...
On the third day Lenin suddenly mounted the tribune; for ten minutes
the room went mad. "Down with him!" they shrieked. "We will not
listen to any of your People's Commissars! We don't recognise your
Government!"
Lenin stood there quite calmly, gripping the desk with both hands,
his little eyes thoughtfully surveying the tumult beneath. Finally,
except for the right side of the hall, the demonstration wore itself
out somewhat.
"I do not come here as a member of the Council of People's
Commissars," said Lenin, and waited again for the noise to subside,
"but as a member of the Bolshevik faction, duly elected to this
Congress." And he held his credentials up to that all might see them.
"However," he went on, in an unmoved voice, "nobody will deny that
the present Government of Russia has been formed by the Bolshevik
party-" he had to wait a moment, "so that for all purposes it is the
same thing...." Here the right benches broke into deafening clamour,
but the centre and left were curious, and compelled silence.
Lenin's argument was simple. "Tell me frankly, you peasants, to whom
we have given the lands of the _pomieshtchiki;_ do you want now to
prevent the workers from getting control of industry? This is class
war. The _pomieshtchiki_ of course oppose the peasants, and the
manufactures oppose the workers. Are you going to allow the ranks of
the proletariat to be divided? Which side will you be on?
"We, the Bolsheviki, are the party of the proletariat-of the peasant
proletariat as well as the industrial proletariat.
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