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ARTES
1817
SCIENTIA
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SI-QUÆRIS-PENINSULAM·AMENAM
CIRCUMSPICE
1
ДК
JEE
HES
FROM MARX TO LENIN
BY
MORRIS HILLQUIT
AUTHOR OF
History of Socialism in the United States
Socialism in Theory and Practice
Present-Day Socialism, Etc.

Published by
THE HANFORD PRESS
NEW YORK
Water
6766
Sociolog!
3-21-1925
gera
Copyright, 1921,
THE HANFORD PRESSS
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だ
​TRADES!
UTER 46
COUNCIL
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I INTRODUCTION
II THE MARXIAN CONCEPTION OF THE SO-
CIALIST REVOLUTION
•
III MARX AND ENGELS ON RUSSIA
PAGE
5
10
20
IV THE NATURE OF THE RUSSIAN REVOLU-
TION
28
V THE TASK OF THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION
VI THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT
36
48
VII THE FUNCTION OF COMMUNIST DICTA-
TORSHIP
VIII SOVIETS OR PARLIAMENT?
•
IX VIOLENCE AND TERROR.
61
70
90
X THE WORLD REVOLUTION AND RUSSIAN
RE-ORIENTATION
•
111
XI EAST and West.
125
XII THE SOCIALIST INTERNATIONAL
139
420040
"Intrinsically, it is not a question of a higher or lower de-
gree of development of the social antagonisms that result
from the natural laws of capitalist production. It is a ques-
tion of these laws themselves, of these tendencies working
with iron necessity towards inevitable results. The country
that is more developed industrially only shows to the lesser
developed the image of its own future."
-Karl Marx in Preface to "Capital."
"We must abandon scientific prejudices that each country
must absolutely pass through capitalist exploitation. The re-
gime of Soviets, when there is a powerful proletariat uprising
on a world scale, can be established in those countries in
which the capitalist development has not attained any serious
proportions."
-Nicolai Lenin before the Second Congress
of the Communist International.
Chapter I
INTRODUCTION
The object of this booklet is to clarify the main
issues and problems of the present-day Socialist
movement.
I approach the task with a full realization of its
difficulties. The current of the Socialist movement
since the outbreak of the war has been so swift and so
replete with unexpected turns, as to make it well-nigh
impossible to discern its meaning and tendencies in all
cases. The Socialist movement of the pre-war period
has broken down or lost vitality. The new movement
has not yet crystallized. It is in the process of forma-
tion, and the violent clashes and hostile divisions with-
in its ranks are but manifestations of that process.
Eventually the movement will be compelled to adjust
itself to the new conditions and requirements, and
the sooner the Socialists of all shades begin to analyze
the grounds of their disagreements candidly and dis-
passionately, the sooner will the process of regener-
ation be accomplished.
Our first task, therefore, is to discover a sound
basis for such an analysis, a generally accepted premise
from which the discussion may proceed fruitfully.
5
6
FROM MARX TO LENIN
Such a basis will be found in the common appeal to
Marx. For Marxism is still the avowed creed of all
contending Socialist camps, each claiming strict ad-
herence to the doctrine and spirit of the theoretical
founder of the modern Socialist movement and charg-
ing its opponents with a palpable departure from
them.
The essence of the Marxian method of historical
research is to look to material causes for the explana-
tion of all vital social and political events. The sud-
den disintegration of the powerful pre-war Socialist
movement, generally designated as the Second Inter-
national, is undoubtedly such a historic event. It, too,
must be understood on the basis of material facts and
circumstances. To account for the world-wide divi-
sion in the Socialist movement on the sole theory that
certain sections of it have become "Social-Patriots"
and traitors to the cause, while others have remained
steadfast to the ideals of revolutionary Socialism, is
to beg the question, because it furnishes no explana-
tion of the reasons why some groups succumbed to
the inroads of Social-Patriotism, while others re-
sisted it.
Every great crisis in a revolutionary movement
which puts its sincerity and courage to a sharp test
will inevitably prove fatal to many of its leaders, and
not infrequently the most violent and "uncompromis-
ing" types will show the largest percentage of de-
sertions. The events of the last years have subjected
INTRODUCTION
7
the Socialist movement to the severest trial in its
history, and whole groups of leaders and followers
have surrendered to the heavy pressure of the capi-
talist forces in practically every country. But this
undeniable fact is one of the manifestations and symp-
toms of the breakdown of the old Socialist movement,
rather than an explanation of its causes.
In a somewhat similar situation arising from the
collapse of the revolutionary movement of 1848, Marx
caustically sums up the shallowness of the liberal
bourgeois analysis of its own failure in this language:
"When you inquire into the causes of the counter-
revolutionary successes, you are met on every hand
with the reply that it was Mr. This or Citizen That
who 'betrayed' the people, which reply may be very
true or not, according to circumstances, but under no
circumstances does it explain anything-it does not
even show how it came to pass that the 'people' al-
lowed themselves to be thus betrayed."
Nor does the Moscow classification by "wings"
(the Right, the Left, and the Center) shed much light.
on the causes and meaning of the divisions within the
Socialist ranks. It is a thoroughly ideological attempt.
to measure the degree of "radicalism" of Socialist
groups and individual Socialists. There always are
and always will be sharp personal and temperamental
differences in every large mass movement.
Such
1 "Revolution and Counter-Revolution," American edition,
1919, page 15.
8
FROM MARX TO LENIN
differences exist within each group as between groups.
They were very pronounced in the Socialist move-
ment of all periods. Still the movement maintained
itself as an organized unit, particularly in the inter-
national field, until the 1st day of August, 1914.
The Second International was split by two main
causes, the war and the Russian Revolution. The
differences between the Socialist parties in the bellig-
erent countries created by the war have been largely
attenuated with the cessation of hostilities. The revo-
lution in Russia and the Soviet régime which it has
established, have proved a more acute and lasting
factor of Socialist disunion.
The Socialist world was not prepared for a social
revolution in Russia. The event came to it as a
startling surprise. It upset its theories and threw con-
fusion into its ranks. The Russian Revolution was
utterly out of keeping with the conception of social
evolution which dominated the international Socialist
movement before the war. It developed a complex.
of new social institutions substantially at variance
with those prevailing or anticipated in other countries,
and it is this divergence of concrete material and
political conditions, rather than mere theoretical and
temperamental differences that lies at the bottom of
the heated discussions in the ranks of the present-day
Socialist movement.
To avert misconceptions it may be stated at the
outset that my attempted analysis of the specific insti-
INTRODUCTION
9
tutions of the Russian Revolution and the policies of
the Soviet government are not intended as "criticism.”
The new social forms of Soviet Russia have been
shaped by the inherent forces of the conditions and
events which have given birth to the first Socialist
republic. Its policies are still in the making. History
has not yet recorded its final verdict upon their merits,
and judged by the pragmatic test of immediate success,
Communist Russia has had the best of the argument
up to the present. Mistakes and excesses have un-
doubtedly been committed, but these are inevitable in
great revolutions and of comparative unimportance
in the long run. The Russian Communists have pre-
served and stabilized the Russian Revolution. Per-
haps this could have been accomplished in the same.
way or better by other and less painful methods. But
the latter is speculation, while the former is fact.
Chapter II
THE MARXIAN CONCEPTION OF THE
SOCIALIST REVOLUTION
The Marxian theory of social growth and change
is essentially economic and evolutionary. It is based
on the following main postulates:
1. In every historical period the prevailing method
of wealth production and exchange constitutes the
basis of society and determines its political forms and
intellectual conceptions.¹
2. Every social order is in a perpetual state of flux
and change and eventually reaches a point in its de-
velopment at which its political and social forms of
organization become an obstacle to further growth.
At that point a break occurs. The impeding political
and social institutions are overthrown, and are re-
placed by new institutions adapted to the new needs.
A social revolution is accomplished.
3. Conversely, so long as an economic system re-
1 "In every historical epoch the prevailing mode of economic
production and exchange, and the social organization neces-
sarily flowing from it, form the basis upon which is built up,
and from which alone can be explained, the political and in-
tellectual history of that epoch." Frederick Engels in Preface
to "Communist Manifesto.
10
THE MARXIAN CONCEPTION
11
tains vitality it cannot be forcibly abolished. No so-
cial order can give birth to a new society before it is
fully matured and has exhausted all its possibilities
of growth and expansion. No phase of social develop-
ment can be skipped over.2
4. All societies of advanced systems of wealth
production invariably create antagonistic social classes,
property owners and propertyless workers, the priv-
ileged and the subjugated. It is always the aim of
the former to maintain the old order, as it is always
in the interests of the latter to overthrow it. The
clash of interests assumes the character of struggle
between these classes, and the political victory of the
subjugated class over the ruling class constitutes the
outward form of the social revolution.
This universal and unalterable law of economic
determinism is the key to the true understanding of
the modern capitalist state and the guiding post to
the coming Socialist society.
The capitalist régime has gradually evolved from
the feudal state as the economic order rooted in agri-
culture gave way to the growing predominance of
modern industries. It was marked by the political
victory of the bourgeoisie over the class of the land-
2 "No social order ever disappears before all the productive
forces for which there is room in it have been developed; and
new higher relations of production never appear before the
material conditions of their existence have matured in the
womb of the old society." Karl Marx, in the Preface to his
"Critique of Political Economy."
12
FROM MARX TO LENIN
owing nobility, and was ushered in by the industrial
revolution of England, and the great poltical revolu-
tion of France.
But in the rapid progress of its growth capitalist
society, like all preceding social orders, creates the
germs of its own destruction. The individualistic
system of capitalism begets, develops and organizes
social forces of production. As the initial phases of
capitalist economy based on individual handicraft
gradually grow into the modern system of large-scale
production; as the hand-tool of the old-time mechanic
develops into the powerful steam or electrically-
propelled machine; as the small workshop gives way
to the gigantic factory; the stage coach to the rail-
road, the sailing vessel to the steamboat, the personal
messenger to the post, telegraph, telephone and cable,
all economic and political relations of the classes are
radically revolutionized, and the foundation is laid
for a new and higher social order.
Capitalism welds together the small and scattered
productive units of a country into powerful consoli-
dated concerns, and organizes industries on a large
scale and planful basis. It thus makes it physically
possible for the organized community to take over
the operation of the industries as a social function.
The modern factory assembles large masses of
workers under one roof and organizes their work on
the principle of division of labor. It thus transforms
the production of commodities from an individual
THE MARXIAN CONCEPTION
13
into a collective process and schools the workers in the
art and habit of co-operation.
As the capitalist mode of production is unfolded
and perfected, industrial units become ever more con-
solidated and concentrated. Independent capitalist
enterprises steadily diminish in numbers, and with
them diminish the independent capitalists.
On the other hand, the number of the wage earners
increases with the growth of industry. Their ranks
are reinforced not only by the influx from the village
to the city, from the field to the factory, but also by
the progressive displacement of small independent pro-
ducers and traders, who are compelled to seek em-
ployment in the service of large capitalist concerns.
But what the capitalist class loses in numbers.
through the process of industrial concentration it gains
in wealth and power through the same process. The
more advanced a country is industrially, the more
absolute, as a rule, is the economic domination of the
capitalists, their influence over the government and
press and other organs of political control. At the
same time the material conditions of the workers grow
more uncertain and precarious as their labor contract
passes from the hands of many competing employers
into those of one trustified or monopolistic corporate
boss. Class antagonisms thus become more acute,
and class struggles more embittered.
In this irrepressible and intensified class struggle
}
14
FROM MARX TO LENIN
the strength of the workers is bound to grow at the
expense of the privileged classes, not only because
their steadily increasing numerical preponderance
gives them an inherent physical and political advan-
tage, but also because the process of capitalist devel-
opment, by massing them together in industrial cen-
ters and around industrial establishments and forcing
them into collective struggle against common oppres-
sion, almost mechanically unites and organizes their
forces, develops in them the feeling of class conscious-
ness and class solidarity, educates them to the ideal
of working class control and trains them in industrial
and political methods of struggle for the attainment
of that ideal.
It is upon this growing physical, moral and intel-
lectual strength of the workers in their struggle
against the increasing oppression of the capitalist eco-
nomic order that the ultimate triumph of Socialism
is predicated.
Capitalist society is accomplishing its work in his-
tory and losing justification for further existence. It
has borne and nurtured within its womb the infant of
Socialism, who clamors to enter upon his inheritance.
Socialism is the child of capitalism. Without capital-
ism there can be no Socialism.
This conception runs like a red thread through the
works of Marx and Engels. It was at the bottom.
of all Socialist politics and tactics before the war.
THE MARXIAN CONCEPTION
15
Already in the Communist Manifesto the salient
points of the doctrine are definitely outlined. After
sketching the universal economic and political rise of
the capitalist class upon the ruins of the feudal order,
the authors of the classic document proceed to these.
conclusions: "A similar movement is going on before
our own eyes. Modern bourgeois society with its re-
lations of production, of exchange, and of property,
a society that has conjured up such gigantic means
of production and of exchange, is like the sorcerer,
who is no longer able to control the powers of the
nether world whom he has called up by his spells.
***“The weapons with which the bourgeoisie
felled feudalism to the ground are now turned against
the bourgeoisie itself.
But not only has the bourgeoisie forged the weapons
that bring death to itself; it has also called into exist-
ence the men who are to wield those weapons-the
modern working class-the proletarians.
With the development of industry the proletariat
not only increases in number; it becomes concentrated
in greater masses, its strength grows and it feels the
strength more.'
*** "The growing competition among the bour-
geois, and the resulting commercial crises, make the
wages of the workers ever more fluctuating. The un-
ceasing improvement of machinery, ever more rapidly
developing, make their livelihood more and more pre-
16
FROM MARX TO LENIN
carious; the collisions between individual worker and
individual bourgeois take more and more the char-
acter of collisions between two classes. Thereupon
the workers begin to form combinations (Trades'
Unions) against the bourgeois, they club together in
order to keep up the rate of wages; they found per-
manent associations in order to make provision be-
forehand for these occasional revolts."
***“This organization of the proletarians into
a class, and consequently into a political party, is con-
tinually being upset again by the competition between
the workers themselves. But it ever rises again;
stronger, firmer, mightier."
Twenty years later Karl Marx formulated this
conception even more clearly and succinctly in the
following famous passage from his Capital:
***“As soon as this process of transformation
has sufficiently decomposed the old society from top
to bottom, as soon as the laborers are turned into
proletarians, their means of labor into capital, as soon
as the capitalist mode of production stands on its own
feet, then the further socialization of labor and further
transformation of the land and other means of pro-
duction into socially exploited and, therefore, com-
mon means of production, as well as the further ex-
propriation of private proprietors, takes a new form.
That which is now to be expropriated is no longer
the laborer working for himself, but the capitalist
exploiting many laborers.
THE MARXIAN CONCEPTION
17
"This expropriation is accomplished by the imma-
nent laws of capitalistic production itself, by the cen-
tralization of capital. One capitalist always kills
many. Hand in hand with this centralization, or this
expropriation of many capitalists by the few, develop,
on an ever extending scale, the co-operative forms of
the labor-process, the conscious application of science,
the methodical cultivation of the soil, and transforma-
tion of the instruments of labor into instruments
usable only in common, the economizing of all means
of production by their use as the means of production
of combined, socialized labor, the entanglement of all
peoples in the net of the world market, and with this,
the international character of the capitalistic régime.
Along with the constantly diminishing number of the
magnates of capital, who usurp and monopolize all
advantages of this process of transformation, grows
the mass of misery, oppression, slavery, degradation,
exploitation, but with it, too, grows the revolt of the
working class, always increasing in numbers, and dis-
ciplined, united, organized by the very mechanism
of the process of capitalist production itself. The
monopoly of capital becomes a fetter upon the mode
of production, which has sprung up and flourishes
along with and under it. Centralization of the means
of production and the socialization of labor at last
reach a point where they become incompatible with
their capitalist integument. This integument is burst
18
FROM MARX TO LENIN
asunder.
The knell of capitalist private property
sounds. The expropriators are expropriated.'
"" 3
The indispensable conditions of a socialist revolu-
tion as understood by the Marxian school of Socialism
may thus be summarized as follows:
1. A capitalist system of wealth production in a
high state of development and concentration.
2. As a sequel, the prevalence of collective or "so-
cialized" work in such industries.
3. A powerful class of capitalist magnates.
4. A large industrial working class constituting the
majority of the population and suitably "disciplined,
united and organized."
5. An acute, active and conscious class struggle
between the capitalists and the workers.
None of these conditions was present in Russia
in 1917.
The country was overwhelmingly agricultural with
rare and isolated spots of industrial capitalism.
The bourgeoisie was neither large nor powerful, and
was not in control of the government.
The industrial workers constituted less than one-
tenth of the population; their class discipline was lax,
3 "English Translation"-American edition, Chicago, 1908,
page 836.
THE MARXIAN CONCEPTION
19
and their class organization, political and economic,
quite undeveloped.
The struggle between the Russian bourgeoisie and
workers was in the incipient stage, sporadic and rela-
tively insignificant.
According to all accepted Marxian tests, Russia was
entirely unprepared for a Socialist revolution.
Chapter III
MARX AND ENGELS ON RUSSIA
In spite of the universal applicability of his theory
of social evolution it is asserted that Marx made an
express exception in favor of Russia, and he is fre-
quently and loosely quoted to the effect that the So-
cialist revolution may break out in Russia in advance
of other countries.¹
Both Marx and Engels always took a keen interest
in the economic and political developments and the
Socialist movement of Russia. Their main views on
the latter subject were collated by Frederick Engels,
and published as a separate chapter of a pamphlet
entitled "Internationales aus dem Volkstaat" (Berlin,
1894).
The publication sheds full light upon the estimate
of Marx and Engels of the possibilities of a Socialist
revolution in Russia. But to enable the reader to
grasp the full import of their expressed opinions a few
preliminary words must be said about the character
and theoretical foundations of the Russian Socialist
movement in the days of Marx and Engels.
1 See f. i. R. W. Postgate, "The Bolshevik Theory," N. Y.
1920, page 116.
·
20
MARX AND ENGELS ON RUSSIA
21
Inspired by the desire to accomplish the Socialist
revolution quickly in spite of the backward economic
conditions of their country, the pioneers of Russian
Socialism, mostly young and enthusiastic intellectuals,
evolved a convenient Socialist theory of their own,
known as "Narodnichestvo," an untranslatable term
corresponding approximately to "populism." It was
not Marxian, but specifically Russian. It reposed its
hope not in the wage workers, but in the peasantry.
Its starting point was not the capitalist system, but
the village community.
The institution of the "village community" rests on
a form of communal land holding. Under this
system the village land belongs to the whole com-
munity, which distributes and redistributes it period-
ically among its members in accordance with their
needs as determined by the size of the family and the
number of its male working "hands." The peasant
has no individual property in the land which he culti-
vates, he cannot alienate it or transmit it by inherit-
ance.
The institution prevails in numerous countries in
the earlier stages of agricultural development, and
was in full operation in Russia before and after the
emancipation of its peasants from serfdom in 1861.
It was on this basis that the early theoreticians of
Russian Socialism proclaimed the Russian peasant a
Communist at heart and in practice, and reduced the
task of the Socialist revolution to the extension of
22
FROM MARX TO LENIN
the village community into a national system of commu-
nist production, freed from the economic exploitation
of the land owning nobility and the political yoke of the
tsarist régime. It was only in the beginning of the
eighties of the last century, when the disappointing
results of the communist propaganda among the peas-
ants became increasingly obvious, and the institution
of the village community itself showed definite signs
of dissolution, that the Marxian school of Russian.
Socialism was founded under the leadership of George
Plekhanoff. This school accepted the Marxian laws
of economic evolution as valid for Russia as well as
for other countries, pinned its hopes upon the develop-
ment of capitalism in Russia, and transferred the
propagandist center of gravity from the peasantry to
the growing class of factory workers. The subse-
quently formed "majority wing" of the Russian Social
Democracy (the Bolsheviki with Nicholai Lenin at
their head) likewise accepted the Marxian concept.
In 1874, Peter N. Tkachoff, a Russian Socialist and
adherent of the village-community theory, published a
controversial "Open Letter to Mr. Frederick Engels,"
in which he set forth the conventional social-populistic
views on the prospects of the Socialist revolution in
Russia, including the following observation:
"We have no urban proletariat. This is admittedly
true; but, on the other hand, we also have no bour-
geoisie. *** Our workers will have to combat only
the political power--the power of capital is barely in
MARX AND ENGELS ON RUSSIA
23
its inception with us. And you, my dear sir, certainly
know that the struggle with the former is much easier
than with the latter."
I quote the following instructive passages from
Engels' reply:
"The revolution which modern Socialism seeks to
accomplish is, briefly stated, the victory of the pro-
letariat over the bourgeoisie and a reorganization of
society through the removal of all class distinctions.
That requires not only a proletariat, which is to ac-
complish this revolution, but also a bourgeoisie, in
whose hands the social forces of production have de-
veloped to a point which enables the ultimate abolition
of class distinctions. ***The existence of the bour-
geoisie is in one direction as much a prerequisite for the
Socialist revolution as the proletariat itself. The per-
son, therefore, who says that such a revolution is
easier to accomplish because although such country
has no proletariat it has, on the other hand, no bour-
geoisie proves thereby only that he has yet to learn
the A, B, C of Socialism." ***
"Tkachoff asserts that the form of society for which
the Socialist movement of Western Europe strives will
be introduced in Russia even before we in the West
will reach it-and that with social conditions in which
the classes of the proletariat as well as the bourgeoisie.
appear only sporadically and in a low stage of develop-
ment. And it is claimed that all this is possible be-
cause the Russians are, so to say, the chosen people of
24
FROM MARX TO LENIN
Socialism, and possess the artel (co-operative enter-
prise) and the communal property in land." ***
"The system of communal land ownership in Russia
has passed the period of its bloom and apparently
approaches dissolution. Still the possibility undeni-
ably exists that this social form may pass into a higher
one. If it maintains itself until the conditions are ripe
for such transformation, and if it thus proves itself
capable of development in such a manner that the
peasants will cultivate the soil not individually but
collectively, it may be possible to bring about this
transformation, so that the Russian peasants will not
have to go through the transitory stage of individual
farm ownership. This, however, can only happen if
before the total dissolution of communal land owner-
ship in Russia a proletarian revolution should be vic-
toriously accomplished in Western Europe and should
furnish to the Russian peasants the necessary condi-
tions of such transformation, particularly the material
conditions which he needs in order to bring about a
revolution in his entire system of cultivation neces-
sarily connected with such conditions. It is therefore
pure nonsense for Mr. Tkachoff to say that the Rus-
sian peasants although 'proprietors' are 'nearer to
Socialism' than the propertyless workers of Western
Europe. Quite on the contrary. If there is anything
that still may save communal land ownership in Rus-
sia and give it the opportunity to pass into a new live
form it is a proletarian revolution in Western
Europe."
"'***
MARX AND ENGELS ON RUSSIA
25
"How could the Russian community transform the
gigantic forces of the capitalist production into col-
lective property and instruments even before Capital-
ism has itself accomplished this revolution; how could
the Russian village community teach the world to con-
duct large-scale industry for the collective benefit after
it has already forgotten to cultivate the soil collec-
tively?"
And again: "It is a historic impossibility for a
lower stage in economic development to solve the rid-
dles and conflicts which have sprung and can only
spring from a much higher stage."
It will be noticed that while Engels rejects cate-
gorically and in toto the idea of Russian leadership in
the international Socialist revolution, he admits the
possibility of establishing a communist régime in Rus-
sia without the necessity of her passing through all
phases of capitalist development. This possibility is,
however, conditioned on two important premises:
(1) that the institution of the village community sur-
vive long enough, (2) that a proletarian revolution be
first successfully accomplished in Western Europe.
In a much discussed letter of Karl Marx to a Rus-
sian journalist written at the same period (1877), the
author expresses the following somewhat cryptic opin-
ion: "If Russia will continue to follow the path which
it has chosen since 1861, it will lose the most beautiful
opportunity history has ever offered to a people, only
to go through instead all the fatal conditions of the
capitalist system."
26
FROM MARX TO LENIN
Marx does not here specify the conditions upon
which Russia may avail herself of the "beautiful"
historic opportunity, but there is no reason to assume
that his views on the subject differed materially from
those of Engels quoted above.
Several years later, when the heroic "Will of the
People" had thrilled the whole Socialist world with a
succession of brilliant and daring feats, and the revo-
lutionary movement in Russia had assumed a more
serious character, Marx and Engels, yielding to the
general spirit and atmosphere of the time, made a
larger concession to the possibilities of a Socialist.
revolution in Russia.
In a preface to Plekhanoff's Russian translation of
the Communist Manifesto, they wrote, in 1882:
"Side by side with the rapidly developing capitalist
swindle and embryonic system of bourgeois private
property we find in Russia the largest part of the
land in communal property of the peasants. The ques-
tion is, can the Russian village community, this form.
of collective ownership of land already in a state of
rapid dissolution, pass directly into a higher form of
communist land ownership, or must it pass through
the same process of dissolution which characterizes
the historical development of the West? The only
possible answer at this time is the following: If the
Russian revolution will give the signal for a working
class revolution in the West, so that both may supple-
ment each other, then it is possible that Russian col-
MARX AND ENGELS ON RUSSIA
27
lective land ownership may prove the starting point
of communist development.
""
The authors here concede that the revolution may
first break out in Russia, but its success is made de-
pendent upon a simultaneous proletarian revolution
in the West and upon the preservation of communal
land ownership. Twelve years later (in 1894) Engels
expressed the opinion that Russia had already missed
her historic opportunity, and concluded that without
a general victory of the modern industrial proletariat
contemporary Russia cannot accomplish a Socialist
transformation either by the road of the village com-
munity or by that of capitalism.
Chapter IV
THE NATURE OF THE RUSSIAN
REVOLUTION
The Russian revolution seemingly mocked the spe-
cific forecasts of Marx and Engels as it defied the
generally accepted Marxian law of social evolution.
It was neither preceded nor supplemented by a gen-
eral working class revolution in the West. It did not
spring from the village community. That institution
had been rapidly and steadily declining until 1917.
It did not succeed an outworn capitalist system.
Capitalism occupied a comparatively insignificant part
in the economic life of Russia. The Russian revolu-
tion owes more to the unusual conditions created by
the war than to the normal course of the country's
economic or political development.
The main factors of its success were:
1. The sudden collapse of the whole organization
of national life.
2. The utter demoralization of the bureaucracy.
3. A weak and unorganized bourgeoisie.
4. An impoverished, war-weary, rebellious and des-
perate population.
28
THE NATURE OF THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION 29
5. An overwhelmingly large and land-hungry
peasantry.
6. Millions of workers and peasants organized into
an army and suddenly freed from military discipline-
a liberated and armed people available for revolu-
tionary service.
7. Spontaneously created but relatively strong and
well-knit organizations of industrial workers in the
large cities, who represented the only active and co-
hesive social force of the country.
8. A small but resolute group of Socialists trained
in European theories of Socialism and ready to as-
sume and to exercise leadership.
The early Socialist movement of Russia has been
characterized as the "illegitimate child of Asiatic Rus-
sia and European Capitalism." From the point of
view of the conventional Marxian historian the Rus-
sian revolution may be described as the illegitimate
child of Asiatic Russia and European Socialism. It
was not born in lawful Marxian wedlock, and this
taint upon its birth has given rise to curious conten-
tions in opposite Socialist camps.
The bolshevist theoretician sturdily asserts that the
Russian revolution was accomplished in strict con-
formity and fulfillment of the Marxian formula.
Thus the first congress of the Communist Interna-
tional, held at Moscow in March, 1919, boldly asserted.
with special reference to the Russian revolution that
30
FROM MARX TO LENIN
KARTAMIEM KLEESTJELISAKS
"development has continued on the lines indicated"
in the Communist Manifesto, and proclaimed: “We
Communists, representatives of the revolutionary pro-
letariat in different countries of Europe, America and
Asia, now assembled in the powerful Soviet city of
Moscow, both feel and consider ourselves to be the
followers of and participants in a cause for which the
programme (The Communist Manifesto) was drawn
up seventy-two years ago."
On the other hand, some Socialist critics of the
Soviet régime simply refuse to admit the "illegitimate"
Russian revolution into decent Socialist society and
at best accord to it the rank of a "middle-class" revo-
lution. This pedantic attitude is based on the Marxian
theory that a middle-class or bourgeois revolution must
necessarily take place and run its course before a
Socialist revolution can be successfully accomplished.
"The practical revolutionary experience of 1848-
1849 confirmed the reasonings of theory, which led
to the conclusion that the Democracy of the small,
traders must first have its turn, before the Communist
working class could hope to permanently establish it-
self in power and destroy the system of wage-slavery
which keeps it under the yoke of the bourgeoisie."
Thus Marx wrote as far back as 1852,¹ and the
doctrine, frequently reiterated in the subsequent works
of Marx and Engels, had become a fixed article of the

1 "Revolution and Counter-Revolution," p. 186.
THE NATURE OF THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION 31
Socialist creed before the days of the Russian revo-
lution.
In this connection it is worth recalling that the
Russian Bolsheviki fully accepted this view, and it is
significant for the suddenness and the unexpected
turn of the Russian revolution that they adhered to
the theory of orderly succession in revolutions until
the very eve of the critical November days of 1917.
The last pre-war program of the Social Democratic
Labor Party (dominated by the Bolsheviki) did not
call for an immediate proletarian Soviet régime, but
for a "democratic republic," to which it addressed the
demand for the "confiscation of landlords' estates" in
behalf of the peasants and an "eight-hour work day"
as a concession to the industrial workers.2
In 1912, when this program was adopted, and prac-
tically down to the beginning of the Communist revo-
lution, both Mensheviki and Bolsheviki believed that
the coming revolution in Russia would be of a pre-
ponderatingly middle-class character, but while the
former favored co-operation with the liberal sections.
of the bourgeoisie for the attainment of the revolu-
tion, the latter advocated a union with the peasantry
against the landholding nobility and the industrial
capitalists.
Even after the fall of the Tsar, when Lenin first
2 "Vserossiskava Conferenzia Ross, Soz. Dec., Rab. Partii,"
Paris, 1912, p. 12.
32
FROM MARX TO LENIN
་
formulated the plan to transfer the governmenta
power to the Soviets, L. Kameneff, one of the fore
most exponents of Bolshevist policy, wrote in the
Pravda :
"As for Comrade Lenin's general scheme, it seems
to us to be unacceptable, in so far as it considers the
bourgeois-democratic revolution as being completed
and counts with the immediate development of tha
revolution into a Socialist revolution."
And Lenin made haste to defend himself agains
the charge of advocating an immediate Socialist revo
lution in Russia in this language:
"But are we not exposed to the danger of falling
into subjectivism, in a desire to "leap over" the un
finished (because it has not yet passed through the
peasant movement) bourgeois-democratic revolution
in order to arrive directly at a Socialist revolution?
"If I had said 'No Tsar, but a labor government,
I would be running this danger. But I did not say
that; I said something quite different. I said that
apart from a capitalist government, there can be no
government in Russia outside the Councils of Work-
ers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies. I said that
power can now pass in Russia from Gutchkoff and
Lvoff only to those Councils, and the majority of them
are precisely the peasants, the soldiers-the lower midi
dle class (to use scientific Marxian terms, based or
the distinctions of classes, and not those of commo
parlance or legal vocabulary).

THE NATURE OF THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION 33
"I absolutely insured myself, in my Theses, against
leaping over an unexhausted peasant-or, generally
speaking, lower middle-class movement, against any
playing at ‘the conquest of power' by a Workers' Gov-
ernment, against any form whatsoever of a Blanquist
coup; for I referred explicitly to the experience of
the Paris Commune. Which experience, as is well
known, and as Marx showed in 1871 and Engels in
1891, entirely precluded Blanquism and efficiently
guaranteed the direct, immediate and absolute rule of
the majority and the effective rôle of the masses only
in proportion to the conscious activity of the ma-
jority." (Italics mine.)
And again: "I not only do not 'count' with 'an
immediate development' of our revolution into a So-
cialist one, but distinctly warn against such an expec-
tation." * * *4
About six months after this was written a "Socialist
Soviet Republic" was proclaimed in Russia under
Lenin's leadership.
And it is idle caviling to dispute the Socialist char-
acter of the Russian revolution. A Socialist revolu-
tion does not mean the immediate establishment of
the Socialist Commonwealth. It is only the political
act of seizing the power of government in behalf of
the workers and with the object of using it for the
3 "Towards Soviets" by N. Lenin, English Translation, Lon-
don, p. 12.
4 Ibid., p. 16.
34
FROM MARX TO LENIN
abolition of private ownership in the means of pro-
duction and for the development of collective work
and enjoyment.
The Russian revolution has taken possession of the
government in the name of the workers. It has effec-
tively expropriated private capitalist owners and has
nationalized the greater part of the industries. It has
also written into its program the socialization of the
land. Measured by all practical tests it is therefore a
Socialist revolution in character as well as intent.
If it has not come as a result of the course of his-
toric and economic development outlined by Karl
Marx, it has occurred through the working of an-
other set of social conditions and forces, which have
proved potent enough to create and maintain it.
continued existence, year after year, in the face of
almost incredible domestic difficulties and embittered
foreign attacks, proves that we are not dealing with
a mere freakish episode, but with a monumental his-
toric event. This will remain true even if the Soviet
government of Russia should not prove able to main-
tain itself indefinitely and should yield to another and
substantially different form of government. The con-
sistent Marxist should be the first to recognize it.
The Paris Commune, in its origin, social program
and the composition of its government, was at least as
much removed from the pure ideal of a modern pro-
letarian revolution in the Marxian sense as the sever-
est critics of Soviet Russia can fairly charge it to be.
THE NATURE OF THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION 35
It was confined to a single city, it maintained itself
only a little more than two months, and was succeeded
by a strong, vindictive and reactionary bourgeois gov-
ernment. Yet Marx did not haughtily disavow it.
Underneath all its crudities and blunders he discerned
an essentially working-class government the product
of the struggle of the producing against the appro-
priating class."5
The "aberration" of the Russian revolution from
the prescribed Marxian path of social development
merely proves that Marx and his followers in the
Socialist movement before the war failed to take
nto account the possibility of a world catastrophe
of such unprecedented and unimaginable magnitude
as the recent war and the cataclysmic political effects
of the incidental breakdown of the international cap-
talist order.

5 "Civil War in France," English translation by Belford
Bax, N. Y., page 48.
Chapter V
THE TASK OF THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

The Russian Revolution represents a straight leap
from an absolute and semi-feudal order to a political
régime of working-class Socialism. The intervening
stage of bourgeois democratic government, which
Marxian theorists always considered indispensable,
was simply passed over, for it surely cannot be seri-
ously contended that the Lvoff-Kerenski government
compressed within the eight months of its troubled
existence a completed cycle of middle-class revolution.
The Russian experiment thus contradicts the ac-
cepted Marxian theory of political evolution. But
does it also set at naught the more fundamental
Marxian laws of economic development? By no
means. Political institutions are after all primarily
deliberate products of the conscious mind, even though
they are bound to adjust themselves in the long run
to the existing material situation. But economic con-
ditions are physical and organic. Their development
may be stimulated, but no radical change can be
effected in their substance by legislative enactment or
revolutionary decree.
The Russian revolution has nationalized the indus-
36

THE TASK OF THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION 37
ries, such as they were. It has put a Socialist gov-
ernment in the place of the former capitalist owners,
ut it has not thereby changed their general character
or state of maturity. Russia has a unique chance to
evelop her industries under working-class instead of
apitalist auspices, which may accelerate the process.
nd eliminate much of the suffering by which it was
ccompanied in other countries. But she cannot jump
over the inevitable phase of economic development
rom small production to large scale industry if she
s to continue on the road toward Socialism.
A Socialist or Communist society in the modern
onception implies not only the common ownership of
he tools of work but also the existence of a well-
rganized system of large-scale production of goods,
system that will abundantly supply all needs of the
eople in an advanced state of civilization. A primi-
ve order of communal life based on scanty resources
not Socialism.
1
"Among savages and semi-savages," observes En-
els in the pamphlet already quoted, "there are fre-
uently no class distinctions, and every people has
assed through that state. We would not think of
everting to such a condition again, if for no other
eason than because it necessarily gives rise to class.
ivisions as the forces of social production develop.
Only upon a degree of development of the social
rces of production, which is very high for the con-
1 "Internationales aus dem Volkstaat," page 50.
38
FROM MARX TO LENIN
ditions of our times, does it become possible to in
crease production to such a point that the abolition
of class distinctions will mark true progress and b
of lasting duration without causing a standstill or ever
a recession in the social mode of production.”
The immediate task of the Socialist government o
Russia is to build up the industries of the country, an
nobody appreciates the magnitude and urgency of tha
task more keenly than the Russian Communists them
selves, who, particularly of late, have been concen
trating their efforts on the development of a syster
of large-scale production.
N. Bukharin, one of the foremost Communist the
reticians, explains the necessity of that policy in th
following simple and direct language:
"The future order is intended to relieve the worl
ers of two misfortunes and evils. In the first plac
from the oppression of man by man, from exploitatio
from one man sitting on another man's neck. This is
be attained by casting off the yoke of capital, and ta
ing their wealth from the capitalists. But that is n
the only problem. We have also to free ourselves fro
the yoke of nature, to subject nature to our ow
wishes, in order to carry on production in the best, th
most perfect manner. Only then will it be possib
for each man to devote only a small part of his tim
to the production of necessary food, boots, clothin
houses, etc., and turn the remainder of his time
study, to art, to all the things that beautify hum
THE TASK OF THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION
39
life. The ancestors of present-day man, who lived at
the semi-ape stage, were equal among themselves.
But they led an animal existence because they had
not subjugated nature; in fact, it was nature that had
enslaved them. On the other hand, under capitalism,
large-scale production has taught man to subdue na-
ture, but the working-class live like working cattle,
because the capitalists, owing to the existence of eco-
nomic inequality, are sitting on their necks. What
follows from this? From this follows that economic
independence (equality) must be combined with large-
scale production. It is not enough that the capitalists
should go. It is necessary to establish production on
the largest possible scale. All small and futile enter-
prises must die out. All work must be concentrated
in the largest possible factories, works, farms. There
must be a single working plan. The greater the area
comprised in this single plan, the better. The whole
world must finally become one great workshop, one
enterprise, in which all mankind may work for them-
selves according to a single, stringently executed plan,
without any employers or capitalists, with the best
machines, and in the best working quarters. In order
to give production a forward impetus we shall not
only not be obliged to scrap the gigantic production
which capitalism has left behind as its legacy. On the
contrary, we shall have to increase it."2

2 "Program of the Communists," Publication of American
Communist Labor Party, page 14.
40
FROM MARX TO LENIN
It will be noticed that in the above quotation, Buk-'
harin does not limit the operation of the proposed
system of large-scale production to purely industrial;
enterprises, but that he also extends it to "the farms."
And rightly so. No ordered system of national econ
omy can be organized without taking into account the
vital field of agriculture. To secure the greatest pos-
sible yield of farm products with the least expenditure
of human energy through the application of modern
machinery and scientific methods; to relieve the hard-
ships, bleakness and monotony of rural life, and to
raise the tillers of the soil to approximately the same
level of comfort, leisure and culture which the city
workers enjoy or envisage, that has for decades beer
one of the most burning problems of the nations. I
is of particular importance in Russia in view of the
distressing backwardness of her agricultural methods
The agrarian problem has always been a source
of perplexity in the Socialist movement, which wa
In
made up overwhelmingly of industrial workers.
ternational Socialism has, in fact, never formulated &
comprehensive and generally accepted program of
agrarian reform. The prevailing notion of agricul
tural organization in a Socialist commonwealth cen
ters around the unit of the large-area farm, equipped
with the most modern and scientific implements, owne
by the community and operated co-operatively b
shifts of workers, with ample provisions for rest an
recreation. Rural life is to be made more interesting
THE TASK OF THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION 41
and intellectual by the transfer of industries, partic-
ularly those more closely related to the products of
the soil, from the city to the country, and the estab-
ishment of more and better schools, libraries and
laces of amusement.
The Russian Social Democrats, including the Bol-
heviki, generally accepted this program, and the latter
till adhere to it as an ultimate ideal. But the prac-
ical exigencies of the situation at the time of the
evolution forced upon them a policy little related to
he Socialist program.
The Russian peasants had received ludicrously in-
dequate land allotments upon their emancipation from
erfdom in 1861, and their cry for more land grew in
olume and vehemence with each advancing decade
s their numbers increased and their land-holding re-
hained practically stationary. After the fall of the
sarist régime their one demand was for the immediate
artition of all crown lands and large private estates,
nd even before the November revolution they had be-
un to effect such partition on their own account in
hany parts of the country. The movement was spon-
aneous and irresistible and the Bolshevik revolution
id little more than legalize and regulate the procedure.
The decree on "Land Socialization" officially pro-
ulgated on February 19, 1918, contains, among
thers, the following provisions:
"Art. 1. All property in land, underground wealth,
aters, forests and living natural forces on the terri-
42
FROM MARX TO LENIN
tory of the Russian Federal Soviet Republic is hereby
abolished for all time."
"Art. 2. The land is hereby handed over for us
to the entire laboring people without any overt q
covert redemption taxes."
"Art. 9. The distribution of agricultural lan
among the laboring population is vested in the villag
cantonal, district, provisional, regional or federal lan
departments of the soviets in accordance with the
importance.'

""
"Art. 12. The distribution of land among the labo:
ing population shall be carried out on the principle c
equalized labor in such manner that the combined no
mal unit of food and labor adopted to the historic
system of land-tenure prevalent in each locality, do
not exceed the labor capacity of each farming hous
hold and yet enables each family to live in adequa
sufficiency."
Nominally the Russian land is thus socialized. T
Τ
legal title to all of it rests in the community. Th
He cann
peasant is given the mere right of use.
alienate or transmit it by inheritance. In actual pra
tice, however, the peasant owns his newly acquire
land as fully and unrestrictedly as he owns his origin
holding. He pays neither rent nor taxes to the go
ernment and does not recognize its superior title.
would be a very hazardous undertaking on the p
of the soviet government to attempt to forcibly curt
THE TASK OF THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION 43
or to disturb the proprietary control of the peasant
over his land.
The failure of the Russian revolution to socialize
the peasants' land immediately cannot be taken as an
abandonment of Socialist aims and methods with re-
spect to its agrarian policy. Even Karl Kautsky, one
of the severest Socialist critics of the Soviet régime,
admits that in the Western countries also a victorious
proletarian revolution would not attempt a policy of
forcible interference with private peasant land owner-
ship. "By no means," he declares, "do we demand
that the proletariat as soon as it acquires power shall
use it to expropriate the peasants and still less to con-
fiscate their land." ***
"The victorious proletariat has every reason to see
to it that the production of food go on without dis-
turbance. An expropriation of the peasants would
throw this whole branch of production into mad dis-
order and expose the new régime to the danger of
starvation. The peasants may therefore be reassured.
Their economic indispensability will protect them
against expropriation, entirely aside from the fact
that the simplest rule of wisdom would militate against
a policy which would provoke the enmity of a large
section of the population. ***
The victorious proletariat will have the means ast
well as the motive to aid the peasant in the technical
improvement of his methods, to supply him with fer-
44
FROM MARX TO LENIN
tilizer, cattle and perfected tools, and thus to increase
the quantity of his product.
If we expect that this will not lead to a strengthen-
ing of small peasant economy, it is only because we
assume that no measure of relief and support can avail
to make the full benefits of the modern technique
accessible to small peasant production, and that the
peasants will therefore voluntarily abandon their in-
dividual form of production, which will prove an
obstacle to their further social advances, as soon as
the Socialist mode of production has been definitely
established. The Socialist society will have every rea-
son to help them in the transition to more advanced
methods of production, because it will stand in need.
of an increase of food and raw material."
The Russian Communists cannot be charged with
lack of effort to stimulate the process of voluntary
transition from individual to collective cultivation of
the soil. They have made some beginnings in national-
ized and co-operative farming; they are endeavoring
to improve agricultural methods to the extent per-
mitted by their crippled resources, and they carry on
an extensive rural propaganda in favor of co-operative
and communal land tillage.
Still there is a vital difference between the character
and the effect of the proposed land policy of Western
3 Karl Kautsky. "Die Sozialisierung der Landwirtschaft.
Berlin, 1919, page 70, et seq.
THE TASK OF THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION 45
Socialism and the policy forced upon the Russian
evolution by the special conditions of that country.
While a victorious proletarian revolution in the
Vest will probably not attempt to expropriate the
hdividual land holdings of small peasants, it may pro-
eed to nationalize immediately large landed estates
lready cultivated with the application of modern
ethods and operated by hired labor. The peasants
f Western Europe are not land-hungry. It is not
hore land that they require, but relief from the ex-
ctions of capitalist mortgagees, lessor, warehouse,
ommission house and railroad, and better facilities
or work. They do not demand the partition of large
states. The Communist revolution in Russia in di-
iding up the large estates among the small peasant
roprietors not only deprived itself of all direct and
direct benefits of a strong nucleus of socialized land
ultivation, but took a decided step backward in the
alization of the ultimate agrarian program of Social-
m by strengthening the institution of private land
wnership.
That this policy was not adopted voluntarily, but as
distinct concession to specific Russian conditions
which are not applicable to Socialist revolutions gener-
lly is too obvious for argument. In fact, it is freely
dmitted by the more candid spokesmen of Russian
olshevism, and by none more clearly than Nicolai
enin. "At the very moment of the October revo-
tion," says the latter, "we effected an informal (a

46
FROM MARX TO LENIN
very important and highly successful) political block
with the petty bourgeois peasantry, having accepted
fully, without a single change, the 'Social Revolution-
ary' agrarian program. That is, we effected an unde-
niable compromise in order to prove to the peasants
that we do not want to dominate them, but to come
to an understanding with them." *
And again: "I draw your attention to the fact that
these fundamental principles in the law (The Decree
on Land Socialization) were laid down when the
Communist party was not merely enacting its own
program, but was also consciously making concessions
to those who in one way or another expressed the class
feeling and the will of the 'middle peasantry.' We
made and are still making concessions of that kind,
and we do so because the transition to the collective
form of land holding, to communal tillage, to Sovie
husbandry and communes is impossible all at once."
The problem, while not specifically Russian, wil
present itself in somewhat milder form to a proletariar
revolution in the Western countries, because in those
countries the material conditions for collective tillage
are more advanced. But the main point is that in
those countries it will not be of the same acute and
critical importance to the very existence of the Social-

4 "Left Wing Communism-An Infantile Disorder," Lor
don, p. 54.
5 "The Land Revolution in Russia," Publication of Ind
pendent Labor Party, London, 1919, page 15.
THE TASK OF THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION
47
st régime as it is in Russia. In the more advanced
ountries of Europe, as in the United States of Amer-
ca, the center of gravity has definitely shifted from
griculture to industry. The factory system, with
1 its vast and intricate ramifications, dominates the
conomic and political life of the nation and supports
he greater part of the people. When the workers se-
ure control of the system their rule will be built on
he broad and solid basis of majority interest. In a
puntry like Russia, in which agriculture is the pre-
ailing and overwhelming form of economic life, and
rban industry is comparatively insignificant, a politi-
al régime built on the rule of the industrial working
ass is inherently as unstable as a pyramid poised on
s apex. It could only maintain itself by special meas-
res and concessions. These measures may have been
evitable and wise under the circumstances of the
ussian revolution, but they sprang from the necessi-
es of the special conditions and were bound to im-
ress the form, methods and functions of the Soviet
égime with their own peculiar stamp.

Chapter VI
THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE
PROLETARIAT
The Socialist theoreticians of the period represented
by the First and Second Internationals studiously
avoided all discussion of the detailed form of organi
zation and concrete policies of the proposed Socialist
government. Not the methods of exercising govern
mental powers, but the means of acquiring them was
on the order of the day. The "scientific" Marxian
Socialist was satisfied to rest on the theory tha
when the revolutionary working class will be strong
enough to "capture" the powers of government it will
use them for the establishment of Socialism in such
manner and by such means as the conditions of the
struggle at the given time and place will determine,
Beyond that he refused to speculate. In his famous
letter of criticism of the Gotha program of the Ger
man Social Democratic Party, in 1875, Marx dis
missed the subject with this terse sentence: "The
program at this time does not have to deal with the
period of transition (from capitalism to Socialism)
any more than with the nature of the future state in
the Communist Society," and for forty years there-
1"À Propos D'Unité," Paris, 1901, p. 37.
48
THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT
49
after a similar attitude was maintained by his fol-
lowers.
All attempts to outline the structure and functions
of Socialist government were decried as "utopian”
and ridiculed as "music of the future." (Zukunfts-
musik.)
The Russian revolution, immediately preceded by
the short-lived Socialist government of Finland and
followed by the equally short-lived Communist experi-
ment in Hungary and the brief period of Socialist
political power in Germany and Austria, has made the
question one of concrete, practical and immediate
importance.
What is the historic form of a Socialist government?
Every attempted answer to the question must take
into account the fact that political institutions are
not viewed by Marxian students as static forms, nor
as definitely demarcated historical periods. The So-
cialist political revolution marks the conscious be-
ginning of the process of transformation into Social-
ism, but only its beginning.
The revolution, which is the working-class conquest
of the political power, leaves the capitalists for the
time being in possession of the economic power. On the
day of the revolution the capitalist class still owns all
essential means and instruments of wealth production
and distribution. It manages the financial, industrial
50
FROM MARX TO LENIN
and commercial institutions of the country and con-
trols the whole intricate and delicately interwoven eco-
nomic life of the people. The transfer of all indus-
tries from private capitalist ownership into communal
property and public management; in short, the break-
up of capitalism and the building up of a pure Social-
ist order, calls for a series of planful and funda-
mental industrial and political changes. Such changes
will, of course, not be undertaken by the capitalist
class. They can only be brought about by the workers.
In order to accomplish them the workers must be in
control of the government machinery and their con-
trol must continue until the task of socialization of
the industries has been fully performed, all economic
class divisions have been abolished, the working class
itself has ceased to exist as a class, and the working-
class government has given way to the classless ad-
ministration of the Socialist régime. The consecutive
stages of development roughly succeeding each other
may be regarded from different points of view and
characterized according to the angle from which they
are viewed.
Considered merely in their historical sequence, the
period preceding the Socialist revolution may be
termed the period of capitalism; the period of trans-
formation ushered in by the revolution is commonly
designated as the "transitional" period, while the one
established by the complete socialization of the indus-
tries is designated as the period of Socialism or Com-
munism.
THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT 51

A
B
C
Thus, if we assume in the above figure that the open
circle A represents the Capitalist system and the open
circle C, the perfect Socialist régime, the corridor B,
leading from one to the other, represents the period
of transition.
The three historical periods under discussion may
also be regarded from the point of view of their po-
litical functions. Thus viewed, circle A may be desig-
nated as the Capitalist State, Corridor B as the Social-
ist State, and circle C as the Socialist or Communist
Commonwealth.
Here a word of explanation of the terms employed
may be useful.
In the Marxian literature on the subject the word
State is not used in its popular and loose interpreta-
tion as synonymous with organized society, but in the
strictly technical sense as the organized force by which.
the government defends its existence and exercises
the power of repression. In this sense it is not the
52
FROM MARX TO LENIN
body of the people organized in a political community
that constitutes the state, but the governmental ma-
chinery for the enforcement of law or the will of the
sovereign (L'état c'est moi)-the bureaucracy, army,
police, courts, jails, etc., a machinery capable of use
not only independently of the people, but even against
them.2
And since every government represents the eco-
nomic interests of the dominating class, the state is
necessarily its organ for the repression of everything
hostile to such domination.
"The state," says Frederick Engels, "is an organi-
zation of the exploiting classes for the preservation of
the existing methods of production and more particu-
larly for the purposes of forcibly maintaining the ex-
ploited classes in the condition of dependence inherent
in such methods of production (slavery, serfdom,
wage labor)."3
And Karl Marx sums up the character of the capi-
talist state in the following language:
2 This conception is by no means peculiar to Marxian So-
cialism. The coercive power of the state as the sovereign,
its indispensable power to enforce laws and levy taxes, have
been recognized by many bourgeois economists and sociolo-
gists, including Leroy-Beaulieu, Charles Benoist, Jeremy Ben-
tham, Franklin H. Giddings, and J. W. Burgess. But the ex-
actness or inexactness of the definition in no way impairs the
validity of the Marxian argument. The coercive power of
government undoubtedly exists and its operation is not ef-
fected by its label.
3 "Herrn Eugen Dühring's Umwälzung der Wissenschaften."
Stuttgart, 1894, page 301.
THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT
53
"At the same pace at which the progress of modern
industry developed, widened, intensified the class-
antagonism between capital and labor, the State power
assumed more and more the character of national
power of capital over labor, of a public force organized
for social enslavement, of an engine of class des-
potism."4
The transitional or Socialist state is no exception.
to the rule. It, too, represents the organized repressive
force of government. But the government which it
serves is the working-class government. Hence the
function of the Socialist state is to maintain the pro-
letarian government and to repress the forces of sur-
viving capitalism aiming at its overthrow.
Only when all classes and class struggles have been
abolished and there is no more need of a coercive in-
strument for the domination of one class by another,
the repressive organs of the government, the army,
police, etc., become useless. The state disappears.
Government hereafter is a classless administration of
the business of the whole people by their chosen rep-
resentatives, a "commonwealth," not a "state.”
"By actually becoming the representative of the
whole society, the state renders itself superfluous. As
soon as there is no longer any class in society to be
held in subjection, as soon as the class rule and the
class struggle for individual existence based on the
4 "Civil War in France," page 40.
54
FROM MARX TO LENIN
A
modern anarchy in production are removed, and with
them also the resultant clashes and excesses, there is
nothing more to repress, nothing requiring a special
repressing power, a state. The first act in which the
state really appears as the representative of the whole
society—the seizure of the instruments of production
in the name of society-is at the same time its last
independent act as a state. The interference of the
state with social relations becomes superfluous in one
field after another, and, as it were, falls asleep. The
government of persons is replaced by the administra-
tion of things and processes of production. The state
is not 'abolished.' It dies."
195
Emphasizing the social forces behind the political
forms of the successive historical periods under dis-
cussion, it may also be said that the first (circle A)
represents the domination of the bourgeoisie, or capi-
talist class, the third (circle C) the ideal classless so-
ciety of equals, while the intermediate period (Cor-
ridor B) represents the domination of the working
class. Marx and Engels have at different times de-
scribed the transitional period of working-class political
domination as the "Rule," the "Power" or the "Sway"
of the workers. They have also characterized it as the
Dictatorship of the Proletariat and the Bolsheviki
5 Frederick Engels, Ibid., page 302.
6
For an interesting account of the evolution of the ter
see "Creative Revolution" by Eden & Cedar Paul, N. Y
1920, page 134, et seq.
THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT 55
have chosen the latter phrase to describe the political
character of the present revolutionary régime in
Russia.
Considerable discussion has arisen about the accu-
racy of the use of the word Dictatorship in connection
with the political rule of the working class in the
period of transition. Etymologically and historically
the propriety of the term is fairly open to doubt. Karl
Kautsky inclines to the belief that Marx had not in-
tended to use it in the accepted and literal sense. For,
says he, taken literally, dictatorship means "the sov-
ereignty of a single person, who is bound by no laws.
A sovereignty which is distinguished from a despotism
by being regarded as a passing phase, required by the
circumstances of the moment, and not as a permanent
institution of the state."
997
>
In his answer to Kautsky, Lenin denies that dicta-
torship even literally means the sovereignty of a single
person (although he would, I believe, find it difficult
to support his denial by historical proof), but admits
the substantial correctness of the other parts of
Kautsky's assertion. Lenin suggests the following as
a proper Marxian definition of dictatorship: "Dicta-
torship is an authority relying directly on force, and
not bound by any laws. The revolutionary dictator-
ship of the proletariat is an authority maintained by
the proletariat by means of force over and against the
7 "The Dictatorship of the Proletariat," London, page 43.
56
FROM MARX TO LENIN
bourgeoisie, and not bound by any laws."8
mine.)
(Italics
The phases of the definition which both Kautsky
and Lenin accept, i. e., that dictatorship is an authority
not bound by any law, clearly shows that the term is
not technically applicable to the rule of the proletariat.
A working-class revolutionary régime is not bound by
the laws of the overthrown bourgeoisie. It may
change, abolish or simply disregard them.
It may
and does adopt its own code of laws suitable to its
requirements, either by legislative enactment or by
revolutionary decree. But it proceeds on the basis of
its own laws, not in defiance of any laws. Every im-
portant act of the revolutionary Soviet government of
Russia rests on the direct or indirect sanction of some
law or decree. To say that a class in power is not
bound by any law because it can make and change the
law at pleasure is to render the term perfectly mean-
ingless, for every ruling class has that power, whether
the form of government is that of a dictatorship or a
"democracy."
But after all the etymological justification for the
use of a name or term is only of academic interest.
For practical purposes a word acquires the meaning
which those who use it choose to give it. The dic-
tionaries are replete with terms of perverted etymo-
logical origin. Marx and Engels have employed the
8 "The Proletarian Revolution," London, page 15.

THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT
57
term "dictatorship" in application to the period of
working-class political rule, the Socialist movement has
adopted it, and the Russian revolution has emphasized
and popularized its use. Regardless, then, of etymo-
logical proprieties, the stage of social development
which is introduced by the Socialist revolution, and
which from certain points of view is called the "Tran-
sitional Period" and the "Socialist State," is from a
somewhat different point of view also designated as
the "Dictatorship of the Proletariat." In this sense.
also the period preceding the Socialist revolution,
which we know as Capitalism or the "Capitalist State,"
may be characterized as the "Dictatorship of the Cap-
italist Class," and the cycle of social evolution may be
envisaged as (A) Capitalist Dictatorship, (B) Prole-
tarian Dictatorship, (C) the classless commonwealth.
of equals.
The Dictatorship of the Proletariat, contrary to
widespread popular assumptions, is not the antithesis
of Democracy. In the Marxian view the two institu-
tions are by no means incompatible.
The bourgeois textbook writers and lexicographers
are in the habit of defining democracy as government
by the people, or as a political system in which gov-
ernment is directly exercised by the people collectively,
and even Karl Kautsky asserts that democracy "signi-
fies the rule of the majority, and also the protection
of the minority, because it means equal rights and a
58
FROM MARX TO LENIN
share in all political rights for everybody, to whatever
class or party he may belong."
19
Technically the definition is correct. Democracy is
theoretically a system of political and legal equality
But in concrete and practical operation it is false, for
there can be no equality, not even in politics and before
the law, so long as there is glaring unequality in eco
nomic power. So long as the ruling class owns the
workers' jobs and the press and the schools of the
country and all organs for the molding and expression
of public opinion; so long as it monopolizes all trained
public functionaries and disposes of unlimited funds to
influence elections, so long will the equal franchise be
largely illusory. So long as the laws are made by
the ruling class and the courts are presided over by
members of that class; so long as lawyers are pri
vate practitioners who sell their skill to the highes
bidder, and litigation is technical and costly, so long
will the nominal equality before the law be a hollow
mockery.
In a capitalist régime the whole machinery of de
mocracy operates to keep the ruling-class minority in
power through the suffrage of the working-class ma-
jority, and when the bourgeois government feels itself
endangered by democratic institutions, such institu
tions are often crushed without compunction. W
need not limit ourselves to the summary suppression
• "The Dictatorship of the Proletariat," page 133.
THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT
59

of established political and legal rights during the
period of war "emergency" for proof of this assertion.
The abolition of the rights of free speech and assem-
blage through the device of "martial law" in connec-
tion with important industrial struggles, the suppres-
sion of workers' publications and unseating of duly
elected working-class representatives in peace time,
afford ample illustration of its truth. Democracy does
not secure "equal rights and a share in all political
rights for everybody, to whatever class or party he
may belong." It only allows free political and legal
play for the existing economic inequalities. The de-
mocracy of every social régime is adjusted to the pur-
pose of maintaining that régime. Democracy under
capitalism is thus not general, abstract democracy, but
specific bourgeois democracy, a democracy within the
bourgeoisie or as Lenin terms it-democracy for the
bourgeois.1
10
Similarly working-class democracy, i. e., the sys-
tem of political and legal rights granted by the tran-
sitional Socialist state, is also a class institution. It
signifies equality within the ranks of the producers,
democracy for the working class. It is frankly a lim-
ited form of democracy, but it is a higher form than
the democracy of the bourgeoisie, because it means
the actual rule of the majority over the minority, while
the latter represents the rule of a minority over the
majority.
10 "The Proletarian Revolution."
60
FROM MARX TO LENIN
;
In the technical sense democracy is also a form of
political power and presupposes a class of the people
against whom such power is wielded. "Democracy,
says Lenin, “is a state which recognizes the subjection
of a minority to the majority, that is, an organization
for the systematic use of violence by one class against
the other, by one part of the population against
another." 11
Only when all class distinctions will disappear in the
pure Socialist society, will actual equality, political and
economic, prevail, and it will presumably not matter
much to the members of that happy society whether
their commonwealth will be technically styled a
democracy or not.
11 "The State and Revolution," London, 1919, page 85.

Chapter VII
THE FUNCTION OF COMMUNIST
DICTATORSHIP
The Socialists of the pre-war period read the phrase
f the Dictatorship of the Proletariat with the em-
hasis on proletariat rather than on dictatorship. Not
he change in governmental methods, but the substitu-
on of a new ruling class for the old was considered
he essence of the Socialist state.
1
The term "proletariat," defined by Marx and En-
els as "the class of modern laborers, who having no
eans of production of their own, are reduced to sell-
g their labor power in order to live," was broadly
onstrued to embrace the whole class of wage work-
s constituting the great bulk of the population in all
ountries of advanced industrial development. "The
roletarian movement is the self-conscious, independ-
nt movement of the immense majority," asserts the
Communist Manifesto.
The proletarian régime thus conceived represents
homogeneous rule, whose political power rests on
he solid foundation of numerical and physical pre-
1 In the annotations to Samuel Moore's translation of the
Communist Manifesto."
61
62
FROM MARX TO LENIN
*
ponderance as well as on its intellectual and idealistic
appeal.
The Russian revolution in its very inception faced
a different, more difficult and contradictory situation.
As a political revolution designed to conquer and to
hold power it depended upon the lasting support of the
majority of the population. As a Socialist revolution
it purposed to establish the rule of the proletariat.
But the proletariat comprised only a small minority of
the people, hence it found itself dependent for the
maintenance of its rule upon a permanent alliance with
a more numerous, non-proletarian class. Such class
, was discovered in the "poor peasants," whose economic
status was defined as "semi-proletarian." A revolu-
tionary alliance between workers and peasants was
made possible by the specific Russian condition of acute
peasant land hunger and by a tacit compromise unde
the terms of which the land was divided among the
peasants in individual property, while the industries
were taken over by the urban workers in collective
ownership. With the accomplishment of the revolution
and its two-fold object for the contracting parties the
union between the industrial workers and small peasan
proprietors rested on a precarious and unstable founda-
tion. It lacked in social homogeneity and economic co
hesion. The psychology and intellectual level of the
peasant are different from those of the city worke
and their material interests are often antagonistic
Unless and until both industry and agriculture ar
THE FUNCTION OF COMMUNIST DICTATORSHIP 63
ully socialized the reciprocal relations of the two
asses are those of producer and consumer. It is in
he interest of the farmers to obtain the largest possible.
uantity of manufactured goods for the least possible
uantity of food and raw material, and vice versa.
It therefore became necessary to evolve a cement-
g and unifying force for the two classes in power,
hd such force was found in the Communist Party.
The Communist Party of Russia plays a unique part
the revolutionary government of the country. Com-
osed of some 600,000 members, including practically
1 Soviet officials, civil and military, national and local,
constitutes the most conscious, active and reliable
ganized support of the revolution. To the Com-
unists fall the hardest and most perilous tasks, but
return they are given practically unlimited authority.
he power of the Communists grew gradually, almost
mperceptibly. To-day it is complete and avowed. The
econd Congress of the Communist International
Petrograd-Moscow, July 19-August 7, 1920) frankly
roclaimed the superiority of the party over all official
overnmental organs and institutions.
"The Proletarian Revolution in Russia,” recites the
atform-Resolution adopted by that Congress, "has
ought to the foreground the basic form of labor dic-
torship, viz., the Soviet. In the nearest future the
lowing division will establish itself: First, the
rty; second, the Soviets; and third, the productive
ions. But the work both in the Soviets and in the


64
FROM MARX TO LENIN
revolutionized productive unions must be invariabl
and systematically directed by the party of the prole
tariat, i. e., the Communist Party." (Italics mine.)

2
And again: "The Communist Party is the chief ar
the basic instrument for the liberation of the workin
class." (Italics mine.)
The superiority thus accorded to the Communi
Party was explained and defended by G. Zinovieff in
speech before the same Congress, from which I quo
the following excerpts:
"It is true that sometimes some people like Kautsk
say: 'You have in Russia a dictatorship not of th
working class, but a dictatorship of a party.' Th
think that this is a reproach to us. Not at all. W
have a dictatorship of the working class, and cons
quently also a dictatorship of the Communist Par
The dictatorship of the Communist Party is simply
function, a sign of the expression of the dictatorshi
of the working class. Just what is our party? Or
should not confuse it with other parties that are con
posed of lawyers. Into our party enter 600,000-700,00
of the best workmen; that is the advanced detachme
of the proletariat. And it is clear that the business

2 I quote from a rather strange authority-a pamphlet
titled "The Second Congress of the Communist Internatio
as Reported and Interpreted by the Official Newspapers
Soviet Russia," published by the State Department at Wa
ington, D. C. Notwithstanding the "authoritative" charac
of the publication the reported documents bear intrinsic ma
of genuineness.
THE FUNCTION OF COMMUNIST DICTATORSHIP 65
he working class is being conducted by its best repre-
entatives. Thus there is established simultaneously a
ictatorship of both proletariat and Communist Party.
The right of control over various organizations belongs
the party. That is as it should be in time of pro-
tarian revolution."
While Zinovieff still palliates and accords equal rank
the "proletariat and Communist Party," the more
itspoken Bukharin writes in the Pravda of August
rd, 1920:
"But if it is clear that revolution is civil war, that
is an armed struggle of the workers with the bour-
eoisie, then it is also quite clear that the working
ass, like a belligerent country, must have a closely
nited vanguard, with military discipline, with a mili-
ry staff to direct the struggle, and all must be sub-
rdinate to this staff. Such a vanguard is the party."
The functions of the Communist Party, as the con-
rolling organ of the Russian revolution are stated in
he Platform-Resolution as serving "equally the inter-
sts of the economic, the political, and the cultural
truggles of the working class as a whole."
The "Theses" submitted to the congress contain a
hore direct hint of one of the practical uses of the
Party :
"The history of the Russian revolution shows us,
t a certain moment, the Soviets going against the pro-
etarian party and helping the agents of the bourgeoisie.
* *
66
FROM MARX TO LENIN
"In order that the Soviets may fulfill their histori
mission, the existence of the Communist Party, strong
enough not to 'adapt' itself to the Soviets but to exer
cise on them a decisive influence, to force them no
to adapt themselves to the bourgeoisie and official social
democracy
is necessary."

98
The Communist Party is predominantly a party c
industrial workers. The practical effects of its hege
mony are: (1) within the political partnership of th
proletariat and the peasantry to establish the rule o
the former. (2) Within the ranks of the proletaria
to assure the domination of the Communists.
"The Communist Party is that lever of political or
ganization by means of which the most advanced par
of the working class directs the mass of the proletaria
and semi-proletariat along the right road." +
Thus the dictatorship acting in the name of the whole
working-class and all poor peasants in practice resolves
itself to the rule of an organization composed of 600,000
industrial workers of one political persuasion.
The exercise of controlling governmental influence
by a political party is by no means peculiar to Russia
(in fact all modern governments are party govern
ments). But the vital difference between the modern
3 Quoted in Bertrand Russell's "Bolshevism: Practice and
Theory," N. Y., 1920, page 73.
4 "Platform-Resolution of Second Congress of Communis
International.”

THE FUNCTION OF COMMUNIST DICTATORSHIP 67
orking-class party in the West and the Communist
rty of Russia is that while the former is often prac-
ally synonymous with the working class and is al-
ys open to all of it, the Communist Party is a close
poration, a class within a class.
The exclusive character of the party is admitted and
tified officially in the following paragraph of the
tform-Resolution of the Communist International.
So long as the governmental authority has not been
quered by the proletariat, so long as the proletariat
not established its rule once for all and has not
aranteed the working class from the possibility of a
rgeois restoration, so long will the Communist Party
ve by right in its organized ranks only the minority
the workmen. Up to the time of the seizure of
vernmental authority and during the period of tran-
ion the Communist Party may, in favorable circum-
nces, exercise undivided ideological and political in-
ence upon all the proletarian and semi-proletarian
ata of a population, but it cannot bring them to-
ther in its ranks in an organized manner. Only after
proletarian dictatorship will have deprived the
urgeois of such powerful weapons of effective in-
ence as the press, the school, the church, the parlia-
ent, the administrative apparatus, etc., only after the
al defeat of the bourgeois social order will have be-
me evident for everybody (i. e., when there will be
more need of political parties, M. H.), only then
68
FROM MARX TO LENIN
will all or practically all the workers begin to enter t
ranks of the Communist Party." (Italics mine.)
In the scheme of the Russian dictatorship of
Proletariat, the Communist Party thus performs.
rôle of political guardian of the whole proletariat
the poor peasantry. It is the rule of a minority
ercised, it is true, in the name and in the interest c
majority, but it is the minority and not the majo
which is permitted to interpret and formulate such
terests.
The peculiar functions and composition of the Co
munist Party and its supreme political rule are ti
one of the main characteristics of the Dictatorship
the Proletariat in the Russian conception. What
its other distinguishing features?
On this most important point the theoreticians of
Russian revolution are not in complete agreement w
each other, nor always consistent with themselves. T
preponderating weight of Bolshevist opinion seems
hold that the determining features of the Dictatorsh
of the Proletariat aside from the controlling influer
of the Communist Party are the Soviet as its politi
organ and form and the "terror" (in the widest sign
cance of the term) as its weapon.
This conception is based on the historical expe
ences of the Russian revolution. The form and polic
of the latter were shaped partly by the specific econo
and political conditions which prevailed in Russia af
THE FUNCTION OF COMMUNIST DICTATORSHIP 69
war and partly under the pressure of the counter-
olutionary plots of the Russian bourgeoisie and the
hed attacks and economic blockade of foreign capi-
st powers, which were directed against it not be-
se it was Russian but because it was a proletarian
blution.
is of the utmost importance to the international
ialist movement to ascertain, if possible, to what ex-
these forms and policies were necessitated by con-
ns peculiar to Russia and to what extent they are
rent in every régime of proletarian dictatorship.
Chapter VIII
SOVIETS OR PARLIAMENT?
The Manifesto of the Executive Committee of
Communist International issued on September
1919, proclaims that: "The general unifying prog
at the present moment is the recognition of the st
gle for the dictatorship of the proletariat in the for
Soviet power." (Italics mine.)
The Platform-Resolution of the Second Con
of the Communist International characterizes the
viet as "the principal form of the dictatorship of
proletariat furnished by history," and declares that
Proletarian revolution in Russia has brought to
foreground the basic form of labor dictatorship, viz
Soviet." (Italics mine.)
In his "Program of the Communists," Bukh
writes:
"Up to the present time, up to the Russian Revolu
of 1917, much has been written about the Dictator
of the Proletariat. But no one knew, exactly, hov
dictatorship would be realized. The Russian Rey
tion shows the form the dictatorship will take:
form is the Soviet republic. For this reason the
70
SOVIETS OR PARLIAMENT?
71
nce guard of the International proletariat is inscrib-
on its banners the slogan: A Soviet Republic, all
wer to the Soviets. For this reason our problem is
e formation of a Soviet power the world over."
alics mine.)
And again:
ޑ ފ
Above all, the Russian Revolution solved the ques-
of the form of the dictatorship. It solved the
stion as to what should constitute the power of the
letarian state. The Soviets, the Soviet power-that
he form which was born of our Revolution. In the
inning, one could still think, perhaps, that the So-
ts were a specifically Russian product. But the fur-
r experiences of Western Europe showed that this
s the general form rooted in the fundamental con-
ions of the war of the working class against the
urgeoisie. And it is for just that reason that all who
vocate the dictatorship of the proletariat must sup-
rt the Soviet power."
(Italics mine.)
12
Zinovieff, speaking at the Halle convention of the
dependent Socialists of Germany, as late as October,
20, expresses the same thought with equal vigor:
'Mere lip services in favor of the dictatorship of
proletariat," he says, "we hear often enough. But
s it not Crispien who declared in Moscow, speaking
Page 25.
From Article: "What is New in the Russian Revolution,"
viet Russia Magazine, N. Y., February 12, 1921.
72
- FROM MARX TO LENIN
*
to Lenin: 'Well, is the dictatorship anything new?
was it already set forth in the Erfurt Programm
* * * A dictatorship of the proletariat in the se
of the Erfurt Programme means nothing.
A dictatorship in that sense will, of course, be s
ported by all Mensheviki. But now the question
about the incarnate dictatorship of the proleta
about the form, which we have not sucked from
fingers, but about the historic form of the dictator
of the proletariat that the international working
has created, i. e., about the Soviets."
And while he seems to qualify the assertion by
succeeding sentence: "If the German working c
will create another form, we shall acclaim it with
for we have always said everything must not be a
is in Russia and the workers in other countries
perhaps do better than we," the statement must be
terpreted as a challenge rather than a concession,
he adds immediately: "But up till now the So
government is the historically developed form of
dictatorship of the proletariat." a
On the other hand, Lenin in his "Letter to Amer
Workingmen" (New York, 1918) describes the Sc
as "a particular form of the Dictatorship of the I
letariat," and the Executive Committee of the C
munist International in its Reply to the Indepen

3 “U. S. P. D. Protokoll über die Verhandlungen des
serordentlichen Parteitages in Halle," Berlin, 1920, page
SOVIETS OR PARLIAMENT?
73
Labor Party of England takes a somewhat non-com-
mittal stand on the subject.
"Our English comrades," they say, "in their sixth
question wish to know what other forms of Soviet gov-
ernment are possible in other countries. We can say
nothing definite. It is necessary to admit theoretically
the possibility of variations of forms depending upon
the varying economic structures of the different coun-
s in a state of revolution. It must, however, be
that the experience of the development of the
ld revolution until recently has given no indications
the realization of this theory. It is the opinion of
Communist International that it is not its concern
indicate the exact form in which revolution is to
elop."4
Is the Soviet the "historically developed form" of
Socialist state or is such a state likely to function
th equal efficiency in a modified form of parliamen-
y régime?

}
1
Parliament as it exists today is entirely unsuitable
an instrument for the transformation of the capi-
ist state into a Socialist Commonwealth. While the
titution antedates the rule of the capitalist class, the
ter has in the course of its long political reign so
lically changed its functions and forms that the mod-
parliamentary régime serves primarily to defend
4.
The I. L. P. and the Third International," London, 1920,
74
FROM MARX TO LENIN
and perpetuate the rule of the bourgeoisie. In capi-
talist society the economic life of the people, the man-
agement and operation of the industries, and the dis-
tribution of goods is left almost entirely to private in-
itiative. The government is but little interested in that
vital sphere-its functions are prevalently political.
It regards the members of the community not in the
light of producers and consumers of goods or perform-
ers and users of services, but in their common an
abstract aspect of "citizens." Accordingly represe
tion in parliaments is based on political lines and
graphical constituencies.
The modern capitalist state furthermore has the t
fold task of preserving the outward appearances
political equality and at the same time securing
domination of the ruling class, and each outstand
feature of its parliamentary régime is primarily
signed to accomplish a part of the delicate perfo

ance.
The system of "checks and balances," which is
pride of parliamentary institutions, particularly in
countries of Anglo-Saxon civilization, is a cunnin
devised scheme to check the will and power of
masses, i. e., the working class, and to throw the.
litical balance in favor of the classes in power.
By the operation of that system the "Lower Hou
of parliament, elected by popular vote, is in practice
ten reduced to impotence. The "Upper House" is
vised as a "conservative" and restraining control
SOVIETS OR PARLIAMENT?
75
the elected representatives of the "sovereign" people.
Its members are hereditary aristocrats as in England, or
governmentally-appointed dignitaries as in Italy, or
elected on the basis of indirect suffrage as in France, or
by unequal constituencies as in the United States, and
in most countries they are given co-ordinate legislative
powers with the popular chamber.
If a “radical” measure happens to pass the double
barrier of the two chambers by dint of special popular
clamor, the executive power frequently has the right to
veto it, and the measure so vetoed cannot be repassed
except upon an increased majority vote, which virtually
puts the legislative power in the hands of the conserva-
tive minority. In the United States even such measures
as have passed both houses with executive sanction or
over an executive veto, do not always acquire legal
effect. They may be set aside by the courts as invalid
or unconstitutional. Laws of vital national importance.
have thus been nullified by five out of nine judges of
the United States Supreme Court.
But even more paralyzing than the Upper House, the
executive veto, and the judicial power of nullification,
is the parliamentary separation of legislative and ex-
ecutive functions. In the United States the division
of governmental functions into executive, legislative,
and judicial, is open and complete. The President is
the Chief Executive and the heads of the departments.
of the government are appointed by him as his personal
advisers. The Senate, or Upper House, is given the
76
FROM MARX TO LENIN
right of confirming or rejecting such appointments, but
the House of Representatives, the Lower House, is
neither consulted about the choice of cabinet ministers
nor does it control their policies and official actions. In
most other countries of parliamentary régime the mem-
bers of the cabinet are in theory selected by and respon-
sible to the Lower House. In actual operation, however,
the executive departments are practically independ-
ent of parliament. The Prime Minister, although ap-
pointed by the Chief Executive, is as a rule the choice
of parliament, but the remaining members of his cabi-
net are selected by him. Parliament has no opportunity
to consider them on their individual merits. It must
accept all or none.
To exercise effective control over the ramified or-
gans of practical public administration, the members of
Parliament have neither time nor opportunity, and still
less the requisite training. The average M. P. elected
on a political-party platform by a mixed geographical
constituency, comes into the house utterly unprepared
to deal with the detailed and complex problems of
practical administration.
And yet it is the executive department that exercises
the most important functions of government. It is
supreme in the sphere of international affairs, it shapes
the country's diplomatic relations and practically de-
termines its policies of war or peace. It is the physical
instrument and visible expression of the government
and, above all, it directs and controls the all-important
SOVIETS OR PARLIAMENT?
77
"apparatus of the state," the bureaucracy, the army,
the police, etc.
It is therefore quite obvious that the revolutionary
working class, in the words of Marx, "cannot simply
lay hold of the ready made state machinery, and wield
it for its own purposes.
" 5
The functions of a Socialist state are preponderat-
ingly economic. Its main object is to socialize the in-
dustries and to supervise and direct their operation.
when socialized. Its principal governing organ must
be adapted to that purpose. It must include to a large
extent trained men of practical industrial experience.
It must deal with the people primarily as a community
of producers and consumers in their variegated needs
and interrelations, and not as a uniform aggregation
of citizens.
But even in a Socialist state the economic functions
are not exclusive, for there always remains a large and
important sphere of governmental activities, such as
foreign relations, public health, education, justice, etc.,
which may properly be considered as political in char-
acter. A Socialist state must, therefore, develop suit-
able administrative organs to take care equally of the
economic and political interests of the people. Repre-
sentation must be occupational as well as geographic.
The necessity of such cardinal changes in the con-
5 "Civil War in France," page 39.
78
FROM MARX TO LENIN
в
stitution of parliament for the purposes of working
class government has always been recognized by the
Socialist authorities of all schools. Even such conserva-
tive writers as Sidney and Beatrice Webb advocate the
establishment of a dual governing body in the British
Socialist state--the Social Parliament and the Political
Parliament, the former concerned with all matters eco-
nomic and cultural, and the latter confined to tasks of
a purely political nature. The principal contribution
of the English school of "Guild Socialists" is its minute
analysis of the general political interests of the modern
community as "neighbors," and its special economic in-
terests as "producers" and "renderers of service," or
"consumers" and "enjoyers," and its efforts to evolve
a scheme of appropriate governmental organs to corre-
spond to these different interests. Underneath the
“Guild” and the "State," the "National Industrial
Guild" and "Parliament,” and similar formulæ of the
new school lies the same fundamental conception of
the dual function of communal life, economic and po-
litical, and the effort to evolve a system of representa-
tion according to their respective importance in the
Socialist state.
7
Whether the economic and political representatives
6 "A Constitution for the Socialist Commonwealth of Great
Britain." By Sidney and Beatrice Webb, London, 1920.
7 For a full exposition of the theories of Guild Socialism
the reader is referred to "Self-Government in Industry,'
London, 1920; "Social Theory," N. Y., 1920, and “Guild So-
cialism," N. Y., 1920, all by G. D. H. Cole.
SOVIETS OR PARLIAMENT?
79
!
are to be comprised within one body or whether they
are to constitute two or more separate "chambers";
whether they are to be bodies of equal and co-ordinate
powers, with or without an appropriate common organ
for reconciliation of possible conflicts, or whether the
"Political" Parliament is to be subordinate to the
"Economic" or "Social" Parliament, are open ques-
tions, but there is complete agreement among all So-
cialist authorities that the preponderatingly political
character of modern parliament cannot be carried over
into a Socialist state.
Furthermore, a Socialist régime, representing a pro-
letarian majority of the people, will have a clear interest
in placing the vital executive functions of the govern-
ment in the control of the people through their direct
representatives; to abrogate all parliamentary methods
and customs which serve to thwart such control, includ-
ing the separation of executive and legislative func-
tions, and to break up the capitalist "apparatus of
state."
This was one of the principal lessons which Marx
drew half a century ago from the experience of the
Paris Commune.
Characterizing the latter as "the political form at
last discovered under which to work out the economic
emancipation of labor," the founder of the modern So-
cialist philosophy describes its operation in the follow-
ing language:
80
FROM MARX TO LENIN
"The Commune was formed of the municipal coun-
cillors, chosen by universal suffrage in various wards of
the city, who were responsible to their constituents and
subject to recall at all times. The majority of its
members were naturally workingmen, or acknowledged
representatives of the working class. The Commune
was to be a working, not a parliamentary body, execu-
tive and legislative at the same time. Instead of con-
tinuing as the agent of the Central Government, the po-
lice was at once stripped of its political attributes, and
turned into the responsible and at all times recallable
agent of the Commune. So were the officials of the
other branches of the Administration.” 8
Thus if a Socialist régime is to retain the institution
of parliament at all, it would modify its forms and
methods in at least these salient features: It would
introduce occupational representation, abolish the "Up-
per House" and the veto power, place the practical
work of administration in direct control of parliament
and make its members actively participate in such work.
It would turn all state organs into responsible agencies.
of the working class government, and provide for a
system of recalling representatives at all times.
The Soviet as such is also a form of representative
government based upon a system of popular election.
The Russian system excludes from the suffrage em-
8 "The Civil War in France," English translation by E.
Belfort Bax, page 43, revised from the German original.
SOVIETS OR PARLIAMENT?
81
ployers of labor and other recipients of workless income
as well as persons engaged in certain specific non-pro-
ductive and non-favored occupations. With the excep-
tion of these excluded categories all Russian citizens,
men and women above eighteen years of age, are en-
titled to vote.
The supreme organ of government is the All-Russian
Congress of Soviets, in which the urban inhabitants are
represented on the basis of one delegate for every 25,-
000 voters, while the rural population has one seat for
every 125,000 inhabitants. Representation is in no
case direct, but it is more direct for the urban workers
than for the rural population. The former choose
deputies to the town or city congress, which in turn
elects direct representatives to the All-Russian Con-
gress of Soviets, while the inhabitants of the village are
separated from such elections by three successive bodies
of widening circles: the village, rural (volost) and pro-
vincial Soviets.
The All-Russian Congress of Soviets meets semi-
annually. It elects a Central Executive Committee of
200, which is "the supreme power of the Republic"
between meetings of the All-Russian Congress. The
Central Executive Committee is theoretically in con-
tinuous session, and its members are actively employed
in the different departments of the government. The
Committee elects the Council of Peoples' Commissars,
a body corresponding to the Cabinet in other countries.
All elections are subject to the right of recall.
82
FROM MARX TO LENIN
Such is the general structure of the Soviet govern-
ment. In what features does it differ from parliament
reorganized in accordance with the Socialist concep-
tion?
The distinction most frequently sought to be drawn
is that the suffrage under the Soviet régime is limited
to producers.
"What is the main difference between a Parliamen-
tary Republic and a Republic of Soviets ?" asks Buk-
harin, and he answers his own query promptly and
categorically: "The difference is that the classes which
do not work have no vote in the Soviet Republic and
take no part in its government." At another place he
observes: "The Constituent Assembly differs from the
Congress of Soviets because in the Constituent Assem-
bly sit not only the workers and peasants, but also the
bankers, landholders and capitalists."
This view seems to accord with the oft-reiterated
Communist doctrine that the capitalist class must be
"deprived of its political rights" throughout the period
of proletarian dictatorship. And still it seems very
doubtful that the limitation of the suffrage can be con-
sidered the cardinal distinguishing feature of the
Soviet.
Socialists authorities have never favored disfran-
chising any class of the population even in the period
"Program of the Communists," pages 21 and 22.
SOVIETS OR PARLIAMENT?
83
of proletarian dictatorship, except as an extraordinary
and temporary measure during acute struggles with
counter-revolutionary forces. Karl Marx recorded with
approval that "nothing could be more foreign to the
spirit of the Commune than to replace universal suf-
frage by hierarchic institutions," 10 and the Bolshevist
theoreticians are by no means agreed in advocating
the disfranchisement of the bourgeoisie in all cases
and for all times. Nicholai Lenin, for instance, rejects
the theory in no uncertain manner. In his polemic
with Karl Kautsky, he observes:
"The restriction of the franchise is a specific na-
tional question, and not one relating to dictatorship in
general. One must study the question of the restric-
tion of the franchise in the light of the specific con-
ditions of the Russian revolution and the specific
course of its development. *** But it would be rash
to guarantee in advance that the impending proletarian
revolutions in Europe will, all or for the most part,
be accompanied by a restriction of the franchise in the
case of the bourgeoisie. This may be so. In fact,
after the war and after the experience of the Russian
revolution it will probably be so. But it is not abso-
lutely necessary for the establishment of a dictatorship.
It does not enter as a necessary condition in the his-
torical or class conception of dictatorship."
And again:
10 "Civil War in France," p. 46.
84
FROM MARX TO LENIN
"As I have pointed out already, the disfranchise-
ment of the bourgeoisie does not constitute a necessary
element of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Nor did
the Bolsheviks in Russia, when putting forward the
demand for such a dictatorship, long before the No-
vember revolution, say anything in advance about the
disfranchisement of the exploiters. This particular ele-
ment of the dictatorship was not born according to a
plan conceived by some party, but grew up sponta-
neously in the course of the fight."
'' 11
The Soviet form of government does not necessarily
mean an exclusively working-class constituency, nor
does it imply a system of occupational representation,
as is often asserted.
Under a system of occupational representation the
industries of the country are represented in the na-
tional governing body by delegates chosen by and for
such industries. Under such a system the railroad
workers, miners, metal workers, tailors, shoemakers,
etc., would each have their own qualified representa-
tives to look out for the interests of the particular in-
dustry as part of the general scheme of national indus-
trial administration. The Russian electoral system
embodies no such principle. It is based wholly on
geographical units, the town, the village, volost, and
province. True, in the towns the vote is cast in fac-
tories and trade unions, but that is done merely for
11 "The Proletarian Revolution," pages 39 and 58.
SOVIETS OR PARLIAMENT?
85
practical reasons of convenience. The voter in the
factory or trade union is not limited in his choice of
delegate to a member of his own craft, and when the
delegates chosen in the "primaries" assemble for the
election of a representative to the All-Russian Congress.
of Soviets, they represent a body taken from numerous
vocations who choose the "best man" on the basis of
general political considerations. Neither the All-Rus-
sian Congress of Soviets, nor the Central Executive
Committee, nor the Council of Peoples' Commissars
are made up in whole or in part of representatives of
special industries or occupations as such.
The other features of the Soviet structure most fre-
quently dwelt upon, the combination of legislative and
executive functions, the responsibility of representa-
tives and officials, their election for short terms, and
the right to recall them at any time, are, as we have
seen, features by no means incompatible with parlia-
mentary institutions. In fact, short periods of office,
and control of elected representatives through the in-
struments of the referendum and the recall are politi-
cal measures which have originated in the camp of
liberal middle-class reformers and are in full bloom
in many parts of the United States as well as in Swit-
zerland and elsewhere.
The determining feature of the Soviet is its indirect
and elaborate system of voting, which operates to give
to the industrial working class minority political pre-
ponderance over the peasant majority.
86
FROM MARX TO LENIN
This result is achieved in several ways. First, the
peasantry is frankly given a smaller representation in
proportion to its numbers than the town workers. The
urban residents are given one delegate for every 25,000
voters, while the rural population is represented by one.
deputy for every 125,000 inhabitants. This assumes a
ratio of 1 voter to 5 inhabitants, i. e., a total vote equal
to 20% of the population. Considering that both sexes
enjoy the franchise, that the right to vote begins at the
age of eighteen years, that the disfranchised bour-
geoisie is numerically insignificant and that all residents
are citizens entitled to vote, it seems safe to conjecture
that no less than 40% of the Russian people have the
right to vote in villages as well as in towns. On this
basis 125,000 inhabitants contain at least 50,000 voters
and the peasant representation is thus cut down one-
half in comparison with that of the urban population.
In all likelihood, however, the voting portion of the
population is much higher than 40%.
The town worker is further favored by dual repre-
sentation in the All-Russian Congress of Soviets, for
the town Soviet elects delegates to that body directly
and also sends representatives to the provincial Soviet,
who participate in the latter's elections to the All-
Russian Congress of Soviets.
But perhaps the most important practical result in
the direction of suppressing peasant representation is
achieved by the process of successive sifting and elim-
ination inherent in the Soviet system of elections.
SOVIETS OR PARLIAMENT?
87
Otto Bauer has pointed out this process and analyzed
its working with great clearness.
"The mass of Russian peasants is still practically un-
organized," he argues, "they are unschooled and un-
interested. If the state does not molest them in their
villages, they do not care by whom and how the state
is governed. Only small minorities of the rural pop-
ulation show a livelier interest in general political
problems and greater political activity. The system of
indirect representation upon which the Soviet consti-
tution rests, has the purpose and effect of permitting
only the politically active minority to express itself.
The election of the village Soviet, which administers
the village affairs, may still interest the whole peas-
antry. The choice of delegates of the village Soviets
to the rural Soviets already interests the dull mass of
peasantry in a considerably lesser degree. But the in-
dustrial workers who have come back to the village, and
the peasants who during the war had been in the town
as soldiers and had there been drawn into the revo-
lutionary labor movement, understand that the rural
Soviets are the cells which form the body of the Soviet
state. They evince a keener interest in the elections
than the mass of peasantry, and since they are more
active and better talkers than the others, they carry
the elections without difficulty. Thus the rural con-
gress already presents a different spirit than the village
soviet; the active, revolutionary, proletarian minority
is more prominently in evidence than in the village
88
FROM MARX TO LENIN
soviet. This process is carried further in the elections
from the rural soviets to the provincial congress. The
average peasant is not interested in the provincial
congress; what does he in the village care for the dis-
tant provincial capital? It is the active revolutionary
minorities who send the delegates to the provincial
congress. There they meet with the representatives of
the town soviets, accept their spiritual leadership and
furnish them the votes for the elections of delegates
from the provincial soviet to the All-Russian Congress
of Soviets. That is why the provincial soviet as a
rule does not send to the All-Russian Congress of
Soviets representatives of the dull, illiterate and con-
servative peasant mass, but members of the urban
proletariat and of the village minorities led by them.
There they are joined by the direct representatives of
the town soviets. Thus the rule of the urban pro-
letariat in the Congress is assured."
The indirect system of Soviet elections plays the
same rôle in the sphere of practical politics as the
Communist Party in the field of propaganda and moral
pressure-it preserves the hegemony of the industrial
worker over the peasant.
That the system works in the direction indicated is
proved by the overwhelming preponderance of the in-
dustrial workers and their intellectual spokesmen in all
determining organs of the Soviet Government, the
Council of Commissars, the Central Executive Com-
mittee and the All-Russian Congress of Soviets.
SOVIETS OR PARLIAMENT?
89
It is obvious that the Soviet constitution was thus
formulated in response to the special exigencies of the
Russian revolution. Is there any reason to assume
that it will be uniformly adopted by the victorious pro-
letariat in other countries?
Similar conditions will, most likely, produce similar
results. A Socialist revolution in the Balkan countries,
for instance, or in Poland or in the Russian border
states, is quite apt to adopt a government largely mod-
eled upon the Russian Soviet plan. In countries of
western civilization, in which the proletariat has grown.
to larger numerical strength and the whole population,
including the rural, has attained a higher degree of
political maturity, the form of government of the
Socialist state will be determined by the circumstances
under which the revolution will occur, the extent to
which it will be influenced by the Russian example and
the strength of parliamentary traditions in the country.
According to whether the one or the other of the last
mentioned elements will prevail the new Socialist gov-
ernment may take its starting point in the parliamen-
tary or Soviet system. But the difference will be
largely one of name and not of substance. A Socialist
government in a country of Western civilization can
no more adopt the essentially Russian features of the
Soviet than it can continue the essentially bourgeois.
features of parliament.
Chapter IX
VIOLENCE AND TERROR
The Russian Revolution has brought to the fore-
ground another important question-the rôle of force
in the Socialist movement.
The Socialists of the pre-war era assigned but a sec-
ondary part to force as a factor in the social revolu-
tion.
In his famous controversy with Edward Bernstein,
Karl Kautsky stated the Socialist position in this lan-
guage:
"The conception of revolution is not to be treated in
the police interpretation of the term, in the sense of
an armed rising. A party would be mad that would
choose the method of insurrection on principle so long
as it has at its disposal different, less costly, and safer
methods of action. In that sense social democracy
was never revolutionary on principle. It is so only
in the sense that it recognizes that when it attains po-
litical power it cannot employ it for any purpose other
than the abolition of the mode of production upon
which the present system rests.” ¹
1 "Bernstein und das Sozialdemokratische Programm,"
Stuttgart, 1899, page 181.
90
VIOLENCE AND TERROR
91
This was written in the early days of "revisionism,"
when Kautsky was the recognized spokesman of the
radical wing of international Socialism. It undoubtedly
represented the general Socialist attitude on the subject.
The armed struggles into which the Russian Revolu-
tion was forced in defense of its achievements, and the
brutal violence with which the Socialist Revolution of
Finland and Hungary were put down by the capitalist
forces in those countries, have led the exponents of
the new Communism to revise the accepted Socialist
attitude on the subject of force. While they do not,
of course, advocate violence for the sake of violence,
there is an unmistakable tendency in their speeches
and writings to lay a growing emphasis on the factor of
force. Not only do they proclaim the absolute in-
evitability of violence in the Socialist Revolution as an
historical rule or forecast, but they insist upon including
this theory in the every-day propaganda of Socialism.
Thus Lenin writes: "The necessity of systematically
fostering among the masses this and only this point of
view about violent revolution (its inevitability) lies at
the root of the whole of Marx's and Engels' teaching,
and it is just the neglect of such propaganda and agi-
tation both by the present Social-Chauvinists and the
Kautskian schools that brings their betrayal of it into
prominent relief." 2
2 "The State and Revolution," page 25.
92
FROM MARX TO LENIN
And Kameneff supports this view with the following
argument:
"To move towards a seizure of power, not hoping to
hold it, and not preparing the conditions for holding
it, is simply foolhardiness; to recognize the necessity for
the proletariat conquering power, and to doubt the
necessity of a dictatorship of the proletariat, to refuse
to instruct the workers in this direction-means con-
sciously to prepare the betrayal of the cause of
Socialism." (Italics mine.)
3
Neither Lenin nor Kameneff nor any other Bolshevist
authority stops to analyze the conditions and phases of
the Socialist movement in which it becomes possible or
proper to preach to the workers the alleged inevitability
of violence or to "prepare the conditions" for holding
power. And yet such an analysis must be made for
the sake of avoiding confusion.
The complete cycle of the Socialist movement may
be divided into three main stages; the preparation for
the struggle to achieve power, the seizure of power,
and defending the conquest of power-the pre-revolu-
tionary, the revolutionary, and post-revolutionary
periods of struggle. Of these the first stage is the
longest and the most diversified in character and degree
of maturity. It embraces all phases of the organized
Socialist movement, from its inception as a mere in-
3 "The Dictatorship of the Proletariat," London, 1920, p. 12.
VIOLENCE AND TERROR
93
strument of propaganda through the successive periods
of organization and struggle to the point of develop-
ment into a political force of recognized importance.
It includes the entire process of Socialist growth from
infancy to maturity, a process which in the countries
of greatest Socialist strength, has taken from forty
to fifty years.
The test of Socialist progress in each country is the
measure in which the masses of the workers rally to
the support of the movement; the extent, spirit and
consciousness of the class struggle. The process of
Socialist growth may be described as quantitative,
where, as in most countries of continental Europe, the
crganized labor movement is from its inception rooted
in Socialist thought, and the prime Socialist problem
is the physical increase of that movement. Or it may
be designated as qualitative, where, as in the Anglo-
Saxon countries, the organized labor movement has
attained to large dimensions, but lacks in clarity of
class-consciousness, which the Socialists must endeavor
to supply. In the countries of the former type the chief
task of Socialism is organization, in the latter it is
propaganda. But whether the immaturity of the So-
cialist movement is primarily physical or intellectual, it
is clear that there is no sense or justification in "sys-
tematically fostering among the masses" the view of the
hypothetical necessity of violent revolution at this
preparatory stage. Not the temper of the Socialist
revolution nor its physical aspect, but the preliminary
94
FROM MARX TO LENIN
questions of its very desirability and feasibility, are
then before the workers. The propaganda of violence
as a present method or even as a prospective necessity
under such conditions has always and rightly been re-
jected by Marxian Socialists. Violence as a species of
"propaganda by deed" and premature revolutionary
risings of workers are leaves from the book of Michael
Bakunin, not Karl Marx.
It is only when the Socialist movement has developed
to a point of strength and maturity at which it can suc-
cessfully challenge the political rule of the bourgeoisie,
when the objective and subjective conditions for a
Socialist revolution are present, that the question of
force or violence acquires a practical significance.
Must a Socialist revolution be accomplished by force?
In discussing the question I am, for the time being,
confining myself to the moment of the revolution, the
act of capturing the powers of government.
The Communist authorities are unanimous and em-
phatic in answering the question in the affirmative.
4
"The substitution of a proletarian for the capitalist
state is impossible without a violent revolution,"
categorically asserts Lenin. Bukharin propounds the
doctrine that "every revolution means using force.
against the former dominators," and proclaims the
slogan: "Overthrow the imperialistic governments by
armed uprisings.' Zinovieff defines civil war as "a
115
♦ “The State and Revolution," page 25.
5 "Program of the Communists," pages 16 and 77.
VIOLENCE AND TERROR
95
"
function of the class struggle." The Platform-Reso-
lution of the Communist International declares that
the class struggle inevitably transforms itself into civil
war and that "the proletariat must resort to armed
uprising," and Kabakchieff, the Bulgarian delegate
to the Second Congress of the Communist Interna-
tional, reporting for the Committee on Constitution,
lays down this sweeping principle:
"Only by an uprising, by the creating of a class
army, and by the decisive, irreconcilable armed strug-
gle can power be wrested from the hands of the ex-
ploiters, and the yoke of the capitalist order thrown
off." 8
The hypothesis that at the decisive moment the ruling
capitalist classes in the different countries will not
surrender to the proletariat without a physical struggle
has always been accepted as reasonable by the Socialists
of the Marxian school. The new elements which Com-
munism has introduced into the theory is the dogmatic.
certainty of the inevitability of violence and the ten-
dency to consider it in the light of an offensive rather
than defensive weapon.
Marx and Engels have on the whole, and particularly
in their earlier writings, envisaged the social revolution
6 "Protokoll über die Verhandlungen, etc., in Halle," page
164.
7 "The Second Congress of the Communist International,
etc.," pages 89 and 90.
8 Ibid., page 64.
96
FROM MARX TO LENIN
as a violent struggle, although they admitted possible
exceptions for some countries. But they never con-
sidered the element of force as an independent, con-
structive factor in the making of the revolution. Force
may be "the midwife of every old society when it is
pregnant with a new one" as Marx puts it, but the
midwife is entirely impotent to bring a healthy child
into the light of the world before it has been conceived
and fully developed within the mother's womb.
Marx and Engels furthermore were confined almost
entirely to aprioristic reasoning on the subject. They
had no historic examples of concrete Socialist revolu-
tions upon which to base valid empirical conclusions
about the nature and psychology of such revolutions.
The only instance of a proletarian uprising known to
them was the Paris Commune, which can be compared
only remotely with a modern Socialist revolution.
Within recent years, however, there have been sev-
eral distinct cases in which Socialists have secured the
power of government in their countries, and no scien-
tific theory of revolution can to-day afford to leave
out of account these valuable experiences.
In chronological order Finland was the first country
in which the Socialists acquired political predominance.
The conquest of power was secured in the first instance
through a purely parliamentary victory. In the general
elections of 1916, the Socialist party of Finland secured
103 seats in the Diet out of a total of 200. A coalition
cabinet was formed which was presided over by Oscar
VIOLENCE AND TERROR
97
Tokoi, a Socialist, with the other portfolios equally
divided between Socialists and non-Socialists. It was
this diet under Socialist leadership that proclaimed the
independence of Finland on July 18th, 1917. The Keren-
sky government of Russia, acting in concert with the
Finnish bourgeoisie, refused to recognize the validity
of the Finnish declaration of independence, dissolved.
the diet and ordered new elections. The Socialist and
labor organizations refused to recognize the legality
of the new elections and of the bourgeois government
based upon them. On January 27th, 1918, they pro-
claimed a general strike, drove out the new government
and constituted a revolutionary Socialist government
under the title of Provisional Government of the Peo-
ples Republic of Finland. The rising was accompanied
by little physical violence.
The inception of the Bolshevik revolution, in Russia,
November 7th, 1917, is also to be traced to what may
be termed a parliamentary victory, the securing of a
majority in the Workers' and Soldiers' Council by the
Bolsheviki. The Provisional government was abolished
by a decree of the "Military Revolutionary Commit-
tee" of the Petrograd Council of Workers' and Sol-
diers' Deputies, who assumed the reins of government.
Comparatively slight resistance was made to the
transfer of power, and the new government was able
to record with satisfaction that "rarely has less blood
98
FROM MARX TO LENIN
been spilled, and rarely has an insurrection succeeded
so well." ›
The short episode of Socialist power in Germany was
preceded by mild outbreaks of revolt in the navy and
by a one-day general strike. The revolution itself was
carried through with almost bureaucratic formality.
On November 9th, 1918, William II abdicated in com-
pliance with the majority demand of the Reichstag.
On the same day the Imperial Chancellor, Prince Max
von Baden, voluntarily transferred his office to the
Social Democrat Friedrich Ebert, and Philip Scheide-
mann proclaimed from a window of the Reichstag
building the establishment of a republic with an all-
Socialist government. On the 11th day of November
a Council of Peoples' Commissars with the functions.
of a cabinet of ministers was constituted with three
representatives of the Majority Socialists and an equal
number of Minority Socialists. The death toll of the
revolution was limited to a few persons killed in the
course of minor riots incidental to demonstrations, on
the 9th day of November.
1
The Austian revolution was to a large extent a
replica of the German. Upon the deposition of the
Hapsburg dynasty on October 30th, 1918, the Diet
proclaimed a republic and organized a provisional
Council of State under Social-Democratic leadership.
The transition was entirely bloodless.
9 John Reed, "Ten Days That Shook the World," N. Y.,
1919, p. 85.
VIOLENCE AND TERROR
99
!
The Socialist revolution in Hungary, March 24th,
1919, came to the workers of the country largely as a
voluntary, and it may be added, fatal gift of the coali-
tion government. The heavy peace terms of the Allied
government and the starvation blockade inaugurated.
against the country together with the disquieting effects
of the growing popular unrest induced the cabinet of
Karolyi to abdicate "in favor of proletarian dictator-
ship" as an act of mingled surrender, spite and defiance.
The Paris Commune was to a large extent an incident
of the Franco-Prussian war. In the defeat of French
arms the Second Empire under Napoleon III was over-
thrown. The new republican government of Thiers
sitting in Versailles did not yet have time to establish
itself in power. The bulk of the bourgeoisie of Paris
had filed in anticipation of the siege and the workers
practically had the city to themselves. They also had
the armed force of Paris, the National Guard, which
had been organized during the war and was over-
whelmingly proletarian. The humiliation of defeat,
the sufferings of the war and the siege of 131 days,
made the Parisian workers restive and rebellious. The
latent antagonism between them and the Versaillian
forces of the bourgeoisie came to a head when the
latter attempted to capture the artillery of the National
Guard on March 18th, 1871. The attempt was frus-
trated; a general municipal election was held on March
26th, and the Paris Commune was proclaimed on March
28th. The change of government was accomplished
without bloodshed.
100
FROM MARX TO LENIN
Of course, the precedents of these revolutions do
not offer any guaranty for a peaceful "seizure of power"
in future proletarian revolutions. The revolutions have
in all cases occurred under extraordinary circumstances
directly or indirectly prepared by war. But it must be
borne in mind that social revolutions generally are
quite apt to happen under unusual conditions, when
the power of resistance of the ruling class is at least
temporarily weakened. To assert the absolute inevita-
bility of violence in the seizure of political power by.
the working class in the face of all historical experi-
ences is at least somewhat rash.
Another question arises about the necessity of force
to hold the political power conquered in a proletarian
revolution. Here history tells a different tale.
The French Communards failed to realize the over-
shadowing and vital importance of the military defense
of their government. Instead of burying their political
differences and organizing all their forces and re-
sources, so as to meet the attacks of their opponents
by a strong, unified and disciplined resistance, they
wasted precious time on academic discussions and fac-
tional controversies. And while the leaders of the
proletarian insurrection talked, the wily chiefs of the
bourgeois counter-revolution were busy preparing for
action. After a number of preliminary skirmishes with
varying military luck, the army of the Versaillese, rein-
forced by large numbers of military prisoners, whom
Prussian yunkerdom had released for that purpose,
VIOLENCE AND TERROR
101
succeeded in entering Paris on the 21st day of May.
A stubborn but unequal struggle of eight days ensued,
and the last heroic defenders of the workers' republic
were defeated. The bourgeoisie was enthroned once
more, and the orgy of bestial revenge with which the
guardians of “law and order" celebrated their victory
knew no limits.
"When the struggle was over," records Lissagaray,
the eloquent historian of the Commune, "the army was
transformed into a huge platoon of executioners. More
than 5,000 prisoners, who had been rounded up in the
neighborhood of Pere la Chaise, were taken to the prison
of La Roquette. A chief of batallion stood at the en-
trance and viewed the prisoners. Without addressing
a single question to them he commanded "right" or
"left." Those ordered to the left were instantly
shot.' It is estimated that no less than 20,000 work-
ers were thus summarily executed in the first days of
the bourgeois restoration, while about 14,000 were
subsequently condemned by court martial to death,
exile or prison.
99 10
"To find a parallel for the conduct of Thiers and
his bloodhounds," says Karl Marx, "we must go back
to the times of Sulla and the two triumvirates of Rome.
The same wholesale slaughter in cold blood; the same
disregard, in massacre, of age and sex; the same system.
10 "Geschichte der Kommune von 1871," Stuttgart, 1894,
page 351.
102
FROM MARX TO LENIN
of torturing prisoners; the same proscriptions, but this
time of a whole class; the same savage hunt after con-
cealed leaders, lest one might escape; the same denun-
ciations of political and private enemies; the same indif-
ference for the butchery of entire strangers to the
feud. There is but this difference, that the Romans had
no mitrailleuses for the wholesale despatch of the
proscribed, and that they had not "the law in their
hands," nor on their lips the cry of "civilization.” 11
The Finnish leaders of the Socialist revolution were
by no means unmindful of the counter-revolutionary
danger. They organized a Red Guard, composed of
the flower of Finnish labor, as disciplined, determined
and efficient a body as ever took the field for a good
cause. If all they had to overcome were their own
bourgeoisie, the Finnish workers would undoubtedly
have remained victorious. But the international soli-
darity of exploiters proved too strong for them. The
"White Guard" of the Finnish bourgeoisie was sup-
ported with arms and ammunition from Sweden and
other countries and reinforced by regiments of trained
German soldiers. The rebellious proletariat of the
small country succumbed to the superior international
force of capitalism, and capitalism took bloody ven-
geance. The reign of "white terror" inaugurated by
the triumphant Finnish bourgeoisie was cold, cruel and
thoroughgoing. Over 100,000 men, women and chil-
dren were jailed; 15,000 workers were summarily exe-
11 "Civil War in France," page 69.
VIOLENCE AND TERROR
103
0
cuted and 15,000 more died of starvation. The Socialist
and labor movements of the country were outlawed,
their papers suppressed and their headquarters turned
over to the White Guard.
The Bolshevik government of Russia in the early
days of its existence gave comparatively little thought
to the defense of the revolution. The regular army
was demobilized, and the only armed force upon which
the revolutionary proletariat could rely consisted of a
few ill-organized volunteer detachments of workers.
Capital punishment was abolished, and the opposition
was allowed full freedom of speech and press. This
period of “rosy illusions" and "sentimental youth,” as
Kameneff terms it, lasted about six months. In the
spring of 1918, appeared the first signs of active coun-
ter-revolutionary plots and these grew steadily in extent.
and seriousness. The sporadic attempts of the Russian
bourgeoisie to set up opposition governments in one
part of the country and in another would not have been
serious if they had not been actively supported by the
powerful governments of the Entente and by a series
of artificially stimulated wars on the part of several
border states. The Russian revolution did not suc-
cumb to the attacks because favorable conditions af-
forded it the time to organize an effective defense. The
Russian bourgeoisie was weak, weaker than the bour-
geoisie of any other important country in Europe.
Standing alone it had neither the resources nor the
capacity to organize a successful counter-revolution.
104
FROM MARX TO LENIN
a
1
The foreign capitalist governments had just gone
through the severest war in history. They were ex-
hausted and their populations were war weary and
restive. They could not and dared not enter into open
and extensive warfare against Russia. The tremendous
size and comparative economic self-sufficiency of the
country palliated the effects of the blockade and pro-
tected it from effective occupation by hostile forces.
Besides the revolutionary government of Russia took
energetic measures of defense upon the first sign of
danger. In April, 1918, the Red Army was formed,
and the organization was steadily improved and in-
creased until it could successfully meet all armed
attacks, while strenuous measures of political repres-
sion were taken to cope with counter-revolutionary
propaganda. It was the timely organization of the
Red Army and the prompt suppression of counter-
revolutionary plots that saved Soviet Russia.
The experiences of Germany and Austria contribute
but little to the study of post-revolutionary struggles.
The revolutions in these countries found the people
stunned by defeat, apathetic and demoralized, while
the Socialist movement, particularly in Germany, was
disunited and discouraged. The Socialists accepted
power in a spirit of half-heartedness. They had no
desire to hold it against substantial opposition, and
made no preparations to defend it. They could neither
maintain union in their own ranks nor hold their fol-
lowing in succeeding elections, and political power slip-
VIOLENCE AND TERROR
105
ped out of their hands as quietly and unostentatiously
as it had come to them.
The leaders of the Hungarian Soviet republic also
neglected to take energetic measures for the defense
of the revolution. During the four months of their
power they lived in a sort of a fool's paradise, relying
largely upon the good will of the people for the safety
of their régime. While a Red Guard and Revolution-
ary Tribunals were organized in outward imitation
of the Russian model, the institutions were altogether
inadequate and ineffective.
The invasion of hordes of Roumanian forces gave
the embittered bourgeois of the country the long-hoped
for opportunity to wreak bloody vengeance upon the
revolutionary proletariat. They overthrew the Soviet
government and inaugurated a reign of terror un-
paralleled in bloodthirstiness and bestiality.
Thus the experience of all proletarian revolutions
shows that while the capitalist class, stunned and de-
moralized by the sudden and irresistible advent of the
revolution, may for the time being surrender without
resistance, it may be expected after the first period of
surprise to recover its class morale and muster its scat-
tered forces for a counter-attack. The counter-revo-
lutionary struggle of the bourgeoisie begins after the
successful proletarian revolution. As a rule, it has the
full and active support of international capitalism. It
is continuous, embittered and unrelenting, and woe to
the rebellious workers if it finally succeeds.
106
FROM MARX TO LENIN
In the historical instances before us it has not been
the revolutionary proletariat that employed violence
in the overthrow of the capitalist government. It was
the counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie that resorted to
methods of violence in its efforts to overthrow the or-
ganized government of the workers. The force used
by the revolutionary government of the workers to
maintain itself in power was in all cases a defensive,
not an aggressive force.
But whether such force is defensive or aggressive
in its origin and character is after all a question of
only academic importance. It is abundantly clear that
a proletarian régime must at all times maintain an
efficient and adequate organization to protect its con-
quests, and that it must be particularly alert and deter-
mined in the early period of its existence, when coun-
ter-revolutionary capitalist attacks are likely to be most
frequent and dangerous.
What is the measure and extent of force required
for the maintenance of the working-class rule or pro-
letarian dictatorship?
When a capitalist government feels itself secure it
relies upon the ordinary instrumentalities of its police
and courts to put down all sporadic revolts against its
authority. When such revolts assume more threaten-
ing proportions the government substitutes the strin-
gent rule of martial law for the normal civil régime,
and unceremoniously curtails or abolishes the estab-
lished political rights of its opponents. Martial law in
VIOLENCE AND TERROR
107
intensified form and extended application becomes gov-
ernment terrorism-white bourgeois terror.
A working-class government is actuated by the same
law of self-preservation. Normally it can afford a
greater degree of toleration of political and class oppo-
sition than a capitalist government, because it is more
securely rooted in the interests of the "immense ma-
jority" of the people. But when it is actively attacked
it must defend itself with all power at its command, and
when its existence is seriously endangered by counter-
revolutionary movements creating a virtual state of
civil war, it must resort to extraordinary measures of
defense, military and political. It is under such cir-
cumstances, and such circumstances only that the pro-
letarian dictatorship finds itself forced to institute the
measures and organizations for summary repression
which constitute the essence of revolutionary terror.
It goes without saying that the régime of "terror" is in
all cases a passing phase and disappears when the
conditions which have produced it have been success-
fully overcome.
This conception of the rôle of terror in the prole-
tarian dictatorship was generally held by the Socialists
of the Marxian school, including the Bolsheviki. In
the program of the Russian Social Democratic Party
adopted in 1903, the measure of force implicit in the
dictatorship is limited to such as "will allow it to crush
all resistance on the part of the exploiters," and even
upon their accession to political power the Communists
108
FROM MARX TO LENIN
of Russia did not believe that such force would neces-
sarily reach the dimensions of terror. On that point
we have the convincing testimony of the Communist
leaders themselves, particularly L. Kameneff, who de-
clares:
“There can be nothing more mistaken than to as-
sume that the Russian proletariat, or even its leader,
the Communist Party, came into power with recipes,
prepared in advance, of practical measures for the
realization of the dictatorship. Only Socialist igno
ramuses, or charlatans, could suggest that the Russian
Communists came into power with a prepared plan for
a standing army, Extraordinary Commissions, and lim-
itations of political liberty, to which the Russian
proletariat was obliged to resort for self-defense after
bitter experience." 12
The Russian workers have been obliged to resort
to the method of terror to cope with the threatening
conditions which have developed in their country.
Does it follow that the same conditions will face every
proletarian revolution and force a similar course in all
instances? On the basis of the general rule of cause
and effect no such universal conclusion is warranted,
and while Communist spokesmen are sometimes in-
clined to consider the terror as an inevitable feature of
every proletarian dictatorship, the balance of their
authority seems to reject the theory.
12 "Dictatorship of the Proletariat," page 9.
VIOLENCE AND TERROR
109
Thus Kameneff, who, in one place asserts categor-
ically that "when persons calling themselves Socialists,
declare that the course of dictatorship (referring dis-
tinctly to the feature of terror), admissible and expli-
cable in Russia, is in no wise obligatory or inevitable
for any other capitalist country, they proclaim a thing
directly contrary to truth," 13 admits almost in the
same breath that "the question regarding the degree of
severity of the dictatorship, the extent and conditions
of the limitations of the political rights of the bour-
geoisie and limitation of political liberty in general, the
application of terroristic methods, etc., is indissolubly
linked with the question of the degree, forms, stub-
bornness and organization of resistance by the ex-
ploiters,"
"14 which must, of course, vary in every
country.
Lenin lays down the rule in this explicit statement:
"The Question, in what countries and in what national
peculiarities of this or that Capitalism a wholesale or
partial restriction of democracy will be applied to the
exploiters, is the question of just those national pe-
culiarities of capitalism and of this or that revolution.15
And the imaginative philosopher, N. Bukharin, who in
one place assures us that "the capitalist states will
not surrender without a struggle. They will fight
desperately in order to prevent the proletariat from
13 "The Dictatorship of the Proletariat," page 8.
14 Ibid., page 9.
15 "The Proletarian Revolution," page 40.
110
"
FROM MARX TO LENIN
securing world power," 18 in another place and in a
more cheerful mood envisages a point in the growth
of the proletarian world revolution at which the re-
sistance of the capitalist class will weaken to such an
extent that "finally all remnants of the bourgeois régime
will in all probability surrender in corpore with all its
organizations." 17
On the whole it may be safely said that while a
longer or shorter period of terror may become neces-
sary under certain conditions of proletarian revolutions,
the terroristic method is no more an inseparable feature
of the proletarian dictatorship than the soviet is its
inevitable form.
16 "Program of the Communists," page 19.
17 "The Process of World Revolution and the World Sys-
tem of Communism." From the German translation of St.
Ramm.
✓
Chapter X
THE WORLD REVOLUTION AND RUSSIAN
RE-ORIENTATION
The Russian revolution in its early periods was
viewed by its authors as a mere incident in the im-
pending international proletarian revolution, as a ful-
filment of the Marxian prediction that Russia may
"give the signal for a working class revolution in the
West, so that both may supplement each other."
The Bolsheviki in power did not think it possible
that a Socialist Russia could stand alone for any con-
siderable length of time amidst a non-Socialist world.
They considered themselves in the light of a vanguard
of the world revolution charged with the task of hold-
ing the fort until re-inforcement would come from the
West. They counted upon the immediate breakdown of
the capitalist rule in Europe and America as a political
reality, and their social theories and practical policies
were shaped on that assumption.
Almost half a year after the successful accomplish-
ment of the Bolshevik revolution, on April 14, 1918,
Leo Trotzky, who is among the most optimistic leaders.
of Russian Communism, made this explicit avowal in
a public speech:
111
112
FROM MARX TO LENIN
"From the very first days of the revolution we said
that the Russian revolution would be able to win and to
free the Russian people only on the condition that it
marked the beginning of a revolution in all countries;
but that if in Germany the reign of capital remained,
if in New York the supremacy of the stock exchange
continued, if in England British imperialism held its
sway as heretofore, then we should be done for, since
they were stronger, richer than we, as yet better edu-
cated, and their military machines stronger than ours." i
And again:
"Our task at the present moment is to procrastinate,
to hold out till the revolution begins in all European
countries to hold out, to consolidate our strength and
to stand firmer on our feet, since at present we are-
feeble, shattered, and morally feeble." 2
Karl Radeck, speaking retrospectively of the same
period, adds the following interesting testimony: "At
the conclusion of the Brest treaty, the Soviet Govern-
ment estimated the breathing spell afforded by that
peace as a very short one; either the world revolution
would soon come and rescue Soviet Russia, or Soviet
Russia would go down in the unequal conflict—such
was our view at that time. And this conception was
in accordance with the situation at that moment.” ³
1 "A Paradise in This World," Publication of British So-
cialist Party, London, page 11.
2 Ibid., page 13.
3 "Soviet Russian Concession to Capital," Article in Soviet
Russia Magazine, N. Y., February 12, 1921.
-
WORLD REVOLUTION AND RUSSIAN RE-ORIENTATION
113
The hope and belief in an impending world revolu-
tion of the working class persisted tenaciously among
the leaders of the Russian revolution.
Lenin's spirited polemic with Karl Kautsky con-
cludes with this postscript: "The above lines were
written on November 9, 1918. In the night following
news was received from Germany announcing the be-
ginning of a victorious revolution, at first at Kiel and
other northern towns and ports, where power had
passed into the hands of Councils of Workers' and
Soldiers' Delegates, and then in Berlin, where the
authority has also passed into the hands of the Soviet.
The conclusion which I was going to write on Kautsky's
pamphlet and on the proletarian revolution has thereby
been rendered superfluous." (Italics mine.)
4
The failure of the German rising as a proletarian.
Soviet revolution and the similar disappointments else-
where had but little effect upon the Messianic faith
of the Russian Communists, and for a long time they
continued to acclaim every new political or industrial
struggle on a large scale in the countries of the West
as the beginning of a decisive proletarian revolution.
Only when the Sparticide risings in Germany were.
quelled and the Hungarian Soviet government was
overthrown; when the great struggle in the Italian
metal industry was settled by mutual concessions, and
"The Proletarian Revolution," page 113.
114
FROM MARX TO LENIN
the oft-announced general strikes in England sys-
tematically failed to materialize; when the spirit of un-
rest and rebellion engendered by the war and the Ver-
sailles "settlement" was succeeded by a state of sullen
apathy, and the capitalist world settled down to a spell
of heavy political reaction, only then did the Commun-
ists begin to lose faith in an imminent world revolution.
The Russian revolution could no longer be treated as
the mere initial phase of a spontaneous and simul-
taneous international working-class rising. It was a
phenomenon by itself, to be accounted for by its own
peculiar causes and dependent for its continuance
largely upon its own resources. The recognition of
this fact forced a sharp re-orientation in the theoretical
bases and practical policies of the Soviet government.
So long as the Russian revolution was viewed as an in-
tegral part of a general world-wide rising of the work-
ing class, it was possible to bring it within the accepted
Marxian concept, but as an isolated event it calls for a
new and different theoretical foundation. And the Bol-
shevist authorities, never embarrassed or abashed about
theories, promptly met the need.
In his report on National and Colonial Questions.
before the Second Congress of the Communist Inter-
national Lenin raises the question of the functions of
the Communist Party in "pre-capitalist" countries, and
arrives at the following answer:
"In such countries it is quite possible to establish a
Soviet authority. The experiences of Russia and of
*
WORLD REVOLUTION AND RUSSIAN RE-ORIENTATION 115
various Mussulman republics-for example, Turkestan
-show that the Soviet republic can be successful not
only in proletarian countries but even in those countries
where pre-capitalist relations exist. In these countries.
great difficulty is experienced in organizing Soviets,
but without question it is possible to arouse an inde-
pendent revolutionary consciousness and movement
even in these countries. The Soviet idea is very simple
and can be understood not only by the proletariat, but
also by the broader non-proletarian masses. * **
"We must abandon scientific prejudices that each
country must absolutely pass through capitalist exploi-
tation. The régime of Soviets, when there is a power-
fui proletariat uprising on a world scale, can be estab-
lished in those countries in which the capitalist
development has not attained any serious propor-
tions." 5 (Italics mine.)
The "scientific prejudices" here mentioned have ref-
erence to the theory that every country must pass
through the phase of capitalist development before it is
ripe for Socialism, which Karl Marx has formulated.
in the preface to the first edition of his Capital in the
following characteristically vigorous language:
"Intrinsically, it is not a question of a higher or
lower degree of development of the social antagonisms
that result from the natural laws of capitalist produc-
5 "The Second Congress of the Communist International,"
pages 38 and 39.
1920
116
FROM MARX TO LENIN
tion. It is a question of these laws themselves, of these
tendencies working with iron necessity towards inevit-
able results. The country that is more developed indus-
trially only shows, to the lesser developed, the image of
its own future."
a
Are we justified in discarding this theory as
mere "scientific prejudice?" The experience of Russia
has concretely demonstrated that a Socialist revolution
has been possible at least in one great country "in
which capitalist development had not attained any seri-
ous proportions." Whether that experience is alto-
gether sui generis or can be reasonably generalized into
a law of social development, and particularly whether
the operation of such a law can be extended to Asiatic
countries of Mohammedan culture is fairly open to
discussion, but the interesting point is that the new doc-
trine marks a clear departure from one of the funda-
mental tenets of Marxian historical science.
While Lenin is still cautious in his statement and
limits the possibility of "leaping over" the capitalist
phase of development to conditions "when there is a
powerful uprising on a world scale," Bukharin proceeds
frankly and boldly to build an entirely novel and uni-
versal theory of revolution. He admits that the type
of the Socialist or Communist revolution must of neces-
sity be higher in the countries of advanced capitalist
development and proletarian organization than in those
of pre-capitalist economy, but declares that the su-
periority of the type of such revolutions must not be
WORLD REVOLUTION AND RUSSIAN RE-ORIENTATION
117
confused with the question of their chronological order.
Summing up his theory, he arrives at the following
interesting results: "If we examine the revolutionary
process on a world-wide scale, we may draw the follow-
ing general conclusions: The revolutionary world
process begins in those parts of the economic system
of the world in which the degree of development is
lower, in which the victory of the proletariat is easier,
but the crystallization of the new system is more diffi-
cult. The rapidity with which a revolution is accom-
plished stands in inverse ratio to the maturity of
capitalist development and to the height of the revo-
lutionary type achieved." "
Here is the late Peter Nikitich Tkachoff resurrected,
modernized and generalized. Under the new doctrine.
of the "ultra Marxian" Bukharin it is not difficult to
discern the cloven hoof of the old "Narodnik" with his
specious argument: "We have no proletariat, but we
also have no bourgeoisie, hence the struggle of our
workers is easier."
Bukharin's striking conclusions proceed from the
theory that the war in destroying the unstable equilib-
rium of international capitalist organization has broken
down the entire world system of capitalist economy, and
that the weaker parts of the system, no longer able
to lean on its stronger links, will automatically collapse.
• "The Process of World Revolution and the World Sys-
tem of Communism."
Dilmavaadata vastVAINILAL 1-2MA
118
FROM MARX TO LENIN
He takes it for granted that such collapse must as-
sume the form of proletarian revolutions.
The revolution is thus viewed as a purely passive
process. Its success is made to depend not on the
strength of the proletarian attack but solely on the
weakness of the bourgeois resistance. Bukharin seems
to overlook the pertinent fact that in the countries
of the "lowest level of capitalist development," there
is a rule no revolutionary proletariat to contest even
the feeble rule of the bourgeoisie.
The Bolshevist theoreticians have "learned over" a
great deal since the pre-revolutionary days of 1915,
when Lenin wrote:
"A revolution is not produced by every revolutionary
situation; it is produced when, in addition to the ob-
jective changes enumerated above (a weakened ruling
class and intense suffering and activity of the masses)
certain subjective changes take place, viz., when a
revolutionary class shows ability to take revolutionary
mass action sufficiently forceful to break, or at least
to damage, the existing government. Even in times of
crises, governments do not 'tumble down of their own
accord,' but require a force to 'overthrow' them.”
But the theoretical re-orientation is of only slight
importance compared with the radical modifications of
the practical policies which the Russian Communists
7 "The Collapse of the Second International," Glasgow,
page 17.
WORLD REVOLUTION AND RUSSIAN RE-ORIENTATION 119
}
1
adopted as a result of their disillusionment on the sub-
ject of the impending world revolution. Both the for-
eign policy and the internal economy of Soviet Russia
were profoundly affected by the new point of view.
As to the change in Russia's foreign policy Karl
Radek with his customary frankness makes the fol-
lowing explanation:
"The fact that the world war has been ended, that
the demobilization crisis has been overcome, that the
world revolution has not broken up the capitalist world
in the form of an explosion, but in the form of a
gradual corrosion-this fact completely alters the situ-
ation, the conditions, of the foreign policies of the
Soviet Government.
On the one hand, the Soviet Government cannot
reckon on a swift mechanical liberation through a mass
movement that would completely overthrow the Clem-
enceaus, Lloyd Georges, and all they stand for, and,
on the other hand, the Soviet Government may be
mathematically certain that the process of capitalistic
disintegration will continue and lighten its burdens.
But as this is a long process, Soviet Russia cannot
escape the question of seeking a modus vivendi with
those states that are still capitalistic." (Italics mine.)
And Lenin expresses a similar view in a recent speech
before the Soviet functionaries of Moscow. "So long
as the world revolution is not here," he says, "we need
8 Soviet Russia Magazine, N. Y., February 12, 1921.
120
FROM MARX TO LENIN
bourgeois capital. Since our country is in a position
of extreme economic weakness, how can we accelerate
the process of industrial development? With the aid
of bourgeois capital." 9
The first practical application of this principle of
compromise was made in connection with several im-
portant "concessions" to foreign bourgeois capital.
These concessions cover vast areas of forest land, coal
and iron mining districts, and several valuable indus-
trial franchises. As indicating the length to which
the Soviet government is ready to go, it is interesting
to note that these concessions, which run for long terms
(in the case of the American promoter Washington Di
Vanderlip, for 60 years), carry express guaranties
embodied in a formal decree of the Council of Peo-
ples' Commissars to the effect that the concessionaires'
investments and property would at no time be "nation-
alized, confiscated or requisitioned" and that the con-
cessionaires would have the right to employ Russian
workers as wage laborers subject to the observance of
the labor laws of the country.
Capitalism, which was officially banished from Soviet
Russia is thus allowed to come back at least in spots
by way of the back door.
A compromise of a somewhat different character is
involved in the efforts to conclude trade agreements.
9 "German Translation in New Yorker Volkszeitung," Feb-
ruary 8, 1921.
་
WORLD REVOLUTION AND RUSSIAN RE-ORIENTATION
121
with foreign capitalist countries. Foreign trade has al-
ways been a necessity for Russia. It has become more
vital than ever at this time on account of the pro-
gressive destruction of the country's mechanical im-
plements of production and means of transportation
since the outbreak of the war. If the industrial coun-
tries of Europe and America, or some of them, had
been under proletarian rule, trade agreements with
Russia would, of course, be effected without any com-
promise of principle or policy. But the Realpolitiker
of Soviet Russia understand perfectly well that they
cannot reach any agreement with the capitalist govern-
ments of the West so long as they are engaged in
open and active propaganda for the overthrow of these
very governments. The modus vivendi with foreign
capitalist governments thus necessarily implies a seri-
ous curtailment of Soviet Russia's international revo-
lutionary activities.
The very first article of the Anglo-Russian Trade
Agreement provides: "That each party refrains from
hostile action or undertakings against the other and
from conducting outside of its own borders any official
propaganda, direct or indirect, against the institutions
of the British Empire or the Russian Soviet Republic,
respectively, and more particularly that the Russian
Soviet Government refrains from any attempt, by mili-
tary or diplomatic or any other form of action or
propaganda, to encourage any of the peoples of Asia.
in any form of hostile action against British interests.
or the British Empire."
122
FROM MARX TO LENIN
And the paragraph is emphasized by the further
explanatory provision "that the term 'conducting any
official propaganda' includes the giving by either party
of assistance or encouragement to any propaganda
conducted outside of its own borders." (Italics mine.)
ذکر
At least to the uninitiated this stipulation sounds like
a complete abandonment of the Communist efforts "to
arouse an independent and revolutionary consciousness
and movement in the 'various Mussulman republics.
It seems to confirm Martoff's charge that the Com-
munists use the peoples of the East "as pawns on the
chess-board of the diplomatic war with the Entente" 10
and to lend point to Radek's reported admission that
the "levers of the Oriental upheaval are all in the
Kremlin, and Moscow could pull them or leave them
untouched exactly as her own interests dictated." 11
Similarly the recent note of the Soviet government
addressed to President Harding after expressing the
hope "that intimate and solid ties would be created.
between the two republics" (the Communist workers'
republic of Russia and the ultra-bourgeois republic of
the United States) conveys the "categorical declara-
tion" of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee
that the Soviet Republic "has not the intention of in-
tervening in the internal affairs of America."
10 “U. S. P. D. Protokoll," page 214.
11 H. N. Brailsford in London Daily Herald, December 28,
1920.
WORLD REVOLUTION AND RUSSIAN RE-ORIENTATION
123
But with all its efforts to placate foreign capital the
government of Soviet Russia is too wise to expect
very substantial help for the economic reconstruction.
of the country from that source. The task of rebuild-
ing Russia must be accomplished in the first line by
Russia herself, and in justice to the Communist leaders.
it must be said that they never hesitated to sacrifice pet
theories to practical tasks.
The industrial system of Soviet Russia was in-
augurated as one of "Workmen's Control," based on the
management of the workers in each plant through
Shop Stewards' Committees elected by them and on
the subordination of the "bourgeois" manager or ex-
pert to such committees. The workers were to have
complete self-government and democracy in production.
The immaturity of the Russian proletariat, its lack of
training, discipline and organizing capacity rendered the
new system utterly unworkable. It was abandoned
with summary dispatch and supplanted by a system of
state Socialism of an almost military character.
The shop committee was abolished, and the shop
placed under one-man management mostly represented
by a "specialist of the bourgeois school."
The universal duty to work was proclaimed and
industrial conscription introduced. To secure the ut-
most production the Soviet government not only re-
sorted to the well-known capitalist methods of stimu-
lation through varying wages, piece work, bonuses,
extra pay for over-time, etc., but established a minimum
124
FROM MARX TO LENIN
standard of production and a system of fines for falling
below the standard.
All these measures are, of course, considered in the
light of temporary institutions necessitated by the ex-
igencies of the acute struggles of the Soviet régime.
It is expected that work will become more voluntary,
compensation more equal, and management more demo-
cratic, with the progressive improvements in the in-
dustrial system, and the growing development of the
workers in skill, discipline and productivity.
The expectation may be well founded. But the
course of Soviet Russia's industrial and political poli-
cies once more goes to show the precarious nature of
any "leap" over a historical phase of development. The
Soviet régime of Russia undertook a jump beyond
the limits of physical possibility. It has had to pay a
heavy penalty for the levity of its youthful enthusiasm
and to take a fresh and harder start at more realistic
beginnings. For the future of Russia and for the
Socialist movement of the rest of the world the lesson
is of tremendous importance.
Chapter XI
EAST AND WEST
At this point in our discussion it may be useful to
attempt a general comparison between the situation and
problems of the Russian revolution and those that con-
front the Socialist movement in the West.
The Russian revolution from the very first was
confronted not only by the difficulties and struggles
which every proletarian revolution must anticipate, but
also by a complex of special problems arising from the
peculiar conditions of the country.
From the point of view of social and economic de-
velopment it was a premature birth. It produced what
Bukharin terms "a lower type."
The "inferiority" of the Russian revolution does not
consist in the fact that it has failed to establish a
Socialist or Communist order in full bloom. A So-
cialist revolution in the industrially advanced countries
of the West will also not mean the immediate advent
of Socialism. As in the case of Russia it can only
be the starting point for a systematic realization of the
Socialist program. But the concrete tasks of such a
revolution will of necessity differ from those which
confront Russia.
125
126
FROM MARX TO LENIN
While the latter starts with a system of industries,
largely socialized but entirely backward, the former
will begin with a highly organized industrial order
developed under individual ownership. The Russian
problem is to build up the socialized industries as fast
as possible. The problem of the proletarian revolutions
in the West will be to transfer the industries into com-
mon ownership with little or no damage to their highly
organized and finely adjusted mechanism and functions.
It seemed comparatively easy to abolish the private
ownership of the few and scattered Russian industrial
concerns by summary revolutionary decree, though
even there the task of maintaining their efficiency under
the sudden change proved vastly more difficult. In the
countries of modern type, in which large-scale industry
is the life nerve of the people, the process of transition
from private to communal ownership must necessarily
be more deliberate and cautious. Modern Socialism has
never contemplated the summary socialization of the
industries immediately after the proletarian revolution.
As far back as 1848, Marx and Engels (in the Com-
munist Manifesto) asserted that "the proletariat will
use its political supremacy to wrest by degrees all
capital from the bourgeoisie," and laid down an elabo-
rate program of measures for the gradual socialization
of industries in "the most advanced countries." At
that time the capitalist system of production was in
its infancy. It has since grown enormously in the
EAST AND WEST
127
complexity of its organization, and the task of Socialist
transformation has become infinitely more delicate.
On the other hand the socialization of agriculture of-
fers a more difficult problem to Soviet Russia than it
will present to the proletarian revolutions in the coun-
tries of the West, in which land culture engages a
much smaller portion of the population and is at once
better organized and of lesser importance in the na-
tional economy.
"There can be no doubt," admits Lenin, "that, in a
peasant country like Russia, Socialist reconstruction is
a very difficult problem. Beyond doubt it was com-
paratively easy to overthrow enemies like the Tsardom
or the power of the landowners. It was possible to
carry this out in the center in a few days and through-
out the country in a few weeks. But the problem we
are tackling now is, of its very nature, one which can
be solved only by long and stubborn effort. Here we
have to fight step by step and yard by yard in the battle
to secure the conquests of Soviet Russia and the com-
munal tilling of the soil. Under no circumstances, of
course, can such a change from small individual farm-
ing to communal tillage be completed all at once.” ¹
Lenin by no means overstates the difficulties of
the situation. The question of land socialization in
agricultural Russia is comparable to that of socializing
1 "The Land Revolution in Russia," London, 1919, pp. 8
and 9.
128
FROM MARX TO LENIN
the plants in the industrial West, and on the whole
it may be said that the problems are of inverse diffi-
culty and importance in the two different types of
civilization.
This cardinal difference between Russia and the
Western countries has forced the adoption of a differ-
ent economic policy by the Russian Revolution than
that to which the victorious working class in the more
advanced parts of the world will presumably have to
resort. The economic arrangements of Soviet Russia
must therefore, at least in part, be considered specifi-
cally Russian rather than general features of the pro-
letarian revolution.
Similarly the political institutions and measures of
the Soviet republic may largely be traced to the peculiar
feature of the Russian revolution that it was made.
and is being maintained by a proletariat which consti-
tutes but a small minority of the population. There is
no sound reason to believe that the working class of
the West, when it comes into power as a clear majority
of the whole people, will find it necessary or useful to
adopt the same contrivances and methods for holding
power: that it will be bound to inaugurate a soviet form
of government based on restricted and unequal fran-
chise and indirect representation, to apply methods of
political suppression and terror in any form, or at
least in the same form and degree as they have been
resorted to in Russia.
EAST AND WEST
129
With respect to the post-revolutionary program of
Socialism the Russian example can thus not be ac-
cepted as conclusive upon all countries and in all points.
The problems so far considered are furthermore only
such as arise from the inherent economic differences
between Russia and the Western countries, problems
that would survive even a Socialist revolution in the
latter countries. But we must not overlook the dif-
ference between the situation of the Russian Socialists
and their comrades in other countries which is created
by their political status to-day.
In Russia the revolution has been accomplished. In
other countries it is yet to come. In one case Socialism
appears as a dominant state power, in the other as a
struggling opposition movement. It is obvious that
the two situations present radical differences in the
immediate and practical tasks which they impose.
In Russia the Socialists are in possession of the
powers of government and their immediate political
task is to maintain themselves in power. In the West-
ern countries the bourgeoisie is in political control,
and the immediate political task of the workers is to
wrest the power from the hands of their opponents.
And this task is by no means as simple as it appeared
for a time to large sections of the international Socialist
movement and particularly to the Communists of
Russia.
130
FROM MARX TO LENIN
:
Normally the western countries of Europe are much
better prepared for a proletarian revolution than Rus-
sia was in 1917. Germany, Austria, England, France,
Italy, Belgium, Sweden, Holland, and Denmark have
reached varying, but on the whole high, degrees of
capitalist development with large class-conscious and
well organized proletarian populations. Objectively
they may thus be considered ripe for working-class
political rule. The so-called subjective factors, i. e.,
the political demoralization of the bourgeoisie and the
determination, readiness and preparedness of the
workers to assume power, are for the moment lacking.
The revolutionary spirit which flared up immediately
before and after the conclusion of the war and pro-
duced the several Socialist and. semi-Socialist revolu-
tions and semi-revolutions, has for the time being been
repressed by the crushing effects of the defeat in the
Central countries, the heavy atmosphere of jingoism in
some of the Entente countries, and principally by the
economic misery of the world; the general condition of
apathy and reaction in the western world has been
further intensified by the disunion among and between
the Socialists of the different countries.
The experience of the Russian revolution has also
served to make the workers of Europe more cautious.
The continuous war of the international capitalist
powers against the workers' and peasants' republic at
a time when the whole world seemed exhausted by
war, and the relentless starvation blockade maintained
EAST AND WEST
131
without a pretense of justification in international law,
were concrete indications of the length to which the
capitalist world will go in its efforts to suppress pro-
letarian revolutions. Russia could hold out physically
against the combined hostile powers of Europe and
America because it is self-contained at least in the
matter of food. The vast majority of the population,
living in the villages, had enough to eat at all times; the
town population suffered but did not starve. There
is no country in western Europe that would be equally
able to withstand such a siege. Not only that the
countries are smaller and less self-sufficient by nature,
but the very fact of their higher industrial develop-
ment renders them more dependent upon each other for
their daily subsistence. The perfection of the capi-
talist system of production has led to an international
division of labor. Each modern country is specialized
in a comparatively narrow range of industries, and
depends upon other countries for the purchase of some
of its products and the supply of some of its neces-
saries. No industrial country of western Europe pro-
duces more than a mere fraction of its own food. If a
proletarian régime should be established in England or
France or Italy, it could be completely starved out by
a general capitalist blockade within a few months, if
not weeks. A Socialist revolution in the countries of
Western Europe would thus face a very precarious.
career unless it be reinforced by a simultaneous or
nearly simultaneous rising in one or more additional
countries, who together could form a tolerably com-
132
FROM MARX TO LENIN
plete economic world unit; or unless the Socialist move-
ment in the other countries be so strong and de-
termined as to prevent the capitalist governments from
interfering with the new Socialist republic.
The prime task of the Socialist movement in these
countries, therefore, is to revive and stimulate the spirit
of revolutionary enthusiasm among the workers, to
consolidate, train and prepare their own ranks for the
decisive battle, and above all, to strengthen the bonds
of solidarity and co-operation among the Socialists of
the interdependent countries. For the Socialist move-
ment in countries like the United States, in which the
physical basis for the Socialist transformation is fully
developed, but the working class is ludicrously imma-
ture politically and intellectually, the immediate need
is for primary Socialist education.
These concrete tasks of Western Socialism pre-
suppose liberty of propaganda, organization and politi-
cal action. Without them a successful movement of
the great working-class masses in modern countries is
almost unthinkable. We are thus led to the practical
distinction between democracy as an abstract ideal and
what Kautsky terms Democracy as a method. What-
ever may be thought of the operation and effects of a
democratic form of government in a class state, the
concrete democratic institutions, the liberty of the press,
speech and meeting, the right of organization and the
franchise, are practically indispensable to the conduct
of a large-scale class struggle in the industrial and
EAST AND WEST
133
political field. To the extent to which these institu-
tions are curtailed by capitalist government, the So-
cialist propaganda is hampered. Nothing therefore is
more reactionary in practice than the alleged super-
revolutionary attitude of indifference or contempt for
the "bourgeois-democratic" institutions as weapons in
the fight of Socialism.
On this point again we are confronted by a vital
difference between the policies of Socialist Russia and
the Socialists of the West. Bukharin explains and
illustrates this difference in his own delightfully frank,
almost naive style. Says he:
"Another question must be put to us: Why did not
the Bolsheviki talk about the abrogation of all the
liberties of the bourgeoisie before? Why did they for-
merly themselves favor a bourgeois-democratic repub-
lic? Why did they formerly declare themselves in
favor of the Constituent Assembly and say nothing of
depriving the bourgeois of the right to vote? In a
word, why have they now changed their program in
regard to these questions?
"Very simply answered. The working class did not
as yet possess the strength to go right out and storm
the bourgeois fortress. It required preparation, a
chance to collect its forces, the enlightenment of the
masses, organization.
"It required, for example, the freedom of the press
of the workers-its own press, not that belonging to
134
FROM MARX TO LENIN
the masters. But it could not come to the capitalists
and their government and state such a demand as,
'Messrs. Capitalists, shut down your press and publish
my newspapers, workers' newspapers.' The working
class would only have been ridiculed, for it is ridiculous
to make such a demand of the capitalist; that would
be asking him to cut his own throat. Such demands
can be made only when the fight is about to be carried
into the enemy's country. Therefore the working class
said (and our party also said) 'Three cheers for the
freedom of the press (the whole press, including the
press of the bourgeoisie)! Or another example: It
is plain that the employers' associations-those that
force the workers out into the street, keep blacklists,
etc.—are a great menace to the workers. But the
working class could not step up and say, 'Close down
your associations and open ours.' That implies break-
ing the power of capitalism. For this there was not
sufficient strength. Hence our party said at that time:
'We demand freedom of association (in general, not
only for the workers):
"Now the times are changed. There is no longer
any necessity for a painful preparation for the conflict;
we are now living in the period following the storm,
following the first great victory over the bourgeoisie.
Now the working class has set itself another task-to
crush once and for all the resistance of the bour-
geoisie.' (Italics mine.)
2
2 "Program of the Communists," pages 29 and 30.
EAST AND WEST
135
The Socialist movement outside of Russia is still
under the "necessity for a painful preparation for the
conflict." According to Bukharin it still must proffer
"Three cheers for the freedom of the press" (including
the press of the bourgeoisie) and "demand the freedom.
of association" (for all classes). In short, it must
fight for the maintenance and extension of democratic
institutions. But would it not be crediting the bour-
geoisie with a greater degree of generosity or stupidity
than it possesses, to expect that it will accede to the
Socialist demands for freedom of the press and asso-
ciation, if such demands are coupled with the cheerful
assurance that when the "times change" and the work-
ing-class gains political power, it will use it to "crush
once and for all" these same liberties of the bourgeoisie,
as Bukharin clearly implies?
To paraphrase his own illustration, would it be quite
rational to address the capitalist governments with a
proposition like this: "Messrs. Capitalists, accord us
full liberty of press, speech, meeting, association, vot-
ing, etc., so that we may freely conduct our struggle for
your overthrow, and when we have succeeded through
the instruments you have placed in our hands, we
will use our victory to deprive you of all civil and po-
litical liberties?"
The Socialist demand upon the bourgeois state for
the maintenance of democratic institutions will be ef-
fective and consistent only if it proceeds from the
theory that a Socialist state will also tolerate political
136
FROM MARX TO LENIN
opposition in all forms of normal propaganda and
peaceful activity. A Socialist government will, of
course, always maintain the right to suppress active
counter-revolutionary plots aiming at its violent over-
throw in the same way as a bourgeois government will
always claim and exercise the right of suppressing
active revolutionary plots for the overthrow of its
rule.
Another phase of the same question is presented by
the Bolshevist advocacy of "illegal work" in connec-
tion with the Socialist propaganda. The Platform-
Resolution of the Communist International formulates
the principle in the following language:
"In a country where the bourgeoisie, or the counter-
revolutionary Social-Democracy is in power, the Com-
munist Party must learn to coordinate its legal work
with illegal work, and the legal work must always
be under the effective control of the illegal party."
(Italics mine.) The same theory occurs again and
again in the writings of Lenin and other Bolshevist
authorities.
Social movements based on material interests and
the ideas and ideals springing from such movements
cannot be suppressed by physical force. This is almost
axiomatic. If a Socialist or any other revolutionary
movement will not be allowed to carry on its propa-
ganda openly and within the law, it will find means to
work secretly and against the law. But the method
of secret and underground propaganda must always
EAST AND WEST
137
remain inadequate to meet the manifold requirements
of the class struggle in an advanced country. Even
with their large daily press and own publishing houses;
their meeting halls and public propaganda; their pow-
erful unions, co-operatives and political organizations,
their strikes, demonstrations and electoral campaigns,
the modern Socialist and labor movements have a
very difficult stand against the superior bourgeois
facilities for influencing the masses of the people.
What effect can the clandestine publication and meager
distribution of a few revolutionary leaflets or publica-
tions or the holding of a few secret meetings be ex-
pected to have upon the titanic struggles of modern
Socialism, in which millions upon millions of workers
are pitched against the tremendous organized power
of international capital?
The only notable instances in the history of modern
Socialism in which "illegal" work was resorted to,
were those in Russia under the Tsar and in Germany
under Bismarck. In both cases the tactics of secrecy
were forced upon the movement by absolute prohibition
of open activities. In Russia the underground propa-
ganda of Socialism, conducted through several decades
with marvelous ingenuity and untold sacrifices, never
reached more than a mere fringe of the population.
In Germany during the anti-Socialist laws the Social
Democrats had their parliamentary elections as peri-
odical gathering points and Parliament itself as a
public forum, and they gained strength largely through
138
FROM MARX TO LENIN
these instruments. Summing up the experience of this
period Frederick Engels remarks in what may be con-
sidered his political Testament:
"And thus it happened that the bourgeoisie and the
government came to a pass where they feared the law-
ful activity of the workers' party far more than its
unlawful activity; they dreaded the result of an elec-
tion more than those of rebellion.” ³
4
The Russian Communists, of course, also do not
prefer illegal methods on principle. But their insistent
emphasis upon the necessity of "co-ordinating" legal
with illegal work tends to create the impression that
both are of equal importance and efficiency, and to
weaken the struggle for the maintenance of the right
of open public propaganda.
The subordination of legal work (when illegal work
also becomes necessary) to the "effective control of
the illegal party," would furthermore reduce the So-..
cialist parties to the position of conspiratory organiza-
tions, and turn them back to the days of Blanquism,
when it was still considered possible to have proletarian
revolutions carried out "by small conscious minorities
at the head of the unconscious masses."
3 "After Fifty Years."
4 Although some of their expressions would almost seem
to convey that notion. Thus Lenin ("The Collapse of Sec-
ond International," page 52) charges that it was the pos-
sibility of acting within the law that reared "opportunism"
within the labor parties of the period of the second Inter-
national.
Chapter XII
THE SOCIALIST INTERNATIONAL
The Russian Revolution is beyond doubt the greatest
event in the history of Socialism. Its advent has pro-
foundly modified the situation and outlook of the move-
ment in all countries. While the social and political
institutions and the practical policies which it has
evolved need not be accepted as models for all future
proletarian revolutions, and while the new theoretical
doctrines which its authors have formulated cannot
claim general and uniform applicability, the Russian
Revolution has forced a critical re-examination of the
theoretical bases of the movement, a decided shifting
of emphasis in its methods and a radical regrouping of
its forces.
The principal contribution of Soviet Russia has been,
to borrow a pithy expression from Marx, "its own
working existence." The fact of the workers' and
peasants' republic in the largest country of Europe
has forever destroyed the superstitions and unreasoning
belief that the capitalist order of society is unalterable
and eternal. With one blow it has transferred the
Socialist ideal from the abstract and speculative realms
of Utopia to the solid ground of reality.
139
140
FROM MARX TO LENIN
Prior to the Russian revolution the Socialist move-
ment of most countries of Europe was engaged in
the task of training and educating the working classes
in the general idea of social revolution without a well
defined purpose of securing the governments of their
own countries in their own day. It was like the routine
work of drilling a regular army in times of peace with-
out reference to a concrete impending war. The vast
organizations of Socialism and labor were adjusted to
such peace-time activities, and when the crisis came a
number of the leaders and large portions of the masses
were unable to adapt themselves to the new situation.
They were passed over by the active revolutionary
struggles, just as peace-time generals are discarded and
peace-time armies reorganized upon the outbreak of
actual hostilities. It is this inevitable development.
that accounts largely for the "betrayal" of the Second
International.
The Russian Revolution has suddenly ushered in a
new era in the Socialist movement of the world-the
era of direct efforts for the practical realization of the
Socialist program.
It was the example of Soviet
Russia that made possible the attempted Socialist
régimes in Hungary and Finland, and to a minor ex-
tent in Germany and Austria. And while these first
attempts have failed and the revolutionary wave has
been succeeded by a state of reaction, the check can
only be of a temporary nature. As soon as the pre-
vailing condition of economic depression and the moral
THE SOCIALIST INTERNATIONAL
141
and political aftermath of the war will ease up to an
appreciable extent, the workers will undoubtedly re-
organize their forces and return to the attack.
In the more advanced countries of Europe the new
economic and political conditions have created a po-
tential "revolutionary situation"; the direct objective of
the next Socialist attack in any of them may be the
immediate conquest of the powers of government. The
spirit and tempo of such renewed movements and their
eventual success or failure will inevitably be influenced
to a large extent by developments in Soviet Russia.
For no matter how justly the conditions of Russia
and the special kind of Socialism produced by them
may be differentiated from the conditions in the west
and the type of Socialism which is expected to be reared
on their foundations, the world at large will invariably
and summarily sweep aside all such distinctions. To
the masses of workers and non-workers Soviet Russia
is and always will be a practical demonstration of So-
cialism at work, and the prototype of all Socialist gov-
ernments. The successes of the Russian struggle will
inspire and stimulate the Socialist movement of all
countries. Her failures will be direct set-backs to the
whole of international Socialism.
The workers of Europe, moreover, will need the sup-
port of Soviet Russia after their accession to power
even more than her cooperation in the period of
struggle for political supremacy. Every new Socialist
republic in Europe will, as suggested in the preceding
142
FROM MARX TO LENIN
chapter, depend for its safety most directly upon the
co-existence of a Socialist régime or at least of a
potent Socialist influence in one or more adjacent coun-
tries. But the active assistance of a powerful country
like Russia will be of inestimable value in its struggles
against foreign capitalist attacks.
A whole-hearted support of Soviet Russia by the
advanced workers everywhere is thus dictated not only
by their natural sentimental attachment for the first
Socialist republic, but also by their direct class interests.
On the other hand, the destiny of Soviet Russia is
indissolubly linked with the success or failure of the
Socialist movement beyond her boundaries. So long as
Russia will remain the only Socialist country in the
world, it will not cease to be the target of capitalist
attacks, and every modus vivendi which it may estab-
lish with foreign powers will be extremely precarious.
Only when additional Socialist republics will be se-
curely established in Europe, can international capital-
ism be expected to reconcile itself to the new order.
Until the advent of such governments the capitalist
classes of the most powerful countries will inevitably
be tempted to renew armed hostilities on every pro-
pitious occasion, unless they will be deterred from
such attempts by the presence in their own countries
of strong and determined organizations of labor in
known sympathy with the Soviet Republic.
THE SOCIALIST INTERNATIONAL
143
At no time did the Socialist movement stand in
greater need of harmonious cooperation of all its parts
and at no time was it more disrupted than in this
critical period of its history. The most urgent and im-
mediate task before the Socialists of the world is to
rebuild an effective international organization, and that
task calls for the utmost sagacity and broad-minded
statesmanship within the movement.
Responding to the needs of the present conditions of
the Socialist movement the new International must be
primarily an organization of action, just as the First
International was largely one of discussion and the
Second of propaganda and organization in conformity
with the requirements in the respective periods of their
activities. The tests of membership in the new inter-
national body should accordingly be more stringent than
those laid down by its percursors. They must include
an absolute assurance of active support of Soviet Rus-
sia and all other Socialist governments that may here-
after be established and of consistent opposition to any
attacks against them on the part of the capitalist gov-
ernments. They may impose a definite inhibition of
Socialist participation in bourgeois governments, and
exact a greater degree of practical conformity with
decisions on international policies and tactics than the
Second International did.
But with the establishment of clear tests in the gen-
eral policies of an international character, a rational
world-organization of modern Socialism must allow
144
FROM MARX TO LENIN
its affiliated parties at least the same independence in
the determination of their national tactics, form of
organization and methods of struggle as the Second
International did. In the period of the latter the con-
ditions and tasks of the Socialist movement of the
various countries differed in degree rather than in
substance. Strong or weak, old or new, they were all
engaged in propagandistic activities and industrial and
political struggles along practically uniform lines. It
was conceivably possible, though never attempted, to
formulate a general code of tactics for all of them.
The war and the revolutions have developed new
and radical divergencies in the Socialist movement of
the different countries. To-day the Socialist Party is
the ruling political party in Russia, a party deposed
from power in Hungary and Finland, a plurality party
in the several leading countries of the European con-
tinent, a weak minority party in a highly developed
capitalist state, as in England and America, or an em-
bryonic party of vague outlines, as in the countries of
the far East. To attempt to cast all these divergent
movements into one mould of program, methods and
organization, or to direct their activities from one cen-
ter is to sacrifice all realities to a doctrinaire scheme.
The new Socialist International furthermore must
be international as well as Socialistic, international in
form and function as well as in aspirations. It must
not be dominated by the movement of one country and
must serve the interests of all countries alike. The
THE SOCIALIST INTERNATIONAL
145
Second International was largely ruled by the German.
Social Democracy, and when the latter surrendered on
August 4th, 1914, the whole international structure of
Socialism collapsed. The new International must not
lean too heavily on Russia if it is to be built on more
solid foundations than its predecessor. Just because
of the far-reaching effects of the Russian example.
upon the workers of the whole world, the Socialists
of that country must treat their power as a trust for
the Socialist movement of all countries. They must
shape their policies with reference to these effects and
in the largest possible measure in consultation and
active cooperation with the militant working class of
all countries.
The Russian Communists have had an exceptional
opportunity to lead in the re-formation of the Inter-
national of Socialism, but have lamentably failed to
rise to it. The Communist International, which has
been created under their inspiration, falls short in all
substantial requirements as an effective instrument in
the modern world struggles of the working class. As
at present constituted and managed, it is not interna-
tional but sectional and sectarian. It is essentially
Russian in structure, conception and program.
Its permanent seat is in Russia, its principal officials
are Russian, and its powerful Executive Committee
is dominated by Russians. Out of a total membership
of twenty, which go to make up the latter body, five
are representatives of the Communist Party of Russia
146
FROM MARX TO LENIN
·
(with five or more additional "alternates"), the re-
maining fifteen seats are apportioned among all other
countries, each receiving one, regardless of size or im-
portance. If it is taken into account that the latter
include several members with practically imaginary
constituencies, that the whole work of the Executive
Committee is virtually financed by Russia, and that
the majority of its Bureau or "Presidium," the every-
day working body, is composed of Russians, it must be
realized that the Communist International represents
little more than the international dictatorship of the
Communist Party of Russia. The reports of all pro-
ceedings of its Executive Committee and Congresses
show how thoroughly this Russian rule asserts itself
in actual operation.
The absolute Russian control of the Communist
International is particularly unhealthy because of the
fact that the Russian proletariat is a ruling class.
The Socialist International is in the first instance
a fighting organization of revolutionary opposition.
parties united in the common struggle against the
ruling capitalist classes of the world. The political
parties of the bourgeoisie need no international organ-
ization for the protection of their general class inter-
ests.
The governments take care of that through
established diplomatic channels or their League of
Nations. Similarly when the Socialist régime will have
conquered the greater part of the world the militant
Socialist International will naturally be superseded by
THE SOCIALIST INTERNATIONAL
147
an international federation of Socialist governments.
In the transitory period when the Socialist movement
contains one or more parties in power amidst an or-
ganization of minority opposition-parties, the position
of the former will be extraordinarily delicate, as it will
not always prove an easy task to divorce their inter-
national Socialist policies from the practical politics
of the Foreign Office of their government.
I have had occasion to point out this danger in the
attitude of the Communist International towards the
revolutionary movements of the Far East. A some-
what similar danger seems to lurk in its relations with
the Socialist movements of Europe and America.
The hope of an immediately impending world revo-
lution, which seemed so essential to the maintenance
of Soviet Russia, and was at the bottom of her do-
mestic and foreign policies, also inspired the organiza-
tion and program of the Communist International. But
while the Bolshevist authorities have definitely aban-
doned the hope and theory for home consumption, they
cling to it with strange tenacity in their international
program. The Platform-Resolution of the Second
Congress of the Communist International still views.
the world as on the eve of a general proletarian revo-
lution, and the famous twenty-one "Conditions of
Affiliation" represent a plan of battle issued by ant
international General Staff.
"The world proletariat is on the eve of decisive
battles," proclaims the Platform-Resolution. "We are
148
FROM MARX TO LENIN
living through an epoch of direct civil wars. But the
decisive hour is near. In almost all the countries where
there is a considerable labor movement the working
class will have before it in the immediate future a
series of fierce encounters.
Now more than ever does the working class need
a solidified organization. The working class must pre-
pare ceaselessly for the coming decisive struggle with-
out losing a single hour of the precious time that
remains." (Italics mine.)
In the twenty-one Conditions the assertion is made
even more pointedly: "The class struggle in almost
every country of Europe and America is entering upon
the phase of civil war." (Italics mine.)
If words mean anything these statements convey the
assertion that the working classes are arrayed for a
decisive armed contest for the immediate conquest of
political powers in almost every country of Europe and
America, i. e., in the United States and Canada as well
as in the Central and South American republics; and
it is on this fantastic assumption that the scheme of
organization of Communist International is based.
“À la guerre comme à la guerre." Civil war calls for
military tactics. "The Communist International till
now was primarily an organ of propaganda and agi-
tation. The Communist International now becomes a
militant organization, which will have to assume imme-
diate direction of the movement in the various coun-
THE SOCIALIST INTERNATIONAL
149
tries." (Italics mine.) Zinovieff announces ¹ and the
Conditions of Affiliation thus formulate the logical
application of the doctrine:
"At the present time of acute civil war the Com-
munist Party will be able fully to do its duty only
when it is organized in a sufficiently thorough way,
when it possesses an iron discipline, and when its party
center enjoys the confidence of the members of the
party, who are to endow this center with complete
power, authority and ample rights."
The phrase about "iron discipline" is by no means
mere rhetoric. The "Conditions of Affiliation" impose
upon the international Communist fraternity a code of
rules and regulations which bears a close resemblance
not only to the ordinary military regulations but also
to the "Letter on Obedience" of the ingenious founder
of the Jesuit Order. All Communist parties are di-
rected to make periodical "clearances" of their members
in order to rid them of all "petty bourgeois elements";
they are also bound to "inspect the personnel of their
parliamentary representatives and to remove all un-
reliable elements therefrom." The entire party press
must be edited by "reliable Communists" under the
strict supervision of the party authorities, and all na-
tional platforms or programs must be submitted for
confirmation to the next Congress of the Communist
International or its Executive Committee.
1 At the second congress of the Communist International.
150
FROM MARX TO LENIN
To the same general spirit of St. Ignatius of Loyola
is also to be traced the intolerance of criticism, the
reglementation of opinion within the Socialist move-
ment. All Socialists who fail to subscribe to every
article of the neo-Communist creed are branded as
"traitors" and "agents of the capitalist class," and
parties desiring to affiliate with the Communist Inter-
national are warned of the necessity "of a complete
and absolute rupture with reformism and the policy
of the 'centrists'," and of advocating such a rupture
"among the widest circles of the party membership."
To the Socialist movement of the world the Com-
munist International has brought not peace but the
sword. At a time when the movement, weakened and
disrupted by the war, stands most in need of recon-
struction and re-union, it offers it a bigoted policy of
rupture and expulsion.
And the new policy is working to perfection. Within
the first two years of the energetic activities of the
Communist International the Socialist movement of
every country in the world was successfully "ruptured."
What the Communists of Russia have contributed
to the Socialist movement of the world by the inspira-
tion of their soviet republic, they have more than offset
by the disruptive activities of their International. The
Communist International as at present constituted may
be justly defined as the instrument with which Soviet
Russia frustrates its own effectiveness as a factor in
the proletarian world revolution.
THE SOCIALIST INTERNATIONAL
151
On the other hand, all other attempts to recreate a
virile International of Socialism have so far failed.
The process can evidently not be forced. It must wait
upon the healing hand of time, and to the optimistic
and hopeful the working of the hand is already dis-
cernible.
The Communist re-orientation inside of Russia is in
the long run bound to reflect itself upon the interna-
tional Socialist movement.
With the abatement of foreign capitalist warfare
upon the workers' republic and the definite defeat of
all counter-revolutionary movements within the coun-
try, Soviet Russia will inevitably abandon the policy
of terror and suppression, and settle down to the con-
structive tasks of building up her economic and cul-
tural systems. This task will enlist the wholehearted
support of the Russian Socialists of all shades and lead
to co-operation in practical work.
Similarly, the resumption of active revolutionary
struggles in the countries of the West may be expected
to re-unite the Socialist factions in those countries,
and union at home will infallibly lead to international
union.
After the dissolution of the First International it
took about fifteen years to prepare the ground for the
creation of the Second. But events move much faster
in our agitated times. The revival of the Socialist
International may be nearer than outward appearances
indicate.
INDEX
Agrarian Program of Socialism, 40
All Russian Congress of Soviets, 81, 85, 86, 88
Anglo-Russian Trade Agreement, 121
"Apparatus of the state," defined, 77, 79
Austria, revolution in, 98
Bakunin, Michael, 94
Bauer, Otto, 87
Benoist, Charles, 52
Bentham, Jeremy, 52
Bernstein, Edward, 90
Blanquism, 33, 138
Blockade of Soviet Russia, 130
of other Socialist Republics, 131
Brailsford, H. N., 122
Bukharin, N., 38-40, 70, 82, 94, 109, 116, 117
Burgess, J. W., 52
Central Executive Committee of Soviets, 81, 85
Class Struggle, defined, 11-14
present state of, 130
Cole, G. D. H., 74
Commune-See Paris Commune
Communist International, 145
Communist Manifesto, 10-15-30, 61, 126
Communist Party of Russia, 63
make up, 63
functions, 66, 68
Concentration of Capital, 13
Conditions of Affiliation with Communist International,
147
Council of People's Commissars, 81, 85, 120
Democracy, defined, 57
"as a method," 132
Dictatorship, definition of, 55, 57
Dictatorship of the Proletariat, 48, 54, 68, 107
Disfranchisement of the Bourgeoisie, 82
Divisions of functions in modern Parliaments, 75, 76
Ebert, Friedrich, 98
Economic Determinism, 6-11
Election to Soviets, 81
Engels, Frederick, in After Fifty Years, 138
Herrn Eugen Dührings' Umwälzung der Wissenschaften,
52, 54
Internationales aus dem Volkstaat, 20-37
Finland, Red Guard of, 102
Provisional Socialist Government of, 97
Revolution in, 96
White Guard of, 102
White Terror in, 102
Force as a factor in proletarian revolution, 96
Foreign concessions of Soviet Russia, 120
Foreign policy of Soviet Russia, 119
Geographic Constituencies, 74
Giddings, Franklin H., 52
Guild Socialism, 78
"Illegal work" in Socialist propaganda, 136
International, 139
First, 143
Second, 6, 143, 145
Communist, 145
New Socialist, 143
Kabaktchieff, Bulgarian delegate to Communist Inter-
national, 95
Kameneff, L., 32, 92
Karolyi, 99
Kautsky, Karl, 43, 55, 56, 83, 90, 91, 113, 132
Lenin, Nicholai, in Collapse of the Second International,
138
Land Revolution in Russia, 46, 127
Left-Wing Communism, 46
Letter to American Workingmen, 72
The Dictatorship of the Proletariat, 43, 58
The Proletarian Revolution, 59, 83, 109, 113
The State and Revolution, 60, 91, 94
Towards Soviets, 32
His Theory of Soviet Revolutions, 4, 114
Leroy-Beaulieu, 52
Lissagaray, Historian of the Paris Commune, 101
Martoff, 122
Marx, Karl, in À Propos d'Unitè, 48
Capital, 4, 16, 115
Civil War in France, 35, 40, 77, 80, 83, 101-102
Critique of Political Economy, 11
Revolution and Counter Revolution in France, 7, 30
Marx, Letter on Russia, 25
Marx and Engels on Russia, 20
Marxian Law of Economic Development, 10, 12
"Middle-class" revolutions as condition precedent to So-
cialist revolution, 30
Modification of Bolshevist Policies, 110
Theories, 114
"Narodnichestvo," an early school of Russian Socialism, 21
New Yorker Volkzeitung, 120
Occupational representation, 77, 84
Paris Commune, 33, 34, 99, 100, 102
Parliament, Structure and Features, 73, 74
Division of Functions, 75, 76
Proposed Socialist modifications of, 80
Paul, Eden and Cedar, 54
Platform-Resolution of the Communist International, 63,
70, 95, 136, 147
Plekhanoff, George, 22, 26
Postgate, I. R. W., 20
Proletariat, definition of, 61
Radeck, Karl, 112, 119, 122
Reed, John, 98
Revolution in Austria, 98
in Finland, 96
in Germany, 98
in Hungary, 99, 105
Russell, Bertrand, 66
Russia, Land Socialization, 41, 44, 129
Red Army, 104
self-sufficiency, 129, 131
socialization of industry, 104, 126
Russian revolution, 8, 9
conditions of, 28
nature of, 29
Scheidemann, Philip, 98
"Semi-Proletariat," 62
Socialist International, functions of, 144
need for, 143
Socialist movement, stages of development of, 92, 93
Social Parliament, 78, 79
Socialist revolution, definitions of, 10, 33, 49, 90
Socialist State, 51, 57
"Soviet Russia," magazine, 71, 119
Soviet System of elections, 81
State, definition of, 51
Terror, 68
Thiers, 99
Tkachoff, Peter N., 22, 117
Tokoi, Oscar, 96-97
Trade Agreements of Soviet Russia, 120
"Transitional state," defined, 50, 57
Trotzky, Leo, 111
Universal Suffrage, 83
Upper House of Parliament, 74, 75
Vanderlip, Washington D., 120
Village Community, 21, 28
Violence, 90
Webb, Sidney and Beatrice, 78
White Terror, 106, 107
"Will of the People," Russian Socialist organization, 26
World revolution, 111
Zinoviev, G., 64, 65, 66, 71, 94, 149
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