A LABOR GOVERNMENT IN RUSSIA AND SOCIALISM
The objective prerequisites of a Social revolution, as we have shown
above, have been already created by the economic progress of advanced
capitalist countries. But how about Russia? Is it possible to think that
the seizure of power by the Russian proletariat would be the beginning
of a Socialist reconstruction of our national economy?
A year ago we thus answered this question in an article which was
mercilessly bombarded by the organs of both our factions. We wrote:
"The workingmen of Paris, says Marx, had not expected miracles from the
Commune. We cannot expect miracles from a proletarian dictatorship now.
Governmental power is not almighty. It is folly to think that once the
proletariat has seized power, it would abolish capitalism and introduce
socialism by a number of decrees. The economic system is not a product
of state activity. What the proletariat will be able to do is to
shorten economic evolution towards Collectivism through a series of
energetic state measures.
"The starting point will be the reforms enumerated in our so-called
minimum program. The very situation of the proletariat, however, will
compel it to move along the way of collectivist practice.
"It will be comparatively easy to introduce the eight hour workday and
progressive taxation, though even here the center of gravity is not the
issuance of a 'decree,' but the organization of its practical
application. It will be difficult, however,--and here we pass to
Collectivism--to organize production under state management in such
factories and plants as would be closed down by their owners in protest
against the new law.
"It will be comparatively simple to issue a law abolishing the right of
inheritance, and to put it into operation. Inheritances in the form of
money capital will not embarrass the proletariat and not interfere with
its economy. To be, however, the inheritor of capital invested in land
and industry, would mean for a labor government to organize economic
life on a public basis.
"The same phenomenon, on a vastly larger scale, is represented by the
question of expropriation (of land), with or without compensation.
Expropriation with compensation has political advantages, but it is
financially difficult; expropriation without compensation has financial
advantages, but it is difficult politically. Greater than all the other
difficulties, however, will be those of an economic nature, the
difficulties of organization.
"To repeat: a labor government does not mean a government of miracles.
"Public management will begin in those branches where the difficulties
are smallest. Publicly managed enterprises will originally represent
kind of oases linked with private enterprises by the laws of exchange of
commodities. The wider the field of publicly managed economy will grow,
the more flagrant its advantages will become, the firmer will become the
position of the new political regime, and the more determined will be
the further economic measures of the proletariat. Its measures it will
base not only on the national productive forces, but also on
international technique, in the same way as it bases its revolutionary
policies not only on the experience of national class relations but also
on the entire historic experience of the international proletariat."
_Political supremacy of the proletariat is incompatible with its
economic slavery._ Whatever may be the banner under which the
proletariat will find itself in possession of power, it will be
compelled to enter the road of Socialism. It is the greatest Utopia to
think that the proletariat, brought to the top by the mechanics of a
bourgeois revolution, would be able, even if it wanted, to limit its
mission by creating a republican democratic environment for the social
supremacy of the bourgeoisie. Political dominance of the proletariat,
even if it were temporary, would extremely weaken the resistance of
capital which is always in need of state aid, and would give momentous
opportunities to the economic struggle of the proletariat.
A proletarian regime will immediately take up the agrarian question with
which the fate of vast millions of the Russian people is connected. In
solving this, as many another question, the proletariat will have in
mind the main tendency of its economic policy: to get hold of a widest
possible field for the organization of a Socialist economy. The forms
and the tempo of this policy in the agrarian question will be
determined both by the material resources that the proletariat will
be able to get hold of, and by the necessity to cooerdinate its
actions so as not to drive possible allies into the ranks of the
counter-revolution.
It is evident that the _agrarian_ question, i.e., the question of rural
economy and its social relations, is not covered by the _land_ question
which is the question of the forms of land ownership. It is perfectly
clear, however, that the solution of the land question, even if it does
not determine the future of the agrarian evolution, would undoubtedly
determine the future agrarian policy of the proletariat. In other words,
the use the proletariat will make of the land must be in accord with its
general attitude towards the course and requirements of the agrarian
evolution. The land question will, therefore, be one of the first to
interest the labor government.
One of the solutions, made popular by the Socialist-Revolutionists, is
the _socialization of the land_. Freed from its European make-up, it
means simply "equal distribution" of land. This program demands an
expropriation of all the land, whether it is in possession of landlords,
of peasants on the basis of private property, or it is owned by village
communities. It is evident that such expropriation, being one of the
first measures of the new government and being started at a time when
capitalist exchange is still in full swing, would lead the peasants to
believe that they are "victims of the reform." One must not forget that
the peasants have for decades made redemption payments in order to turn
their land into private property; many prosperous peasants have made
great sacrifices to secure a large portion of land as their private
possession. Should all this land become state property, the most bitter
resistance would be offered by the members of the communities and by
private owners. Starting out with a reform of this kind, the government
would make itself most unpopular among the peasants.
And why should one confiscate the land of the communities and the land
of small private owners? According to the Socialist-Revolutionary
program, the only use to be made of the land by the state is to turn it
over to all the peasants and agricultural laborers on the basis of equal
distribution. This would mean that the confiscated land of the
communities and small owners would anyway return to individuals for
private cultivation. Consequently, there would be _no economic gain_ in
such a confiscation and redistribution. _Politically_, it would be a
great blunder on the part of the labor government as it would make the
masses of peasants hostile to the proletarian leadership of the
revolution.
Closely connected with this program is the question of hired
agricultural labor. Equal distribution presupposes the prohibition of
using hired labor on farms. This, however, can be only a _consequence_
of economic reforms, it cannot be decreed by a law. It is not enough to
forbid an agricultural capitalist to hire laborers; one must first
secure agricultural laborers a fair existence; furthermore, this
existence must be profitable from the viewpoint of social economy. To
declare equal distribution of land and to forbid hired labor, would mean
to compel agricultural proletarians to settle on small lots, and to put
the state under obligation to provide them with implements for their
socially unprofitable production.
It is clear that the intervention of the proletariat in the organization
of agriculture ought to express itself not in settling individual
laborers on individual lots, but in organizing _state or communal
management of large estates_. Later, when socialized production will
have established itself firmly, a further step will be made towards
socialization by forbidding hired labor. This will eliminate small
capitalistic enterprises in agriculture; it will, however, leave
unmolested those private owners who work their land wholly or to a great
extent by the labor of their families. To expropriate such owners can by
no means be a desire of the Socialistic proletariat.
The proletariat can never indorse a program of "equal distribution"
which on one hand demands a useless, purely formal expropriation of
small owners, and on the other hand it demands a very real parceling of
large estates into small lots. This would be a wasteful undertaking, a
pursuance of a reactionary and Utopian plan, and a political harm for
the revolutionary party.
* * * * *
How far, however, can the Socialist policy of the working class advance
in the economic environment of Russia? One thing we can say with perfect
assurance: it will meet political obstacles long before it will be
checked by the technical backwardness of the country. _Without direct
political aid from the European proletariat the working class of Russia
will not be able to retain its power and to turn its temporary supremacy
into a permanent Socialist dictatorship._ We cannot doubt this for a
moment. On the other hand, there is no doubt that a _Socialist
revolution in the West would allow us to turn the temporary supremacy of
the working class directly into a Socialist dictatorship_.