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THE NEW ECONOMIC POLICY OF
SOVIET RUSSIA.
THE NEW POLICIES
OF SOVIET RUSSIA
By
LENIN: BUKHARIN: RUTGERS
CHICAGO
CHARLES H. KERR & COMPANY
CO-OPERATIVE
GRAD
Undergraduate
Die
HC
BUHR
undergraduate
Library
trito GRAD 03-19-08
CONTENTS.
PAGE
THE MEANING OF THE AGRICULTURAL
TAX, BY N. LENIN ................. 9
The New ECONOMIC POLICY OF SOVIET
RUSSIA, BY N. BUKHARIN ........... 43"
THE INTELLECTUALS AND THE RUSSIAN
REVOLUTION, BY S. J. RUTGERS ...... 65**
THE MEANING OF THE
AGRICULTURAL TAX.
Undergraduate
Library
THE MEANING OF THE AGRICUL-
. TURAL TAX.
BY N. LENIN.
The question of the Agricultural Tax at the
present moment is attracting considerable at-
tention and is the subject of considerable dis-
cussion. This is quite understandable, for it
is indeed one of the most important questions
of policy under the present conditions.
It will be all the more useful, therefore, to
attempt to approach this question, not from
its "everyday aspect," but from the point of
view of principle; in other words, to examine
the background upon which we are sketching
the plan of the definite, practical measures of
policy of the present day.
In order to make this attempt, I will quote
from one of my pamphlets published in 1918.
The polemic is now unnecessary, and I leave
it out, but I retain what relates to the discus-
sion of "State Capitalism" and to the basic
elements of the economics of the present
period of transition from Capitalism to So-
cialism.
10
THE NEW POLICIES
This is what I wrote:
The Present Economic Position of Russia
"... State Capitalism would be a step
in advance in the present state of affairs of
our Soviet Republic. If, for example, State
Capitalism could establish itself here during
thing and a sure guarantee that within a year
Socialism will have established itself and be-
come invincible.”
I can imagine the noble indignation with
which some will scorn these words. What!
The transition to Capitalism in a Soviet So-
cialist Republic a step in advance? ... Is
thiş not a betrayal of Socialism? It is pre-
cisely with this point that one must deal in
detail.
There is not a single person, it seems to me,
who, examining the economics of Russia,
would deny their transitional - character.
There is not a Communist, it seems to me, who
would deny that the expression Socialist So-
viet Republic means the determination of the
Soviet Power to realize the transition to So-
cialism, and does not by any means signify
that the present economic order is regarded as
OF SOVIET RUSSIA
11
Socialistic. What is the meaning of the word
-transition? Does it mean, when applied to
economics, that in the present system there
are elements "partly capitalist and partly So-
cialist”? Everybody will realize that this is so,
but not everybody who realizes this thinks of
the numerous kinds of elements, of the vari-
ous socio-economic strata, which we have in
Russia. And this is the very crux of the
question.
Let us enumerate these elements :
1. Patriarchal, i. e., to a large degree prim-
itive, peasant production.
2. Small commodity production. (This
includes the majority of peasants who sell
grain.)
3. Private Capitalism.
4. State Capitalism.
5. Socialism.
Russia is so large and so varied that all
these varying types of socio-economic strata
are interlayed in it. The peculiarity of the
position lies precisely in this fact.
The question is, which is the predominating
element? It is clear that in a petty peasant
environment nothing but petty bourgeois ideas
12
THE NEW POLICIES
can prevail. The majority-and the vast ma-
jority at that—of the peasants are small-com-
modity producers. Our outer shell of State
Capitalism (grain monopoly, control of manu-
factures, merchants and bourgeois co-opera-
tive societies) is broken, first in one place and
then in another, by speculators, and the chief
article of speculation is grain.
The main struggle develops precisely in this
sphere. Between whom is this struggle con-
ducted? Is it between the fourth and the fifth
elements in the order in which I have enum-
erated them above? Certainly not. It is not
a struggle between State Capitalism and So-
cialism, but a struggle of the petty bour-
geoisie plus private Capitalism fighting against
State Capitalism and Socialism. The petty
bourgeoisie resists every form of State inter-
ference and control, no matter whether it is
State Capitalism or State Socialism. This is
an absolutely indisputable fact, and the failure
to understand it lies at the foot of quite a
number of economic errors.
The speculator is our chief enemy from
within, and works against every form of So-
viet economic policy. Even if it was excus-
OF SOVIET RUSSIA
13
able for the French, 125 years ago, to attempt
to rid themselves of speculation by executing
a small number of notorious individuals, we
know only too well that the economic cause of
speculation lies in small Capitalism and pri-
vate industrial enterprise, and that every tiny
capitalist is an agent of the latter.
We know that the million tentacles of petty
bourgeoisism grasp, in many places, certain
sections of the workers themselves.
Those who do not see this reveal by their
blindness their servitude to the petty bourgeois
prejudices.
State Capitalism is incomparably higher
economically than our present economic sys-
tem that is one point; and secondly, there is
nothing in it that is terrible for the Soviet
Government, for the Soviet State is a State
which guarantees power to the workers and
the poor.
In order to make this question clear, I will,
first of all, quote a concrete example of State
Capitalism. Everybody will know this ex-
ample: Germany. Here we have "the last
word” in modern, large capitalist technique
and systematic organization subordinated to
14
THE NEW POLICIES
-
junker-bourgeois imperialism. In place of the
military, junker, bourgeois imperialist State
put another State, a State of another social
type, a State with a different class content, a
Soviet, i. e., a proletariàn State, and you will
get the sum of conditions which gives Social-
ism.
Socialism is impossible without large capi-
talist technique constructed according to the
last word in science, without systematic State
organization subjecting millions of people to
the strict observation of a uniform standard of
production and distribution of products. We
Marxists have always said this, and it is hard-
ly worth wasting even two seconds in arguing
this point with people who do not understand
it, like Anarchists and the greater part of the
Social Revolutionaries.
Moreover, Socialism is impossible without
the domination of the proletariat in the State;
this is also pure A B C. History (which no-
body except the leading Menshevik dullards
expected would smoothly, peacefully, simply
and easily produce "complete Socialism”) has
proceeded in such a peculiar fashion that, in
1918, it gave birth to two separated halves of
OF SOVIET RUSSIA
15
Socialism, like two chickens born within the
same shell of international imperialism. Ger-
many and Russia in 1918 embodied in them-
selves, on the one hand the most obviously?
materially realized economic, industrial and
social conditions, and on the other hand the
political conditions for Socialism.'
A victorious proletarian revolution in Ger-
many would immediately and with tremend-
ous ease smash the whole shell of imperialism
(unfortunately constructed of the finest steel
and therefore unbreakable by any kind of
"chicken"), and would for certain bring
abouč a victory of world Socialism without,
or with very little, difficulty, granting of
course, that "difficult is understood not in a
narrow sense, but from a universal-historical
point of view.
If the revolution in Germany is delayed
our task becomes clear, to learn State Capital-
ism from the Germans, and to exert all our
efforts to acquire it. We must not spare any :
dictatorial methods in hastening the Wes- |
ternization of barbarous Russia, and stick
no barbarous measures to combat barbarism.
At the present moment in Russia it is pre-
16
THE NEW POLICIES
cisely petty bourgeois Capitaliśm that pre-
dominates, from which a single road, through
the same intervening stations called national
accounting and control of production and dis-
tribution, leads both to State Capitalism and
to Socialism. Those who do not understand
this commit an unpardonable error, and either
do not see facts, cannot look beyond the sur-
face, or limit themselves to the abstract con-
tradictions between Capitalism and Socialism,
and do not enter into the concrete forms and
stages of the period through which we are
now passing.
It is just this theoretical mistake which has
led astray the best members of the Novaja
Feisin and V pered groups, while the worst
and centre have joined the rearguard of the
bourgeoisie. Even the best of them did not
comprehend what Socialist teachers have again
and again pointed out; the "long birth-travail”
of the new society, which, in its turn, would
at first be only an abstraction, and would only
come into the fulness of life after many and
various practical attempts to set up this or
that form of Socialist Government had been
made.
OF SOVIET RUSSIA
18
It is precisely because it is impossible to ad-
vance from the present economic position of
Russia without passing through what is com-
mon to both State Capitalism and Socialism-
national accounting and control-that to
frighten others and oneself by talking about
‘evolving towards State Capitalism" is ab-
solute theoretical stupidity. It means to allow
one's mind to stray from the actual path of
evolution. In practice this is equal to drag-
ging us back to small private Capitalism.
In order to convince the reader that my
"high" valuation of State Capitalism is not
made here for the first time, but was made by
me previous to the Bolsheviks taking power,
I will quote the following from my pamphlet,
A Threatening Catastrophe and How to Com-
bat It, which was written in September, 1917:
"In place of a junker capitalist Government,
try and put a revolutionary democratic Gov-
ernment, i. e., a Government that will in a re-
volutionary manner destroy all privileges and
not fear to employ revolutionary methods in
order to realize the most complete democracy.
You will then see that State Monopolist Capi-
talism under a really revolutionary govern-
18
THE NEW POLICIES
ment will inevitably mean a step towards So-
cialism.
"... For Socialism is nothing else than
an immediate step forward from State capi-
talist monopoly.
"... State Monopolist Capitalism is the
most complete material preparation for So-
cialism, it is the 'porch' to'it; it is one of the
steps in the ladder of history between which
and the step called Socialism there is no in-
tervening step" (pp. 27-38).
The reader will observe that this was writ-
ten in the period of Kerensky, that I speak
here not of the dictatorship of the proletariat,
not of a Socialist State, but of “revolutionary
democracy.” Surely it is clear, therefore, that
the higher we raise ourselves on this political
step, the nearer do we approach to a Soviet
Socialist State and to the dictatorship of the
proletariat, and the less imperative is it for us
to fear "State Socialism.” Surely it is clear
that in the material, economic, industrial sense,
we have not yet reached the "porch” of Social-
ism, and there is no other way of entering
Socialism except through this as yet unreached
"porch.”
OF SOVIET RUSSIA
19
There is a great outcry from the Left Social
Revolutionaries against the so-called policy of
"compromise” of the "Right-Wing Bolshe-
viks." These men do not know how to inter-
pret the history and evolution of the revolu-
tionary movement and what it has to teach us
in these matters; they do not clearly under-
stand what it is exactly that is prejudicial in
any policy of compromise.
Kerensky's policy of compromise meant
handing over the administrative power to the
imperialistic bourgeoisie, and the problem of
power is the root problem of all revolutions.
Now that the Government is firmly in the
hands of one party—the Proletarian Party-
to speak of compromise, when there can be no
question of sharing power or going back upon
the dictatorship of the proletariat in favor of
the bourgeoisie, is the mere empty repetition
of senseless parrot-cries. To designate our
policy as "a compromise with the bourgeoisie"
when we, as the Government of the State, are
endeavoring to obtain in our employ the most
highly educated elements of the capitalist
regime, to help us against the threatening
chaos of small ownership, shows an entire
20
THE NEW POLICIES
ignorance of the Socialist policy of recon-
struction.
In the above-quoted arguments of 1918,
there are a number of errors in connection
with periods. Periods prove to be much
longer than was then assumed. This is not
to be wondered at, but the basic elements of
our economic life have remained as they were
then. The peasant "poor" (proletariat and
semi-proletarians) in large numbers have be-
come converted into middle-class peasants.
Out of this the small private ownership and
petty bourgeois movements have increased;
meanwhile, the civil war of 1919-1920 ex-
tremely intensified the ruin of the country and
retarded the re-establishment of its productive
forces. To this must be added the bad harvest
of 1920, the lack of fodder, and the death
rate among cattle, which still further retard-
ed the re-establishment of transport and in-
dustry in that the transport of our chief kind
of fuel, wood, was carried on by the peasants'
horses. As a result conditions in the spring
cf 1921 were such that it was absolutely es-
sential to adopt the most determined excep-
tional measures for the improvement of the
OF SOVIET RUSSIA
conditions of the peasantry and for raising its
productivity.
Why improve the conditions of the peasan-
try and not those of the workers ?
Because for the improvement of the position
of the workers it is necessary to have bread
and fuel. The "holdup” which exists at the
present movement in national industry in the
largest measure is due to this, and there is no
other means of increasing productivity, of in-
creasing the stocks of grain and fuel, except
by improving the position of the peasantry and
increasing its productivity. It is necessary to
commence with the peasantry. He who does
not understand this, he who is inclined to re-
gard this as showing preference to the peas-
antry, and a "departure” of the same kind as
a departure on our part from the dictatorship
of the proletariat would be, has simply failed
to study the subject, and simply gives himself
up to phrase-mongering.
Thus, the first thing that is necessary is im-
mediate and serious measures for raising the
productive power of the peasantry. This is
impossible, without seriously altering our food
policy; and the substitution of the food
22:
THE NEW POLICIES
requisitions by an agricultural tax, connected
with at least Free local Trade after the tax
has been paid, is such an alteration.
What is the essence of the substitution of
the requisition by the Agricultural Tax?
The Agricultural Tax is a form of transition
from the peculiar "military Communism"
made necessary by extreme necessity, ruin and
war, for the purpose of a proper Socialistic
exchange of products. “Military Commun-
ism” in its turn is one of the forms of the
transition from Socialism, with peculiarities
created by the predominance of a small peas-
antry in the population, to Communism..
The peculiarity of "military Communism”
lay in that we actually took from the peasantry
his surplus of produce and sometimes a part
of that which was absolutely necessary for
himself, for the purpose of maintaining the
army and the workers. Mostly we took the
produce on loan for paper money. There was
- no other way by which we could defeat the
landlord and capitalist in a ruined small-
peasant country. The fact that we came out
victorious (in spite of the support given to
our exploiters by the most powerful States in
.
OF SOVIET RUSSIA
23
.
the world) proves something more than the
wonderful heroism which the workers
and peasants are able to reveal for the
the sake of their emancipation. It proves also
what lackeys of the bourgeoisie were the
Mensheviks, the Social Revolutionists, the
Kautsky and Co., when they blamed us for
this "military Communism.” This indeed
should be placed to our credit.
It is not less necessary, however, to know
the real extent of the service which we ren-
dered by establishing "military Communism.”
"Military Communism” was made necessary
by the war and the state of ruin. It did not
and could not meet the problems of proletar-
ian policy. It was a temporary measure. The
correct policy of the proletariat when carry-
ing out its dictatorship in a small-peasant
country is to exchange for grain the products
of industry which are necessary to the peas-
antry. Only such a policy can satisfy the re-
quirements of the proletariat; only such a
policy can strengthen the foundation of Com-
munism and lead to its complete victory.
The Agricultural Tax is a transition to this
policy. We are still in that state of ruin, still

L
+
24
THE NEW POLICIES
crushed by the burden of war (which raged
yesterday and which, owing to the greed and
anger of the capitalist, may break out again
to-morrow), and we cannot give to the peas-
ant sufficient products of industry in exchange
for all the grain we need. Knowing this, we
introduce the Agricultural Tax, that is, we
take the minimum quantity of grain necessary
for the arming of the workers, in the form
of a tax, and the remainder we will exchange
for the products of industry. .
In this connection we nust also bear in mind
that our poverty and ruin is such that we can-
not immediately establish large State Socialist
Factory Production. For this purpose it is
necessary to have large stocks of grain and
fuel in the great industrial centres, and to
replace the worn-out machinery by new ma-
chinery. Experience has convinced us that
this cannot be done all at once, and we know
that after the destruction caused by the im-
perialist war, even the richest and most ad-
vanced countries can solve this problem only
during the course of a rather long period of
time. This means that it is necessary to a cer-
tain extent to assist the re-establishment of
T
.
OF SOVIET RUSSIA
25
: small industry, which does not require má-
chinery, which does not require large Govern-
ment stocks of raw material, fuel and food,
and which can immediately give certain as-
sistance to agriculture and raise its produc-
tivity.pl
What is the result of all this? Funda-
mentally, we get a certain amount (if only
local) of Free Trade, a revival of the petty
bourgeoisie and Capitalism. This is un-
doubted, and to close one's eyes to it would be
ridiculous.
We are asked-is this necessary? Can this
be justified? Is it not dangerous ?
These question are asked by many, and in
most cases they only reveal the naiveté (ex-
pressing oneself politely) of those who ask
them.
Refer to the manner in which in May, 1918,
I defined the economic elements (component
parts) of the various socio-economic strata.
It is impossible to dispute the existence of
these five rungs or component parts of these
five strata, from the patriarchal and the semi-
primitive. It is most evident that in a small-
peasant country the small-peasant strata, that
26
THE NEW POLICIES
is, the partly patriarchal and partly petty bour-
geois, will predominate. The development of
small industry when we have exchange, means
the development of petty-bourgeois capitalist
industry. This is an indisputable truth, an
elementary truth of political economy, con-
firmed by the everyday experience and obser-
vation of even the ordinary man in the street.
What policy can the Socialist proletariat
conduct in the face of such economic circum-
stances? The most desirable and most “cor-
rect" policy would be to give the small peasant
all the products of industry of the large So-
cialist factories that the peasant requires, in
exchange for his grain and raw materials.
This is what we have commenced to do, but
we are far from being able to give all the
necessary products, and we shall not be able
to do this for a long time, at least until we
have finished the work of electrifying the
country.
What, then, is left for us to do? We can
either completely prohibit and prevent the de-
velopment of private non-State exchange, i. e.,
commerce, i. e., Capitalism, which is inevitable
with the existence of millions of small pro-
OF SOVIET RUSSIA
27
ducers. Such a policy would be stupid and
suicidal for the party which attempted to carry
it out. It would be stupid because it is eco-
nomically impossible. It would be suicidal be-
cause the party that attempted to carry it out
would inevitably collapse. It is useless trying
to conceal the sin which some Communists
"in thought, in word, and in deed” have fallen
into on this policy. We will attempt to rectify
this error. It is essential that we rectify this
error or else it will go hard with us.
Or (and this is the only possible and sensi-
ble policy) we can refrain froin prohibiting
and preventing the development of Capitalism
and strive to direct it in the path of State
Capitalism. This is economically possible, for!
State Capitalism exists in one or another form
and to one or another extent everywhere
where there are elements of Free Trade and
Capitalism in general.
Is it possible to combine and to have side by
side a Soviet State, the dictatorship of the
proletariat and State Capitalism?
The whole question, theoretically and prac-
tically, lies in finding the correct means of
properly guiding the inevitable (to a certain


28
THE NEW POLICIES
extent and for a certain time) development of
Capitalism along the path of State Capitalism,
and what conditions to establish and how to
secure in the near future the conversion of
State Capitalism into Socialism.
In order to approach a solution of this ques-
tion, it is necessary to have as clear an idea as
possible as to what State Capitalism will rep-
resent in practice within our Soviet system,
within the framework of our Soviet State.
One of the simplest cases or examples of
how the Soviet Goverment guides the de-
velopment of Capitalism along the path of
State Capitalism, of how it "plants” State
Capitalism, is concessions. Everybody now
agrees that concessions are necessary, but not
everybody fully appreciate the significance of
concessions. What are concessions in a Soviet
system from the point of view of socio-
economic strata and their inter-relations?
They are a treaty, a block and alliance of the
Soviet, i. e., the proletarian, State with State
Capitalism, against small private ownership
(patriarchal and petty bourgeois). A con-
cessionnaire is a capitalist. He conducts
capitalist business for the sake of profits. He
OF SOVIET RUSSIA
agrees to make a treaty with a proletarian gov-
ernment in order to receive extra profits, or
for the sake of securing such raw materials
as he otherwise would not be able, or would
find it very difficult, to secure. The Soviet
Government secures the advantage in the form
of the development of productive forces, and
an increase in the quantity of products avail-
able immediately or within a short period.
We have, say, hundreds of enterprises, mines,
forests, etc. ; we cannot develop them all, we
have not enough machinery, food, or trans-
port. For the same reasons we will develop
badly the remaining sections. As a conse-
quence of the bad or insufficient development
of large undertakings we get the strengthening
of this small private ownership movement
with all its consequences: the deterioration of
suburban (and later of all) agriculture, frit-
tering away of its productive forces, decline
of confidence in the Soviet Government,
peculation, and mass and petty (the most dan-
gerous) speculation.
In "planting' State Capitalism in the form
of concessions, the Soviet Government
strengthens large production against small
30
THE NEW POLICIES
production, the advanced against the backward,
machine production against hand production,
it increases the quantity of products of large
industry in its hands and strengthens the State
regulation of economic relations as a counter-
balance to the petty bourgeois anarchic rela-
tions. The moderate and cautious introduc-
tion of a policy of concessions (to a certain
and not very great extent) will rapidly improve
the state of industry and the position of the
workers and peasants—of course, at the price
of a certain sacrifice, the surrender to the
capitalists of tens of millions of poods of most
valuable products. The definition of the ex-
tent and the conditions under which conces-
sions are advantageous to us and not danger-
ous for us, depends upon the relation of forces,
is determined by struggle, for concessions are
also a form of struggle, a continuation of a
class struggle of another form, and under no
circumstances a substitution of the class war
by class peace. Practice will show what the
methods of this struggle are to be.
State Capitalism in the form of concessions
in comparison with other forms of State Capi-
talism within a Soviet system, is the most sim-
OF SOVIET RUSSIA
31
ple, the clearest, and the most clear-cut. We
have here a direct formal written treaty with
the most cultured, most advanced West Euro-
pean countries. We know exactly our losses
and our gains, our rights and obligations. We
know exactly the date on which we give the
concessions and know the conditions of buying
out on the expiration of a concession, if there
is such a buying-out clause in the treaty. We
pay a certain "tribute” to world Capitalism,
we as it were "buy out" certain relations and
receive immediately a definite measure of con-
solidation of the position of the Soviet Gov-
ernment, and an improvement in the condi-
tions of our industry. The difficulty in con-
nection with concessions is to think out and
weigh up things in concluding a concessions
treaty, and later to watch the carrying out of
the treaty. No doubt there are many difficul-
ties, and in all probability mistakes will at first
be made, but such difficulties are the smallest
things in comparison with the other tasks of
the social revolution, and particularly in com-
parison with other forms of development, the
introduction, the planting of State Capitalism.
The most important task of all party and
32
THE NEW POLICIES
brood
Soviet workers in connection with the intro-
duction of the agricultural tax is to adapt the
principle that is at the basis of “concessions,"
to apply a policy similar to the concession or
State capitalist policy, to the remaining form
of Capitalism—local Free Trade. .
Take the co-operative societies. It was not
for nothing that the decree on the Agricultural
Tax immediately led to a revision of the laws
on co-operatives and a certain extension of
their "freedom” and their rights. Co-opera-
tion is also a form of State Capitalism, but
less simple and clear cut, more complicated
and therefore creating many practical diffi-
culties for our Government. The co-opera-
tion of small commodity producers (it is of
these and of workers' co-operatives, as the
predominant and typical form in a small peas-
ant country, that we speak) will inevitably
generate petty bourgeois capitalist relations,
facilitate their development, and will bring the
greatest advantage to the capitalist. Things
cannot be otherwise in the face of the predom-
inance of small producers, and the possibility
as well as the necessity for exchange. The
freedom and right of co-operation under the
OF SOVIET RUSSIA
33
?
present conditions in Russia, means the free-
dom and rights of Capitalism. To close one's
eyes to this obvious truth will be stupid or
criminal.
But “co-operative” Capitalism in distinction
from private Capitalism under a Soviet Gov-
ernment is another aspect of State Capitalism,
and in that capacity it is, of course, to a cer-
tain extent, useful and advantageous to us.
In so far as the Agricultural Tax signifies the
freedom to sell the remainder of produce
(not taken as tax), it is necessary to exert all
our efforts to direct this development of
Capitalism-for freedom of trade is the de-
velopment of Capitalism-along the path of
co-operative Capitalism. Co-operative Capi-
talism is like State Capitalism in that it sim-
plifies control, observation, and the mainten-
ance of treaty relations between the State (the
Soviet in this instance) and the capitalists.
Co-operation as a form of trade is more ad-
vantageous and useful than private trade, not
only for the reasons already indicated, but also
because it facilitates the organization of mil-
lions of the population and later the whole of
the population. This in its turn is a tremendous
34
THE NEW POLICIES
gain from the point of view of a further tran-
sition from State Capitalism to Socialism.
Let us compare concessions with co-opera-
tion as a form of State Capitalism. Conces-
sions are based on large machine industry,
whereas co-operation is based on small and
partly even patriarchal industry. A conces-
sion is granted to a single capitalist or a single
firm, a syndicate, a cartel or a trust. A co-
operative society embraces many thousands,
even millions, of small masters. A concession
permits of and even pre-supposes a definite
treaty for a definite term, whereas a co-opera-
tive society does not permit of definite agree-
ments or definite terms. It is easier to repeal
a law on co-operative societies than to break a
concession agreement; for the breaking of a
concession agreement immediately means the
breaking off of economic relations, of the alli-
.. ance or economic "cohabitation" with Capital-
ism; whereas the repeal of a law on co-opera-
tion, or the repeal of any law for that matter,
not only does not break off the actual "cohabi-
tation" of the Soviet Government with the
small capitalists, but cannot affect economic
relations in general. It is easy to "keep an
OF SOVIET RUSSIA
35
eye on "the concessionnaire, but it is difficult
to do so on the co-operator. The transition *
from concessions to Socialism is the transition
from one form of large production to an-
other. The transition from the co-operation
of small masters to Socialism is a transition
from small production to large production,
i. e., to a more complicated form of produc-
tion." The latter has this compensating fea-
ture, however, that in the event of a success-
ful transition, it is capable of tearing out a
far deeper and more vital root of the old pre-
Socialist and even pre-capitalist relations, of
that which puts up the most stubborn resis-
tance to all kinds of "innovations.” The
policy of concessions in the event of success
will give us a few exemplary-in comparison
with our own—large undertakings, standing
on a level with modern advanced Capitalism;
in a few decades these undertakings will come
entirely into our possession. The policy of
co-operation in the event of success will raise
small industry and facilitate, in an indefinite
period, its transition to large production on
the basis of voluntary combination.
Let us take a third form of State Capital-
36
POLICIES
TT
THE NEW ism. The State invites the capitalist as a mer-
chant and pays him a definite commission for
selling State products and for buying the pro-
ducts of small industry. There is a fourth
form: the State leases a factory or an industry
or a section of forest or land to a capitalist;
in this case, the lease agreement is more like a
concession agreement. The question is whether
we can recognize these types of Capitalism?
In order to answer the question we must re-
member the component parts of all, without
exception, of those various strata of society
which I enumerated in my article of May 5,
1918. “We," the vanguard, the advanced de-
tachment of the proletariat, are passing direct-
ly to Socialism, but the forward detachments
are only a small section of the proletariat,
which, in its turn, is only a small section of the
whole mass of the population. In order that
“we” may successfully solve the problem of
our direct transition to Socialism, we must
understand what indirect paths and methods
we must adopt for the transition of pre-
capitalist relations to Socialism. This is the
crux of the question.
Is it possible to realize the direct transition
OF SOVIET RUSSIA
37
of this state of pre-capitalist relations prevail-
ing in Russia to Socialism? Yes, it is possible
to a certain degree, but only on one condition,
which we know, thanks to the completion of a
tremendous scientific labor. That condition is:
electrification. But we know very well that
this-Cone” condition demands at least tens of
years of work, and we can only reduce this
period by a victory of the proletarian revolu-
tion in such countries as England, Germany,
and America.
For the years immediately ahead of us, we
shall have to think of indirect links capable of
facilitating the transition of patriarchism and
small industry to Socialism. "We" are still
too fond of saying “Capitalism is an evil, Soy
cialism is a blessing," but such an argument is
incorrect, because it leaves out of considera-
tion all the existing social economic strata,
and takes in only two of them.
Capitalism is an evil in comparison with So-
cialism, but Capitalism is a blessing in com-
parison with mediævalism, with small industry,
with fettered small producers thrown to the
mercy of bureaucracy. To the extent that we
are as yet unable to realize the direct transition

38
THE NEW POLICIES
1
from small production to Socialism, to that
extent is Capitalism to a certain extent in-
evitable as an elemental product of small pro-
duction and exchange, and to that extent must
qve make use of Capitalism (particularly in
directing it along the path of State Capitalism)
as an indirect link between small production
and Socialism, as a means, a path, a method
of raising the productive forces of the country.
Facts have clearly demonstrated that we
shall have to defer the reconstruction of large-
scale industry, and that it is impossible to
carry on industry in separation from agricul-
ture. Therefore we must first tackle the easier
problem of re-establishing crafts and small-
scale industry, which have been destroyed by
the war and blockade.
It must be the main aim of all true workers
to get local industry thoroughly going in the
country districts, hamlets and villages; no
matter on how small a scale. The economic
policy of the State must concentrate on this.
Any development in local industry is a firm
foundation, and a sure step, in the building up
of large-scale industry.
Formerly it was an inspector's duty simply
OF SOVIET RUSSIA
39
to collect the full requisition duties; while the
aim of the new Decree is to collect the Agri-
cultural Tax as quickly as possible, and then
as much of the surplus commodities as pos-
sible by means of barter. The man who col-
lects 75 per cent. of the Agricultural Tax and
then 75 per cent. of surplus is doing a better
work for the State than a man who collects
100 per cent. of the tax and then only 55 per
cent. of surplus commodities.
We shall compare the practical results ob-
tained in various districts, in some of which
private capital will be functioning, in others,
co-operative societies, and in a few, pure
Communist undertakings. The profits ob.
tained by the capitalists will be their payment
for instructing us.
This will mean unrestricted trade, in fact
Capitalism. The latter will prove beneficial to
us, in proportion to the extent that it aids us
to combat the dispersion of small-scale in-
dustry and to some measure even bureaucracy.
Practical experimentation will teach us the
best method to adopt. There is nothing really
dangerous in this policy for a Proletarian
Government, so long as the proletariat fully
TILL
THE NEW POLICIES
retains the administrative power, the means of
transport and large-scale industry.
THE NEW ECONOMIC POLICY
OF SOVIET RUSSIA
THE NEW ECONOMIC POLICY OF
SOVIET RUSSIA.
BY N. BUKHARIN.
On July 8th, 1921, Comrade Bukharin de-
livered a lecture to the delegates of the Third
World Congress of the Comintern in Moscow
on the significance of the new economic policy
of Soviet Russia, from which we quote the
following passages:
In order to understand the new policy and
its practical importance, we should consider it
in connection with the economic and social
crises, which we had to go through this spring.
The experience of the Russian Revolution has
proved that our former notions of the revo-
lutionary process were rather naive. Even
the orthodox Marxian section thought that all
the proletariat had to do to take over the tech-
nical apparatus after ejecting the upper layers
of the bourgeoisie was to capture the reins of
power. Experience taught us something very-
different from that. It proved that during the
proletarian dictatorship the complete dissolu-
44
THE NEW POLICIES
tion of the old capitalist apparatus is a neces-
sary stage in the revolutionary development.
Perhaps some will object that this experi-
ence does not give us a theoretical proof and
that the development in other countries may
assume a different character from that of Rus-
sia. They may say that Russia is backward,
her proletariat is not numerous, and big indus-
try constitutes a small proportion of the
economy of Russia. In Western Europe and
in America, however, the development will
take quite a different direction. This idea can
be refuted not only by Russian experience-
we are convinced of the absolute inevitability
of an economic disorganization generally dur-
ing the revolutionary process.
Every revolution is a process of reorgani-
zation of social relations. In a bourgeois rev-
olution this process is not so thorough or ex-
tensive as in a proletarian revolution, because
capitalism has already been developed and
only a political transformation becomes nec-
essary. Feudal property had already become
private property, and the bourgeois revolution
had only to secure this private property and
allow it a wider scope of action. It was main-
OF SOVIET RUSSIA
45
ly a question of transferring the political ma-
chine from one set of owners to another. But
even in this case it was necessary to undergo
a certain process of reorganization, which had
to be paid for dearly. Even a bourgeois rev-
olution is accompanied by a temporary decline
in productivity. Such was the case in the
Great French Revolution.
The same was manifested in the American
Civil War, where economic development was
thrown back for a decade. In a proletarian
revolution the same thing takes place on a
much larger scale. During a proletarian rev=_---
olution we must not only destroy the State ma-
chine, but completely reorganize the industrial
relations. That is the most important point.
What are the industrial relations in the
capitalist system? First of all there is a capi-
talist hierarchy, the subordination of one group
to another; higher up there is the class of
capitalists, then follow the directors, then the
technical Intelligentsia, the so-called new mid-
dle class, then the skilled workers and finally
the rank and file workers. If these industrial
relations are to be recognized it means that
we must first of all and immediately destroy
46
THE NEW POLICIES
the various ties that bind these groups. The
workers achieve this not by street fights only,
but by struggling industrially by means of
strikes, etc. The working class cannot win
the army in time of Revolution if the soldiers
obey their officers. It is equally necessary to
bring about a breakdown in industrial dis-
cipline, if the proletariat is to gain a hold over
the economic apparatus.
Once these ties between the classes and strata
are severed, the whole process of production
will be brought to a standstill. When the
workers strike or fight on the barricades, no
work can be done. When there is a sabotage
on the part of the technical intelligentsia, the
whole process of production is interrupted.
Only when the proletariat is fully in posses-
sion of the whole government inachine can it
put down such attempts. Until that time the
process of production will be paralyzed. Kaut-
.sky and Otto Bauer were talking utter rubbish
when they spoke of the continuity of the pro-
cess of production and wish to connect it with
the revolution. It would be the same if an
army wishing to defeat its officers were to
preserve a strict discipline under their com-
OF SOVIET RUSSIA
mand instead of killing them. Either the
revolution will win, and then there is an in-
evitable disorganization of the process of pro-
duction, or discipline will be maintained, and
then there will be no revolution at all. Every----
revolution is paid for by certain attending
evils, and it is only at that price that we can
bring about the transition to higher forms of
economic life of the revolutionary proletariat.
We need not be afraid of that temporary dis-
organization. One cannot make omelettes
without breaking eggs..!
PROLETARIAN DICTATORSHIP AND THE PEASAN-
TRY DURING THE CIVIL WAR.
Now it becomes clear that the price to be
paid for the revolutionary process is greater
where there is a more stubborn resistance on
the part of all the other classes and groups to
the proletariat, attaining its maximum in the
country which is first in adopting the dicta-
torship. In Russia the class struggle involved
not only a civil but also a foreign war. Where
civil war is transformed into foreign war
against powerful States the revolution has to
be paid for at an outrageous rate. This is the
chief cause of our impoverishment in the
48
THE NEW POLICIES
1
..
.
..
course of the last few years. Nearly 75 per
cent. of our small supplies and of our latest
products had to be given to the Red Army.
Every intelligent man will understand what
this means to our economic life.
It is impossible to live without bread. The
bread question is the most difficult problem
of the revolution. The process of economic
disintegration during the revolution is also
expressed by the severance of ties which con-
nect town and country. When the battle of
classes is raging and the process of production
in towns is paralyzed, communications with
the rural districts cease. The ties of finance
and capital which bind the large landowners
and the rich farmers to the banks are im-
mediately severed. The same happened to the
connecting links between the various peasant
co-operative organizations. All exchange be-
..
.
.
şystem in particular is ruined. When towns
cease to supply anything to the country, there
is no stimulus to give anything to the towns.
The economic equilibrium is destroyed.
As the town population must exist also in
time of revolution, special means must be
OF SOVIET RUSSIA
49
found to feed it. First the supplies stored in
towns are consumed. Then compulsory means
may be adopted against the peasants. The
third expedient is the consciousness of the
peasants that only the Proletarian State de-
fends them against the landowners, the
usurers, and others.
The peasants were greatly influenced by
that consideration during the civil war against
foreign counter revolution. Our compulsory
methods found their economic justification in
this circumstance. As regards the arguments
of the Opportunists that the peasantry was
opposed to the Bolsheviks and that the latter
rule by sheer force, every Marxist will say
that this is nonsense. Not even the Czar's
government was capable of performing such
a feat. Our compulsory actions found their
economic justification in the fact that the peas-
ants, as a class, fully understand that there is
no other force that can defend them from the
land-owners, of whose estates the peasants
have taken possession. In Russia 82 per cent. of
land formerly owned by large landowners was-
given to the peasants. The close-fisted peas-
ant will not allow this land to be taken from
50
THE NEW POLICIES
him. He was wise enough to perceive that
the main economic problem is to keep fast to
the land, as land alone gives him the certainty
of growing food. That is why he put up with
our methods of requisitions and that is why
we were on the whole able to maintain an
equilibrium in our social structure. We felt
the ground under our feet.
Of couse, every war has its laws. The ex-
perience of capitalist countries has shown that
the economic changes can more easily be
effected in war than in peace time. The same
can be observed in our country. Certain
classes, especially the petty bourgeoisie, were
honestly convinced that everything must be
sacrified for war. Due to this we were able
to estimate our resources and regulate econ-
omy by strongly applying the dictatorship of
the proletariat.
But after war was over the contradictions
in this economic system came to the surface at
once, first and foremost the contradictions be-
tween the regulating tendencies and the
anarchical tendencies of the peasantry.
OF SOVIET RUSSIA
51
INFLEXIBILITY OF THE PEASANT AND DECLASS-
ING OF THE PROLETARIAT.
It was proved economically that if we take ?
away all the surplus of the peasants' produce
we take away almost all the incentive to fur--
ther production. If the peasant knows that
he will be deprived of all surplus produce he
will only produce for himself and nothing for
others. · The only incentive that remains is of
an intellectual kind, the knowledge that he
must support the workers who defend hini
from the landlord. After the victory at the
civil war fronts the effect of his incentive was
destroyed. It was observed that the cultivated
area diminished. This was also due to the
drafting of the labor forces to the army, to
the decrease of the stocks of cattle, peasant
stock generally, etc. Agriculture was in a
critical condition, and we were in danger of
being left without sufficient bread.
Naturally this state of agriculture reacted
on industry. It is not true that our technical
apparatus is totally disorganized. In many
important branches of the textile and metal in-
dustries, as well as others, we possess a good
52
THE NEW POLICIES
technical apparatus. But the great problem
facing us is how to provide the towns with the
necessaries of life. In our country the work-
ers are hungry because the exchange of goods
between town and country is paralyzed.
These economic conditions have their social
consequences. When large industry is in such
a miserable condition the workers seek to find
a way, e. g., by manufacturing small articles
of every day use at the places where they work,
which they subsequently sell. By such meth-
ods the proletariat becomes declassed. When
in this way the worker becomes interested in
free trade, he begins to regard himself as a
sinall producer, a petty bourgeois. This means
the transformation of the workers into petty
bourgeois with all their chracteristics. The
proletariat goes back to the village where it
works as small craftsmen. The greater the
disorganization the stronger the process of
degeneration of the proletariat, now demand-
ing free trade.
The proletariat as such is weakened. More-
over the flower of the proletariat was destroy-
ed at the front. Our army consisted of an
amorphous peasant mass which was like wax
OF SOVIET RUSSIA
53
in the hands of the communist, and non-party
men. We have lost an immense number of
these proletarians, and it was precisely these
who enjoyed the greatest esteem and con-
fidence in the factories. Moreover, we were
compelled to utilize the best strata of the prol-
etariat for the State machine, the administra-
tion of all the villages, etc. To organize a
proletarian dictatorship in a peasant country
meant to distribute the proletarians among
certain localities like so many pieces on a
chess-board, in order to guide the peasants.
One can imagine how the factories suffered in
consequence through lack of proletarian forces.
Only the worst elements remained in the fac-
tories. And on the top of it all came the de-
classing of the workers. Such is the social
crisis within the working class.
The peasantry had also to suffer, but not to
of the subject, i. e., not in the sense of power
and political rigths, the peasantry has derived
more benefit from the revolution than all the
other classes. Economically the peasantry is
better off than the proletariat, though the lat-
ter is the privileged class. The peasant feels
54
THE NEW POLICIES
himself stronger than ever. There are other,
secondary causes. The peasant obtained a
good training in the army. He returned from
the war a different man. He is now on a
higher intellectual and moral level than he was
before. Now he understands politics very
well. He says: We are the predominating
force and we shall not allow others to treat us
as silly children. We want to feed the work-
ers, but we are the senior partners and demand
our rights.
As soon as the war was over the peasants
immediately presented their demands. They
are interested in small trade. They are sup-
porters of free trade, and opposed to the com-
pulsory socialist system of economy. These
demands were presented in the form of peas-
ant risings in various districts in Siberia,
Tambov, etc. Things did not look so bad as
the counter revolutionary press tried to pic-
ture it, but these events were symptomatic.
In their eyes the political solution of the
economic situation consists in the motto “For
the Bolsheviks and against the Communists."
At first this appears quite absurd, but
though it is cryptically formulated this motto

OF SOVIET RUSSIA
55
has an intelligent explanation. At the time of
the October Revolution and previous to it we
were the party that told the peasant to kill the
landowner and to take his land. The Bolshe-
viks were then thought to be capital fellows.
They gave the peasants everything and de-
manded nothing in return. But in the end we
became the Party which gave nothing and de-
manded everything from the peasants. They
were consequently against the communists,
who were taking away their bread and more-
over preached absurd ideas of communism,
unsuitable to the peasants. The second watch-
word was free trade. The first watchword
was “For non-party Soviets against the dic-
tatorship of a party." If there are even com-
munists who fail to understand that a class
can only rule if it has a head, and the party is
the head of a class then we can easily under-
stand the peasants failing to grasp that idea.
Such is the intellectual atmosphere prevailing
among the lower middle-class and the peas-
antry.
The proletariat, too, insofar as it was de-
classed, of necessity shared the same views.
In some places even metal workers took up
56
THE NEW POLICIES
the watchwords: “Free trade," against the
"Communist," for class dictatorship but against
Farty dictatorship. Thus the equilibrium be-
tween the proletariat and the peasantry was de-
stroyed. A misunderstanding arose which
threatened the whole system of the proletarian
dictatorship. The crisis found its expression
in the Kronstadt mutiny. The documents
which have since been brought to light show
clearly that the affair was instigated by purely
white guard centres, but at the same time the
Kronstadt mutiny was a petty bourgeois re-
bellion against the socialist system of econ-
nomic compulsion. Sailors are mostly sons
of peasants, especially Ukrainian peasants.
Ukraine is more petty bourgeois than Central
Russia. The peasants there resemble more
the German farmers than the Russian peas-
ants. They are against Czarism but have little
sympathy for communism. The sailors were
home on leave and there became strongly in-
fected with peasant ideas. This was the cause
of the revolt.
OF SOVIET RUSSIA
THE PRINCIPLES OF THE NEW POLICY.
i
As is kriown we acted with all speed; we
mobilized and sent against Kronstadt one-
third of our Party Congress, we lost many
comrades, but we quelled the rebellion. But
victory could not solve the question. We had
to take certain measures. Had there been a
revolution in Germany we could have brought
workers from there and have made a surgical
operation. But we have to act on our own.
There was one principle which we had to
maintain at all costs: the preservation of the
dictatorship. It was clear that we were making.--
no concessions to the peasants. We had the
picture of the Hungarian affair before us. It is
true we should have come into power again
after a few months or years, but the bour-
geoisie would try its method of reorganiza-
tion, which costs something, and then we
would again try ours. The disorganization of
national industry would be so terrible that no
one can even guess whether any tolerable
state of things could ever result from this
chaos.
When the State apparatus is in our hands
58
THE NEW POLICIES
we can guide it in any desired direction. But
unless we are at the helm we can give no di-
rection at all. Consequently we must seize
----power and keep it and make no political con-
cessions. But we may make many economic
concessions. But the fact of the matter is we
are making economic concessions in order to
avoid making political concessions. We shall
agree to no coalition government or anything
like it, not even equal rights to peasants and
workers. We cannot do that. The conces-
sions do not in any way change the class char-
acter of the dictatorship. When a State makes
concessions to another class it does in no way
alter its class character, no more than a fac-
tory owner, who makes concessions to his em-
ployees, becomes a worker. If we look at it Å
from a social and political standpoint the sig-
nificance of the concessions lies in the pacifica-
tion and neutralization of the lower middle
class. Our former investigations brought us
to the conclusion that the economic difficulties

--
i
crease production. Now this_incentive has
been offered in the substitution of a tax in
kind instead of requisitions. Now the peas-
OF SOVIET RUSSIA
59
ant knows that he will have to give up more
if her produces more, but he knows also that
he will keep more. Experience has already
shown that such are his calculations. As soon
as we decided on this new system at our party
congress the area under cultivation increased
at once to that of 1916 and even 1915.
Politically a general pacification has set in.
The guerilla warfare in the Ukraine has lost
its intensity. These political measures suc-
ceeded in putting an end to the Makno gangs.
Some will naturally doubt the wisdom of mak-
ing these concessions to the petty bourgeoisie.
They may say that a period of accumulation,
such as existed hitherto, has been inaugurated,
that usury will result which will transform
itself into industrial capitalism. We are faced
by the same danger as we were at the time of
the Brest Peace, when we stood in danger of
being engulfed by German capitalism. How-
ever, such a state of things is only temporary,
Our position now is that we want bread and a
pacific peasantry, or else we shall go to the
dogs. Even the worker will revolt against his
own government if he has nothing to eat.
Communism requires a certain time to matüre--
60
THE NEW POLICIES
71
and this process under our conditions of life
is more painful than it would otherwise be.
We have in our hands large industry, the coal
industry, transport, etc. A whole period of
history is required to transform the peasant
into a capitalist. Our view is that capitalism
will rise slowly from below, but we will keep
under our control the chief branches of in-
dustry. Once this is achieved all the industrial
processes will assume their normal course.
The declassing of the proletariat will cease,
we shall be able to invite foreign workers, etc.
We could then pass on to the technical revolu-
tion, and will be able to realize the electrifica-
tion of Russia, which is now in an embryonic
stage. If we succeed in realizing even a part
of our program then we shall get the better
of the petty bourgeois tendencies. If the
peasant receives from us electric light and
power he will be transformed into a social
functionary and his proprietary instincts will
not be offended.
If the tendencies of capitalist growth gain
the upper hand over the tendencies to improve
large industry, then we are doomed. But we -
hope the contrary will be the case—then we
OF SOVIET RUSSIA
61
shall master all difficulties in the field of eco-
nomics.
Paul Levi and all the Opportunists of the
world say: "You see, the Bolsheviks are
making concessions to the peasants and we
make concessions to the masses. But this
analogy is not correct. We make concessions
to secure the equilibrium of the Soviet system,
Levi makes concessions to maintain the capi-
talist equilibirum, and he does not seem to no-
tice this little difference. We might as well
say that there is an army in France and there
is an army here, a police system there and an
Extraordinary Commission here. The es-
sential point is what are the class functions
of these institutions, and which class do they
serve? Whoever makes an abstraction of the
class lives in the skies, not on earth. And I
think it would better if our enemies remain in
the skies and we remain on solid earth.
THE INTELLECTUALS AND THE
RUSSIAN REVOLUTION.
THE INTELLECTUALS AND THE
RUSSIAN REVOLUTION.
BY S. J. RUTGERS.
Whilst the conquest of the power by the
working class seemed a thing of the far fu-
ture, the question of the difficulties which sub-
sequently would arise was not much thought
about. Most of us supposed it would all be
plain sailing afterwards, and this for two
reasons. In the first place, because it was
taken for granted that, by the time of the
capture of power by the proletariat, capi-
talistic society would have attained to a de-
gree of technical and economic perfection
that would ensure sufficiency to all. And in
the second place because no doubt was felt
about the attitude of the intellectuals; they
were sure to adapt themselves to the new or-
der and would prove the allies of the con-
quering proletariat since,-as was assumed
their chances, material and intellectual, would
be better in a socialistic society than in the
present one, weighed down by the ever in-
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creasing pressure of trust-capital. A serious
disturbance in the apparatus of production
need not be feared, we thought, the import-
ance of the capitalist's role in the actual con-
trol of industry being on the wane, as it was,
and there seemed no grave difficulties in the
way of the reconstruction of society under the
dictatorship of the proletariat.
It was, of course plain, that a fierce fight
would have to be fought for the conquest of
the power, but in this very fight the workers
and their organs of class struggle would de-
velop new energies, and thus contribute to
the simplification of the problem.
This then, was the current conception of
the matter. But Russia reality wears a very
different aspect.
In the first place, the establishment of the
workers' dictatorship was rendered possible
and necessary in Russia—and this will in all
probability hold good for further develop-
ments of the world-revolution also—as a con-
sequence of the collapse of capitalistic so-
ciety. Not in abundance but in misery the
New Society is born.
Even before the world-war it was plain
OF SOVIET RUSSIA
67
1
1
that Capitalism was past its creative period of
still increasing technical perfection of the ap-
paratus of production. Imperialism had no
use for the overwhelming masses of the means
of production it manufactured, and sought
salvation in extension rather than in intensi-
fication by means of an improved technique.
Likewise, the tendency to transfer industries
to regions not yet opened up, where raw ma-
terials and labor are cheap, means a lowering
of the average standard of technical power.
And, in addition there set in an ever-increas-
ing waste of capital in unproductive expenses,
speculative enterprises, etc., culminating in the
world-war, which in its turn, overshot the
mark, and converted the process of capitalist
development into the opposite direction.
Not only has capital proved incapable of
further growth, and has it become a hindrance
to the natural development of the productive
forces, but it has, once more, revealed a sad
truth, to-wit, that a class does not die, without
defending itself to the very last, resorting to
the utmost extremities of cruelty and corrup-
tion. From Denikin to Lloyd George, the
leaders of reaction, have to a man, shown
68
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themselves absolutely devoid of human feel-
ing; without pity or shame they have pushed
on over hills of dead and through deserts
of misery for the sole sake of putting off
though even for a single day, the downfall of
a system which history has doomed. The en-
tire capitalist class is determined to drown so-
ciety in blood and let civilization, material
and intellectual, crash down into the bottom-
less abyss of universal ruin and chaos, rather
than of its free will, concede to the proletariat
one single position of power.
It is a consequence of the class-struggle
which some of us have perhaps shrunk from
facing in this, its fierce extreme, that classes in
power maintain themselves as long as they
have products at their disposal to bribe parts
of the working classes, and materials to make
weapons of for the destruction of rebels. We
see this day in Russia, and we know both by
theory and by practice, that Communist Society
can arise only after a terrific struggle, which,
in destroying the power of capital must at the
same time damage, and, partly, destroy the
possibilities of production. The sneering
phrase of "the Socialism of hunger" ex-
OF SOVIET RUSSIA
69
presses a terrible truth which may, possibly,
prove more terrible to Western Europe than,
even, to Russia.
And the attitude of the intellectuals as a
group in the widest meaning of the word, is,
in part at least, determined by this circum-
stance. Toward the Social Revolution the
attitude of the intellectual as a social group
has always been one of dislike, and the gulf
between workers and intellectuals has grad-
ually widened and deepened. This is pretty
generally admitted even by men like, for in-
stance, Dr. Max Adler, who, nevertheless ex-
pects great things for the Social Revolution
from the intellectuals. In “Socialism and the
Intellectuals” he writes (p. 23): "The very
class-antagonism which, finally, by arousing
its class-consciousness, compels the proletariat
to further culture, drives the intellectuals into
the camp which most strenuously opposes
this craving for culture, the camp of the bour-
geoisie".
The attitude of University undergraduates
in the various countries likewise points to-
wards an increasingly reactionary temper
10
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even amongst this flower of the intellectual
flock.
In the capitalistic system the degree up to
which middle-class intellectuals are able to
achieve a relative independence in matters
material and mental, is determined by the
bourgeoisie's valuation of their services; and
not only this, but their culture in itself is,
moreover, necessarily culture of a bourgeois
order. The environment and the education of
the intellectual have this for their one aim.
The idiotic school system, which all but ab-
solutely bars general culture in order to waste
time upon all kinds of irrelevant information
which, if eventually needed, may be had from
any handbook; the burden of lessons to be
learned by rote and work to be done at home,
which prevents future intellectuals from gath-
ering any experience of life in their leisure
hours; the promoting of an exaggerated and
consequently senseless sport: all this, as a sys-
tem of education, compares only with military
drill which, of set purpose, day by day, for
months at a time, in an all but absolutely
stupefying manner, repeats a score of move-
ments and exercises which the dullest might
OF SOVIET RUSSIA
911
easily master within a few weeks, and this,
avowedly, in order to deaden the intellect and
enforce a habit of mechanical obedience. The
little world of the University undergraduate,
fenced off from real life, outwardly and
seemingly "free" and the secluded circle, ani-
mated by an arrogant caste-spirit, in which
army officers move, are means to one and the
same end: the maintaining of exploitation.
Even to workers the process of emancipation
from bourgeois ways of thinking and bour-
geois culture is the principal hindrance in
their struggle for freedom; how much the
more then must this be the case with bour-
geois and semi-bourgeois intellectuals!
And in this respect, class antagonisms have
not, of late years, lessened, but on the con-
trary, they have increased. Imperialist-na-
tionalist ideology has conquered the whole
bourgeois-intellectual world. This ideology
was the promotor of the past war as it is the
abetter of the war in the midst of which we
now live and of the war which is bound to
come.
The fact that it is precisely the intellectuals
who generally speaking are the propagandists
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of Imperialism, is not a mere accident. Ex-
tension of the world-power of capital means
extension of bourgeois culture over all the
earth, and, therewith, extension of the possi-
bilities, material and other, which favor the
apostles of bourgeois culture and the adepts
of bourgeois science. It opens perspectives
which make one forget the deadly monotony
of a drudge's existence, forget material and
moral slavery. The more desperate the
reality of bourgeois life, the more passionate,
and utterly reckless the ardor with which the
more energetic among them embraces this
new ideal. Pioneers of science, engineers,
ministers of religion, soldiers, politicians,
and journalists leaving their study, sally forth
to the conquest of the world, penetrating into
the farthest recesses of Asia and Africa. And
the home-stayers have a new task in keeping
down by fraud and by force the tumultuous
masses, the "enemies of culture”. The means
at their disposal are abundant, and, if they
should prove insufficient for the purpose,
promises are given the more readily. The
process of corruption has penetrated deeply
into the layers of skilled labor itself.
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773
All this hardly makes it probable that in-
tellectuals should prove helpful in the build-
ing up of Communist Society. It is contended
that under Communism conditions of life will
be better, for intellectuals as for others, than
they are or possibly can be, under the present
regime, for the overwhelming majority. This,
however, seems exceedingly improbable for the
transitional period of the dictatorship of the
proletariat, with which the present generation
has chiefly, if not exclusively, to reckon.
The Russian Revolution has demonstrated
the fact that, on the whole, bourgeois intel-
lectuals do not readily adapt themselves to the
new order of things. The causes are obvious.
As was inevitable in so great a general im-
poverishment, the preference accorded to the
claims of the workers caused detriment to all
the privileged classes. And this not only ma-
terially, as in the matter of food, ciothes and
housing, but also in many things which we
are accustomed to consider as pertaining to
the mental and moral privilege of bourgeois
culture: a certain outward refinement, a sense
of recognized superiority, the ready disposal
of manifold resources of art and science.
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As to the last-named point, it may perhaps
be objected that the new Workers' Govern-
ment in this very matter makes the utmost
exertions to promote and render accessible to
the generality both art and science. But it
should, at the same time, not be forgotten that
socializing a thing means restricting the rights
of the few who formerly had the exclusive
disposal of it. Partly, too, efforts take a dif-
ferent direction; and, as to important re-
sources which cannot, without further prepa-
ration, be made accessible to the masses, these
are reserved for the building up of the new
life, and this, again, entails restrictions upon
individual use. Lastly, to the intellectual preju-
diced by bourgeois thought and habit of mind,
the new surroundings are most depressive, so
as to seriously impair his capacity for work.
It has been said: "the workers stand for a
new culture, and this must draw the intel-
lectuals to them”.
But the culture of the intellectuals is not
culture in the absolute sense, but bourgeois
culture; and bourgeois culture is not only
alien but even inimical to proletarian culture.
What is more: proletarian culture cannot
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75
exist but by conquering bourgeois culture;
and this is one of the most radical processes of
the proletarian revolution. Monopoly must
be destroyed not in production only; not in
material output only must bureaucratic lead-
ership be replaced by the active co-operation
of all and each, but the same thing must be
achieved for science, art and all culture in
general. Since then, intellect must be absorbed
into the mass, the bourgeois intellectuals
as a class must be destroyed, it is somewhat
naive to count on the support of these very
intellectuals.
If and in so far as bourgeois intellectuals
obtain the lead in the proletarian revolution
and the building up of the new society, and
exert a preponderant influence upon the new
system of production and the new culture, it
will be to the harm of the Proletarian Revo-
lution. For, as monopolists of bourgeois cul-
ture, the intellectuals must be the very last to
be able to see and solve the new problems.
This sets the workers a difficult task, and
it will be well to examine the manner in which
these difficulties cropped up in Russia, and
.
96
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the degree in which they were or were not
overcome.
As a preliminary remark, it will of course,
be evident that the attitude and development
of the intellectuals as a social group must be
considered in the first place..
Single individuals of the bourgeois intel-
lectual middle-class join the workers' class;
it is plain they do so, and logical that they
should; since they are members of a middle-
class. These individuals of course, can do
useful work, even though, as is probable, they
should in many cases prove unable to keep up
with the progress of the revolution, especially
if that progress be a rapid one. These ele-
ments may even be said to constitute an in-
dispensable factor in the transition from
bourgeois to proletarian society. As it is
necessary to take over and use the technical
resources uf capitalism for the building up of
the new world, so it is necessary, and neces-
sary in an even higher degree, to take over
and use the results of science and experience,
upon which this technique is based. It is true
these are, partly, to be found in books; but
these books too are as yet accessible only by
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177
the aid of specialists. And for the education
of the new generation we still, in the main,
must look to the bourgeois intellectual world
for teachers. This co-operation of the old
and the new renders, therefore, all the more
necessary a lengthy period of proletarian dic-
tatorship, in which the proletariat must ac-
quire the mental qualities demanded by the
new society. In this process members of the
intellectual class who have broken with bour-
geois culture form, of course, important ele-
ments. They, in a manner, betray the secrets
of the power of their class to the enemy;
small wonder if, as the struggle grows hotter,
the full measure of the exploiters' hatred is
poured out on them.
The number of these who thus change
sides will, however, necessaily, be relatively
small; and an absolute breaking with the past,
also in respect of matters of the mind, may
and must be demanded. All the same, this re-
fers to exceptional cases, which are not con-
clusive for our attitude towards the intellec-
tuals as a social phenomenon.
As is well known, the generality of the in-
tellectuals and of the technically educated in
78
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Russia after the October Revolution refused to
serve under the proletarian Government and
even attempted sabotage on a large scale, and
systematic obstruction. This at once caused
hesitation, even among certain groups of com-
munists, and there were some who advocated
a policy of concessions to the Mensheviki, in
order to arrive at co-operation. These pro-
jects, however, were not realized and it cer-
tainly is one of the very greatest among the
many great merits of Lenin, that, in this
critical situation he, by his unflinching firm-
ness and unconquerable optimism, restored
courage and self-reliance to many quailing
hearts.
Now that it is all past and over, this may
perhaps seem to many of us the natural and
logical acceptance of a principle professed
from the outset and always adhered to. But
when all circumstances and the personal feel-
ings of those who played a part in the October
Revolution become known, it will be realized
what it means to act up to principles in a situ-
ation like this and claim all power for the
workers.
Having refused the co-operation of the
1
OF SOVIET RUSSIA
79
Mensheviki, the workers had to take upon
their own shoulders the overwhelmingly huge
task of administration and reconstruction. It
was a thing that required an almost super-
human courage to do as a worker did at the
time of the formation of the first Council of
People's Commissaries, to-wit, to take upon
himself, having nothing to rely upon but the
scanty experience earned in the administration
of a local paper, and his Comminist convic-
tion, to administer, conjointly with the trade-
union concerned, the Postal Service; or, as
another did, -although after a time he was
compelled to solicit for a more practical task
-to offer to take charge of the publications
of the Secret Archives.
It is difficult to fully realize what it meant
to assume the control of the banks, at a time
when the counter-revolution and the system of
sabotage had established their principal bases
precisely in the banks. Who thinks of Trotz-
sky now, sees the well-ordered regiments of
the Red Army march past with flying colors,
but when, after the October days, this very
man had, in his quality of president of the
revolutionary military commission, to try
80
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and beat off an attack of Kerensky's troops
on Petersburg, the task seemed a thing tran-
scending all imagination. And yet, it was
done. Of course, not owing to any military
experience of Trotzky--which he could not
possibly have at the time but in the first
place because numerous contingents of rev-
olutionary soldiers proved willing to march
against the enemy, and the adversary's troops
were averse to meeting them in a serious fight.
What proved the most difficult thing at the
time was to find a worker who dared to take
upon himself the control of the totally dis-
organized food-distribution; but among Rus-
sian communists the rule is, that when the
comrades declare a man fit he considers the
question settled.
It is not to be wondered at, truly, that the
bourgeoisie and the intellectuals were abso-
lutely convinced that this condition could not
last for a fortnight: our own friends had only
the vaguest of ideas about how they were to
manage. But the workers and peasants saw
there was no other way out, and they went on,
undaunted by temporary difficulties, tempor-
ary misery, undauntéd even by the doubts that
OF SOVIET RUSSIA
81
beset many who came into immediate touch
with the all but insuperable organizational
difficulties. Here, it was the masses that
wrought the wonder, and the chief merit of
the handful of intellectual leaders was cer-
tainly this, that they never allowed themselves
to be discouraged, that they continued to trust
in the triumph of methods which, judged by
the standard of the bourgeois intellectual,
seemed hopeless.
The prediction of a rapid and total collapse
of bolshevism was not fulfilled. The much-
wondering saboteurs were compelled to come
back and beg for work, lest they should starve.
But the distrust they had aroused among the
workers for a long time still continued to
make felt its salutary after-effects.
Compare with this the history of the Hun-
garian Soviet-Republic, fraternal co-operation
between Social-patriots and Communists in a
conquest of power at which no blood was
shed; high-sounding declarations of engineers
and intellectuals, who put themselves at the
service of the Soviet-administration in order
to co-operate in the reconstruction. Result:
extensive corruption from the outset, an or-
82
THE NEW POLICIES
ganization of industry in which the workers
have practically no word, systematic treason
committed, together with the old leaders of
the trade-unions and the representatives of
the Entente, and, in the end, surrender and
the tolerating of a most bestial system of
white terror.
We leave out of discussion the question
whether the Hungarian Soviet Republic
would, without the help of Russia, have been
able to maintain itself as a purely proletarian
organization against the united attacks of its
enemies, under the leadership of the Western
democracies; but the manner in which the
Soviet-dictatorship arose and fell, is, in itself,
most instructive.
And when now and again it is rumored that
in Germany large groups of intellectuals are
in favour of Soviets, that manufacturers are
perfectly willing to continue business on a
new basis, and even army officers are inter-
ested in Bolshevism, this is sign of a danger,
that should not be underrated.
It had often been said: in the countries of
Western Europe it is difficult for the workers
to conquer the power over well-organized
OF SOVIET RUSSIA
83
capital, but once they have the power, the con-
struction of a new society will be a much
easier thing. This verdict is mainly based
upon the consideration that the great number
of intellectuals and “educated workers will
strengthen the communistic organization.
And this illusion is cherished, although we
see, even now, that the best educated groups
of workers are, and necessarily must be, the
most reactionary and the most bourgeois, not
to mention the intellectuals. For the recon-
struction of a society based on new principles,
men are looked to as leaders who at this mo-
ment, as chiefs of parties and as trade-union
officials, sell and betray the workers.
It is, perhaps, unavoidable, that men like
these should once more deceive the workers,
that production should once more have to be
based upon new bureaucratic foundations; but
this much is evident, that the workers will
weather these dangers the better, the less they
suffer themselves to be deceived by illusions.
In Russia, both the inexorable policy of the
party, unswervingly true to principle, and the
attitude of the intellectuals themselves, threw
back the workers upon their own resources;
84
THE NEW POLICIES
and this indubitably, accounts for the success
of the Revolution. What, now, were the sub-
sequent developments ?
The intellectuals, as we saw, made haste to
retrace their steps and proffer their services,
which have been accepted. But their co-
operation was far from being a cordial one,
and covert opposition, or, at least, absolute
deficiency of co-operation was a general phe-
nomenon.
My work in Soviet Russia brought me into
frequent contact with engineers in the em-
ploy of the Soviet organization for Public
Works. Under this come all new construc-
tion, the building of roads and bridges, of
new railway lines, canals, systems of irriga-
tion, draining, etc., an immense field of labor,
and in which a number of problems arose that
could not fail to attract engineers at all in-
terested in their work. Without going into de-
tails, this much may be said, that the radical
alterations in the whole of the economic sys-
tem brought new problems to the fore and
gave to old problems a shape entirely new.
It was, for instance, necessary to transfer in-
dustries, to exploit new resources, to solve
OF SOVIET RUSSIA
85
the problems of communication and distribu-
tion according to a new and more rational
point of view, or at least, to prepare a solution
for the future, etc. Moreover, in the planning
and the execution of new works everything
had to be put upon a new basis. The cost of
all raw materials, of machines and of human
labor underwent, of course, a radical change,
in their relation to one another, as in other
respects; in consequence, in similar cases dif-
ferent materials and different methods had
to be employed in order to obtain the best
results. All this, one would expect, would
have the attraction of pioneers' work. One
would expect a certain enthusiasm if only for
the sake of the technical importance of the
thing—the enthusiasm of the engineer who
has to execute a great work in a region not
yet opened up.
But it did not appeal to the bourgeois en-
gineers of Russia.
Although, as early as at the first General
Congress of Economic Councils, the Commun-
ists proposed and discussed a number of new
technical economic problems, no sign of in-
terest was forthcoming from engineering cir-
86
THE NEW POLICIES
cles, much less any partial solution of these
vital problems. My experience was gathered
more especially in the department for water-
works, where very little was done by a num-
ber of engineers of acknowledged practical
ability, and who in matters of theory were in
no way inferior to their Western colleagues.
In the extensive Moscow bureaux old pro-
jects, approved in the main by the previous
Government, were elaborated and discussed
on the basis of the condition of the past. Of
new points of view, resulting from the radical
change in circumstances, but very little was
to be seen.
.. And yet, it had repeatedly been pointed
out, not only at congresses, but in the com-
munist press, that a great number of problems
would necessarily undergo great changes, be-
cause of the fact that, instead of private profit
as hitherto, public interest was to be the basis
of all enterprise. The iron industry, for in-
stance, would in great part have to be cen-
tralized in localities where ore and coal are
easily accessible; other industries, by syste-
matic decentralization, would have to link up
with agriculture; the entire problem of dis-
OF SOVIET RUSSIA
87
tribution assumed a new aspect. The means
of transport were involved to a considerable
extent. Not only was a rational railroad
system an absolute necessity, as well as utili-
zation to the full of the extremely favorable
opportunities of an extensive system of trans-
port by water, but in the new system, the
rivalry between railroads and water-roads
would be done away with, and they would be-
come one another's complement. To confine
myself to the waterways. Any one must see
what an extraordinary development of possi-
bilities arose now that the entire fleet of river
and canal-boats was brought under one man-
agement, and the ceaseless conflicts of numer-
ous private interests being done away with,
a rational organization of the inland shipping-
trade, such as of the railway service in other
countries, was rendered possible .
Besides, for a number of general problems,
the new conditions had to be decisive for all
technical details. The choice of materials, of
working methods, the determination of the
order in which various works were to be exe-
cuted, absolutely everything would have to be
examined anew, according to the altered cir-
88
THE NEW POLICIES
cumstances. To mention only the most im-
portant of these: ground-rent and interest on
capital were no more, the output of labor had
changed, the relation between machine labor
and hand labor, between the direction and the
execution of a work, had altered.
Of course, all these problems did not at
once make themselves felt in their full sig-
nificance; and, it need hardly be said, circum-
stances were, for the time being, most un-
favorable for the execution of important
works. But so absolute a lack of compre-
hension and of interest as was evinced by the
engineers of the old guard", is extremely
significant. As in so many other provinces of
mental activity, so in this, leaving aside, of
course, a few favorable exceptions, listless-
ness and reluctance were the characteristics
of bourgeois intellect. Plainly, the intellect-
tual middle class, inasmuch as it failed to as-
similate the communistic ideals, was of but
very slight value for the establishing of the
new society, that is founded on labor.
A comparison between the brisk and ener-
getic life arnong the masses of the workers,
where every problem aroused the keenest in-
OF SOVIET RUSSIA
89
terest and raised endless discussions, and the
torpid apathy prevalent in the engineers'
offices, makes it evident that these latter were
and more or less mechanical part in the build-
ing up of the new system of production.
And yet the Soviet took a great deal of
trouble to meet the wishes of intellectuals and
engineers. Technical and intellectual work
was highly appreciated, and this appreciation,
which was also expressed in the shape of high
salaries, was transferred to the representatives
of capitalistic intellect. But these gentlemen
did not feel at home under a workers' dic-
tatorship. For not only was the petty-bour-
geois way of life which they loved, threatened
-as must be the case especially in a tran-
sitional period when impoverishment is gen-
eralby such measures as house-distribution,
and by the absence of all sort of comfort and
luxury; but, a thing which they felt even
deeper, the new system attacked their position
as monopolists in the control of intellectual
social life and the processes of production.
Under this system, as a matter of fact, knowl-
edge of the ancient kind, based as it is on an
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THE NEW POLICIES
experience of things past and gone, becomes,
practically, or in part at least, worthless. In
consequence, the intellectual loses his self-
reliance; the more because he sees that his
individual case is becoming the general rule,
and society as a whole is fast losing its faith
in old-time customs, truths and traditions.
The workers demand that account be ren-
dered to them; they demand an equal share of
authority, they demand tangible results. And,
naturally, they are as yet, lacking in the ex-
perience, the knowledge and the insight need-
ed for the formation of a correct judgment in
matters which often are exceedingly compli-
cated. The intellectual, in consequence, im-
agines himself to be indispensable; he thinks
he need but assume an attitude of waiting;
that in one form or another former conditions
are sure to return, and therewith, the import-
ance of his role. Only, in the meantime, he
feels superfluous and therefore is depressed.
An engineer who complained to me of the
cold in the unheated bureau, and other incon-
veniences of the kind, grave enough certainly,
added: “But the worst of all is—we are
bored!" This enforced inactivity of course,
T
OF SOVIET RUSSIA
did not prevent him from pocketing a salary
higher than that of a People's Commissary,
who works sixteen hours a day that he may,
to the best of his ability, solve the new prob-
lems cropping up in all directions. .
As we have stated, the intellectuals, gen-
erally speaking, offered their services to the
Soviets for material considerations only, and
this, as a rule, without any enthusiasm. In
the central bureaux, where the general control
is exercised, results, as we saw, were most
unsatisfactory. Control by workers' commit-
tees is difficult, especially in cases where the
necessary preparation is lacking. In the
building works and in the factories conditions
are, of course, better. The most urgent work
at least is done, because the need of the day
compels the doing of it, and a control by the
workers is more feasible here.
From my inspecting-tours in the provinces
I always returned in a hopeful mood. In the
smaller units better work was done, there was
more organization there, more enthusiasm,
more sense of the new than among the gen-
erality of the officials in the great bureaux of
Moscow. In Moscow too, it is true, en-
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deavors were made to make workers take a
part in bureau-work; but whilst discharging
this unaccustomed task they, in many cases,
soon grew subject to the influence of the sur-
roundings, and the new bureaucratic elements
are not less of a danger to the success of So-
viet organization than the old were.
Those who foster exaggerated expectations
about the substitution of new independent or
even communistic leaders for the old bureau-
cratic trade-union officials, may take warning
by the fact that in Russia as in Hungary cor-
ruption was rife among the new bureaucrats
as among the old. These results are produced
by the system, not by the individuals. And
the chances are that this danger will increase.
As the stability of the Soviet regime grew
more and more manifest, 'the number of
bourgeois intellectuals who offered their ser-
vices increased, and the bureaucratic element
was strengthened. The submission of the in-
tellect was greatly rejoiced over, and great ex-
pectations were cherished as to the results of
this co-operation. But unless the workers
ever and again break up this bureaucratic ap-
paratus, pushing "from the bottom upwards”,
OF SOVIET RUSSIA
93
1
it is doomed to petrify, and to become a new
instrument of oppression. Against this con-
tingency even the Soviet-form offers no guar-
antee if it ceases to be a living organism, based
upon the active will of the mass of the work-
ers.
It is, therefore, a matter of the very great-
est importance that the trade-union movement
in the shape of industrial organization shall be
kept intact, even after the proletarian revolu-
tion, as in this the proletarian character is
preserved better than in the Soviet organiza-
tion, which, on account of the participation of
peasants, intellectuals and intermediate groups
as well as by reason of its specific functions of
general administration and control, is more
exposed to the danger of bureaucratization.
In Russia this danger has been very plainly
revealed, and the Communists fight it to the
uttermost. The special peril lies in the in-
voluntary alliance of the old bureaucracy with
the new, in consequence of which many orig-
inally sincere revolutionaries gradually degen-
erate into bourgeois.
This is what the workers' masses and the
communists must, from the start, oppose with
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all their strength ; always and everywhere they
must demand the largest measure possible of
control by the workers themselves. It is a
question of self-reliance and courage, and of
being prepared to temporarily sacrifice tech-
nical perfection and higher productivity
rather than give up control. The more firmly
resolved the workers show themselves to do
without the help of bourgeois intellectuals, if
necessary, the more eager the latter will be to
proffer their services. For, when all is said,
the decline of productive capacity under a con-
sistent regime of workers' dictatorship in the
first place affects those who are accustomed to
a higher standard of living.
Here, however, we are confronted with one
of those seemingly insuperable difficulties for
which only a revolutionary development pro-
vides a solution. It is the same as with the
productivity of industrial labor, which de-
clines when food is insufficient, while an in-
crease of the food-production is possible only
when the productivity of industrial labor in-
creases. Similarly, control of the intellec-
tuals by the workers is necessary in the very
first place; but for this a degree of culture is
OF SOVIET RUSSIA
95
required the monopoly of which is provision-
ally, held by the intellectuals. For education
too is, necessarily, in the hands of the intel-
lectual bourgeois middle-class.
NEW METHODS OF PROLETARIAN
EDUCATION.
Small wonder the Workers' Republic
should proclaim entirely novel principles in
the province of education also, and that they
should give the most assiduous attention to
school matters and to the education of the
new generation !
And, again, experience demonstrates, in
Russia, that the workers cannot rely on bour-
geois intellect in this matter. The Workers'
Unity School suffers severely from the lack
of sympathetic insight and co-operation
among the old-time teachers. It is worthy of
remark, too, that the higher the grade of these
teachers, the more disappointing the results.
Ainong the teachers of the elementary school
for children of seven to fourteen, a certain
number were found more or less able to cope
with the new task; but the masters of the
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THE NEW POLICIES
higher schools with few exceptions proved ab-
solutely unfit; and in the matter of the re-
organization of university teaching hardly
anything has been effected, if one excepts the
fact that the universities now are open to all
-a thing of small moment in a revolutionary
period, and to the workers who have better
things to do than to listen to old-time learning.
But even for the lower grade of the work-
ers' unity-school, the best teachers often prove
to be workers trained in a course of a year,
sometimes even of only half a year duration.
At the Moscow training school for teachers,
workers as well as teachers, were trained for
teaching at the unity-school; and the results
with the workers were more satisfactory. The
teachers on the contrary for a long time con-
tinued to form an exceedingly reactionary
group, and of the far-reaching plans for re-
organization of the schools of the second
grade, very little could be realized in every-
day practice.
It is not only lack of sympathy and zeal
that is at the bottom of this trouble in the
matter of education as in others, but even
more lack of understanding and imagination.
OF SOVIET RUSSIA
97
Precisely because development has been along
definite lines, a breaking with the past is ex-
ceedingly difficult. That is the reason why
the new ideas and methods are elaborated and
advocated in workers' periodicals and papers,
and institutions often far removed from
teaching circles, although of course they are
vigorously supported by groups of commun-
ist teachers, which, during the revolution,
gradually increased.
It is, for the rest, easy enough to under-
stand, that just as an engineer tied to formulas
and rusty experiences cannot adapt himself to
the new life, so a dry formalistic, priggish
and, in school, omnipotent school master feels
miserable within the workers' system of
education.
He is altogether helpless and at a loss when
venturing upon even the very simplest and
most primitive attempts in the direction of the
new ideal. He knows nothing about handi-
craft and the different kinds of material. For
direct work, in doing which the children are
free to move about, and exercise a certain
measure of initiative, is a very different thing
from standing in front of a class where the
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THE NEW POLICIES
children are nailed fast to the benches, half
dazed with monotonous drudgery. If we de-
sired a kind of systematic higher kindergar-
ten-teaching according to a method set down
in a convenient handbook, and aided with all
manner of technically perfect appliances and
silly models in glass cases,---well, that might
at a pinch be put up with by the schoolmaster.
But these workers want everything to link up
with practical life: they want really useful
things made, clothes and shoes repaired, ob-
jects mended that the children bring with them
from home, the schoolroom and the furniture
kept clean, help given with the laying of the
wires for the supply of electric light, with
the cooking of the food, etc., etc. And all
this as a starting-point for the imparting of
knowledge and ideas necessary in everyday
life.
It really requires courage to select for this
task out of all the elements inherited from
oldtime society, precisely the most unpractical
people, the teachers ever so far removed from
real life. A "certificated" teacher in front of
a class of the unity-school is as great a risk
as a czarist officer at the head of a division of
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99
RUSSIA
the red army. Both should be closely watched
by the workers.
And so far we have considered the most
primitive form of the labor unity-school only.
But what must be the average schoolmaster's
feelings in the model training-school of our
enthusiastic comrade Levitine!
Writing, arithmetic, geography, history, all
of the evil past. Throw the old litter and the
old books on the scrap heap!
Here we are going to make something,
never mind what, say a wooden spoon to eat
our dinner with. In the school-garden we se-
lect a tree to fell. Not all trees are equally
fit for the purpose! In felling the tree we
have to consider several important questions,
and the laws of equilibrium cannot be neg-
lected with impunity. There, the monster lies
prone; and having first seen to it that our tool
is fit, which again causes many important
question to arise, we begin sawing. That is
great fun! Sawing by turns, two together,
whilst the others sing or count. In the be-
ginning it goes quickly, but the cut widens,
and it gets to be quite a problem to make out
whether every couple of sawers does an equal
IN
100
THE NEW POLICIES
amount of work. Suddenly there is a stop-
page. The strongest boys try their strength
in vain. A clever fellow discovers what is the
matter; the saw had got stuck, the tree bends
with its own weight. Quite a series of new
problems arises. What is to be done now?
We will have to lift the tree, but we are not
strong enough to do it. How strong would
we have to be? And here we learn naturally
the computation of cubic content, computation
of weight, specific gravity of wood. We are
measuring, weighing, ciphering, before we
know, there is practical reason and use in
what we learn. The youngest child can feel
that.
Then comes the mystery of the lever, the
wonder of success. In the meantime the
teacher has found occasion to tell things worth
knowing about the branches and the leaves
and about other trees and other methods of
working. And the children make sketches of
all the tools, the axe, saw, etc. They note di-
mensions, qualities, differences in kind. They
handle iron, stone, willow-wood, ash-wood.
Of the different kinds of wood pieces of an
equal size are weighed or pieces of an equal
OF SOVIET RUSSIA
101
weight are measured, and calculation is set
going once more.
To conclude, the older pupils send in a writ-
ten report of all their experiences gathered
during the work; the best descriptions are
read out to the class and supplemented. And
everything must be systematically arranged,
and written out neatly and plainly, with
sketches and calculations. How good the
porridge will taste that is eaten with that
spoon! what memories, what pleasure, what
pride!
But the model-school offers a great many
possibilities: there is the vegetable-garden and
the flower-garden, the tree-nursery, ponds and
water-supply, a loom, a printing plant, a car-
penter's workshop, an engineer's workshop, a
photograph studio, etc, Such is the equip-
ment of a model school.
Still all these many appliances may very
well be dispensed with. Every kind of work
affords opportunities for teaching. Any sort
of material will open up perspectives of geog-
raphy, history, physical science. All occupa-
tions require counting, weighing, measur-
ing, writing, singing. But a far greater
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THE NEW POLICIES
amount of real knowledge than a teacher of
the old stanıp possesses is required for this.
Moreover his old-time knowledge is practically
of no value, and he has to begin over again.
For a working man of a certain degree of
general culture and a modicum of imagination,
the contrary is true. The new method is
something like a revelation. He sees new
perspectives opening, he is surprised and de-
lighted to perceive what a multitude of mean-
ings is revealed by the very simplest kind of
work, once one develops a habit of inquiring
into the connection of things, and of satisfying
the natural craving for knowledge and in-
sight instead of thwarting it. For him, the
model-school is a true academy, an introduc-
tion into a new field of labor, not the com-
pletion of an earlier education. He will not
be distressed at his pupils putting questions to
him which he is not able to answer off-hand;
not only the distinction between learning and
working, but up to a certain degree the dis-
tinction between teacher and pupil by and by
is obliterated for him. And where his own
imagination might fail, the many-headed
OF SOVIET RUSSIA
103
imagination of his class will prove an inex-
haustible resource.
A certain degree of systematization will
certainly be required in the long run, and this
is what is being attempted, account being kept
of the teachings of experience. It may lead
to more rapid results in the direction of a
culture as many-sided as may prove possible
(polytechnic culture). But even in the ab-
sence of a strict system, relying solely on the
haphazard of arbitrary selections out of the
infinite riches of living reality, this method
will lead to surprising results. Once a pupil
has learned the art of tackling a problem, of
gaining an insight into its meaning, of inves-
tigating and of conquering difficulties, he has
gained all that is necessary to prepare him for
life. For concrete knowledge is necessarily
limited within narrow bounds; while in any
special case it may be supplemented and ex-
tended without great difficulty.
However, the teachers of course must pos-
sess a certain degree of general culture and of
imagination, besides possessing knowledge of
the execution of work of certain kinds. For
a bourgeois intellectual this is not a simple
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THE NEW POLICIES
matter. Even the usual school-experiments
attempted by our teachers in physical science,
with the aid of an assistant and with perfect
instruments, beautifully polished, often failed
in the most miserable manner.
It is easy enough to prescribe that when in
the process of some work a fire is needed, the
class be shown in what way our ancestors
used to make fire. But it is not so easy to
manufacture the little contrivance, by which
fire is made by friction, and to really make
fire with it. But if this is achieved with the
aid of simple appliances and not with model-
instruments bought in a shop, it will not harm
the class to learn by experience what a deal of
painstaking and thought goes to the making
of a real thing. The making of fire too re-
quires considerable exertion. In the model-
school it was done in this way. And it was a
good object-lesson in history, geography, phy-
sical science and arithmetic, that ended in a
calculation of the time and labor saved at
present by the use of matches, by one person
in a day, in a year, in a life-time; and, again,
for all the town, all the country, all Europe
in an hour, a day, a year.
OF SOVIET RUSSIA
105
It is true that for this one had to know the
population figures of the country and of
Europe, but as a matter of course one goes
to a handbook for information of the kind,
and the teacher need not be ashamed if he
does so. Moreover the pupil who joins in
similar experiments and calculations, and
sends in a report, has a far better chance of
remembering the figures than the victims of
the present system, who learn by rote long
series of figures for the next examination.
There may, possibly, be some use in
plaguing our fourteen-year-old children with
elaborate geometrical artificialities that have
no conceivable relation to reality; it may be,
as it is argued, that this is a form of gymn-
astics of the brain; but the mental agility at-
tained by this method may be gained in a more
pleasant manner by the solving of riddles and
the telling of anecdotes. And as for the
knowledge of geometry and surveying a great
deal more will be gained by the measuring of
buildings and sites, complemented by the de-
termining of superficial contents and weight
of objects and of position in respect to the sun
and the stars.
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THE NEW POLICIES
But if one then thinks of the schoolmast-
ers of this present day, the absolute unfitness
of the bourgeois intellect for the new society,
the necessity that this entire generation of in-
tellectuals should disappear in the transitional
process of the dictatorship of the proletariat,
becomes evident. The annihilation must be
definite, for the type cannot be tolerated even
in a modified form. It is evident that the
very notion of teacher, professor, etc., must
be obliterated. The ideal can be approxi-
mated only if all co-operate towards "educa-
tion”, considering this as a natural part of
their daily work.
Small wonder that the bourgeois intellec-
tual proves unable to develop the new prin-
ciples in education, and that the failure should
be the more conspicuous the deeper the intel-
lectual is incrusted in bourgeois culture. I
have referred to the fiasco of Russian teach-
ers in high schools.
High school education should link up with
the real labor in factories and workshops, in
offices and in the field, without the loss of its
many-sided (polytechnic) character, that is,
without dwindling into the one-sidedness of
OF SOVIET RUSSIA
107
a specific technical education. The "pupils”,
too, should be allowed in a generous measure
to share in control, freedom and initiative.
The purpose to be effected is the complete dis-
solution of schools formerly planned for the
age-limit of fourteen to eighteen, and the
formation of free groups of juveniles, self-
controlled as far as possible, temporarily con-
ducted by teacher leaders, but developing into a
vital part of the social body, and participating
with a production of their own in the general
process of labor, where the grown workers
will have the leisure and the degree of cul-
ture necessary to influence youth by instruc-
tion and general mental and moral education.
The thing always to be kept in view is that
culture should be general, many-sided, not
subservient to production as to its purpose,
but still promotive of production. Physical
science, chemistry, mechanics, trigonometry,
book-keeping, geography, history may be
efficiently taught in this inanner, not to men-
tion writing, drawing and arithmetic. More
manifold international intercourse by travel
and migration complemented by reading,
singing and listening to lectures, will open
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THE NEW POLICIES
opportunities for foreign languages and liter-
ature, which for many reasons will exert a
most favorable influence. Anyhow, old-time
methods and old-time teachers may be dis-
pensed with, in this province also.
For university education and science as such
the change of course is even more radical.
“Undergraduates” of eighteen to twenty-five
or twenty-six will be unthinkable and impos-
sible in a society based upon labor. Not only
because an adult not performing useful work
will not be tolerably safe as an exception
only, but because in future every human be-
ing possessing sound brains will both learn
and teach all his life, will both give and take.
It is plain that this will revolutionize science.
Science too will link up directly with labor,
and in this way be released from its present
state of seclusion
Those wishing to study medicine and hy-
gienics will gather knowledge in and by prac-
tice under proficient guidance, and in so doing
will be brought into contact with a number of
cognate sciences. A natural differentiation
according to practical and spiritual character
and bias automatically sets in. Those who,
OF SOVIET RUSSIA
109
by experiment and investigation, are able to
open up or to prepare for new points of view,
or to apply to better purpose the knowledge
gained, will find at their disposal the best re-
sources, laboratories, appliances and mater-
ials; but discoveries will be the result of in-
dividual exertion much less than of an ex-
change of thought and of collective research,
in which new perspectives appear as the strict
delimitations between the many various prov-
inces of science are done away with.
It will prove possible to find a common basis
for branches of learning seemingly far apart,
to reduce to unity the countless disciplines of
our modern specialists, whose professional
interest induces them to make things as in-
tricate, and as incomprehensible to the out-
sider, as possible.
Bourgeois intellect is petrifying; it shares
the fate of the capitalistic process of produc-
tion in its entirety. What, in the beginning,
was a motive power of unparalleled energy,
the specialization and individualization of
science and art as of labor, has already come
to be a hindrance to further development. In
industrial production finance capital tries to
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overcome difficulties by fusion of its masses
into ever larger units, but with no other re-
sult than to cause the difficulties to develop
into catastrophes which irremediably ruin the
entire system. In art, science, culture, a wave
of nationalism overwhelms the last hopes of
real unity. For this means, not a bond, bind-
ing up into a larger unity the several mutually
estranged special disciplines, but a fetter ab-
solutely inimical to the genius and essence of
science, or more exactly, a noose for the
strangling of all.
Who is there does not think with rever-
ence and pride of the initial period and the
triumphant evolution of the natural sciences
and philosophy, of the conquest of the world
by steam and electricity, of biology, of bac-
teriology, and the investigation of the won-
ders of the skies? Who among the elder gen-
eration but remembers the war which so
fiercely and for so long a time, raged around
Darwinism; but remembers the beginnings of
the emancipation from religious dogma as a
paramount social force? What proud hopes
seemed justified by the spectacle of this evo-
OF SOVIET RUSSIA
111
lution in its vertiginous course! And how ab-
solutely sterile it all has already proved!
Dogma reinstated and enthroned, but in a
throne of cardboard and plaster instead of
halo-encircled gold. Scientific and technical re-
search intent, principally upon discoveries in
matters of detail merely. No great ideas ex-
cept in the last abstractions of mathematics
and speculative philosophy; and a practice
that dooms to sterility all important inven-
tions.
Even technical science, Capitalisms' fa-
vorite child in the day of his power, is in the
Imperialistic period valued as a factor of
annihilation only, and for the rest is balked
as much as possible in its creative energies,
because under Monopoly, it is not intensity of
production but the closed market that prom-
ises the greater profit. Great technical dis-
coveries which in an ever augmenting degree,
require the co-operation of many and vast
material resources, become a menace to ex-
tant monopolies and the capital invested, real
or fictitious, in them; and thus, they are, prac-
tically, rendered impossible. The engineer or
intellectual who achieves practical results does.
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pay.
so by dint of dogged perseverance in a mon-
otonous and strictly specialized labor that
precludes all contact with the fullness of life,
all mutual inspiration resulting from inter-
action with other branches of science, art and
philosophy.
The new communistic society strives after
unity in production, unity in mental life, in
science. In this direction too there are re-
markable beginnings in Russia. With loving
reverence I think of Professor Bogdanof and
his work.
In the interest of the future of science, it
is necessary that the system of the specialists
be done away with; the bourgeois intellectual
class and its mental monopoly must be an-
nihilated. The fight of the workers against the
bourgeois intellectuals as a class is, therefore,
one that must be fought out to the bitter end.
It is part, and, in fact the principal part and
the most arduous of the struggle for the new
communistic society.
It seems to me the most perilous form of
opportunism if in their struggle and for the
building up of the new society, the workers
put their trust in the help of the bourgeois in-
OF SOVIET RUSSIA
113
tellectuals. Just as the development of mass-
action by which alone the war can be won, is
impossible so long as the masses trust to the
activity of the leaders, so the building up of
the new life is impossible so long as the work-
ers allow intellectuals and bureaucrats, even
if they should have come out of their own
ranks, to take the lead. It must result in a
complete failure, if workers listen to advice
such as is given by Karl Radek in his "Ent-
wicklung der Welt-Revolution und die Tak-
tik de K. P." (Development of the World-
Revolution and the tactics of the Communist
Party) November, 1919, to-wit, to so con-
duct their struggle as to win over large groups
of intellectuals to their side: Radek writes :
"From this it follows, that the Communist
Parties from now on must exert themselves to
the utmost to win over to the cause of the
proletariat the greatest contingents possible of
intellectuals”. He argues that circumstances
are much more favorable in this respect in
Western Europe than in Eastern, more espec-
ially than in Russia. Having conceded that,
in Russia, the intellectuals as a class are
"sworn enemies to the proletarian revolution”
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and that the workers must relentlessly beat
down their opposition, Redak goes on to say:
“The situation in the West is totally different”.
There, it would seem, intellect is disappointed
in its expectations from imperialism and de-
mocracy, the low material status of the in-
tellectuals drives them into Communism, etc.
It is doubtless a fact, that these and similar
circumstances may impel a number of intel-
lectuals into the proletarian ranks, more es-
pecially those who, by the economic develop-
ment have already been proletarianized into
mechanical adjuncts of the technical or bu-
reaucratic apparatus.
These nethermost layers of the proletariat
constitute, however, as any one may observe in
practice, but unimportant and most unre-
liable auxiliary troops of the proletarian army.
For the leadership, and for the building up of
the new society, the men wanted are of
course, precisely those intellectuals who have
given proof of experience and self-reliance
also in bourgeois society. It is plain, too, that
this is what Radek means, when with a pathos
most surprising in a man of his habit of mind,
he exclaims, “We would have to despair of
OF SOVIET RUSSIA
115
humanity if it could be doubted that the con-
dition of European culture must drive the best
elements among the intellectuals into the ranks
of the world revolution".
That is why he demands that we should
help the intellectuals to overcome their last
prejudices and should make them our allies.
For "the intellectual proletarians also belong
to this people which is creating a new society".
And, finally: "The proletarian dictatorship
does not threaten the intellectuals. As long
as they are part of the poor and suffering
mass they can become a contingent of the
proletariat organized as a ruling class.
Whether they will, depends on themselves, but
also on the work that we do amongst them”.
This theory assumes the identity of the
bourgeois intellect and intellect in the absolute
sense, just as Kautsky assimilates bourgeois
-democracy and democracy, but is unwilling or
unable to understand that another than the
bourgeois form of democracy is conceivable.
The mistake in the matter of bourgeois in-
tellect is, however, even more fundamental
and more dangerous than the mistake con-
cerning bourgeois democracy, because the lat-
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THE NEW POLICIES
ter is only one of the peculiar forms under
which bourgeois intellect attacks the workers.
Proletarian revolution threatens annihilation
to the (bourgeois) intellectuals as well as to
bourgeois democracy.
But, says Radek, "we need the bourgeois in-
tellectuals”. Certainly, the experience and the
knowledge of many generations and long cen-
turies has accumulated in the heads of a small
privileged group. And we cannot forgo this
precious heritage. Material wealth too is in
the hands of a small group and of this also we
wish to save what save we may. Opportun-
ists and social traitors lift up a voice of warn-
ing: no revolution, no civil war in which fac-
tories, mines, cities may be ruined. Gradual
processes, compromise, re-establishment of
capitalistic production by hard work, economy
and submission to the capitalists to begin with,
and subsequently only the realization of so-
cialism by the action of parliamentary de-
mocracy and the superiority of our organiza-
tions and our leaders.
We know by rote the cant phrases and will
not repeat them here. Communists who do
not believe in this idyl, but are convinced that
OF SOVIET RUSSIA
117
it is the power and the organizing capacity of
the masses that are the decisive factors, are
willing to poy the price, and know that it can
be reduced in practice only by perseverance in
the principle. As Bukharin expressed it:
“The losses represent the cost of the revolu-
tion, caused by the change in the process of
production, they are the direct material ex-
penses of the civil war: without such losses
the transition to a new society is unthinkable,
and so, therefore, is the transition to the effec-
tive development of the forces of production
unthinkable without these expenses”.
But, like the material losses, the mental are
inevitable, and a condition of higher develop-
ment.
Naturally, we will not needlessly destroy
cities and factories, and as little will we pur-
posely waste intellectual values and energy.
But the condition of success is that we do not
recoil from sacrificing values if this be neces-
sary in order to attain our end: the power and
the leadership of the proletariat. The more
resolute the action of the working class, the
lesser the social and personal "losses” will be.
This holds good especially in the difficult
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THE NEW POLICIES
.
matter of the mental leadership. Factories
and tools can be expropriated, accumulated
knowledge and experience cannot.
The bourgeois intellectuals therefore, must
take part in the building up, and at the same
time bourgeois intellect must be defeated. It
is not to be wondered at that, all difficulties
caused by the lack of intellectual helpers not-
withstanding, the transition should begin at
an earlier moment, and in a more fundamental
manner in Russia than in Western Europe,
where bourgeois culture has penetrated so
deep into the entire fabric of social life.
The small group of intellectuals who have
openly broken with bourgeois society and con-
sciously even though, of course, imperfectly,
adapted itself to the new conditions, naturally
fulfills an important function in this process.
For the majority of the intellectuals, how-
ever, a greater or lesser degree of coercion is
necessary, although of course, this cannot be
of a material kind exclusively.
Let us, for an example, consider an ex-
treme case: In the Red Army tens of thous-
ands of old-regime officers are employed, and
this especially in the higher ranks, in the gen-
OF SOVIET RUSSIA
119
eral staff, etc. Of course treason is frequent,
and the possibility of treason must always be
kept in view. Together with every command-
ing officer therefore, a worker is appointed as
"commissary" to exercise supervision. In
case of attempted treason the most severe
measures are, of course, taken, and the com-
missary then has a great responsibility. Ap-
parently his task is hopeless. As he has no
knowledge of strategy worth speaking of, the
general-specialist finds himself free to do very
much as he likes. And, as a matter of fact,
contra-revolutionary plans succeed at times,
and divisions of the Red Army are delivered
over to the enemy by treason.
But, on the whole, the system has proved
efficient, in an ever augmenting degree, for
the protection of the Soviet Republic. If the
commissaries possess sufficient self-reliance,
sufficient "arrogance" to demand, again and
again, explanations, and sufficient intelli-
gence to combine data, they soon gather funda-
mental ideas and a working knowledge that
can be extended by attending discussions, lec-
tures, etc. . In this manner a former hair-
dresser's assistant has risen to the command
120
THE NEW POLICIES
for the time being, an exception. The ma-
jority of proletarian army commanders could
not be made to understand that they had to
take care of themselves, and one after another
fell.
The chief peril is this, that men who educate
themselves in this manner are prone to be-
come, so to say, infected, and develop bour-
geois-intellectual bureaucratic qualities.
Therefore, control must be exercised not by
individuals, but by boards, by committees for
instance, that can be appointed, recalled and
periodically renewed. In the army-organiza-
tion this involves grave difficulties, and, even
in Russia, reformers have recoiled from a con-
sistent application of the principle. As, how-
ever, the army is only a temporary institution,
and in any case a body extraneous to the
workers'-state, this is perhaps comparatively
unimportant.
Still the entire principle of the Soviet is
based upon this general co-operation in exe-
cution and in control, with a many-sided sys-
tem of committees, in permanent contact with
the mass of the workers, who issue instruc-
II
OF SOVIET RUSSIA
121
tions and retain the power to recall the per-
sons appointed. The difficulties of controlling
the mental and technical direction do not in
the process of production and in social life
exceed the average worker's horizon so far as
in the army, but the dangers in themselves are
hardly less.
The form of a committee evidently is the
one best adapted to the purpose; a committee
numbering representatives of the different
categories of workers in the building-trade
is, of course, the proper body to control the
actions of an engineer charged with the di-
rection of a great building work. In a fac-
tory too it will often prove possible to have
control exercised by committees without this
arrangement degenerating into a farce. But
the workers must feel very deeply that it is
of the utmost importance they should not con-
fide this control to single individuals. The
temptation is great to leave it to a few of the
ablest, most intelligent and most energetic
among the workers to so educate themselves
as to be fit to personally assume the direction;
but this frequently ends in their being ab-
sorbed into the bourgeois intellectual class as
122
THE NEW POLICIES
were the leaders of the old social-democratic
parties, and of the old trade-unions. There-
fore, the temptation must be strenuously re-
sisted.
When news reaches us from Russia that the
intellectuals grow more and more reconciled
to the Soviet regime and become enthusiastic
co-operators in the new reconstruction, this
certainly is to be rejoiced over, as a proof of
the increasing power and stability of the
Soviet Government. But, on the other hand,
we must not overlook the danger of a new
period of supremacy of the old and new bu-
reaucracy, which in that case would again
have to be defeated by the effort "from the
bottom upwards" of the masses. Fortunate-
ly, we may rest assured, that very many of
our Russian friends are aware of this peril and
constantly on their guard against it, and that
they will fight it, even though economic and
technical reconstruction should have to suffer.
But in Western Europe, where the peril is
so infinitely greater, the problem is, as yet,
hardly discerned. Its effects made themselves
felt in the shape of a distrust of a direction,
a direction from headquarters, "from the top
OF SOVIET RUSSIA
123
downwards”, in a dislike of centralization,
and above all, in a vigorous hatred of the offi-
cialdom of trade-unionism and the social-de-
mocracy. But in general this attitude is in-
stinctive rather than conscious and systematic,
and it hardly takes into account the real diffi-
culties connected with the problem of the
transition and the reconstruction, and with the
comparative inevitability of the phenomenon.
Centralization is necessary in modern class-
war as well as in modern production; in con-
nection with this, it is not possible to avoid
bureaucracy from the start, and it may even
again and again become necessary to suffer it
to regain the ascendant; this would be the
case if only by such a course the continuation
of the class-war or of production could, under
certain circumstances, be rendered possible.
But quite as necessary is an insight into the
dangers of this policy, and into the imperative
necessity of defeating bourgeois intellect of
which specialization and development into a
separate and independent existence as bu-
reaucracy are forms of manifestation.
Class-war, nay life itself, sometimes forces
us to compromises. But the communist is
124
THE NEW POLICIES
justified in his existence as such by his clearer
and deeper insight into the truth that we must
overcome these compromises, and it is his
duty to discern clearly from the start the dan-
ger they involve, and the aim that lies beyond.
The deeper our conviction of the inevitability
of reverses and compromises in the great pro-
cess of social growth, the more inexorable
must be our exposure and our attack of them.
For only if we clearly discern and thoroughly
understand the compromise as a compromise,
as a defeat, as a danger, then only shall we be
able in a subsequent period to overcome it as
completely as may prove possible.
In the matter of compromises with bour-
geois culture, such as the accepting of bu-
reaucratic forms of organization and direc-
tion, this attitude is even more necessary than
in the matter of compromises with the ma-
terial resources of the bourgeois state, be-
cause in the former case the dangers are so
much more difficult to discern and the process
of overcoming them more lengthy.
This, too, is what determines our attitude
towards the intellectuals as the representatives
of bourgeois culture. There must be no at-
OF SOVIET RUSSIA
125
tempts by special propaganda and compromise
to conquer the prejudice of these groups
against Communism. The proletarian, anti-
bourgeois, character of our struggle and of
our victory must be emphasized in our dealings
with them also. No endeavors must be made
to gain a "support” that later on must prove
unable to withstand the shock of reality. Only
those individuals can be of real use who pos-
sess the strength to break in act, or at least in
spirit, as completely as possible with extant
conditions. Such will feel the remnants of
their bourgeois culture as a hindrance, and will
ask for a modest place in the ranks, and in
the daily struggle will divest themselves by
and by of their ancient impediments, and per-
haps, someday may be able to render import-
ant services to the workers' ciass. But the
danger of reaction exists all the same, and
vigilance is always required on the part of
the workers.
The best among the intellectuals certainly
will not disapprove of such vigilance, but
rather applaud it. The great majority of
bourgeois intellectuals should be considered
as our enemies until such time as they shall
TIL
• YV
126
THE NEW. POLICIES
have given indubitable proof of the contrary.
They will accomplish their part in the strug-
gle and in the reconstruction the more readily
in proportion as the working-class finds in
itself the more energy for direction and con-
trol. The more the workers show a determin-
ation to sacrifice everything rather than re-
main dependent upon intellectual leaders and
bureaucracy, the less the chances of a return
to ancient forms.
The dictatorship of the proletariat is nec-
essary for the transition to communistic so-
ciety. It is necessary while the resources of
the bourgeoisie are, as yet, unimpaired. But
among these resources the mental weapons,
the culture of the bourgeoisie, are the most
difficult to break. Whilst economic and so-
cial reconstruction is dependent upon the co-
operation of bourgeois intellectuals, the work-
ers cannot do without weapons of their own
even although it may prove possible to grad-
ually soften the more rigorous forms of the
dictatorship.
The duration of this historical period can
be shortened only if the workers resist every
compromise with bourgeois culture, and op-
OF SOVIET RUSSIA
127
pose as strenuously as possible all forms of
bureaucracy. For it is not impossible that the
social process may as yet be interrupted by
new periods of exploitation, based upon a
monopoly, not of material, but of mental pos-
sessions, of direction and intellect, in the form
of a bureauracy which in economic, as in mil-
itary organization, had achieved a position
of power, which again necessitates a renewed
and severe struggle of the masses.
The expropriation and socialization of capi-
tal, therefore, is insufficient, unless followed
up by the socialization of intellect and culture.
The former is the condition of the latter: but
this too can be brought about by the class-
war only, and the sooner, in proportion as the
difficulties are the more clearly realized from
the very beginning.
The titanic war we wage is one and in-
divisible. It is against monopoly, all mon-
opoly, whether monopoly of money or mon-
opoly of mind.

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