Recognizing the extremely critical condition of the Russian revolution when an adventuristic offensive

The Russian offensive on the southwest front began 18 June. Within days, after fleeting success, the offensive collapsed, as soldiers refused to continue fighting. On 6 July, Austrian and German forces delivered a counteroffensive and broke through the front of the Russian army, which began to withdraw, not always in good order.

has led inevitably to serious defeat at the front and to the disintegration of the revolutionary army, and when the war, artificially and criminally prolonged by the ruling circles, is leading the exhausted army into new and dangerous adventures, when under the influence of bloody carnage, bankers' speculation and factory and plant owners' sabotage, the agricultural and industrial collapse mounts, pushing the country toward total exhaustion and ruin, when under pressure from the counterrevolutionary bourgeoisie, the Black Hundreds and the command staff of the army, the leading majority of the Soviets is shamefully retreating and surrendering its positions one after another to its enemies, when through the shameful resurrection of the death penalty and by field courts-martial,

On 12 March, the Provisional Government had abolished the death penalty in all civil, military, and naval penal laws. Similarly, extrajudicial courts, flogging, deportation to Siberia, and other brutal practices of the old regime were abolished. On 12 July, the government restored field courts (officially, “military-revolutionary courts”) and the death penalty in the war zone in order to enforce military discipline.

arrests and violence threaten to shed the blood of the people's conquests, when with the criminal connivance of the ruling parties the tested leaders of the revolutionary democracy have been betrayed, when before our very eyes, instead of the chains of autocracy, a new slavery has been forged and there has been a wild outburst of tyranny—the working class cannot remain silent, and we, workers from the small enterprises of the Peterhof district, having listened to a report by members of the Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, Griaznov and Travnikov, about the current situation, consider it our duty to state: 1) The new coalition “combination” of the Provisional Government is frankly doomed to failure and to a new downfall in the near future, as four months of a chronic crisis of authority have shown fully the entire senselessness of democracy's policy of appeasement with the counterrevolutionary imperialist bourgeoisie. The new so-called government for the salvation of the revolution is incapable not only of saving the revolution but even of saving itself from bankruptcy, for a good half of this government, which consists of frankly counterrevolutionary elements, is seeking support among those “vital forces” of the country that make the tsarist regime stink like carrion. 2) A government of unlimited irresponsibility toward the Soviet of Workers', Soldiers', and Peasants' Deputies cannot enjoy the confidence of the people, for in this situation the presence of the Soviets, which alone are capable of saving the country, is reduced to nil. The refusal of responsible factions in the Soviets to participate in the organization of [state] power is an act of political suicide that we wholeheartedly protest. 3) We demand the immediate repeal of the shameful introduction of the

Page 190

death penalty. If the penalty has been repealed for Nicholas the Bloody and his gang, then shame on those who would reinstate it for the revolutionary soldier. 4) We protest the insolent attacks made by the high command against the revolutionary organization of the army that exists in the form of regimental, company, and other collectives of the revolutionary army. 5) We protest the arrest of the meritorious leaders of democracy's left wing and the routs and repressions of workers' and soldiers' organizations, for in this we see an open campaign by the counterrevolutionary bourgeoisie against the entire working class. 6) We indignantly protest the closing of the left-wing organs of the workers' and soldiers' press, for this step is frankly counterrevolutionary, depriving the people of the opportunity to prepare for the Constituent Assembly, while at the same time the conservative press of all stripes is openly going about its own corrupting work.

Considering the fact that, given the silent connivance of the ruling parties of the S.R.'s and the Mensheviks, everything set forth above is undoubtedly moving the country toward an abyss of dark reaction and not giving the land to the peasants, control over production to the workers, rights to the soldiers, and so forth, we insist that the leading circles of the Soviet of Workers', Soldiers', and Peasants' Deputies correct its aimless and tottering policy at its very roots, rip out all the various deals with the counterrevolutionary tsarist Duma,

In early July, the Soviet leadership proposed to the Provisional Government that there be a formal decision to dissolve the old tsarist State Duma and State Council as part of a legal declaration of a republic. The Duma had been prorogued by Nicholas II but not dissolved. And moves were under way to revive its role. On 18 July, in the Tau-ride Palace, a meeting of members of the fourth State Duma was organized by the Provisional Committee of the State Duma to discuss how the Duma might “save Russia.”

reject the errors of the policy of compromise with the bourgeoisie, and stand on the firm ground of the revolutionary class struggle.

With respect to the crisis of authority, we declare that only a revolutionary authority that rests on the proletariat and the poorest strata of the peasantry

This was a familiar phrase, often used by Lenin and the Bolsheviks.

can facilitate the country's move toward saving the revolution; therefore our immediate task is the irreconcilable struggle for the interests of the very poorest people and for concentrating all authority in the hands of the revolutionary proletarians', soldiers', and peasants' Soviets, which alone can reinforce and extend the gains of the revolutionary people.