OUR REVOLUTION
Essays on Working-Class and Inter-
national Revolution, 1904-1917
BY
LEON TROTZKY
Collected and Translated, with Biography and
Explanatory Notes
BY
MOISSAYE J. OLGIN
Author of "The Soul of the Russian Revolution**
NEW YORK
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
1918
Copyright, 1918,
BY
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
Published March, 1918
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S77I49
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PREFACE
The world has not known us Russian revo-
lutionists. The world has sympathized with
us; the world abroad has given aid and com-
fort to our refugees; the world, at times, even
admired us; yet the world has not known us.
Friends of freedom in Europe and America
were keenly anxious to see the victory of our
cause; they watched our successes and our de-
feats with breathless interest; yet they were
concerned with material results. Our views,
our party affiliations, our factional divisions,
^ our theoretical gropings, our ideological con-
^^ structions, to us the leading lights in our revo-
-- lutionary struggles, were foreign to the world.
^ All this was supposed to be an internal Rus-
^ sian affair.
The Revolution has now ceased to be an in-
T** temal Russian affair. It has become of world-
S» wide import. It has started to influence gov-
QQ ernments and peoples. What was not long ago
^ a theoretical dispute between two "under-
^s^ ground" revolutionary circles, has grown into
iv Preface
a concrete historical power determining the
fate of nations. What was the individual con-
ception of individual revolutionary leaders is
now ruling millions.
The world is now vitally interested in un-
derstanding Russia, in learning the history of
our Revolution which is the history of the great
Russian nation for the last fifty years. This
involves, however, knowing not only events,
but also the development of thoughts, of aims,
of ideas that underlie and direct events; gain-
ing an insight into the immense volume of in-
tellectual work which recent decades have ac-
cumulated in revolutionary Russia.
We have selected Leon Trotzky's contribu-
tion to revolutionary thought, not because he
is now in the limelight of history, but because
his conceptions represent a very definite, a
clear-cut and intrinsically consistent trend of
revolutionary thought, quite apart from that
of other leaders. We do not agree with many
of Trotzky's ideas and policies, yet we cannot
overlook the fact that these ideas have become
predominant in the present phase of the Rus-
sian Revolution and that they are bound to
give theii' stamp to Russian democracy in the
years to come, whether the present government
remains in power or not.
Preface v
The reader will see that Trotzky's views as
applied in Bolsheviki ruled Russia are not of
recent origin. They were formed in the course
of the First Russian Revolution of 1905, in
which Trotzky was one of the leaders. They
were developed and strengthened in the fol-
lowing years of reaction, when many a progres-
sive group went to seek compromises with the
absolutist forces. They became particularly
firm through the world war and the circimi-
stances that led to the establishment of a re-
publican order in Russia. Perhaps many a
grievous misunderstanding and misinterpreta-
tion would have been avoided had thinking
America known that those conceptions of Trot-
zky were not created on the spur of the mo-
ment, but were the result of a life-long work in
the service of the Revolution.
Trotzky's writings, besides their theoretical
and political value, represent a vigor of style
and a clarity of expression unique in Russian
revolutionary literature.
M. J. Olgin.
New York, February 16th, 1918.
CONTENTS
PAGB
Biographical Notes 3
The Proletariat and the Revolution ... 23
The Events in Petersburg 4*7
Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship ... 63
The Soviet and the Revolution . . . . l^T
Preface to My Roimd Trip 163
The Lessons of the Great Year .... 169
On the Eve of a Revolution 179
Two Faces 187
The Growing Conflict 199
War or Peace? 205
Trotzky on the Platform in Petrograd *. . 213
J
YU
LEON TROTZKY
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES
LEON TROTZKY
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES
Trotzky is a man of about forty. He is tall,
strong, angular; his appearance as well as his
speech give the impression of boldness and
vigor. His voice is a high tenor ringing with
metal. And even in his quiet moments he re-
sembles a compressed spring.
He is always aggressive. He is full of pas-
sion, — that white-hot, vibrating mental passion
that characterizes the intellectual Jew. On the
platform, as well as in private life, he bears an
air of peculiar importance, an indefinable some-
thing that says very distinctly: "Here is a
man who knows his value and feels himself
chosen for superior aims." Yet Trotzky is not
imposing. He is ahnost modest. He is de-
tached. In the depths of his eyes there is a
lingering sadness.
It was only natural that he, a gifted college
youth with a strong avidity for theoretical
thinking, should have exchanged, some twenty
years ago, the somber class-rooms of the Uni-
3
4 Biographical Notes
versity of Odessa for the fresh breezes of revo-
lutionary activity. That was the way of most
gifted Russian youths. That especially was
the way of educated young Jews whose people
were being crushed under the steam-roller of
the Russian bureaucracy.
In the last years of the nineteenth century
there was hardly enough opportunity to dis-
play unusual energy in revolutionary work.
Small circles of picked workingmen, assem-
bling weekly under great secrecy somewhere in
a backyard cabin in a suburb, to take a course
in sociology or history or economics; now and
then a "mass" meeting of a few score labor-
ers gathered in the woods; revolutionary ap-
peals and pamphlets printed on a secret press
and circulated both among the educated classes
and among the people; on rare occasions, an
open manifestation of revolutionary intellec-
tuals, such as a meeting of students within the
walls of the University — this was practically
all that could be done in those early days of
Russian revolution. Into this work of prepara-
tion, Trotzky threw himself with all his energy.
Here he came into the closest contact with the
masses of labor. Here he acquainted himself
with the psychology and aspirations of work-
ing and suffering Russia. This was the rich
Biographical Notes 5
soil of practical experience that ever since has
fed his revolutionary ardor.
His first period of work was short. In 1900
we find him already in solitary confinement in
the prisons of Odessa, devouring book after
book to satisfy his mental hunger. No true
revolutionist was ever made downhearted by
prison, least of all Trotzky, who knew it was
a brief interval of enforced idleness between
periods of activity. After two and a half years
of prison "vacation" (as the confinement was
called in revolutionary jargon) Trotzky was
exiled to Eastern Siberia, to Ust-Kut, on the
Lena River, where he arrived early in 1902,
only to seize the first opportunity to escape.
Again he resumed his work, dividing his time
between the revolutionary committees in Rus-
sia and the revolutionary colonies abroad.
1902 and 1903 were years of growth for the
labor movement and of Social-Democratic in-
fluence over the working masses. Trotzky, an
uncompromising Marxist, an outspoken ad-
herent of the theory that only the revolutionary
workingmen would be able to establish democ-
racy in Russia, devoted much of his energy to
the task of uniting the various Social-Demo-
cratic circles and groups in the various cities
of Russia into one strong Social-Democratic
6 Biographical Notes
Party, with a clear program and well-de- j
fined tactics. This required a series of activi- |
ties both among the local committees and in
the Social-Democratic literature which was ;
conveniently published abroad.
It was in connection with this work thatj
Trotzky's first pamphlet was published and|
widely read. It was entitled : The Second ]
Convention of The Russian Social-Democratic ;
Labor Party (Geneva, 1903), and dealt withi
the controversies between the two factions of;
Russian Social-Democracy which later became \
known as the Bolsheviki and the Mensheviki. j
Trotzky's contribution was an attempt at rec- j
onciliation between the two warring camps !
which professed the same Marxian theory and '
pursued the same revolutionary aim. The at-
tempt failed, as did many others, yet Trotzky i
never gave up hope of uniting the alienated ]
brothers.
On the eve of the Revolution of 1905, Trot- '
zky was already a revolutionary journalist of ;
high repute. We admired the vigor of his |
style, the lucidity of his thought and the ;
straightness of his expression. Articles bear- \
ing the pseudonym "N. Trotzky" were an in- j
tellectual treat, and invariably aroused heated \
discussions. It may not be out of place to say 1
Biographical Notes 7
a few words about this pseudonym. Many an
amazing comment has been made in the Ameri-
can press on the Jew Bronstein "camouflag-
ing" under a Russian name, Trotzky. It
seems to be little known in this country that to
assume a pen name is a practice widely fol-
lowed in| Russia, not only among revolutionary
writers. Thus "Gorki" is a pseudonym;
"Shchedrin" (Saltykov) is a pseudonym.
"Fyodor Sologub" is a pseudonym. As to
revolutionary writers, the very character of
their work has compelled them to hide their
names to escape the secret police. Ulyanov,
therefore, became "Lenin," and Bronstein be-
came "Trotzky." As to his "camouflaging"
as a Russian, this assertion is based on sheer ig-
norance. Trotzky is not a genuine Russian
name — no more so than Ostrovski or Levine.
True, there was a Russian playwright Ostrov-
ski, and Tolstoi gave his main figure in Anna
Karerdn the name of Levine. Yet Ostrovski
and Levine are well known in Russia as Jew-
ish names, and so is Trotzky. I have never
heard of a Gentile bearing the name Trotzky.
Trotzky has never concealed his Jewish na-
tionality. He was too proud to dissimulate.
Pride is, perhaps, one of the dominant traits
of his powerful personality.
8 Biographical Notes
Revolutionary Russia did not question the:
race or nationality of a writer or leader. Onei
admired Trotzky's power over emotion, thai
depth of his convictions, the vehemence of hiaJ
attacks on the opponents of the Revolution.;
As early as 1904, one line of his revolutionary*
conceptions became quite conspicuous: his op--
position to the liberal movement in Russia. In-
a series of essays in the Social-Democratici
Ishra (Spark), in a collection of his es-
says published in Geneva under the title Before^
January Ninth, he unremittingly branded the<
Liberals for lack of revolutionary spirit, for
cowardice in face of a hateful autocracy, for]
failure to frame and to defend a thoroughly^
democratic program, for readiness to com-^
promise with the rulers on minor concessions;
and thus to betray the cause of the Revolution.;
No one else was as eloquent, as incisive inj
pointing out the timidity and meekness of the;
Zemstvo opposition (Zemstvo were the local i
representative bodies for the care of local af-i
fairs, and the Liberal land owners constituted :
the leading party in those bodies) as the young:
revolutionary agitator, Trotzky. Trotzky's,
fury against the wavering policy of the well-to-^
do Liberals was only a manifestation of an-i
other trait of his character: his desire for clarA
Biographical Notes 9
ity in political affairs, Trotzky could not con-
ceive of half-way measures, of "diplomatic"
silence over vital topics, of cunning moves and
concealed designs in political struggles. The
attitude of a Milukov, criticizing the govern-
ment and yet willing to acquiesce in a monarchy
of a Prussian brand, criticizing the revolution-
ists and yet secretly pleased with the horror
they inflicted upon Romanoff and his satellites,
was simply incompatible with Trotzky's very
nature and aroused his impassioned contempt.
To him, black was always black, and white was
white, and political conceptions ought to be so
clear as to find adequate expression in a few
simple phrases.
Trotzky's own political line was the Revolu-
tion — a violent uprising of the masses, headed
I by organized labor, forcibly to overthrow bu-
yeaucracy and establish democratic freedom.
With what an outburst of blazing joy he greet-
ed the upheaval of January 9, 1905 — the first
great mass-movement in Russia with clear po-
litical aims: "The Revolution has come!" he
shouted in an ecstatic essay completed on Jan-
uary 20th. "The Revolution has come. One
move of hers has lifted the people over scores
of steps, up which in times of peace we would
have had to drag ourselves with hardships and
10 Biog7'aphical Notes \
fatigue. The Revolution has come and de- |
stroyed the plans of so many politicians who
had dared to make their little political calcula- \
tions with no regard for the master, the revo- j
lutionary people. The Revolution has come :
and destroyed scores of superstitions, and has j
manifested the power of the program which is i
founded on the revolutionary logic of the de-
velopment of the masses. . . . The Revolution '
has come and the period of our infancy has \
passed." \
The Revolution filled the entire year of 1905 ,
with the battle cries of ever-increasing revo- i
lutionary masses. The political strike became i
a powerful weapon. The village revolts spread 1
like wild-fire. The government became fright- i
ened. It was under the sign of this great con- \
flagration that Trotzky framed his theory of |
immediate trarmtion from absolutism to a So- *
cialist order. His line of argument was very |;
simple. The working class, he wrote, was the !i
only real revolutionary power. The bourgeoi- -'^
sie was weak and incapable of adroit resistance, j
The intellectual groups were of no account. 1
The peasantry was politically primitive, yet it J
had an overwhelming desire for land. "Once j
the Revolution is victorious, political power
necessarily passes into the hands of the class
Biographical Notes 11
that has played a leading role in the struggle,
and that is the working class." To secure per-
manent power, the working class would have to
iWin over the millions of peasants. This would
/be possible by recognizing all the agrarian
j changes completed by the peasants in time of
1 the revolution and by a radical agrarian legisla-
tion. "Once in power, the proletariat will
appear before the peasantry as its libera-
tor." On the other hand, having secured its
class rule over Russia, why should the prole-
tariat help to establish parliamentary rule,
which is the rule of the bourgeois classes over
the people? "To imagine that Social-Democ-
racy participates in the Provisional Govern-
ment, playing a leading role in the period of
revolutionary democratic reconstruction, in-
sisting on the most radical reforms and all the
time enjoying the aid and support of the or-
ganized proletariat, — only to step aside when
the democratic program is put into opera-
tion, to leave the completed building at the dis-
posal of the bourgeois parties and thus to open
an era of parliamentary politics where Social-
Democracy forms only a party of opposition,
— to imagine this would mean to compromise
the very idea of a labor government." More-
over, "once the representatives of the prole-
12 Biographical Notes
tariat enter the government, not as powerless
hostages, but as a leading force, the divide be-
tween the minimum-program and the maxi-
mum-program automatically disappears, col-
lectivism becomes the order of the day,"
since "political supremacy of the proletariat is
incompatible with its economic slavery." It
was precisely the same program which
Trotzky is at present attempting to put into
operation. This program has been his guid-
ing star for the last twelve years.
In the fall of 1905 it looked as if Trotzky's
hope was near its realization. The October
strike brought autocracy to its knees. A Con-
stitution was promised. A Soviet (Council of
Workmen's Deputies) was formed in Peters-
burg to conduct the Revolution. Trotzky be-
came one of the strongest leaders of the Coun-
cil. It was in those months that we became fully
aware of two qualities of Trotzky's which
helped him to master men: his power as a
speaker, and his ability to write short, stirring
articles comprehensible to the masses. In the
latter ability nobody equals him among Rus-
sian Socialists. The leaders of Russian So-
cial-Democracy were wont to address them-
selves to the intellectual readers. Socialist
writers of the early period of the Revolution
Biographical Notes 13
were seldom confronted with the necessity of
writing for plain people. Trotzky was the best
among the few who, in the stormy months of
the 1905 revolution, were able to appeal to the
masses in brief, strong, yet dignified articles
full of thought, vision, and emotion.
The Soviet was struggling in a desperate
situation. Autocracy had promised freedom,
yet military rule was becoming ever more atro-
cious. The sluices of popular revolutionary
movement were open, yet revolutionary energy
was being gradually exhausted. The Soviet
acted as a true revolutionary government, ig-
noring the government of the Romanoffs, giv-
ing orders to the workingmen of the country,
keeping a watchful eye on political events ; yet
the government of the old regime was regain-
ing its self-confidence and preparing for a final
blow. The air was full of bad omens.
It required an unusual degree of revolution-
ary faith and vigor to conduct the affairs of the
Soviet. Trotzky was the man of the hour.
First a member of the Executive Committee,
then the chairman of the Soviet, he was prac-
tically in the very vortex of the Revolution.
He addressed meetings, he ordered strikes, he
provided the vanguard of the workingmen with
firearms; he held conferences with representa-
14 Biographical Notes \
tives of labor unions throughout the country, '
and — the irony of history — ^he repeatedly ap- |
peared before the Ministers of the old regime
as a representative of labor democracy to de-
mand from them the release of a prisoner or
the abolition of some measures obnoxious to
labor. It was in this school of the Soviet that
Trotzky learned to see events in a national
aspect, and it was the very existence of the i
Soviet which confirmed his belief in the possi- j
bility of a revolutionary proletarian dictator- \
ship. Looking backward at the activities of '
the Soviet, he thus characterized that prototype \
of the present revolutionary government in
Russia. "The Soviet," he wrote, "was the or-
ganized authority of the masses themselves over j
their separate members. This was a true, un- :
adulterated democracy, without a two-chamber :
system, without a professional bureaucracy, \
with the right of the voters to recall their rep-
resentative at will and to substitute another." :
In short, it was the same type of democracy ;
Trotzky and Lenin are trying to make perma- ]
nent in present-day Russia.
The black storm soon broke loose. Trotzky
was arrested with the other members of the \
"revolutionary government," after the Soviet ;
had existed for about a month and a half, j
Biographical Notes 15
Trotzky went to prison, not in despair, but as
a leader of an invincible army which though it
had suffered temporary defeat, was bound to
win. Trotzky had to wait twelve years for the
moment of triumph, yet the moment came.
In prison Trotzky was very active, reading,
writing, trying to sum up his experience of the
revolutionary year. After twelve months of
solitary confinement he was tried and sentenced
to life exile in Siberia: the government of the
enemies of the people was wreaking vengeance
on the first true representatives of the people.
On January 3, 1907, Trotzky started his trip
for Obdorsk, in Northern Siberia on the Arctic
Ocean.
He was under unusual rigid surveillance
even for Russian prisons. Each movement of
his and of his comrades was carefully guarded.
No coromunication with the outer world was
permitted. The very journey was surrounded
by great secrecy. Yet such was the fame of
the Soviet, that crowds gathered at every sta-
tion to greet the prisoners' train, and even the
soldiers showed extraordinary respect for the
imprisoned "workingmen's deputies" as they
called them. "We are surrounded by friends
on every side," Trotzky wrote in his note book.
In Tiimien the prisoners had to leave the
16 ; Biographical Notes
railway train for sleighs drawn by horses. The
journey became very tedious and slow. The
monotony was broken only by little villages,
where revolutionary exiles were detained. Here
and there the exiles would gather to welcome
the leaders of the revolution. Red flags gave
touches of color to the blinding white of the
Siberian snow. "Long live the Revolution!"
was printed with huge letters on the surface of
the northern snow, along the road. This was
beautiful, but it gave little consolation. The
country became ever more desolate. "Every
day we move down one step into the kingdom
of cold^ and wilderness," Trotzky remarked
in his notes.
It was a gloomy prospect, to spend years
and years in this God forsaken country. Trot-
zky was not the man to submit. In defiance of
difficulties, he managed to escape before he
reached the town of his destination. As there
was only one road along which travelers could
move, and as there was danger that authorities,
notified by wire of his escape, could stop him
at any moment, he left the road and on a sleigh
drawn by reindeer he crossed an unbroken
wilderness of 800 versts, over 500 miles. This
required great courage and physical endurance.
The picturesque journey is described by Trot-
Biographical Notes 17
zky in a beautiful little book, My Round Trip,
It was in this Ostiak sleigh, in the midst of
a bleak desert, that he celebrated the 20th of
February, the day of the opening of the Second
Duma. It was a mockery at Russia: here, the
representatives of the people, assembled in the
quasi-Parliament of Russia ; there, a represen-
tative of the Revolution that created the Duma,
hiding like a criminal in a bleak wilderness.
Did he dream in those long hours of his jour-
ney, that some day the wave of the Revolution
would bring him to the very top?
Early in spring he arrived abroad. He es-
tablished his home in Vienna where he lived till
the outbreak of the great war. His time and
energy were devoted to the internal affairs of
the Social-Democratic Party and to editing a
popular revolutionary magazine which was be-
ing smuggled into Russia. He earned a meager
living by contributing to Russian "legal" mag-
azines and dailies.
I met him first in 1907, in Stuttgart. He
seemed to be deeply steeped in the revolution-
ary factional squabbles. Again I met him in
Copenhagen in 1910. He was the target of
bitter criticism for his press-comment on one
of the Social-Democratic factions. He seemed
to be dead to anything but the problem of
18 Biographical Notes
reconciling the Bolsheviki with the Mensheviki
and the other minor divisions. Yet that air of
importance which distinguished him even from
the famous old leaders had, in 1910, become
more apparent. By this time he was already
a well-known and respected figure in the ranks
of International Socialism.
In the fall of 1912 he went into the Balkans
as a war correspondent. There he learned to
know the Balkan situation from authentic
sources. His revelations of the atrocities com-
mitted on both sides attracted wide attention.
When he came back to Vienna in 1913 he was
a stronger internationalist and a stronger anti-
militarist than ever.
His house in Vienna was a poor man's house,
poorer than that of an ordinary American
workingman earning eighteen dollars a week.
Trotzky has been poor all his life. His three
rooms in a Vienna working-class suburb con-
tained less furniture than was necessary for
comfort. His clothes were too cheap to make
him appear "decent" in the eyes of a middle-
class Viennese. When I visited his house, I
found Mrs. Trotzky engaged in housework,
while the two light-haired lovely boys were
lending not inconsiderable assistance. The
only thing that cheered the house were loads
Biographical Notes 19
of books in every corner, and, perhaps, great
though hidden hopes.
On August 3, 1914, the Trotzkys, as enemy
aliens, had to leave Vienna for Zurich, Switzer-
land. Trotzky's attitude towards the war was
a very definite one from the very beginning.
He accused German Social-Democracy for
having voted the war credits and thus endorsed
the war. He accused the Socialist parties of
all the belligerent countries for having con-
cluded a truce with their governments which
in his opinion was equivalent to supporting
militarism. He bitterly deplored the collapse
of Internationalism as a great calamity for
the emancipation of the world. Yet, even in
those times of distress, he did not remain in-
active. He wrote a pamphlet to the German
workingmen entitled The War and Interna-
tionalism (recently translated into English
and published in this country under the title
The Bolsheviki and World Peace) which was
illegally transported into Germany and Aus-
tria by aid of Swiss Socialists. For this at-
tempt to enlighten the workingmen, one of the
German courts tried him in a state of contu-
macy and sentenced him to imprisonment. He
also contributed to a Russian Socialist daily of
Internationalist aspirations which was being
20 , Biographical Notes
published by Russian exiles in Paris. Later he
moved to Paris to be in closer contact with that
paper. Due to his radical views on the war,
however, he was compelled to leave France.
He went to Spain, but the Spanish government,
though not at war, did not allow him to stay-
in that country. He was himself convinced
that the hand of the Russian Foreign Ministry
was in all his hardships.
So it happened that in the winter 1916-1917,
he came to the United States. When I met
him here, he looked haggard; he had grown
older, and there was fatigue in his expression.
His conversation hinged around the collapse
of International Socialism. He thought it
shameful and humiliating that the Socialist
majorities of the belligerent countries had
turned "Social-Patriots." "If not for the
minorities of the Socialist parties, the true So-
cialists, it would not be worth while living," he
said once with deep sadness. Still, he strongly
believed in the internationalizing spirit of the
war itself, and expected humanity to become
more democratic and more sound after cessa-
tion of hostilities. His belief in an impending
Russian Revolution was unshaken. Similarly
unshaken was his mistrust of the Russian non-
Socialist parties. On January 20, 1917, less
Biographical Notes 21
than two months before the overthrow of the
Romanoffs, he wrote in a local Russian paper:
".Whoever thinks critically over the experience
of 1905, whoever draws a line from that year
to the present day, must conceive how utterly
lifeless and ridiculous are the hopes of our So-
cial-Patriots for a revolutionary cooperation
between the proletariat and the Liberal bour-
geoisie in Russia."
His demand for clarity in political affairs
had become more pronounced during the war
and through the distressing experiences of the
war. "There are times," he wrote on Febru-
ary 7j 1917, "when diplomatic evasiveness,
casting glances with one eye to the right, with
the other to the left, is considered wisdom.
Such times are now vanishing before our eyes,
and their heroes are losing credit. War, as
revolution, puts problems in their clearest form.
For war or against war? For national defense
or for revolutionary struggle? The fierce times
we are living now demand in equal measure
both fearlessness of thought and bravery of
character."
When the Russian Revolution broke out, it
was no surprise for Trotzky. He had anticipat-
ed it. He had scented it over the thousands of
miles that separated him from his country. He
22 Biographical Notes
did not allow his joy to overmaster him. The
March revolution in his opinion was only a be-
ginning. It was only an introduction to a long
drawn fight which would end in the establish-
ment of Socialism.
History seemed to him to have fulfilled what
he had predicted in 1905 and 1906. The work-
ing class was the leading power in the Revo-
lution. The Soviets became even more power-
ful than the Provisional Government. Trot-
zky preached that it was the task of the Soviets
to become the government of Russia. It was
his task to go to Russia and fight for a labor
government, for Internationalism, for world
peace, for a world revolution. "If the first
Russian revolution of 1905," he wrote on
March 20th, "brought about revolutions in
Asia, — in Persia, Turkey, China, — the second
Russian revolution will be the beginning of a
momentous Social-revolutionary struggle in
Europe. Only this struggle will bring real
peace to the blood-drenched world."
With these hopes he went to Russia, — to
forge a Socialist Russia in the fire of the Revo-
lution.
Whatever may be our opinion of the merits
of his policies, the man has remained true to
himself. His line has been straight.
THE PROLETARIAT AND THE REV-
OLUTION
The essay The Proletariat and the Revolution was
published at the close of 1904, nearly one year after
the beginning of the war with Japan. This was a
crucial year for the autocratic rulers of Russia. It
started with patriotic demonstrations, it ended with
a series of humiliating defeats on the battlefields and
with an unprecedented revival of political activities
on the part of the well-to-do classes. The Zemstvos
(local elective bodies for the care of local affairs)
headed by liberal landowners, conducted a vigorous
political campaign in favor of a constitutional or-
der. Other liberal groups, organizations of profes-
sionals (referred to in Trotzky's essay as "demo-
crats" and "democratic elements") joined in the
movement. The Zemstvo leaders called an open con-
vention in Petersburg (November 6th), which de-
manded civic freedom and a Constitution. The
"democratic elements" organized public gatherings
of a political character under the disguise of private
banquets. The liberal press became bolder in its
attack on the administration. The government tol-
erated the movement. Prince Svyatopolk-Mirski,
who had succeeded Von Plehve, the reactionary dic-
tator assassinated in July, 1904, by a revolutionist,
had promised "cordial relations" between govern-
ment and society. In the political jargon, this
25
26 Tlie Proletariat and the Revolution
period of tolerance, lasting from August to the end
of the year, was known as the era of "Spring."
It was a thrilling time, full of political hopes and
expectation. Yet, strange enough, the working class
was silent. The working class had shown great dis-
satisfaction in 1902 and especially in summer, 1903,
when scores of thousands in the southwest and in
the South went on a political strike. During the
whole of 1904, however, there were almost no mass-
manifestations on the part of the workingmen. This
gave an occasion to many a liberal to scoff at the
representatives of the revolutionary parties who
built all their tactics on the expectation of a national
revolution.
To answer those skeptics and to encourage the ac-
tive members of the Social-Democratic party, Trot-
zky wrote his essay. Its main value, which lends it
historic significance, is the clear diagnosis of the po-
litical situation. Though living abroad, Trotzky
keenly felt the pulse of the masses, the "pent up
revolutionary energy" which was seeking for an out-
let. His description of the course of a national revo-
lution, the role he attributes to the workingmen, the
non-proletarian population of the cities, the educated
groups, and the army ; his estimation of the influence
of the war on the minds of the raw masses ; finally,
the slogans he puts before the revolution, — all this
corresponds exactly to what happened during the
stormy year of 1905. Reading The Proletariat and
the Revolution, the student of Russian political life
The Proletariat and the Revolution 27
has a feeling as if the essay had been written after
the Revolution, so closely it follows the course of
events. Yet, it appeared before January 9th, 1905,
i.e., before the first great onslaught of the Petersburg \
proletariat. !
Trotzky's belief in the revolutionary initiative of ""xi
the working class could not be expressed in a more /
lucid manner. ,. tf U-*^
THE PROLETARIAT AND THE
REVOLUTION
The proletariat must not only conduct a
revolutionary propaganda. The proletariat
itself must move towards a revolution.
To move towards a revolution does not
necessarily mean to fix a date for an insurrec-
tion and to prepare for that day. You never
can iix a day and an hour for a revolution.
The people have never made a revolution by
command.
What can be done is, in view of the fatally
impending catastrophe, to choose the most ap-
propriate positions, to arm and inspire the
masses with a revolutionary slogan, to lead
simultaneously all the reserves into the field
of battle, to make them practice in the art of
fighting, to keep them ready under arms, —
and to send an alarm all over the lines when the
time has arrived.
Would that mean a series of exercises only,
and not a decisive combat with the enemy
forces? Would that be mere manoeuvers, and
not a street revolution?
29
30 The Proletariat and the Revolution
Yes, that would be mere manoeuvers. There
is a difference, however, between revolutionary
and military manoeuvers. Our preparations
can turn, at any time and independent of our
will, into a real battle which would decide the
long drawn revolutionary war. Not only can
it be so, it must be. This is vouched for by the
acuteness of the present political situation
which holds in its depths a tremendous amount
of revolutionary explosives.
At what time mere manoeuvers would turn
into a real battle, depends upon the volume and
the revolutionary compactness of the masses,
upon the atmosphere of popular sympathy
which surrounds them and upon the attitude
of the troops which the government moves
against the people.
Those three elements of success must deter-
mine our work of preparation. Revolutionary
proletarian masses are in existence. We ought
to be able to call them into the streets, at a
given time, all over the country; we ought to
be able to unite them by a general slogan.
All classes and groups of the people are per-
meated with hatred towards absolutism, and
that means with sympathy for the struggle for
freedom. We ought to be able to concentrate
this sympathy on the proletariat as a revolu-
The Proletariat and the Revolutioii 31
tionary power which alone can be the vanguard
of the people in their fight to save the future
of Russia. As to the mood of the army, it
hardly kindles the heart of the government
with great hopes. There has been many an
alarming symptom for the last few years; the
army is morose, the army grimables, there are
ferments of dissatisfaction in the army. We
ought to do all at our command to make the
army detach itself from absolutism at the time
of a decisive onslaught of the masses.
Let us first survey the last two conditions,
which determine the course and the outcome of
the campaign.
We have just gone through the period of
"political renovation" opened under the blare
of trumpets aiid closed under the hiss of
knouts, — ^the era of Svyatopolk-Mirski — the
result of which is hatred towards absolutism
aroused among all the thinking elements of so-
ciety to an unusual pitch. The coming days
will reap the fruit of stirred popular hopes and
unfulfilled government's pledges. Political in-
terest has lately taken more definite shape ; dis-
satisfaction has grown deeper and is founded
on a more outspoken theoretical basis. Popu-
lar thinking, yesterday utterly primitive, now
greedily takes to the work of political analysis^
32 (The Proletariat and the Revolution
All manifestations of evil and arbitrary power
are being speedily traced back to the principal
cause. Revolutionary slogans no more f right-
/ en the people; on the contrary, they arouse a
thousandfold echo, they pass into proverbs.
The popular consciousness absorbs each word
of negation, condemnation or curse addressed
towards absolutism, as a sponge aborbs fluid
substance. No step of the administration re-
mains unpunished. Each of its blunders is
carefully taken account of. Its advances are
met with ridicule, its threats breed hatred.
The vast apparatus of the liberal press circu-
lates daily thousands of facts, stirring, excit-
ing, inflaming popular emotion.
The pent up feelings are seeking an outlet.
Thought strives to turn into action. The vo-
ciferous liberal press, however, while feeding
popular unrest, tends to divert its du-rent into
^. a small channel; it spreads superstitious rever-
tSr^ ence for "public opinion," helpless, unorgan-
ized "public opinion," which does not discharge
itself into action; it brands the revolutionary
method of national emancipation; it upholds
the illusion of legality; it centers all the atten-
tion and all the hopes of the embittered groups
around the Zemstvo campaign, thus systematic
cally preparing a great debacle for the popular
The Proletariat and the Revolution 33
movement. Acute dissatisfaction, finding no
outlet, discouraged by the inevitable failure of
the legal Zemstvo campaign which has no tra-
ditions of revolutionary struggle in the past
and no clear prospects in the future, must
necessarily manifest itself in an outbreak of
desperate terrorism, leaving radical intellec-
tuals in the role of helpless, passive, though
sympathetic onlookers, leaving liberals to choke
in a fit of platonic enthusiasm while lending
doubtful assistance.
This ought not to take place. .We ought to
take hold of the current of popular excite-
ment; we ought to turn the attention of nu-
merous dissatisfied social groups to one colos-
sal undertaking headed by the proletariat, —
to the National Revolution,
The vanguard of the Revolution ought to
wake from indolence all other elements of the
people; to appear here and there and every-
where; to put the questions of political strug-
gle in the boldest possible fashion; to call, to
castigate, to unmask hypocritical democracy;
to make democrats and Zemstvo liberals clash
against each other; to wake again and again,
to call, to castigate, to demand a clear answer
to the question. What are you going to do? \
to allow no retreat; to compel the legal liberals
34 The Proletaiiat and the Revolution
to admit their own weakness; to alienate from
them the democratic elements and help the lat-
ter along the way of the revolution. To do this
work means to draw the threads of sympathy
of all the democratic opposition towards the
revolutionary campaign of the proletariat.
We ought to do all in our power to draw the
attention and gain the sympathy of the poor
non-proletarian city population. During the
last mass actions of the proletariat, as in the
general strikes of 1903 in the South, nothing
was done in this respect, and this was the
weakest point of the preparatory work. Ac-
cording to press correspondents, the queerest
rumors often circulated among the population
as to the intentions of the strikers. The city
inhabitants expected attacks on their houses,
the store keepers were afraid of being looted,
the Jews were in a dread of pogroms. This
ought to be avoided. A political strike, as a
single combat of the city proletariat with the
police and the army, the remaining population
being hostile or even indifferent, is doomed to
failure.
The indifference of the population would
tell primarily on the morale of the proletariat
itself, and then on the attitude of the soldiers.
Under such conditions, the stand of the ad'
The Proletariat and the Revolution 35
ministration must necessarily be more deter-
mined. The generals would remind the of-
ficers, and the officers would pass to the sol-
diers the words of Dragomirov: "Rifles are
given for sharp shooting, and nobody is per-
mitted to squander cartridges for nothing."
A political strike of the proletariat ought to s
turn into a political demonstration of the popu-
latioUj this is the first prerequisite of success.
The second important prerequisite is the
mood of the army, A dissatisfaction amongx
the soldiers, a vague sympathy for the "revolu-y''^
ters," is an estabhshed fact. Only part of
this sympathy- may rightly be attributed to
-our direct projjaganda among the soldiers.
The major part is done by the practical clashes
between army units and protesting masses.
Only hopeless idiots or avowed scoundrels
dare to shoot at a living target. An over-
whehning majority of the soldiers are loathe
to serve as executioners; this is unanimously
admitted by all correspondents describing the
battles of the army with unarmed people. The
average soldier aims above the heads of thev^
crowd. It would be unnatural if the reverse
were the case. When the Bessarabian regi-
ment received orders to quell the Kiev general
strike, the commander declared he could not
36 The Proletariat and the Revolution
vouch for the attitude of his soldiers. The or-i
der, then, was sent to the Cherson regiment,!
but there was not one half-company in the en-
tire regiment which would live up to the ex-
pectations of their superiors.
Kiev was no exception. The conditions of'
the army must now be more favorable for the !
revolution than they were in 1903. We have'
gone through a year of war. It is hardly pos- \
sible to measure the influence of the past year \
on the minds of the army. The influence,]
however, must be enormous. War draws not'
only the attention of the people, it arouses also i
the professional interest of the army. Our
ships are slow, our guns have a short range,
our soldiers are uneducated, our sergeants have ;
neither compass nor map, our soldiers are bare- \
footed, hungry, and freezing, our Red Cross is j
stealing, our commissariat is stealing, — ^rum-
ors and facts of this kind leak down to the
army and are being eagerly absorbed. Each i
rumor, as strong acid, dissolves the rust of men- ■
tal drill. Years of peaceful propaganda could ]
hardly equal in their results one day of war- \
fare. The mere mechanism of discipline re- ;
mains, the faith, however, the conviction that 1
it is right to carry out orders, the belief that i
the present conditions can be continued, are ^
The Proletariat and the Revolution 37
rapidly dwindling. The less faith the army
has in absolutism, the more faith it has in its
foes.
We ought to make use of this situation. We
ought to explain to the soldiers the meaning of
the workingmen's action which is being pre-
pared by the Party. We ought to make pro-
fuse use of the slogan which is bound to unite
the army with the revolutionary people, Away
with the War! We ought to create a situa-
tion where the officers would not be able to
trust their soldiers at the crucial moment.
This would reflect on the attitude of the of-
ficers themselves.
The rest will be done by the street. It will
dissolve the remnants of the barrack-hypnosis
in the revolutionary enthusiasm of the people.
The main factor, however, remain the revo/
lutionary masses. True it is that during the
war the most advanced elements of the masses,
the thinking proletariat, have not stepped
openly to the front with that degree of deter-
mination which was required by the critical
historic moment. Yet it would manifest a
lack of political backbone and a deplorable
superficiality, should one draw from this fact
any kind of pessimistic conclusions.
The war has fallen upom our public life
38 The Proletariat and the Revolution ' '
with all its colossal weight. The dreadful mon- ]
ster, breathing blood and fire, loomed up on ;
the political horizon, shutting out everything, |
sinking its steel clutches into the body of the
people, inflicting wound upon wound, causing ,
mortal pain, which for a moment makes it even \
impossible to ask for the causes of the pain. '[
The war, as every great disaster, accompanied |
/ by crisis, unemployment, mobilization, hunger |
\ and death, stunned the people, caused despair, j
but not protest. This is, however, only a be- ■
ginning. Raw masses of the people, silent so- |
cial strata, which yesterday had no connection I
with the revolutionary elements, were knocked j
by sheer mechanical power of facts to face the !
central event of present-day Russia, the war. I
They were horrified, they could not catch their :
breaths. The revolutionary elements, who '
prior to the war had ignored the passive masses, ;
were affected by the atmosphere of despair ]
and concentrated horror. This atmosphere en-
veloped them, it pressed with a leaden weight
on their minds. The voice of determined pro-
test could hardly be raised in the midst of ele- j
mental suffering. The revolutionary prole- '
tariat which had not yet recovered from the j
wounds received in July, 1903, was powerless v
to oppose the "call of the primitive.*' <
The Proletariat and the Revolution 39
The year of war, however, passed not with-
out results. Masses, yesterday primitive, to-
day are confronted with the most tremendous
events. They must seek to understand them.
The very duration of the war has produced a
desii-e for reasoning, for questioning as to the
meaning of it all. Thus the war, while hamp-
ering for a period of time the revolutionary in-
itiative of thousands, has awakened to life the
political thought of millions.
The year of war passed not without results,
not a single day passed without results. In
the lower strata of the people, in the very
depths of the masses, a work was going on, a
movement of molecules, imperceptible, yet ir-
resistible, incessant, a work of accumulating in-
dignation, bitterness, revolutionary energy.
The atmosphere our streets are breathing now
is no longer an atmosphere of blank despair, it
is an atmosphere of concentrated indignation
which seeks for means and ways for revolu-
tionary action. Each expedient action of the
vanguard of our working masses would now
carry away with it not only all our revolution-
ary reserves, but also thousands and hundreds
of thousands of revolutionary recruits. This
mobilization, unlike the mobilization of the
government, would be carried out in the pres-
40 The Proletariat and the Revolution
ence of general sympathy and active assistance
of an overwhelming majority of the popula-
tion.
In the presence of strong sympathies of the
masses, in the presence of active assistance on
the part of the democratic elements of the
people ; facing a government commonly hated,
unsuccessful both in big and in small under-
takings, a government defeated on the seas, de-
feated in the fields of battle, despised, discour-
aged, with no faith in the coming day, a gov-
ernment vainly struggling, currying favor,
provoking and retreating, lying and suffering
exposure, insolent and frightened; facing an
army whose morale has been shattered by the
entire course of the war, whose valor, energy,
enthusiasm and heroism have met an insur-
mountable wall in the form of administrative
anarchy, an army which has lost faith in the
unshakable security of a regime it is called to
serve, a dissatisfied, grumbling army which
more than once has torn itself free from the
clutches of discipline during the last year and
which is eagerly listening to the roar of revo-
lutionary voices, — such will be the conditions
under which the revolutionary proletariat will
walk out into the streets. It seems to us that
no better conditions could have been created by
The Proletariat and the Revolution 41
history for a final attack. History has done
everything it was allowed by elemental wisdom.
The thinking revolutionary forces of the coun-
try have to do the rest.
A tremendous amount of revolutionary en-
ergy ha,^. been accumulated. It should not
vanish with no avail, it should not be dissipated
in scattered engagements and clashes, with no
coherence md no definite plan. All efforts
ought to be made to concentrate the bitterness,
the anger, the protest, the rage, the hatred of
the masses, to give those emotions a common
language, a common goal, to unite, to solidify
all the particles of the masses, to make them
feel and understand that they are not isolated,
that simultaneously, with the same slogan on
the banner, with the same goal in mind, in-
numerable particles are rising everywhere. If
this understanding is achieved, half of the revo-
lution is done.
We have got to summon all revolutionary
forces to simultaneous action. How can we
doit?
First of all we ought to remember that the
main scene of revolutionary events is bound to
be the city. Nobody is likely to deny this. It
is evident, further, that street demonstrations
can turn into a popular revolution only when
42 The Proletariat and the Bevolwtion
they are a manifestation of masses, i.e., when
they embrace, in the first place, the workers
of factories and plants. To make the workers
quit their machines and stands; to make them
walk out of the factory premises into the street ;
to lead them to the neighboring plant ; to pro-
claim there a cessation of work; to nake new
masses walk out into the street; tc go thus
from factory to factory, from plan^ to plant,
incessantly growing in numbers, sv/eeping po-
lice barriers, absorbing new masses that hap-
pened to come across, crowding the streets,
taking possession of buildings suitable for pop-
ular meetings, fortifying those buildings, hold-
ing continuous revolutionary meetings with
audiences coming and going, bringing order
into the movements of the masses, arousing
their spirit, explaining to them the aim and
the meaning of what is going on; to turn, fi-
nally, the entire city into one revolutionary
camp, this is, broadly speaking, the plan of
action.
The starting point ought to be the factories
and plants. That means that street manifes-
tations of a serious character, fraught with de-
cisive events, ought to begm with political
strikes of the masses.
It is easier to ^li a date for a strike, than for
The Proletariat and the Revolution 43
a demonstration of the people, just as it is
easier to move masses ready for action than to
organize new masses.
A poKtical strike, however, not a local, hut
a general political strike all over Russia, —
ought to have a general political slogan. This ,
slogan is : to stop the war and to call a National '
Constituent Assembly,
This demand ought to become nation-wide,
and herein lies the task for our propaganda
preceding the all-Russian general strike. .We
ought to use all possible occasions to make the
idea of a National Constituent Assembly pop-
ular among the people. Without losing one
moment, we ought to put into operation all
the technical means and all the powers of
propaganda at our disposal. Proclamations
and speeches, educational circles and mass-
meetings ought to carry broadcast, to pro-
pound and to explain the demand of a Con-
stituent Assembly. There ought to be not one
man in a city who should not know that his
demand is: a TSTational Constituent Assembty.
The peasants ought to be called to assemble
on the day of the political strike and to pass
resolutions demanding the calling of a Con-
stituent Assembly. The suburban peasants
ought to be called into the cities to participate
44 The Proletariat and the Revolution
in the street movements of the masses gath-
ered under the banner of a Constituent As-
sembly. All societies and organizations, pro-
fessional and learned bodies, organs of self-
government and organs of the opposition press
ought to be notified in advance by the work-
ingmen that they are preparing for an all-Rus-
sian political strike, fixed for a certain date, to
bring about the calling of a Constituent As-
sembly. The workingmen ought to demand
from all societies and corporations that, on the
day appointed for the mass-manifestation, they
should join in the demand of a National Con-
stituent Assembly. The workingmen ought
to demand from the opposition press that it
should popularize their slogan and that on the
eve of the demonstration it should print an
appeal to the population to join the proleta-
rian manifestation under the banner of a Na-
tional Constituent Assembly.
We ought to carry on the most intensive
propaganda in the army in order that on the
day of the strike each soldier, sent to curb the
"rebels," should know that he is facing the
people who are demanding a National Con-
stituent Assembly.
EXPLANATORY NOTES
"The hiss of the knout" which ended the era of "cordial re-
lations" was a statement issued by the government on December
12, 1904, declaring that "ail disturbances of peace and order and
all gatherings of an anti-governmental character must and will
be stopped by all legal means in command of the authorities."
The Zemstvo and municipal bodies were advised to keep from
political utterings. As to the Socialist parties, and to labor
movement in general, they were prosecuted under Svyatopolk-
Mirski as severely as under Von Plehve.
"The vast apparatus of the liberal press" was the only way to
reach millions. The revolutionary "underground" press, which
assumed towards 1905 unusual proportions, could, after all,
reach only a limited number of readers. In times of political
unrest, the public became used to read between the lines of the
legal press all it needed to feed its hatred of oppression.
By "legal" press, "legal" liberals are meant the open public
press and those liberals who were trying to comply with the
legal requirements of absolutism even in their work of con-
demning the absolutist order. The term "legal" is opposed by
the term "revolutionary" which is applied to political actions in
defiance of law.
Dragomirov was for many years Commander of the Kiev
Military region and known by his epigrammatic style.
45
THE EVENTS IN PETERSBURG
This is an essay of triumph. Written on January i
20, 1905, eleven days after the "bloody Sunday," it*
gave vent to the enthusiastic feelings of every true
revolutionist aroused by unmistakable signs of an ap-
proaching storm. The march of tens of thousands of
workingmen to the Winter Palace to submit to the
"Little Father" a petition asking for "bread and
freedom," was on the surface a peaceful and loyal
undertaking. Yet it breathed indignation and re-
volt. The slaughter of peaceful marchers (of whom
over 5,000 were killed or wounded) and the following
wave of hatred and revolutionary determination
among the masses, marked the beginning of broad
revolutionary uprisings.
For Trotzky, the awakening of the masses to poll- i
tical activitv was not only a good revolutionary j
omen, but also a defeat of liberal ideology and liberal \
tactics. Those tactics had been planned under the
assumption that the Russian people were not ripe for
a revolution. Trotzky, a thorough revolutionist,;
saw in the liberal movement a manifestation of poll- ;
tical superstitions. To him, the onl^^ way to over- |
throw absolutism was the way of a violent revolution.
Yet, when the liberals proudly asserted that the revo-
lutionary masses of Russia were only a creation of
the overheated phantasy of the revolutionists, while
49
>
50 The Events in Petersburg \
i
the movement of the well-to-do intelligent elements '
was a flagrant fact, the Social-Democrats had no \
material proofs to the contrary, except sporadic out- |
bursts of unrest among the workingmen and, of
course, the conviction of those revolutionists who \
were in touch with the masses. It is, therefore, easy \
to understand the triumph of a Trotzky or any other !
Socialist after January 9th. In Trotzky's opinion, i
the 9th of January had put liberalism into the
archives. "We are done with it for the entire period I
of the revolution," he exclaims. The most remark- ■
able part of this essay, as far as political vision is \
concerned, is Trotzky's prediction that the left wing '
of the "Osvoboshdenie" Hberals (later organized as ^
the Constitutional Democratic Party) would at- |
tempt to become leaders of the revolutionary masses
and to "tame" them. The Liberals did not fail to i
make the attempt in 1905 and 1906, but with no sue- :
cess whatever. Neither did Social-Democracy, how-
ever, completely succeed in leading the masses all :
through the revolution, in the manner outlined by '
Trotzky in this essay. True, the Social-Democrats \
were the party that gained the greatest influence \
over the workingmen in the stormy year of 1905; \
their slogans were universally accepted by the ;
masses; their members were everywhere among the j
first ranks of revolutionary forces; yet events de- j
veloped too rapidly and spontaneously to make the '
leadership of a political organization possible. i
THE EVENTS IN PETERSBURG
How invincibly eloquent are facts ! How ut-
terly powerless are words!
The masses have made themselves heard!
They have kindled revolutionary flames on
Caucasian hill-tops; they have clashed, breast
against breast, with the guards' regiments and
the Cossacks on that unforgettable day of Jan-
uary Ninth; they have filled the streets and
squares of industrial cities with the noise and
clatter of their fights. . . .
The revolutionary masses are no more a
theory, they are a fact. For the Social-Demo-
cratic Party there is nothing new in this fact.
We had predicted it long ago. We had seen
its coming at a time when the noisy liberal ban-
quets seemed to form a striking contrast with
the political silence of the people. The revo-
lutionary masses are a fact, was our assertion.
The clever liberals shrugged their shoulders in
contempt. Those gentlemen think themselves
sober realists solely because they are unable to
grasp the consequences of great causes, because
51
52 The Events in Petersburg
they make it their business to be humblcj
servants of each ephemeral political fact.-
They think themselves sober statesmen in spitel
of the fact that history mocks at their wis-^i
dom, tearing to pieces their school books, mak-'
ing to naught their designs, and magnificently,
laughing at their pompous predictions. I
''There are no revolutionary people in Rus-i
sia as yetf' "The Russian worhingman is back'\
ward in culture j in self-respect j and (we refer
primarily to the workingmen of Petersburg^
and Moscow) he is not yet prepared for organ-
ized social and political struggle/' \
Thus Mr. Struve wrote in his Osvobosh4
denie. He wrote it on January 7th, 1905. |
Two days later the proletariat of Petersburg'
arose. :
"There are no revolutionary people in Rus-
sia as yet/' These words ought to have been
engraved on the forehead of Mr. Struve were
it not that Mr. Struve's forehead already re-;
sembles a tombstone under which so many
plans, slogans, and ideas have been buried, — I
Sociahst, liberal, "patriotic," revolutionary,^
monarchic, democratic and other ideas, all of
them calculated not to run too far ahead and:
all of them hopelessly dragging behind. ;
"There are no revolutionary people in Rus-\
The Events in Petersburg 53
sia as yet" so it was declared through the
mouth of Osvoboshdenie by Russian liberalism
which in the course of three months had suc-
ceeded in convincing itself that liberalism was
the main figure on the political stage and that
its program and tactics would determine the
future of Russia. Before this declaration had
reached its readers, the wires carried into the
remotest corners of the world the great mes-
sage of the beginning of a National Revolu-
tion in Russia.
Yes, the Revolution has begun; We had
hoped for it, we had had no doubt about it.
For long years, however, it had been to us a
mere deduction from our "doctrine," which all
nonentities of all political denominations had
mocked at. They never believed in the revo-
lutionary role of the proletariat, yet they be-
lieved in the power of Zemstvo petitions, in
Witte, in "blocs" combining naughts with
naughts, in Svyatopolk-Mirski, in a stick of
dynamite. . . . There was no political super-
stition they did not believe in. Only the belief,^
in the proletariate to them was a superstition.
History, however, does not question political
oracles, and the revolutionary people do not
need a passport from political eunuchs.
The Revolution has come. One move of hers
54 The Events in Petersburg
has lifted the people over scores of steps, up \
which in times of peace we would have had to j
drag ourselves with hardships and fatigue. The 1
Revolution has come and destroyed the plans \
of so many politicians who had dared to make \
their little political calculations with no regard |
for the master, the revolutionary people. The ;
Revolution has come and destroyed scores of ^
superstitions, and has manifested the power of ]
the program which is founded on the revo- ;
lutionary logic of the development of the \
masses. i
The Revolution has come, and the period of i
our political infancy has passed. Down to the j
archives went our traditional liberalism whose j
only resource was the belief in a lucky change •
of administrative figures. Its period of bloom ,
was the stupid reign of Svyatopolk-Mirski. Its !
ripest fruit was the Ukase of December 12th. |
But now, January Ninth has come and effaced •
the "Spring," and has put military dictator- ;
ship in its place, and has promoted to the rank
of Governor- General of Petersburg the same \
Trepov, who just before had been pulled down \
from the post of Moscow Chief of Police by
the same liberal opposition. \
That liberalism which did not care to know '
about the revolution, which hatched plots be- ^
The Events in Petersburg 55
hind the scenes, ^hich ignored the masses,
which counted only on its diplomatic genius,
has been swept away. We are done with it for
the entire period of the revolution.
The liberals of the left wing will now follow J
the people. They will soon attempt to take
the people into their own hands. The people*
are a power. One must master them. But/
they are, too, a revolutionary power. One,^
therefore, must tame them. This is, evidently,
the future tactics of the Osvohoshdenie
group. Our fight for a revolution, our pre-^^
paratory work for the revolution must also be ^ ,
our merciless fight against liberalism for in- ' ji
fluence over the masses, for a leading role in
the revolution. In this fight we shall be sup-
ported by a great power, the very logic of the
revolution!
The Revolution has come.
The forms taken by the uprising of January
9th could not have been foreseen. A revolu-
tionary priest, in perplexing manner placed by
history at the head of the working masses for
several days, lent the events the stamp of his
personality, his conceptions, his rank. This
form may mislead many an observer as to the
real substance of the events. The actual mean-
ing of the events, however, is just that which
56 The Events in Petersburg
Social-Democracy foresaw. The central fig- \
ure is the Proletariat. The workingmen start
a strike, they unite, they formulate political
demands, they walk out into the streets, they :
win the enthusiastic sympathy of the entire '
population, they engage in battles with the '
army. . . . The hero, Gapon, has not created
the revolutionary energy of the Petersburg ,
workingmen, he only unloosed it. He found \
thousands of thinking workingmen and tens of
thousands of others in a state of political agita-
tion. He formed a plan which united all those
masses — for the period of one day. The masses
went to speak to the Tzar. They were faced
by Ulans, cossacks, guards. Gapon's plan had
not prepared the workingmen for that. What
was the result? They seized arms wherever
they could, they built barricades. . . . They
fought, though, apparently, they went to beg
for mercy. This shows that they went not to
heg, hut to demand.
The proletariat of Petersburg manifested a
degree of political alertness and revolutionary
energy far exceeding the limits of the plan
laid out by a casual leader. Gapon's plan con-
tained many elements of revolutionary ro-
manticism. On January 9th, the plan col-
lapsed. Yet the revolutionary proletariat of
The Events in Petersburg 57
Petersburg is no romanticism, it is a living
reality. So is the proletariat of other cities.
An enormous wave is rolling over Russia. It
has not yet quieted down. One shock, and the
proletarian crater will begin to erupt torrents
of revolutionary lava.
The proletariat has arisen. It has chosen an x
incidental pretext and a casual leader — a self- ;
sacrificing priest. That seemed enough to /
start with. It was not enough to win.
Victory demands not a romantic method I
based on an illusory plan, but revolutionary/
tactics. A simultaneotcs action of the prole-
tariat of all Russia must he prepared. This is
the first condition. No local demonstration
has a serious political significance any longer.
After the Petersburg uprising, only an all-Rus-
sian uprising should take place. Scattered out-
bursts would only consume the precious revo-
lutionary energy with no results. Wherever
spontaneous outbursts occur, as a late echo of
the Petersburg uprising, they must be made
use of to revolutionize and to solidify the
masses, to popularize among them the idea of
an all-Russian uprising as a task of the ap-
proaching months, perhaps only weeks.
This is not the place to discuss the technique
of a popular uprising. The questions of revo-
58 The Events in Petersburg
lutionary technique can be solved only in a
practical way, under the live pressure of strug-
gle and under constant communication with
the active members of the Party. There is
no doubt, however, that the technical problems
of organizing a popular uprising assume at
present tremendous importance. Those prob-
lems demand the collective attention of the
Party.
Trotzky then proceeds to discuss the question of
armament, arsenals, clashes with army units, barri-
cades, etc. Then he continues :
As stated before, these questions ought to
be solved by local organizations. Of course,
this is only a minor task as compared with the
political leadership of the masses. Yet, this
task is most essential for the political leader-
ship itself. The organization of the revolution
becomes at present the axis of the political
leadership of revolting masses.
.What are the requirements for this leader-
ship ? A few very simple things : freedom from
routine in matters of organization; freedom
from miserable traditions of underground con-
spiracy; a broad view; courageous initiative;
ability to gauge situations; courageous initia-
tive once more.
The Events in Petersburg 59
The events of January 9th have given us a
revolutionary beginning. We must never fall
below this. We must make this our starting
point in moving the revolution forward. We
must imbue our work of propaganda and or-
ganization with the political ideas and revolu-
tionary aspirations of the uprising of the Pe-
tersburg workers.
The Russian revolution has approached its
climax — a national uprising. The organization
of this uprising, which would determine the
fate of the entire revolution, becomes the day's
task for our Party.
No one can accomplish it, but we. Priest
Gapon could appear only once. He cherished
extraordinary illusions, that is why he could do
what he has done. Yet he could remain at the
head of the masses for a brief period only. The
memory of George Gapon will always be dear
to the revolutionary proletariat. Yet his
memory will be that of a hero who opened the
sluices of the revolutionary torrent. Should a
new figure step to the front now, equal to
Gapon in energy, revolutionary enthusiasm
and power of political illusions, his arrival
would be too late. What was great in George
Gapon may now look ridiculous. There is
no room for a second George Gapon, as the
60 The Events in Petersburg
thing now needed is not an illusion, but clear
revolutionary thinking, a decisive plan of ac-
tion, a flexible revolutionary organization which
would be able to give the masses a slogan, to
lead them into the field of battle, to launch an
attack all along the line and bring the revolu-
tion to a victorious conclusion.
Such an organization can be the work of
Social-Democracy only. No other party is
able to create it. No other party can give the
masses a revolutionary slogan, as no one out-
side our Party has freed himself from all con-
siderations not pertaining to the interests of
the revolution, ^o other party, but Social-
Democracy, is able to organize the action of the
masses, as no one but our Party is closely con-
nected with the masses.)
Our Party has committed many errors,
blunders, almost crimes. It wavered, evaded,
^ hesitated, it showed inertia and lack of pluck.
At times it hampered the revolutionary move-
ment.
However^ there is no revolutionary party
hut the Social-Democratic Party!
Our organizations are imperfect. Our con-
nections with the masses are insufficient. Our
technique is primitive.
The Events in Petersburg 61
Yetj there is no party connected with the
masses but the Social'Democratic Party!
At the head of the Revolution is the Pro-]
letariat. At the head of the Proletariat is So- !
cial-Democraey I
Let us exert all our power, comrades ! Let
us put all our energy and all our passion into
this. Let us not forget for a moment the great
responsibility vested in our Party: a responsi-
bility before the Russian Revolution and in
the sight of International Socialism.
The proletariat of the entire world looks to
us with expectation. Broad vistas are being
opened for humanity by a victorious Russian
revolution. Comrades, let us do our duty!
Let us close our ranks, comrades! Let us
unite, and unite the masses! Let us prepare,
and prepare the masses for the day of decisive
actions! Let us overlook nothing. Let us
leave no power unused for the Cause.
Brave, honest, harmoniously united, we shall
march forward, linked by unbreakable bonds,
brothers in the Revolution!
JEXPLANATORY NOTES
Osvoboshdenie (Emancipation) was the name of a liberal
magazine published in Stuttgart, Germany, and smuggled into
Russia to be distributed among the Zemstvo-liberals and other
progressive elements grouped about the Zemstvo-organization.
The Osvoboshdenie advocated a constitutional monarchy; it was,
however, opposed to revolutionary methods.
Peter Struve, first a Socialist, then a Liberal, was the editor
of the Osvoboshdenie. Struve is an economist and one of the
leading liberal journalists in Russia.
Zemstvo-petitions, accepted in form of resolutions at the
meetings of the liberal Zemstvo bodies and forwarded to the
central government, were one of the means the liberals used in
their struggle for a Constitution. The petitions, worded in a
very moderate language, demanded the abolition of "lawless-
ness" on the part of the administration and the introduction of
a "legal order," i.e., a Constitution.
Sergius Witte, Minister of Finance in the closing years of the
19th Century and up to the revolution of 1905, wajs known as a
bureaucrat of a liberal brand.
The Ukase of December 12th, 1905, was an answer of the
government to the persistent political demands of the "Spring"
time. The Ukase promised a number of insignificant bureau-
cratic reforms, not even mentioning a popular representation
and threatening increased punishments for "disturbances of
peace and order."
Trepov was one of the most hated bureaucrats, a devoted
pupil of Von Plehve's in the work of drowning revolutionary
movements in blood.
George Oapon was the priest who organized the march of
January 9th. Trotzky's admiration for the heroism of Gapon
was originally shared by many revolutionists. Later it became
known that Gapon played a dubious rdle as a friend of labor,
and an agent of the government.
The "Political illusions" of George Gapon, referred to in this
essay, was his assumption that the Tzar was a loving father to
his people. Gapon hoped to reach the Emperor of all the Rus-
sias and to make him "receive the workingmen's petition from
hand to hand."
62
PROSPECTS OF A LABOR
DICTATORSHIP
This is, perhaps, the most remarkable piece of
political writing the Revolution has produced. Writ-
ten early in 1906, after the great upheavals of the
fall of 1905, at a time when the Russian revolution
was obviously going down hill, and autocracy, after
a moment of relaxation, was increasing its deadly
grip over the country, the essays under the name
Stum Total and Prospectives (which we have here
changed into a more comprehensible name. Pros-
pects of Labor Dictatorship) aroused more amaze-
ment than admiration. They seemed so en-
tirely out of place. They ignored the liberal par-
ties as quite negligible quantities. They ignored thcv
creation of the Duma to which the Constitutional
Democrats attached so much importance as a
place where democracy would fight the battles of
the people and win. They ignored the very fact
that the vanguard of the revolution, the industrial
proletariat, was beaten, disorganized, downhearted,
tired out.
The essays met with opposition on the part of
leading Social-Democratic thinkers of both the Bol-
sheviki and Mensheviki factions. The essays seemed
to be more an expression of Trotzky's revolution-
ary ardor, of his unshakable faith in the future of
the Russian revolution, than a reflection of political
65
66 Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship
realities. It was known that he wrote them within |
prison walls. Should not the very fact of his im- j
prisonment have convinced him that in drawing a |
picture of labor dictatorship he was only dreaming.'*
History has shown that it was not a dream, i
Whatever our attitude towards the course of events {
in the 1917 revolution may be, we must admit that, \
in the main, this course has taken the direction '\
predicted in Trotzky's essays. There is a labor i
dictatorship now in Russia. It is a labor dictator- \
ship, not a "dictatorship of the proletariat and the \
peasants." The liberal and radical parties have lost |
influence. The labor government has put collective
ownership and collective management of industries
on the order of the day. The labor government has
not hesitated in declaring Russia to be ready for a
Socialist revolution. It was compelled to do so
under the pressure of revolutionary proletarian
masses. The Russian army has been dissolved in the
armed people. The Russian revolution has called
the workingmen of the world to make a social revo-
lution.
All this had been outlined by Trotzky twelve years
ago. When one reads this series of essays, one has
the feeling that they were written not in the
course of the first Russian upheaval (the essays ap-
peared in 1906 as part of a book by Trotzky, en-
titled Our Revoliition, Petersburg, N. Glagolejff,
publisher) but as if they were discussing problems
of the present situation. This, more than anything
Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship 67
else, shows the cjmtimiitj/ of the revolution. The
great overthrow of 1917 was completed by the same
political and social forces that had met and learned
to know each other in the storms of 1905 and 1906.
The ideology of the various groups and parties had
hardly changed. Even the leaders of the major
parties were, in the main, the same persons. Of
course, the international situation was different.
But even the possibility of a European war and its
consequences had been foreseen by Trotzky in his
essays. ' 'i *J
Twelve years ago those essays seemed to picture
an imaginary world. To-day they seem to tell the
history of the Russian revolution. We may agree
or disagree with Trotzky, the leader, nobody can
deny the power and clarity of his political vision.
/
PROSPECTS OF A LABOR DICTATORSHIP
In the first chapter, entitled "Peculiarities of Our
Historic Development," the author gives a broad
outline of the growth of absolutism in Russia. De-
velopment of social forms in Russia, he says, was
slow and primitive. Our social life was constructed
on an archaic and meager economic foundation. Yet,
Russia did not lead an isolated life. Russia was un-
der constant pressure of higher politico-economical
organisms, — the neighboring Western states. The
Russian state, in its struggle for existence, outgrew
its economic basis. Historic development in Russia,
therefore, was taking place under a terrific straining
of national economic forces. The state absorbed the
major part of the national economic surplus and also
part of the product necessary for the maintenance of
the people. The state thus undermined its own
foundation. On the other hand, to secure the means
indispensable for its growth, the state forced eco-
nomic development by bureaucratic measures. Ever
since the end of the seventeenth century, the state was
most anxious to develop industries in Russia. "New
trades, machines, factories, production on a large
scale, capital, appear from a certain angle to be an
artificial graft on the original economic trunk of the
70 Prospects of a Labor DictatorsMp
people. Similarly, Russian science may appear from
the same angle to be an artificial graft on the natural
trunk of national ignorance." This, however, is a
wrong conception. The Russian state could not have
created something out of nothing. State action only
accelerated the processes of natural evolution of eco-
nomic life. State measures that were in contradiction
to those processes were doomed to failure. Still, the
role of the state in economic life was enormous.
When social development reached the stage where the
bourgeoisie classes began to experience a desire for
political institutions of a Western type, Russian au-
tocracy was fully equipped with all the material
power of a modem European state. It had at its
command a centralized bureaucratic machinery, in-
capable of regulating modern relations, yet strong
enough to do the work of oppression. It was in a
position to overcome distance by means of the tele-
graph and railroads, — a thing unknown to the pre-
revolutionary autocracies in Euro'pe. It had a colos-
sal army, incompetent in wars with foreign enemies,
yet strong enough to maintain the authority of the
state in internal affairs.
Based on its military and fiscal apparatus, absorb-
ing the major part of the country's resources, the
government increased its annual budget to an enor-
mous amount of two billions of rubles, it made the
stock-exchange of Europe its treasury and the Rus-
sian tax-payer a slave to European high finance.
Gradually, the Russian state became an end in itself.
Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship 71
It evolved into a power independent of society. It
left unsatisfied the most elementary wants of the
people. It was unable even to defend the safety of
the country against foreign foes. Yet, it seemed
strong, powerful, invincible. It inspired awe.
It became evident that the Russian state would
never grant reforms of its own free will. As years
passed, the conflict between absolutism and the re-
quirements of economic and cultural progress be-
came ever more acute. There was only one way to
solve the problem : "to accumulate enough steam in-
side the iron kettle of absolutism to burst the kettle."
This was the way outlined by the Marxists long ago.
Marxism was the only doctrine that had correctly
predicted the course of development in Russia.
In the second chapter, "City and Capital," Trot-
zky attempts a theoretical explanation to the weak-
ness of the middle-class in Russia. Russia of the
eighteenth, and even of the major part of the nine-
teenth, century, he writes, was marked by an absence
of cities as industrial centers. Our big cities were
administrative rather than industrial centers. Our
primitive industries were scattered in the villages,
auxiliary occupations of the peasant farmers. Even
the population of our so called "cities," in former
generations maintained itself largely by agriculture.
Russian cities never contained a prosperous, efficient
and self-assured class of artisans — that real founda-
tion of the European middle class which in the course
72 Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship
of revolutions against absolutism identified itself with
the "people.'* When modem capitalism, aided by
absolutism, appeared on the scene of Russia and
turned large villages into modem industrial centers
almost over night, it had no middle-class to build on.
In Russian cities, tKe?EfuTe7"tHe~ influence of the
bourgeoisie is far less than in western Europe. Rus-
sian cities practically contain great numbers of
workingmen and smaU groups of capitalists. More-
over, the specific political weight of the Russian
proletariat is larger than that of the capital em-
ployed in Russia, because the latter is to a great ex-
tent imported capital. Thus, while a large propor-
tion of the capital operating in Russia exerts its poli-
tical influence in the parliaments of Belgium or
France, the working class employed by the same capi-
tal exert their entire influence in the pohtical life of
Russia. As a result of these peculiar historic devel-
opments, the Russian proletariat, recruited from the
pauperized peasant and ruined rural artisans, has
accumulated in the new cities in very great numbers,
*'and nothing stood between the workingmen and ab-
solutism but a small class of capitalists, separated
from the 'people' (i.e., the middle-class in the Euro-
pean sense of the word), half foreign in its deriva-
tion, devoid of historic traditions, animated solely
by a hunger for profits."
CHAPTER III
1789-1848-1905
History does not repeat itself. You are free
to compare the Russian revolution with the
Great French Revolution, yet this would not
make the former resemble the latter. The
nineteenth century passed not in vain.
Already the year of 1848 is widely different
from 1789. As compared with the Great Rev-
olution, the revolutions in Prussia or Austria
appear amazingly small. From one viewpoint,
the revolutions of 1848 came too early; from
another, too late. That gigantic exertion of
power which is necessary for the bourgeois so-
ciety to get completely square with the masters
of the past, can be achieved either through
powerful unity of an entire nation arousing
against feudal despotism, or through a power-
ful development of class struggle within a na-
tion striving for freedom. In the first case —
of which a classic example are the years 1789-
1793, — the national energy, compressed by the
terrific resistance of the old regime, was spent
73
74 Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship -
entirely in the struggle against reaction. In |
the second case — which has never appeared in ^^
history as yet, and which is treated here as ,
hypothetical — ^the actual energy necessary for |
a victory over the black forces of history is \
being developed within the bourgeois nation |
through "civil war" between classes. Fierce 1
internal friction characterizes the latter case. 1
It absorbs enormous quantities of energy, pre- \
vents the bourgeoisie from playing a leading \
role, pushes its antagonist, the proletariat, to |
the front, gives the workingman decades' ex- |
perience in a month, makes them the central ^
figures in political struggles, and puts very i
tight reins into their hands. Strong, deter- \
mined, knowing no doubts, the proletariat ;
gives events a powerful twist.
Thus, it is either — or. Either a nation gath-
ered into one compact whole, as a lion ready
to leap; or a nation completely divided in the
process of internal struggles, a nation that has
released her best part for a task which the
whole was unable to complete. Such are the
two polar types, whose purest forms, how-
ever, can be found only in logical contraposi-
tion.
Here, as in many other cases, the middle
road is the worst. This was the case in 1848.
Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship 75
In the French Revolution we see an active,
enlightened bourgeoisie, not yet aware of the
contradictions of its situation; entrusted by
history with the task of leadership in the strug-
gle for a new order; fighting not only against
the archaic institutions of France, but also
against the forces of reaction throughout
Europe. The bourgeoisie consciously, in the
person of its various factions, assumes the
leadership of the nation, it lures the masses
\nto struggle, it coins slogans, it dictates revo-
lutionary tactics. Democracy unites the na-
tion in one political ideology. The people —
small artisans, petty merchants, peasants, and
workingmen — elect bourgeois as their repre-
sentatives; the mandates of the communities
are framed in the language of the burgeoisie
which becomes aware of its Messianic role.
Antagonisms do not fail to reveal themselves
in the course of the revolution, yet the power-
ful momentum of the revolution removes one
by one the most unresponsive elements of the
bourgeoisie. Each stratum is torn off, but not
before it has given over all its energy to the
following one. The nation as a whole con-
tinues to fight with ever increasing persist-
ence and determination. When the upper stra-
tum of the bourgeoisie tears itself away from
76 Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship
the main body of the nation to form an alliance
/with Louis XVI, the democratic demands of
( the nation turn against this part of the bour-
geoisie, leading to universal suffrage and a re-
publican government as logically consequent
forms of democracy.
The Great French Revolution is a true na-
tional revolution. It is more than that. It
is a classic manifestation, on a national scale,
of the world-wide struggle of the bourgeois
order for supremacy, for power, for unmiti-
gated triumph. In 1848, the bourgeosie was
no more capable of a similar role. It did not
want, it did not dare take the responsibility
for a revolutionary liquidation of a political
order that stood in its way. The reason is
clear. The task of the bourgeoisie — of which
it was fully aware — was not to secure its own
political supremacy, but to secure for itself a
share in the political power of the old regime.
The bourgeoisie of 1848, niggardly wise with
the experience of the French bourgeoisie, was
vitiated by its treachery, frightened by its fail-
ures. It did not lead the masses to storm the
citadels of the absolutist order. On the con-
trarj?-, with its back against the absolutist or-
der, it resisted the onslaught of the masses
that were pushing it forward.
Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship 77
The French bourgeoisie made its revolution
great. Its consciousness was the consciousness
of the people, and no idea found its expression
in institutions without having gone through its
consciousness as an end, as a task of political
construction. It often resorted to theatrical
poses to conceal from itself the limitations of
its bourgeois world, — yet it marched forward.
The German bourgeoisie, on the contrary,
was not doing the revolutionary work; it was
"doing away" with the revolution from the very
start. Its consciousness revolted against the
objective conditions of its supremacy. The
revolution could be completed not by the bour-
geoisie, but against it. Democratic institu-
tions seemed to the mind of the German bour-
geois not an aim for his struggle, but a men-
ace to his security.
Another class was required in 1848, a class
capable of conducting the revolution beside
the bourgeoisie and in spite of it, a class not
only ready and able to push the bourgeoisie
forward, but also to step over its political
corpse, should events so demand. None of the
other classes, however, was ready for the job.
The petty middle class were hostile not only
to the past, but also to the future. They were
still entangled in the meshes of medieval re-
78 Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship
lations, and they were unable to withstand the
oncoming "free" industry; they were still giv-
ing the cities their stamp, and they were al-
ready giving way to the influences of big capi-
tal. Steeped in prejudices, stunned by the
clatter of events, exploiting and being ex-
ploited, greedy and helpless in their greed, they
could not become leaders in matters of world-
wide importance. Still less were the peasants
capable of political initiative. Scattered over
the country, far from the nervous centers of
politics and culture, limited in their views, the
peasants could have no great part in the strug-
gles for a new order. The democratic intellec-
tuals possessed no social weight; they either
dragged along behind their elder sister, the lib-
eral bourgeoisie, as its political tail, or they sep-
arated themselves from the bourgeoisie in crit-
ical moments only to show their weakness.
The industrial worhingmen were too weak,
unorganized, devoid of experience and knowl-
edge. The capitalist development had gone
far enough to make the abolition of old feudal
relations imperative, yet it had not gone far
enough to make the working class, the product
of new economic relations, a decisive political
factor. Antagonism between bourgeoisie and
proletariat, even within the national bounda-
Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship 79
ries of Germany, was sharp enough to prevent
the bourgeoisie from stepping to the front to
assume national hegemony in the revolution,
yet it was not sharp enough to allow the prole-
tariat to become a national leader. True, the
internal frictions of the revolution had pre-
pared the workingmen for political independ-
ence, yet they weakened the energy and the
unity of the revolution and they caused a great
waste of power. The result was that, after the
first successes, the revolution began to plod
about in painful uncertainty, and under the
first blows of the reaction it started backwards.
Austria gave the clearest and most tragic ex-
ample of unfinished and unsettled relations in
a revolutionary period. It was this situation
that gave Lassaile occasion to assert that hence-
forward revolutions could find their support
only in the class struggle of the proletariat.
In a letter to Marx, dated October 24, 1849
he writes : ''The experiences of Austria, Hun-
gary and Germany in 1848 and 1849 have led
me to the firm conclusion that no struggle in
Europe can be successful unless it is proclaimed
from the very beginning as purely Socialistic.
No struggle can succeed in which social prob-
lems appear as nebulous elements kept in the
background, while on the surface the fight is
80 Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship
being conducted under the slogan of national
revival of bourgeois republicanism."
We shall not attempt to criticize this bold I
conclusion. One thing is evident, namely that J
already at the middle of the nineteenth century I
the national task of political emancipation ?
could not be completed by a unanimous con- 5
certed onslaught of the entire nation. Only |
the independent tactics of the proletariat de- I
riving its strength from no other source but its \
class position, could have secured a victory of ;
the revolution.
The Russian working class of 1906 differs
entirely from the Vienna working class of
1848. The best proof of it is the all-Russian
practice of the Councils of Workmen's Depu- \
ties (Soviets). Those are no organizations of «
conspirators prepared beforehand to step for- i
ward in times of unrest and to seize command
over the working class. They are organs con- J
sciously created by the masses themselves to ^
coordinate their revolutionary struggle. The '\
Soviets, elected by and responsible to the mas-
ses, are thoroughly democratic institutions fol-
lowing the most determined class policy in the ^
spirit of revolutionary Socialism. J
The differences in the social composition of \
Prospects of a Labor DictatorsM'p, 81
the Russian revolution are clearly shown in
the question of arming the people.
Militia (national guard) was the first slogan
and the first achievement of the revolutions of
1789 and 1848 in Paris, in all the Italian states
and in Vienna and Berlin. In 1846, the de-
mand for a national guard (i.e. the armament
of the propertied classes and the "intellec-
tuals") was put forth by the entire bourgeois
opposition, including the most moderate fac-
tions. In Russia, the demand for a national
guard finds no favor with the bourgeois par-
ties. This is not because the liberals do not
understand the importance of arming the peo-
ple : absolutism has given them in this respect
more than one object lesson. The reason why
liberals do not like the idea of a national guard
is because they fully realize the impossibility of
creating in Russia an armed revolutionary
force outside of the proletariat and against the
proletariat. They are ready to give up this
demand, as they give up many others, just as
the French bourgeoisie headed by Thiers pre-
ferred to give up Paris and France to Bis-
marck rather than to arm the working class.
The problem of an armed revolution in
Russia becomes essentially a problem of the
proletariat. National militia, this classic de-
82 'Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship
mand of the bourgeoisie of 1848, appears in
Russia from the very beginning as a demand
for arming the people, primarily the working
class. Herein the fate of the Russian revolu-
tion manifests itself most clearly.
CHAPTER IV
THE REVOLUTION AND THE PROLETARIAT
A revolution is an open contest of social
forces in their struggle for political power.
The state is not an end in itself. It is only
a working machine in the hands of the social
force in po>ver. As every machine, the state
has its motor, transmission, and its operator.
Its motive power is the class interest ; its motor
are propaganda, the press, influences of school
and church, political parties, open air meetings,
petitions, insurrections; its transmission is
made up of legislative bodies actuated by the
interest of a caste, a dynasty, a guild or a class
appearing under the guise of Divine or na-
tional will (absolutism or parliamentarism) ;
its operator is the administration, with its po-
lice, judiciary, jails, and the army.
The state is not an end in itself. It is, how-
ever, the greatest means for organizing, dis-
organizing and reorganizing social relations.
According to who is directing the machinery
of the State, it can be an instrument of pro-
83
84 \Prospects of a Labor DictatoisMp
foundest transformations, or a means of or-
ganized stagnation.
Each political party worthy of its name
strives to get hold of political power and thus
to make the state serve the interests of the class
represented by the party. Social-Democracy,
as the party of the proletariat, naturally strives
at political supremacy of the working class.
The proletariat grows and gains strength
/^ith the growth of capitalism. From this view-
point, the development of capitalism is the de-
velopment of the proletariat for dictatorship.
The day and the hour, however, when political
power should pass into the hands of the work-
■■ ing class, is determined not directly by the de-
gree of capitalistic development of economic
forces, but by the relations of class struggle,
by the international situation, by a nimiber of
subjective elements, such as tradition, initia-
tive, readiness to fight. . . .
It is, therefore, not excluded that in a back-
;Vard country with a lesser degree of capitalis-
tic development, the proletariat should sooner
reach political supremacy than in a highly de-
veloped capitalist state. Thus, in middle-class
Paris, the proletariat consciously took into its
hands the administration of public affairs in
1871. True it is, that the reign of the prole-
Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship S7
tariat lasted only for two months, it is remark-
able, however, that in far more advanced capi-
talist centers of England and the Unitei
States, the proletariat never was in power eve:
for the duration of one day. To imagine thai
there is an automatic dependence between a
dictatorship of the proletariat and the tech-
nical and productive resources of a country,
is to understand economic determinism in a
very primitive way. Such a conception would
have nothing to do with Marxism.
It is our opinion that the Russian revolution
creates conditions whereby political power can
(and, in case of a victorious revolution, must)
pass into the hands of the proletariat before
the politicians of the liberal bourgeoisie would
have occasion to give their political genius full
swing.
Summing up the results of the revolution
and counter-revolution in 1848 and 1849, Marx
wrote in his correspondences to the New York
Tribune: "The working class in Germany is,
in its social and political development, as far
behind that of England and France as the
German bourgeoisie is behind the bourgeoisie
of those countries. Like master, like man. The
evolution of the conditions of existence for a
numerous, strong, concentrated, and intelli-
86 Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship
gent proletariat goes hand in hand with the
development of the conditions of existence for
a numerous, wealthy, concentrated and power-
ful middle class. The working class move-
ment itself never is independent, never is of an
exclusively proletarian character until all the
different factions of the middle class, and par-
ticularly its most progressive faction, the large
manufacturers, have conquered political pow-
er, and remodeled the State according to their
wants. It is then that the inevitable conflict
between employer and the employed becomes
imminent, and cannot be adjourned any
longer." * This quotation must be familiar
to the reader, as it has lately been very much
abused by scholastic Marxists. It has been
used as an iron-clad argument against the idea
of a labor government in Russia. If the Rus-
sian capitalistic bourgeoisie is not strong
enough to take governmental power into its
hands, how is it possible to think of an indus-
trial democracy, i.e., a political supremacy of
the proletariat, was the question.
Let us give this objection closer considera-
tion.
f Marxism is primarily a method of analysis,
— ^not the analysis of texts, but the analysis of
' * Karl Marx, Germany in I848. (English edition, pp. 22-23.)
Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship 87
social relations. Applied to Russia, is it true
that the weakness of capitalistic liberalism
means the weakness of the working class? Is
it true, not in the abstract, but in relation to
Russia, that an independent proletarian move-
ment is impossible before the bourgeoisie as-
sume political power? It is enough to formu-
late these questions in order to understand
what hopeless logical formalism there is hid-
den behind the attempt to turn Marx's his-
torically relative remark into a super-historic
maxim.
Our industrial development, though marked
in times of prosperity by leaps and bounds of
an "American" character, is in reality miser-
ably small in comparison with the industry of
the United States. Five million persons, form-
ing 16.6 per cent, of the population engaged in
economic pursuits, are employed in the indus-
tries of Russia ; six millions and 22.2 per cent,
are the corresponding figures for the United
States. To have a clear idea as to the real di-
mensions of industry in both countries, we must
remember that the population of Russia is
twice as large as the population of the United
States, and that the output of American indus-
tries in 1900 amounted to 25 billions of rubles
88 Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship
whereas the output of Russian industries for
the same year hardly reached 2.5 billions.
There is no doubt that the number of the
proletariat, the degree of its concentration, its
cultural level, and its political importance de-
pend upon the degree of industrial develop-
ment in each country.
'his dependence, however, is not a direct
one. Between the productive forces of a
country on one side and the political strength
of its social classes on the other, there is at any
given moment a current and cross current of
various socio-political factors of a national and
international character which modify and
sometimes completely reverse the political ex-
pression of economic relations. The industry
of the United States is far more advanced than
the industry of Russia, while the political role
of the Russian workingmen, their influence on
the political life of their country, the possibili-
ties of their influence on world politics in the
near future, are incomparably greater than
those of the American proletariat.
In his recent work on the American work-
ingman, Kautsky arrives at the conclusion that
there is no immediate and direct dependence
between the political strength of the bourge-
iosie and the proletariat of a country on one
Prospects of a Labor DictatorsMp> 89
hand and its industrial development on the
other. "Here are two countries," he writes,
"diametrically opposed to each other: in one
of them, one of the elements of modern in-
dustry is developed out of proportion, i.e., out
of keeping with the stage of capitalistic de-
velopment; in the other, another; in America
it is the class of capitalists ; in Russia, the class
of labor. In America there is more ground
than elsewhere to speak of the dictatorship of
capital, while nowhere has labor gained as
much influence as in Russia, and this influ-
ence is bound to grow, as Russia has only re-
cently entered the period of modern class
struggle." Kautsky then proceeds to state
that Germany can, to a certain degree, study
her future from the present conditions in Rus-
sia, then he continues : "It is strange to think
that it is the Russian proletariat which shows
us our future as far as, not the organization of
capital, but the protest of the working class
is concerned. Russia is the most backward of
all the great states of the capitalist world.
This may seem to be in contradiction with the "
economic interpretation of history which con-
siders economic strength the basis of political
development. This is, however, not true. It
contradicts only that kind of economic inter-
90 iProspects of a Labor Dictatorship
pretation of history which is being painted by
our opponents and critics who see in it not a
method of analysis, but a ready pattern," *
These lines ought to be recommended to those
of our native Marxians who substitute for an
independent analysis of social relations a de-
duction from texts selected for all emergencies
of life. No one can compromise Marxism as
shamefully as these bureaucrats of Marxism do.
In Kautsky's estimation, Russia is character-
ized, economically, by a comparatively low lev-
el of capitalistic development; politically, by a
weakness of the capitalistic bourgeoisie and by
a great strength of the working class. This
results in the fact, that "the struggle for the
interests of Russia as a whole has become the
\ task of the only powerful class in Russia, in-
dustrial labor. This is the reason why labor
has gained such a tremendous political im-
portance. This is the reason why the struggle
of Russia against the polyp of absolutism
which is strangling the country, turned out to
be a single combat of absolutism against in-
dustrial labor, a combat where the peasantry
can lend considerable assistance without, how-
ever, being able to play a leading role.f
* K. Kautsky, The American and the Russian Workingman.
t D. Mendeleyer, Russian Realities, 1906, p. 10.
Prospects of a Labor Dictatorships
Are we not warranted in our conclusion th]
the "man" will sooner gain political supremacy
in Russia than his "master"?
There are two sorts of political optimism.
One overestimates the advantages and the
strength of the revolution and strives towards
ends unattainable under given conditions.
The other consciously limits the task of the
revolution, drawing a line which the very logic
of the situation will compel him to overstep.
You can draw limits to all the problems of
the revolution by asserting that this is a bour-
geois revolution in its objective aims and in-
evitable results, and you can close your eyes to
the fact that the main figure in this revolution
is the working class which is being moved
towards political supremacy by the very course
of events.
You can reassure yourself by saying that in
the course of a bourgeois revolution the politi-
cal supremacy of the working class can be only
a passing episode, and you can forget that, once
in power, the working class will offer desperate
resistance, refusing to yield unless compelled
to do so by armed force.
You can reassure yourself by saying that so-
cial conditions in Russia are not yet ripe for
92 Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship
a Socialist order, and you can overlook the fact
that, once master of the situation, the working
class would be compelled by the very logic of
its situation to organize national economy un-
der the management of the state.
The term bourgeois revolution, a general so-
ciological definition, gives no solution to the
numerous political and tactical problems, con-
tradictions and difficulties which are being
created by the mechanism of a given bourgeois
revolution.
Within the limits of a bourgeois revolution
at the end of the eighteenth century, whose ob-
jective was the political supremacy of capi-
tal, the dictatorship of the Sans-Culottes
turned out to be a fact. This dictatorship was
not a passing episode, it gave its stamp to a
whole century that followed the revolution,
though it was soon crushed by the limitations
of the revolution.
Within the limits of a revolution at the be-
ginning of the twentieth century, which is also
a bourgeois revolution in its immediate objec-
tive aims, there looms up a prospect of an in-
evitable, or at least possible, supremacy of the
working class in the near future. That this
supremacy should not turn out to be a passing
episode, as many a realistic Philistine may
Prospects of a Labor DictatorsM'pi 93
hope, is a task which the working class will have
at heart. It is, then, legitimate to ask: is it
inevitable that the dictatorship of the prole-
tariat should clash against the limitations of a
bourgeois revolution and collapse, or is it not
possible that under given international con-
ditions it may open a way for an ultimate vic-
tory by crushing those very limitations?
Hence a tactical problem: should we con-
sciously strive toward a labor government as
the development of the revolution will bring
us nearer to that stage, or should we look upon
political power as upon a calamity which the
bourgeois revolution is ready to inflict upon
the workingmen, and which it is best to avoid?
CHAPTEE V
THE PROLETARIAT IN POWER AND THE PEAS-
ANTRY
In case of a victorious revolution, political
power passes into the hands of the class that
has played in it a dominant role, in other
words, it passes into the hands of the working
class. Of course, revolutionary representatives
of non-proletarian social groups may not be
excluded from the government; sound politics
demands that the proletariat should call into
the government influential leaders of the lower
middle class, the intelligentzia and the peas-
ants. The problem is. Who will give substance
to the politics of the government^ who will
form in it a homogeneous majority? It is one
thing when the government contains a labor
majority, which representatives of other demo-
cratic groups of the people are allowed to join;
it is another, when the government has an out-
spoken bourgeois-democratic character where
labor representatives are allowed to partici-
94
Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship 95
pate in the capacity of more or less honorable
hostages.
The pohcies of the liberal capitalist bour-
geoisie, notwithstanding all their vacillations,
retreats and treacheries, are of a definite char-
acter. The policies of the proletariat are of a
still more definite, outspoken character. The
policies of the intelligentzia, however, a result
of intermediate social position and political
flexibility of this group; the politics of the
peasants, a result of the social heterogeneity,
intermediate position, and primitiveness of this
class; the politics of the lower middle class, a
result of muddle-headedness, intermediate po-
sition and complete want of political traditions,
— can never be clear, determined, and firm. It
must necessarily be subject to unexpected
turns, to uncertainties and surprises.
To imagine a revolutionary democratic gov-
ernment without representatives of labor is to
see the absurdity of such a situation. A re-
fusal of labor to participate in a revolutionary
government would make the very existence of
that government impossible, and would be tan-
tamount to a betrayal of the cause of the revo-
lution. A participation of labor in a revolu-
tionary government, however, is admissible,
both from the viewpoint of objective proba-
96 ^Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship
bility and subjective desirability, onlt/ in the
role of a leading dominant power. Of course,
you can call such a government "dictatorship
of the proletariat and peasantry," "dictator-
ship of the proletariat, the peasantry, and
the intelligentzia," or "a revolutionary govern-
ment of the workingmen and the lower middle
class." This question will still remain: Who
has the hegemony in the government and
through it in the country? When we speak of
a labor government we mean that the hege-
mony belongs to the working class.
The proletariat will be able to hold this posi-
tion under one condition: if it broadens the
basis of the revolution.
Many elements of the working masses, es-
pecially among the rural population, will be
drawn into the revolution and receive their po-
litical organization only after the first victo-
ries of the revolution, when the revolutionary
vanguard, the city proletariat, shall have
seized governmental power. Under such con-
ditions, the work of propaganda and organiza-
tion will be conducted through state agencies.
Legislative work itself will become a powerful
means of revolutionizing the masses. The bur-
den thrust upon the shoulders of the working
class by the peculiarities of our social and his-
Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship 97
torical development, the burden of completing
a bourgeois revolution by means of labor strug-
gle, will thus confront the proletariat with dif-
ficulties of enormous magnitude; on the other
hand, however, it will offer the working class,
at least in the first period, unusual opportu-
nities. This will be seen in the relations be-
tween the proletariat and the peasants.
In the revolutions of 1789-93, and 1848, gov-
ernmental power passed from absolutism into
the hands of the moderate bourgeois elements
which emancipated the peasants before revo-
lutionary democracy succeeded or even at-
tempted to get into power. The emancipated
peasantr y then lost inter est^ih the politi^l
ventures of the "city-gentlemen," i.e., in the
further course of theTev6Tutibfn"trfofmedjE^^
deadHBallast of "or der/^Tie founJation o f all
social "stability ," betraying the revolution , sup-
porting a Cesarian or ulttarabsolutis t reaction.
The Russian revolution is opposed to a bour-
geois constitutional order which would be able
to solve the most primitive problems of democ-
racy. The Russian revolution will be against
it for a long period to come. Reformers of a
bureaucratic brand, such as Witte and Stoly- :)c
pin, can do nothing for the peasants, as their
"enlightened" efforts are continually nullified
l^
98 ^Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship
by their own struggle for existence. The fate
of the most elementary interests of the peas-
antry — the entire peasantry as a class — is,
therefore, closely connected with the fate of
the revolution, i.e. with the fate of the prole-
tariat.
^- Once in power, the proletariat will appear
before the peasantry as its liberator.
Proletarian rule will mean not only demo-
cratic equality, free self-government, shifting
the burden of taxation on the propertied class-
es, dissolution of the army among the revo-
lutionary people, abolition of compulsory pay-
ments for the Church, but also recognition of
all revolutionary changes made by the peasants
in agrarian relations (seizures of land) . These
changes will be taken by the proletariat as a
starting point for further legislative measures
in agriculture. Under such conditions, the
Russian peasantry will be interested in uphold-
ing the proletarian rule ("labor democracy"),
at least in the first, most difficult period, not
less so than were the French peasants inter-
ested in upholding the military rule of Napo-
leon Boneparte who by force guaranteed to the
new owners the integrity of their land shares.
But is it not possible that the peasants will
Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship^ 99
remove the workingmen from their positions
and take their place? No, this can never hap-
pen. This would be in contradiction to all his-
torical experiences. History has convincingly j |
shown that the peasantry is incapable of an in- I "^
dependent political role.
The history of capitalism is the history of
subordination of the village by the city. In- -
dustrial development had made the continua- ^
tion of feudal relations in agriculture impos-
sible. Yet the peasantry had not produced a
class which could live up to the revolutionary
task of destroying feudalism. It was the city
which made rural population dependent on
capital, and which produced revolutionary
forces to assume political hegemony over the
village, there to complete revolutionary j
changes in civic and political relations. In the j
course of further development, the village be- !
comes completely enslaved by capital, and the [
villagers by capitalistic political parties, which j
revive feudalism in parliamentary politics, ■
making the peasantry their political domain, !
the ground for their preelection huntings.
Modern peasantry is driven by the fiscal and
militaristic system of the state into the clutches
of usurers' capital, while state-clergy, state-
100 Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship
schools and barrack depravity drive it into the
clutches of usurers' politics.
The Russian bourgeoisie yielded all revo-
lutionary positions to the Russian proletariat.
It will have to yield also the revolutionary he-
gemony over the peasants. Once the proleta-
riat becomes master of the situation, conditions
will impel the peasants to uphold the policies
of a labor democracy. They may do it with no
more political understanding than they uphold
a bourgeois regime. The difference is that
while each bourgeois party in possession of the
peasants' vote uses its power to rob the peas-
ants, to betray their confidence and to leave
their expectations unfulfilled, in the worst
case to give way to another capitalist party,
the working class, backed by the peasantry,
will put all forces into operation to raise the
cultural level of the village and to broaden the
political understanding of the peasants.
■— Our attitude towards the idea of a "dictator-
ship of the proletariat and the peasantry" is
now quite clear. It is not a question whether
we think it "admissible" or not, whether we
"wish" or we "do not wish" this form of polit-
ical cooperation. In our opinion, it simply
cannot be realized, at least in its direct mean-
ing. Such a cooperation presupposes that |
Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship 101
either the peasantry has identified itself with
one of the existing bourgeois parties, or it has
formed a powerful party of its own. Neither
is possible, as we have tried to point out.
CHAPTER VI
PROLETARIAN RULE
The proletariat can get into power only at
a moment of national upheaval, of sweeping
national enthusiasm. The proletariat assumes
power as a revolutionary representative of the
people, as a recognized leader in the fight
against absolutism and barbaric feudalism.
Having assumed power, however, the proleta-
riat will open a new era, an era of positive leg-
islation, of revolutionary politics, and this is
the point where its political supremacy as an
avowed spokesman of the nation may become
endangered.
The first measures of the proletariat — the
cleansing of the Augean stables of the old re-
gime and the driving away of their inhabitants
— ^will find active support of the entire nation
whatever the liberal castraters may tell us of
the power of some prejudices among the
masses. The work of political cleansing will
be accompanied by democratic reorganization
102
Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship 103
of all social and political relations. The labor
government, impelled by immediate needs and
requirements, will have to look into all kinds
of relations and activities among the people.
It will have to throw out of the army and the
administration all those who had stained their
hands with the blood of the people ; it will have
to disband all the regiments that had polluted
themselves with crimes against the people.
This work will have to be done immediately,
long before the establishment of an elective re-
sponsible administration and before the organi-
zation of a popular militia. This, however,
will be only a beginning. Labor democracy
will soon be confronted by the problems of a
normal workday, the agrarian relations and
unemployment. The legislative solution of
those problems will show the class character of
the labor government. It will tend to weaken
the revolutionary bond between the proletariat
and the nation; it will give the economic dif-
ferentiation among the peasants a political ex-
pression. Antagonism between the component
parts of the nation will grow step by step as
the policies of the labor government become
more outspoken, lose their general democratic
character and become class policies.
The lack of individualistic bourgeois tradi-
104 Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship
tions and anti-proletarian prejudices among
the peasants and the intelligentzia will help the
proletariat assume power. It must not be for-
gotten, however, that this lack of prejudices
is based not on political understanding, but on
political barbarism, on social shapelessness,
primitiveness, and lack of character. These
are all qualities which can hardly guarantee
support for an active, consistent proletarian
rule.
The abolition of the remnants of feudalism
in agrarian relations will be supported by all
the peasants who are now oppressed by the
landlords. A progressive income tax will be
supported by an overwhelming majority of the
peasants. Yet, legislative measures in de-
fense of the rural proletariat (farmhands) will
find no active support among the majority,
and will meet with active opposition on the
part of a minority of the peasants.
The proletariat will be compelled to intro-
duce class struggle into the village and thus
to destroy that slight community of interests
which undoubtedly unites the peasants as a
whole. In its next steps, the proletariat will
have to seek for support by helping the poor
villagers against the rich, the rural proletariat
against the agrarian bourgeoisie. This will
Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship 105
alienate the majority of the peasants from la-
bor democracy. Relations between village and
city will become strained. The peasantry as
a whole will become politically indifferent.
The peasant minority will actively oppose pro-
letarian rule. This will influence part of the
intellectuals and the lower middle class of the
cities.
Two features of proletarian politics are
bound particularly to meet with the opposition
of labor's allies : Collectivism and Internation-
alism. The strong adherence of the peasants
to private ownership, the primitiveness of their
political conceptions, the limitations of the vil-
lage horizon, its distance from world-wide po-»
litical connections and interdependences, are
terrific obstacles in the way of revolutionary
proletarian rule.
To imagine that Social-Democracy partici-
pates in the provisional government, playing
a leading role in the period of revolutionary
democratic reconstruction, insisting on the most
radical reforms and all the time enjoying the
aid and support of the organized proletariat, —
only to step aside when the democratic pro-
gram is put into operation, to leave the com-
pleted building at the disposal of the bour-
geois parties and thus to open an era of parlia-
106 Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship \
mentary politics where Social-Democracy I
forms only a party of opposition, — to imagine ^
this would mean to compromise the very idea |
of a labor government. It is impossible to ^^
imagine anything of the kind, not because it is '
"against principles" — such abstract reasoning J
is devoid of any substance^ — ^but because it is I
not real, it is the worst kind of Utopianism, it j
is the revolutionary Utopianism of Philistines, j
Our dikinction between a minimum and I
maximum program has a great and pro- '
found meaning only under bourgeois rule. The
very fact/of bourgeois rule eliminates from our
mininmm program all demands incompat- j
ible with private ownership of the means of \
production. Those demands form the sub- ).
stance of a Socialist revolution, and they pre-
suppose a dictatorship of the proletariat. The
moment, however, a revolutionary government
is dominated by a Socialist majority, the dis-
tinction between minimum and maximum pro-
gi-ams loses its meaning both as a question
of principle and as a practical policy. Undi
no condition will a proletarian government hi
able to keep within the limits of this distinc-
tion.
Let us take the case of an eight hour work-
day. It is a well established fact that an eight
Prospects of a Labor DictatorsMp 107
hour workday does not contradict the capital-
ist order ; it is, therefore, well within the limits
of the Social-Democratic minimmn pro-
gram. Imagine, however, its realization in
a revolutionary period, when all social pas-
sions are at the boiling point. An eight hour
workday law would necessarily meet with stub-
born and organized opposition on the part of
the capitalists — let us say in the form of a
lock-out and closing down of factories and
plants. Hundreds of thousands of working-
men would be thrown into the streets. What
ought the revolutionary government to do? A
bourgeois government, however radical, would
never allow matters to go as far as that. It
would be powerless against the closing of fac-
tories and plants. It would be compelled to
make concessions. The eight hour workday
would not be put into operation ; the revolts of
the workingmen would be put down by force
of arms. . . .
Under the political domination of the pro-
letariat, the introduction of an eight hour work-
day must have totally different consequences.
The closing down of factories and plants can-
not be the reason for increasing labor hours by
a government which represents not capital, but
labor, and which refuses to act as an "impar-
f
108 \Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship
tial" mediator, the way bourgeois democracy |
does. A labor government would have only ^
one way out — ^to expropriate the closed facto- ■
ries and plants and to organize their work on a |
public basis. 'i
Or let us take another example. A prole- j
letarian government must necessarily take de- \
eisive steps to solve the problem of unemploy- I
ment. Representatives of labor in a revolu- ^
tionary government can by no means meet the j
demands of the unemployed by saying that this \
is a bourgeois revolution. Once, however, the
state ventures to eliminate unemployment — i
no matter how — a tremendous gain in the eco- j
nomic power of the proletariat is accomplished. ;
The capitalists whose pressure on the working |
class was based on the existence of a reserve |
army of labor, will soon realize that they are |
powerless economically. It will be the task of \
the government to doom them also to political \
oblivion. i
Measures against unemployment mean also J
measures to secure means of subsistence for .}
strikers. The government will have to under-
take them, if it is anxious not to undermine the J
very foundation of its existence. Nothing will I
remain for the capitalists but to declare a lock- ]^
out, to close down factories and plants. Since
Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship 109
capitalists can wait longer than labor in case
of interrupted production, nothing will remain
for a labor government but to meet a general
lock-out by expropriating the factories and
plants and by introducing in the biggest of
them state or communal production.
In agriculture, similar problems will present
themselves through the very fact of land-ex-
propriation. .We cannot imagine a proletarian
government expropriating large private es-
tates with agricultural production on a large
scale, cutting them into pieces and selling them
to small owners. For it the only open way is
to organize in such estates cooperative produc-
tion under communal or state management.
This, however, is the way of Socialism,
Social-Democracy can never assume power ,
under a double obligation: to put the entire
minimum program into operation for the
sake of the proletariat, and to keep strictly
within the limits of this program, for the
sake of the bourgeoisie. Such a double obli-
gation could never be fulfilled. Participating
in the government, not as powerless hostages,
but as a leading force, the representatives of
labor eo ipso break the line between the mini-
mum and maximum program. Collectivism
becomes the order of the day. At which point v,
110 )Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship
h
the proletariat will be stopped on its march in J
this direction, depends upon the constellation ^|
of forces, not upon the original purpose of the 'J;
proletarian Party. |
/ It is, therefore, absurd to speak of a specific ^
^ character of proletarian dictatorship (or a die- ^
tatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry) ;■
within a bourgeois revolution, viz., a purely i
democratic dictatorship. The working class
. can never secure the democratic character of
its dictatorship without overstepping the lim- \
its of its democratic program. Illusions to the |
contrary may become a handicap. They would ■
compromise Social-Democracy from the start. \
Once the proletariat assumes power, it will
fight for it to the end. One of the means to
secure and solidify its power will be propa-
ganda and organization, particularly in the vil-
lage; another means will be a policy of Col-
lectivism. Collectivism is not only dictated by
the very position of the Social-Democratic
Party as the party in power, but it becomes im-
perative as a means to secure this position
through the active support of the working
class.
When our Socialist press first formulated the
idea of a Permanent Revolution which should
Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship, 111 '\
lead from the liquidation of absolutism anfl
civic bondage to a Socialist order through a ;
series of ever growing social conflicts, upris-
ings of ever new masses, unremitting attacks \
of the proletariat on the political and economic 1
privileges of the governing classes, our "pro- |
gressive" press started a unanimous indignant
uproar. Oh, they had suif ered enough, those \
gentlemen of the "progressive" press; this nui- \
sance, however, was too much. Revolution,\ |
they said, is not a thing that can be made "le- / ■
gal !" Extraordinary measures are allowable ^ ^
only on extraordinary occasions. The aim of i
the revolutionary movement, they asserted, was '^"
not to make the revolution go on forever, but '
to bring it as soon as possible into the chan- '
nels of law, etc., etc. The more radical rep-
resentatives of the same democratic bourgeoi-
sie do not attempt to oppose the revolution
from the standpoint of completed constitution-
al "achievements": tame as they are, they un- \
derstand how hopeless it is to fight the prole-
tariat revolution with the weapon of parlia- ^
mentary cretinism in advance of the establish-
ment of parliamentarism itself. They, there- j
fore, choose another way. They forsake the ;
standpoint of law, but take the standpoint of
what they deem to be facts, — the standpoint of j
112 Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship
historic "possibilities," the standpoint of poli-
tical "realism," — even . . . even the stand-
point of "Marxism." It was Antonio, the
pious Venetian bourgeois, who made the strik-
ing observation:
Mark you this, Bassanio,
The devil can cite scriptures for his purpose.
Those gentlemen not only consider the idea
of labor government in Russia fantastic, but
they repudiate the very probability of a Social
revolution in Europe in the near historic
epoch. The necessary "prerequisites" are not
yet in existence, is their assertion.
Is it so? It is, of course, not our purpose to
set a time for a Social revolution. What we
attempt here is to put the Social revolution into
a proper historic perspective.
CHAPTER VII
PREREQUISITES TO SOCIALISM
Marxism turned Socialism into a science.
This does not prevent some "Marxians" from
turning Marxism into a Utopia.
Trotzky then proceeds to find logical flaws in the
arguments of N. Roshkov, a Russian Marxist, who
had made the assertion that Russia was not yet ripe
for Socialism, as her level of industrial technique and
the class-consciousness of her working masses were
not yet high enough to make Socialist production
and distribution possible. Then he goes back to
what he calls "prerequisites to Socialism," which in
his opinion are: (1) development of industrial tech-
nique; (2) concentration of production; (3) social
consciousness of the masses. In order that Social-
ism become possible, he says, it is not necessary
that each of these prerequisites be developed to its
logically conceivable limit.
All those processes (development of tech-
nique, concentration of production, growth of
113
114 Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship
mass-consciousness) go on simultaneously, and
not only do they help and stimulate each other,
but they also hamper and limit each other's
development. Each of the processes of a high-
er order presupposes the development of an-
other process of a lower order, yet the full de-
velopment of any of them is incompatible with
the full development of the others.
The logical limit of technical development is
undoubtedly a perfect automatic mechanism
which takes in raw materials from natural re-
sources and lays them down at the feet of men
as ready objects of consumption. Were not
capitalism limited by relations between classes
and by the consequences of those relations, the
class struggle, one would be warranted in his
assumption that industrial technique, having
approached the ideal of one great automatic
mechanism within the limits of capitalistic econ-
omy, eo ipso dismisses capitalism.
The concentration of production which is an
outgrowth of economic competition has an in-
herent tendency to throw the entire population
into the working class. Taking this tendency
apart from all the others, one would be war-
ranted in his assumption that capitalism would
ultimately turn the majority of the people into
a reserve army of paupers, lodged in prisons.
Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship 115
This process, however, is being checked by rev-
olutionary changes which are inevitable under a
certain relationship between social forces. It
will be checked long before it has reached its
logical limit.
And the same thing is true in relation to so-
cial mass-consciousness. This consciousness
undoubtedly grows with the experiences of
every day struggle and through the conscious
efforts of Socialist parties. Isolating this
process from all others, we can imagine it reach-
ing a stage where the overwhelming majority
of the people are encompassed by professional
and political organizations, united in a feeling
of solidarity and in identity of purpose. Were
this process allowed to grow quantitatively
without changing in quality, Socialism might
be established peacefully, through a unanimous
compact of the citizens of the twenty-first or
twenty-second Century. The historic pre-
requisites to Socialism, however, do not de-
velop in isolation from each other; they limit
each other; reaching a certain stage, which is
determined by many circimastances, but which
is very far from their mathematical limits, they
undergo a qualitative change, and in their com-
plex combination they produce what we call
a Social revolution.
\[6 Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship
Let us take the last mentioned process, the
growth of social mass-consciousness. This
growth takes place not in academies, but in the
very life of modern capitalistic society, on the
basis of incessant class struggle. The growth
of proletarian class consciousness makes class
struggles undergo a transformation; it deep-
ens them; it puts a foundation of principle un-
der them, thus provoking a corresponding re-
action on the part of the governing classes.
The struggle between proletariat and bourgeoi-
sie has its own logic; it must become more and
more acute and bring things to a climax long
before the time when concentration of produc-
tion has become predominant in economic life.
It is evident, further, that the growth of the
/ political consciousness of the proletariat is
V closely related with its numerical strength; pro-
letarian dictatorship presupposes great num-
bers of workingmen, strong enough to over-
come the resistance of the bourgeois counter-
revolution. This, however, does not imply that
the overwhelming majority of the people must
consist of proletarians, or that the overwhelm-
ing majority of proletarians must consist of
convinced Socialists. Of course, the fighting
revolutionary army of the proletariat must by
all means be stronger than the fighting coun-
Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship 117
ter-revolutionary army of capital; yet between
those two camps there may be a great nimiber
of doubtful or indifferent elements who are
not actively helping the revolution, but are
rather inclined to desire its ultimate victory.
The proletarian policy must take all this into
account.
This is possible only where there is a he-
gemony of industry over agriculture, and a
hegemony of the city over the village.
Let us review the prerequisites to Socialism
in the order of their diminishing generality and
increasing complexity.
1. Socialism is not only a problem of equal
distribution, but also a problem of well organ-
ized production. Socialistic, i.e., cooperative
production on a large scale is possible only
where economic progress has gone so far as
to make a large undertaking more produc-
tive than a small one. The greater the advan-
tages of a large undertaking over a small one,
i. e., the higher the industrial technique, the
greater must be the economic advantages of
socialized production, the higher, consequent-
ly, must be the cultural level of the people to
enable them to enjoy equal distribution based
on well organized production.
This first prerequisite of Socialism has been
X
118 'Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship
in existence for many years. Ever since divi-
sion of labor has been established in manufac-
tories; ever since manufactories have been su-
perseded by factories employing a system of
machines, — large undertakings become more
and more profitable, and consequently their so-
cialization would make the people more pros-
perous. There would have been no gain in
making all the artisans' shops common prop-
erty of the artisans; whereas the seizure of a
manufactory by its workers, or the seizure of
a factory by its hired employees, or the seiz-
ure of all means of modern production by the
people must necessarily improve their economic
conditions, — the more so, the further the proc-
ess of economic concentration has advanced.
At present, social division of labor on one
hand, machine production on the other have
reached a stage where the only cooperative
organization that can make adequate use of
the advatanges of collectivist economy, is the
State. It is hardly conceivable that Socialist
production would content itself with the area
of the state. Economic and political motives
would necessarily impel it to overstep the
boundaries of individual states.
The world has been in possession of technical
equipment for collective production — in one or
Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship 119
another form — for the last hundred or two hun-
dred years. Technically^ Socialism is profit-
able not only on a national, but also to a large
extent on an international scale. Why then
have all attempts at organizing Socialist com-
munities failed? Why has concentration of
production manifested its advantages all
through the eighteenth and nineteenth centur-
ies not in Socialistic, but in capitalistic forms?
The reason is that there was no social force
ready and able to introduce Socialism.
2. Here we pass from the prerequisite of in-
dustrial technique to the ^oao-^coTiomec prereq-
uisite, which is less general, but more com-
plex. Were our society not an antagonistic
society composed of classes, but a homogeneous
partnership of men consciously selecting the
best economic system, a mere calculation as to
the advantages of Socialism would suffice to
make people start Socialistic reconstruction.
Our society, however, harbors in itself oppos-X
ing interests. What is good for one class, is
bad for another. Class selfishness clashes
against class selfishness; class selfishness im-
pairs the interests of the whole. To make So-
cialism possible, a social power has to arise in
the midst of the antagonistic classes of capi-
talist society, a power objectively placed in a
120 Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship
position to be interested in the establishment of .|
Socialism, at the same time strong enough to ,*^
overcome all opposing interests and hostile I
resistance. It is one of the principal merits of |
scientific Socialism to have discovered such a |
social power in the person of the proletariat, i
and to have shown that this class, growing with |
the growth of capitalism, can find its salvation |
only in Socialism; that it is being moved to- *
wards Socialism by its very position, and that j
the doctrine of Socialism in the presence of a I
capitalist society must necessarily become the \
ideology of the proletariat. j
How far, then, must the social differentiation \
have gone to warrant the assertion that the sec- 1
ond prerequisite is an accomplished fact? In r
other words, what must be the numerical ^
strength of the proletariat? Must it be one- |
half, two-thirds, or nine-tenths of the people? |
It is utterly futile to try and formulate this
second prerequisite of Socialism arithmetical-
ly. An attempt to express the strength of the J
proletariat in mere numbers, besides being
schematic, would imply a series of difficulties.
Whom should we consider a proletarian? Is
the half-paupered peasant a proletarian?
Should we count with the proletariat those hosts
of the city reserve who, on one hand, fall into
Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship' 121
the ranks of the parasitic proletariat of beg-
gars and thieves, and, on the other hand, fill
the streets in the capacity of peddlers, i. e., of
parasites on the economic body as a whole? It
is not easy to answer these questions.
(^The importance of the proletariat is based
not only on its nimabers, but primarily on its
role in industry.^ The political supremacy of
the bourgeoisie Is founded on economic power.
Before it manages to take over the authority of
the state, it concentrates in its hands the na-
tional means of production; hence its specific
weight. The proletariat will possess no means
of production of its own before the Social revo-
lution. Its social power depends upon the cir-
cumstance that the means of production in
possession of the bourgeoisie can be put into
motion only by the hands of the proletariat.
From the bourgeois viewpoint, the proletariat
is also one of the means of production, forming,
in combination with the others, a unified mech-
anism. Yet the proletariat is the only non-au-
tomatic part of this mechanism, and can never
be made automatic, notwithstanding all ef-
forts. This puts the proletariat into a position
to be able to stop the functioning of the nation-
al economic body, partially or wholly — through
the medium of partial or general strikes.
122 Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship
Hence it is evident that, the numerical
strength of the proletariat being equal, its im-
portance is proportional to the mass of the
means of production it puts into motion: the
proletarian of a big industrial concern repre-
sents — other conditions being equal — a great-
ter social unit than an artisan's employee; a
city workingman represents a greater unit than
a pi'oletarian of the village. In other words,
the political role of the proletariat is greater in
proportion as large industries predominate
over small industries, industry predominates
over agriculture, and the city over the village.
At a period in the history of Germany or
England when the proletariats of those coun-
tries formed the same percentage to the total
population as the proletariat in present day
Russia, they did not possess the same social
weight as the Russian proletariat of to-dai
They could not possess it, because their obj(
tive importance in economic life was compara^
tively smaller. The social weight of the cities^
represents the same phenomenon. At a time
when the city population of Germany formed
only 15 per cent, of the total nation, as is the
case in present-day Russia, the German cities
were far from equaling our cities in economic
and political importance. The concentration
cial j
lec^ll
iraV|
Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship 123
of big industries and commercial enterprises
in the cities, and the establishment of closer re-
lations between city and country through a\
system of railways, has given the modern cities
an importance far exceeding the mere volume
of their population. Moreover, the growth of
their importance runs ahead of the growth of
their population, and the growth of the latter
runs ahead of the natural increase of the entire
population of the country. In 1848, the num-
ber of artisans, masters and their employees, in
Italy was 15 per cent, of the population, the
same as the percentage of the proletariat, in-
cluding artisans, in Russia of to-day. Their
importance, however, was far less than that of
the Russian industrial proletariat.
The question is not, how strong the prole-
tariat is numerically, but what is its position in
the general economy of a country.
The author then quotes figures showing the num-
bers of wage-earners and industrial proletarians
in Germany, Belgium and England: in Germany, in
1895, 12.5 millions proletarians; in Belgium 1.8
millions, or 60 per cent, of all the persons who make
a living independently; in England 12.5 millions.
In the leading European countries, city pop-
ulation numerically predominates over the ru-
124 Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship J
ral population. Infinitely greater is its pre- |
dominance through the aggregate of means of I
production represented by it, and through the j
qualities of its human material. The city at- "\
tracts the most energetic, able and intelligent '|
elements of the country. \
Thus we arrive at the conclusion that eco- |
nomic evolution — the growth of industry, the ]
growth of large enterprises, the growth of cit- \
ies, the growth of the proletariat, especially the ,;
growth of the industrial proletariat — ^have al- (
ready prepared the arena not only for the j
struggle of the proletariat for political power, '
but also for the conquest of that power. I
3. Here we approach the third prerequisite |
to Socialism, the dictatorship of the proletariat, i
Politics is the plane where objective prereq- i
uisites intersect with subjective. On the basis |
of certain technical and socio-economic condi- \
tions, a class puts before itself a definite task — |
to seize power. In pursuing this task, it unites 1
its forces, it gauges the forces of the enemy, it ')
weighs the circumstances. Yet, not even here 1
is the proletariat absolutely free: besides sub- I
jective moments, such as understanding,
readiness, initiative which have a logic of their
own, there are a number of objective mo-
ments interfering with the policies of the prole-
Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship 125
tariat, such are the policies of the governing
classes, state institutions (the army, the class-
school, the state-church), international rela-
tions, etc.
Let us first turn our attention to the subjec-
tive moment ; let us ask. Is the proletariat ready
for a Socialist change? It is not enough that
development of technique should make Social-
ist economy profitable from the viewpoint of
the productivity of national labor; it is not
enough that social differentiation, based on
technical progress, should create the prole-
tariat, as a class objectively interested in So-
cialism. It is of prime importance that this
class should understand its objective interests.
i Lis necesj jfl.ry thflt this-dass^hould see in So-
cialismrthe^ynly^ lTis~
necessary that it should unite into an army
powerful enough to seize governmental power
in open combat.
It would be a folly to deny the necessity for
the preparation of the proletariat. Only the
old Blanquists could stake their hopes in the
salutary initiative of an organization of con-
spirators formed independently of the masses.
Only their antipodes, the anarchists, could build
their system on a spontaneous elemental out-
burst of the masses whose results nobody can
126 Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship
foresee. When Social-Democracy speaks of i
seizing power, it thinks of a deliberate action <i
of a revolutionary class, |
There are Socialists-ideologists (ideologists %
in the wrong sense of the word, those who turn |
all things upside down) who speak of prepar- |
ing the proletariat for Socialism as a problem |
of moral regeneration. The proletariat, they I
say, and even "humanity" in general, must first 5
free itself from its old selfish nature ; altruistic j
motives must first become predominant in social |
life. As we are still very far from this ideal, 1
they contend, and as human nature changes :
very slowly, SociaHsm appears to be a problem !
of remote centuries. This view seems to be :^
very realistic, evolutionistic, etc. It is in real- 5
ity a conglomeration of hackneyed moralistic |
considerations. |
Those "ideologists" imagine that a Socialist |
psychology can be acquired before the estab- ^
lishment of Socialism ; that in a world ruled by j
capitalism the masses can be imbued with a So- ^
cialist psychology. Socialist psychology as j
here conceived should not be identified with J
Socialist aspirations. The former presupposes J
the absence of selfish motives in economic re- |
lations, while the latter are an outcome of the J
class psychology of the proletariat. Class |
Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship 127
psychology, and Socialist psychology in a so-
ciety not split into classes, may have many
common features, yet they differ widely.
Cooperation in the struggle of the prole-
tariat against exploitation has developed in
the soul of the workingmen beautiful sprouts
of idealism, brotherly solidarity, a spirit of self-
sacrifice. Yet those sprouts cannot grow and
blossom freely within capitalist society: indi-
vidual struggle for existence, the yawning
abyss of poverty, differentiations among the
workingmen themselves, the corrupting influ-
ence of the bourgeois parties, — all this inter-
feres with the growth of idealism among the
masses.
However, it is a fact that, while remaining
selfish as any of the lower middle class, while
not exceeding the average representative of
the bourgeois classes by the "human" value of
his personality, the average workingman learns
in the school of life's experience that his most
primitive desires and most natural wants can
he satisfied only on the debris of the capitalist
order.
If Socialism should attempt to create a new
human nature within the limits of the old world,
it would be only a jaew edition of the old
moralistic Utopias. (The task of Socialism is
128 Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship
not to create a Socialist psychology as a prereq-
uisite to Socialism, but to create Socialist
conditions of human life as a prerequisite to a
Socialist psychologyX
CHAPTER VIII
A LABOR GOVERNMENT IN RUSSIA AND SOCIALISM
The objective prerequisites of a Social revo-
lution, as we have shown above, have been al-
ready created by the economic progress of ad-
vanced capitalist countries. But how about
Russia? Is it possible to think that the seizure
of power by the Russian proletariat would be
the beginning of a Socialist reconstruction of
our national economy?
A year ago we thus answered this question
in an article which was mercilessly bombarded
by the organs of both our factions. We wrote :
"The workingmen of Paris, says Marx, had
not expected miracles from the Commune. We
cannot expect miracles from a proletarian dic-
tatorship now. Governmental power is not al-
mighty. It is folly to think that once the pro-
letariat has seized power, it would abolish cap-
italism and introduce socialism by a number of
decrees. The economic system is not a product
of state activity. What the proletariat will
129
ISO Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship
be able to do is to shorten economic evolution
towards Collectivism through a series of ener-
getic state measures.
"The starting point will be the reforms
enumerated in our so-called minimum program.
The very situation of the proletariat, however,
will compel it to move along the way of col-
lectivist practice.
"It will be comparatively easy to introduce
the eight hour workday and progressive tax-
ation, though even here the center of gravity is
not the issuance of a 'decree,' but the organiza-
tion of its practical application. It will be dif-
ficult, however, — and here we pass to Collectiv-
ism — ^to organize production under state man-
agement in such factories and plants as would
be closed down by their owners in protest
against the new law.
"It will be comparatively simple to issue a
law abolishing the right of inheritance, and to
put it into operation. Inheritances in the form
of money capital will not embarrass the prole-
tariat and not interfere with its economy. To
be, however, the inheritor of capital invested in
land and industry, would mean for a labor gov-
ernment to organize economic life on a public
basis.
"The same phenomenon, on a vastly larger
Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship 131
scale, is represented by the question of expro-
priation (of land), with or without compensa-
tion. Expropriation with compensation has
political advantages, but it is financially diffi-
cult; expropriation without compensation has
financial advantages, but it is difficult polit-
ically. Greater than all the other difficulties,
however, will be those of an economic nature,
the difficulties of organization.
"To repeat: a labor government does not
mean a government of miracles.
"Public management will begin in those
branches where the difficulties are smallest.
Publicly managed enterprises will originally
represent kind of oases linked with private en-
terprises by the laws of exchange of commodi-
ties. The wider the field of publicly managed
economy will grow, the more flagrant its ad-
vantages will become, the firmer will become
the position of the new political regime, and
the more determined will be the further eco-
nomic measures of the proletariat. Its meas-
ures it will base not only on the national pro-
ductive forces, but also on international tech-
nique, in the same way as it bases its revolu-
tionary policies not only on the experience of
national class relations but also on the entire
132 Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship
historic experience of the international prole-
tariat."
Political supremacy of the proletariat is in-
compatible with its economic shivery. What-
ever may be the banner under which the pro-
letariat will find itself in possession of power,
it will be compelled to enter the road of Social-
ism. It is the greatest Utopia to think that
the proletariat, brought to the top by the me-
chanics of a bourgeois revolution, would be
able, even if it wanted, to limit its mission by
creating a republican democratic environment
for the social supremacy of the bourgeoisie.
Political dominance of the proletariat, even if
it were temporaiy, would extremely weaken
the resistance of capital which is always in need
of state aid, and would give momentous oppor-
tunities to the economic struggle of the prole-
tariat.
A proletarian regime will immediately take
up the agrarian question with which the fate
of vast millions of the Russian people is con-
nected. In solving this, as many another ques-
tion, the proletariat will have in mind the main
tendency of its economic policy; to get hold of
a widest possible field for the organization of a
Socialist economy. The forms and the tempo
of this policy in the agrarian question will be
Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship 133
determined both by the material resources that
the proletariat will be able to get hold of, and
by the necessity to coordinate its actions so as
not to drive possible allies into the ranks of the
counter-revolution.
It is evident that the agrarian question, i.e.,
the question of rural economy and its social re-
lations, is not covered by the land question
which is the question of the forms of land own-
ership. It is perfectly clear, however, that the
solution of the land question, even if it does
not determine the future of the agrarian evolu-
tion, would undoubtedly determine the future
agrarian policy of the proletariat. In other
words, the use the proletariat will make of the
land must be in accord with its general atti-
tude towards the course and requirements of
the agrarian evolution. The land question will,
therefore, be one of the first to interest the labor
government.
One of the solutions, made popular by the
Socialist-Revolutionists, is the socialization of
the land. Freed from its European make-up,
it means simply "equal distribution" of land.
This program demands an expropriation of all
the land, whether it is in possession of land-
lords, of peasants on the basis of private
property, or it is owned by village communi-
134 Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship
ties. It is evident that such expropriation,
being one of the first measures of the new gov-
ernment and being started at a time when cap-
italist exchange is still in full swing, would
lead the peasants to believe that they are "vic-
tims of the reform." One must not forget that
the peasants have for decades made redemption
payments in order to turn their land into pri-
vate property; many prosperous peasants have
made great sacrifices to secure a large por-
tion of land as their private possession.
Should all this land become state property,
the most bitter resistance would be offered by
the members of the communities and by pri-
vate owners. Starting out with a reform of
this kind, the government would make itself
most unpopular among the peasants.
And why should one confiscate the land of
the communities and the land of small private
owners? According to the Socialist-Revolu-
tionary program, the only use to be made of
the land by the state is to turn it over to all the
peasants and agricultural laborers on the basis
of equal distribution. This would mean that
the confiscated land of the communities and
small owners would anyway return to individ-
uals for private cultivation. Consequently,
there would be no economic gain in such a con-
Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship 135
fiscation and redistribution. Politically, it
would be a great blunder on the part of the
labor government as it would make the masses
of peasants hostile to the proletarian leadership
of the revolution.
Closely connected with this program is the
question of hired agricultural labor. Equal
distribution presupposes the prohibition of us-
ing hired labor on farms. This, however, can
be only a consequence of economic reforms, it
cannot be decreed by a law. It is not enough
to forbid an agricultural capitalist to hire la-
borers; one must first secure agricultural la-
borers a fair existence; furthermore, this ex-
istence must be profitable from the viewpoint
of social economy. To declare equal distribu-
tion of land and to forbid hired labor, would
mean to compel agricultural proletarians to
settle on small lots, and to put the state under
obligation to provide them with implements for \
their socially unprofitable production. ]
It is clear that the intervention of the prole- ;
tariat in the organization of agriculture ought
to express itself not in settling individual la-
borers on individual lots, but in organizing state^^ .
or communal management of large estates. ' ^
Later, when socialized production will have
established itself firmly, a further step will be
136 Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship
made towards socialization by forbidding hired
labor. This will eliminate small capitalistic
enterprises in agriculture; it will, however,
leave unmolested those private owners who
work their land wholly or to a great extent by
the labor of their families. To expropriate
such owners can by no means be a desire of the
Socialistic proletariat.
The proletariat can never indorse a program
of "equal distribution" which on one hand de-
mands a useless, purely formal expropriation
of small owners, and on the other hand it de-
mands a very real parceling of large estates
into small lots. This would be a wasteful un-
dertaking, a pursuance of a reactionary and
Utopian plan, and a political harm for the rev-
olutionary party.
How far, however, can the Socialist policy
of the working class advance in the economic
environment of Russia? One thing we can say
with perfect assurance: it will meet political
obstacles long before it will be checked by the
technical backwardness of the country. With-
out direct political aid from the European pro-
letariat the working class of Russia will not be
able to retain its power and to turn its tempo-
rary supremacy into a permanent Socialist dic'
Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship 137 I
tatorship. We cannot doubt this for a moment. ;
On the other hand, there is no doubt that a j
Socialist revolution in the West would allow us |
to turn the temporary supremacy of the work- \
ing class directly into a Socialist dictatorship.
CHAPTER IX
EUROPE AND THE REVOLUTION
In June, 1905, we wrote:
"More than half a century passed since 1848.
Half a century of unprecedented victories of
capitahsm all over the world. Half a century
of "organic" mutual adaptation of the forces
of the bourgeois and the forces of feudal re-
action. Half a century in which the bour-
geoisie has manifested its mad appetite for
power and its readiness to fight for it madly!
"As a self-taught mechanic, in his search for
perpetual motion, meets ever new obstacles
and piles mechanism over mechanism to over-
come them, so the bourgeoisie has changed and
reconstructed the apparatus of its supremacy
avoiding 'supra-legal' conflicts with hostile
powers. And as the self-taught mechanic
finally clashes against the ultimate insurmount-
able obstacle, — the law of conservation of en-
ergy, — so the bourgeoisie had to clash against
the ultimate implacable barrier, — class antag-
onism, fraught with inevitable conflict.
138
Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship 139 t
"Capitalism, forcing its economic system and !
social relations on each and every country, has ^
turned the entire world into one economic and ■
political organism. As the effect of the mod-
em credit system, with the invisible bonds it
draws between thousands of enterprises, with
the amazing mobility it lends to capital, has j
been to eliminate local and partial crises, but i
to give unusual momentum to general economic i
convulsions, so the entire economic and polit- j
ical work of capitalism, with its world com-
merce, with its system of monstrous foreign ;
debts, with its political groupings of states, '
which have drawn all reactionary forces into -
one world-wide co-partnership, has prevented j
local pohtical crises, but it has prepared a basis
for a social crisis of unheard of magnitude. ]
Driving unhealthy processes inside, evading
difficulties, staving off the deep problems of
national and international politics, glossing
over all contradictions, the bourgeoisie has
postponed the climax, yet it has prepared a I
radical world-wide liquidation of its power. It
has clung to all reactionary forces no matter j
what their origin. It has made the Sultan not ;
the last of its friends. It has not tied itself ;
on the Chinese ruler only because he had \
no power: it was more profitable to rob his \
140 Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship
possessions than to keep him in the office of a
world gendarme and to pay him from the treas-
ury of the bourgeoisie. Thus the bourgeoisie
made the stability of its political system wholly
dependent upon the stability of the pre-capi-
talistic pillars of reaction.
"This gives events an international character
and opens a magnificent perspective; political
emancipation, headed by the working class of
Russia, will elevate its leader to a height un-
paralleled in history, it will give Russian prole-
tariat colossal power and make it the initiator
of world-wide liquidation of capitalism, to
which the objective prerequisites have been cre-
ated by history."
It is futile to guess how the Russian revolu-
tion will find its way to old capitalistic Europe.
This waj^ may be a total surprise. To illus-
trate our thought rather than to predict events,
we shall mention Poland as the possible con-
necting link between the revolutionary East
and the revolutionary West.
The author pictures the consequences of a revolu-
tion in Poland. A revolution in Poland would neces-
sarily follow the victory of the revolution in Russia.
This, however, would throw revolutionary sparks
into the Polish provinces of Germany and Austria.
Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship' 141
A revolution in Posen and Galicia would move the
HohenzoUems and Hapsburgs to invade Poland.
This would be a sign for the proletariat of Germany
to get into a sharp conflict with their governments.
A revolution becomes inevitable.
A revolutionary Poland, however, is not the
only possible starting point for a European
revolution. The system of armed peace which
became predominant in Europe after the Fran-
co-Prussian war, was based on a system of Eu-
ropean equilibrium. This equilibrium took for
granted not only the integrity of Turkey, the
dismemberment of Poland, the preservation of
Austria, that ethnographic harlequin's robe,
but also the existence of Russian despotism
in the role of a gendarme of the European re-
action, armed to his teeth. The Russo-Jap-
anese war has given a mortal blow to this arti-
ficial system in which absolutism was the dom-
inant figure. For an indefinite period Russia
is out of the race as a first-class power. The
equilibrium has been destroyed. On the other
hand, the successes of Japan have incensed the
conquest instincts of the capitalistic bour-
geoisie, especially the Stock Exchange, which
plays a colossal role in modern politics. The
possibilities of a war on European territory
142 Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship
have grown enormously. Conflicts are ripen-
ing here and there; so far they have been set-
tled in a diplomatic way, but nothing can
guarantee the near future. A European war^
however J means a European revolution.
Even without the pressure of such events as
war or bankruptcy, a revolution may take place
in the near future in one of the European coun-
tries as a result of acute class struggles. We
shall not make computations as to which coun-
try would be first to take the path of revolu-
tion; it is obvious, liowever, that class antag-
onisms have for the last years reached a high
degree of intensity in all the European coun-
tries.
The influence of the Russian revolution on
the proletariat of Europe is immense. Not
only does it destroy the Petersburg absolut-
ism, that main power of European reaction; it
also imbues the minds and the souls of the
European proletariat with revolutionary dar-
ing.
It is the purpose of every Socialist party to
revolutionize the minds of the working class
in the same way as development of capitalism
has revolutionized social relations. The work
of propaganda and organization among the
proletariat, however, has its own intrinsic iner-
Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship 143
tia. The Socialist parties of Europe — in the
first place the most powerful of them, the Ger-
man Socialist party — have developed a con-
servatism of their own, which grows in propor-
tion as Socialism embraces ever larger masses
and organization and discipline increase. So-
cial-Democracy, personifying the political ex-
perience of the proletariat, can, therefore, at a
certain juncture, become an immediate ob-
stacle on the way of an open proletarian con-
flict with the bourgeois reaction. In other
words, the propaganda-conservatism of a pro-
letarian party can, at a certain moment, im-
pede the direct struggle of the proletariat for
power. The colossal influence of the Russian
revolution manifests itself in killing party rou-
tine, in destroying Socialist conservatism, in
making a clean contest of proletarian forces
against capitalist reaction a question of the
day. The struggle for universal suflTrage in
Austria, Saxony and Prussia has become more
determined under the direct influence of the
October strike in Russia. An Eastern revolu-
tion imbues the Western proletariat with revo-
lutionary idealism and stimulates its desire to
speak "Russian" to its foes.
The Russian proletariat in power, even if
this were only the result of a passing combi-
144 ^Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship
nation of forces in the Russian bourgeois rev-
olution, would meet organized opposition on
the part of the world's reaction, and readiness
for organized support on the part of the world's
proletariat!^ Left to its own resources, the
Russian working class must necessarily be
crushed the moment it loses the aid of the peas-
ants^) Nothing remains for it but to link the
fate of its political supremacy and the fate
of the Russian revolution with the fate of a
Socialist revolution in Europe. All that mo-
mentous authority and political power which
is given to the proletariat by a combination of
forces in the Russian bourgeois revolution, it
will thrust on the scale of class struggle in the
entire capitalistic world. Equipped with gov-
ernmental power, having a counter-revolution
behind his back, having the European reaction
in front of him, the Russian workingman will
issue to all his brothers the world over his old
battle-cry which will now become the call for
the last attack: Proletarians of all the worlds
unite!
EXPLANATORY NOTES
The first Council of Workmen's Deputies was formed in
Petersburg, on October 13th, 1905, in the course of the great
general October strike that compelled Nicholas Romanoff to
promise a Constitution. It represented individual factories,
labor unions, and included also delegates from the Socialist
parties. It looked upon itself as the center of the revolution
and a nucleus of a revolutionary labor government. Similar
Councils sprung up in many other industrial centers. It was
arrested on December 3d, having existed for fifty days. Its
members were tried and sent to Siberia.
Intelligentzia is a term applied in Russia to an indefinite,
heterogeneous group of "intellectuals," who are not actively
and directly involved in the industrial machinery of capitalism,
and at the same time are not members of the working class. It
is customary to count among the Intelligentzia students, teach-
ers, writers, lawyers, physicians, college professors, etc. How-
ever, the term Intelligentzia implies also a certain degree of
idealism and radical aspirations.
Witte was the first prime-minister under the quasi-constitu-
tion granted on October 17th, 1905. Stolypin was appointed
prime minister after the dissolution of the first Duma in July,
1906.
Under the minimum program, the Social-Democrats under-
stand all that range of reforms which can be obtained under
the existing capitalist system of "private ownership on the
means of production," such as an eight hour workday, social
insurance, universal suffrage, a republican order. The max-
imum, program, demands the abolition of private property and
public management of industries, i.e.. Socialism.
"Some prejudices among the masses" referred to in this essay
is the alleged love of the primitive masses for their Tzar. This
was an argument usually put forth by the liberals against re-
publican aspirations.
Lower-Middle-Ckiss is the only term half-way covering the
Russian "Mieshchanstvo" used by Trotzky. "Mieshchanstvo"
has a socio-economic meaning, and a flavor of moral disap-
proval. Socially and economically it means those numerous in-
habitants of modern cities who are engaged in independent
economic pursuits, as artisans (masters), shopkeepers, small
145
146 ^Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship
manufacturers, petty merchants, etc., who have not capital
enough to rank with the bourgeoisie. Morally "Mieshchanstvo"
presupposes a limited horizon, lack of definite revolutionary
or political ideas, and lack of political courage.
The Village comniAimty is a remnant of old times in Russia.
Up to 1906 the members of the village were not allowed to
divide the land of the community among the individual peas-
ants on the basis of private property. The land legally be-
longed to the entire community which allotted it to its mem-
bers. Since 1906 the compulsory character of communal land-
ownership was abandoned, yet in very great areas of Russia
it still remained the prevailing system of land-ownership.
Besides having a share in the community-land, the individual
peasant could acquire a piece of land out of his private means
(the seller being usually the landlord) and thus become a small
private ovmer.
THE SOVIET AND THE REVOLU-
TION
'V,
About two years after the arrest of the Soviet of
1905, a number of former leaders of that organiza-
tion, among them Chrustalyov Nossar, the first
chairman, and Trotzky, the second chairman, met
abroad after having escaped from Siberian exile.
They decided to sum up their Soviet experiences in
a book which they called The History of the Coun-
cil of WorJcingmen's Deputies. The book appeared
in 1908 in Petersburg, and was immediately sup-
pressed. One of the essays of this book is here re-
printed.
In his estimation of the role of the Soviet Trotzky
undoubtedly exaggerates. Only by a flight of imag-
ination can one see in the activities of the Soviet
regarding the postal, telegraph and railroad strik-
ers the beginnings of a Soviet control over post-
office, telegraph and railroads. It is also a serious
question whether the Soviet was really a leading^
bod}^ or whether it was led by the current of revolu-j
tionary events which it was unable to control]
What makes this essay interesting and significant is
Trotzky's assertion that "the first new wave of the
revolution will lead to the creation of Soviets all
over the country." This has actually happened.
His predictions of the formation of an all-Russian
Soviet, and of the program the Soviets would fol-
low, have also been realized in the course of the
present revolution.
149
THE SOVIET AND THE REVOLUTION
(Fifty Days)
The history of the Soviet is a history of fifty
days. The Soviet was constituted on October
13th; its session was interrupted by a military
detachment of the government on December
3rd. Between those two dates the Soviet lived
and struggled.
What was the substance of this institution?
What enabled it in this short period to take
an honorable place in the history of the Rus-
sian proletariat, in the history of the Russian
Revolution?
The Soviet organized the masses, conducted
political strikes, led political demonstrations,
tried to arm the workingmen. But other rev-
olutionary organizations did the same things.
The substance of the Soviet was its eif ort to
become an organ of public authority. The
proletariat on one hand, the reactionary press
on the other, have called the Soviet "a labor
151
152 The Soviet and the Revolution
government"; this only reflects the fact that
the Soviet was in reality an embryo of a revo-
lutionary government. In so far as the Soviet
was in actual possession of authoritative pow-
er, it made use of it; in so far as the power
was in the hands of the military and bureau-
cratic monarchy, the Soviet fought to obtain
it. Prior to the Soviet, there had been revo-
lutionary organizations among the industrial
workingmen, mostly of a Social-Democratic
nature. But those were organizations among
the proletariat; their immediate aim was to in-
fluence the masses. The Soviet is an organiza-
tion of the proletariat; its aim is to fight for
revolutionary power.
At the same time, the Soviet was an organ-
ized expression of the wiU of the proletariat
as a class. In its fight for power the Soviet
applied such methods as were naturally de-
termined by the character of the proletariat as
a class: its part in production; its numerical
strength; its social homogeneity. In its fight
for power the Soviet has combined the direction 1
of all the social activities of the working class, *
including decisions as to conflicts between in-
dividual representatives of capital and labor.
This combination was by no means an artificial
tactical attempt : it was a natural consequence i
The Soviet and the B evolution 153
of the situation of a class which, consciously
developing and broadening its fight for its im-
mediate interests, had been compelled by the
logic of events to assume a leading position in
the revolutionary struggle for power.
The main weapon of the Soviet was a po-
litical strike of the masses. The power of the
strike lies in disorganizing the power of the
government. The greater the "anarchy" cre-
ated by a strike, the nearer its victory. This
is true only where "anarchy" is not being cre-
ated by anarchic actions. The class that puts
into motion, day in and day out, the industrial
apparatus and the governmental apparatus;
the class that is able, by a sudden stoppage of
work, to paralyze both industry and govern-
ment, must be organized enough not to fall the
first victim of the very "anarchy" it has cre-
ated. The more effective the disorganization
of government caused by a strike, the more the
strike organization is compelled to assume gov-
ernmental functions.
The Council of Workmen's Delegates in-
troduces a free press. It organizes street
patrols to secure the safety of the citizens. It
Jakesjoyer, to a greater or less extent, the post
office, the telegraph, and the railroads. It
makes an effort to introduce the eight hour
154} The Soviet and the Revolution
workday. Paralyzing the autocratic govern-
ment by a strike, it brings its own democratic
order into the life of the working city popula-
tion.
After January 9th the revolution had
shown its power over the minds of the work-
ing masses. On June 14th, through the revolt
of the Potyomkin Tavritchesky it had shown
that it was able to become a material force.
In the October strike it had shown that it could
disorganize the enemy, paralyze his will and ut-
terly humiliate him. By organizing Councils
of Workmen's Deputies all over the country,
it showed that it was able to create authorita-
tive power. Revolutionary authority can be
based only on active revolutionary force.
Whatever our view on the further development
of the Russian revolution, it is a fact that so
far no social class besides the proletariat has
manifested readiness to uphold a revolutionary
authoritative power. The first act of the revo-
lution was an encounter in the streets of the
proletariat with the monarchy; the first seri-
ous victory of the revolution was achieved
through the class-weapon of the proletariat, the
political strike; the first nucleus of a revolu-
The Soviet and the Revolution 155
tionary government was a proletarian repre-
sentation. The So vieLis the first democratic
power in modern Russian., hi&tory. The
Soviet is the organized power of the masses
themselves over their component parts. This
is a true, unadulterated democracy, without a
two-chamber system, without a professional
bureaucracy, with the right of the voters to re-
call their deputy any moment and to substitute
another for him. Through its members, through
deputies elected by the workingmen, the Soviets
directs all the social activities of the proletariat V^
as a whole and of its various parts ; it outlines /
the steps to be taken by the proletariat, it gives
them a slogan and a banner. This art of t i-
recting the activities of the masses on the b&MS
of organized self-government, is here applied
for the first time on Russian soil. Absolut-
ism ruled the masses, but it did not direct \
them. It put mechanical barriers against the \
living creative forces of the masses, and within
those barriers it kept the restless elements of
the nation in an iron bond of oppression. The , r^\
only mass absolutism ever directed was the \ v
army. But that was not directing, it was / jv
merely commanding. In recent years, even the V
directing of this atomized and hypnotized mili- A.
tary mass has been slipping out of the hands \
156 The Soviet and the Revolution
of absolutism. Liberalism never had power
enough to command the masses, or initiative
enough to direct them. Its attitude towards
mass-movements, even if they helped liberal-
ism directly, was the same as towards awe-in-
spiring natural phenomena — earthquakes or
volcanic eruptions. The proletariat appeared
on the battlefield of the revolution as a self-
reliant aggregate, totally independent from
bourgeois liberalism.
The Soviet was a class-organization^ this
was the source of its fighting power. It was
, crushed in the first period of its existence not
\jby lack of confidence on the part of the mass-
les^'a the cities, but by the limitations of a
pU»>j y urban revolution, by the relatively pas-
sive attitude of the village, by the backward-
ness of the peasant element of the army. The
Soviet's position among the city population
was as strong as could be.
The Soviet was not an official representa-
tive of the entire half million of the working
population in the capital; its organization em-
braced about two hundred thousand, chiefly in-
dustrial workers ; and though its direct and in-
direct political influence was of a much wider
range, there were thousands and thousands of
proletarians (in the building trade, among do-
The Soviet and the Revolution 157
mestic servants, day laborers, drivers)' iwho ,
were hardly, if at all, influenced by the Soviet. j
There is no doubt, however, that the Soviet
represented the interests of all these proleta-
rian masses. There were but few adherents i
of the Black Hundred in the factories, and
their number dwindled hour by hour. The pro- <
letarian masses of Petersburg were sohdly be- \
hind the Soviet. Among the numerous intel- '■
lectuals of Petersburg the Soviet had more j
friends than enemies. Thousands of students
recognized the political leadership of the Soviet i
and ardently supported it in its decisions. Pro- :
fessional Petersburg was entirely on the side \
of the Soviet. The support by the Soviet of |
the postal and telegraph strike won it the sym- j
pathy of the lower governmental officials. All ,
the oppressed, all the unfortunate, all honest \^
elements of the city, all those who were striv- K
ing towards a better life, were instinctively or
consciously on the side of the Soviet. The \
Soviet wai^ actually or potentially a repre-
sentative of an overwhelming majority of the !
population. Its enemies in the capital would
not have been dangerous had they not been ]
protected by absolutism, which based its power \
on the most backward elements of an army re- j
cruited from peasants. The weakness of the \
158 TJie Soviet and the Revolution
Soviet was not its own weakness, it was the
weakness of a purely urban revolution.
The fifty day period was the period of the
greatest power of the revolution. The Soviet
was its organ in the fight for public authority.
The class character of the Soviet was deter-
mined by the class differentiation of the city
population and by the political antagonism be-
tween the proletariat and the capitalistic bour-
geoisie. This antagonism manifested itself even
in the historically limited field of a struggle
against absolutism. After the October strike,
the capitalistic bourgeoisie consciously blocked
the progress of the revolution, the petty middle
class turned out to be a nonentity, incapable
of playing an independent role. The real lead-
er of the urban revolution was the proletariat.
Its class-organization was the organ of the rev-
olution in its struggle for power.
3
The struggle for power, for public authority
— this is the central aim of the revolution. The
fifty days of the Soviet's life and its bloody
finale have shown that urban Russia is too nar-
row a basis for such a struggle, and that even
within the limits of the urban revolution, a lo-
The Soviet and the Revolution 159
cal organization cannot be the central leading
body. For a national task the proletariat re-
quired an organization on a national scale. The
Petersburg Soviet was a local organization, yet
the need of a central organization was so great
that it had to assume leadership on a national
scale. It did what it could, still it remained
primarily the Petersburg Council of Work-
men's Deputies. The urgency of an all-Rus-
sian labor congress which undoubtedly would
have had authority to form a central leading
organ, was emphasized even at the time of the
first Soviet. Th^ December collapse made
its realization impossible. The idea remained,
an inheritance of the Fifty Days.
The idea of a Soviet has become ingrained
in the consciousness of the workingmen as the
first prerequisite to revolutionary action of the
masses. Experience has shown that a Soviet is
not possible or desirable under all circum-
stances. The objective meaning of the Soviet
organization is to create conditions for disor-
ganizing the government, for "anarchy," in
other words for a revolutionary conflict. The
present lull in the revolutionary move-
ment, the mad triumph of reaction, make the
existence of an open, elective, authoritative
organization of the masses impossible. There
160 ^ The Soviet and the Revolution
I is no doubt, however, that the first new wave
I of the revolution will lead to the creation of
Soviets all over the countrt/. An All-Russian
Soviet, organized by an All-Russian Labor
Congress, will assume leadership of the local
elective organizations of the proletariat.
Names, of course, are of no importance ; so are
details of organization; the main thing is: a
centralized democratic leadership in the strug-
gle of the proletariat for a popular govern-
ment. History does not repeat itself, and the
new Soviet will not have again to go through
V the experience of the Fifty Days. These, how-
ever, will furnish it a complete program of
action.
; This program is perfectly clear.
To establish revolutionary cooperation with
,, the army, the peasantry, and the plebeian low-
*^ er strata of the urban bourgeoisie. To abolish
absolutism. To destroy the material organiza-
tion of absolutism by reconstructing and part-
, ly dismissing the army. To break up the entire
I 'bureaucratic apparatus. To introduce an
ijeight hour workday. To arm the population,
starting with the proletariat. To turn the
Soviets into organs of revolutionary self-gov-
ernment in the cities. To create Councils of
Peasants' Delegates (Peasants' Committees)"
The Soviet and the Revolution 161
as local organs of the agrarian revolution. To
organize elections to the Constituent Assembly
and to conduct a preelection campaign for a
definite program on the part of the represen-
tatives of the people.
It is easier to formulate such a program than
to carry it through. If, however, the revolu-
tion will ever win, the proletariat cannot choose
another. The proletariat will unfold revolu-
tionary accomplishment such as the world has
never seen. The history of Fifty Days will
be only a poor page in the great book of the
proletariat's struggle and ultimate triumph.
PREFACE TO MY ROUND TRIP
Trotzky was never personal. The emotional side
of life seldom appears in his writings. His is the
realm of social activities, social and political strug-
gles. His writings breathe logic, not sentiment,
facts, not poetry. The following preface to his
Roumd Trip is, perhaps, the only exception. It
speaks of the man Trotzky and his beliefs. Note his
confession of faith: "History is a tremendous
mechanism serving our ideals." . . .
PREFACE TO MY ROUND TRIP
At the Stockholm Convention of the Social-
Democratic Party, some curious statistical
data was circulated, showing the conditions un-
der which the party of the proletariat was
working:
The Convention as a whole, in the person of
its 140 members, had spent in prison one hun-
dred and thirty-eight years and three and a
half months.
The Convention had been in exile one hun-
dred and forty-eight years and six and a half
months.
Escaped from prison : Once, eighteen mem-
bers of the Convention; twice, four members.
Escaped from exile: Once, twenty-three;
twice, five; three times, one member.
The lengih of time the Convention as a
whole had been active in Social-Democratic
work, was 942 years. It follows that the time
spent in prison and exile is about one-third of
the time a Social-Democrat is active. But
these figures are too optimistic. "The Conven-
165
166 Preface to ''My Round Trip'' •
tion has been active in Social-Democratic work I
for 942 years" — this means merely that the ac- j
tivities of those persons had been spread over \
so many years. Their actual period of work \
must have been much shorter. Possibly all ]
these persons had worked, actually and direct- J
ly, only one-sixth or one-tenth of the above |
time. Such are conditions of underground ac- i
tivity. On the other hand, the time spent in 'I
prison and exile is real time: the Convention \
had spent over fifty thousand days and nights :
behind iron bars, and more than that in bar- j
barous corners of the country.
Perhaps I may give, in addition to these fig-
ures, some facts about myself. The author of j
these lines was arrested for the first time in j
January, 1898, after working for ten months |
in the workmen's circles of ♦Nikolayev. He
spent two and a half years in prison, and
escaped from Siberia after living there two
years of his four years' exile. He was arrested
the second time on December 3rd, 1905, as a
member of the Petersburg Council of .Work-
men's Deputies. The Council had existed for
fifty days. The arrested members of the Sov-
iet each spent 400 days in prison, then they
were sent to Obdorsk "forever." . . . Each
Russian Social-Democrat who has worked in
Prefojce to "My Rovmd Trip" 167
his Party for ten years could give similar sta-
tistics about himseK.
The political helter-skelter which exists in
Russia since October 17th and which the Gotha
Almanach has characterized with unconscious
humor as "A Constitutional Monarchy under
an absolute Tzar" has changed nothing in our
situation. This political order cannot recon-
cile itself with us, not even temporarily, as
it is organically incapable of admitting any
free activity of the masses. The simpletons
and hypocrites who urge us to "keep within
legal limits" remind one of Marie Antoinette
who recommended the starving peasants to eat
cake ! One would think we suffer from an or-
ganic aversion for cake, a kind of incurable dis-
ease ! One would think our lungs infected with
an irresistible desire to breathe the atmosphere
of the solitary dungeons in the Fortress of
Peter and Paul! One would think we have no
other use for those endless hours pulled out of
our lives by the jailers.
We love our underground just as little as a
drowning person loves the bottom of the sea.
Yet, we have as little choice, as, let us say di-
rectly, the absolutist order. Being fully aware
of this we can afford to be optimists even at a
time when the underground tightens its grip
168 Preface to ''My Round Trip''
around our necks with unrelenting grimness.j
It will not choke us, we know it I We shall"
survive ! When the bones of all the great deeds
which are being performed now by the princes \
of the earth, their servants and the servants of j
their servants will have turned to dust, when?!
nobody will know the graves of many present^;
parties with all their exploits — ^the Cause we^
are serving will rule the world, and our Party, '
now choking underground, will dissolve itself,
into humanity, for the first time its own master. ;
History is a tremendous mechanism serving ]
our ideals. Its work is slow, barbarously-
slow, implacably cruel, yet the work goes on.j
We believe in it. Only at moments, when this 1
voracious monster drinks the living blood of]
our hearts to serve it as food, we wish to shoutj
with all our might:
What thou dost, do quickly!
Paris, April 8/21, 1907.
THE LESSONS OF THE GREAT
YEAR
This essay was published in a New York Russian
newspaper on January 20th, 1917, less than two
months before the Second Russian Revolution.
Trotzky then lived in New York. The essay shows
how his contempt, even hatred, for the liberal parties
yin Russia had grown since 1905-6.
THE LESSONS OF THE GREAT YEAR
(January 9th, 1905— January 9th, 1917)
Revolutionary anniversaries are not only
days for reminiscence, they are days for sum-
ming up revolutionary experiences, especially
for us Russians. Our history has not been
rich. Our so-called "national originality" con-
sisted in being poor, ignorant, uncouth. It was
the revolution of 1905 that first opened before
us the great highway of political progress. On
January 9th the workingman of Petersburg
knocked at the gate of the Winter Palace. On
January 9th the entire Russian people knocked
at the gate of history.
The crowned janitor did not respond to the
knock. Nine months later, however, on Oc-
tober 17th, he was compelled to open the heavy
gate of absolutism. Notwithstanding all the
efforts of bureaucracy, a little slit stayed open
— forever.
The revolution was defeated. The same old
forces and almost the same figures now rule
Russia that ruled her twelve years ago. Yet the
171
172 The Lessons of the Chreat Tear.
revolution has changed Russia beyond recog-
nition. The kingdom of stagnation, servitude,
vodka and humbleness has become a kingdom
of fermentation, criticism, fight. Where once
there was a shapeless dough — the impersonal,
formless people, "Holy Russia," — now social
classes consciously oppose each other, political
parties have sprung into existence, each with
its program and methods of struggle.
January 9th opens a new Russian history.
It is a line marked by the blood of the people.
There is no way back from this line to Asiatic
Russia, to the cursed practices of former gener-
ations. Ther e is n o way back. There w ill
neyeiJbe.
^^ Not the liberal bourgeoisie, not the demo-
cratic groups of the lower bourgeoisie, not the
radical intellectuals, not the millions of Rus-
j ^sian peasants, but the Russian proletariat has
} by its struggle started the new era in Russian
\_Jhistory. This is basic. On the foundation of
this fact we, Social-Democrats, have built our
conceptions and our tactics.
On January 9th it was the priest Gapon who
happened to be at the head of the Petersburg
workers, — a fantastic figure, a combination of
adventurer, hysterical enthusiast and impostor.
His priest's robe was the last link that then
f
The Lessons of the Great Year 173
connected the workingmen with the past, with
"Holy Russia." Nine months later, in the
course of the October strike, the greatest polit-
ical strike history has ever seen, there was at
the head of the Petersburg workingmen their
own elective self-governing organization — ^the
Council of Workmen's Deputies. It con-
tained many a workingman who had been on
Gapon's staff, — ^nine months of revolution had
made those men grow, as they made grow the
entire working class which the Soviet repre-»
sented.
In the first period of the revolution, the ac-
tivities of the proletariat were met with sym-
pathy, even with support from liberal society.
The Milukovs hoped the proletariat would
punch absolutism and make it more inclined to
compromise with the bourgeoisie. Yet abso-
lutism, for centuries the only ruler of the peo-
ple, was in no haste to share its power with the
liberal parties. In October, 1905, the bour-
geoisie learned that it could not obtain power
before the back-bone of Tzarism was broken.
This blessed thing could, evidently, be accom-
plished only by a victorious revolution. But
the revolution put the working class in the
foreground, it united it and solidified it not '
only in its struggle against Tzarism, but also
174 j The Lessons of the Great Year
in its struggle against capital. ^The result was
that each new revolutionary step of the prole-
tariat in October, November and December,
the time of the Soviet, moved the liberals more
and more in the direction of the monarchy.^ The
hopes for revolutionary cooperation between
the bourgeoisie and the proletariat turned out
t^ a hopeless Utopia. Those who had not seen it
then and had not understood it later, those
who still dream of a "national" uprising against
Tzarism, do not understand the revolution.
For them class struggle is a sealed book.
At the end of 1905 the question became
acute. The monarchy had learned by experi-
ence that the bourgeoisie would not support the
proletariat in a decisive battle. The monarchy
then decided to move against the proletariat
with all its forces. The bloody days of De-
cember followed. The Council of Workmen's
Deputies was arrested by the Ismailovski regi-
ment which remained loyal to Tzarism. The an-
swer of the proletariat was momentous: the
strike in Petersburg, the insurrection in Mos-
cow, the storm of revolutionary movements in
all industrial centers, the insurrection on the
Caucasas and in the Lettish provinces.
The revolutionary movement was crushed.
Many a poor "Socialist" readily concluded
The Lessons of the Great Year 175 ]
from our December defeats that a revolution in , j
Russia was impossible without the support of i
the bourgeoisie. If this be true, it would only
mean that a revolution in Russia is impossible. ]
Our upper industrial bourgeoisie, the only I;
class possessing actual power, is separated from )
the proletariat by an insurmountable barrier IV^
of class hatred, and it needs the monarchy as ^i
a pillar of order. The Gkitchkovs, Krestov- ]
nikovs and Ryabushinskys cannot fail to see in
the proletariat their mortal foe. |
Our middle and lower industrial and com- I
mercial bourgeoisie occupies a very insignifi- }
cant place in the economic life of the country, }
and is all entangled in the net of capital. The !
Milukovs, the leaders of the lower middle class, I
are successful only in so far as they represent |
the interests of the upper bourgeoisie. This ]
is why the Cadet leader called the revolution- |
ary banner a "red rag"; this is why he de- j
clared, after the beginning of the war, that if ]
a revolution were necessary to secure victory
over Germany, he would prefer no victory at i
all. i
Our peasantry occupies a tremendous place ^ \
in Russian life. In 1905 it was shaken to its \
deepest foundations. The peasants were driv- ]
ing out their masters, setting estates on fire, ]
176 The Lessons of the Great Year
seizing the land from the landlords. Yes, the
curse of the peasanity is that it is scattered,
disjointed, backward. Moreover, the inter-
^ests of the various peasant groups do not co-
incide. The peasants arose and fought adroitly
against their local slave-holders, yet they
stopped in reverence before the all-Russian
slave-holder. The sons of the peasants in the
army did not understand that the workingmen
were shedding their blood not only for their
own sake, but also for the sake of the peasants.
The army was an obedient tool in the hands of
Tzarism. It crushed the labor revolution in
December, 1905.
Whoever thinks about the experiences of
1905, whoever draws a line from that year to
the present time, must see how utterly lifeless
and pitiful are the hopes of our Social-Patriots
for revolutionary cooperation between the pro-
letariat and the liberal bourgeoisie.
During the last twelve years big capital has
made great conquests in Russia. The middle
and lower bourgeoisie has become still more
dependent upon the banks and trusts. The
working class, which had grown in numbers
since 1905, is now separated from the bour-
geoisie by a deeper abyss than before. If a
"national" revolution was a failure twelve
The Lessons of the Great Year 177
years ago, there is still less hope for it at pres-
ent.
It is true in the last years that the cultural
and political level of the peasantry has be-
come higher. However, there is less hope now \
for a revolutionary uprising of the peasantry
as a whole than there was twelve years ago.
The only ally of the urban proletariat may be
the proletarian and half -proletarian strata of
the village.
But, a skeptic may ask, is there then any
hope for a victorious revolution in Russia un-
der these circumstances?
One thing is clear — if a revolution comes,
it will not be a result of cooperation between
capital and labor. The experiences of 1905
show that this is a miserable Utopia. To ac-
quaint himself with those experiences, to study
them is the duty of every thinking working-
man who is anxious to avoid tragic mistakes.
It is in this sense that we have said that revo-
lutionary anniversaries are not only days for
reminiscences, but also days for summing up
revolutionary experiences.
Outchkov, Byabushinsky and Krestovtiikov are representa-
tives of big capital in Russia. Gutchkov is the leader of the
moderately liberal party of Octobrists. He was War Minister
in the first Cabinet after the overthrow of the Romanoffs.
178
ON THE EVE OF A REVOLUTION
This essay was written on March 13th, 1917,
when the first news of unrest in Petrograd had
reached New York.
ON THE EVE OF A REVOLUTION
The streets of Petrograd again speak the
language of 1905. As in the time of the Russo-
Japanese war, the masses demand bread, peace,
and freedom. As in 1905, street cars are not
running and newspapers do not appear. The
workingmen let the steam out of the boilers,
they quit their benches and walk out into the
streets. The government mobilizes its Cos-
sacks. And as was in 1905, only those two
powers are facing each other in the streets —
the revolutionary workingmen and the army of
the Tzar.
The movement was provoked by lack of
bread. This, of course, is not an accidental
cause. In all the belligerent countries the lack
of bread is the most immediate, the most acute
reason for dissatisfaction and indignation
among the masses. All the insanity of the war
is revealed to them from this angle: it is im-
possible to produce necessities of life because
one has to produce instruments of death.
However, the attempts of the Anglo-Rus-
181
182 On the Eve of a Revolution
sian semi-official news agencies to explain the
movement by a temporary shortage in food, or
to snow storms that have delayed transporta-
tion, are one of the most ludicrous applications
of the policy of the ostrich. The workingmen
would not stop the factories, the street cars, the
print shops and walk into the streets to meet
Tzarism face to face on account of snow storms
which temporarily hamper ,the arrival of food-
stuffs.
People have a short memory. Many of our
own ranks have forgotten that the war found
Russia in a state of potent revolutionary fer-
ment. After the heavy stupor of 1908-1911,
the proletariat gradually healed its wounds in
the following years of industrial prosperity;
the slaughter of strikers on the Lena River in
April, 1912, awakened the revolutionary en-
ergy of the proletarian masses. A series of
strikes followed. In the year preceding the
world war, the wave of economic and political
strikes resembled that of 1905. When Poin-
care, the President of the French Republic,
came to Petersburg in the summer of 1904
(evidently to talk over with the Tzar how to
free the small and weak nations) the Russian
proletariat was in a stage of extraordinary rev-
olutionary tension, and the President of the
On the Eve of a Revolution 183
French Republic could see with his own eyes
in the capital of his friend, the Tzar, how the
first barricades of the Second Russian Revo-
lution were being constructed.
The war checked the rising revolutionary )>
tide. We have witnessed a repetition of what
happened ten years before, in the Russo-Jap-
anese war. After the stormy strikes of 1903,
there had followed a year of almost unbroken
political silence — 1904 — the first year of the
war. It took the workingmen of Petersburg
twelve months to orientate themselves in the
war and to walk out into the streets with their
demands and protests. January 9th, 1905, was,
so to speak, the official beginning of our First
Revolution.
The present war is vaster than was the Rus-
so-Japanese war. Millions of soldiers have
been mobilized by the government for the "de-
fense of the Fatherland." The ranks of the
proletariat have thus been disorganized. On
the other hand, the more advanced elements of
the proletariat had to face and weigh in their
minds a mmiber of questions of unheard of
magnitude. What is the cause of the war?
Shall the proletariat agree with the conception
of "the defense of the Fatherland"? What
1
184 On the Eve of a Revolution
ought to be the tactics of the working-class in
war time? '•
In the meantime, the Tzarism and its allies, |
the upper groups of the nobility and the bour-
geoisie, had during the war completely ex-
posed their true nature, — the nature of crim-
inal plunderers, blinded by limitless greed and
paralyzed by want of talent. The appetites
for conquest of the governing clique grew in
proportion as the people began to realize its
complete inability to cope with the most ele-
mentary problems of warfare, of industry and
supplies in war time. Simultaneously, the mis-
ery of the people grew, deepened, became more
and more acute, — a natural result of the war
multiplied by the criminal anarchy of the Ras-
putin Tzarism.
In the depths of the great masses, among
people who may have never been reached by a
word of propaganda, a profound bitterness ac- |
cumulated under the stress of events. Mean- |
time the foremost ranks of the proletariat were |
finishing digesting the new events. The Social-
ist proletariat of Russia came to after the shock
of the nationalist fall of the most influential |
part of the International, and decided that |
new times call us not to let up, but to increase i
our revolutionary struggle.
On the Eve of a Revolution 185
The present events in Petrograd and Mos-
cow are a result of this internal preparatory
work.
A disorganized, compromised, disjointed
government on top. An utterly demoralized
army. Dissatisfaction, uncertainty and fear
among the propertied classes. At the bot-
tom, among the masses, a deep bitterness. A
proletariat numerically stronger than ever,
hardened in the fire of events. All this war-
rants the statement that we are witnessing the
beginning of the Second Russian Revolution.
Let us hope that many of us will be its par-
ticipants. - *
i
TWO FACES
TWO FACES
(Internal Forces of the Russian Revolution)
Let us examine more closely what is going
on.
Nicholas has been dethroned, and according
to some information, is under arrest. The
most conspicuous Black Hundred leaders have
been arrested. Some of the most hated have
been killed. A new Ministry has been formed
consisting of Octobrists, Liberals and the Rad-
ical Kerensky. A general amnesty has been
proclaimed.
All these are facts, big facts. These are
the facts that strike the outer world most.
Changes in the higher government give the
bourgeoisie of Europe and America an occa-
sion to say that the revolution has won and is
now completed.
The Tzar and his Black Hundred fought
for their power, for this alone. The war, the
imperialistic plans of the Russian bourgeoisie,
the interests of the Allies, were of minor im-
portance to the Tzar and his clique. They were
189
\
190 Two Faces
ready at any moment to conclude peace with
the HohenzoUerns and Hapsburgs, to free their
most loyal regiment for war against their
own people.
The Progressive Bloc of the Duma mistrust-
ed the Tzar and his Ministers. This Bloc con-
sisted of various parties of the Russian bour-
geoisie. The Bloc had two aims: one, to con-
duct the war to a victorious end; another, to
secure internal reforms: more order, control,
accounting. A victory is necessary for the
Russian bourgeoisie to conquer markets, to in-
crease their territories, to get rich. Reforms
are necessary primarily to enable the Russian
bourgeoisie to win the war.
The progressive imperialistic Bloc wanted
peaceful reforms. The liberals intended to ex-
ert a Duma pressure on the monarchy and to
keep it in check with the aid of the govern^
ments of Great Britain and France. Thej
^id not want a revolution. They knei
that a revolution, bringing the working
masses to the front, would be a menace to thei
domination, and primarily a menace to their;
imperialistic plans. The laboring masses, in;
the cities and in the villages, and even in the
army itself, want peace. The liberals knov^
it. This is why they have been enemies of the
Two Faces 191
revolution all these years. A few months ago
Milukov declared in the Duma: "If a revolu-
tion were necessary for victory, I would pre-
fer no victory at all."
Yet the liberals are now in power — ^through
the Revolution. The bourgeois newspaper
men see nothing but this fact. Milukov, al-
ready in his capacity as a Minister of For-
eign Affairs, has declared that the revolution
has been conducted in the name of a victory
over the enemy, and that the new government
has taken upon itself to continue the war to a
victorious end. The New York Stock Ex-
change interpreted the Revolution in this spe-
cific sense. There are clever people both on the
Stock Exchange and among the bourgeois
newspaper men. Yet they are all amazingly
stupid when they come to deal with mass-move-
ments. They think that Milukov manages the
revolution, in the same sense as they manage
their banks or news offices. They see only the
liberal governmental reflection of the unfold-
ing events, they notice only the foam on the
surface of the historical torrent.
The long pent-up dissatisfaction of the mass-
es has burst forth so late, in the thirty-second
month of the war, not because the masses were
held by police barriers — those barriers had been
192 Two Faces
badly shattered during the war — but because
all liberal institutions and organs, together
with their Social-Patriotic shadows, were ex-
erting an enormous influence over the least
enlightened elements of the workingmen, urg-
ing them to keep order and discipline in the
name of "patriotism." Hungry women were
already walking out into the streets, and the
workingmen were getting ready to uphold
them by a general strike, while the liberal bour-
geoisie, according to news reports, still issued
proclamations and delivered speeches to check
the movement, — ^resembling that famous hero-
ine of Dickens who tried to stem the tide of
the ocean with a broom.
The movement, however, took its course,
from below, from the workingmen's quarters.
After hours and days of uncertainty, of shoot-
ing, of skirmishes, the army joined in the revo-
lution, from below, from the best of the soldier
masses. The old government was powerless,
paralyzed, annihilated. The Tzar fled from
the capital "to the front." The Black Hun-
dred bureaucrats crept, like cockroaches, each
into his corner.
Then, and only then, came the Duma's turn
to act. The Tzar had attempted in the last
minute to dissolve it. And the Dimaa would
Two Faces 193 \
have obeyed, "following the example of for-
mer years," had it been free to adjourn. The '
capitals, however, were already dominated by ^
the revolutionary people, the same people that ]
had walked out into the streets despite the i
wishes of the liberal bourgeoisie. The army
was with the people. Had not the bourgeoisie
attempted to organize its own government, a
revolutionary government would have emerged ^
from the revolutionary working masses. The ""^
Duma of June 3rd would never have dared to
seize the power from the hands of Tzarism. ^
But it did not want to miss the chance offered j
by interregnum: the monarchy had disap-
peared, while a revolutionary government was ;
not yet formed. Contrary to all their part, ^ I
contrary to their own policies and against their j
will, the liberals found themselves in posses-
sion of power.
Milukov now declares Russia will continue
the war "to the end." It is not easy for him \
so to speak: he knows that his words are apt j
to arouse the indignation of the masses against |
the new government. Yet he had to speak \
them — for the sake of the London, Paris and — \
American Stock Exchanges. It is quite pos- ]
sible that he cabled his declaration for foreign 1
194 Two Faces
consumption only, and that he concealed it
from his own country. J
Milukov knows very well that under given ;]
conditions he cannot continue the war, crush 1
Germany, dismember Austria, occupy Con- I
stantinople and Poland, 1
The masses have revolted, demanding bread z
and peace. The appearance of a few liberals |
at the head of the government has not fed the
hungry, has not healed the wounds of the peo- |
pie. To satisfy the most urgent, the most acute j
needs of the people, peace must be restored. |
The liberal imperialistic Bloc does not dare
to speak of peace. They do not do it, first, ^^
on account of the Allies. They do not do it, S j
further, because the liberal bourgeoisie is to ||
a great extent responsible before the people
for the present war. The Milukovs and
Gutchkovs, not less than the Romanoff cam-
arilla, have thrown the country into this mon-
strous imperialistic adventure. To stop the
war, to return to the ante-bellum misery would
mean that they have to account to the people
for this undertaking. The Milukovs and
Gutchkovs are afraid of the liquidation of the
war not less than they were afraid of the Revo-
lution.
^ This is their aspect in their new capacity, as
Two Faces 195
the government of Russia. They are compelled
to continue the war, and they can have no hope
of victory; they are afraid of the people, and
people do not trust them.
This is how Karl Marx characterized a sim-
ilar situation:
"From the very beginning ready to betray
the people and to compromise with the crowned
representatives of the old regime, because the
bourgeoisie itself belongs to the old world;
. . . keeping a place at the steering wheel of
the revolution not because the people were back
of them, but because the people pushed them
forward; . . . having no faith in themselves,
no faith in the people; grumbling against those
above, trembling before those below; selfish
towards both fronts and aware of their selfish-
ness ; revolutionary in the face of conservatives,
and conservative in the face of revolutionists,
with no confidence in their own slogans and
with phrases instead of ideas; frightened by
the world's storm and exploiting the world's
storm, — vulgar through lack of originality,
and original only iii vulgarity; making profit-
able business out of their own desires, with no
initiative, with no vocation for world-wide his-
toric work ... a cursed senile creature con-
demned to direct and abuse in his own senile
196 Two Faces
interests the first youthful movements of a
powerful people, — a creature with no eyes,
with no ears, with no teeth, with nothing what-
ever, — this is how the Prussian bourgeoisie
stood at the steering wheel of the Prussian
state after the March revolution."
These words of the great master give a per-
fect picture of the Russian liberal boiu-goisie,
as it stands at the steering wheel of the gov-
ernment after our March revolution. "With no
faith in themselves, with no faith in the people,
with no eyes, with no teeth." . . . This is
their political face.
Luckily for Russia and Europe, there is
another face to the Russian Revolution, a gen-
uine face: the cables have brought the news
that the Provisional Government is opposed by
a Workmen's Committee which has already
raised a voice of protest against the liberal at-
tempt to rob the Revolution and to deliver the
people to the monarchy.
Should the Russian Revolution stop to-day
as the representatives of liberalism advocate,
to-morrow the reaction of the Tzar, the nobil-
ity and the bureaucracy would gather power
'and drive Milukov and Gutchkov from their
insecure ministerial trenches, as did the Prus-
sian reaction years ago with the representa-
Two Vaces 197
tives of Prussian liberalism. But the Russian
Revolution will not stop. Time will come, and
the Revolution will make a clean sweep of the
bourgeois liberals blocking its way, as it is
now making a clean sweep of the Tzarism re-
action.
(Published in New York on March 17, 1917.)
June Third, 1907, was the day on which, after the dissolu-
tion of the First and Second Dumas, the Tzar*s government, in
defiance of the Constitution, promulgated a new electoral law"
which eliminated from the Russian quasi-Parliament large'
groups of democratic voters, thus securing a "tame" majority-
obedient to the command of the government. To say "The
Duma of June Third" is equivalent to saying: "a Duma dom-
inated by representatives of rich land-owners and big business,"
generally working hand in hand with autocracy, though pre-
tending to be representatives of the people. In the Duma of
June Third, the Octobrists and all parties to the right of them
were with the government, the Constitutional Democrats (Ca-
dets) and all parties to the left of them were in the opposi-
tion.
The Progressive Bloc was formed in the Duma in 1915. It
included a number of liberal and conservative factions, to-
gether with the Cadets, and was opposed to the government.
Its program was a Cabinet responsible to the Duma.
198
THE GROWING CONFLICT
THE GROWING CONFLICT
An open conflict between the forces of the
Revolution, headed by the city proletariat and
the anti-revolutionary liberal bourgeoisie tem-
porarily at the head of the government, is
more and more impending. It cannot be
avoided. Of course, the liberal bourgeoisie
and the quasi-Socialists of the vulgar type
will find a collection of very touching slogans
as to "national unity" against class divisions;
yet no one has ever succeeded in removing so-
cial contrasts by conjuring with words or in
checking the natural progress of revolutionary
struggle.
The internal history of unfolding events is
known to us only in fragments, through casual
remarks in the official telegrams. But even
now it is apparent that on two points the revo- j
lutionary proletariat is bound to oppose the lib-l
eral bourgeoisie with ever-growing determina-J
tion.
The first conflict has already arisen around
the question of the form of government. The
201
202 The Growing Conflict
Russian bourgeoisie needs a monarchy. In all
the countries pursuing an imperialistic policy,
we observe an unusual increase of personal
power. The policy of world usurpations,
secret treaties and open treachery requires in-
dependence from Parliamentary control and a
guarantee against changes in policies caused
by the change of Cabinets. Moreover, for the
propertied classes the monarchy is the most
secure ally in its struggle against the revolu-
tionary onslaught of the proletariat.
In Russia both these causes are more effec-
tive than elsewhere. The Russian bourgeoisie
finds it impossible to deny the people univer-
sal suffrage, well aware that this would arouse
opposition against the Provisional Govern-
ment among the masses, and give prevalence
to the left, the more determined wing of the
proletariat in the Revolution. Even that mon-
arch of the reserve, Michael Alexandrovitch,
understands that he cannot reach the throne
without having promised "universal, equal, di-
rect and secret suffrage." It is the more es-
sential for the bourgeoisie to create right now
a monarchic counterbalance against the deep-
est social-revolutionary demands of the work-
ing masses. Formally, in words, the bourgeoi-
sie has agreed to leave the question of a form
The Growing Conflict 203
of government to the discretion of the Constit-
uent Assembly. Practically, however, the Oc-
tobrist-Cadet Provisional Government will
turn all the preparatory work for the Constit-
uent Assembly into a campaign in favor of a
monarchy against a Republic. The character
of the Constituent Assembly will largely de-
pend upon the character of those who convoke
it. It is evident, therefore, that right now the
revolutionary proletariat will have to set up its
own organs, the Councils of Working men's.
Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies, against the
executive organs of the Provisional Govern-
ment, In this struggle the proletariat ought to.
unite about itself the rising masses of the peo-
ple, with one aim in view — to seize government-
al power. Only a Revolutionary Labor Govern-
ment will have the desire and ability to give
the country a thorough democratic cleansing
during the work preparatory to the Constitu-
ent Assembly, to reconstruct the army from
top to bottom, to turn it into a revolutionary
militia and to show the poorer peasants in
practice that their only salvation is in a sup-
port of a revolutionary labor regime. A Con-
stituent Assembly convoked after such pre-
paratory work will truly reflect the revolution-
ary, creative forces of the country and become
204
The Growing Conflict
a powerful factor in the further development
of the Revolution.
The second question that is bound to bring
the internationally inclined Socialist proleta-
riat in opposition to the imperialistic liberal
bourgeoisie, is the question of war and peace,
(Published in New York, March 19, 1917.)
: :l
WAR OR PEACE?
I
I'
I
i
WAR OR PEACE?
The question of chief interest, now, to the
governments and the peoples of the world is.
What will be the influence of the Russian Rev-
olution on the .War? Will it bring peace near-
er? Or will the revolutionary enthusiasm of
the people swing towards a more vigorous
prosecution of the war?
This is a great question. On its solution de-
pends not only the outcome of the war, but
the fate of the Revolution itself.
In 1905, Milukov, the present militant Min-
ister of Foreign Aff*airs, called the Russo-
Japanese war an adventure and demanded its
immediate cessation. This was also the spirit
of the liberal and radical press. The strong-
est industrial organizations favored immediate
peace in spite of unequaled disasters. Why
was it so? Because they expected internal re-
forms. The establishment of a Constitutional
system, a parliamentary control over the bud-
get and the state finances, a better school sys-
tem and, especially, an increase in the land pos-
207
208 War or Peace?
sessions of the peasants, would, they hoped, in-
crease the prosperity of the population and cre-
ate a vast internal market for Russian indus-
try. It is true that even then, twelve years
ago, the Russian bourgeoisie was ready to
usurp land belonging to others. It hoped,
however, that abolition of feudal relations in
the village would create a more powerful
market than the annexation of Manchuria or
Corea.
The democratization of the country and lib-
eration of the peasants, however, turned out to
be a slow process. Neither the Tzar, nor the
nobility, nor the bureaucracy were willing to
yield any of their prerogatives. Liberal ex-
hortations were not enough to make them give
up the machinery of the state and their land
possessions. A revolutionary onslaught of the
masses was required. This the bourgeoisie did
not want. The agrarian revolts of the peas-
ants, the ever growing struggle of the proleta-
riat and the spread of insurrections in the army
caused the liberal bourgeoisie to fall back into
the camp of the Tzarist bureaucracy and reac-
tionary nobility. Their alliance was sealed by
the coup d'etat of June 3rd, 1907. Out of this
coup d'etat emerged the Third and the Fourth
Dumas.
War or Peace? ' 209
*' The peasants received no land. The admin-
istrative system changed only in name, not in
substance. The development of an internal
market consisting of prosperous farmers, af-
ter the American fashion, did not take place.
The capitalist classes, reconciled with the
regime of June 3rd, turned their attention to
the usurpation of foreign markets. A new
era of Russian imperialism ensues, an imperial-
ism accompanied by a disorderly financial and
military system and by insatiable appetites.
Gutchkov, the present War Minister, was for-
merly a member of the Committee on National
Defense, helping to make the army and the
navy complete. Milukov, the present Minister
of Foreign Affairs, worked out a program of
world conquests which he advocated on his trips
to Europe. Russian imperialism and his Oc-
tobrist and Cadet representatives bear a great
part of the responsibility for the present war.
By the grace of the Revolution which they
had not wanted and which they had fought,
Gutchkov and Milukov are now in power. For
the continuation of the war, for victory? Of
course! They are the same persons who had
dragged the country into the war for the sake
of the interests of capital. All their opposi-
tion to Tzarism had its source in their unsatis-
210 War or Peace?
fied imperialistic appetites. So long as the
clique of Nicholas II. was in power, the inter-
ests of the dynasty and of the reactionary no-
bility were prevailing in Russian foreign af-
fairs. This is why Berlin and Vienna had I
hoped to conclude a separate peace with Rus- 1
sia. Now, purely imperialistic interests have
superseded the Tzarism interests; pure impe-
rialism is written on the banner of the Provi-
sional Government. "The government of the
Tzar is gone," the Milukovs and Gutchkovs
say to the people, "now you must shed your J
blood for the common interests of the entire i
nation." Those interests the imperialists un- I
derstand as the reincorporation of Poland, the h
conquest of Galicia, Constantinople, Armenia,
Persia.
This transition from an imperialism of the
dynasty and the nobility to an imperialism of
a purely bourgeois character, can never recon-
cile the Russian proletariat to the war. An
international struggle against the world
slaughter and imperialism are now our task
more than ever. The last despatches which
tell of an anti-militaristic propaganda in the
streets of Petrograd show that our comrades
are bravely doing their duty.
The imperialistic boasts of Milukov to en
1
War or Peace? ' 211
Germany, Austria and Turkey are the most
effective and most timely aid for the Hohen-
zollerns and Hapsburgs. . . . Milukov will
now serve as a scare-crow in their hands. The
liberal imperialistic government of Russia has
not yet started reform in its own army, yet it
is already helping the Hohenzollerns to raise
the patriotic spirit and to mend the shattered
"national unity" of the German people. Should
the German proletariat be given a right to
think that all the Russian people and the main
force of the Russian Revolution, the proleta-
riat, are behind the bourgeois government of
Russia, it would be a terrific blow to the men
of our trend of mind, the revolutionary Social-
ists of Germany. To turn the Russian prole-
tariat into patriotic cannon food in the serv-
ice of the Russian liberal bourgeoisie would
mean to throw the German working masses
into the camp of the chauvinists and for a long
time to halt the progress of a revolution in
Germany,
The prime duty of the revolutionary prole-
tariat in Russia is to show that there is no pow-
er behind the evil imperialistic will of the lib-
eral bourgeoisie. The Russian Revolution has
to show the entire world its real face.
The further progress of the revolutionary
212 War or Peace?
struggle in Russia and the creation of a Rev-
olutionary Labor Government supported by
the people will be a mortal blow to the Hohen-
zollerns because it will give a powerful stimu-
lus to the revolutionary movement of the Ger-
man proletariat and of the labor masses of all
the other countries. If the first Russian Revo-
lution of 1905 brought about revolutions in
Asia — in Persia, Turkey, China — the Second
Russian Revolution will be the beginning of a
powerful social-revolutionary struggle in
Europe. Only this struggle will bring real
peace to the blood-drenched world.
No, the Russian proletariat will not allow
itself to be harnessed to the chariot of Milu-
kov imperialism. The banner of Russian So-
cial-Democracy is now, more than ever before,
glowing with bright slogans of inflexible Inter-
nationalism :
Away with imperialistic robbers I
Long live a Revolutionary Labor Govern-
ment!
Long live Peace and the Brotherhood of Na-
tions !
(Published in New York, March 20, 1917.)
TROTZKY ON THE PLATFORM IN
PETROGRAD
TROTZKY ON THE PLATFORM IN
PETROGRAD
(From a Russian paper)
Trotzky, always Trotzky.
Since I had seen him the last time, he has
been advanced in rank : he has become the chair-
man of the Petrograd Soviet. He has suc-
ceeded Tchcheidze, the wise, sober leader who
has lost the confidence of the revolutionary
masses. He holds the place of Lenin, the rec-
ognized leader of the left wing of Social-De-
mocracy, whose absence from the capital is due
to external, accidental causes.
It seems to me that Trotzky has become more
nervous, more gloomy, and more restrained.
Something like a freezing chill emanates from
his deep and restless eyes; a cool, determined,
ironical smile plays around his mobile Jewish
lips, and there is a chill in his well-balanced,
clear-cut words which he throws into his audi-
ence with a peculiar calmness.
He seems almost lonesome on the platform.
Only a small group of followers applaud. The
215
216 , Trotzhy on the Platform \
others protest against his words or cast angry,
restless glances at him. He is in a hostile gath-
ering. He is a stranger. Is he not also a
stranger to those who applaud him and in
whose name he speaks from this platform?
Calm and composed he looks at his adver-
saries, and you feel it is a peculiar joy for
him to see the rage, the fear, the excitement
his words provoke. He is a Mephisto who
throws words like bombs to create a war of
brothers at the bedside of their sick mother.
He knows in advance which words will have
the greatest eif ect, which would provoke the
most bitter resentment. And the more extreme,
the more painful his words are, the firmer and
stronger is his voice, the slower his speech, the
more challenging his tone. He speaks a sen-
tence, then he stops to wait till the storm is
over, then he repeats his assertion, with sharper
intonation and with more disdain in his tone.
Only his eyes become more nervous, and a
peculiar disquieting fire is blazing in them.
This time he does not speak; he reads a writ-*
ten declaration. He reads it with pauses,
sometimes accentuating the words, sometimes
passing over them quickly, but all the time he
is aware of the effect and waits for a response.
Trotzky on the Platform 217
His voice is the voice of a prophet, a
preacher :
"Petrograd is in danger! The Revolution
is in danger! The people are in danger!" . . .
He is a stranger on the platform, and yet —
electric currents flow from him to his sur-i
roundings, creating sincere though primitive
enthusiasm on one side, on the other anger and
spite. He opens vast perspectives before the
naive faithful masses :
"Long live an immediate, honest, democratic
peace!"
"All power to the Workmen's Councils I All
the land to the people!"
INDEX
Absolutism, rdle of, in out-
growing economic basis, 69;
in promoting industry and
science, 69, 70; as an end
in itself, 70-71.
Agrarian question, 132-136.
Armament for the Revolu-
tion, 57-58.
Army, 35, 36, 37.
Bourgeoisie, imperialistic
plans of, 189-191; afraid
of peace, 194-5; reactionary,
203-4; responsible for the
war, 209-211.^
Capitalism, prfipkring its own
collapse, 138-9; and feudal
reaction, 139-140.
Cities, as scene of revolution-
ary battles, 41 ; social struc-
ture of, 71-72.
Class consciousness^ of prole-
tariat, as prerfequisite to
Socialism, 124/l28.
Constituent Assembly, as a
revolutionary slogan, 43-44.
Demonstrations, in the streets,
41-42; to become of nation-
wide magnitude, 57.
French Revolution, 73-77.
Gapon, 59, 62; 172-3.
Intelligentzia, 145.
January Ninth, 49;
171-173.
June Third, 198.
Labor Dictatorship,
crushing absolutism
doning its remnants, 103-
104; introducing class poli-
tics, 103; introducing class
59-60:
94-^7;
aban-
struggle in the village, 104-
105 ; introducing Collectiv-
ism and Internationalism,
105; abandoning distinction
between minimum and
maximum program, 106;
and eight hour workday,
106-108 ; and unemploy-
ment, 108-9; and agricul-
ture, 109; and Collectivism,
109-110; and class con-
sciousness, 124-128; "incom-
patible with economic slav-
ery, 132; and agrarian
question, 132-136.
Liberalism, denying the ex-
istence of revolutionary
masses, 52-53; defeated by
events of January 9th, 54;
trying to "tame" revolu-
tionary people, 55; not re-
liable as partner in Revolu-
tion, 173-174; 176-7.
Manoeuvers, revolutionary,
29-30. ,/
Masses, drawn into the Revo-
lution, 37-39; as^a political
reality, 51-52; stirred by
world-war, 183-4.
Middle-class (see Bourgeoisie),
weakness of, in Russia, 71,
72.
Militia, 81-82.
"Osvoboshdenie," 52, 53, 62.
Peasantry, as of no signifi-
cance in Revolution, 175-7.
Poland, as possible revolu-
tionary link between Rus-
sia and Europe, 140-41.
219
220
Index
Prerequisites to Socialism, in
relation to each other, IIS-^
117.
Proletariat, as a vanguard of
the Revolution, 33t35; r61e
of, in events of January
9th, 56-57; stronger than
bourgeoisie in Russia, 72;
growing with capitalism,
84; may sooner neach po-
litical supremacy m a back-
ward country, 84-^5; 87-91;
v^ as liberator of peasants, 98-
100; as a class objectively
opposed to capitalism, 119-
124; to revolutionize Euro-
pean proletariat, 142-4.
Revolution, in Europe, as aid
to Socialism in Russia, 136-
7; may be result of shat-
tered European equilib-
rium, 141-42; as result of
Russian Revolution, 142-4.
Revolution, in general, 83; of
bourgeois character, 92-93.
Revolution, of I848, 77-80.
Revolution, of 1917, its
"^" causes, 181-5 ; social forces
in, 191-192; to stir up revo-
lution in Germany, 212.
Social-Democracy, foresaw
revolution, 55-6 ; natural
leader of the Revolution,
60-61.
Soviet, distinguishing Russian
Revolution from that of
1848, 80; short history of,
145; general survey of the
rdle of, 151-4; as class-
organization, 154-156 ; as
organ of political author-
ity, 158-97" an imminent
form of Russian Revolu-
tion, 160; program of (out-
lined by TrotzlqrfQx_the_
future) , 160-1 fTo fight
against Provisional Grovern-
ment, 203.
"Spring," 24-25; 32; 54.
Strike, political, as beginning
of Revolution, 35-36; 42,
43.
Struve, 62.
Technique, industrial, as pre-
requisite to Socialism, 113;
117-119.
"Underground," and the revo-
lutionist, 165-8.
War, Russo-Japanese, Q5\ of
the world, as influencing
masses, 183-4. ">*
Witte, 62, 145.
Zemstvo, movement of, in
1904, 24-25; 33; Q^.
i;l.
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