In this way, the natural bloc of Social-Revolutionists and Mensheviki
was created, which gave simultaneous expression to the political
lukewarmness of the middle-class intellectuals and its relation of
vassal to imperialistic liberalism.
It was perfectly clear to us that the logic of the class struggle would,
sooner or later, destroy this temporary combination and cast aside the
leaders of the transition period. The hegemony of the petty bourgeois
intellectuals meant, in reality, that the peasantry, which had suddenly
been called, through the agency of the military machine, to an organized
participation in political life, had, by mere weight of numbers,
overshadowed the working class and temporarily dislodged it. More than
this: To the extent that the middle-class leaders had suddenly been
lifted to terrific heights by the mere bulk of the army, the proletariat
itself, and its advanced minority, had been discounted, and could not
but acquire a certain political respect for them and a desire to
preserve a political bond with them; it might otherwise be in danger of
losing contact with the peasantry. In the memories of the older
generation of workingmen, the lesson of 1905 was firmly fixed; then, the
proletariat was defeated just because the heavy peasant reserves did not
arrive in time for the decisive battle. This is why in this first period
of the revolution even the masses of workingmen proved so much more
receptive to the political ideology of the Social-Revolutionists and the
Mensheviki.
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