Leon Trotsky

“ It is perfectly obvious that the latter position was essentially a Menshevik position, or rather the position which the Mensheviks found themselves compelled to occupy after the February revolution. As a matter of fact, the Mensheviks had for many years tapped away like so many woodpeckers at the idea that the coming revolution must be bourgeois; that the government of a bourgeois revolution could only perform bourgeois tasks; that the social democracy could not take upon itself the tasks of bourgeois democracy and must remain an opposition while “pushing the bourgeoisie to the left.” ”

“ The revolution caused political shifts to take place in two directions: the reactionaries became Cadets and the Cadets became republicans against their own wishes—a purely formal shift to the left; the Social Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks became the ruling bourgeois party—a shift to the right. These are the means whereby bourgeois society seeks to create for itself a new backbone for state power, stability, and order. ”

“ Under these same soviets we shall not achieve the commune republic in our country.”
Finally, a third opponent dealt with the question from the standpoint that Russia was not ready for socialism. “Can we count on the support of the masses if we raise the slogan of proletarian revolution? Russia is the most petty bourgeois country in Europe. To count on the sympathy of the masses for a socialist revolution is impossible; and, consequently, the more the party holds to the standpoint of a socialist revolution the further it will be reduced to the role of a propaganda circle. ”