When our party took over the government, we knew in advance what
difficulties we had to contend with. Economically the country had been
exhausted by the war to the very utmost. The revolution had destroyed
the old administrative machinery and could not yet create anything to
take its place. Millions of workers had been wrested from their normal
nooks in the national economy of things, declassified, and physically
shattered by the three years' war. The colossal war industries, carried
on on an inadequately prepared national foundation, had drained all the
lifeblood of the people; and their demobilization was attended with
extreme difficulties. The phenomena of economic and political anarchy
spread throughout the country. The Russian peasantry had for centuries
been held together by barbarian national discipline from below and
iron-Czarist rule from above. Economic development had undermined the
former, the revolution destroyed the latter. Psychologically, the
revolution meant the awakening of a sense of human personality among the
peasantry. The anarchic manifestations of this awakening are but the
inevitable results of the preceding oppression. A new order of things,
an order based on the workers' own control of industry, can come only
through gradual and internal elimination of the anarchic manifestations
of the revolution.
On the other hand, the propertied classes, even though deprived of
political power, will not relinquish their advantages without a fight.
The Revolution has brought to a head the question of private property in
land and the tools of production--that is, the question of vital
significance to the exploiting classes. Politically this means
ceaseless, secret or open civil war. In its turn, civil war inevitably
nourishes anarchical tendencies within the workingmen's movement. With
the disorganization of industries, of national finances, of the
transportation and provisioning systems, prolonged civil strife thus
sets up tremendous difficulties in the way of constructive organizing
work. Nevertheless, the Soviet Government can look the future in the
face with perfect confidence. Only a careful inventory of all the
country's resources; only a rational organization of industries--an
organization born of one general plan; only wise and careful
distribution of all the products, can save the country. And this is
Socialism. Either a complete descent to colonial status or a Socialist
resurrection--these are the alternatives before which our country finds
itself.
The war has undermined the soil of the entire capitalistic world. Herein
lies our unconquerable strength. The imperialistic ring that is pressing
around us will lie burst asunder by the proletarian revolution. We do
not doubt this for a minute, any more than we doubted during our decades
of underground struggle the inevitableness of the downfall of Czarism.
To struggle, to unite our forces, to establish industrial discipline and
a Socialist regime, to increase the productivity of labor, and to
press on in the face of all obstacles--this is our mission. History is
working in our favor. The proletarian revolution will flare up, sooner
or later, both in Europe and America, and will bring emancipation not
only to the Ukraine, Poland, Lithuania, Courland, and Finland, but also
to all suffering humanity.