February 13, 1919.
"BOLSHEVISM":
A Curse and a Danger to the Workers.
Russia has given most countries of the world a new word. "Bolshevism"
is to-day known universally, though its meaning is not by any means so
universal. In Russia it has a very definite and often striking
meaning, as many anti-Bolsheviks have known and are learning to their
cost. Elsewhere it has a wider, if looser, significance, and is
frequently employed to express or describe a number of things to which
one objects. Our own Press, for instance, flings "Bolshevik" and
"Bolshevism" at everybody and everything that it denounces, or against
whom and which it seeks to raise prejudice. In this respect it has
often overreached itself, for it is causing some to accept the Russian
Bolsheviks at their own estimation, because they know that many of the
things styled "Bolshevist" are not as bad as they are made out to be.
In Russia "Bolshevik" means majority, and "Menshevik" minority. Their
real significance was purely an internal one for the Russian
Social-Democratic Party. It is important to make this point clear, for
now and again we come across British supporters of and sympathisers
with the Russian Bolsheviks who take the name as a proof that the
Government of Lenin and Trotzky actually represents the majority of
the Russian people! Nothing is more contrary to the fact. The
Bolshevist "coup de rue" of November, 1917, was as complete a
usurpation of power as that of Louis Napoleon in 1851. True it was a
usurpation by professed Socialists, supposedly in the interests of the
Russian working class, but it was no less a usurpation and an attack
on democracy which only success in the interests of the Russian
working class could possibly justify. The forcible dissolution of the
Constituent Assembly by the Bolsheviks two months afterwards, because
the elections did not go in their favour, compelled them to take the
road to complete domination, and they are now unable to retrace their
steps, even if, as is reported, the more honest of them wish to do so.
Bolsheviks, Mensheviks, and Social Revolutionaries.
The terms "Bolshevik" and "Menshevik" (majority and minority) arose
from the division in the Russian Social-Democracy which had shown
itself at the Congress held in London in 1903. The difference is
generally assumed to be one of tactics--of a readiness to co-operate
with other parties for certain definite objects under certain special
conditions ("Menshevik"), or of complete antagonism and opposition to
all other parties every time and all the time ("Bolshevik"). But the
difference lies deeper than that. "Bolshevism" is, in effect, the
Russian form of "impossibilism." From this the thorough-going
Social-Democrats of all countries have to suffer at times. By
divorcing the application of Socialist principles and measures from
the actual life of the day, and arguing and discussing "in vacuo,"
impossibilism drives many, who see the utter sterility of its results,
into the opposite direction, that of opportunism for the moment
without much thought for the future.
Until their "coup de rue" of November, 1917, the Russian Bolsheviks
regarded themselves as the extreme Left of the Russian Social-Democratic
Party. But latterly they have dropped the name Social-Democrat--so much
the better for Social-Democracy--and have adopted that of the "Russian
Communist Party"--so much the worse for Communism, for towards
Communism the Social-Democratic Commonwealths of the future are bound
to tend. "Bolshevism" to-day, where it is honest, is in the main a
revival of the Anarchism of Bakunine, together with a policy of armed
insurrection, and a seizure of political power which shall install the
"dictatorship of the proletariat." That is the dividing line between
the Bolsheviks and their Social-Democratic opponents, the Mensheviks,
and their far more numerous and powerful antagonists, the Social
Revolutionaries, who obtained an overwhelming majority in the
Constituent Assembly which the Bolsheviks dissolved by force. The
Social Revolutionaries seek the emancipation of the peasants and
workers by democratic means--the only safe and sure way--though they
were quite ready to use force for the overthrow of Tsardom, happily
effected in March, 1917. Unhappily, though, Bolshevik terrorism, with
its complete inability to carry out its promises of "peace and bread"
for the Russian people, and certain European financial interests are
together rehabilitating reaction in Russia, and the people and the
peasants may be driven to put up with some new autocratic régime in the
hope that it may shield them from the present terrorism and secure them
something to eat.
Bolshevist Intolerance.
Innumerable instances could be given of the bitter intolerance of the
honest Bolshevik fanatics towards all sections of the International
Socialist movement with which they have not agreed. Paul Axelrod, one
of the founders of Russian Social-Democracy, in a pamphlet published at
Zürich in 1915, entitled "The Crisis and the Duties of International
Social-Democracy," reproaches Lenin with seeking to carry into the
internal struggles of the Socialist Parties in Europe "specifically
Russian methods" which aim directly at creating troubles and divisions,
and branding without any distinction "nearly all the known and
respected bodies of International Social-Democracy as traitors and
deserters stranded in the bourgeois camp, treating these comrades,
whose international conscience and sentiments are above all suspicion,
as National Liberals, chauvinists, philistines, traitors, etc." Is this
the way in which to raise the enthusiasm of the workers for the cause
of Socialism? Is this the manner in which the spirit of self-sacrifice
can be roused in the masses? It savours far too much of the old
implacable bitterness of the Terrorists--reasonable and natural enough
in their secret conspiracies, where a fellow-conspirator might be a
police agent--but utterly out of place and mischievous when introduced
into open propaganda and organisation.
To this jaundiced outlook of the prominent Bolsheviks is added
ignorance of administration. Nearly all of them are refugees who have
spent many years of their lives outside of Russia. They have evolved
theories of Socialist policy from their inner consciousness without an
opportunity of putting them to practical tests--until now, when the
world is in the throes of a war crisis. And they attempt to apply
their theories of the "dictatorship of the proletariat" in a vast
nation made up of various races in different stages of civilisation,
only just entering upon full capitalist development, where the
proletariat, the wage workers, constitute fewer than 20,000,000 out of
a total population of 180,000,000! And yet there are supporters of the
Bolsheviks in Britain who profess to be Marxists--more Marxist than
Marx, in fact--and who can countenance such a logical outrage on the
"materialist conception of history"!
Offensive and Defensive Wars.
Nothing better illustrates the unreality of some of Lenin's theories
than his attitude on national self-defence. In 1915 he and Zinovieff,
another well-known Bolshevik, published a pamphlet on "Socialism and
the War." One chapter dealt with "A War of Defence and a War of
Attack." It contains this passage:--"If to-morrow, for example,
Morocco were to go to war against France, the Indies against England,
and China against Russia, they would be wars of defence, just wars,
independently of any question of which began the war." Being "wars of
defence, just wars," the people would obviously be justified in taking
part in them from Lenin's point of view. Now let us see where the
logic of this contention will land us. Morocco, possibly because what
capitalism is there is foreign, may justly wage war against France;
but if France fights a war of defence against an aggressive attack by
Germany, she is engaged in an "imperialist war." Similarly, if India
rises against Britain, the people will be fighting a just war; but if
Britain supports France and Belgium against German imperialism, she is
carrying on an "imperialist war." Hence it follows that, if the
Central Powers had won the war, and Belgium had been subjugated by
Germany, Belgium would have been fully justified in fighting to
recover her independence; but in defending that independence which she
would have a right to recover, if deprived of it, she was taking part
in an "imperialist war "! Such is Leninist logic when brought down to
actual facts.
In short, Lenin, like Bakunine, loves ideas more than men. This may be
said of all the honest Bolshevist fanatics. There are others--many of
them. And even the genuine fanatics appear to have reached a stage of
mental "impossibilism" where the end not only justifies the means, but
any means must necessarily help to achieve the end. We know the
Bolsheviks were conveyed to Russia in April, 1917, via Germany in
sealed carriages with the consent of the German authorities. The Swiss
Bolshevik, Platten, arranged the affair with the German Government.
That the German Government expected that the Bolshevist mission to
Russia would be of advantage to Germany cannot be questioned;
otherwise the Bolshevist refugees would not have been allowed to go to
Petrograd through Germany. The Bolsheviks themselves knew that their
actions in the Russian Revolution would help Imperialist Germany, for
the "Berner Tagwacht" announced, after they had left Switzerland, that
they were "perfectly well aware that the German Government is only
permitting the transit of those persons because it believes that their
presence in Russia will strengthen the anti-war tendencies there." It
is the same with whatever money was supplied by Germany to the
Bolsheviks. It would all help to establish the "dictatorship of the
proletariat."
It is necessary to refer also to Leo Trotzky. Some who are convinced
of Lenin's honesty of purpose do not hold the same view of Trotzky.
Lenin is the implacable theorist in whose nostrils compromise of any
sort stinks. Trotzky is not of that character. He is much more
adaptable. And he has changed opinions on war issues more than once
during the war. In the autumn of 1914 or the beginning of 1915,
Trotzky wrote a brilliant pamphlet, "Der Krieg und die Internationale"
("The War and the International"). In that pamphlet he boldly declared
that the break-up of the Austro-Hungarian Empire was a necessity.
While ridiculing defensive wars, he nevertheless wrote: "The more
obstinate the resistance of France--and now, truly, it is her duty to
protect her territory and her independence against the German
attack--the more surely does she hold, and will hold, the German army
on the Western front." Again: "The victory of Germany over France--a
very regrettable strategic necessity in the opinion of German
Social-Democracy--would signify first of all not merely the defeat of
the permanent army under a democratic republican régime, but the
victory of the feudal and monarchical constitution over the
democratic and republican constitution." Thus wrote Trotzky while
still a Social-Democrat, before he became a Bolshevist dictator. How,
then, can he denounce France for fighting an "imperialist war," or
Britain for helping her to prevent a "victory of the feudal and
monarchical constitution over the democratic and republican
constitution"?