Petersburg into a national problem. The consequence has been
that the working-men of St. Petersburg are unable now, apart from
the working-men of the entire country, to realize the decree of
the Council. The Council of Workmen's Deputies, therefore, deems
it necessary to _stop temporarily the immediate and general
establishment of an eight-hour workday by force_.
The Councils inaugurated general strike after general strike. At first
these strikes were successful from a revolutionary point of view. Soon,
however, it became apparent that the general strike is a weapon which can
only be used effectively on rare occasions. It is impossible to rekindle
frequently and at will the sacrificial passion necessary to make a
successful general strike. This the leaders of the proletariat of Russia
overlooked. They overlooked, also, the fact that the masses of the workers
were exhausted by the long series of strikes in which they had engaged and
were on the verge of starvation. The consequence was that most of the later
strikes failed to accomplish anything like the ends sought.
Naturally, the government was recovering its confidence and its courage in
proportion to the class divisions and antagonisms of the opposition.
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