The Paris Commune of 1871 was the first, as yet weak, historic attempt
of the working class to impose its supremacy. We cherished the memory
of the Commune in spite of the extremely limited character of its
experience, the immaturity of its participants, the confusion of its
programme, the lack of unity amongst its leaders, the indecision of
their plans, the hopeless panic of its executive organs, and the
terrifying defeat fatally precipitated by all these. We cherish in the
Commune, in the words of Lavrov, "the first, though still pale, dawn
of the proletarian republic." Quite otherwise with Kautsky. Devoting a
considerable part of his book to a crudely tendencious contrast
between the Commune and the Soviet power, he sees the main advantages
of the Commune in features that we find are its misfortune and its
fault.
Kautsky laboriously proves that the Paris Commune of 1871 was not
"artificially" prepared, but emerged unexpectedly, taking the
revolutionaries by surprise--in contrast to the November revolution,
which was carefully prepared by our party. This is incontestable. Not
daring clearly to formulate his profoundly reactionary ideas, Kautsky
does not say outright whether the Paris revolutionaries of 1871
deserve praise for not having foreseen the proletarian insurrection,
and for not having foreseen the inevitable and consciously gone to
meet it. However, all Kautsky's picture was built up in such a way as
to produce in the reader just this idea: the Communards were simply
overtaken by misfortune (the Bavarian philistine, Vollmar, once
expressed his regret that the Communards had not gone to bed instead
of taking power into their hands), and, therefore, deserve pity. The
Bolsheviks consciously went to meet misfortune (the conquest of
power), and, therefore, there is no forgiveness for them either in
this or the future world. Such a formulation of the question may seem
incredible in its internal inconsistency. None the less, it follows
quite inevitably from the position of the Kautskian "Independents,"
who draw their heads into their shoulders in order to see and foresee
nothing; and, if they do move forward, it is only after having
received a preliminary stout blow in the rear.
"To humiliate Paris," writes Kautsky, "not to give it self-government,
to deprive it of its position as capital, to disarm it in order
afterwards to attempt with greater confidence a monarchist _coup
d'etat_--such was the most important task of the National Assembly
and the chief of the executive power it elected, Thiers. Out of this
situation arose the conflict which led to the Paris insurrection.
"It is clear how different from this was the character of the _coup
d'etat_ carried out by the Bolsheviks, which drew its strength from
the yearning for peace; which had the peasantry behind it; which had
in the National Assembly against it, not monarchists, but S.R.s and
Menshevik Social-Democrats.
"The Bolsheviks came to power by means of a well-prepared _coup
d'etat_; which at one blow handed over to them the whole machinery
of the State--immediately utilized in the most energetic and merciless
manner for the purpose of suppressing their opponents, amongst them
their proletarian opponents.
"No one, on the other hand, was more surprised by the insurrection of
the Commune than the revolutionaries themselves, and for a
considerable number amongst them the conflict was in the highest
degree undesirable." (Page 56.)
In order more clearly to realize the actual sense of what Kautsky has
written here of the Communards, let us bring forward the following
evidence.
"On March 1, 1871," writes Lavrov, in his very instructive book on the
Commune, "six months after the fall of the Empire, and a few days
before the explosion of the Commune, the guiding personalities in the
Paris International still had no definite political programme." (Pages
64-65.)
"After March 18," writes the same author, "Paris was in the hands of
the proletariat, but its leaders, overwhelmed by their unexpected
power, did not take the most elementary measures." (Page 71.)
"'Your part is too big for you to play, and your sole aim is to get
rid of responsibility,' said one member of the Central Committee of
the National Guard. In this was a great deal of truth," writes the
Communard and historian of the Commune, Lissagaray. "But at the moment
of action itself the absence of preliminary organization and
preparation is very often a reason why parts are assigned to men which
are too big for them to play." (Brussels, 1876; page 106.)
From this one can already see (later on it will become still more
obvious) that the absence of a direct struggle for power on the part
of the Paris Socialists was explained by their theoretical
shapelessness and political helplessness, and not at all by higher
considerations of tactics.
We have no doubt that Kautsky's own loyalty to the traditions of the
Commune will be expressed mainly in that extraordinary surprise with
which he will greet the proletarian revolution in Germany as "a
conflict in the highest degree undesirable." We doubt, however,
whether this will be ascribed by posterity to his credit. In reality,
one must describe his historical analogy as a combination of
confusion, omission, and fraudulent suggestion.
The intentions which were entertained by Thiers towards Paris were
entertained by Miliukov, who was openly supported by Tseretelli and
Chernov, towards Petrograd. All of them, from Kornilov to Potressov,
affirmed day after day that Petrograd had alienated itself from the
country, had nothing in common with it, was completely corrupted, and
was attempting to impose its will upon the community. To overthrow and
humiliate Petrograd was the first task of Miliukov and his assistants.
And this took place at a period when Petrograd was the true centre of
the revolution, which had not yet been able to consolidate its
position in the rest of the country. The former president of the Duma,
Rodzianko, openly talked about handing over Petrograd to the Germans
for educative purposes, as Riga had been handed over. Rodzianko only
called by its name what Miliukov was trying to carry out, and what
Kerensky assisted by his whole policy.
Miliukov, like Thiers, wished to disarm the proletariat. More than
that, thanks to Kerensky, Chernov, and Tseretelli, the Petrograd
proletariat was to a considerable extent disarmed in July, 1917. It
was partially re-armed during Kornilov's march on Petrograd in August.
And this new arming was a serious element in the preparation of the
November insurrection. In this way, it is just the points in which
Kautsky contrasts our November revolution to the March revolt of the
Paris workers that, to a very large extent, coincide.
In what, however, lies the difference between them? First of all, in
the fact that Thiers' criminal plans succeeded: Paris was throttled by
him, and tens of thousands of workers were destroyed. Miliukov, on the
other hand, had a complete fiasco: Petrograd remained an impregnable
fortress of the proletariat, and the leader of the bourgeoisie went to
the Ukraine to petition that the Kaiser's troops should occupy Russia.
For this difference we were to a considerable extent responsible--and
we are ready to bear the responsibility. There is a capital difference
also in the fact--that this told more than once in the further course
of events--that, while the Communards began mainly with considerations
of patriotism, we were invariably guided by the point of view of the
international revolution. The defeat of the Commune led to the
practical collapse of the First International. The victory of the
Soviet power has led to the creation of the Third International.
But Marx--on the eve of the insurrection--advised the Communards not
to revolt, but to create an organization! One might understand Kautsky
if he adduced this evidence in order to show that Marx had
insufficiently gauged the acuteness of the situation in Paris. But
Kautsky attempts to exploit Marx's advice as a proof of his
condemnation of insurrection in general. Like all the mandarins of
German Social-Democracy, Kautsky sees in organization first and
foremost a method of hindering revolutionary action.
But limiting ourselves to the question of organization as such, we
must not forget that the November revolution was preceded by nine
months of Kerensky's Government, during which our party, not without
success, devoted itself not only to agitation, but also to
organization. The November revolution took place after we had achieved
a crushing majority in the Workers' and Soldiers' Councils of
Petrograd, Moscow, and all the industrial centres in the country, and
had transformed the Soviets into powerful organizations directed by
our party. The Communards did nothing of the kind. Finally, we had
behind us the heroic Commune of Paris, from the defeat of which we had
drawn the deduction that revolutionaries must foresee events and
prepare for them. For this also we are to blame.
Kautsky requires his extensive comparison of the Commune and Soviet
Russia only in order to slander and humiliate a living and victorious
dictatorship of the proletariat in the interests of an attempted
dictatorship, in the already fairly distant past.
Kautsky quotes with extreme satisfaction the statement of the Central
Committee of the National Guard on March 19 in connection with the
murder of the two generals by the soldiery. "We say indignantly: the
bloody filth with the help of which it is hoped to stain our honor is
a pitiful slander. We never organized murder, and never did the
National Guard take part in the execution of crime."
Naturally, the Central Committee had no cause to assume responsibility
for murders with which it had no concern. But the sentimental,
pathetic tone of the statement very clearly characterises the
political timorousness of these men in the face of bourgeois public
opinion. Nor is this surprising. The representatives of the National
Guard were men in most cases with a very modest revolutionary past.
"Not one well-known name," writes Lissagaray. "They were petty
bourgeois shop-keepers, strangers to all but limited circles, and, in
most cases, strangers hitherto to politics." (Page 70.)
"The modest and, to some extent, fearful sense of terrible historical
responsibility, and the desire to get rid of it as soon as possible,"
writes Lavrov of them, "is evident in all the proclamations of this
Central Committee, into the hands of which the destiny of Paris had
fallen." (Page 77.)
After bringing forward, to our confusion, the declamation concerning
bloodshed, Kautsky later on follows Marx and Engels in criticizing the
indecision of the Commune. "If the Parisians (_i.e._, the Communards)
had persistently followed up the tracts of Thiers, they would,
perhaps, have managed to seize the government. The troops falling back
from Paris would not have shown the least resistance ... but they let
Thiers go without hindrance. They allowed him to lead away his troops
and reorganize them at Versailles, to inspire a new spirit in, and
strengthen, them." (Page 49.)
Kautsky cannot understand that it was the same men, and for the very
same reasons, who published the statement of March 19 quoted above,
who allowed Thiers to leave Paris with impunity and gather his forces.
If the Communards had _conquered_ with the help of resources of a
purely moral character, their statement would have acquired great
weight. But this did not take place. In reality, their sentimental
humaneness was simply the obverse of their revolutionary passivity.
The men who, by the will of fate, had received power in Paris, could
not understand the necessity of immediately utilizing that power to
the end, of hurling themselves after Thiers, and, before he recovered
his grasp of the situation, of crushing him, of concentrating the
troops in their hands, of carrying out the necessary weeding-out of
the officer class, of seizing the provinces. Such men, of course, were
not inclined to severe measures with counter-revolutionary elements.
The one was closely bound up with the other. Thiers could not be
followed up without arresting Thiers' agents in Paris and shooting
conspirators and spies. When one considered the execution of
counter-revolutionary generals as an indelible "crime," one could not
develop energy in following up troops who were under the direction of
counter-revolutionary generals.
In the revolution in the highest degree of energy is the highest
degree of humanity. "Just the men," Lavrov justly remarks, "who hold
human life and human blood dear must strive to organize the
possibility for a swift and decisive victory, and then to act with the
greatest swiftness and energy, in order to crush the enemy. For only
in this way can we achieve the minimum of inevitable sacrifice and the
minimum of bloodshed." (Page 225.)
The statement of March 19 will, however, be considered with more
justice if we examine it, not as an unconditional confession of faith,
but as the expression of transient moods the day after an unexpected
and bloodless victory. Being an absolute stranger to the understanding
of the dynamics of revolution, and the internal limitations of its
swiftly-developing moods, Kautsky thinks in lifeless schemes, and
distorts the perspective of events by arbitrarily selected analogies.
He does not understand that soft-hearted indecision is generally
characteristic of the masses in the first period of the revolution.
The workers pursue the offensive only under the pressure of iron
necessity, just as they have recourse to the Red Terror only under the
threat of destruction by the White Guards. That which Kautsky
represents as the result of the peculiarly elevated moral feeling of
the Parisian proletariat in 1871 is, in reality, merely a
characteristic of the first stage of the civil war. A similar
phenomenon could have been witnessed in our case.
In Petrograd we conquered power in November, 1917, almost without
bloodshed, and even without arrests. The ministers of Kerensky's
Government were set free very soon after the revolution. More, the
Cossack General, Krasnov, who had advanced on Petrograd together with
Kerensky after the power had passed to the Soviet, and who had been
made prisoner by us at Gatchina, was set free on his word of honor the
next day. This was "generosity" quite in the spirit of the first
measures of the Commune. But it was a mistake. Afterwards, General
Krasnov, after fighting against us for about a year in the South, and
destroying many thousands of Communists, again advanced on Petrograd,
this time in the ranks of Yudenich's army. The proletarian revolution
assumed a more severe character only after the rising of the junkers
in Petrograd, and particularly after the rising of the Czecho-Slovaks
on the Volga organized by the Cadets, the S.R.s, and the Mensheviks,
after their mass executions of Communists, the attempt on Lenin's
life, the murder of Uritsky, etc., etc.
The same tendencies, only in an embryonic form, we see in the history
of the Commune.
Driven by the logic of the struggle, it took its stand in principle on
the path of intimidation. The creation of the Committee of Public
Safety was dictated, in the case of many of its supporters, by the
idea of the Red Terror. The Committee was appointed "to cut off the
heads of traitors" (Journal Officiel No. 123), "to avenge treachery"
(No. 124). Under the head of "intimidatory" decrees we must class the
order to seize the property of Thiers and of his ministers, to destroy
Thiers' house, to destroy the Vendome column, and especially the
decree on hostages. For every captured Communard or sympathizer with
the Commune shot by the Versaillese, three hostages were to be shot.
The activity of the Prefecture of Paris controlled by Raoul Rigault
had a purely terroristic, though not always a useful, purpose.
The effect of all these measures of intimidation was paralyzed by the
helpless opportunism of the guiding elements in the Commune, by their
striving to reconcile the bourgeoisie with the _fait accompli_ by
the help of pitiful phrases, by their vacillations between the fiction
of democracy and the reality of dictatorship. The late Lavrov
expresses the latter idea splendidly in his book on the Commune.
"The Paris of the rich bourgeois and the poor proletarians, as a
political community of different classes, demanded, in the name of
liberal principles, complete freedom of speech, of assembly, of
criticism of the government, etc. The Paris which had accomplished the
revolution in the interests of the proletariat, and had before it the
task of realizing this revolution in the shape of institutions, Paris,
as the community of the emancipated working-class proletariat,
demanded revolutionary--_i.e._, dictatorial, measures against the
enemies of the new order." (Pages 143-144.)
If the Paris Commune had not fallen, but had continued to exist in the
midst of a ceaseless struggle, there can be no doubt that it would
have been obliged to have recourse to more and more severe measures
for the suppression of the counter-revolution. True, Kautsky would not
then have had the possibility of contrasting the humane Communards
with the inhumane Bolsheviks. But in return, probably, Thiers, would
not have had the possibility of inflicting his monstrous bloodletting
upon the proletariat of Paris. History, possibly, would not have been
the loser.