23.10.1997

The clash of forces in Russia

From ‘The Call’, paper of the British Socialist Party, October 18 1917

The agreement reached at the Democratic Conference, and out of which emerges the new ministry and the Provisional Council of the Russian Republic, will settle nothing.

The constitution of the Provisional Council was designed to take power out of the soviet. No concession can conceivably compensate the revolutionary democracy for that loss. The soviet was right in refusing to enter into any coalition with the bourgeois parties. Would that it had come to this conclusion long since.

Previous to it, but certainly since the Kornilov affair, the Cadets have shown themselves absolutely untrustworthy. To concede to them at this stage a share in the control of Russia was a concession to the forces of counterrevolution.

The soviet has shown that it alone had the power of saving the Revolution, at least from the enemies within. For this very reason the new Provisional Council will prove ineffective. It represents no real force in Russia. It has no control over the government. In fact its demand to control the government was met by a shuffle.

The soviet, representing as it does the vast mass of the people and the fighting forces, could most effectively maintain control until the meeting of the constituent assembly. That it is evidently determined to do.

A new executive has been elected in place of those who had gone over to the coalition. These include Trotsky, Madame Kollontai and Chernov, the former minister of agriculture.

A general congress of Councils of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Delegates is convened for November 2, which will call into existence a true revolutionary authority. The fight for the success of the Revolution is coming to a head.