I, Sect. 1) Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries, who
supported the Provisional Government of Kerensky.
On October 14th the official organ of the "moderate" Socialists said:
The drama of Revolution has two acts; the destruction of the old
r?gime and the creation of the new one. The first act has lasted long
enough. Now it is time to go on to the second, and to play it as
rapidly as possible. As a great revolutionist put it, "Let us hasten,
friends, to terminate the Revolution. He who makes it last too long
will not gather the fruits...."
Among the worker, soldier and peasant masses, however, there was a
stubborn feeling that the "first act" was not yet played out. On the
front the Army Committees were always running foul of officers who
could not get used to treating their men like human beings; in the
rear the Land Committees elected by the peasants were being jailed
for trying to carry out Government regulations concerning the land;
and the workmen (See App. I, Sect. 2) in the factories were fighting
black-lists and lockouts. Nay, furthermore, returning political
exiles were being excluded from the country as "undesirable"
citizens; and in some cases, men who returned from abroad to their
villages were prosecuted and imprisoned for revolutionary acts
committed in 1905.
To the multiform discontent of the people the "moderate" Socialists
had one answer: Wait for the Constituent Assembly, which is to meet
in December.
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