# On the Road to Insurrection/The Bolsheviks must seize Power

First published in Proetarskyaya Revolutsia No. 2, 1921
The Bolsheviks Must Seize Power
Letter to the Central Committee, to the Petrograd Committee and to the Moscow Committee of the Social-Democratic Labour Party of Russia (Bolshevik)
(Written during the Democratic Conference)
THE Bolsheviks, who have obtained the majority of worker and soldier deputies in the Soviets of the two capitals, can and must seize power. They can do it because the active majority of the revolutionary elements of the two capitals is sufficient to rally the masses, to vanquish and crush hostile resistance to conquer power and to hold it. For, by the immediate proposal of a democratic peace, the immediate gift of the land to the peasants and the restoration of the democratic institutions and the liberty that Kerensky mutilated, the Bolsheviks will found a government which no man on earth could overthrow.
The majority of the people is for us. The course of events since May 6 up to August 31 and September 12 has proved it: the majority won in the Soviets of the two capitals is the result of the people's evolution towards bolshevism. This is equally proved by the vacillations of the Social-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks and the strengthening of internationalists in the bosom of the two parties.
The Democratic Conference does not represent the majority of the people, but merely the acme of petty bourgeois class conciliation. The votes of this conference must not affect us, they prove nothing. Compare the elections of the Petrograd or Moscow municipal councils and the Soviet elections; compare the Moscow elections and the strike of August 12 and you will realise the true facts concerning the majority of the revolutionary elements that lead the masses.
The Democratic Conference deceives the peasant class by giving them neither peace nor the land.
A Bolshevik government alone will satisfy the peasants.
Why must the Bolsheviks seize power exactly now?
​Because the next surrender of Petrograd will considerably lessen our chances.
Now, with an army led by Kerensky and his associates, it is absolutely impossible for us to avoid this surrender.
Nor can one "wait for" the Constituent Assembly, for, by means of the Petrograd surrender, Kerensky and his acolytes will always be in a position to postpone its summons. Our party alone, once in power, could assure the convocation of the Constituent, and then we will accuse the other parties of having delayed it and we will prove our assertion.
It is only through rapid action that one must and can bring about the conclusion of a separate peace between the English and German imperialists.
The people are tired of the Menshevik and Social-Revolutionary hesitations. Only our triumph in the capital cities will attract the peasants to our side.
It is not a case of "the day" nor of "the moment" of insurrection in the narrow sense of the word. The exact date can only be fixed by the agreement of those who are in contact with the workers and soldiers, with the masses.
The point is this our party has now at the Democratic Conference its own congress, and this congress must, whether it wishes to or not, decide the fate of the revolution. It is necessary to make clear to the party its task for issuing marching orders for the armed insurrection at Petrograd and at Moscow (and in the neighbourhood), the conquest of power and the overthrow of the government. Our party must consider how to accomplish this aim without open proclamation of it in the Press.
Remember, ponder deeply on the words of Marx on insurrection: "Insurrection is an art …"
It would be childish on the part of the Bolsheviks to wait for a "formal" majority. Kerensky and his associates, they will not wait but prepare the surrender of Petrograd. It is precisely the pitiable hesitations of the Democratic Conference which should arouse, and will thoroughly arouse the workers of Petrograd and ​Moscow. History will not forgive us if we do not seize power now.
There is no machinery? There is one; the Soviet and the democratic organisations. Precisely now, on the eve of the separate peace between the English and Germans, the international situation is in our favour. At this moment to propose peace to the people is to conquer.
Seize power now simultaneously at Moscow and at Petrograd (little matter which begins; perhaps Moscow can do so), we are certain of victory.
* ↑ On August 31 the Petrograd Soviet and on September 6 that of Moscow adopted for the first time the general Bolshevik political resolution.
* ↑ The general strike was started in Moscow by the trade unions and Bolsheviks, against the majority of the Soviet, against the re-union of the Democratic Conference, a screen for reaction.
* ↑ At that time an offensive of the Germans on Riga and afterwards Petrograd was feared.
* ↑ The French military circles equally examined the possibility of a peace at the expense of Russia.