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Proletarian Dictatorship and Terrorism

BY Karl Radek

THE MARXIAN EDUCATIONAL SOCIETY

5941 JOS. C A M P A U A V E., D E TR O I T, MICH.

Froieyrian Diciaiorsiiip . and Terrorism

BY Karl Radek

^^

Translated by P. LA VIN

The Marxian Educational Society

5941 Jos. Campau Ave., Detroit, Mich.

COPYRIGHT APPLIED FOR MARXIAN EDUCATIONAL SOCIETY

All rights re.served.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS:

i

Page

Foreword 7

Chapter I — Karl Kautsky's Autumn offensive against

Soviet Russia 13

Chapter II — The Terror of the Jacobins 16

Chapter III — The Model Dictatorship 22

Chapter IV — The Softening Influence of Democracy

on Manners 31

Chapter V — The Russian Sodom and Gomorrha 37

Chapter VI — Either Or 53

PCLlTlClLiciSjCE

FOREWORD.

It has been suggested that when one is confronted with that unlovely spectacle, the revolutionary turned cautious, one should be very chary of attributing unworthy motives to him in explanation of the change, as the case of the seeming apostate is really one that calls for pathological investigation. An obvious objection to this view is that if the perversion is due to the operation of some as yet undiscovered disease, the peculiar malady generally strikes its victim at a time when he has just been made the recipient of some signal favor by his (capitalist) government. However, in these days of disillusion- ments, one is sometimes tempted to believe that there may be some truth in the theory. The experience that Socialists had of seeing a number of men whom they had respected and looked up to as leaders coming out, one after another, in support of the late war, was calculated to damp considerably their faith in human nature. There is, to be sure, the consolation that the plague of Intellectuals that has for so many years afflicted the Socialist movement in Great Britain and other advanced capitalist countries, is likely to find its sphere of operations severely restricted in a time of future crisis. The shameful desertion of the principles professed during periods of com- parative calm by the gentlemen who were kind enough to come down from their high estate and "lead" us, was too flagrant to escape the notice of even the least observant. (One of these champions of the proletariat, Mr. H. M. Hynd- man, used to be very fond of telling us that the phenomenon of superior people like himself coming down to direct the movement of the workers, was one that was common through- out history.) The case of the hterary Intellectuals — men who had, after years of efifort, won a "public" they were determined to keep, no matter how great the sacrifice of prin-

8

ciple involved — was, from the nature of their profession, the most notorious. Britain, which had led the way in so many departments of human activity, has upheld its pioneer tradi- tion by producing the classic example of literary treachery^ — • Mr. George Bernard Shaw. (If any reader objects that Mr. Shaw is an Irishman, the reply is that he considers himself an Englishman. England is his spiritual — and financial — home.) This man, who makes his living by trading on the ignorance and the credulity of the British people, wrote a book (a new edition of which appeared shortly before the war broke out) containing one of the most trenchant expos- ures of Imperialism and militarism ever penned — this man appeared as a supporter of an Empire, the course of whose history has been aptly described as "one reeking path of in- famies," in what was perhaps tlie most criminal of all its criminal wafs. To realize the depth of infamy reached by him and others of his type who still wish to compel subject nations to remain in the British Empire, it is only necessary to refer to the treatment meted out by that Empire's rulers to the people of Ireland. The details here given may have the efifect of turning the attention of some pacifist propagandists from the violent tactics of the Russian Government, and directing it to the methods of a terrorist governing gang whose ferocity has seldom, if ever, been equalled within the historical period, and whose only possible rivals in the dis- graceful competition of atrocities would appear to be their cousins who rule the mighty Empire camouflaged under the title of the United States of America.

Erom May to December, 1916, 38 Irish citizens were mur- dered, 1,949 deported, 3,226 arrested, 119 court martialed and 160 sentenced. In the same ])eriod 13 newspapers were suppressed. In 1917 there were 7 murders, 24 deportations, 18 armed assaults on civilians. 349 arrests. — 38 court-mar- tialed, 269 sentences. Three newspapers were suppressed.

In 1918 six people were murdered, 91 deported, 1,107 ar- rested, 973 sentenced, 62 court-martialed, and 81 assaulted

by armed assailants. The number of newspapers suppressed was 12.

In the two years 1917 and 1918 there were 271 armed raids on private houses.

These figures, culled from the columns of a censored Press, are necessarily incomplete.

During all this time flic Irish people maintained an attitude of passive resistance. No attacks zuere made by them upon the bauds of ruffians called by Government apologists "the armed forces of the Crotvn."

In 1919 there were 13,782 armed raids on private houses, 959 arrests for political offenses, 636 cf those arrested being sentenced, 209 courts-martial of civilians, 20 deportations, 335 proclamations suppressing meetings, fairs and markets, 476 armed attacks on unarmed gatheringijs and individuals, 8 murders of civilians, and 25 suppressions of newspapers.

In 1920, 185 Irish citizens were murdered, and 417 were wounded. These figures do not include casualties in action, civilian casualties arising accidentally from conflicts between British and Republican troops, or these sustained in the po- groms in North-East Ulster.

Speaking at Widnes in December of this year Mr. Arthur Henderson, M. P.. one of the Labor tools of the British Gov- ernment, said : "It is actually true to say that life ivas safer in Brussels during the German occupation than it is nozv in Dublin, Cork, or Derry. No man is safe, and even women and children run risks of being shot in the streets."

From 1st of January to 18th of June, 1921, 60 men, 5 women, and 17 children were murdered by reckless and indiscriminate firing, and 144 men, 33 women, and 23 children were wounded. In the same period 131 men were assassinated in or near their homes o» whilst in custody, and 24 Irish prisoners of war were executed. Raids, arrests, imprison- ments and suppressions have been carried out on such a large

10

scale that even approximately accurate computation is im- possible. According to British official figures more than 3,200 Irishmen are interned — all without trial. About 1,500 others are serving sentences of penal servitude or hard labor, and about 1,000 are in custody awaiting trial or interment. Armed raids on private houses are of daily occurrence.

In brief reference to destruction of property may close this fearful record, which, with all its horror, can convey but a faint idea of the torture inflicted upon the brave Irish people. Some of the houses were selected for destruction because their occupants had "lent moral support to the rebel cause !" We shall confine ourselves to the period from Janu- ary to May of this year. The figures include buildings damaged only, as well as those utterly destroyed : Shops, 417 ; creameries, 7 ; farm houses, 165 ; farm outbuildings, 32 ; factories and works, 5 ; crops, 72 ; halls and clubs, 28 ; private residences, 233 ; other premises, 55.

But to return to our fair-weather revolutionaries of the literary world. America, of course, supplied many examples of literary apostasy. Suffice it to name but one — Jack London. The list of names of members of this unholy fraternity could be considerably extended by additions from many other countries, but none other need be mentioned than that of Herr Karl Kautsky, whose disgraceful attack on Communism and Communists occasioned the present pamphlet.

Until recently those who professed to be Socialists could have been divided into two sections — on the one hand, the followers of Marx, and on the other, those who, without read- ing Marx, were convinced in some mysterious way, that he was "all wrong." Now, however, the position of affairs might be accurately described by parai)hrasing the statement of an English statesman, famous in his day, so as to make it read, "We are all Marxians now." Kautsky's facility in quoting Marxian Scripture in an attempt to justify his reactionary attitude, reminds one of the dexterity attributed to the Enemy of Man in handling. Christian texts to suit his own purposes.

11

And thus is Marx pressed into the service of the counter- revolution. Frederick Engels, writing in 1890 of the demon- strations then being held in Europe and America in favor of an eight-hour working day, and commenting on the fact that the proletarians of all lands were indeed united, said wistfully, "Were Marx but with me to see it with his own eyes!" It was an interesting, if unprohtablc, occupation to speculate on what Engels would have said on hearing of such a perversion of Marx as Kautsky and his imitators have been guilty of.

It is when one considers cases of this kind that one turns eagerly, if somewhat irrationally, to solutions such as the pathological one already referred to. The author of this pamphlet, however, has no faith in theories cf this kind, as the reader will discover before he has read very many pages.

In answer to Kautsky's condemnation of the Bolsheviks for using violence against their opponents. Radek cites some of the bloody deeds of the ruling classes in their all too suc- cessful attempts to crush the workers. Like most people who know something of the horrors perpetrated upon work- ing classes and subject nations by their rulers since the far off days when the suppression of a workers' rebellion was signalized by the crucifixion, along the great military high- ways of the Roman Empire, of captured slaves, whose writh- ing bodies were intended to have a deterrent effect upon any who dared to think of interfering with the "rights of private property," down to the cowardly butchery of the dying James Connolly and his gallant comrades, and the massacres of the Russian workers by the hirelings of Entente Capitalism — like most such people Karl Radek has little patience with men like Kautsky who condemn the victorious Russian workers for employing "terrorist methods." The cowardly subterfuge that violence is indefensible, at all times and under all cir- cumstances, is not calculated to disturb the capitalist govern- ments of the world, which have no intention of scrapping their armies and their navies and their air fleets, and which

12

are quite willing to suffer the peculiar propaganda, with its implied censure upon themselves, to continue, for the sake of its possible effect upon the proletariat. They realize the power of the "persuasive eloqence of example," and their appreciation of this power has heightened considerably since the Russian workers, sword in hand, cut their way through the tangle of feudal and capitalist impediments that beset their path, and shook out the folds of the Red Flag over the palace of the Czars. This, in the eyes of the capitalist lords of the earth, is pre-eminently an example to be avoided by the work- ers of other countries ; and to dissuade the latter from adopting the same course as the Russian proletariat, they are freely utilizing the services of Socialist renegades like Karl Kautsky.

The attitude of opponents of violence, who place assassin and victim, garrotter and garrotted, counter-revolutionary hireling and Red Guardsman, Black-and-Taimer and Sinn Fein soldier, on the same moral level — and that a low one — is really Christian Science turned inside out. The Chris- tian Scientist can see no evil : the pacifist can see no good. This is clearly trifling with the question, and it is difficult to believe that those who voice this peculiar opinion, and whose power of discriminating between right and wrong is not utterly atrophied, are really sincere.

From the circumstance that the capitalists are prepared to adopt so many and so diverse means as they are more or less openly employing to avert the coming proletarian revolu- tion, it may be inferred that they believe that the term of their long dominion is approaching. And every man and woman who have the interests of the human family at heart will sincerely hope that their apprehension is well founded !

July, 1921. PATRICK LAVIN.

CHAPTER 1.

KARL KAUTSKY'S AUTUMN OFFENSIVE AGAINST

SOVIET RUSSIA.

The English general who represents "democracy" by the grace of the City of London and of Wall Street, and who is organizing the crusade of English Imperialism against the Russia of the workers and peasants, announced an offensive by fourteen nations. But the "nations" expected to attack have remained aloof, the generals of the counter-revolution are in part defeated, and the London slave-holders have been unable to overthrow Soviet Russia' in spite of their tanks and poison gas, their bombardment of open towns and all other manifestations of the Fourteen Points of the Wilsonian scheme for making the world happy. When the divisions amongst the slaves which were expected by the rulers of the world did not take place because the people did not think it necessary to assist in the restoration of Czarism, the Entente received assistance from an unexpected quarter. At a time when the Russian workers are waging a heroic fight in defense of their government Herr Karl Kautsky hastens to the assistance of the international counter-revolution — Karl Kautsky, the theorist of the sacred Second International, and to this day a member of the German Independent Social Democratic Party, and what is more, its trusted representative at international conferences, which are supposed to strive for the restoration of the unity of the working class. While long rows of priests with swinging censers march in front of Kolchak's troops, and endeavor to break the courage of the peasants in the Red Army by holding aloft sacred images, Karl Kautsky holds up to the view of the proletariat of Russia and of Europe a picture of wonder-working democracy in

14

one hand and a terrible picture of proletarian despotism in the other. His book is entitled "Tcrroristn and Communism," not "Terrorism and Capitalism."

He does not tell how the American trusts in the "freest

democracy in the world" sought for decades to bow the work- ers under the yoke of slavery by open and reckless violence (as witness Colorado!), or how the same thing in another form happened in all "democratic" States before the war. He does not discuss how the capitalist cliques plunged the world into the frightful five years slaughter without asking a single one of the nations involved its opinion on the matter. He does not say one word of how during the period of the world war the Imperialist dictatorship was set up everywhere, of how millions of the sons of the people were destroyed in battle, or of how in the towns thousands upon thousands were starved in prison. He does not tell how the revolu- tionary Kerensky Government, at the bidding of the Paris Bourse, caused thousands to be cut down at the front in order to bring about the July offensive of 1917. The history of terrorism in the present revolutionary epoch begins for him with the Bolsheviks. "The Bolsheviks in Russia began it;'' and Herr Noske, who defended German Capitalism with machine-guns and mine-throwers against the German pro- letariat, is certified by Karl Kautsky, with extraordinary im- pudence, to have "follozved boldly in Trotsky's footsteps." This Noske has the honor to be the subject of an "historical" investigation by Kautsky — not an ex parte work, however, because such an examination would disclose a certain con- nection betiveen the dying system of Capitalism defending its poiver, on the one hand, and terrorism on the other; which does not interest Herr Kautsky, since he has written a book against Communism, not against Capitalism. This book has aroused the enthusiasm not only of Fritz Stampfer. of the "P>ankfurter Zeitung," but even of the "Lokalawzeizer." We might ignore it altogether, but it exhibits so well the intellectual slovenliness of the worthy theorist of the so-called Second International that it is worth a few minutes' con-

15

sideraT.ion ; all the more so that the "luminous historical per- formance"— as Haase calls it — has been quoted ad nauseum, not only by Social Patriots and Right Independents (as Hilferding and Strobel), but even by people who, like Ledebour, still have the reputation of being revolutionary politicians. The outcry against terrorist methods, the watch- word "Dictatorship zvithout terrorism," is the latest attempt to mislead the workers now that it seems hopeless to prevent the spread of knowledge of the necessity for the dictatorship on proletarian grounds. "Dictatorship without terrorism" is the last refuge of the opponents of the proletarian dictator- ship. Kautsky's book is their weapon. It will be very easily broken, however, for it is a sword of cardboard.

CHAPTER II.

THE TERROR OF THE JACOBINS.

As a learned man Herr Kautsky has a natural desire to follow up the history of terrorism since the Creation. But, thank God ! these "luminous" details are spared us. We learn only that beasts of prey, and especially our remote ancestors, the apes, knew no dictatorship. They lived for the most part on a vegetable diet which they "now and then supplemented with smaller animals, caterpillars, worms, rep- tiles and even unfledged birds." They never killed mammals. "No ape does the like," declares Kautsky, to our great peace of mind and to the greater damnation of the Bolsheviks, who, as is well known, take the lead in the destruction of capitalist mammals. But still the Jacobins of 1793 were before them, and as the Jacobins were overtaken by their punishment he devotes more space in his investigation to them to our ven- erable ancestors, the apes.

His condemnation of the Jacobins, the direct ancestors of the Bolsheviks, can be comprised in the sentence in which he compresses the French Proudhonists' opinion of them : "They (the Proudhonists) sazv through the illusions which led to the Reign of Terror, zvhich mislead the proletariat and brought them to a state of bloody savagery zvithoiit taking them one step nearer to their freedom." Kautsky supports this opinion in the following manner: Robespierre and his Government wished as a party to represent the interests of the proletariat and the petit-bourgeoisie. When they attained to power they and the proletarian masses behind them sought to use the machinery of the State "in order to realize that kingdom of equality which the thinkers of the bourgeoisie had promised them." "As a result the poor Parisians came

into increasing antagonism to the peasants, the middlemen, the rich people — to all those elements, in short, which were most favored by private property in the means of produc- tion, whose abolition by the domination of small industry was impossible." "As it was impossible for them to alter the process of production they attempted, by their machinery of power, to distribute the products of that process by means with which we in our own time have become all to familiar : high prices, compulsory loans which roughly correspond to our payments for purposes of defense, and similar impositions which did not work less misery then than now with the then system of widely scattered production, the paucity of statistics, and the weakness of the central authority as against the dis- tricts. The contradiction between the political power of the proletariat and their poor economic position became more and more marked. The afifliction caused by the war was thereby rendered more acute. And in despair the rulers of the proletariat more and more rapidly adopted extreme measures and ended with a bloody terror." But as on the basis of private property during the war with its immense operations a new bourgeoisie was bound to arise, while want and the war exhausted the masses, the policy of terror neces- sarily ended with the defeat of Termidor. And yet again : the illusion that men can introduce the "general well-being" had led the proletariat and their leaders to adopt the policy of terrorism, has "befooled" the proletariat and "reduced them to savagery" "without bringing them one step nearer freedom" — that is the "lucid" examination of the epoch of the Jacobin Terror by the leading theorist of the Second International.

But what was the actual state of affairs? First of all Robespierre, St. Just and the other leading men of the "Moun- tain" did not represent the proletariat at all and did not even desire to represent them. The party of the proletariat and of the proletarian petit-bourgeoisie was represented by Roux, Varlet, Dolivet, Chalier, Seclerc, and other bearers of the Communist agitation who were fought in the fiercest manner and 'ultimately sent to the guillotine by the "Mountain" and

f

18

the Robespierrian elements precisely because of their Com- munist tendencies. In a more modified form the Paris Commune, under the leadership of Chaumette (who likewise was sent to the guillotine by Robespierre) represented the proletarian interests. Robespierre and his government stood I resolutely uii the platform of boiirijcois private property, * and this found expression as follows in the Constitution of 1793 : "The right to property is granted to every citizen and the right to enjoy his income and the fruits of his labor and industry and to dispose of them as he thinks proper," and again ! "Not even the smallest part of his property can be taken from him except when demanded by public necessity, and then only on condition that just compensation be given." Robespierre ivas a representative of bourgeois Republicanism — neither more nor less. He came to power on the wave of the proletarian-petit-bourgeois movement when the French Revolution, after three years of existence, had not abolished either feudalism or the monarchy. Deceived by the Feuillants and the Girondists — that is. by the representatives of the constitutional nobility and large capital — the masses of the people returned the bourgeois democracy — the "Mountain" — to power. Against their radical bourgeois measures, the actual abolition of feudal dues (on 4th August, 1789, they were only abolished on ])aper), the realization of democracy, the decapitation of tl.ie King, etc. — the feudal counter-revo- lution entered into union with England, Prussia and Austria for a furious resistance. Then began the war on all fronts against the armies of the coalition as well as against domestic counter-revolution. The greatest scarcity prevailed through- out the country. The revolutionary armies bad no .shoes, clothing, or food. In the country ruined by feudalism, and suffering from the 1)ad harvests of many years, there was a shortage of everything. What could a radical l)ourgeois government do in the circumstances? Had it been acciuainted with Kautsky's "Erfurt IVogram" it would ])c'rhaps have renounced its "illu.sions," have given u]i the struggle and abandoned the country to feudalism. But since they, ha]^:)ily,

had no presentiment of that gentleman's castrated Marxism they sought no "statistical" reasons for abandoning the struggle, but fought with all the means at their disposal, in- cluding that of terrorism, against speculation and counter- revolutionary treachery and defeated the armies of the counter-revolution. How little they pursued illusions is shown by their struggle against the Communist current which strove for far-reaching, but at that time unattainable reforms. When the power of the feudal counter-revolution was broken the task of the bourgeois-terrorist Government was fulfilled. Even the bourgeoisie were unwilling to tolerate it any longer. That was the cause of the 9th of Termidor, and of the fall of Robespierre.

This was well understood by Mignet although he wrote his history of the French Revolution almost a hundred years ago, and in the language of the Restoration. He says in his book: "The numerous victories of the Republic, to 7vJiicJi its drastic measures or great enthusiasm greatly contributed, made violence on its part superfluous. It zvas the Committee of Public Safety i<'hicJi held dozi'ii the interior of France li'ith a strong and terrible hand, and at the same time opened sources of assistance, created armies, discovered field-marshals and achieved victories by which the triumph of the Revolu- tion against Europe zvas ultimately assured. A favorable situation no longer demanded the same efforts, and the prob- lem was solved, as it is the peculiar characteristic of such a dictatorship to save a country and a cause and to perish itself in the work of salvation. "The opposition which the Jacobin Terror showed to bourgeois private property means for Karl Kautsky no more than the bankruptcy of an illusion. A cer- tain Frederick Fngels, however, wrote : In order that even those fruits of victory should be secured which were ripe at that time it was necessary that the revolution should be carried considerably beyond its goal — exactly as in France in 1793 and in Germany in 1848. This, in fact, appears to be a law of development of bourgeois society. ("Historical

20

Materialism.") In order finally to abolish feudal property and to trample the feudal restoration in the dust it was neces- sary for the bourgeois revolution to lay violent hands on bourgeois private property. It was bound to be wrecked in the long run, but its task — the destruction of feudalism — could not have been accomplished zvithout terrorism. Who- ever asserts that it thereby "fooled" the proletariat and "brutalized" them, "without bringing them one step nearer to their freedom," claims that the liberation of the proletariat is possible without overthrowing feudalism and absolutism. Such a one has indeed remained true to the high type of our ancestors, the apes, who, "for the most part, lived on a vegetable diet" (chewing the cud of the Marxian A. B. C.) this nourishment being "now and then supplemented by smaller animals, caterpillars, worms, reptiles and even un- fledged birds" (the slaughter of social-reformist professors and Revisionists) but will never understand a revolution — not even a bourgeois revolution let alone a proletarian one.

It was not ahvays so with Kautsky. In his polemic against Eisner after the Amsterdam Congress he wrote as follows of the epoch of the Jacobin Terror: "In the struggle of 1789-90 the lower masses of the people, especially in Paris, learned their power. They conquered, but the fruits of their victory were gathered by the possessing classes. The lower classes could not then stand aside. They had again to set forth on the path of liberty and equality in order to emerge from their poverty and oppression. But as the bourgeoisie resisted with all their power there was soon bound to be a desperate struggle between the two classes. The antagonism between the classes had grown more acute, thanks to the war which the allied monarchs of Europe waged against revolutionary France. In this war France could oidy zviji by the exertion of all her strength, and this could only be brought about through the reckless hatred of private property zvhich ani- mated the masses of the people. Then (1792-93) the mon- archy was uprooted, universal suffrage proclaimed, the stand-

31

ing army abolished, and the anning of the people effected; and the wealth of the possessing classes was devoted to the support of the army and of the poor. And all this happened in the epoch of the Terror, in the period in zvhich the bour- geoisie were intimidated." (Unfortunately I have not the original by me, which appeared in "Die Neue Zeit," 1904-5, and am obliged to retranslate from a Polish version of Kautsky's work.) In 1905 Kautsky was still so befooled and brutalized by the terrorism of Robespierre that he saw in the destruction of feudal absolutism, of the standing army, etc., a glory which caused him to recognize the epoch of the Terror as one of historical progress. "Marxism" did not prevent him from understanding history : it was not then emasculated. Only the approaching epoch of the proletarian social revolution caused Kautsky to break the weapon of Marxian historical criticism, as he generally rejects it at every encounter with the bourgeoisie. He cannot find pleasure in turning away from that which was great in the bourgeois revolution. He sought for the virtues of the proletarian revolution in its vices and mistakes — in that which was the cause of its weakness. His praise goes out to the proletarians when they allow themselves to be shot down."

We come now to his treatment of the Paris Commune of 1871 — to the second chapter of the "luminous" perform- ance which has so enchanted Herr Haase.

CHAPTER III.

THE MODEL DICTATORSHIP.

When the Commune of Paris was smothered in blood by the Versaillese ; when the world boiirp-eoisie besran an Indian dance of calumny around the fallen revolutionaries ; when, under the influence of the cami^aign of slander, the worthy trade union leaders of England took fright and withdrew from the International Association — Karl Marx covered the mutilated bodies of the Communards with the flag of the International. Marx did this in spite of the fact that any expression of solidarity with the Commune threatened the young and weak First International with the greatest danger, and in spite of the circumstance that he was very skeptical of the wisdom of the Communist insurrecticn, as he saw more clearly than any other man its fatal weaknesses. He did not do it merely from a sentimental motive of solidarity with a rebellion in which thousands of proletarians with inspired enthusiasm. He did it because he, with a highly developed historical sense, saw through the chaos of the often tragi- comical errors and mistakes of the commune, through the mists of its confused ideas, througli the ruins of its half- accomplished deeds, the outlines of a new era, to the building of which it had unknowingly contributed. Marx saw clearly that the beacon of the Commune demonstrated two irnpiuiant lessons to the ])roletariat. The lirst was that the ])n)]rlariat cannot simply seize and operate the old State ap])aratus l)ut must destroy it in order to create a new one ; the second was that the new a])]:)aratus must difi^er fundamentally from bour- geois Parliamentarism wilh its separation of ihv jjmvince of law making from that of administration, and that l)oth must Z' be united in the workers associations of representatives which would carry out their own laws. These lessons of the Com-

23

riiiine were, in llie opinion of Marx and Engels, of the greatest nnportance because they showed to them the essential nature of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Everything else in the Commune was for them a particular or transient circum- stance ; that was the general and permanent : it was that which stamped the Commune of 18/1, with all its defects, as a mighty step forward, although its immediate results were nothing but ruins and meant the setting back of the French worker's movement for hfty years. Kautsky and Bernstein, u])Cii whom devolved the task of continuing the work of Marx, did not understand that they would have to begin with these lessons. Splashing around in the waters of the opening Parliamentary epoch, or grubbing for worms in the sands, they did not grasp these lessons and withheld them from the knowledge of the proletariat. We see how, today, in the face of the Russian and German revolutions, Karl Kautsky knew to begin with the lessons of the Commune.

He devotes forty pages to this task. In these forty pages he seeks to represent it as an instance of a model dictatorship which he is prepared to accept. The Paris Commune finds favor in his eyes. It was elected on the basis of universal suffrage and therefore does not transgress the sacred laws of democracy. Herr Kautsky is triumphant. "And yet Friedrich Engels wrote on 18th March, 1891, on the twentieth anniversary of the Paris Commune: 'Gentlemen, do you want to know what the dictatorship of the proletariat is like? Then look at the Paris Commune ! That was the dictatorship of the proletariat !' It can be seen, therefore, that by dictator- ship Marx and Engels by no means meant the abolition of equal universal suffrage, or of democracy in general.'' Hail to thee, laurel-crowned victor! Karl Kautsky triumphs. In another place he cites my remarks from the introduction to Bucharin's pamphlet on the program where I infer that, considered in the abstract, the bourgeoisie can be left in pos- session of the franchise, even under the dictatorship of the proletariat. "But the revolution consists in this, that it is a civil war, in which classes, which fight with cannons and

24

machine-guns, renounce the Homeric duel of words." These statements of mine, written in the summer of 1918 show that even the Russian Communists saw that the abolition of the right of the bourgeoisie to vote was by no means a character- istic of the dictatorship of the proletariat. They were merely convinced that during the period of the civil war the struggle of the proletariat with the bourgeoisie assumes such an acute form that the common ground of the democratic franchise, Parliament as the theatre of war, disappears. What is demon- strated in this connection by the Paris Commune? It was (and Herr Kautsky takes good care to conceal the fact) an insurrection against the results of universal suffrage in France. On the basis of this Kautskyan panacea the National As- sembly of France came into being in 1871 and showed 400 .Monarchists and 200 Republicans (and such Republicans!). It was a faithful reflection of the reaction which prevailed in the country districts and in the small towns. The National Assembly not only concluded peace with Bismark, but pre- pared to make war on revolutionary Paris. And then — Paris rose against the National Assembly. "Paris has no right to rebel against France ; it must, on the contrary, unreservedly recognize the supremacy of the National Assembly" — thus was Paris apostrophized by one of its representatives and mayors, M. Clemenceau, the "Tiger" of today; and the Social- istic ancestor of Kautsky, Louis Blanc, said to the delegates of the Commune, "you are rebels against a most freely elected Assembly." Mr. Thiers declared "The Government would betray the Assembly, France and civilization if it allowed the forces of Communism and rebellion to be built up along- side of the lawful power called into being by the general voice of the people." Herr Kautsky quietly suppresses the whole controversy on principle in which not only counter-revolu- tionaries like Thiers, but bourgeois Radicals and Socialists like Louis Blanc reproached the Commune xvith treachery against democracy. The Communards defended themselves against this charge by claiming that the National Assembly had no right to exist after the conclusion of peace, as it was

V

25

only to make peace it had been elected. This polemical argu- ment, however, was merely a blow in the air, because the Commune did not represent an insurrection for the purpose of compelling a new election, but for the purpose of winning special rfghts for Paris (election of its own officials. National Guard, etc.) in order to save Paris and the other large towns from the Versaillese reaction which had found expression through universal suffrage. A member of the Central Com- mittee of Paris declared in reply to Clemenceau's reproach quoted above, "We are not thinking of laying down laws for France — we have suffered from that too long already —

but we are no longer willing that the force of the people being outvoted by the backzvard rural districts should continue. The point in question is not whether your mandate or ours (that is, the mandate of the National Assembly or that of the Communards) is the lawful one. We say to you! 'The revolution is here, but we are no usurpers. We desire to call upon Paris to appoint its representatives.' " While Herr Kautsky, after shamelessly concealing the character of the Commune as an insurrection against the "democratic" National Assembly represents the general election to the Commune as the burial of its democratic character and of the source of its power, this bowing of the Commune to the democracy of Paris after it had rebelled against the democracy of the country districts, has no meaning from the point of view of principle. The tactical manoeuvre of the Commune is perfectly clear. The reaction against which the Commune rebelled had not its majority in Paris or in the large towns, but in the rural districts. Paris, zvhere the proletariat and the Radical petit-bourgeoisie had a decisive majority; Paris, zifhose counter-revolutionaries had fled; Paris, which recog- nised the general election, had nothing to do zvith democracy "in general:" what it achieved was the subordination of all others to the mass of the proletariat and the petit-bourgeoisie, the beetrcrs of the Commune.

From the circumstance that the Commune of Paris had no enemies on its own soil (the counter-revolutionaries and

26

the counter-revolutionary troops had run away to Versailles) the avoidance of the use of violence within the walls of Paris was assured. Says Kautsky himself : "The enemy which was dangerous to it (the Commune j stood i^'ithoitt the zvalls of its coiiiiiittiiity and could not be reached by the agency of terrorism. The virtue of the Ccmmune, therefore, consists in the imitation of the people of Niirnherg, who did not hang- any one they did no; catch. Our comrade Dzierschinski, the chief of the Extraordinary Commission in Moscow, whom Kautsky abhors, has most assuredly net caused the death of one of the most dangerous enemies of Soviet Russia m so tar as such enemies are out with the Soviet community and are not to be reached by the agency of terrorism. TJie uieans of defense employed by the Commune zcas not terrorism, but xvar against the VcrsaUlese. The Commune had conducted this war in such a manner that it hastened its downfall by several months. The armies of the counter-revolution existed merely as scattered remnants of the defeated and demoralized Napoleonic army. The Commune had a military preponder- ance as far as men, munitions, and the spirit of the people were concerned. It had on its side the working class of all the large towns of France. It permitted its strength to be split-up and dissipated ; it did not seek the trembling enemy, then merely collecting its thoughts, but allowed him to sur- prise it, it knew only the heroism of a fight to the death, and nothing of the organizing of war. That this is an example of the dictatorship v.diich is to be imitated, even Kautsky will not assert.

What were the reasons for this complete failure of the Commune? It had a sufficient number of officers who had voluntarily placed themselves at its service. It had in the Pole, Dombrowsky, a good military leader. The masses of the people were prepared for any sacrifice as was shown by their reckless fight when the Versaillese poured into the town. The reason for tliis want of offensive spirit on the part of the Commune, withcut which a strong defence is impossible, icas the absence of a clearly-defined goal, which was due to the

27

fact that the Commune could form merely an historical epi- sode. The Franco-German war ended the epoch of bour- geois revolutions, and introduced the era of "peaceful" devel- opment of the consolidated capitalist States of Western and Central Europe. Not only was the working class a minority of the population, but industry was neither centralized nor concentrated. The economic backwardness of Capitalism corresponded to the intellectual backwardness of the prole- tariat, who although Socialist in sentiment, could not show a large number of men in any single country who knew how Socialist freedom was to be attained. The foremost section of the proletariat was split in two parts. One of these sought to emancipate itself socially by peaceful organization without the knowledge cf capitalist society ; the other hoped, by the conquest of political power, to reach the same goal without having any concrete plan for attaining it. When, on the 18th of March, Paris rose against the Government, it had no far- reaching aims. The workers defended their guns in the cor- rect belief that Thiers wanted to steal them in order to disarm Paris, the Citadel of the Republic, and to open the gates to Social and Political reaction. The Government fled. The proletarians and petit-bourgeoisie of Paris rejoiced, in com- mon with all other parties, that they were at liberty to elect their Commune, wilhout even suspecting that the flight of the Government meant the announcement of the fact that the life-and-death struggle had begun. They could have laid Versaillds in ruins but did net do so because they had no goal to aspire to beyond Paris. They wished to so arrange matters that the poor would be released from the burden of rents and mortgages, and they hoped that the provinces would follow the noble example of Paris. They did not even inau- gurate an agitation in the provinces. When the siege by the Versaillese began they could not arrive at a common policy because they had no common aim. On the social field it was not only the want of time (the Commune lasted only 72 days) which prevented them from forming a far-seeing constructive policy for the transition frcm Capitalism to Socialism, and

28

not only the necessity for defence. As the transition to So- ciaHsm was impossible on account of the scattered and small scale character of the industries of Paris, the Socialism of the Commune exhausted itself in measures of social reform and generally in plans for the relief of the poor. When Kautsky declares that the "Marxian method of Socialisation, which closely resembled that of the Commune, is still our method to-day," it is well to remember that if the learned Marxian prophet's ideas were clearer he would not say wherein the Marxian method of socialization consists if he had not in mind the Marxian measures for the transition period which were proposed in 1848 and which fit the policy of the Com- mune and the year 1919 as well as the spurious word "social- ization" fits the problems of the Socialist revolution. There is one Marxian method of Socialism — that is, Marxism. Marx did not draw up recipes for concrete economic meas- ures for all phases of the social revolution. Kautsky's admira- tion for the "socialization methods" of the Commune is vener- ation for nothing whatever in which "socialization" consists, at which Herr Kautsky, at the behest of Ebert and Scheide- mann, together with his learned young man Hilferding, labored so laboriously till he discovered that his efiforts were so much waste paper. Kautsky has discovered three virtues in the Commune : first, the Communards hanged no counter- revolutionaries whom they did not catch ; second, they social- ized nothing ; and third, they were tolerant, as they did not suppress one proletarian section after another as the wicked Bolsheviks did. The tender hearted old greybeard, with his tongue in his cheek, omits to mention one thing: Proudhon- ists, Blanquists and Internationalists fought one another bit- terly during the period of the Commune, although their views, as we now see clearly, merely constituted different aspects of the same confusion. All of them, however, bled for the Com- mune, for the domination of the proletariat. When, in the last days of the Commune, Vermorel, a member of the Min- ority of the Cummune, was transporting a wagon of muni- tions, he met Ferre, a representative of the Majority, before

29

the Town Hall and said to him smilingly, "You see. Ferre, the members of the Minority are fighting." "The members of the Majority will also do their duty," replied Ferre. And the Communard Lissagaray says : "These two men, who met death so nobly, showed to the people a generous spirit of of emulation." But Socialists who, like Louis Blanc, remained: with the country people at Versailles ancTdld not even raise their voices when captive Communards were shot down before their eyes, have passed into history as traitors to the prole- tariat. A Socialist historian says of Louis Blanc : Elected in Paris to the National Assembly, he remained at Versailles when the Assembly declared war on Paris. He supported the Government in its struggle against the Commune. His illusions of liberating the proletariat through cooperation with the aristocratic and progressive sections of the bourgeoisie ended in cooperation with the brutal and reactionary Junkers for the purpose of throttling the proletariat. His views and sympathies were thereby but little altered. But class anta- gonisms are stronger than pious aspirations. He ivho comes from the camp of the bourgeoisie and docs not possess suffi- cient courage and capacity for sacrifice to zvritc definitely with the proletariat and destroy the bridges behind him — such a one will, despite all his sympathy for the prole- tariat, be found on the side of the enemies of the people, when a decisive moment comes." These are the words of Karl Kautsky, w^ho thus showed he had a presentiment of what would happen to himself. The quiet comfortable study is the bridge which unites him with the bour- geoisie. He had not the courage to tread the way of the martyr a^ Rosa Luxemburg did, and we therefore see him now in Versailles as the successor of Louis Blanc. And when he says that the greatest virtue of the Com- mune was that Socialists did not prosecute Socialists we say to him : "Your praise is a slander alike on Majority and Minority of the Commune, which consisted of comrades-in- arms who had no reason to mutually persecute one another. You falsify history unnecessarily. Should the proletarian

30

revolution in Germany succeed, you have nothing to fear, Herr Kautsky. Although impartial, however good your intentions may be, you are a traitor. You are so harmless that the revolution can allow itself the luxury of giving you your necessary ration of fodder, caterpillars and unfledged birds, so that you may continue to nourish yourself after your senile fashion ; as well as the ink and paper you require. But at the same time, we will have our revenge: we will compel your admirers Scheidemann, Hilferding, etc., to read your works, ^yhich at the present they only pretend to do."

\

V

CHAPTER IV.

THE SOFTENING INFLUENCE OF DEMOCRACY ON

MANNERS.

Herr Kautsky gives two examples for the benefit of Ger- man readers of the way in which democracy ha.s influenced manners : the violent dictatorship of the Jacobins which" was bound to end in defeat because it sought to realize its illu- sions by force, and was therefore bound to mislead and bru- talize the proletariat ; and against this dark picture he places the bright and moral democratic dictatorship of the Commune of 1871 which has found a warm place "in the hearts of all who long for the liberation of mankind, and not least because it was thoroughly imbued with the spirit of humanity which animated the working class of the nineteenth century." We have shown that Kautsky's presentation is a mere juggling trick. The Paris Commune of 1793 represented no prole- tarian dictatorship, but a bourgeois one ; and it was not "wrecked" on the impracticability of proletarian illusions, but fulfilled its great historical mission — the destruction of feu- dalism. The proletarian Commune of 1871, on the contrary, was wrecked after a two-months' existence by the confusion of its leaders who were full of illusions, and did not understand that the fight should have been carried beyond the walls of Paris. Tliat zvhich Kautsky calls tlic spirit of Jiuinaiiity 7vas in reality the iveakjicss of the leaders of the Coiminnie, their irresolution in the face of an inexorable enemy. It was not the contrast between violence and democracy that was expressed in the Communes of 1793 and 1871 because the Commune of 1793 stood theoretically on the grovmd of dem- ocracy as much as the Commune of 1871, and the Commune of 1871 forgot democracy in practice as completely as that of 1793. The contrast lies in the strenuous fight of a class.

32

whose time has come, whose domination is an historical neces- sity (the Jacobin bourgeoisie were in this position in 1793) and the confusion and impotence of a class which is still incapable of exercising domination and which lacks the resolution to fight for it with all the means at its disposal (the French working class of 1871 was in this condition). When Kautsky asserts th'at the Commune of 1871 has found a warm corner, thanks to its spirit of humanity in the hearts of all who long for the liberation of mankind, the old man mistakes his own womanish heart for the dauntless one of the proletarian. It is not because of its weakness (which he calls humanity) that the Commune has become the symbol of proletarian aspirations, but because it was the first attempt of the proletariat to seize power.

What this spirit of "humanity" is which it is pretended ruled in the Commune and which is so dear to his heart, Kautsky attempts to represent in a lifeless abstraction in which he shows savage men on the one hand and peaceful men on the other, and how at one time savagery, and at another time gentleness, gained the upper hand. We need not delay over this professorial baulderdash because Kautsky never rises above the level political twaddle, and does not even clear up in any way an historical event by showing the action of gentleness and savagery. Kautsky becomes more concrete when he asserts that democracy, which clearly shows the proportional strength of the classes, prevented them from rushing blindly into the conflict, and that Marxism has the same efifect on the proletariat ; and that the proletariat, thanks to the Marxist explanation, has learned that victory can only be the result of a gradual process of growth. "Socialists are always being urged to undertake, at any given moment, only such tasks as could be accomplished under the material conditions and with the relative strength of classes, which obtained at the time. If everything were done according to expert opin- ion it would be impossible for Socialists to fail in any under- taking or to find themselves in a desperate situation which

33

would force them to resort, contrary to the spirit of the pro- letariat and of SociaHsm, to mass terrorism. In fact, since Marxism began to dominate the SociaHst movement till the time of the world war, that movement has, in almost every- thing it has consciously undertaken, been preserved from ser- ious defeat ; and the idea that Socialism could be accom- plished by means of a reign of terror has been entirely dis- carded by its adherents."

So says the professor in his book. Till the zvorld war dem- ocracy and Marxism had shown fine results. And why did not democracy, with its much advertised relatively strong position and its tendency to soften manners, prevent this most savage form of destruction? We are certain that Herr Kautsky will declare triumphantly that the war came about because his democratic medicine had not been administered in sufficiently large doses to the HohenzoUern-s, the Haps- burgs and the Romanofifs. Apart from the fact that, despite all the diplomatic documents which tell so heavily against these dynasties, no Marxist can forget the v/hole social and political history of the pre-war period, the will of the "dem- ocracy" must have been to defend by all mean;r, even the most brutal, the interests of Entente capital against the piratical attempts at expansion of Imperial Germany if the Hohenzollerns and the Hapsburgs succeeded in unchaining the war. And does Herr Kautsky know nothing of the ignoble ivar of the Western "democracies" against Soviet Russia and Soviet Hungary F It is evident that this singular Marxist was still, in the summer of 1919, full of illusions about the readi- ness of capital to forcibly resist the attempts of the prole- tariat to liberate themselves. He quotes from my Foreword to Bucharin's pamphlet as follows : "The more developed Capitalism in any country is the more reckless and brutal will be its defensive fight, and therefore the bloodier will be the proletarian revolution and the more reckless will be the meas- ures by means of which the victorious working class will bring the defeated capitalist class to its knees." Referring to

34

these statements Herr Kautsky declares first of all that 1 "elevate the Bolshevist practice of eighteen months to the position of a universal law of development," and that I ad- vocate the practice of wrong with the "recklessness and bru- tality of the capitalists' war of defence." "Of such brutality there was no trace in November, 1917 in Petrograd or Mos- cow, and still less in Budapesth at a later date." These remarks of an unpaid agent of the bourgeoisie only show that he notes nothing which does not suit himself and is not favor- able to Capitalism. He says nothing of the hecatombs of those who fell during the Kerensky regime of ^lensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries — the regime so much after his own ideas — simply because Russian Capitalism shrank from no means of arresting the victory of the proletariat. He has heard nothing of the November rebellion at Moscow when the resistence of the capitalist guards had to be broken in more than usually heavy fighting. He has heard -nothing of the 13,000 sacrificed by the Whites in Finland ; he has heard nothing of the forest of gibbets erected in the Ukraine amidst the stormy applause of the bourgeoisie of the whole of Rus- sia ; he has heard nothing of the thousands of proletarians slaughtered in the Kuban and Donctz districts ; he has heard nothing of the Kolchak regime, whose deeds of horror have been reported by representatives of the American Gov ernment like Joshua Rosett ; lie has heard nothing of the counter-revolutionary plots subsidized by the Entente which aimed at crippling the concrete ccnstructive work of the Soviets. He has heard nothing of the thousands of dead piled up by Herr Noske in defence of German Capitalism. He has heard nothing of the circulars of Churchill, the "dem- ocratic" War Minister of luigland. which proves that the English oligarchy would not hesitate a moment to smother in blood any attempt of the proletariat at rebellion ; of how that oligarchy even during the sittings of the Peace Conference and the building of the League of Nations, caused 1000 people to be shot down in Cairo in answer to native demonstrations, and so treated the movement for independence in India that

35

Rabindranath Tagore, certainly no savage Bolshevik, re- nounced the knighthood conferred upon him by the King of England, and declared that the "severity of the punishment inflicted upon the unhappy people was without parallel in the history of civilized nations from the most remote period." This appeared in the "Manchester Guardian" on 7th June, the very time that Merr Kautsky was putting the hnishing touches to his work on Terrorism. Herr Kautsky has net noticed the bloody tight of M. Clemenceau against the work- men of Paris who, on the First of May, exercised their "dem- ocratic right" to demonstrate for Soviet Russia. And we are sure that if after the enthusiastic circulation of his latest pamphlet by the Anti-Bolshevist League, a second edition ap- pears, we shall find collected all the stories of cruelty which the capitalist Press has scattered broadcast about Soviet Hungary, but nothing about the thousands of proletarians whom the liungarian rulers, with the assistance of the En- tente, ottered up as a sacrifice in the holy war for Capitalism and democracy.

His whole theory of the "softening influence of dem- ocracy on manners" conceals a simple fact. In the period from 1871 to 1918 there was no attempt in Europe, except in Russia, to overthrow bourgeois society. The proletariat acconunodated themselves to capitalist rule, and sought to improve their position within the framework of Capitalism. Therefore, apart from "little" massacres in France, as in Italy, .\ustria and North America, the wantonness of the capitalist ]:iolicemen subsided, because the bourgeoisie could afford to renounce the use of cxccssiz'c force against the pro- letariat. In the colcnies, where the proletarized peasants, in their ignorance of Marxism, ventured to rise in revolt, they were overthrown according to all the rules of the art of mil- itarism. The softening of manners consists in the fact that the bourgeoisie do not murder the w^orkers, by whose sweat they live, because it is not only unnecessary, l)ut would even be prejudicial to the interest of the profit-takers.

36

Marxism simply summarized the experience of the work- ing classes when it warned them against rioting. That it was their sense of weakness and not the influence of Marxism that was the deciding factor is shown by the fact that in countries where the influence of Marxism was so weak as in Italy, France and England there was no serious disturbance in the last ten years. That the working class of any country did not attempt to seize power before the war, and that it was not anywhere brought practically face to face with the ques- tion of the use of force, was due to objective conditions which, after 1871 and still more after 1890, originated in the period of the consolidation of the capitalist States and their economic expansion.

Marxism zms never really practically brought face to face zvith the question of force, and the merit which Herr Kautsky claims for it as a great restraining influence exists for the most part only in his imagination. At the same time it should not be denied that Marxism, true to its nature, was always careful in treating of the use of force, and made the guiding star of its policy the advice to comrades to refrain from provocative measures, and so became a restraining factor in the last decade where" the working class was faced with the problems of violence through the policy of Imperialism. The world war has made the problem a question for the working class movement. Indeed for years the prophet of the Second International has done nothing else than prove to this gen- eration, which has grown up in the period of the "peaceful development" of Capitalism, any real sense of historical devel- opment in stormy revolutionary times has been lost. We saw this in Kautsky's treatment of the greatest bourgeois revolu- tion, and the first proletarian revolution of the epoch of so- called "democracy" ; we shall see it in a more repulsive fqrm in his treatment of the great Russian Workers' revolution.

CHAPTER V. THE RUSSIAN SODOM AND GOMORRHA.

We shall begin with facts that cannot be contraverted. During the period from March to November, 1917, the rule of the Russian bourgeoisie underwent a continuous process of dissolution. The bourgeoisie desired to carry on the war; the mass of peasants and workers wanted to end it, at what- ever cost.*

* When Herr Kautsky, after the experiences of November, 1918, in Germany, raises the complaint against the Bolsheviks that "they demanded the demobilization of the army without caring whether it would assist the German military autocracy or not." he is merely accusing the Bolsheviks of doing what the German militarists accuse his party of doing. "If they (the German military autocracy) did not win and it came to a German revolution, the Bolsheviks were certainly not responsible for it" — which merely means that Herr Kautsky con- siders Marshal Foch to have been the father of the German revolution. Just as this singular Marxist felt in the German revolution like one who has got into a wild riot and is only prevented by lack of courage from declaring it to be a misfortune, so we see in his assertion that the Russian Revolution had not a determining influence on the out- break of the German revolution, merely a moving demonstration that Herr Kautsky is sometimes animated by Christian feelings and seeks to save even the Bolsheviks from hell. Therefore greetings to Foch and Wilson, the fathers of the nation-liberating German revolution, and to Kautsky, their prophet. But joking apart. After Herr Kautsky has established his contention, on one page, that the Bolsheviks were innocent of exercising any influence on the German revolution, he says on another page: "The fact that a proletarian government has not only assnined power but has been able to maintain it for nearly two years under the most trying circumstances has immensely strengthened the sense of power of the proletarians of all countries. The Bolsheviks have thereby done a great deal for the real ivorld revolution, much more than their emissaries, who have done as much injury to the pro- Itarian cause as the revolutionaries have done good." So ! We forgive Herr Kautsky for his sally at the Bolshevik "emissaries", as his opinions of their actions must have been formed from police reports, and draw attention to his admission that Bolshevik rule in Russia has done a great deal for the actual world revolution. Does he not then consider the German revolution as a part of the "real world revolu- tion"? This contradiction is to be explained by the fact that a short memory is due as much to senility as to extreme malevolence.

38

The peasants wanted to seize the land and the feudal estates. The bourgeoisie, in conjunction with the Junkers, wished to avert this. The workers were not willing to endure the rule of the bourgeoisie any longer. That rule had ruined the country, and they were convinced that it could not build it u]) again. All the means of violence in the hands of the bourgeoisie were unavailing in face of the fact that ])role- tarians and peasants were in a majority in the army, and that the working class were in control of industrial and govern- mental centers. In November 1917, the power of the bour- geoisie was at an end. IVIiat could the Marxists — the reprc- scntaz'tivcs of the ivorking class — do in this process of the decay of capitalist pozverf The friends of Kautsky, the Rus- sian Mensheviks, who considered themselves Marxians, and were so described by Kautsky, decided by an overwhelming majority that "The Russian jH'oletariat are too weak to as- sume power ; they must cooperate with the bourgeoisie and support their rule ; and as the bourgeoisie of Russia did not want to stop the war they demanded of the proletariat thai they (the proletariat) should remain true to the cause of Entente Capitalism. Herr Kautsky has never fought against this policy, but has discovered tlial Tseretclli is the repre- sentative of Marxism. The Russian workers, however, hunted both Kerensky and Tseretelli : and those who did this were the overwhelming majority of the population. A'O "demo- cratic" government in the i^'orld ez'er had such resolute niasses of people behind it as the Bolsheviks had from November, 1917, /(; March, 1918. No historian will be able to deny that the Bolsheviks came to power supported by the immense ma- jority of the people. The op]:)osite impression was created by the Press on the one hand, which was entirely controlled by the small sections of the bourgeoisie and the Intelligentsia; and on the other, l)y the circumstance that owing to the lack of suitable political apparatus in the villages and to the incapa- city of the ]-)easants to cxjiress their will sufficiently clear, the adherents of the Constitutional Asseml)ly were able to mis- represent the true state of afifairs. What it meant, however,

39

was that the Bolsheviks, after the ruin of the old army, and before the building up of the Red one — that they, with scarcely any armed power, held out in February and March, 1918. That the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly did not cause a movement to be set on foot anywhere against the Bolsheviks will be understood only by those who reflect that they took over power as the representatives of the decisive majority of the people.

Power therefore fell to the peasants and workers by a spontaneous historical process which broke the domination of the bourgeoisie and their Menshevik supporters. The peasants had no party representation. (The Left Socialist Revolutionaries wished to represent them but did not. They represented part of the Intellectual section which had not much support amongst the peasantry.) The proletariat, who controlled the means of communication and the towns, and who possessed organs of- government in the trade unions, and the Soviets of the Bolshevik Party, were masters of the situa- tion. What ought they to have done ? Herr Kautsky, who was opposed to the taking over of power by the Russian pro- letariat (he conceals this in his book) takes these facts for granted and gives the Russian proletariat the following ad- vice : "No class voluntarily renounces the power it has acquired no matter what the circumstances may have been under which it gained its dominating position. It would have been foolish to have demanded such renunciation from the Russian and Hungarian proletariat, on account of the backward condition of their cotuitries. But a Socialist party, informed by the real Marxist spirit, ivoiild have accommodated the problems zvhich it placed before the proletariat for the time being to the material and physical conditions prevailing, and zvould not have demanded immediate and complete socializa- tion in such a country of undeveloped capitalist production as Russia." It is very gracious of Herr Kautsky to admit that the Russian proletariat cannot give up its power. His pamphlet of last year contained the advice to the Russian

40

proletariat to "restore democracy". Since the appearance of that pamphlet over a year ago the war of the Entente and of the Russian counter-revolution appears to have taught Herr Kautsky that if the Soviet dictatorship were overthrown its place would be taken by the dictatorship of the counter-revo- lution with Czarist generals at its head. On that question he says: "You have attained to power although not in a democratic way. And now, since the fact is accomplished, use your power in a rational manner. Accommodate your- selves to conditions; do not attempt imi)ossible jumps; leave complete Socialization alone: it is impossible in a country so backward, from the point of view of capitalist conditions, as Russia."

What is "complete Socialization"? If the words have any meaning at all they can only mean the immediate transference of all means of production to the possession and control of societyl'and the attempt to end Capitalism with one blow. It shozvs absolute ignorance of the real course of the devel- opment of the Russian Revolution for anyone to assert that the Communist Party had on its program a demand for such complete Socialisation, or that the Workers' Government had sought, on doctrinaire grounds, to realise it. The Communist Party fought during the Kerensky regime for the control of industry through Workers' Councils with full knowledge of the fact that the proletariat had to acquire an insight into the working of industry — to learn how to administer in order gradually to be able to direct the industrial machine. When Kautsky says that "therefore the proletariat must previously have acquired qualities which will enable them to direct pro- duction when they take possession of it," he gives a very sim- ple and school-master like presentation of an extremely com- plicated process. We cannot, of course, direct a process we do not understand. In capitalist society not only the mass of manual workers in the factories, but even the intellectual pro- letariat (technicians, engineers, etc.) are destitute of the ability to direct industry. Each one performs a part of the

41

work : they are all little wheels in an intricate mechanism. The management is in the hands of a few directors who care- fully guard their secrets (market conditions, etc.). As long as capital rules it seeks to exclude the proletarian by every means from the direction of industry. When the proletariat, however, come to power, without the capacity to manage, they will be faced with the necessity to do so ; not only be- cause the struggle for power wall have induced in them the will to take their fate in their own hands , but also because the capitalists, in the struggle for power, will injure produc- tion by measures of sabotage and all other means, in order to make the position of the proletariat as difficult as possi- ble. How is such a situation to be met? Kautsky, Hilfer- ding and Bauer believed they had found the way when they consented to sit on royal commissions (on which not a single proletarian had a place) and study the "Socializa- tion question." They had first of all to ascertain, in conjunc- tion with capitalist representatives and learned professors, how coal, fisheries, etc., could be nationalized, one after another, without injury to "production." Then they came to the conviction that the occasion of sabotage and civil war should be taken from the capitalists by giving them handsome compensation. Later, when matters reach a crisis, this com- pensation can be gradually taxed out of existence. Contem- poraneously with the gradual nationalization of the most highly centralized and most easily conducted industries, their directing boards should cease to be of a purely private capital- ist nature and become mixed bodies, having representatives of the State, the consumers and the workers, besides those of the capitalists. A two-fold object will thus be' secured: in the first place, the workers will gradually acquire an insight into the work of management ; and in the second place, the con- tinuity of production \\\\\ be secured. This is the standpoint from which Kautsky criticizes the economic policy of the So- viet Government.

Before we describe the Russian development let us ask if this viewpoint has been proved to be correct in Germany and

4^

German-Austria. The cookery books say that the carp hkes to be roasted in cream ; and Kautsky and Co. apparently thought that the bourgeoisie hke to be gradually expropriated. But they must have been convinced that the bourgeoisie pre- ferred not to be expropriated at all. They (the bourgeoisie) caused Herr Kautsky and other professors in Berlin, and Herr Bauer in Vienna, to ''study" the tjuestion, and meanwhile they set about building up again their power which had been shaken in November, and the question of Socialization was settled. If the Governmeni, in its proposed j^lan for Work- ers' Councils, would grant a place to a representative of the workers on the managing body, all would be well ; otherwise industrial unrest will continue and the htness of the Govern- ment's proposals will not be tested. The workers require, not an occasional glimpse into the work of management, but a daily participation in the direction of industrial undertakings, and only in this way can they really master the conditions and problems of the direction of industry. It can therefore be seen that the method of Kautsky is a Utopian one, and can be compared to the attempt to wash the skin without wetting it. The real development which took place in Russia, and the outlines of which will be repeated in other countries, makes it more difficult for the proletariat to learn how to direct pro- duction, and makes the process of transition from Capitalism to Socialism much more painful. What ha])])encd in Russia?

The workers demanded control of industry through work- sht]) committees. They did this not on doctrinaire grounds, nor under the influence of Communist propaganda, but from the pressure of necessity. It frequently happened that capi- talists wanted to close their factories, as the rising prices of raw materials, macliinery. and lalior jjower ihrealened their war profits. It was more to their iiUerest to save their war ])rohts and to temijorarily paralyze industry. In (Ahvv cases the capitalists dislocated industry fcr the time l)eii'.g, in order to compel the workers to minimize their dcmnnds ; and in others again, because they were really unable to obtain raw mater-

tit

43

ials. In all these cases the workers attempted to save them- ;' selves from unemployment, and angrily demanded the control of industry in order to see whether the suspension were really inevitable, and whether their demands were unreasonable, etc. Control was gained in varying measure in different parts of Russia, but everywhere the demand was fiercely resisted, and in man}* ])laces the workers had to drive the factory own- ers off the premises in order to gain access to the offices. It is clear that at this stage of development neither the common interests of society nor those of the workers as. a whole were represented, that in the struggle much of value was lost. If Kautsky in his pamphlet on Democracy and Dictatorship I)elieved it was necessary to convert Lenin from the opinion that the seizure of factories by the workers in these factories, is not Socialism — that merely shows the professors stupidity. .So long as there is no organ which represents all the workers' interests ; so long as the fighting organs of individual prole- tarian groups are merely in process of formation — just so long is it impossible for the object of the struggle to be common. In the same vvay the destruction of value which every group of workers attempted to carry through in their factories was im- l^iossible. The Soviet Government, when it attained to power in November, 1917, had to deal with the struggle of each group of proletarians against its own particular exploiters, with indi- vidualist tendencies, and with the necessity to escape want. \\'hat ought it to have done when confronted with such prob- lems?

In the first ]3lace there was the danger confronting it that the ca|)italists were attempting to save what they possibly could. They drew their money frcm the banks, and endeav- ored to transfer the stocks of goods to speculators. It had to take the banks in its own hands, to declare the factories, with all their stocks, the property of the nation, and to hand their control over to workers' councils. Then it had to prevent the possibility of the workers in individual factories selling their raw materials and finished products to favorites of their own./

44

Only after that was it possible to secure the general prole- tarian organs of control should be built, and control of indi-

_^vjdual factories taken out of the hands of individual work- ers' councils? '"Finally, it succeeded in introducing, not only

"n:lie~^xtension of production in general, but also the direction in the interests of all, of the production of everything needed by society. Kautsky has not the smallest idea of the colossal work that has been accomplished in this sphere since the first days of the November Revolution. The struggle for peace, the German attack, the fight against the operations immedi- ately set on foot by the militarist counter-revolution, the spon- taneous demobilization of the army, the building up of the most primitive organs of State power — these problems, which confronted the proletariat and their party, were such that the ordinary professor, in his study amongst his books, cannot have the. slightest conception of. But from Lenin's speech on the problems of the Soviet power, which was published in April, 1918, in the fifteenth month of the revolution, every thinking person can see that the proposals were not the inven- tion of a man living in the clouds, but the attitude of a great proletarian leader to the problems with which practically the whole of Russia was already grappling in the first weeks of the Revolution. Lenin's pamphlet is polemical through and through. It was directed against the Left Wing of the Com- munist Party of Russia, which was grouped round the perio- dical, the "Communist" published in Moscow under the direc- tion of Bucharin, Radek, Ossinski, Lomov and Smirnov. The whole party was unanimous on the point that the question of the organization of production was the most important domes- tic question of the Revolution. Both wings were agreed on what Kautsky now serves up to the Communists as a brand-new discovery that "without the cooperation of the intelligentzia. Socialism at the present stage of production cannot be accom- plished." The Russian Communists have never told the work- ers that they could direct production without expert knowl- edge, or that they could acquire this knowledge so rapidly that they would be able to do without the intellectual capital

V

45

of society. If the workers had realized this they would not have been concerned about the sabotage of the petit-bourgeois Intellectuals. Their opposition was based on wholly different grounds. Lenin proceeded on the assumption that with the defeat of Kaledin the period of the open counter-revolutionary resistance of the bourgeoisie was ended, and that we could begin to hire the services, as directors of production, of the best members of the bourgeoisie — men who had been tested, and with whose help production could be extended. "We Communists and the working class have not managed factories anywhere. We must first learn, and we can learn only from the directors of the trusts. If we pay for our learning we shall get back our money a thousand fold," declared Lenin. And his declaration was merely the result of earnest con- versations with a number of prominent industrial experts on the formation of a great mixed factory in the Urals, in whose revenue the industrial experts should be interested and whose direction should be in the hands of industrial experts, and of representatives of the State and of the workers. All the brand-new clever ideas of Kautsky were known to the Com- munists of Russia ; and even the Left Wing of the Communist Party did not consider Lenin's proposals as an infraction of principle. Nobody thought that Communism must be accom- plished at one bound, or that in the Communist society the capitalist elements could be immediately removed. Lenin's plan was in strict accordance with principle, but the Left Communists considered it unworkable. They said it was wrong to adopt it till the open resistance of the counter-revo- lutionaries was crushed once and for all. The bourgeoisie had not abandoned this resistance and therefore it was impos- sible to attract their leaders to the work even if economic con- cessions were granted them in the period of transition. They would either refuse to cooperate with the Soviet Government in the hope of its early downfall under the pressure of the European counter-revolution, and in the desire to hasten its downfall ; or they would, in appearance, make a compromise with the Soviet Government in order to erect the positions

46

thus conceded into bastions to be used later against the work- ers' revohition. The Left Communists on the other hand quite agreed with Lenin in his endeavor to create as favor- able conditions as possible for intellectual workers-engineers, technicians, etc. — in order to gain the cooperation of these not necessarily counter-revolutionary elements. History (which crowned Lenin's foreign policy — the policy of evasion rather than a direct collision with German Imperialism with success) showed that his attempt to promote production by attracting capitalists to it. was at that time impracticable. The breathing space which his foreign policy gained for the revo- lution allowed it to organize itself, was also a breathing-space for the counter-revolution, w^hich, under the shield of German Imperialism in the L'kraine and under the protection of the Entente in Siberia, organized more energetic attacks on Soviet Russia. Instead of effecting compromises with the matadors of Capitalism for the improvement of industry the proletariat State had to fight the Terror with all available means in order to protect the power of the working class — the fundamental condition for any kind of Socialization. But even then the hard facts and stern necessities had to 1)e reck- oned with in considering methods of socialization, quite Jndei)endently of abstract combinations. During the war Soviet Russia was cut off from the ore and coal of the Donetz basin and of the Caucasus, from the naptha of Baku, and since the Czecho-Slovakian revolt, from the metals of the Urals, and from the wool of Taskent. This situation necessi- tated the collecting of everv available atom of raw material. Tt necessitated the closing of factories which could not be worked full time, and the handing over of their machines and supplies cf raw material to those which could. It necessi- tated tlie suspension of iiroduction of articles not actually necessary, and even of many indispensible things, and the placing of industry at the service of the defense of the Revo- lution. All la]-ge industry had to be vigorously centralized in the hands of the ]:)roletarian State. "Complete Socializa- tion"— exclusive of handicrafts, etc. — ims not the result of

4?

the Communist doctrine; it i^'cis the result of the -c^'ar of de- fense of the Revolution.

It called also for new methods of management. The Rus- sian workers, during the many months the Revolution has lasted, have learned a great deal about industrial attairs. Bourgeois correspondents, who are inveterate enemies of Socialism and who insinuate themselves into Soviet affairs under the pretense that they are converts to Socialism in order that they may, in the guise of impartial observers spend a few weeks collecting "pictures of life" in Soviet Russia after- wards to be hawked about — these people, naturally, have no conception of the work which has been performed by the inexperienced Russian proletariat under the most unfavor- able conditions. Whoever appeals against these assertions to the speeches of the Soviet leaders and to articles in the Soviet Press, forgets the aim of those pessimistic descriptions printed in the Soviet Press. Soviet Russia is waging a life- and-death struggle. It can win only if it exerts all its strength, and employs every means of defense. The leaders and the Press must denounce every weakness of the organism in order to call forth fresh efforts. Even where failure is due to ob- jective obstacles and difficulties it is helpful to tell the masses that all these hinderances can be overcome. While the bour- geoisie and Social Democratic Press of Germany endeavors to conceal every form of corruption practiced by the State authorities, the Soviet Press ruthlessly lays bare the weak- nesses of its own State machinery. Soviet functionaries are recklessly attacked by it, and so also are the working masses at every failure, and this notwithstanding the fact that Ossinski, one of the greatest experts in economic policy in the Soviet Government was perfectly right when he pointed out a year ago that production depends in the first place on objective circumstances and is the result of a continuously working process. W'herever work is continually interrupted through want of fuel or raw materials, production, recorded per head and per hour, falls. It follows then that the masses

4g

are permanently undernourished, and must continue to be so, as people must produce war necessities in the first place, and can only produce industrial goods on the very smallest scale to be exchanged for articles of food. Finally, the most ener- getic proletarians, who have learned how to manage production, are at the front, and are the soul of the Red Army. In this situation, conditions will not allow of waiting until the capacity of the proletariat for directing is gradually developed. In this process of the strengthening of collective independence and of the rugged feeling of collective responsibility, the most intelligent workers, manual as well as mental workers, must be invested with dictatorial powers. The Kautskys see in that the bankruptcy of Communism, a renunciation of the Soviet idea. In reality these transient dictatorial encroach- ments are a result of the war which does not allow the Soviet Constitution to overcome its infantile weaknesses, or to strengthen the independence of the masses. These encroach- ments lead to the overcoming of stagnation only because they are backed by the Soviets, which have the confidence of the masses, and which point out to them the meaning and the necessity of such measures.

This description of the internal development of the Russian Soviet Republic shows the difficulties with which it has to contend, thanks not only to the immaturity of the Russian proletariat and not only to the preponderatingly agrarian character of the country, but also and primarily to the fact that the Russian Revolution broke out before the proletariat of the capitalist countries rose in rebellion. It had to grapple not only with its own counter-revolution but also with world capital which attempted to suppress it in order that it might again have a supply of cannon fodder at its disposal, and which now seeks to trample upon it and to destroy the seat of the world revolution. The shock of the counter-revolu- tionary armies of world capital, the plot concocted on Russian soil and the assistance it has repeatedly given to Russian capital, which always held out the hope of victory over the Russian workers — all these circumstances were bound to make

49

the struggle of the Russian Revolution more severe in char- acter. When the Russian working class attained to power they sought to avoid the infliction of cruelties in spite of the savage persecution to which they had been subjected during the Kerensky regime. The revolutionary workers shielded with their own bodies the arrested Ministers of Kerensky, they pardoned counter-revolutfonary generals, because, in- structed by the Communist Party, they understood that the proletarian revolution did not mean the removal of indi- viduals, but the alteration of social conditions. When savage reprisals took place they were the work of peasant masses clad in soldier's uniforms, and not of the organized workers.

Except for the fight in Moscow the Revolution was carried through practically peacefully. The political Terror was in- stituted on a large scale zvhen the Russian bourgeoisie under the protection of German bayonets in the Ukraine, began to advance against the zvorkers with fire and szvord; when in Central Russia in the spring of 1918 they, concealed behind the German Government, and with the assistance of its officials, sought to remove substantial portions of the im- poverished Russian people's property to Germany ; when, with English and French money they began to hatch plots and organized attempts on the lives of the leaders of the Russian proletariat ; and when, finally, they began to arm all armies of mercenaries in Siberia and in tke Caucasus against Soviet Russia. This is not the place to repeat the details of the savage White Terror which can be gleaned from the report of Joshua Rosset, the representative of the American Red Cross in Siberia. Kautsky declares that when the leaders of the counter-revolution resorted to terrorist methods they were true to themselves, "because to them human life was so cheap as to be merely a means of furthering their own aims." "They do not renounce their principles when they sacrifice human life in order to retain their power, but the Bolsheviks can only do this tvhen they become untrue to the principle of the sacrcdness of human life which they themselves have exalted and vindicated." Herr Hilferding, the junior repre-

50

sentative of the firm of "castrated Marxism," now repeats with his master that terrorism is absolutely immoral ; and the brave George Ledebour foams at the mouth against the immorality of the Bolshevist Terror. George Ledebour, in defense of himself, can point to the fact that in thv Kerensky epoch he protested energetically at the Stock- holm conference of the Zimmerwaldians against the ter- rorism of the Kerensky Government. Messrs' Kautsky and Co. cannot even plead humanitarian confusion in ex- temiation of their conduct. They were silent while Russian soldiers, peasants and workers were driven to fight in the interests of Entente capital with all the means of the most savage terrorism. They were silent when the Kerensky Gov- ernment threw- into prison the revolutionary peasants who had organized themselves to expropriate the large land- owners ; when it sent punitive expeditions against the peasants and for the defense of the landlords ; when it ruthlessly per- secuted thousands of workers on account of their Bolshevik propaganda ; when it suppressed the Bolshevist Press ; when it persecuted leaders of the Russian proletariat as German spies. The apostles of morality only discovered the absolute immorality of terrorism when the question arose whether the proletariat should, with tooth and nail, defend their power and endeavor to secure the possibility of freedom. Then these Marxians, who had hitherto taught the proletariat that there was no such thing as absolute truth, and no absolute moral law, discovered that the proletariat had the right to conquer when they cculd do so without endangering human life. If they are so solicitous for human life why do they see only the sacrifice of the Extraordinary Commission, and not the masses who must starve because the Russian bour- geoisie, with the help of Entente capital, destroyed the railway bridges in order to disorganize traffic ; because the Russian bourgeoisie begin an offensive against Soviet Russia which has no prospect of military success but can only hope to destroy the harvests so as to compel the masses to capitulate through hunger. But if the accusation of immorality, which

51

the "moral" Kautskys, Hilferdings and Ledebours bring for- ward against the young struggling working class, is non- sensical, it is not thereby stated that terrorism answers the purpose, what views it has, or what aims it pursues.

It is clear that, in the long run, even the most severe ter- rorism would not have been able to save the Russian Revo- lution if Capitalism had emerged victorious from the crisis of the war and consolidated itself. Then the counter-revolu- tion, while compelling Soviet Russia to produce only for war purposes, could have achieved its own ends. If the Soviet Republic cannot, within a reasonable space of time, establish its production on a peaceful basis so as to be able to give its industrial products to the peasants in exchange for food, it is clear that the weaker sections of the w^orkers, will, even in the midst of victorious campaigns, be destroyed. But this very possibility must act as an incentive on every West Euro- pean Socialist, to whom Socialism is not an empty term, to make the most strenuous efforts to get the working class of the West to engage in the fight against Capitalism, instead of inviting the Russian revolutionaries to lay down their arms before the counter-revolutionaries in the name or human right. When Kautsky, in his book of last year on Democracy and Dictatorship, expressed the hope that the Bolshevist dic- tatorship in Russia would be dissolved by democracy, it must have been evident not only to the Russian Mensheviks, but also to their stupid Western imitators, that if the Russian workers' dictatorship with its Terror collapsed, its place would be taken, not by democracy, but by the White Terror of Kolchak and Denikin. Compelled to choose betzveen the proletarian dictatorship zcith its terrorism, and the naked ter- rorism of the Whijc dictatorship, these people implore the Russian proletariat to be gentle and good and prepared to assist others, and promise that they will erect a monument to the Russian proletariat inscribed as follows : "Ye fallen heroes, assassinated by the capitalist Terror, because it was a noble thing to obey the dictates of humanity ; to have lived

52

for the most part on a vegetable diet, supplemented now and then with smaller animals, caterpillars, worms, reptiles, and even unfledged birds ; to have refrained from killing any large mammal in order to eat it. In this ye resembled our ancestor, the ape. Honor to his memory !"

Now, the Russian proletariat will not take this advice, and the only good that can come out of it is that it will enable the proletariat to see that the Hilferdings and the Ledebours, are in the last resort, disciples of Scheidemann. |

CHAPTER VI.

EITHER. . .OR. . .

What significance has the question of terrorism for the West European working class ? Kautsky, Otto Bauer and Hilferding seek to account for terrorism (which they only discover with the workers' revolution) by the fact that the\ working class in Russia is only a small percentage of the population. That is the sole reason, they say, why the work- ing class must endeavor to maintain itself in power by means/ of violence. The European proletariat will not need to do'f this because they constitute the majority of the population/ When they (Kautsky, etc.) inveigh against the Russian Bol- shevist terror they do so on the ground that it is their duty to cleanse the Socialist escutcheon from all the blood with which Bolshevism has bespattered it. But the eagerness, nay, the venom, with which Kautsky. Strobel, Hilferding and Ledebour treat the matter shows that for them there is more at stake than the question whether these great representatives of Socialism could accept responsibility for the poor little Russian workers' revolution. When the Russian workers' revolution won in November, 1917, and when, to the workers of all lands from Berlin and Vienna to New York and San Francisco, the flag of the Soviets appeared as the one under which in future they would fight and conquer, the wavering Socialist elements were concerned chiefly with one aspect of the struggle — the idea of the proletarian dictatorship. The Strobels and the Kautskys vied with the avowed lackeys of the bourgeoisie in persuading the proletariat that Marx had understood dictatorship to mean merely the domination of the proletariat after they had legally won the majority of the people to Socialism ; after they had pledged themselves by law to compensate the brave bourgeoisie to the end of their lives

54

and of those of their children for taking from them the inher- ited right of exploiting the workers ; and after they had secured to the bourgeoisie their life annuities, to assure them of an opportunity of organizing against the proletariat under the flag of democracy. But nevertheless the idea of the work- ers' dictatorship made great headway amongst the working classes of Western Europe and captivated always greater masses of the proletariat, not only because of the influence of the struggle of the Russian Soviet Republic, which had found a warm place in the hearts of the proletariat of the whole world, but also, and chiefly, because of the experience the working class of all lands had had of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. After the workers of Germany in November. 1918, allowed themselves to be led astray by the Haases, Strobels, Hilferdings, Dittmanns and Kautskys who delivered them over to the fallen power of the bourgeoisie, they (the workers) soon recognized bourgeois democracy by its fruits. Between the National Assembly and the Councils there was no fundamental antagonism, asserted Haase, the leader of the Independents at the first Congress of Councils, and he recommended the convening of National Assembly. The bourgeoisie pointed out to the workers that there was only one alternative. In order to get the real power in their hands, in order to set the seal of approval of ihe National Assembly on the bourgeois power, they began immediately after the Congress to suppress the workers, to deprive the Workers' Councils of their rights, and to disarm the proletariat. In the period from January to March the workers' faith in the mir- aculous power of democracy and of the National Assembly vanished, and they declared vehemently for the dictatorship and for the domination of the Councils. At the March con- gress of the Independent Social Democratic Party of Ger- many, Haase and Hilferding succeeded, with great difficulty. in making the workers believe that by bringing pressure to bear on the l)ourgeoisie in the bourgeois National x\ssembly, they could get, if not control by the Councils, at least joint control, and could secure the political initiative. The diief

55

enemies of the Cquncils did not venture into the independent Press. Only in bourgeois papers and books, pubHshcd by bourgeois firms did Kautsky and Strobel dare to combat the idea of the proletarian dictatorship. Month by month their position in the party became more hopeless and finally there remained nothing for the opponents of the proletarian dicta- torship lo do but to concentrate on a dictatorship zvliicli is no dlctatorsliip.

Rudolf Hilferding, the old counselor of Scheidemann and Rbert, a man who learned Radicalism in theory from the Austrian school of compromise, the half truth and the whole lie. gave the signal. At the September Conference of the Independents he pronounced for dictatorship, but for dicta- torship of such a kind as would do no harm to the bour- geoisie, a dictatorship which is like a knife without a handle. He pronounced for dictatorship while rejecting the theory on principle. He declared that terrorism was not only ethic- ally wrong, but that in Western Europe it was not even necessary because there the working class possess a majority and can therefore rule without the exercise of violence. All the confused and opportunist elements eagerly welcomed this solution. It ofifered a way of escape for these elements of the Independent Party who, on account of their social posi- tion, are not able to break definitely with the bourgeoisie. Some of them, who are well ofif themselves, are instinctively drawn towards the bourgeoisie while others are accustomed to the peaceful lives of Parliamentary leaders, and will protest and demonstrate, but will not risk anything. This solution was eagerly accepted by all those elements who came over to Socialism because bourgeois democracy was bankrupt. The watchword, "Dictatorship without Terrorism", was at once the slogan of the political authorities and that of those who were suffering from humanitarian and democratic illusions.

Not one of them cculd take his stand, regardless of conse- quences, upon the platform of the proletariat and fight their fight as demanded by the situation. Without considering the

56

conditions of the question they will allow the proletariat to wade through a capitalist sea of mud and blood and still expect them to remain as white and spotless as Antigone. The watchword, "Dictatorship without Terrorism", is the last refuge of the bourgeoisie.

In the first place, hozv shall we come to supreme pozver? Shall we be able to definitely establish the fact that we have a majority of the people behind us, even when we have? It is obvious that that is almost impossible. When the time is ripe for the domination of the working class the demand will be expressed in the sharpest revolutionary fight in which the bourgeoisie, as well as the proletariat, will put forth all their efforts, and in which democratic forms will be swept away.

The bourgeoisie will oppose the White Terror to the coming . proletarian dictatorship. They will suppress the workers' Press, dissolve the workers' organizations and attempt to provoke the proletariat into premature outbreaks in order to overthrow them. It will scarcely be possible to ascertain, by any kind of elections, which side has the majority. And it is doubtful if the class-conscious pro- letariat, striving for the mastery, zi'ill ever, at any time before accession to pozver, have the majority of the people be- hind than. The workers, as long as Capitalism lasts, will not only be under the influence of the bourgeois Press, and bourgeois education and inherited superstitions, but they zvill also be impressed by the pozver of the bourgeoisie. The most oppressed or the most mentally active elements of the work- ing class will free themselves from these influences in the process of revolution. As for the great majority of the pro- letariat, the belief in their own strength and in their own capacity to rule will grow only through the acts of the revo- lutionary workers' government, through their own struggles and their own experiences. But even if the Communists ad- vance guard of the proletariat were to gather a majority and if it were mathematically established — even then it zvould be too much to expect that the bourgeoisie zvould submit to the

5r

majority. The bourgeoisie, as a rule, will not submit: they ivill have to be overthrozvn. As long as there are Capitalist States as well as Socialist ones the bourgeoisie will always nourish the hope that they will one day conquer the prole- lariat, and once overthrown, they will begin anew to organize resistance. As long as the process of revolution is still unfin- ished, as long as no Socialist order appears in the place of the capitalist chaos — order zvhich will sliozv to the masses by con- crete acts the benefits of the conditions resulting from the neiv rule — so long will the bourgeoisie find elements amongst the wavering and vacillating portions of the proletariat and the petit-bourgeoisie ivkich will allow themselves to be per- suaded that under bourgeois rule they would be spared all the difficulties and hardships inseperable from the struggle. In the West, in the developed capitalist countries where the bour- geoisie are best organized, and where they have a large measure of support amongst the aristocracy of labor (as was the case in Russia, by the way) the fight for power will obvi- ously be much keener than it was in Russia, as the proletariat will have to oppose to the relatively greater might of the bourgeoisie a still more decisive measure of violence.

In these circumstances the talk of dictatorship without terrorism is nothing more than an attempt to put the prole- tariat ofif their guard, the only result of which would be that they would approach the fight unconscious of the danger and therefore would the more easily fall a prey to the bourgeoisie.

However, we may console ourselves with the thought that the working class is not sentimental, and that it will meet hard facts with hard facts. The working class, like every other aspiring class which represents the future of humanity, and which gathers in itself all aspirations after what is good and great, is fundamentally generous and for a time easily lulled to sleep, and very easily when the sleeping draught is administered by people in whom it trusts, and who speak to it as supporters of the dictatorship. The danger threatens the working class that it will attain to power through the machina-

58

tions of people who will on no account take a resolute stand, whose just and honorable feelings impair their power to grasp realities, and who, at a time when violence is required, will shrink from it. and cause much greater sacrifices by this neg- lect than would otherwise be necessary.

The danger even threatens the proletariat that they will suffer serious temporary defeats through the machinations of unrelialjle leaders. Those who are acquainted with the his- tory of the Soviet Governments of Hungary and Munich know that the disintegrating influence exercised by romantic youths (of all ages) played an important part in bringing about their downfall ; and therefore the influence wdiich Kautsky's book still exercises on some cf the leaders of the Independents is a danger signal, ft warns the proletariat against accepting mere verbal declarations. The independent working masses know that it is not enough to extort from their leaders a confession in favor cf dictatorship, that it is necessary to have at the points — boxes on the proletarian rail- way system, representatives of tJie revolutionary proletariat whose eyes calmly perceive facts and zchose hands do not tremble. A Soviet dictatcrshi]) with leaders who have not definitely broken mentally with the capitalist world, and who are not prepared to do w^hat hard necessity demands — such a dictatorship can only be a dictatorship in appearance, and that means certain defeat. The proletariat do not long for blood- shed ; they knew from historical experience that violence or the Terror never at any time nor place created new conditions of production, that it never produced a new system of society where econcmic development had not prepared the ground for it. The proletariat know that violence does not produce bread or coal, and dov-:^ not build railways. Thev know that for that willing labor i)\ millions is necessary, but they also know that if they want coal for tluir houses and foundries they must first of all win the coal mi)ies in violent rcvohitionary fighting, and secondly that they must watch over them, szvord in hand, to prevent them being destroyed by bands of White

59

Guards. The proletariat know that they cannot compel the peasants to plow the fields ; they know that, in the long run the peasants will only do that where they recognize that they will have better conditions under the rule of the proletariat than under that of the bourgeoisie. But it is essential that, by the overthrow of the bourgeoisie the peasants should be cured of their belief that the bourgeoisie alone are able to govern ; and they will discard this belief not only through the fight against the bourgeoisie, but in many cases, even by the fight against the rich peasantry. Whoever has studied the history of revolutions, n(jt from books like Kautsky's, but from great and original if also reactionary bourgeois sources, will have no hesitation in agreeing with Ranke when he says in his history of the English Revolution that great things must always be shaped by a strong zmll. The meaning of terrorism in the revolution is that the revolutionary class, even in the hour of greatest danger, shrinks from nothing in order to accomplish its zvill, and defends itself with all its might.

The working class will only acquire this will after long experience, many struggles, defeats and victories. As a sub- ject class, descended from the subject sections of the pre- capitalistic historical period, as a class in whose veins flows the blood of those accustomed for centuries to obey the will of others, the working class today Jias not that iron ivill to dominate which has been so highly developed by, for exam- ple, the Prussian Junkers and the English bourgeoisie. There- fore the fight must be all the keener against all those elements which are led to dissipate their energies by wavering, vacillat- ing and carelessness. The proletariat who strive for equality of all human beings, have no longing for dictatorship with terrorism, and do not themselves choose that tactical course.

As soon as the situation permits of it they will forego it. In the process of the Socialist revolution they will always seek to discover whether this or that section of the bourgeoisie can be induced to join with them in the exercise of power, whether the circle of those possessing equal rights is not capable of

60

extension, and they will greet the day with ringing of bells and shouts of joy in which all chains will disappear, in which an end will be put to all forms of oppression, in which the long standing disgrace of exploitation of man by man will be driven from the world and consigned to oblivion ; and that day of the society of free and equal brothers will come all the faster the larger the number is of bourgeois Intellec- tuals who realize that the domination of the bourgeoisie is gone forever, and that it is their duty to take their stand on the side of the life that is now struggling into existence. The greater the assistance the working masses receive from the brain workers the easier will it be to consummate the organ- ization of the new life, the more difficult will be the fight of the counter-revolutionary elements against them, and the less will be the necessity of employing terrorist measures. A vacillating policy on the part of the bourgeoisie will not re- move this necessity. The policy of the proletariat in this question is indicated in the announcement of the Chartists who declared : "We will achieve our aims peacefully if pos- sible, but forcibly if necessary." The historical experience of the proletariat teaches them that force will be necessary : it all depends upon the bourgeoisie whether it will or not.

THE END.

Dictatorship of the Proletariat, by L. Kameneff $.10

Great Initiative, by N. Lenin $.15

Proletarian Dictatorship and Terrorism,

by Karl Raciek ; $.20

Proletarian Revolution, by N. Lenin $.40

State and Revolution, by N. Lenin $.40

Collapse of the Second International,

by N. Lenin $.40

"LEFT WING" Communism, by N. Lenin $.50

Trade Unions in Soviet Russia, by A. Lozovsky $.50

A. B. C. of Communism, by N. Bucharin

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