XXXV
Soso pushed his way through the crowded
room, Kamenev and Muranov followed him.
They pushed towards the middle of the back. The room wasn’t exceptionally large, but it
came complete with a large box that the speakers would stand on to speak. And it was now Lenin’s turn to speak. It was to be the first time he would address
the Bolsheviks as a whole in Petrograd in over a decade.
He stepped onto the platform and began
speaking, Soso couldn’t help but smile his painfully slow pace necessitated by
the less educated in their midst. “We
need out of this war! It’s threatening
to bankrupt the entire country, and just who are we to expropriate if the
expropriators themselves have no money?”
There were loud cheers, this was a good rallying point, nearly all
Russians wanted out of the war. “Comrades,
most of you are like myself-just returning from years of exile. But we need not be discouraged, indeed, we
need not even worry ourselves with politics at the moment. Our call is for brothers! If we are to be successful we must convert
the masses not participate in politics!
The Bolsheviks must be the majority (Bolshinstvo) again!” There were cries of approval, but Soso couldn’t
tell from whom. The majority of the
audience stood in shocked silence, including Soso. Soso looked over at Kamenev and both of them
smiled. They knew Lenin would have a
plan.
“Comrades, the revolution is
unfinished. It lacks heart. It lacks strength. It lacks unity. It lacks-the Proletariat!” His voice was growing more and more
animated. “Ergo, we cannot support this
farcical Provisional Government! We must
oppose it in whatever way we can! Every
wrong step they take, every wrong thing they say we need to publish, we need to
hand out, we need to delineate! Were the
Soviets consulted when the Duma came to power?
And who’s to say now that they won’t try to take back power? Who’s to say the Duma won’t just give it back
to the expropriators? And what about the
peasants? Revolution has meant nothing
to them. How is the Provisional
Government supposed to gain their support?
The answer is they cannot! But
we, comrades, we can! And we will! We must build a coalition of the Proletariat
and Peasantry!” Soso frowned, that was
new. Marx didn’t call for a shared
revolution, and besides the revolution had already happened. Why was there a need for more violence? Stalin and Kamenev exchanged doubtful looks.
“Comrades, I know some of you may wonder
why we need the peasants. But Marx
speaks of a transitional state where special conditions must exist under the
budding rule of the Proletariat.” He
paused as he knew few understood what this meant. “If we are to boil a frog, we must do so
slowly, otherwise he will jump out! In
order to do this, I say we must take the land from the remaining aristocracy
and kulaks, a total nationalization of the land!” Stalin shrugged at this. He figured Lenin wanted to somehow play to
the peasants’ ideals, since they made up a large part of the army, but he
couldn’t see how the peasants would like nationalization of the land,
especially the kulaks.
Soso lost in his thoughts, hardly
noticed as Lenin concluded and stepped down.
A man standing in the front yelled out: “All power to the soviets!” The room rang out together with the new
cheer. Leaving Soso to muse over what he
had just seen and heard. Lenin was
right; the winds of change were coming to Russia again, and perhaps, this lack
of power could work in their favor.
Perhaps being a minority during this unruly reign was a good thing. It freed them up to organize for when the
winds did finally change.
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