Why is Communism bad?

medicineman

New Member
Here are some Ideas taken from Communism that will do wonders for a capitallist society :
Every personruning for office must eccept a life long wealth cap ,the higher the office the lower the cap ,this will eliminate bribes corruption and special interest groups...I'll add the rest later, gotta go...
Keep up the pressure, ViRedd is due back tomorrow and he'll try and tear you a new one. I've postulated myself on an Ideal communistic state, but on how to get it to work is still a mystery as people still are infected with copious amounts of greed. Where would you draw the income level, and should a Doctor make more than a day laborer? these and hundreds of other questions would have to be answered. An Ideal form of communism would be a wonderful place to live, where there was no jealosy, or greed, or vanity, but these are human fallicies and are extremely hard to exterminate. You'd always have the bully wanting to take some of yours and everyone elses, the same people that head corporations today, assholes!
 

krime13

Well-Known Member
In the teachings of lao tzu the ultimate ruller is a sage- A person with almost no physical attachments to this world, only a person who remains free of attachments and personal gain and ulterior motives is fit to rule.
 

medicineman

New Member
In the teachings of lao tzu the ultimate ruller is a sage- A person with almost no physical attachments to this world, only a person who remains free of attachments and personal gain and ulterior motives is fit to rule.
Well maybe I can agree with this, in fact I do agree. The problem is: try and find one, and then, try and put him (her) into a position of power. The corporate rulers would laugh you right out of here. Look what they did to Jesus, do you think a sage would have any better luck? Without Divine intervention, I don't see mankind as we know it lasting past 2012. Call me in 2013 and tell me how fucking crazy I am!
 

420penguin

Well-Known Member
Voting! it would have to happen quite often, say every 3 months. every adult (18+) will get 1 vote. no electoral college bs. voting fraud/ id fraud may be a problem. in 2008 national ids will be mandatory, i hear. people would use these for voting. cell phones could be used so lazy people dont have to bitch about their precious time being "wasted". with the internet, possible candidates could be researched easily (on government-sponsored sites or privately owned.) a mandatory voting law could be passed. to receive your check your records must show that you have voted in the previous election. (youd have to actually spell their chosen candidates name, so people cant just check the top name on the ballot to get paid. this should help a little, but obviously its hard to force people to make a decision, especially if they make the decision to not make one.)
So there will be no need for the other branches of government? You won't need say, people like judges or cops to execute the orders of these o' so wise and short termed legislators? Please explain how those people will also be rotated out so frequently in order to prevent graft yet will be proficient enough to actually know how to catch a criminal or judge a crime?

A mandatory voting law! Look, even the Russians and Chinese don't demand that. You're now crossing another border into the realm of Fascism.

"Sure, it's easy. But I'm ignorant. Please explain what this new better than communist state is."

wow ur witty. it would still be communism, just not a bad model, like the ones tried before. and if you really expect me to outline an entire imaginary government, ur more naive than u perceive me to b.
Look man, I didn't start this conversation and frankly I'm getting tired of doing all the talking here. Do you know how many thousands of pages Marx wrote about this shit and yet still couldn't make it work?

Do you propose to launch into Communism like Bush launched into war.

"I've got this idea for a new form of government. I call it Nouveau Communism. I'm a little foggy on how it works, who's in power, or what it will do. But I'm sure it's better than anything we've got. Now please explain to me why I'm wrong." WTF?
 

420penguin

Well-Known Member
hey penguin the bullshit is all yours for I myself been to a humangous church in Ukraine in1986 Still part of ussr, not only there were regular services but you should have seen them celebrate othodox easter,there must have been thousands of people...And this was one of many churches that functioned on daily bases in the city of a million and a half people. What about catholic monasteries west of Kiev and in the city it self (where you could purchase your very own bible) I mean theese guys stayed in buisness even through Stallin era...
Yes, some churches were allowed to still stay open. Others were summarily closed. Jews were alteratively persecuted and denied the ability to emigrate and then they were actively encouraged to migrate out of the USSR.

And I say again, they actively and publicly are attacking the Mormon church in Russia. I'm not even Christian but this is fact:

Russia

Ukrainian Christian church seized:

Ukrainian Church complex seized by Russian authorities (10/05/97)

An enormous article about how awful the jews were treated by the Russians:

History of the Jews in Russia and the Soviet Union - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

And perhaps the most pertinent:

Persecution of Christians - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A snippet from the last link:

An intense ideological anti-Christian and anti-religious campaign was carried out throughout the history of the Soviet Union. An extensive education and propaganda campaign was undertaken to convince people, especially the children and youth, not to become believers.

And like yourself, I visited Russia and saw some ancient churchs and some people attend them. That does not mean that Communism didn't persecute the holy fuck out of them. No pun intended.
 

420penguin

Well-Known Member
Here are some Ideas taken from Communism that will do wonders for a capitallist society :
Every personruning for office must eccept a life long wealth cap ,the higher the office the lower the cap ,this will eliminate bribes corruption and special interest groups...I'll add the rest later, gotta go...
Right, well when you do, how about you answer the other 3 responses I gave to you: https://www.rollitup.org/politics/4170-why-communism-bad-4.html#post34519

summary of the link:

a) you're right. communism sucks. how come it always turns into socialism?
b) good education is available in lots of nifty places with high tax rates.
c) Communists banned the holy fuck out of drugs in every instance.
 

420penguin

Well-Known Member
should a Doctor make more than a day laborer?


a very pertinent and intersting question. Russian and Cuban doctors were so poorly paid that most of them turned to the black market. They also used to have to make house visits because it was their duty to the state. So they would walk all over town trying to visit everyone and make them better. In the meanwhile there was next to nothing they could do to help the sick because they didn't have access to machines to sterilize their tools or medicines to cure illnesses or properly diagnose them.

While I hate the arrogance of most doctors I'm not sure that I really want the dude dog tired from walking all over town. And yes, they walked because no one had cars unless they were a part of the elite.

Want a really funny one? When it used to rain in Russia everyone would pull over the cars. Wonder why?

Because they had their windshield wiper blades locked in their glove compartments. Daily necessities such as windshield wiper blades were in such demand that if you left them on your car they would be stolen.

these and hundreds of other questions would have to be answered. An Ideal form of communism would be a wonderful place to live, where there was no jealosy, or greed, or vanity, but these are human fallicies and are extremely hard to exterminate. You'd always have the bully wanting to take some of yours and everyone elses, the same people that head corporations today, assholes!
Bingo. I'm not the most evil fucker on the block. I'm just a realist who understands how the peaceniks get kicked in the nuts. Like I've said before, I'm not some huge conservative nut. But I am a big history buff and communism just doesn't work. Socialism does, but culturally it doesn't fit with America's mojo.

If you're strong enough to change all of that I applaud you. But pertinent as this 3 day weekend is...just remember that the last dude to try it got shot in the fucking head.
 

420penguin

Well-Known Member
In the teachings of lao tzu the ultimate ruller is a sage- A person with almost no physical attachments to this world, only a person who remains free of attachments and personal gain and ulterior motives is fit to rule.
Would it shock you that I'm a Taoist?
 

krime13

Well-Known Member
Yes, some churches were allowed to still stay open. Others were summarily closed. Jews were alteratively persecuted and denied the ability to emigrate and then they were actively encouraged to migrate out of the in Ru
So what, they were newer really encouraged, it was more like LET MY PEOPLE GO!



An enormous article about how awful the jews were treated by the Russians:

History of the Jews in Russia and the Soviet Union - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jews in USSR were not a religion, it was a nationality,you could eat pork on saturday and still be a jew, its true they were prosequted against but it was more antysemitic prosecution, not a religious one.
And perhaps the most pertinent:

Persecution of Christians - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A snippet from the last link:

An intense ideological anti-Christian and anti-religious campaign was carried out throughout the history of the Soviet Union. An extensive education and propaganda campaign was undertaken to convince people, especially the children and youth, not to become believers.

And like yourself, I visited Russia and saw some ancient churchs and some people attend them. That does not mean that Communism didn't persecute the holy fuck out of them. No pun intended.
I do not belive that propaganda and prosecution are the same...Don't get me wrong I do not deffend soviet authority ( or communism in general) I just separate the facts from propaganda...:-|
 

krime13

Well-Known Member
summary of the link:

a) you're right. communism sucks. how come it always turns into socialism?
b) good education is available in lots of nifty places with high tax rates.
c) Communists banned the holy fuck out of drugs in every instance.[/quote]
OK, you kind of answered your own question:it turns to socialism because of the wrong people in power,at the same time good schools and healthcare + high taxes seems more like true communism -right people in power...
I've been meddling in the mud , feel weary doing next eching reading...It seems the older I get the harder it is to practice...any thoughts.:wall:
 

Dankdude

Well-Known Member
Karl Kautsky: Social Democracy vs. Communism (Part 1)

Social Democracy versus Communism

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1. The Origin of Socialism
What is it that divides the Social Democrats from the Communists? Like the Socialists, they are a working class party. The emancipation of the workers is their common aim.

There was a time when both had a common theoretical basis. But later a gulf developed between them, which cannot be bridged, however much we may desire and consider this necessary. This gulf arises neither from a misunderstanding nor from a mere difference of opinion.

To realize how absolutely irreconcilable are Communism and Socialism, we must first look into the history of the origin of Socialism. It springs from two roots, one ethical and the other economic. The first emanates from the natural instinct of man, the second from the nature of capitalist society and the position of the workers as a class.

The demand “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity” advanced by the men of the French Revolution antedates all written history. It reflects the desire of all oppressed, exploited and their friends ever since there have been oppression and exploitation. But this demand merely poses a problem. It does not indicate the road to its solution. What this road should be has been variously conceived, depending upon varied social conditions and the classes who have sought to find it. Only under the capitalist mode of production has the solution of this problem, through the establishment of a democratic social economy of the workers, become possible and necessary. Only through economic research, not through ethical indignation, can this solution be achieved. Certainly it can never be achieved by mere impassioned desire for what, since 1789, has been termed “liberty, equality, fraternity.”

All socialist thinkers were rebels against any kind of enslavement and exploitation. But they were also research workers in the domain of economics.

The revolt-provoking study of the mass impoverishment generated by capitalist industry gave birth to socialist ideas. It was precisely this impoverishment, however, which by its very frightfulness so held the workers down, that they were frequently rendered incapable of resistance. Whenever some few did revolt, they knew nothing better to do than to destroy machines and burn factories. By such outbursts of indignation they succeeded only in multiplying their own misery.

The early socialists, therefore believed that the working class could not emancipate itself by its own efforts. It was to be emancipated through the efforts of humanitarians, superior to the workers. It soon became clear, however, that little was to be expected from the statesmen and millionaires of the bourgeois world. Side by side with the utopians who relied upon the well meaning bourgeoisie were socialists who perceived that the power necessary for the realization of socialism could come only from the working class itself. But they, too, despaired of the masses. They addressed themselves to the small group of the elite among the working class, those enjoying more favorable conditions than the average worker. Together with professional revolutionists they were to enter into a conspiracy to capture political power, and bring about socialism by means of armed revolt. Finally, there were socialists who, permitting themselves to be deceived by the prospects aroused by the early labor movements, overestimated the numbers and intellectual power of the workers of their period and believed that the working class needed only to bring about democracy, namely, the universal franchise, in order to win immediately the power of government and transform society in line with their desires.

All these schools, however they appeared to differ from each other, had this common characteristic: they looked upon the working class as they found it, and sought a means for the immediate “solution of the social question,” i.e. for the immediate abolition of the misery and enslavement of the working class. Every one of these schools criticized severly the other socialists, each perceiving clearly the illusions of the others. Each was right and all succumbed to the criticism of time, which wrecked every one of them.

Then came Marx and Engels who introduced the idea of development into socialist thought, and perceived the working class not only as it was but also as it was becoming. In their Communist Manifesto they realized that the working class had not yet advanced far enough to achieve immediately its own emancipation and, further, that this could not be achieved through the universal franchise, the efforts of the well-meaning portion of the bourgeoisie, or by the armed action of an advanced guard of energetic conspirators. At the same time they also perceived that through the development of industry the working class would grow in numbers and organization, while gaining constantly in intellectual and moral power. In this way labor would achieve the power to emancipate itself. To be sure it would have to be educated to this. But this education, as Marx and Engels realized, could not be brought about by men who proclaimed themselves .the schoolmasters of the workers, but through the experience of the class struggle, forced upon the wage earners, by the conditions under which, they lived.

The-more the class struggle proceeds in a democratic environment, all other things being equal, i.e. in an environment of universal education, freedom of press and organization and of universal suffrage, the greater its educational influence. Long before the instruments of democracy become the means for acquisition of power by the workers, they constituted the means of its education in the task not only of how to attain power but also of how to keep it and apply it successfully in the building of a higher social order.

As Marx and Engels saw it, the task for Socialists was not to bring about the immediate solution of “the social question” and the realization of socialism, but, first, to support the workers in the class struggle, to help it understand the nature of capitalist society, its power relationships and processes of production, and promote the organization of Labor.

Proceeding from this point of view, Marx and Engels sought to bring about the union of all elements participating in the class struggle for the liberation of the working .class into a strong mass party. Before their arrival upon the scene, each of the various socialist leaders and thinkers had put forward their own distinct method for the solution of the social question and opposed all other socialists who would follow other methods. So it had come about that socialism had served only to divide the working class. Marx and Engels tried to unite it, not to add a Marxian sect to those already in the field.

We find emphasis of this already in the Communist Manifesto (1847). Speaking to their adherents, who called themselves communists, Marx and Engels said:

“The communists do not constitute a separate party, distinct from other working class parties.”

They demanded only that their adherents within the working class parties strive to develop “in advance of the rest of the masses of the proletariat an understanding of the. conditions, the process and the general consequences of the movement of the proletariat.”

Their actions were in line with this idea, as for example in the First International, which had very few Marxists but plenty of Proudhonists and, later, also Blanquists as well as British trade unionists, who knew little of socialism.

Marx and Engels understood well how to bring about a firm union between the world of socialist ideas and the labor movement. All truly working class parties of our time, which have arisen since the final quarter of the last century to take the place of preceding seas, rest upon this union. As working class parties they fight for the interests of the working class; as Socialist parties they wage the class struggle as a means of emancipation of all the oppressed and exploited, not of the wage earners alone.

The Socialist parties fight not only for shorter working hours and higher wages, unemployment insurance and shop councils, but also for the liberty, equality, fraternity of all human beings, regardless of race, color or creed.

Such Socialist parties are bringing about the realization of Marxist ideas even when they themselves are not conscious of them. Every place where the capitalist mode of production exists, with few exceptions, they have been irresistibly on the march since the end of the last century.
 

Dankdude

Well-Known Member
Marxism and the “Dictatorship of the Proletariat”
There was nothing that Marx feared so much as the degeneration of his school into a rigid sect The same fear was entertained by Engels, whose scientific work is indissolubly linked with that of his friend Marx, so that we always keep in mind both Marx and Engels whenever we speak of the Marxist theory.

The worst reproach that Engels could make against the first English Marxists was that they were applying Marxism in a sectarian spirit What would he have said, had he lived to see it about a school of Marxists, who, having captured the state power proceeded to make a state religion, of Marxism, a religion whose articles of faith and their interpretation are watched over by the government, a religion, the criticism of which, nay the slightest deviation from which is sternly punished by the State; a Marxism ruling by the methods of the Spanish Inquisition, propagated by fire and sword, practicing a theatrical ritual (as illustrated by the embalmed body of Lenin); a Marxism reduced to the status not only of a state religion but of a medieval or oriental faith? Such a Marxism may indeed be called doctrinaire fanaticism.

To Marx there was no ultimate knowledge, only an infinite process of learning. Therefore, his own theory is not to be conceive as a collection of tenets which we must accept on faith. Marxism itself is nothing but a definite process of learning; founded upon a definite method introduced by Marx and Engels. This method itself, which Marx and Engels called the materialist conception of history, is not unalterable. It is constantly being improved, like a machine, through continued gain in experience accumulated in its application. The principles underlying a given method of intellectual activity often do not change as rapidly as do the results of that activity. The views of people under the influence of constantly changing experiences tend to change more easily than do the methods and forms o f thought by which they are attained. Both however, are regarded as in constant process of development. Even the materialistic conception of history did not, like Athena, spring fully armed from the head of its procreator; as a matter of fact it had two such procreators. These two were constantly developing it throughout their lives and to the Marxists bequeathed the task of continuing the process.
 

Dankdude

Well-Known Member
To know and understand the line of this development is of the highest importance to every Marxist as well as to any one who wishes to make a critical study of Marx, prompted by a sincere desire for knowledge, and not by the motives of the trickster lawyer who seeks to obtain a conviction of his opponent’s client at any cost.

Every form of doctrinaire fanaticism, every attempt to turn Marxism into an unalterable dogma is contrary to Marxist thought, which recognizes no absolute truth but only relative truth. This is not scepticism, which denies the very possibility of absolute perception of the world, but only a recognition of the limitations of our perception. All the truths which we recognize are not truths in themselves, independent of time and places but truths only as far as we are concerned, valid only for us, for our time, for the space in which we live. Every such truth must govern our actions until more advanced perception has exposed and removed the bit of error residing in the previously accepted truth.

Quite early in his career Marx realized, and in this he proved superior to other Socialists of his day, that the liberation of the working class could be achieved only by the working class itself, that no paternalistic friend from the bourgeoisie, no select proletarian vanguard could accomplish this task for the masses. But like other Socialists he had to admit that the masses were not yet ripe for the struggle. How was this ripeness to be achieved? Through well meaning tutors from above? Grown-up people will not submit to the guardianship of tutors. Where this attempt is made either by Christians or by atheists, it usually degenerates into a loathsome, priestly presumptuousness on the part of the tutor and a hypocritical submission of the tutored.

Grown-ups can be taught by life alone. Marx expected the education of the working class to come from life, that is to say, he expected it to come from capitalist development and its effect upon the workers. Marx pointed this out already in the Communist Manifesto. Industry draws the workers together in large numbers and thereby increases their class consciousness. At the same time that conflicts with the employers grow, trade unions develop. The extension of the conflicts to all industry transforms the occasional local clashes into a class struggle. This class struggle becomes political, finding expression in political changes. But the working class was not strong enough to overcome the forces tending toward the pauperization of the masses, which was the predominant feature of capitalism everywhere. The Communist Manifesto had yet to prove the absolute impoverishment of the industrial proletariat.

“The modern worker, instead of improving his condition with the progress of industry, sinks deeper and deeper under the circumstances affecting his own class. The worker becomes a pauper and pauperism develops even faster than population and wealth.”

Under such conditions, whence could come that moral and intellectual advancement which alone could make possible the self-liberation of the working class?

Marx expected it to come as a result of revolution, the advent of which he correctly foresaw. He had studied the French Revolution. It bore at the beginning a purely bourgeois character but grew more and more radical and finally led to the rule, only for a short time, to be sure, of the working class. The revolution developed enormously not only the political courage but also the political understanding of the masses of the people, until then inert and ignorant. Opposed as Marx already was at the time of the Communist Manifesto to the policy of plots and coups des mains preached by the Blanquists, he was still strongly influenced by their Jacobin traditions. In the first months of 1850, in his articles on The Class Struggles in France, published in 1895 by Engels in pamphlet form, he regarded the Blanquists as properly the workers’ party of France. They, above all others, held his sympathies.

In 1847 Marx assumed that the forthcoming revolution would run the same course as did the Great Revolution but with a working class “much further advanced” by the growth of large industries. The revolution was to last long enough to lift the working class quickly to the necessary mental level. Hence “the German bourgeois revolution could serve only as a direct prelude to a proletarian revolution.”

This expectation was not realized. The force of the German revolution of 1848 spent itself within a few months and the working class as an independent factor played no part in it. What happened then was the same thing that was to happen to Marx often enough later. He correctly foresaw the direction in which events were moving but h misjudged the rate at which they were moving.

Yet none learned so readily from experience as did Marx, even when the experience ran counter to his innermost wishes. Already in September 1850 he came out against the view that “we must strive to gain power immediately” and declared that the workers might have to go through “15, 20, 30 years of civil strife and foreign wars in order to change not only conditions but to change yourselves, to qualify yourselves for rulership.”

This sounded quite different from the expectation that the coming bourgeois revolution would be the “direct prelude to a proletarian revolution.” Yet, even this new, more prudent hope proved too sanguine. Since it was first uttered not only 15, 20, 30 years but 80 years have passed. To be sure, these have not been years of stagnation, The strides made by the working class toward the achievement of political independence and skill during the intervening period have been enormous.

Though Marx in 1850 rose superior to the majority of his communist comrades who at the time were still dreaming of the immediate seizure of political power by the proletariat, he had not yet fully rid himself of his old Jacobin-Blanquist traditions. In armed struggle, in “civil strife and foreign wars” he still saw the means of lifting the proletariat to a higher level. He had not yet realized that every bloody struggle, including a popular war, inspiring and uplifting as it may appear at the beginning, in the long run demoralizes its participants, and, far from increasing, actually reduces their capacity for constructive effort in the field of production as well as in political life.

During the decade following 1850, Marx had opportunity to study the laws underlying commodity production in England, namely its capitalist form, and expounded them more clearly than had been done by any student before him. But he also perceived the opportunity for effective action by the English working class under the democratic political institutions prevailing in England. He saw that under such freedom it was possible for the proletariat to overcome the tendency under capitalism to absolute impoverishment of the workers. In his Inaugural Address (1864) as well as in Capital (1867) he welcomed the salutary results of the ten-hour work-day, as an improvement over the longer hours prevailing in English factories and plants. Of course, this did not blind him to the fact that the propertied classes in England were able to show an amazing gam in wealth and power, while at the same time the absolute pauperization of those proletarian groups which were not protected either by state laws or by strong trade unions advanced still further, and that among those protected by the law the improvement in conditions lagged behind the increase in the wealth of capital, so that their position became relatively if not absolutely worse.
 

Dankdude

Well-Known Member
Nevertheless, the proof was furnished that under conditions of adequate freedom the workers could by their own efforts lift themselves to a high enough level to be able finally to achieve political power not through “civil strife and foreign wars” but through the class struggle waged by their political and economic mass organizations. The condition prerequisite for such a struggle is an adequate measure of political freedom. Where this is lacking, where it has yet to be won, “civil strife and foreign wars” may be necessary to achieve democracy as essential to the rise of the working class. Where democracy exists, ` it is not necessary for the working class to resort to armed, force as a means of attaining power.

Here is what Marx said in 1872 at a public meeting in Amsterdam following the Congress of the International at the Hague (as reported by the Leipziger Volkstaat of October 2,1872)

“The worker must some day achieve political power, in order to found the new organization of labor; he must overthrow the old political machine upon which the old institutions are based, if, like the old Christians, who neglected and despised such matters, he does not wish to renounce the kingdom of this world.

“But we do not maintain that the means of attaining this objective are everywhere the same.

“We know that we must take into consideration the institutions, the habits and the customs of different regions, arid we do not deny that there are countries like America, England and – if I knew your institutions better I would perhaps add Holland – where the workers can attain their objective by peaceful means. But such is not the case in all other countries.”

By “other countries” Marx evidently meant first of all, the great centralized police and military states of continental Europe as they existed at that time. On April 12, 1871, in a letter to Kugelman at the time of the Paris Commune, Marx pointed out that the objective in next attempt of revolution in France would be “no longer as heretofore to effect a change of hands of the bureaucratic military apparatus, but to demolish it, and that is the prerequisite for every true popular revolution on the continent.”

It was not granted to Marx to witness a third phase of the labor movement, besides the two indicated by him, and which was already shaping itself about the time of his death. The “civil strife and foreign wars” of 1789-1871 were not sufficient to destroy the bureaucratic-military apparatus of the continental powers, but their effects were nevertheless strong enough to wrest from these powers a certain measure of freedom for the toiling masses, which enabled them to acquire not only great political skill but also to build strong trade unions and proletarian parties. Unfortunately, this new phase was characterized by great obstacles at the beginning. In prance the revolution of September 4, 1870, was followed by the bloody suppression of the Commune in May 1871, and thereafter by a period of dark reaction and oppression of the proletariat which lasted almost until Marx’s death. In Austria after 1866 came an era of liberalism which, however, did not last long. Nor did the liberal era that set in in Germany after 1866 prove of long duration. It ended with the anti-Socialist law of Bismarck.

Marx thus had little opportunity to observe the effects of democracy on the development of labor in the military bureaucratic countries of continental Europe.

Engels survived his great friend. He lived to witness the abolition of the Exception Laws in Austria, the rescinding of the Anti-Socialist Law in Germany, the beginning of the rapid growth of the labor movement all over Europe. He was thus in a position to sum up the results of this particular phase of development for Marxism. He did this in his famous introduction to Marx’s Class Struggles in France.

Marx had never believed in the possibility of bringing about a revolution at will. Therein he differed already in his early works from the Blanquists. But as long as there was no political freedom for the proletariat, he was compelled to wish ardently for the speediest possible coming of the revolution, first as a democratic bourgeois revolution, which would bring the necessary political freedom. During the fifties and sixties he eagerly looked for signs of the coming revolution arising either from war or civil conflicts.

But now the situation was quite different. Engels, too, saw the coming of the revolution, but he hoped it might be postponed. And he feared new wars. They might bring on the revolution but they threatened to ruin the working class, the only revolutionary class that still existed. They might destroy the revolution and impair the ability of the working class to utilize it, for what was expected from the revolution was that it would bring not merely political freedom, but power itself.

The expression “dictatorship of the proletariat” has been widely used in the past by many who are obviously confused as to its meaning. Most people assume that it connotes a political aim the meaning of which is self-evident and requires no explanation. Unfortunately this is not so.

The expression comes from Marx. In 1875, in his Critique of the Gotha Program, he wrote:

“Between the capitalist and Communist society lies the period of change of one into the other. This corresponds to a political transition period in which the state can be nothing else than a revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.”

Unfortunately, Marx failed to elucidate the momentous expression. He used it in a private letter to the executive committee of the Eisenach party, assuming the committee would understand what the dictatorship of the proletariat was without further comment. That this expression in no way signified either repudiation of democracy for absolute power in the state is quite clear from the one fact alone that in the very same letter Marx characterized the democratic republic as the form of government in which “the class struggle is to be fought out,” saying:

“Freedom consists in the transformation of the state from an organ dominant over society into an organ subordinate to society. And today, too, the various existing forms of state are free or not free in the measure in which they circumscribe the freedom of the state.”

Engels, at a later date, spoke in like manner. In 1891, the executive committee of the German Social Democratic Party, having formulated the draft of a new program, submitted it to him for his opinion. Engels expressed his criticism in a long monograph (published in the Neue Zeit, Vol.XX). Among other things he wrote:

“If anything is certain it is that our party and the working class can triumph only under the form of the democratic republic. This is precisely the specific form of the dictatorship of the proletariat.”

And, indeed it was the democratic parliamentary republic that Engels had in mind, for he added that under all circumstances the program must include “the demand for the concentration of all political power in the hands of a representative assembly of the people.” (Underscored by Engels himself.)

Even Rosa Luxemburg, who was close to the Bolsheviks and fought so insistently for the dictatorship of the proletariat, held to the end of her days to the conviction that such a dictatorship must be founded upon a democracy. In The Russian Revolution she wrote:

“To be sure, every democratic institution has its ‘faults and limitations, which it has in common with all human institutions. But the remedy discovered by Lenin and Trotsky, the abolition of democracy, is worse than the evil it is supposed to cure, for it shuts off the lifespring from which can come the cure for all the inadequacies of social institutions.”

The idea of the dictatorship of the proletariat proclaimed by Marx and Engels does not therefore constitute in any way a repudiation of the idea of democracy. On the contrary, it goes hand in hand with the demand for the abolition of the bureaucratic-military state apparatus and not the strengthening of its absolute power.

In 1891 Engels concluded his preface to the new edition of Marx’s Civil War in France with the following words.

“The German philistines have of late again fallen into wholesome fear of the expression ‘dictatorship of the proletariat.’ Very well, gentlemen, do you wish to know what this dictatorship looks like? Look at the Paris Commune. That was the dictatorship of the proletariat.”

But Marx characterized the Paris Commune of 1871 as an attempt “no longer, as heretofore, to transfer the bureaucratic-military machine from one hand to another, but to destroy it, and this was the prerequisite for every true revolution of the people on the comment.” (Letter to Kugelman. )

The destruction of this type of state machine was, in truth, the only thing the Paris Commune undertook to achieve. It did not live long enough to embark upon any Socialist measures.

The maintenance of a strong bureaucratic-military state machine constitutes, however, the prerequisite of any dictatorship as a political order. Its destruction signifies complete anarchy or complete democracy, but never dictatorship. For Marx and Engels the all important aim in the destruction of the centralized state apparatus was solely the establishment of democracy.

Marx and Engels never explained why they characterized this condition as a “dictatorship,” although it was to spring from democracy. I assume they used the expression to denote a strong government.
 

Dankdude

Well-Known Member
Karl Marx was not the only one to speak of the dictatorship of the proletariat. This idea is much older than Marxism. It represents the oldest, most primitive form of a revolutionary Socialism which sought to emancipate the working people from exploitation and slavery not through peaceful socialistic settlements, colonies or mutual aid associations (another form of primitive Socialism) but by means of forcible seizure of power. This idea is related to the Jacobin reign of terror in the French Revolution.

It was François (“Gracchus”) Babeuf who after the overthrow of Robespierre sought to rally the remnants of the Montagards to combat the rising capitalist regime and to supplant it with a socialism of “crude levelling” (Marx). He organized “The Conspiracy of the Equals,” which set before itself the task of overthrowing the capitalist government by means of an uprising of the propertyless and putting a Communist regime in its place. Such a regime was to bring about complete democracy, but not immediately. Experience had shown that the workers permitted themselves to be led by the nose by men of property and education.

The conspirators feared that through democracy the poor, ignorant people would once more fall victim to these influences. For this reason a dictatorship was to be established by means of a popular revolution. Freedom of the press was to be abolished, and no publications were to be tolerated “which contradicted the sacred principles of equality and the sovereignty of the people,” the steering committee, of course, being empowered to determine what was in contradiction with these principles. There were to be popular elections, but only after equality had been thoroughly established.

This was intended to be a dictatorship for “the transition period between the capitalist and Communist society.” It was to be a proletarian dictatorship, but not the dictatorship of the proletariat, since the proletariat was as yet too ignorant and unable to defend its own interests. It was to be a dictatorship of “little fathers” and spokesmen of the proletariat. The recently coined expression “an educational dictatorship” (Erziehungsdikatur) characterizes well this form of government.

The dictatorship of Babeuf was not designed to be a political state emanating from democracy, the offspring of an adequate high level of working class development, but a form of government which, in view of the backwardness of the proletariat, would seek at all costs to defend the interests of the workers, ruthlessly and in the most extreme manner possible. It emanated from the conviction that democracy as a means of emancipation of the workers must fail because the proletariat itself had failed, because it was incapable of emancipating itself.

The “Conspiracy of Equals” was uncovered and Babeuf was executed (1797). But his conception of the dictatorship of spokesmen of the proletariat as the sole instrument for the realization of Socialism did not die with him. It was the product of certain specific conditions. Capitalist production left the masses of the working people no escape from their misery other than a transition to a Socialist mode of production. Only the power of the state could cope with capital. But under the rule of capital the proletariat found itself immersed in such misery that it lacked the capacity to achieve and to hold political power.

Wherever such conditions have existed and an opportunity arose, or appeared to exist, for the overthrow of the prevailing regime by insurrection, the idea of such a dictatorship made itself manifest, taking its root from the backwardness and helplessness of the working masses, not from any high degree of the proletariat’s intellectual and moral power and independence.

When the labor movement began to develop in France after the revolution of July 1830, the workers turned to the same problem of how to put an immediate end to their misery. Most of them agreed that they had nothing to expect from the bourgeoisie. They wanted to bring about Socialism immediately, by means of their own efforts.

The July revolution stimulated in the workers of Paris the belief in the power of the barricade. This led to a revival of Babeuf’s idea in Blanquism.

But not all Socialists were Blanquistically inclined. Some affiliated themselves with Louis Blanc, who believed fervently in the democratic republic. Were not the poor and disinherited a great majority of the nation? All that was necessary was to provide them with universal, free and equal suffrage, a sovereign parliament and complete freedom of press and organization, and no power in the state could stem their march to Socialism. Louis Blanc failed to perceive, however, that this achievement required a highly developed proletariat, for the development of which there had been little impetus before 1848.

Proudhon was opposed to both these tendencies. He perceived that under the then existing conditions the proletariat could not achieve victory through democracy, but he feared no less the dictatorship of a Socialist minority ruling through an all-powerful state apparatus. He, too, considered the proletariat as he found it, rather than as it might become. He regarded it as incapable of influencing the policy of the state and to master it, and yet he felt that the emancipation of the workers could be accomplished only by the workers themselves. To make this possible he sought to simplify the problem. The workers, he argued, could not pursue an independent state policy of their own; on the other hand, they could master the problem of the individual communities. He thus sought to arrive at Socialism by dissolution of the state into a network of sovereign communities.

These in brief, were the various tendencies dominant among Socialists when Marx began to think as a Socialist. He had never been in doubt as to the hopelessness of bourgeois-philanthropic utopianism. The only Socialism he took seriously was the Socialism emanating from the. labor movement. Very soon, however, he saw also the inadequacy of the three tendencies outlined above. He perceived this inadequacy in the fact that the adherents of each of these tendencies sought to bring about Socialism with the proletariat as they found it a task that was obviously unrealizable.

The utopians and Blanquists likewise realized the inability of the proletariat to bring about Socialism. They saw the need of educating the proletariat to this task, but this education was to be undertaken by leaders superior to and standing above the proletariat. Only with the realization of Socialism would it became possible for the working people to rise to a higher level of development, and thus learn how to govern themselves democratically. The expression “true democracy is possible only under complete Socialism” is not a new revelation but primitive pre-Marxian conception.

Marx discerned the weakness of this form of education of the proletariat by educators self-appointed to the role of Fuehrers, or lifted to dominance and absolute power over itself by an ignorant proletariat through insurrection or in some other way. This would mean making the emancipation of the workers dependent upon historical accidents, quite improbable accidents. For, as a general rule, it was not to be expected that a few Socialist conspirators, supported by a weak, ignorant proletariat, could attain that absolute power necessary for the expropriation of capital, to say nothing of coping with the difficulties of Socialist construction.

Marx perceived that the education required by the proletariat could be made secure not through abnormal circumstances but only as it developed from a phenomenon characteristic of all capitalist states, a phenomenon inexorable in its force and powerful in its effects. This phenomenon was the class contradiction between capital and labor, the class struggle arising inevitably from this contradiction. This class struggle was an incontrovertible fact, regardless of its characterization by liberals and fascists as a Marxian “invention. “

Marx did not invent it. He did not demand it. He merely registered its existence and pointed out its inherent, inescapable consequences. And, as one of those consequences he emphasized the education of the proletariat to democracy and Socialism, which cannot prosper without democracy.

Marx in 1872 divided the countries of Europe into two groups. In one – essentially Anglo-Saxon – it seemed possible that the working class would attain power without violence. In the other group Marx included most of the countries of the continent where the attainment of power without a revolution appeared impossible.

After the rescinding of the Anti-Socialist Law in Germany there came into view a third sub-division. As heretofore it still appeared impossible for the proletariat in the military countries of the continent to come into power without a revolution. But in most of these countries it was now highly desirable to postpone the decisive clash with the state as long as possible. In Russia, on the other hand, it was most imperative that the uprising of the people against the absolutist regime should take place as soon as possible.

 

Dankdude

Well-Known Member
We find, therefore, in the Second International, founded in 1889, whose period covered this new phase of development, three well defined currents. They are geographically distinct and spring from the different types of government prevailing on the continent. Each of them represents an adaptation to conditions, and from a Marxist point of view each was fully justified. Each of them could and did exist alongside the others, but not without some friction.

The human mind craves absolute solutions. It is against its nature to contend with relativities. And so, in each of the three above-mentioned divisions, there were many Socialists who regarded the particular stand on the question of revolution which was suited to their own countries as something that had an absolute validity, independent of space and time. This was enhanced by the brisk international intercourse which made it possible for ideas to circulate even faster than commodities. Born of the three views representing the different sub-divisions, all of which were reconcilable with Marxism, came three factions which opposed one another not only within the International but in some of the separate countries as well.

Nevertheless, from year to year the Socialist parties grew in size, in unity and in intellectual power.
 

Dankdude

Well-Known Member
The Beginning of Bolshevism
Russia, too, could not remain closed to the rise of Marxism and of a Socialist working class party founded upon its ideas. These met with even greater obstacles from the czarist regime than did the earlier socialist parties of non-Marxian character. Another obstacle to Marxian ideas in Russia was her economic backwardness, which delayed considerably the development of large, capitalist, mass industry and with it the growth of an industrial proletariat in the large cities. No less a barrier to the development of a park of working class struggle was the absence of democracy, which made impossible the development of any party activity, any legal mass-organization and a free press.

Added to this was the fact that due to her backwardness Russia retained until about the end of the last century more pronounced traces of a primitive village communism than were to be found anywhere in Europe. Due to these factors, socialist ideas in Russia continued to bear pre-Marxian characteristics for a longer period than in the West. The Russian fighters for liberty and equality inherited socialist tendencies from Western Europe. It was natural for them to see the power for a socialist regeneration of czarist Russia not in the numerically weak city workers but in the great masses of the peasantry. Moreover, the city workers themselves came largely from the village, the bulk of them remaining peasant in their thinking and feeling.

The working masses in the cities and the champions of their interests among the intellectuals, namely the students, were influenced much more by the ideas of a peasant socialism than by Marxism. The development of Marxism in Russia came later than in Western Europe, and the growth of its influence upon the Russian city workers was slow and difficult.

Not until 1898 did the groups who embraced Marxian ideas become sufficiently numerous to venture upon the establishment of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party.

This was a thoroughly Marxian party and brought forth leaders and thinkers who have enriched mightily Marxian thought not only in Russia but throughout the world.

Nevertheless, the peculiar conditions prevailing in Russia remained unfavorable for the development of a consistent Marxism. In Germany, too, it made itself felt effectively only with the rise of her heavy industry and after her political constitution had provided ample opportunity for the creation of free working class organizations, a socialist mass literature, as well as the participation of the masses in strikes and electoral battles. In Russia, even after the establishment of the Social Democratic Labor Party, the industrial workers remained relatively small in numbers, while retaining their peasant viewpoint, without any working class consciousness of their own. Added to this was the fact that only a secret press and secret organizations were possible, which, naturally, could not be developed beyond painfully restricted proportions.

The conditions unfavorable to the development of Marxian socialism remained. Even many of those who considered themselves Marxists fell victim to these conditions. They interpreted Marxism frequently in a rather fanatical sense. And involuntarily they injected into it in increasing measure ideas of a pre-Marxian, Blanquist or Bakuninist coloration.

Outstanding among the Marxists of this character was Vladimir Ulianov, better known as Lenin. He joined the Social Democratic Labor Party at its inception. He accepted its program, having helped formulate it. What first brought him into conflict with the consistent Marxists in the party was the question of party organization. Under the conditions prevailing in czarist Russia this organization was of necessity a secret one. Nevertheless, the intention was to give it a form conducive to the highest possible development of the intellectual and spiritual powers of its members and the promotion of independent thinking among the greatest possible number of the workers. This could be achieved only through closest participation of all party comrades in party work, their intimate contact with the labor movement, i.e. only through the widest possible measure of democracy within the party This was entirely in accord with the ideas of Marx, who at the beginning of the movement regarded democracy less as a means of gaining political power and more as an instrument of education of the masses.

The Communist League, which Marx and Engels joined in 1847, was obliged to be a secret organization under the political circumstances then prevailing on the continent of Europe. And such, indeed, it was at the beginning. Such an organization presupposes the vesting of its leadership with dictatorial power. Marx and Engels declined to accept this, however. They joined the League only after it had ceased to be a conspiracy, although it had been obliged to remain a secret organization due to the absence of all freedom of organization. Engels reports about it as follows:

“The organization (of the Communist League itself was entirely democratic, with elected officials, always subject to removal, thereby putting an end to all urge for conspiracy, which requires dictatorship.” (Introduction to K. Marx, The Cologne Trial, Zurich 1885, p.10)

The First International of 1864, like its predecessor, the Communist League, was also compelled to maintain secret organizations in some countries. Nevertheless, Marx and Engels fought repeatedly against transforming the International into a conspiratory organization, as Mazzini would have it. Marx won over Mazzini. The first International was organized not dictatorially but democractically. Marx was also opposed to the manner in which the General Workingmen’s Association was organized in Germany in 1863, in which Lassalle wielded dictatorial power. In contrast to the Lassalleans, the Eisenach group under Bebel and Liebknecht, who had Marx’s support, was organized in 1869 democratically. The dictatorial form of organization in Germany gave way to the democratic form.

Nevertheless, the urge for a conspiratory organization with unlimited dictatorial power for the leader and blind obedience of the members continued to manifest itself wherever the organization had to be a secret one, where the masses did not as yet possess their own movement and where the political organization was regarded not as a means of educating the proletariat to independence but as a means of obtaining political power at one stroke. Not the class struggle but the putsch, the coup d’etat is thus brought into the foreground of interest, and together with this a form of militarist thinking there is carried into the party organization the kind of thinking which relies upon victory in civil war rather than upon intellectual and economic elevation of the masses. The latter are regarded as mere cannon fodder, whose utilization can be made all the easier the more obedient they are to any command, without independent thought and will of their own.

The Social Democracy of Russia was conceived as a democratic organization, in accordance with Marxian principles. But Lenin soon discovered that this was a mistake. He began to demand ever greater powers for the central organ of the party and increasingly circumscribed powers for the membership.

Paul Axelrod, Vera Zassulitch, Alexander Potresov, Julius Martov and, later, George Plekhanov opposed him. Even Rosa Luxemburg, who was more inclined to side with him in other matters, expressed misgivings on the score of dictatorship which Lenin sought to introduce in the party.

In his pamphlet One Step Forward, Two Steps Back (1904) Lenin went so far as to assert:

“Bureaucratism against democracy – that must be the organizational principle of the revolutionary Social-Democracy against the organizational principle of the opportunists.”

I take the following from a criticism of Lenin by Rosa Luxemburg in Die Neue Zeit (XXII.2). She declared:

“The establishment of centralization in the Social Democracy on the basis of blind obedience, to the very smallest detail, to a central authority, in all matters of party organization and activity; a central authority which does all the thinking, attends to everything and decides everything; a central authority isolating the centre of the party from the surrounding revolutionary milieu-as demanded by Lenin-appears to us as an attempt to transfer mechanically the organizational principles of Blanquist conspiratory workmen’s circles to the Social Democratic mass movement.

“Lenin’s ideas are calculated principally to promote control of party activity and not its development, to foster the limitation rather than the growth, the strangulation rather than the solidarity and expansion of the movement.”

That was how Rosa Luxemburg characterized Leninism from its very beginning

Already in 1904, Rosa Luxemburg discovered that all that dictatorship in the party could accomplish was to stem and stifle the intellectual development of the workers. Yet, it is precisely in the early stages of a labor movement, in which alone a voluntary recognition of the dictatorship of any of its leaders is possible, that the education of the workers to independent thinking and action is far more important than the winning of power by the leaders.

For this reason, as early as 1904, Rosa Luxemburg perceived Leninism as an element inimical to the higher development of the working class. Naturally, she could not then foresee all the destructive influences it carried within itself.

In the meantime, at the very beginning of Leninism, another extremely injurious element became apparent side by side with its strangulations and stifling of the movement.

 

Dankdude

Well-Known Member
Like the God of monotheists, the dictator is a very jealous god. He tolerates no other gods but himself. Those in the party who do not believe in his divine infallibility provoke his fierce hatred. Lenin demanded that the entire working class submit meekly to his leadership. Those in the party who were inclined to show more confidence in other leaders or to defend opinions of their own were regarded by Lenin as the worst possible enemies, to be fought with any and all means.

Hence it was impossible for Lenin, as it is impossible for anyone who would be dictator of a party, to work together with comrades who occasionally differed from him. Hence the impossibility of working at all for any length of time on a level of equality with comrades of character and independence of thought.

Whenever dictatorship assumes powers in a party organism, that organism is bound to deteriorate intellectually, for dictatorship either degrades the best elements, compelling them to surrender their independence, or expels them from the party.

Dictatorship in the party starts out with the idea of bringing about a split in the party. This is apparent in the very nature of dictatorship. The dictator not only declines to combine his organization with other, independent working class organizations into a higher general organism, but he does not even think of cooperating at least occasionally with other socialist parties against the common enemy. Leninism had hardly begun to manifest itself in the Russian Social Democracy when it brought about a split into Mensheviks and Bolsheviks.

Intellectual impoverishment of its own party, obstruction of the intellectual development of the workers, their weakening by prolonged internecine conflict – these were the consequences of the Leninist party dictatorship even before the Russian Revolution of 1917.

That revolution brought with it a fundamental change in all social and political relations.
 

Dankdude

Well-Known Member
Lenin and the Russian Revolution of 1917
The Russian Revolution of March 1917 occurred under circumstances which could not possibly have been more favorable for the socialist parties, even though not for the immediate introduction of Socialism. The czarist governmental machinery was in ruins, the obsolete nobility lay helpless, while the capitalist class, its capital largely of foreign origin, showed itself impotent. All-powerful were only the workers and intellectuals in combination with the peasantry. Among these the Socialists were in overwhelming majority – the Social Revolutionists among the peasants; the Social Democrats, Mensheviks as well as Bolsheviks, among the wage earners and intellectuals.

After the fall of Czarism it appeared self-evident that the various Socialist parties, the Social Democrats and Social Revolutionists would work together in the Soviets, and that the cooperation would embrace both wings of the Social Democracy, Mensheviks and Bolsheviks. And why not? Did not all of them have a common aim: establishment of a democratic republic, the eight hour day, confiscation of the land?

But Lenin disliked intensely any such cooperation with the Socialists. Long before the revolution he had formed his own organization within the Social Democracy. This dual organization was built on military lines and within this organization Lenin had established his own dictatorship. For this reason he had brought about a split in the Russian Social Democracy in 1903 and declared war against all Social Democrats who had refused to pay blind obedience to his leadership.

After the split of 1903 and as late as July, 1914, shortly before the outbreak of the war, Lenin fought bitterly against unity with the Mensheviks. During the war he continued to preach the idea of split not only in the Russian Social Democracy but in the entire Socialist International. For this reason he fought bitterly against any united front of the workers when such a united front became possible after the revolution of 1917.

Lenin was in Switzerland when the revolution of March, 1917, occurred in Russia. He returned to Russia a month after the revolution and found a situation which made him very bitter. Shortly before his arrival there was held an all-Russian conference of Soviets which revealed a very great measure of agreement between the Mensheviks and Bolsheviks.

“There followed at the conclusion of the conference a joint meeting of the Mensheviks and Bolsheviks to discuss unity of both factions. These negotiations were stopped through the arrival of Lenin, who succeeded in turning sharply the wheel of Bolshevist policy, although not without stubborn opposition of many influential Bolsheviks.” [1]

Lenin’s aim in the Russian Revolution was to destroy not only all organs of self-administration, but also all other parties and social organizations, except his own.

To this end he employed falsehood, slander and brutal force against all opponents, among whom he counted all Socialists, except those who were willing to obey his commands. He finally succeeded in smashing all his opponents through his coup d’etat of November 7, 1917.

Nevertheless, efforts were continued by some to bring about a government of all Socialist parties.

“At this time Zinoviev, Kamenev, Rykov, Rjazanov, Lozowski and other prominent Bolsheviks demanded the formation of a Socialist government composed of all Soviet parties. They declared that formation of a purely Bolshevist government would lead to a regime of terror and to the destruction of the revolution and the country.” [2]

But again Lenin won his point in the Bolshevist Parry. He hoped that the elections to the All Russian Constituent Assembly, which were then in progress, would bring him a majority.

Until 1917 the Bolshevist Party regarded the dictatorship within its organization as a means of struggle for democracy in the state, and Lenin’s fight for democracy in the state proceeded along the line of the other socialist parties. Like the latter, as late as 1917, he demanded the convocation of a Constituent Assembly on the basis of universal suffrage.

The elections to the Constituent Assembly revealed that the Bolshevist Party had far from a majority in the Constituent Assembly. But the Socialist parties – Mensheviks, Bolsheviks and Social Revolutionists – constituted an overwhelming majority in the assembly. (The Bolsheviks had approximately one fourth of the membership, the Socialist Revolutionists having a majority. – Ed.) Once more the Bolsheviks had an opportunity to take part in a Socialist united front, which could be the basis of a government supported by the overwhelming majority of the people. A government founded on such a basis and having virtually the entire people behind it would have been in a position to crush without any difficulty any attempt at counterrevolution. In fact, any such attempt would have been nipped in the bud.

Had the Bolsheviks at that time agreed to a united front, Russia would have been spared the three years of civil war and the consequent horrible misery. Peace and freedom would have made possible rapid economic recovery and with it a speedy development of the working class, which in turn, would have promoted the realization of a large measure of Socialist economy and its successful administration. All this would have been possible without dictatorship, without terror, through the democracy of the workers and peasants. To be sure, we cannot say with certainty that this would have actually come to pass, but this was the only road that offered a possibility of obtaining for the people through the revolution as great a measure of liberty and welfare as existing circumstances permitted. But this would have been possible only through the establishment of a revolutionary government supported by the overwhelming majority of the population. Such a government could have been set up only on the basis of a united front of all Socialist parties.

This united front was rendered impossible by the insatiable yearning for power on the part of Lenin and other leaders of the Bolsheviks. They dissolved the Constituent Assembly, which they themselves had previously so passionately championed, and with the help of the politically inexperienced and ignorant soldiery drawn from the disorganized army, whose support they had won by limitless and irresponsible promises, they succeeded in seizing power, by means of which they strengthened their own parry, organized on militarist lines, and crushed completely all their opponents.

The Bolsheviks attained power and have been ruling ever since not through the confidence and support of the majority of the people.

There were two roads open: the road of a Socialist united front or the road of power for the Bolsheviks alone over all other Socialists. It was the Bolsheviks who utilized a favorable combination of circumstances to render impossible any united front in order that they might establish their own dictatorship.

Having established this dictatorship, they inevitably created a situation in which only the mailed fist, unconcerned too much with intellectual and moral restraints, can be victorious.

To emphasize their differentiation from the Social Democracy the Bolsheviks have called themselves Communists since 1918.

Upon the ruins of democracy, for which Lenin had fought until 1917, he erected his political power. Upon these ruins he set up a new militarist-bureaucratic police machinery of state, a new autocracy. This gave him weapons against the other Socialists even more potent than shameless lies. He now had in his hands all the instruments of repression which czarism had used, adding to these weapons also those instruments of oppression which the capitalist, as the owner of the means of production, uses against wage slaves. Lenin now commanded all the means of production, utilizing his state power for the erection of his state capitalism.

No form of capitalism makes the workers so absolutely dependent upon it as centralized state capitalism in a state without an effective democracy. And no political police is so powerful and omnipresent as the Cheka or G.P.U., created by men who had spent many years in fighting the czarist police, and knowing its methods as well as its weaknesses and shortcomings, knew also how to improve upon them.

It would have been absolutely unnecessary to resort to any of these instruments of repression had Lenin agreed to form a coalition with the Mensheviks and Social Revolutionists in 1917. These parties commanded the support of the overwhelming majority of the population, as the elections to the Constituent Assembly had shown. Everything of a truly progressive nature which the Bolsheviks sought at that time to realize was also part of the program of the other Socialist parties and would have been carried out by them, for the people had empowered them to do so. The confiscation of the big landed estates had also been planned by the Social Revolutionists and Mensheviks-they actually put it into effect in Georgia. Abolition of illiteracy, marriage law reform, social welfare measures, children’s homes, public hospitals, shop councils, unemployment insurance and laws for the protection of labor, about all of which such a big-to-do is being made in Soviet Russia, have been attained to a much greater and more perfect degree in capitalist countries where the democracy of labor has won any considerable power. The socialization of heavy industry, insofar as this would have appeared economically advantageous, would likewise have been approved by the majority of the Constituent Assembly.
 
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