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Proletarian Dictatorship
and Terrorism

BY Karl Radek

THE MARXIAN EDUCATIONAL SOCIETY

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

Froieyrian Diciaiorsiiip
. and Terrorism

BY Karl Radek

^^

Translated by P. LA VIN

The Marxian Educational Society

5941 Jos. Campau Ave., Detroit, Mich.

COPYRIGHT APPLIED FOR
MARXIAN EDUCATIONAL SOCIETY

All rights re.served.

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HA 5G _

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

i

Page

Foreword 7

Chapter I — Karl Kautsky's Autumn offensive against

Soviet Russia 13

Chapter II — The Terror of the Jacobins 16

Chapter III — The Model Dictatorship 22

Chapter IV — The Softening Influence of Democracy

on Manners 31

Chapter V — The Russian Sodom and Gomorrha 37

Chapter VI — Either Or 53

PCLlTlClLiciSjCE

FOREWORD.

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

8

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

10

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

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

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

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

11

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

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

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

12

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

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

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

July, 1921. PATRICK LAVIN.

CHAPTER 1.

KARL KAUTSKY'S AUTUMN OFFENSIVE AGAINST

SOVIET RUSSIA.

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

14

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

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

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

15

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

CHAPTER II.

THE TERROR OF THE JACOBINS.

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

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

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

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

f

18

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

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

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

20

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

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

31

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

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

CHAPTER III.

THE MODEL DICTATORSHIP.

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

23

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

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

24

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

V

25

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

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

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

26

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

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

27

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

28

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

29

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

30

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

\

V

CHAPTER IV.

THE SOFTENING INFLUENCE OF DEMOCRACY ON

MANNERS.

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

32

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

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

33

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

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

34

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

35

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

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

36

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

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

CHAPTER V.
THE RUSSIAN SODOM AND GOMORRHA.

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

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

38

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

39

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

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

40

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

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

41

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

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

4^

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

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

tit

43

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

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

44

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

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

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

V

45

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

46

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

4?

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

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

4g

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

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

49

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

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

50

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

51

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

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

52

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

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

CHAPTER VI.

EITHER. . .OR. . .

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

54

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

55

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

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

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

56

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

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

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

5r

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

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

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

58

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

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

59

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

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

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

60

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

THE END.

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

Great Initiative, by N. Lenin $.15

Proletarian Dictatorship and Terrorism,

by Karl Raciek ; $.20

Proletarian Revolution, by N. Lenin $.40

State and Revolution, by N. Lenin $.40

Collapse of the Second International,

by N. Lenin $.40

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

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

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

and E. Preobraschensky — Volume I $.50

Militarism and Anti-Militarism, by Karl Liebknecht $1.00

First Principles of Working Class Education

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