Published:
First published in Pravda, No. 79, June 24 (11), 1917.
Published according to the Pravda text.
Source:
Lenin
Collected Works,
Progress Publishers,
1977,
Moscow,
Volume 25,
pages 73-74.
Translated:
Transcription\Markup:
D. Walters
Public Domain:
Lenin Internet Archive.
2000
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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”.
Insinuate what?
There is only one thing they can insinuate: the Bolsheviks wanted to effect a coup d’état, they are Catilines,[1] and consequentlythey are monsters deserving to be torn to pieces.
Our enemies cannot bring themselves to make this foolish statement openly, and so they are compelled to “insinuate” and rage in “rhetorics”. For this accusation is exceedingly stupid. A coup d’état through a peaceful demonstration, decided upon on Thursday, planned for Saturday and announced on Saturday morning! Now, gentlemen, whom are you trying to fool with your ridiculous insinuations?
“A demand for the overthrow of the Provisional Government," says the resolution of the Congress of Soviets. So the removal of some of the Ministers from the Provisional Government (one of the inscriptions on the planned streamers was to have read: “Down with the bourgeois members of the government!") is a coup d’état, eh?
Why, then, has no one tried, or even threatened, to institute proceedings against those who have repeatedly appeared in the Petrograd streets carrying the banner: "All power to the Soviet"?
Those who rage have been frightened by their own shadow.
A government which knows that it is supported in its entiretyby the will of the majority of the people should not fear demonstrations announced in advance.
It would not ban such demonstrations.
Only those who realise they have no majority to back them, and who lack popular approval, can behave so savagely and make such insinuationsin malicious articles.
[1] Catiline (Lucius Sergius Catilina)—Roman politician and soldier. In 63 B.C. he engineered a conspiracy to effect a coup d’état, abolish the republic and establish a military dictatorship.
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