The "dictatorship of the proletariat" appeals to Trotzky, because he
has become virtually the dictator of the proletariat and everything
else in Russia within the power of the "Red Guards" and his Chinese
battalions. These Chinese battalions, recruited from Chinese labourers
employed behind the military lines while Russia was in the war, may be
responsible for some of the "executions" which have taken place. The
Bolshevist emissary, Maxim Litvinoff, pooh-poohs all stories of
massacres. It is generally the dregs of the Chinese population who are
recruited for labour gangs abroad; and if "removals" of
"counter-revolutionaries" can be accomplished by Chinese battalions,
the Bolsheviks can then aver that they have not had a hand in it!
Since the acceptance of the Brest-Litovsk Treaty because Russia could
fight no longer, Trotzky has not only talked of raising Bolshevik
armies, but has succeeded in raising them and officering them by
officers of the old Tsarist régime. What Trotzky would not do against
the German armies he is quite prepared to do against those portions of
Russia that have taken advantage of the self-determination granted by
the Bolshevist Administration. Perhaps the peculiar Bolshevist
philosophy regarding wars of defence is also to apply to neighbouring
States if they do not happen to be strong militarily. You must not
prevent the "self-determination" of any portion of an existing State,
but you may attack it when "self-determined," in the interests of the
"international Social Revolution" and the "dictatorship of the
proletariat." That sort of action, when undertaken by an autocracy, is
usually described as an act of imperialist aggression in order to
divert attention from internal difficulties; and Bolshevism in Russia
is an autocracy--a dictatorship not of the proletariat, but over the
proletariat. It cannot possibly be anything else.
The Russian Revolution of March, 1917, was in many respects similar to
the French Revolution of 1789. It brought the downfall of absolute
monarchy. It was not so bourgeois in character as the French
Revolution, because there was a definite proletarian class in Russia,
though small in comparison with its immense population, and capitalist
production was established. But the Russian Revolution had this
disadvantage compared with the French Revolution--there was
practically no class able to take over the administration in the
interests of the Revolution as with the French; and if that was so
when certain bourgeois elements were with the Revolution, how much
less of administrative knowledge would there be in a Bolshevist
Government over millions of ignorant workers and peasants accustomed
only to a despotic régime, whose "Commissaries" are mainly refugees,
most of whom have lost all real touch with Russian internal affairs?
Bolshevist Inquisition.
There is not the slightest need to accept the capitalist Press of this
or any other country as authoritative on the present condition of
things in Russia. Consult the Bolshevist organs themselves,
particularly the "Izvestya" and "Pravda." They give quite enough
evidence to prove what terrorism prevails, how all freedom of the
Press, speech and public meeting is ruthlessly suppressed. The
following is from "Pravda" of October 8 last:--
"The absence of the necessary restraint makes one feel appalled
at the 'instruction' issued by the All-Russian Extraordinary
Commission to 'All Provincial Extraordinary Commissions,' which
says: 'The All-Russian Extraordinary Commission is perfectly
independent in its work, carrying out house searches, arrests,
executions, of which it _afterwards_ reports to the Council of
the People's Commissaries and to the Central Executive Council.'
Further, the Provincial and District Extraordinary Commissions
'are independent in their activities, and when called upon by
the local Executive Council present a report of their work.' In
so far as house searches and arrests are concerned, a report
made _afterwards_ may result in putting right irregularities
committed owing to lack of restraint. The same cannot be said of
executions.... It can also be seen from the 'instruction' that
personal safety is to a certain extent guaranteed only to
members of the Government, of the Central Council and of the
local Executive Committees. With the exception of these few
persons, all members of the local Committees of the [Bolshevist]
Party, of the Control Committees, and of the Executive Committee
of the Party may be shot at any time by the decision of any
Extraordinary Commission of a small district town if they happen
to be on its territory, and a report of that made _afterwards_."
"Vorwärts," quoting from "Pravda," says that the Bolshevist organ
reports that 13,764 persons have been executed within the last three
months.
As regards the internal economic situation in Russia under Bolshevist
rule, a Russian workman, whose experience has not been confined to
Petrograd and Moscow, makes the following statement in the
"Social-Demokraten" of Stockholm:--
"The output of the factories has decreased by 80 per cent.,
notwithstanding that the Revolutionary Committees stimulate
production with the revolver. The condition of the railways is
worse than ever. All the industrial workmen are against the
Bolsheviks, and the same is the case with the peasants. The
so-called 'Committees of the Poor' are drawn from the small
number of peasants who sought employment in the factories during
the war and have now returned to the country. The only
supporters of the Bolsheviks, apart from the Letts and the
Chinese, are those belonging to their own official caste. The
European Press has rather understated than exaggerated the Red
Terror."
As regards food conditions,[1] the Bolshevist Administration seems to
be thorough and precise in the issue of food-cards of all
descriptions, according to the four categories into which the
population is divided. More food-cards, in fact, appear to have been
issued to the population of Moscow than the population itself, which
was 1,694,971 last April. Restaurants, dining-rooms, etc., are fully
supplied with supplementary food-cards. But what of supplies? They
are, after all, the main thing. Translated into English money and
weight, the prices last September were as follows: Potatoes, 7-1/2d. a
lb.; fresh cabbage, 7d. a lb.; fish (supply diminishing), pickled
herrings from 1s. 9d. to 3s. 3d. a lb.; smoked herrings, from 2s. 4d.
to 4s. each; meat, 7s. 7d. a lb.; pork, 12s. 8d. a lb.; boiled
sausage, 9s. 3d. a lb.; smoked sausage, 11s. 10d. a lb.; milk, of
which there was little, was 2s. 6d. a bottle; cream butter, 25s. 3d. a
lb.; lump sugar, 25s. 3d. a lb. In Petrograd meat was from 9s. 7d. a
lb.; veal, 11s. a lb.; pork, 12s. 7d. a lb.; mutton, 10s. 1d. a lb.
Fish, supplies of which were limited, were about the same prices as at
Moscow. The figures of municipal bread-baking in Petrograd for last
April, May and June were 328,128, 262,075 and 185,222 puds
respectively. A pud is 36 lbs. This indicates a most serious
reduction. According to rations on the bread-cards, which are 3/8 lb.
per day, with the same amount for supplementary cards for workers'
categories, and 1/8 lb. a day per child, the monthly supply for
Petrograd should be 792,000 puds.
In October reports from Tambov, Viatka, Vladimir, Tula and Saratov
indicate that, though supplies of all kinds of grain were fairly good,
the disorganisation of transport was so great that the larger part of
those supplies remained where they were. A number of delegates were
sent to Saratov to obtain 30,000 puds of breadstuffs for twenty-five
workmen's organisations in Moscow. They only succeeded in obtaining
3,000 puds, and they complained most bitterly of "bureaucracy" at the
hands of the Saratov Provincial Food Committee, who kept them waiting
a very long time and finally passed them on to a local Committee who
declined to do anything. They demanded that pressure should be brought
to bear on the Provincial Committee to make them disgorge part of
their large reserves for the starving centre.
Russian Co-operative Societies.
Recently reports and articles have been appearing in certain of the
Labour and capitalist Press favourable to the Bolsheviks, notably the
"Labour Leader," concerning the co-operative movement in Russia. It is
alleged that the growth of the co-operative movement there is evidence
that the Bolshevist Government is really and seriously building up a
new Socialist society despite the grave difficulties within and the
antagonism from without. It is true that the co-operative movement is
going ahead in Russia, but it is not because of, but in spite of,
Bolshevism. The co-operative movement in Russia is not the product of
the Bolshevist Government; it existed and progressed under Tsardom.
The help which the co-operative societies rendered to the Russian
people during the war is beyond all dispute. The majority of the
co-operators in the area under Bolshevist domination are forced to
work with the Bolshevist Soviets in order to save their societies from
dissolution. The co-operative societies in Siberia, representing two
million affiliated families, a population of about ten millions, have
been the backbone of the opposition to the Bolshevist Government east
of the Urals.
Bolshevism in Russia is, in fact, a revival of the Anarchism of
Bakunine, tinged with certain Marxist theories which the Bolshevik
refugees have gathered during their numerous sojourns abroad. It is a
worship of the Revolution to which everything must be sacrificed. In
its adoration of the Goddess of Liberty it is willing-to crush the
freedom of human beings. The change from Tsardom to Bolshevism is, to
use Trotzky's cynical phrase, "the turn of the wheel."
The Bolshevist Government has now dominated the central portion of
European Russia for more than a twelvemonth. It bases its demand for
general recognition on the fact that it has lasted a year without
being overturned, and contends that that proves it has the support of
"Soviet" Russia. The brief statement of internal conditions at Moscow
and Petrograd made above suggests that the reports of terrible food
shortage in those great cities, which come from independent sources,
are not entirely destitute of foundation. And yet the apologists of
the Bolsheviks here assure us that in Russia at the present time we
have a "Socialist Republic of a very high order"!
These facts require to be made thoroughly well known among the working
classes of these islands. The idea is being assiduously put about,
more subterraneously than openly, that there is now established in
Russia a genuine Socialist Republic, or, at all events, a real and
conscious attempt on the part of the workers and peasants of Russia to
establish such a Republic. Given this idea, there is every reason for
a popular agitation to prevent anything being done by the British
Government and its allies to hamper that Socialist Republic in the
early stages of its development. Unfortunately, the utter incapacity
of the recent and present Coalition to come to any definite policy
regarding Russia, and the inclination of some of its members to back
the reactionists, while standing aloof from the real democratic forces
in Russia which support the Constituent Assembly, play completely into
the hands of the Bolsheviks of Russia and their sympathisers here.
Whatever Bolshevist undercurrents there are in the present reckless
strike movements in Glasgow, Belfast and elsewhere are therefore due
in great part to the Governments of Mr. Lloyd George. Nevertheless it
behoves the working class of these islands to take cognisance of the
facts concerning Russia, for they will enable them to realise clearly
the grave mischief that these "unauthorised" strikes are doing, more
to their own class and the country generally than to the capitalists
against whom the efforts of the majority of the strikers are directed.
Bolshevism on the Clyde.
The Clyde is the centre of Bolshevism in Britain, though the spirit of
it is in other parts also. But on the Clyde a number of very
determined and exceedingly well meaning, but "heady," Socialists of
the S.L.P. "impossibilist" type have influenced by sheer persistence a
good many others who do not understand whither they are being led.
Here, again, the "dictatorship of the proletariat" means the dictation
of the proletariat by these "impossibilists," in order to bring
capitalist industry to its knees. For that purpose strikes are to be
brought about as frequently as possible on no matter what pretext,
provided that pretext calls out enough "hands" to paralyse capitalist
industry. It may be increased wages one day, shorter hours the next,
shop conditions the day after, anything that will cause men to "down
tools."
The idea, obviously, is to reduce industry to such a state of chaos
that it becomes absolutely unprofitable to the employers, and thus it
will be easier for the shop committees to take over the "control of
industry" by Soviets from which all "bourgeois" and
"counter-revolutionaries" shall be excluded. Meanwhile, when the
strikes have reached a certain point, the demand shall be made for
Government intervention, which, if granted under vague threats of
terrible things to come, will redound to the power and credit of the
Bolshevist leaders; and if not, and disturbances take place, then the
leaders will be arrested, the revolutionary fires will be lighted on
the Clyde, and will spread over the whole country; the leaders in
question will be released from gaol by enthusiastic "revolutionary"
crowds; and then will follow a glorified transformation scene as in a
pantomime, with the heroes bathed in gorgeous "revolutionary"
lime-light effects. I should not write in this fashion did I not know
that this idea has influenced a few of the most single-minded and
devoted Socialists on the Clyde, and we can only regret that such
really noble spirits should have been unable to keep their heads in
the greatest crisis in the world's history.
The "Dictatorship of the Proletariat" in Operation.
The battle cry of the Russian Bolsheviks and their sympathisers and
would-be imitators elsewhere is the "dictatorship of the proletariat."
Let us consider what that means. Dictatorship means despotism, and
whether it is that of a Tsar or a Kaiser, an oligarchy or a Bolshevik
administration, it is despotism--nothing more and nothing less.
Impatience with the slowness of the mass of the people is only to be
expected in all who see what human existence could be made on this
planet, how enjoyable and pleasurable life might be made by light and
pleasant labour for all, with the vast powers which man now possesses
over Nature. I don't suppose there is a single Socialist who has spent
twenty years of his or her life in the cause of International
Social-Democracy who has not at times wished that the Social
Revolution could be quickly brought about by some benevolent
despotism. That a similar train of thought should have entered the
minds of Russian refugees, driven from a land where political
democracy in any form appeared almost hopeless of achievement, is only
natural, and equally natural that it should have been pursued to its
abstract logical conclusion, inasmuch as, unlike ourselves, they were
not working actually amongst the people day in and day out to
understand how impossible of realisation such a wish must be.
Impatience with the mass--however the Mass may be worshipped--is at
the bottom of the idea of the "dictatorship of the proletariat." They
must be emancipated in spite of themselves. Liberty and democracy can
come afterwards when the Socialist dictators have transformed
capitalist society into the Socialist State. During that
transformation the mass must obey the minority which has seized power;
it must accept as right and just what that minority decrees; it must
abandon liberty of speech and the Press, or at least it must refuse
those liberties to all who do not agree with the actions of the
minority in power. And if the mass don't like it, well----! Are these
not precisely the principles on which Lenin and Trotzky are striving
to create this "Socialist Republic of a very high order"? And are they
not revealed in the attempts of a small minority to impose their will
on the majority during our own strike influenza? Often is it
observable that those who most vehemently denounce the slightest
exercise of power in others have not the faintest objection to using
it ruthlessly themselves. Bolshevism, then, is another phase, and
anything but a pleasant phase, of Utopian Socialism, whatever use of
the name of Karl Marx be made in connection with its advocacy.
The Blind Samson.
The wage-earners constitute by far the largest section of the
community. Their votes, now more than ever, can do much to control the
administration of the country if they will take the trouble to
exercise that control in the direction of securing the thorough
democratisation of the State, so that it may be made ready to organise
the industries of the nation for the common good. The paralysis of
industry will hurt the capitalist employers unquestionably, but it
will certainly not benefit the workers. Blind Samson damaged the
Philistines when he pulled down their temple; but he did not come out
unscathed--quite the contrary. The Social Revolution--i.e., the change
from capitalist production for profit to social production for
use--cannot be made with rose-water; but that is no reason why there
should be blood-letting just for the fun of seeing if red corpuscles
are present in sufficient quantity.
Let them be what they may, the trade unions are the only form of
working-class organisation to-day which can secure for the workers a
decent standard of existence under capitalist conditions of industry.
Anything which tends to weaken them and reduce their influence,
whether in the interests of the employers or for the supposed
advancement of r-r-r-revolutionary proletarian principles, whatever
they may be, will be harmful to the workers. It is for the workers
themselves to see that their trade unions shall be the means of
securing something more than higher wages or even shorter hours of
labour. War conditions have shown what a will-o'-the-wisp are mere
increases of pay; and short hours of labour such as could easily be
arranged under collective organisation of industry, with all the
economies of effort which co-operation would effect, cannot be secured
under capitalism. That surely should be obvious to all who call
themselves Socialists and who have even a passing acquaintance with
economics; otherwise, why the necessity of the Co-operative
Commonwealth? Socialist policy towards the trade unions should be, in
short, not their capture for political purposes, nor their upset for
Bolshevist phantasies, but one of educating the trade unionists. It is
only along that line that the Social-Democratic movement can make real
and steady progress.
The policy of the strike for anything and everything is not only
anti-social; it is anti-Socialist. Writing on the strike outbreak of
1911,[2] I said: "The mass strike is rarely effective, save in a
negative fashion. It is successful mostly when used against some
particular object or for some definite purpose of the moment. It can
be used to break an objectionable agreement; it may prevent the
putting into force of an unpopular law, or the passing of some
tyrannical measure; it may check an attempt to suppress popular
liberties, such as they are; and it may prove the best possible means
of preventing war between two countries, if action in that direction
be taken equally in both countries. But as _the_ means for the
overthrow of the capitalist system and the establishment of the
Socialist Republic it is useless. Those who rely upon the general
strike as _the_ means for the realisation of Social-Democracy are like
the ancient Gauls, of whom it is said that they shook all States and
founded none."
Sporadic and Lightning Strikes Anti-Social and Anti-Socialist.
What applied to the strike movement of 1911 applies with even greater
force to the present strike ebullitions, in which the presence of
Russian Bolsheviks is to be noted. This is all in accordance with the
Bolshevist plan of "world revolution" for which roubles are being
plentifully furnished, mainly through agents in Sweden. The prevailing
idea is to pull down bourgeois society, no matter what the
consequences. If conditions generally in the countries of Europe under
capitalism to-day were like what they were here a century ago, coupled
with an absolute monarchical tyranny such as that which existed until
recently in Russia, then there might be something to be said for the
destruction of bourgeois society by any means that would bring it
down. Nothing under such conditions could be worse for the mass of the
people. But with the destruction of the State in these islands would
go the trade unions built up by years of solid labour and sacrifice,
the co-operative societies, just now beginning to take a wider outlook
on things than mere "divi." hunting, and the democratic political
institutions of which the people can make far more use than they do
when they choose to exercise their intelligence and bestir their
energies. Then the increasingly complicated nature of production,
distribution and exchange has also to be considered. A piece of grit
will often throw elaborate and delicate machinery out of gear, but we
do not regard it as a revolutionary agent on that account. The control
of a few engineering workshops by shop stewards, puffed out with
vanity and a "little brief authority," will not provide the food
necessary to feed the people of these islands. We have, too, an
indication of the spirit of liberty with which they are animated in
the massed picketing at Glasgow, not against blacklegs and
non-unionists, but against fellow trade unionists who refused to aid
"unauthorised strikes."
I have said that these "down tools" outbursts are anti-Socialist. They
are anti-Socialist because they are anarchical. They may pull down,
but they cannot build up. Socialism and Socialists have suffered
enough during the war because of the freaks and cranks that the war
discovered among us, and the greater number of the same genus who now
profess to be Socialists without understanding much, if anything,
about the Socialist movement. We do not want further prejudice raised
against us by attempts to connect us with anarchical violence,
hooliganism and looting. Nothing for the benefit of the people can
possibly come out of what is now going on. All it will do is to help
reaction, and make even the majority of the working class ready to
acquiesce in a mild military dictatorship as a lesser evil than
Bolshevist tyranny and violence. And there are some British Generals
who are popular, and who are not merely militarists!
There is no royal road to the Social Revolution. The steady and
patient work of Socialist propaganda and organisation together with
the pressing forward of thorough-going collectivist proposals for the
ownership and control of industry for the common good, and the
imagination to take advantage of everything that will help forward the
great change from capitalist production for profit to Socialist
production for use--those are the lines we must follow. All the
imaginary shortcuts of the impatient ones, which lead to anarchical
deserts or reactionary morasses, serve only to retard real
Social-Democratic progress.