Marx summed up the lessons of all revolutions in respect to armed uprising in the words of "Danton, the greatest master of revolutionary policy yet known: de l'audace, de l'audace, encore de l'audace ".[75]
Applied to Russia and to October 1917, this means: a simultaneous offensive on Petrograd, as sudden and as rapid as possible, which must without fail be carried out from within and from without, from the working-class quarters and from Finland, from Revel and from Kronstadt, an offensive of the entire navy, the concentration of a gigantic superiority of forces over the 15,000 or 20,000 (perhaps more) of our "bourgeois guard" (the officers' schools), our "Vendee troops" (part of the Cossacks), etc.
Our three main forces -- the fleet, the workers, and the army units -- must be so combined as to occupy without fail and to hold at any cost : (a) the telephone exchange; (b) the telegraph office; (c) the railway stations; (d) and above all, the bridges.
The most determined elements (our "shock forces" and young workers, as well as the best of the sailors) must be formed into small detachments to occupy all the more important points and to take part everywhere in all important operations, for example:
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to encircle and cut off Petrograd; to seize it by a combined attack of the sailors, the workers, and the troops -- a task which requires art and triple audacity ;
to form detachments from the best workers, armed with rifles and bombs, for the purpose of attacking and surrounding the enemy's "centres" (the officers' schools, the telegraph office, the telephone exchange, etc.). Their watch word must be: "Better die to a man than let the enemy pass !"
Let us hope that if action is decided on, the leaders will successfully apply the great precepts of Danton and Marx.
The success of both the Russian and the world revolution depends on two or three days' fighting.