can rely on the historians. A similar false unity is created by leaving out the italicised sections of the following paraphrases:

3. We should not attempt to replace the Provisional Government with a soviet-based vlast at the present time, nor at any other time, since the whole project of an exclusively soviet-based vlast is misbegotten.

4. We should not attempt to replace the Provisional Government with a Soviet-based vlast at the present time - but we are rapidly approaching the time when the dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry will be an urgent necessity and a practical task to be solved.

Gerrymandering can also be used to create a false contrast: for example, the following popular contrast between Kamenev and Stalin in March versus Lenin in April (my paraphrase):

A sad and unsettling realisation comes over one after reviewing the historical literature on Bolshevism in March/April 1917: many interpretations that are advanced by authoritative historians - including those who are with reason widely trusted and admired - rest on suppressed or in any event ignored textual evidence - evidence that is in fact crucial. Cast your eye on the gallery of quotations at the head of this section, look over the duelling editorials, and ask yourself whether you have been well served by the academic specialists.

Conclusion

We have examined a pair of duelling editorials, one that appeared on March 12 1917 in the official Menshevik party newspaper, and the other published two days later in the official Bolshevik party newspaper. Each gives an answer to the key question confronting the soviet constituency: what is the best tactic for achieving our revolutionary goals? In the context of the post-February situation, this question becomes: can we achieve our goals by means of the ‘agreement’ [soglashenie] between the soviet and the Provisional Government? To this fundamental question, the Menshevik editorial answered ‘yes’, the Bolshevik editorial answered ‘no’.

For many people, this result will seem extremely unsurprising. Of course the Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks disagreed on basic revolutionary tactics! But, according to the academic specialists, this is a naive reaction by uninformed laypersons, one that is allegedly refuted by a strong historical consensus. To conclude, then, here are some of the implications of our findings that, in this case, support the ‘naive’ against the ‘sophisticated’.

1. The positions taken by the duelling editorials are entirely predictable, given the clash between mainstream Menshevism and mainstream Bolshevism in the decade before the war and revolution. The pre-war clash between the two factions was not just an inconsequential dispute between sectarian intelligenty, even though this seems to be the attitude of many historians of 1917. Rather, this dispute among Russian Social Democrats represented a working-out of practical revolutionary tactics in the wake of the revolution of 1905. The results were directly relevant to 1917. As Shliapnikov well said, the ‘old dispute’ [staryi spor] was not made irrelevant by the February revolution.24

2. Both sides in the debate within Russian Social Democracy in 1917 assumed that the only alternative to the agreement tactic was a vlast based entirely on the soviet constituency that ipso facto excluded censitarian influence. But other alternatives to the agreement tactic are conceivable and indeed they had advocates at the time. Perhaps (some argued) the whole idea of carrying out a broad revolutionary transformation of society during wartime was foolish. Or perhaps the dilemma of ‘double vlast’ could be solved by handing over ‘the full and complete vlast’ to the censitarian Provisional Government, so that it enjoyed de facto as well as de jure sovereignty. Neither editorial gave the slightest attention to alternatives such as these.

3. Kamenev - the author of the Bolshevik editorial - was not a ‘semi-Menshevik’ who advocated ‘conditional support’ for the censitarian government. And, as I have shown in my recent documentary handbook, the same is true of Stalin. These findings are not minor factual discoveries that can easily be accommodated within the prevailing ‘rearming the party’ narrative: they challenge some fundamental assumptions about Bolshevism in 1917 and thus about the course of the revolution in general.

4. The basic logic of the central dispute over the agreement tactic that informed the course of political debate throughout the revolutionary year was already clear to activists in mid-March, before the arrival of the influential party leaders, Tsereteli and Lenin. This circumstance suggests that the dispute was not imposed by ideological whim, but by a difficult choice inherent in the political situation, a choice that could in no way be avoided.

5. The automatic assumption of historians is that Lenin’s April theses were aimed at his fellow Bolsheviks. Why did Lenin call for no support for the government? Because (we are told) Pravda had earlier been calling for such support, and Lenin wanted to rebuke it and its editors. But the April theses contain no explicit attack on Pravda, and our look at the duelling editorials show that in fact this automatic assumption is highly dubious.25 Indeed, a closer look shows that Lenin sided with Kamenev and Stalin on some key issues.

6. The two parties - Menshevik and Bolshevik - wagered their political reputation on the scenarios outlined in the duelling editorials. The pro-agreement Menshevik wager was that pressure and kontrol - and eventually coalition - could effectively police the agreement, so that revolutionary goals could be achieved with the cooperation of censitarian society. The Bolshevik party wagered that the agreement tactic was bound to fail because of clashing class interests, that the tactic would be seen to fail by the soviet constituency, and that therefore the alternative of soviet power would be chosen. One wager led to collapse and political disaster; the other wager led to triumph, at least for a time.

We have treated the two editorials as interlocutors in the complicated political context of March 1917. In one respect, this metaphor might be fairly literal. In the Menshevik editorial of March 12, we find the following very typical complaint (emphases as in original):

The Provisional Government and its programme, undertaken in agreement [soglashenie] with the executive committee of the Soviet of Worker and Soldier Deputies, has met with a triumphal reception throughout all of Russia. To fight against it in the very beginning of its activities, to insist on a denial of confidence [nedoverie] at every step, and especially to try to become the vlast in its place - to do this will only raise up against oneself all of bourgeois-democratic Russia and fracture the forces of the Russian Revolution. This would mean playing into the hands of the forces of the gloomy past, forces that have not yet been thoroughly beaten.

The Menshevik editorial is irritated by unnamed people who keep talking about nedoverie. Nedoverie (denial of confidence) should be taken in a strong, parliamentary sense: when a government loses a vote of confidence, it resigns. No wonder the Menshevik editorial was annoyed by threats of nedoverie.

The next day, March 13, at various Bolshevik party meetings, a telegram just received from Lenin was read out in which he called for “absoliutnoe nedoverie” in the government. Kamenev immediately pounced on the phrase and incorporated it into his editorial. In his final paragraph, he calls for “an absolute denial of confidence [absoliutnoe nedoverie] to any liberal promises”. Thus a direct link with Lenin’s émigré missives was established, along with solidarity with the earlier Petrograd agitators, who had so annoyed the Menshevik editor. I am tempted to see the clash about nedoverie as an angry, but revealing, exchange of taunts:

Perhaps I overdramatise what happened. But I think we can use this exchange as a final iconic image: the pro-agreement Menshevik editorial denounces nedoverie, while the anti-agreement Bolshevik editorial exalts it!

Appendix: Duelling editorial texts

1. Menshevik editorial, Rabochaia Gazeta, March 12: ‘The Provisional Government and the working class’

mighty revolutionary wave, tossing aside the dynasty and the monarchy, carrying away the old order in a flood, has pushed forward on its crest a Provisional Government out of members of the Duma and the State Council, with the chairman of the Zemsky Union [Lvov] at its head. The revolution - begun and sustained by the proletariat and the rebellious army - has pushed forward, in the capacity of provisional rulers of Russia, the representatives of the progressive gentry and bourgeoisie, of the liberal-democratic intelligentsia, with at least one vozhd of the genuine democracy: Kerensky.

We see a repeat of something that has happened more than once in European revolutions: the workers overthrow the old vlast, but the new vlast falls into the hands of the liberal bourgeoisie and the liberal-democratic intelligentsia. And this inevitably had to happen with us as well, given the level of political and economic development at which Russia finds itself. The working class makes up only one part of the whole mass of the population. The democratic peasantry and the army that comes out of its ranks can adhere to the proletariat’s political slogans, but they cannot follow it in its final [krainie] economic demands. Russia stands before a long period of bourgeois-democratic development.

The rural and urban petty bourgeoisie - the huge mass of ordinary people [obyvateli] - have received, it is true, an excellent political education, due to the influence of the war and to the crimes of the old government. This is the reason that the old regime collapsed so easily and without trauma. But the sympathies of these people will immediately turn away from the revolution, if the working class takes into its hands the state vlast: the working class is the most revolutionary class of contemporary society, and its interests are opposed to the interests of the entire bourgeoisie as a whole. In a state in which the vast majority of the population has barely made the transformation from ‘most loyal’, ordinary people to free citizens, in which the rapid development of the bourgeoisie and capitalism lies ahead - the proletariat cannot and should not aspire to the vlast.

Under the pressure of the revolutionary democracy of Petrograd, the Provisional Government has published a programme of its [future] activity, containing almost all the political demands of the Russian and global democracy. That which constitutes the minimum programme of the socialist proletariat is at the same time the highest limit of what can be achieved within the framework of bourgeois society. Of course, good intentions pave the way to hell, and we have more than once witnessed how even the most excellent promises remain on paper.

But whether or not the programme of the Provisional Government is put into practice in the real world depends on the workers themselves and on the revolutionary democracy as a whole.

The Soviet of Worker and Soldier Deputies issued a decree to support the Provisional Government to the extent and insofar as [postolku poskolku] it carries out its programme. Following up on this, the working class must remember that only by keenly observing the activity of the government, only by applying unremitting pressure, will the working class achieve the promised democratic reforms. But, insofar as these reforms are really put into practice, we need to greet them and support them, we need to clear a path for them in the outlook [soznanie] of the still-dark masses in the city and especially in the village, we need to beat down all remnants and manifestations of the old regime.

Up to the present time, the Provisional Government is fulfilling its programme. We might have expected from it more daring and decisiveness. Still, we have to admit that in the course of one week it published a series of crucial state acts that introduced a new order in Russia: it arrested the tsar and replaced a fair amount of the representatives of the old vlast in the localities. Our task, the task of the working class as a whole, is to help the government in this work. Then, and only then, will it be solid and fruitful.

The Provisional Government and its programme, undertaken in agreement [soglashenie] with the executive committee of the Soviet of Worker and Soldier Deputies, has met with a triumphal reception throughout all of Russia. To fight against it in the very beginning of its activities, to express denial of confidence in it [nedoverie] at every step, and especially to try to become the vlast in its place - to do this will only raise up against oneself all of bourgeois-democratic Russia and fracture the forces of the Russian Revolution. This would mean playing into the hands of the forces of the gloomy past, forces that have not yet been thoroughly beaten.

The Provisional Government is the government of the revolution and corresponds to the level of development on which rebellious Russia stands. Under the pressure of the whirlwind of events, under the influence of the unstoppable historical flood that in two weeks has carried away the rotten mainstays of centuries-old slavery - this government, against the will of the majority of its members, has become a revolutionary government.

And our business is now to help it bring the revolution to the end [do kontsa] and, at the same time, to obstruct any attempts on its side to hold back the revolution and to turn it back. But we will better carry out this second task, not by cries of betrayal nor by attempts to conquer the vlast by the proletariat, but rather by applying organised pressure on the government and by the untiring preaching of our views among the backward strata of the population. Organise yourselves, pull the rug from under the feet of the counterrevolution by enlightening those in whom the old vlast still hopes to find support. This means, at one and the same time, to support the Provisional Government in its revolutionary work and to obstruct any and all counterrevolutionary designs from its side.

2. Bolshevik editorial, Pravda, March 14: ‘The Provisional Government and revolutionary Social Democracy’

he Provisional Government, created by the revolution, is much more moderate than the forces that gave it birth. The workers and the peasants dressed in soldiers’ greatcoats were the ones who created the revolution.

But in formal terms the vlast passed into the hands not of the representatives of the revolutionary proletariat and peasantry, but of people pushed forward by the liberal movement of the class of people of property. The proletariat and the peasantry and the army composed of these classes will consider the revolution now begun as completed only when it has satisfied their demands entirely and in full - when all remnants of the former regime, economic as well as political, have been torn up to their very roots. This full satisfaction of their demands is possible only when the full and complete vlast [vsia polnota vlasti] is in their own hands. Insofar as the revolution is going to develop and to deepen, it will come to this - to the dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry.

In contrast, the Provisional Government, in accordance with the social nature of the strata from which it came, would like to hold back the development of the revolution at its first steps. If they haven’t done so as yet, it is only because they don’t have the strength for it. Kicking and screaming, they are compelled under the pressure of the revolutionary narod to still go forward. And for us, revolutionary Social Democrats, there is no need even to state that insofar as [poskolku . . . postolku] the Provisional Government actually struggles against the remnants of the old regime, to that extent it is assured of support from the revolutionary proletariat. Always and everywhere, when the Provisional Government, bowing to the will of revolutionary democracy, as represented by the Soviet of Worker and Soldier Deputies, clashes with the reaction or the counterrevolution, the revolutionary proletariat must be ready with its support.

But this is support of actions [delo] and not of persons - support, not of the given composition of the Provisional Government, but of those objectively revolutionary steps that it is compelled to take and to the extent that it actually undertakes them.

Therefore our support should in no way tie our hands. Just as we will energetically support it in the complete liquidation of the old regime and the monarchy, in the implementation of freedoms, etc, we will just as energetically criticise each failure of the Provisional Government to act on its declared intentions [neposledovatelnost], each deviation from decisive struggle, each attempt to tie the hands of the narod or to put out the raging revolutionary fire.

We call upon the revolutionary democracy, headed by the proletariat, to the most unwearying kontrol on all the actions of the vlast, whether in the centre or in the localities. We must realise that the paths of the democracy and of the Provisional Government will diverge - that, when the bourgeoisie comes to its senses, it will inevitably attempt to halt the revolutionary movement and not permit it to develop to the point of satisfying the essential needs of the proletariat and the peasantry.

We must be on the alert and ready to act. Calmly and cold-bloodedly weighing our forces, we must use all our energy to gather, organise and consolidate the revolutionary proletariat. But there is no reason to force events. They are developing with immense speed by themselves.

And precisely for this reason, it would be a political mistake to pose the question right now of replacing the Provisional Government.

The active forces of the great revolution are working for us; they are exposing the inadequacy and the limitations of any attempt to solve the tasks of the revolution by means of compromise.

And only then, when the Provisional Government of the liberals has discredited itself before the face of the democracy of Russia, will the question of the transfer of vlast into its own hands stand before the democracy as a practical question.

The slogan of the moment still remains: organisation of the forces of the proletariat, consolidation of the forces of the proletariat, peasantry and army by means of the soviets of deputies, absolute denial of confidence [absoliutnoe nedoverie] to any liberal promises, the most constant kontrol on the implementation of our demands, an energetic support of each step that leads to the uprooting of all the remnants of the tsarist-landlord regime.

  1. My translations. The Russian text of the Menshevik editorial can be found in Z Galili y Garcia et al (eds) Mensheviki v 1917 godu (‘The Mensheviks in 1917’) Moscow 1994; that of the Bolshevik editorial at revarchiv.narod.ru/kamenev/oeuvre/pravda150317.html.↩︎

  2. ‘Vlast’ = ‘political power’.↩︎

  3. My translation. For the Russian text, see Petrogradskii sovet rabochikh i soldatskikh deputatov v 1917 gody (Leningrad 1991).↩︎

  4. For a more detailed discussion, see LT Lih ‘Was Stalin a “moderate” in March 1917?’ (Lih documentary handbook No1, September 2025).↩︎

  5. ‘The double vlast’ Pravda April 9 1917.↩︎

  6. My thanks to Ian Thatcher for calling my attention to this episode.↩︎

  7. Petrogradskii sovet rabochikh i soldatskikh deputatov v 1917 gody Leningrad 1991.↩︎

  8. For a fuller English text, see RP Browder and AF Kerensky (eds) The Russian Provisional Government 1917: documents Stanford CA 1961, p181.↩︎

  9. S Mstislavskii Five days which transformed Russia Bloomington 1988. This relatively short memoir is particularly valuable, since it is one of the very few non-Bolshevik anti-agreement voices available in English. It also contains eye-witness accounts of the Second Congress in October and the short-lived Constituent Assembly in January.↩︎

  10. RP Browder and AF Kerensky (eds) The Russian Provisional Government 1917: documents Stanford CA 1961, p181.↩︎

  11. Ibid p183.↩︎

  12. VI Startsev Revoliutsiia i vlast’ Moscow 1978, pp20, 37. When Startsev wrote his monographs, Kamenev was still an unrehabilitated enemy of the people, so that Startsev’s portrait of him is distorted. Otherwise, I side with Startsev, as opposed to mainstream western historiography, about March 1917.↩︎

  13. For full documentation of Stalin’s retrospective discussion, see LT Lih ‘Was Stalin a “moderate” in March 1917’.↩︎

  14. For further discussion, see LT Lih, ‘100 Years of the Lenin cult is enough’, part 3 Weekly Worker September 19 2024: weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/1507/a-hundred-years-is-enough.↩︎

  15. Peterburgskii komitet RSDRP(b) v 1917 godu St Petersburg 2003, p120.↩︎

  16. A Rabinowitch Prelude to revolution: the Petrograd Bolsheviks and the July 1917 uprising Bloomington 1968), pp38-39.↩︎

  17. D Longley, ‘The divisions in the Bolshevik Party in March 1917’ Soviet Studies Vol 24, No1 (1972), p72. This ancient article by a graduate student is still cited today, since it is the closest thing to real research on this topic.↩︎

  18. OV Khlevniuk Stalin: new biography of a dictator New Haven 2015, pp42-47. Of course, no Bolshevik believed that the leadership by the liberal bourgeoisie during the revolution was mandated by ‘the dictates of history’.↩︎

  19. G Swain A short history of the Russian Revolution London 2017, p66. Note that both Rabinowitch and Swain use quote marks to suggest that ‘limited support’ and ‘conditional support’ were terms actually employed by Kamenev, which is not the case.↩︎

  20. RG Suny Stalin: passage to revolution Princeton 2020, p597. Suny’s discussion in 2020 still relies heavily on the Longley article from 1972.↩︎

  21. I have also consulted works by WM Chamberlin, SA Smith, Sheila Fitzpatrick, Robert Daniels, Leonard Schapiro, Merle Fainsod, James White, among others. I would be remiss not to mention that many of these historians have been open to my ideas, if not always persuaded by them, and have generously given me valuable feedback. The present article has greatly benefited by the observations of SA Smith.↩︎

  22. www.historicalmaterialism.org/a-revolutionary-line-of-march-old-bolshevism-in-early-1917-re-examined; LT Lih, ‘Fully armed: Kamenev and Pravda in March 1917’ in The NEP era: Soviet Russia, 1921-1928 (2014). The present article replaces my earlier discussion. Eric Blanc is correct to insist that sizable differences remain between us on the subject of Kamenev.↩︎

  23. The same studied lack of curiosity is found on the subject of the war. The historians affirm that, in March, Kamenev went out of his way to reject the slogan, ‘Down with the war!’, thus proving that he was in fact a revolutionary defencist. A lifelong Bolshevik and ‘internationalist’ now supports the imperialist war and cheers it on! Ho hum: move along, nothing to see here. On this issue, a majority of historians do no more than roll out a couple of recycled one-liners from another article by Kamenev that was published on March 15. For a detailed discussion of the real reason Kamenev expressed reservations about ‘Down with the war!’, see LT Lih ‘100 Years of the Lenin cult is enough’ (see note 13 above). Suffice it to say that, on this issue as well, Lenin, after his return, sided with Kamenev.↩︎

  24. “The completed revolution gave birth to illusions in the minds of the comrades that the old dispute [staryi spor] about the driving forces of the revolution had outlived itself by the very fact of the revolution. In fact, the reverse was true. After the turnaround, the old dispute, about the character of the revolution and its driving forces, acquired immediate and practical significance” (A Shliapnikov Kanun semnadtsatogo goda Semnadtsatyi god Moscow 1992, p207).↩︎

  25. Lenin’s one explicit critique of Pravda after his return concerned the issue of ‘demands’: should Bolshevik slogans make ‘demands’ on a bourgeois government unlikely to fulfil them?↩︎