consisted of real revolutionaries,” says Lavrov, and rightly, “it ought to have acted differently. It would have been quite unforgivable for it to have given the enemy ten days’ respite before the election and assembly of the Commune, while the leaders of the proletariat refused to carry out their duty and did not recognize that they had the right immediately to lead the proletariat. As it was, the feeble immaturity of the popular parties created a Committee which considered those ten days of inaction incumbent upon it.” (Page 78)
The yearning of the Central Committee to hand over power as soon as possible to a “legal” Government was dictated, not so much by the superstitions of former democracy, of which, by the way, there was no lack, as by fear of responsibility. Under the plea that it was a temporary institution, the Central Committee avoided the taking of the most necessary and absolutely pressing measures, in spite of the fact that all the material apparatus of power was centered in its hands. But the Commune itself did not take over political power in full from the Central Committee, and the latter continued to interfere in all business quite unceremoniously. This created a dual Government, which was extremely dangerous, particularly under military conditions.
On May 3 the Central Committee sent deputies to the Commune demanding that the Ministry for War should be placed under its control. Again there arose, as Lissagaray writes, the question as to whether “the Central Committee should be dissolved, or arrested, or entrusted with the administration of the Ministry for War.”
Here was a question, not of the principles of democracy. but of the absence, in the case of both parties, of a clear programme of action, and of the readiness, both of the irresponsible revolutionary organizations in the shape of the Central Committee and of the “democratic” organization of the Commune, to shift the responsibility on to the other’s shoulders, while at the same time not entirely renouncing power.