Terrorism and Communism

Going along the path of shallow Liberal analogies, which do not reckon with the class nature of the State, Abramovich might (and in the past the Mensheviks did more than once) identify the Red and the White Armies. Both here and there went on mobilizations, principally of the peasant masses. Both here and there the element of compulsion has its place. Both here and there were not a few officers who had passed through one and the same school of Tsarism. The same rifles, the same cartridges in both camps. Where is the difference? There is a difference, gentlemen, and it is defined by a fundamental test: who is in power? The working class or the landlord class, Pharaohs or peasants, White Guards or the Petrograd proletariat? There is a difference, and evidence on the subject is furnished by the fate of Yudenich, Kolchak, and Denikin. Our peasants were mobilized by the workers; in Kolchak’s camp, by the White Guard officer class. Our army has pulled itself together, and has grown strong; the White Army has fallen asunder in dust. Yes, there is a difference between the Soviet regime and the regime of the Pharaohs. And it is not in vain that the Petrograd proletarians began their revolution by shooting the Pharaohs on the steeples of Petrograd. [This was the name given to the imperial police, whom the Minister for Home Affairs. Protopopoff,