EUROPE AND THE REVOLUTION
In June, 1905, we wrote:
"More than half a century passed since 1848. Half a century of
unprecedented victories of capitalism all over the world. Half a century
of "organic" mutual adaptation of the forces of the bourgeois and the
forces of feudal reaction. Half a century in which the bourgeoisie has
manifested its mad appetite for power and its readiness to fight for it
madly!
"As a self-taught mechanic, in his search for perpetual motion, meets
ever new obstacles and piles mechanism over mechanism to overcome them,
so the bourgeoisie has changed and reconstructed the apparatus of its
supremacy avoiding 'supra-legal' conflicts with hostile powers. And as
the self-taught mechanic finally clashes against the ultimate
insurmountable obstacle,--the law of conservation of energy,--so the
bourgeoisie had to clash against the ultimate implacable barrier,--class
antagonism, fraught with inevitable conflict.
"Capitalism, forcing its economic system and social relations on each
and every country, has turned the entire world into one economic and
political organism. As the effect of the modern credit system, with the
invisible bonds it draws between thousands of enterprises, with the
amazing mobility it lends to capital, has been to eliminate local and
partial crises, but to give unusual momentum to general economic
convulsions, so the entire economic and political work of capitalism,
with its world commerce, with its system of monstrous foreign debts,
with its political groupings of states, which have drawn all reactionary
forces into one world-wide co-partnership, has prevented local political
crises, but it has prepared a basis for a social crisis of unheard of
magnitude. Driving unhealthy processes inside, evading difficulties,
staving off the deep problems of national and international politics,
glossing over all contradictions, the bourgeoisie has postponed the
climax, yet it has prepared a radical world-wide liquidation of its
power. It has clung to all reactionary forces no matter what their
origin. It has made the Sultan not the last of its friends. It has not
tied itself on the Chinese ruler only because he had no power: it was
more profitable to rob his possessions than to keep him in the office
of a world gendarme and to pay him from the treasury of the bourgeoisie.
Thus the bourgeoisie made the stability of its political system wholly
dependent upon the stability of the pre-capitalistic pillars of
reaction.
"This gives events an international character and opens a magnificent
perspective; political emancipation, headed by the working class of
Russia, will elevate its leader to a height unparalleled in history, it
will give Russian proletariat colossal power and make it the initiator
of world-wide liquidation of capitalism, to which the objective
prerequisites have been created by history."
It is futile to guess how the Russian revolution will find its way to
old capitalistic Europe. This way may be a total surprise. To illustrate
our thought rather than to predict events, we shall mention Poland as
the possible connecting link between the revolutionary East and the
revolutionary West.
[The author pictures the consequences of a revolution in Poland. A
revolution in Poland would necessarily follow the victory of the
revolution in Russia. This, however, would throw revolutionary
sparks into the Polish provinces of Germany and Austria. A
revolution in Posen and Galicia would move the Hohenzollerns and
Hapsburgs to invade Poland. This would be a sign for the proletariat
of Germany to get into a sharp conflict with their governments. A
revolution becomes inevitable.]
A revolutionary Poland, however, is not the only possible starting point
for a European revolution. The system of armed peace which became
predominant in Europe after the Franco-Prussian war, was based on a
system of European equilibrium. This equilibrium took for granted not
only the integrity of Turkey, the dismemberment of Poland, the
preservation of Austria, that ethnographic harlequin's robe, but also
the existence of Russian despotism in the role of a gendarme of the
European reaction, armed to his teeth. The Russo-Japanese war has given
a mortal blow to this artificial system in which absolutism was the
dominant figure. For an indefinite period Russia is out of the race as a
first-class power. The equilibrium has been destroyed. On the other
hand, the successes of Japan have incensed the conquest instincts of the
capitalistic bourgeoisie, especially the Stock Exchange, which plays a
colossal role in modern politics. _The possibilities of a war on
European territory have grown enormously._ Conflicts are ripening here
and there; so far they have been settled in a diplomatic way, but
nothing can guarantee the near future. _A European war, however, means a
European revolution._
Even without the pressure of such events as war or bankruptcy, a
revolution may take place in the near future in one of the European
countries as a result of acute class struggles. We shall not make
computations as to which country would be first to take the path of
revolution; it is obvious, however, that class antagonisms have for the
last years reached a high degree of intensity in all the European
countries.
The influence of the Russian revolution on the proletariat of Europe is
immense. Not only does it destroy the Petersburg absolutism, that main
power of European reaction; it also imbues the minds and the souls of
the European proletariat with revolutionary daring.
It is the purpose of every Socialist party to revolutionize the minds of
the working class in the same way as development of capitalism has
revolutionized social relations. The work of propaganda and organization
among the proletariat, however, has its own intrinsic inertia. The
Socialist parties of Europe--in the first place the most powerful of
them, the German Socialist party--have developed a conservatism of their
own, which grows in proportion as Socialism embraces ever larger masses
and organization and discipline increase. Social-Democracy, personifying
the political experience of the proletariat, can, therefore, at a
certain juncture, become an immediate obstacle on the way of an open
proletarian conflict with the bourgeois reaction. In other words, the
propaganda-conservatism of a proletarian party can, at a certain moment,
impede the direct struggle of the proletariat for power. The colossal
influence of the Russian revolution manifests itself in killing party
routine, in destroying Socialist conservatism, in making a clean contest
of proletarian forces against capitalist reaction a question of the day.
The struggle for universal suffrage in Austria, Saxony and Prussia has
become more determined under the direct influence of the October strike
in Russia. An Eastern revolution imbues the Western proletariat with
revolutionary idealism and stimulates its desire to speak "Russian" to
its foes.
The Russian proletariat in power, even if this were only the result of a
passing combination of forces in the Russian bourgeois revolution,
would meet organized opposition on the part of the world's reaction, and
readiness for organized support on the part of the world's proletariat.
Left to its own resources, the Russian working class must necessarily be
crushed the moment it loses the aid of the peasants. Nothing remains for
it but to link the fate of its political supremacy and the fate of the
Russian revolution with the fate of a Socialist revolution in Europe.
All that momentous authority and political power which is given to the
proletariat by a combination of forces in the Russian bourgeois
revolution, it will thrust on the scale of class struggle in the entire
capitalistic world. Equipped with governmental power, having a
counter-revolution behind his back, having the European reaction in
front of him, the Russian workingman will issue to all his brothers the
world over his old battle-cry which will now become the call for the
last attack: _Proletarians of all the world, unite!_
EXPLANATORY NOTES
The first _Council of Workmen's Deputies_ was formed in Petersburg,
on October 13th, 1905, in the course of the great general October
strike that compelled Nicholas Romanoff to promise a Constitution.
It represented individual factories, labor unions, and included
also delegates from the Socialist parties. It looked upon itself as
the center of the revolution and a nucleus of a revolutionary labor
government. Similar Councils sprung up in many other industrial
centers. It was arrested on December 3d, having existed for fifty
days. Its members were tried and sent to Siberia.
_Intelligentzia_ is a term applied in Russia to an indefinite,
heterogeneous group of "intellectuals," who are not actively and
directly involved in the industrial machinery of capitalism, and at
the same time are not members of the working class. It is customary
to count among the _Intelligentzia_ students, teachers, writers,
lawyers, physicians, college professors, etc. However, the term
_Intelligentzia_ implies also a certain degree of idealism and
radical aspirations.
_Witte_ was the first prime-minister under the quasi-constitution
granted on October 17th, 1905. _Stolypin_ was appointed prime
minister after the dissolution of the first Duma in July, 1906.
Under the _minimum program_ the Social-Democrats understand all
that range of reforms which can be obtained under the existing
capitalist system of "private ownership of the means of
production," such as an eight hour workday, social insurance,
universal suffrage, a republican order. The _maximum program_
demands the abolition of private property and public management of
industries, i.e., Socialism.
"_Some prejudices among the masses_" referred to in this essay is
the alleged love of the primitive masses for their Tzar. This was
an argument usually put forth by the liberals against republican
aspirations.
_Lower-Middle-Class_ is the only term half-way covering the Russian
"Mieshchanstvo" used by Trotzky. "Mieshchanstvo" has a
socio-economic meaning, and a flavor of moral disapproval. Socially
and economically it means those numerous inhabitants of modern
cities who are engaged in independent economic pursuits, as
artisans (masters), shopkeepers, small manufacturers, petty
merchants, etc., who have not capital enough to rank with the
bourgeoisie. Morally "Mieshchanstvo" presupposes a limited horizon,
lack of definite revolutionary or political ideas, and lack of
political courage.
The _Village community_ is a remnant of old times in Russia. Up to
1906 the members of the village were not allowed to divide the land
of the community among the individual peasants on the basis of
private property. The land legally belonged to the entire community
which allotted it to its members. Since 1906 the compulsory
character of communal land-ownership was abandoned, yet in very
great areas of Russia it still remained the prevailing system of
land-ownership.
Besides having a share in the community-land, the individual
peasant could acquire a piece of land out of his private means (the
seller being usually the landlord) and thus become a _small private
owner_.
THE SOVIET AND THE REVOLUTION
(Fifty Days)
About two years after the arrest of the Soviet of 1905, a number of
former leaders of that organization, among them Chrustalyov Nossar,
the first chairman, and Trotzky, the second chairman, met abroad
after having escaped from Siberian exile. They decided to sum up
their Soviet experiences in a book which they called _The History
of the Council of Workingmen's Deputies_. The book appeared in 1908
in Petersburg, and was immediately suppressed. One of the essays of
this book is here reprinted.
In his estimation of the role of the Soviet Trotzky undoubtedly
exaggerates. Only by a flight of imagination can one see in the
activities of the Soviet regarding the postal, telegraph and
railroad strikers the beginnings of a Soviet control over
post-office, telegraph and railroads. It is also a serious question
whether the Soviet was really a leading body, or whether it was led
by the current of revolutionary events which it was unable to
control. What makes this essay interesting and significant is
Trotzky's assertion that "the first new wave of the revolution will
lead to the creation of Soviets all over the country." This has
actually happened. His predictions of the formation of an
all-Russian Soviet, and of the program the Soviets would follow,
have also been realized in the course of the present revolution.
1
The history of the Soviet is a history of fifty days. The Soviet was
constituted on October 13th; its session was interrupted by a military
detachment of the government on December 3rd. Between those two dates
the Soviet lived and struggled.
What was the substance of this institution? What enabled it in this
short period to take an honorable place in the history of the Russian
proletariat, in the history of the Russian Revolution?
The Soviet organized the masses, conducted political strikes, led
political demonstrations, tried to arm the workingmen. But other
revolutionary organizations did the same things. The substance of the
Soviet was its effort to become _an organ of public authority_. The
proletariat on one hand, the reactionary press on the other, have called
the Soviet "a labor government"; this only reflects the fact that the
Soviet was in reality _an embryo of a revolutionary government_. In so
far as the Soviet was in actual possession of authoritative power, it
made use of it; in so far as the power was in the hands of the military
and bureaucratic monarchy, the Soviet fought to obtain it. Prior to the
Soviet, there had been revolutionary organizations among the industrial
workingmen, mostly of a Social-Democratic nature. But those were
organizations _among_ the proletariat; their immediate aim was to
_influence the masses_. The Soviet is an organization _of_ the
proletariat; its aim is to fight for _revolutionary power_.
At the same time, the Soviet was _an organized expression of the will of
the proletariat as a class_. In its fight for power the Soviet applied
such methods as were naturally determined by the character of the
proletariat as a class: its part in production; its numerical strength;
its social homogeneity. In its fight for power the Soviet has combined
the direction of all the social activities of the working class,
including decisions as to conflicts between individual representatives
of capital and labor. This combination was by no means an artificial
tactical attempt: it was a natural consequence of the situation of a
class which, consciously developing and broadening its fight for its
immediate interests, had been compelled by the logic of events to assume
a leading position in the revolutionary struggle for power.
The main weapon of the Soviet was a political strike of the masses. The
power of the strike lies in disorganizing the power of the government.
The greater the "anarchy" created by a strike, the nearer its victory.
This is true only where "anarchy" is not being created by anarchic
actions. The class that puts into motion, day in and day out, the
industrial apparatus and the governmental apparatus; the class that is
able, by a sudden stoppage of work, to paralyze both industry and
government, must be organized enough not to fall the first victim of the
very "anarchy" it has created. The more effective the disorganization of
government caused by a strike, the more the strike organization is
compelled to assume governmental functions.
The Council of Workmen's Delegates introduces a free press. It organizes
street patrols to secure the safety of the citizens. It takes over, to a
greater or less extent, the post office, the telegraph, and the
railroads. It makes an effort to introduce the eight hour workday.
Paralyzing the autocratic government by a strike, it brings its own
democratic order into the life of the working city population.
2
After January 9th the revolution had shown its power over the minds of
the working masses. On June 14th, through the revolt of the Potyomkin
Tavritchesky it had shown that it was able to become a material force.
In the October strike it had shown that it could disorganize the enemy,
paralyze his will and utterly humiliate him. By organizing Councils of
Workmen's Deputies all over the country, _it showed that it was able to
create authoritative power_. Revolutionary authority can be based only
on active revolutionary force. Whatever our view on the further
development of the Russian revolution, it is a fact that so far no
social class besides the proletariat has manifested readiness to uphold
a revolutionary authoritative power. The first act of the revolution was
an encounter in the streets of the _proletariat_ with the monarchy; the
first serious victory of the revolution was achieved through the
_class-weapon of the proletariat_, the political strike; the first
nucleus of a revolutionary government was _a proletarian
representation_. The Soviet is the first democratic power in modern
Russian history. The Soviet is the organized power of the masses
themselves over their component parts. This is a true, unadulterated
democracy, without a two-chamber system, without a professional
bureaucracy, with the right of the voters to recall their deputy any
moment and to substitute another for him. Through its members, through
deputies elected by the workingmen, the Soviet directs all the social
activities of the proletariat as a whole and of its various parts; it
outlines the steps to be taken by the proletariat, it gives them a
slogan and a banner. This art of directing the activities of the masses
on the basis of organized self-government, is here applied for the first
time on Russian soil. Absolutism ruled the masses, but it did not direct
them. It put mechanical barriers against the living creative forces of
the masses, and within those barriers it kept the restless elements of
the nation in an iron bond of oppression. The only mass absolutism ever
directed was the army. But that was not directing, it was merely
commanding. In recent years, even the directing of this atomized and
hypnotized military mass has been slipping out of the hands of
absolutism. Liberalism never had power enough to command the masses, or
initiative enough to direct them. Its attitude towards mass-movements,
even if they helped liberalism directly, was the same as towards
awe-inspiring natural phenomena--earthquakes or volcanic eruptions. The
proletariat appeared on the battlefield of the revolution as a
self-reliant aggregate, totally independent from bourgeois liberalism.
The Soviet was a _class-organization_, this was the source of its
fighting power. It was crushed in the first period of its existence not
by lack of confidence on the part of the masses in the cities, but by
the limitations of a purely urban revolution, by the relatively passive
attitude of the village, by the backwardness of the peasant element of
the army. The Soviet's position among the city population was as strong
as could be.
The Soviet was not an official representative of the entire half million
of the working population in the capital; its organization embraced
about two hundred thousand, chiefly industrial workers; and though its
direct and indirect political influence was of a much wider range, there
were thousands and thousands of proletarians (in the building trade,
among domestic servants, day laborers, drivers) who were hardly, if at
all, influenced by the Soviet. There is no doubt, however, that the
Soviet represented the interests of _all_ these proletarian masses.
There were but few adherents of the Black Hundred in the factories, and
their number dwindled hour by hour. The proletarian masses of Petersburg
were solidly behind the Soviet. Among the numerous intellectuals of
Petersburg the Soviet had more friends than enemies. Thousands of
students recognized the political leadership of the Soviet and ardently
supported it in its decisions. Professional Petersburg was entirely on
the side of the Soviet. The support by the Soviet of the postal and
telegraph strike won it the sympathy of the lower governmental
officials. All the oppressed, all the unfortunate, all honest elements
of the city, all those who were striving towards a better life, were
instinctively or consciously on the side of the Soviet. The Soviet was
actually or potentially a representative of an overwhelming majority of
the population. Its enemies in the capital would not have been dangerous
had they not been protected by absolutism, which based its power on the
most backward elements of an army recruited from peasants. The weakness
of the Soviet was not its own weakness, it was the weakness of a purely
urban revolution.
The fifty day period was the period of the greatest power of the
revolution. _The Soviet was its organ in the fight for public
authority._ The class character of the Soviet was determined by the
class differentiation of the city population and by the political
antagonism between the proletariat and the capitalistic bourgeoisie.
This antagonism manifested itself even in the historically limited field
of a struggle against absolutism. After the October strike, the
capitalistic bourgeoisie consciously blocked the progress of the
revolution, the petty middle class turned out to be a nonentity,
incapable of playing an independent role. The real leader of the urban
revolution was the proletariat. Its class-organization was the organ of
the revolution in its struggle for power.
3
The struggle for power, for public authority--this is the central aim of
the revolution. The fifty days of the Soviet's life and its bloody
finale have shown that urban Russia is too narrow a basis for such a
struggle, and that even within the limits of the urban revolution, a
local organization cannot be the central leading body. For a national
task the proletariat required an organization on a national scale. The
Petersburg Soviet was a local organization, yet the need of a central
organization was so great that it had to assume leadership on a national
scale. It did what it could, still it remained primarily the
_Petersburg_ Council of Workmen's Deputies. The urgency of an
all-Russian labor congress which undoubtedly would have had authority to
form a central leading organ, was emphasized even at the time of the
first Soviet. The December collapse made its realization impossible. The
idea remained, an inheritance of the Fifty Days.
The idea of a Soviet has become ingrained in the consciousness of the
workingmen as the first prerequisite to revolutionary action of the
masses. Experience has shown that a Soviet is not possible or desirable
under all circumstances. The objective meaning of the Soviet
organization is to create conditions for disorganizing the government,
for "anarchy," in other words for a revolutionary conflict. The present
lull in the revolutionary movement, the mad triumph of reaction, make
the existence of an open, elective, authoritative organization of the
masses impossible. There is no doubt, however, that _the first new wave
of the revolution will lead to the creation of Soviets all over the
country_. An All-Russian Soviet, organized by an All-Russian Labor
Congress, will assume leadership of the local elective organizations of
the proletariat. Names, of course, are of no importance; so are details
of organization; the main thing is: a centralized democratic leadership
in the struggle of the proletariat for a popular government. History
does not repeat itself, and the new Soviet will not have again to go
through the experience of the Fifty Days. These, however, will furnish
it a complete program of action.
This program is perfectly clear.
To establish revolutionary cooeperation with the army, the peasantry, and
the plebeian lower strata of the urban bourgeoisie. To abolish
absolutism. To destroy the material organization of absolutism by
reconstructing and partly dismissing the army. To break up the entire
bureaucratic apparatus. To introduce an eight hour workday. To arm the
population, starting with the proletariat. To turn the Soviets into
organs of revolutionary self-government in the cities. To create
Councils of Peasants' Delegates (Peasants' Committees) as local organs
of the agrarian revolution. To organize elections to the Constituent
Assembly and to conduct a preelection campaign for a definite program on
the part of the representatives of the people.
It is easier to formulate such a program than to carry it through. If,
however, the revolution will ever win, the proletariat cannot choose
another. The proletariat will unfold revolutionary accomplishment such
as the world has never seen. The history of Fifty Days will be only a
poor page in the great book of the proletariat's struggle and ultimate
triumph.
PREFACE TO _MY ROUND TRIP_
Trotzky was never personal. The emotional side of life seldom
appears in his writings. His is the realm of social activities,
social and political struggles. His writings breathe logic, not
sentiment, facts, not poetry. The following preface to his _Round
Trip_ is, perhaps, the only exception. It speaks of the man Trotzky
and his beliefs. Note his confession of faith: "History is a
tremendous mechanism serving our ideals." ...
At the Stockholm Convention of the Social-Democratic Party, some curious
statistical data was circulated, showing the conditions under which the
party of the proletariat was working:
The Convention as a whole, in the person of its 140 members, had spent
in prison one hundred and thirty-eight years and three and a half
months.
The Convention had been in exile one hundred and forty-eight years and
six and a half months.
Escaped from prison: Once, eighteen members of the Convention; twice,
four members.
Escaped from exile: Once, twenty-three; twice, five; three times, one
member.
The length of time the Convention as a whole had been active in
Social-Democratic work, was 942 years. It follows that the time spent in
prison and exile is about one-third of the time a Social-Democrat is
active. But these figures are too optimistic. "The Convention has been
active in Social-Democratic work for 942 years"--this means merely that
the activities of those persons had been spread over so many years.
Their actual period of work must have been much shorter. Possibly all
these persons had worked, actually and directly, only one-sixth or
one-tenth of the above time. Such are conditions of underground
activity. On the other hand, the time spent in prison and exile is real
time: the Convention had spent over fifty thousand days and nights
behind iron bars, and more than that in barbarous corners of the
country.
Perhaps I may give, in addition to these figures, some facts about
myself. The author of these lines was arrested for the first time in
January, 1898, after working for ten months in the workmen's circles of
Nikolayev. He spent two and a half years in prison, and escaped from
Siberia after living there two years of his four years' exile. He was
arrested the second time on December 3rd, 1905, as a member of the
Petersburg Council of Workmen's Deputies. The Council had existed for
fifty days. The arrested members of the Soviet each spent 400 days in
prison, then they were sent to Obdorsk "forever." ... Each Russian
Social-Democrat who has worked in his Party for ten years could give
similar statistics about himself.
The political helter-skelter which exists in Russia since October 17th
and which the Gotha Almanach has characterized with unconscious humor as
"_A Constitutional Monarchy under an absolute Tzar_," has changed
nothing in our situation. This political order cannot reconcile itself
with us, not even temporarily, as it is organically incapable of
admitting any free activity of the masses. The simpletons and hypocrites
who urge us to "keep within legal limits" remind one of Marie Antoinette
who recommended the starving peasants to eat cake! One would think we
suffer from an organic aversion for cake, a kind of incurable disease!
One would think our lungs infected with an irresistible desire to
breathe the atmosphere of the solitary dungeons in the Fortress of Peter
and Paul! One would think we have no other use for those endless hours
pulled out of our lives by the jailers.
We love our underground just as little as a drowning person loves the
bottom of the sea. Yet, we have as little choice, as, let us say
directly, the absolutist order. Being fully aware of this we can afford
to be optimists even at a time when the underground tightens its grip
around our necks with unrelenting grimness. It will not choke us, we
know it! We shall survive! When the bones of all the great deeds which
are being performed now by the princes of the earth, their servants and
the servants of their servants will have turned to dust, when nobody
will know the graves of many present parties with all their
exploits--the Cause we are serving will rule the world, and our Party,
now choking underground, will dissolve itself into humanity, for the
first time its own master.
History is a tremendous mechanism serving our ideals. Its work is slow,
barbarously slow, implacably cruel, yet the work goes on. We believe in
it. Only at moments, when this voracious monster drinks the living blood
of our hearts to serve it as food, we wish to shout with all our might:
_What thou dost, do quickly!_
Paris, April 8/21, 1907.
THE LESSONS OF THE GREAT YEAR
This essay was published in a New York Russian newspaper on January
20th, 1917, less than two months before the Second Russian
Revolution. Trotzky then lived in New York. The essay shows how his
contempt, even hatred, for the liberal parties in Russia had grown
since 1905-6.
(January 9th, 1905--January 9th, 1917)
Revolutionary anniversaries are not only days for reminiscence, they are
days for summing up revolutionary experiences, especially for us
Russians. Our history has not been rich. Our so-called "national
originality" consisted in being poor, ignorant, uncouth. It was the
revolution of 1905 that first opened before us the great highway of
political progress. On January 9th the workingman of Petersburg knocked
at the gate of the Winter Palace. On January 9th the entire Russian
people knocked at the gate of history.
The crowned janitor did not respond to the knock. Nine months later,
however, on October 17th, he was compelled to open the heavy gate of
absolutism. Notwithstanding all the efforts of bureaucracy, a little
slit stayed open--forever.
The revolution was defeated. The same old forces and almost the same
figures now rule Russia that ruled her twelve years ago. Yet the
revolution has changed Russia beyond recognition. The kingdom of
stagnation, servitude, vodka and humbleness has become a kingdom of
fermentation, criticism, fight. Where once there was a shapeless
dough--the impersonal, formless people, "Holy Russia,"--now social
classes consciously oppose each other, political parties have sprung
into existence, each with its program and methods of struggle.
January 9th opens _a new Russian history_. It is a line marked by the
blood of the people. There is no way back from this line to Asiatic
Russia, to the cursed practices of former generations. There is no way
back. There will never be.
Not the liberal bourgeoisie, not the democratic groups of the lower
bourgeoisie, not the radical intellectuals, not the millions of Russian
peasants, but the _Russian proletariat_ has by its struggle started the
new era in Russian history. This is basic. On the foundation of this
fact we, Social-Democrats, have built our conceptions and our tactics.
On January 9th it was the priest Gapon who happened to be at the head of
the Petersburg workers,--a fantastic figure, a combination of
adventurer, hysterical enthusiast and impostor. His priest's robe was
the last link that then connected the workingmen with the past, with
"Holy Russia." Nine months later, in the course of the October strike,
the greatest political strike history has ever seen, there was at the
head of the Petersburg workingmen their own elective self-governing
organization--the Council of Workmen's Deputies. It contained many a
workingman who had been on Gapon's staff,--nine months of revolution had
made those men grow, as they made grow the entire working class which
the Soviet represented.
In the first period of the revolution, the activities of the proletariat
were met with sympathy, even with support from liberal society. The
Milukovs hoped the proletariat would punch absolutism and make it more
inclined to compromise with the bourgeoisie. Yet absolutism, for
centuries the only ruler of the people, was in no haste to share its
power with the liberal parties. In October, 1905, the bourgeoisie
learned that it could not obtain power before the back-bone of Tzarism
was broken. This blessed thing could, evidently, be accomplished only by
a victorious revolution. But the revolution put the working class in the
foreground, it united it and solidified it not only in its struggle
against Tzarism, but also in its struggle against capital. The result
was that each new revolutionary step of the proletariat in October,
November and December, the time of the Soviet, moved the liberals more
and more in the direction of the monarchy. The hopes for revolutionary
cooeperation between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat turned out a
hopeless Utopia. Those who had not seen it then and had not understood
it later, those who still dream of a "national" uprising against
Tzarism, do not understand the revolution. For them class struggle is a
sealed book.
At the end of 1905 the question became acute. The monarchy had learned
by experience that the bourgeoisie would not support the proletariat in
a decisive battle. The monarchy then decided to move against the
proletariat with all its forces. The bloody days of December followed.
The Council of Workmen's Deputies was arrested by the Ismailovski
regiment which remained loyal to Tzarism. The answer of the proletariat
was momentous: the strike in Petersburg, the insurrection in Moscow, the
storm of revolutionary movements in all industrial centers, the
insurrection on the Caucasus and in the Lettish provinces.
The revolutionary movement was crushed. Many a poor "Socialist" readily
concluded from our December defeats that a revolution in Russia was
impossible without the support of the bourgeoisie. If this be true, it
would only mean that a revolution in Russia is impossible.
Our _upper industrial bourgeoisie_, the only class possessing actual
power, is separated from the proletariat by an insurmountable barrier of
class hatred, and it needs the monarchy as a pillar of order. The
Gutchkovs, Krestovnikovs and Ryabushinskys cannot fail to see in the
proletariat their mortal foe.
Our _middle and lower industrial and commercial bourgeoisie_ occupies a
very insignificant place in the economic life of the country, and is all
entangled in the net of capital. The Milukovs, the leaders of the lower
middle class, are successful only in so far as they represent the
interests of the upper bourgeoisie. This is why the Cadet leader called
the revolutionary banner a "red rag"; this is why he declared, after the
beginning of the war, that if a revolution were necessary to secure
victory over Germany, he would prefer no victory at all.
Our _peasantry_ occupies a tremendous place in Russian life. In 1905 it
was shaken to its deepest foundations. The peasants were driving out
their masters, setting estates on fire, seizing the land from the
landlords. Yes, the curse of the peasantry is that it is scattered,
disjointed, backward. Moreover, the interests of the various peasant
groups do not coincide. The peasants arose and fought adroitly against
their local slave-holders, yet they stopped in reverence before the
all-Russian slave-holder. The sons of the peasants in the army did not
understand that the workingmen were shedding their blood not only for
their own sake, but also for the sake of the peasants. The army was an
obedient tool in the hands of Tzarism. It crushed the labor revolution
in December, 1905.
Whoever thinks about the experiences of 1905, whoever draws a line from
that year to the present time, must see how utterly lifeless and pitiful
are the hopes of our Social-Patriots for revolutionary cooeperation
between the proletariat and the liberal bourgeoisie.
During the last twelve years big capital has made great conquests in
Russia. The middle and lower bourgeoisie has become still more dependent
upon the banks and trusts. The working class, which had grown in numbers
since 1905, is now separated from the bourgeoisie by a deeper abyss than
before. If a "national" revolution was a failure twelve years ago,
there is still less hope for it at present.
It is true in the last years that the cultural and political level of
the peasantry has become higher. However, there is less hope now for a
revolutionary uprising of the peasantry as a whole than there was twelve
years ago. The only ally of the urban proletariat may be the proletarian
and half-proletarian strata of the village.
But, a skeptic may ask, is there then any hope for a victorious
revolution in Russia under these circumstances?
One thing is clear--if a revolution comes, it will not be a result of
cooeperation between capital and labor. The experiences of 1905 show that
this is a miserable Utopia. To acquaint himself with those experiences,
to study them is the duty of every thinking workingman who is anxious to
avoid tragic mistakes. It is in this sense that we have said that
revolutionary anniversaries are not only days for reminiscences, but
also days for summing up revolutionary experiences.
_Gutchkov_, _Ryabushinsky_ and _Krestovnikov_ are representatives
of big capital in Russia. Gutchkov is the leader of the moderately
liberal party of Octobrists. He was War Minister in the first
Cabinet after the overthrow of the Romanoffs.
ON THE EVE OF A REVOLUTION
This essay was written on March 13th, 1917, when the first news of
unrest in Petrograd had reached New York.
The streets of Petrograd again speak the language of 1905. As in the
time of the Russo-Japanese war, the masses demand bread, peace, and
freedom. As in 1905, street cars are not running and newspapers do not
appear. The workingmen let the steam out of the boilers, they quit their
benches and walk out into the streets. The government mobilizes its
Cossacks. And as was in 1905, only those two powers are facing each
other in the streets--the revolutionary workingmen and the army of the
Tzar.
The movement was provoked by lack of bread. This, of course, is not an
accidental cause. In all the belligerent countries the lack of bread is
the most immediate, the most acute reason for dissatisfaction and
indignation among the masses. All the insanity of the war is revealed to
them from this angle: it is impossible to produce necessities of life
because one has to produce instruments of death.
However, the attempts of the Anglo-Russian semi-official news agencies
to explain the movement by a temporary shortage in food, or to snow
storms that have delayed transportation, are one of the most ludicrous
applications of the policy of the ostrich. The workingmen would not stop
the factories, the street cars, the print shops and walk into the
streets to meet Tzarism face to face on account of snow storms which
temporarily hamper the arrival of foodstuffs.
People have a short memory. Many of our own ranks have forgotten that
the war found Russia in a state of potent revolutionary ferment. After
the heavy stupor of 1908-1911, the proletariat gradually healed its
wounds in the following years of industrial prosperity; the slaughter of
strikers on the Lena River in April, 1912, awakened the revolutionary
energy of the proletarian masses. A series of strikes followed. In the
year preceding the world war, the wave of economic and political strikes
resembled that of 1905. When Poincare, the President of the French
Republic, came to Petersburg in the summer of 1904 (evidently to talk
over with the Tzar how to free the small and weak nations) the Russian
proletariat was in a stage of extraordinary revolutionary tension, and
the President of the French Republic could see with his own eyes in the
capital of his friend, the Tzar, how the first barricades of the Second
Russian Revolution were being constructed.
The war checked the rising revolutionary tide. We have witnessed a
repetition of what happened ten years before, in the Russo-Japanese war.
After the stormy strikes of 1903, there had followed a year of almost
unbroken political silence--1904--the first year of the war. It took the
workingmen of Petersburg twelve months to orientate themselves in the
war and to walk out into the streets with their demands and protests.
January 9th, 1905, was, so to speak, the official beginning of our First
Revolution.
The present war is vaster than was the Russo-Japanese war. Millions of
soldiers have been mobilized by the government for the "defense of the
Fatherland." The ranks of the proletariat have thus been disorganized.
On the other hand, the more advanced elements of the proletariat had to
face and weigh in their minds a number of questions of unheard of
magnitude. What is the cause of the war? Shall the proletariat agree
with the conception of "the defense of the Fatherland"? What ought to
be the tactics of the working-class in war time?
In the meantime, the Tzarism and its allies, the upper groups of the
nobility and the bourgeoisie, had during the war completely exposed
their true nature,--the nature of criminal plunderers, blinded by
limitless greed and paralyzed by want of talent. The appetites for
conquest of the governing clique grew in proportion as the people began
to realize its complete inability to cope with the most elementary
problems of warfare, of industry and supplies in war time.
Simultaneously, the misery of the people grew, deepened, became more and
more acute,--a natural result of the war multiplied by the criminal
anarchy of the Rasputin Tzarism.
In the depths of the great masses, among people who may have never been
reached by a word of propaganda, a profound bitterness accumulated under
the stress of events. Meantime the foremost ranks of the proletariat
were finishing digesting the new events. The Socialist proletariat of
Russia came to after the shock of the nationalist fall of the most
influential part of the International, and decided that new times call
us not to let up, but to increase our revolutionary struggle.
The present events in Petrograd and Moscow are a result of this internal
preparatory work.
A disorganized, compromised, disjointed government on top. An utterly
demoralized army. Dissatisfaction, uncertainty and fear among the
propertied classes. At the bottom, among the masses, a deep bitterness.
A proletariat numerically stronger than ever, hardened in the fire of
events. All this warrants the statement that we are witnessing the
beginning of the Second Russian Revolution. Let us hope that many of us
will be its participants.
TWO FACES
(Internal Forces of the Russian Revolution)
Let us examine more closely what is going on.
Nicholas has been dethroned, and according to some information, is under
arrest. The most conspicuous Black Hundred leaders have been arrested.
Some of the most hated have been killed. A new Ministry has been formed
consisting of Octobrists, Liberals and the Radical Kerensky. A general
amnesty has been proclaimed.
All these are facts, big facts. These are the facts that strike the
outer world most. Changes in the higher government give the bourgeoisie
of Europe and America an occasion to say that the revolution has won and
is now completed.
The Tzar and his Black Hundred fought for their power, for this alone.
The war, the imperialistic plans of the Russian bourgeoisie, the
interests of the Allies, were of minor importance to the Tzar and his
clique. They were ready at any moment to conclude peace with the
Hohenzollerns and Hapsburgs, to free their most loyal regiment for war
against their own people.
The Progressive Bloc of the Duma mistrusted the Tzar and his Ministers.
This Bloc consisted of various parties of the Russian bourgeoisie. The
Bloc had two aims: one, to conduct the war to a victorious end; another,
to secure internal reforms: more order, control, accounting. A victory
is necessary for the Russian bourgeoisie to conquer markets, to increase
their territories, to get rich. Reforms are necessary primarily to
enable the Russian bourgeoisie to win the war.
The progressive imperialistic Bloc wanted _peaceful_ reforms. The
liberals intended to exert a Duma pressure on the monarchy and to keep
it in check with the aid of the governments of Great Britain and France.
They did not want a revolution. They knew that a revolution, bringing
the working masses to the front, would be a menace to their domination,
and primarily a menace to their imperialistic plans. The laboring
masses, in the cities and in the villages, and even in the army itself,
want peace. The liberals know it. This is why they have been enemies of
the revolution all these years. A few months ago Milukov declared in
the Duma: "If a revolution were necessary for victory, I would prefer no
victory at all."
Yet the liberals are now in power--through the Revolution. The bourgeois
newspaper men see nothing but this fact. Milukov, already in his
capacity as a Minister of Foreign Affairs, has declared that the
revolution has been conducted in the name of a victory over the enemy,
and that the new government has taken upon itself to continue the war to
a victorious end. The New York Stock Exchange interpreted the Revolution
in this specific sense. There are clever people both on the Stock
Exchange and among the bourgeois newspaper men. Yet they are all
amazingly stupid when they come to deal with mass-movements. They think
that Milukov manages the revolution, in the same sense as they manage
their banks or news offices. They see only the liberal governmental
reflection of the unfolding events, they notice only the foam on the
surface of the historical torrent.
The long pent-up dissatisfaction of the masses has burst forth so late,
in the thirty-second month of the war, not because the masses were held
by police barriers--those barriers had been badly shattered during the
war--but because all liberal institutions and organs, together with
their Social-Patriotic shadows, were exerting an enormous influence over
the least enlightened elements of the workingmen, urging them to keep
order and discipline in the name of "patriotism." Hungry women were
already walking out into the streets, and the workingmen were getting
ready to uphold them by a general strike, while the liberal bourgeoisie,
according to news reports, still issued proclamations and delivered
speeches to check the movement,--resembling that famous heroine of
Dickens who tried to stem the tide of the ocean with a broom.
The movement, however, took its course, from below, from the
workingmen's quarters. After hours and days of uncertainty, of shooting,
of skirmishes, the army joined in the revolution, from below, from the
best of the soldier masses. The old government was powerless, paralyzed,
annihilated. The Tzar fled from the capital "to the front." The Black
Hundred bureaucrats crept, like cockroaches, each into his corner.
Then, and only then, came the Duma's turn to act. The Tzar had attempted
in the last minute to dissolve it. And the Duma would have obeyed,
"following the example of former years," had it been free to adjourn.
The capitals, however, were already dominated by the revolutionary
people, the same people that had walked out into the streets despite the
wishes of the liberal bourgeoisie. The army was with the people. Had not
the bourgeoisie attempted to organize its own government, a
revolutionary government would have emerged from the revolutionary
working masses. The Duma of June 3rd would never have dared to seize the
power from the hands of Tzarism. But it did not want to miss the chance
offered by interregnum: the monarchy had disappeared, while a
revolutionary government was not yet formed. Contrary to all their part,
contrary to their own policies and against their will, the liberals
found themselves in possession of power.
Milukov now declares Russia will continue the war "to the end." It is
not easy for him so to speak: he knows that his words are apt to arouse
the indignation of the masses against the new government. Yet he had to
speak to them--for the sake of the London, Paris and American Stock
Exchanges. It is quite possible that he cabled his declaration for
foreign consumption only, and that he concealed it from his own
country.
Milukov knows very well that _under given conditions he cannot continue
the war, crush Germany, dismember Austria, occupy Constantinople and
Poland_.
The masses have revolted, demanding bread and peace. The appearance of a
few liberals at the head of the government has not fed the hungry, has
not healed the wounds of the people. To satisfy the most urgent, the
most acute needs of the people, _peace_ must be restored. The liberal
imperialistic Bloc does not dare to speak of peace. They do not do it,
first, on account of the Allies. They do not do it, further, because the
liberal bourgeoisie is to a great extent responsible before the people
for the present war. The Milukovs and Gutchkovs, not less than the
Romanoff camarilla, have thrown the country into this monstrous
imperialistic adventure. To stop the war, to return to the ante-bellum
misery would mean that they have to account to the people for this
undertaking. The Milukovs and Gutchkovs are afraid of the liquidation of
the war not less than they were afraid of the Revolution.
This is their aspect in their new capacity, as the government of
Russia. They are compelled to continue the war, and they can have no
hope of victory; they are afraid of the people, and people do not trust
them.
This is how Karl Marx characterized a similar situation:
"From the very beginning ready to betray the people and to compromise
with the crowned representatives of the old regime, because the
bourgeoisie itself belongs to the old world; ... keeping a place at the
steering wheel of the revolution not because the people were back of
them, but because the people pushed them forward; ... having no faith in
themselves, no faith in the people; grumbling against those above,
trembling before those below; selfish towards both fronts and aware of
their selfishness; revolutionary in the face of conservatives, and
conservative in the face of revolutionists, with no confidence in their
own slogans and with phrases instead of ideas; frightened by the world's
storm and exploiting the world's storm,--vulgar through lack of
originality, and original only in vulgarity; making profitable business
out of their own desires, with no initiative, with no vocation for
world-wide historic work ... a cursed senile creature condemned to
direct and abuse in his own senile interests the first youthful
movements of a powerful people,--a creature with no eyes, with no ears,
with no teeth, with nothing whatever,--this is how the Prussian
bourgeoisie stood at the steering wheel of the Prussian state after the
March revolution."
These words of the great master give a perfect picture of the Russian
liberal bourgeoisie, as it stands at the steering wheel of the
government after _our_ March revolution. "With no faith in themselves,
with no faith in the people, with no eyes, with no teeth." ... This is
their political face.
Luckily for Russia and Europe, there is another face to the Russian
Revolution, a genuine face: the cables have brought the news that the
Provisional Government is opposed by a Workmen's Committee which has
already raised a voice of protest against the liberal attempt to rob the
Revolution and to deliver the people to the monarchy.
Should the Russian Revolution stop to-day as the representatives of
liberalism advocate, to-morrow the reaction of the Tzar, the nobility
and the bureaucracy would gather power and drive Milukov and Gutchkov
from their insecure ministerial trenches, as did the Prussian reaction
years ago with the representatives of Prussian liberalism. But the
Russian Revolution will not stop. Time will come, and the Revolution
will make a clean sweep of the bourgeois liberals blocking its way, as
it is now making a clean sweep of the Tzarism reaction.
(Published in New York on March 17, 1917.)
_June Third_, 1907, was the day on which, after the dissolution of
the First and Second Dumas, the Tzar's government, in defiance of
the Constitution, promulgated a new electoral law which eliminated
from the Russian quasi-Parliament large groups of democratic
voters, thus securing a "tame" majority obedient to the command of
the government. To say "The Duma of June Third" is equivalent to
saying: "a Duma dominated by representatives of rich land-owners
and big business," generally working hand in hand with autocracy,
though pretending to be representatives of the people. In the Duma
of June Third, the Octobrists and all parties to the right of them
were with the government, the Constitutional Democrats (Cadets) and
all parties to the left of them were in the opposition.
The _Progressive Bloc_ was formed in the Duma in 1915. It included
a number of liberal and conservative factions, together with the
Cadets, and was opposed to the government. Its program was a
Cabinet responsible to the Duma.
THE GROWING CONFLICT
An open conflict between the forces of the Revolution, headed by the
city proletariat and the anti-revolutionary liberal bourgeoisie
temporarily at the head of the government, is more and more impending.
It cannot be avoided. Of course, the liberal bourgeoisie and the
quasi-Socialists of the vulgar type will find a collection of very
touching slogans as to "national unity" against class divisions; yet no
one has ever succeeded in removing social contrasts by conjuring with
words or in checking the natural progress of revolutionary struggle.
The internal history of unfolding events is known to us only in
fragments, through casual remarks in the official telegrams. But even
now it is apparent that on two points the revolutionary proletariat is
bound to oppose the liberal bourgeoisie with ever-growing determination.
The first conflict has already arisen around the question of the form of
government. The Russian bourgeoisie needs a monarchy. In all the
countries pursuing an imperialistic policy, we observe an unusual
increase of personal power. The policy of world usurpations, secret
treaties and open treachery requires independence from Parliamentary
control and a guarantee against changes in policies caused by the change
of Cabinets. Moreover, for the propertied classes the monarchy is the
most secure ally in its struggle against the revolutionary onslaught of
the proletariat.
In Russia both these causes are more effective than elsewhere. The
Russian bourgeoisie finds it impossible to deny the people universal
suffrage, well aware that this would arouse opposition against the
Provisional Government among the masses, and give prevalence to the
left, the more determined wing of the proletariat in the Revolution.
Even that monarch of the reserve, Michael Alexandrovitch, understands
that he cannot reach the throne without having promised "universal,
equal, direct and secret suffrage." It is the more essential for the
bourgeoisie to create right now a monarchic counterbalance against the
deepest social-revolutionary demands of the working masses. _Formally_,
in words, the bourgeoisie has agreed to leave the question of a form of
government to the discretion of the Constituent Assembly. Practically,
however, the Octobrist-Cadet Provisional Government will turn all the
preparatory work for the Constituent Assembly into a campaign in favor
of a monarchy against a Republic. The character of the Constituent
Assembly will largely depend upon the character of those who convoke it.
It is evident, therefore, that right now the revolutionary proletariat
will have _to set up its own organs, the Councils of Workingmen's
Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies, against the executive organs of the
Provisional Government_. In this struggle the proletariat ought to unite
about itself the rising masses of the people, with one aim in view--_to
seize governmental power_. Only a Revolutionary Labor Government will
have the desire and ability to give the country a thorough democratic
cleansing during the work preparatory to the Constituent Assembly, to
reconstruct the army from top to bottom, to turn it into _a
revolutionary militia_ and to show the poorer peasants in practice that
their only salvation is in a support of a revolutionary labor regime. A
Constituent Assembly convoked after such preparatory work will truly
reflect the revolutionary, creative forces of the country and become a
powerful factor in the further development of the Revolution.
The second question that is bound to bring the internationally inclined
Socialist proletariat in opposition to the imperialistic liberal
bourgeoisie, is _the question of war and peace_.
(Published in New York, March 19, 1917.)
WAR OR PEACE?
The question of chief interest, now, to the governments and the peoples
of the world is, What will be the influence of the Russian Revolution on
the War? Will it bring peace nearer? Or will the revolutionary
enthusiasm of the people swing towards a more vigorous prosecution of
the war?
This is a great question. On its solution depends not only the outcome
of the war, but the fate of the Revolution itself.
In 1905, Milukov, the present militant Minister of Foreign Affairs,
called the Russo-Japanese war an adventure and demanded its immediate
cessation. This was also the spirit of the liberal and radical press.
The strongest industrial organizations favored immediate peace in spite
of unequaled disasters. Why was it so? Because they expected internal
reforms. The establishment of a Constitutional system, a parliamentary
control over the budget and the state finances, a better school system
and, especially, an increase in the land possessions of the peasants,
would, they hoped, increase the prosperity of the population and create
a _vast internal market_ for Russian industry. It is true that even
then, twelve years ago, the Russian bourgeoisie was ready to usurp land
belonging to others. It hoped, however, that abolition of feudal
relations in the village would create a more powerful market than the
annexation of Manchuria or Corea.
The democratization of the country and liberation of the peasants,
however, turned out to be a slow process. Neither the Tzar, nor the
nobility, nor the bureaucracy were willing to yield any of their
prerogatives. Liberal exhortations were not enough to make them give up
the machinery of the state and their land possessions. A revolutionary
onslaught of the masses was required. This the bourgeoisie did not want.
The agrarian revolts of the peasants, the ever growing struggle of the
proletariat and the spread of insurrections in the army caused the
liberal bourgeoisie to fall back into the camp of the Tzarist
bureaucracy and reactionary nobility. Their alliance was sealed by the
_coup d'etat_ of June 3rd, 1907. Out of this _coup d'etat_ emerged the
Third and the Fourth Dumas.
The peasants received no land. The administrative system changed only in
name, not in substance. The development of an internal market consisting
of prosperous farmers, after the American fashion, did not take place.
The capitalist classes, reconciled with the regime of June 3rd, turned
their attention to the usurpation of foreign markets. A new era of
Russian imperialism ensues, an imperialism accompanied by a disorderly
financial and military system and by insatiable appetites. Gutchkov, the
present War Minister, was formerly a member of the Committee on National
Defense, helping to make the army and the navy complete. Milukov, the
present Minister of Foreign Affairs, worked out a program of world
conquests which he advocated on his trips to Europe. Russian imperialism
and his Octobrist and Cadet representatives bear a great part of the
responsibility for the present war.
By the grace of the Revolution which they had not wanted and which they
had fought, Gutchkov and Milukov are now in power. For the continuation
of the war, for victory? Of course! They are the same persons who had
dragged the country into the war for the sake of the interests of
capital. All their opposition to Tzarism had its source in their
unsatisfied imperialistic appetites. So long as the clique of Nicholas
II. was in power, the interests of the dynasty and of the reactionary
nobility were prevailing in Russian foreign affairs. This is why Berlin
and Vienna had hoped to conclude a separate peace with Russia. Now,
purely imperialistic interests have superseded the Tzarism interests;
pure imperialism is written on the banner of the Provisional Government.
"The government of the Tzar is gone," the Milukovs and Gutchkovs say to
the people, "now you must shed your blood for the common interests of
the entire nation." Those interests the imperialists understand as the
reincorporation of Poland, the conquest of Galicia, Constantinople,
Armenia, Persia.
This transition from an imperialism of the dynasty and the nobility to
an imperialism of a purely bourgeois character, can never reconcile the
Russian proletariat to the war. An international struggle against the
world slaughter and imperialism are now our task more than ever. The
last despatches which tell of an anti-militaristic propaganda in the
streets of Petrograd show that our comrades are bravely doing their
duty.
_The imperialistic boasts of Milukov to crush Germany, Austria and
Turkey are the most effective and most timely aid for the Hohenzollerns
and Hapsburgs...._ Milukov will now serve as a scare-crow in their
hands. The liberal imperialistic government of Russia has not yet
started reform in its own army, yet it is already helping the
Hohenzollerns to raise the patriotic spirit and to mend the shattered
"national unity" of the German people. Should the German proletariat be
given a right to think that all the Russian people and the main force of
the Russian Revolution, the proletariat, are behind the bourgeois
government of Russia, it would be a terrific blow to the men of our
trend of mind, the revolutionary Socialists of Germany. To turn the
Russian proletariat into patriotic cannon food in the service of the
Russian liberal bourgeoisie would mean _to throw the German working
masses into the camp of the chauvinists and for a long time to halt the
progress of a revolution in Germany_.
The prime duty of the revolutionary proletariat in Russia is to show
that there is _no power_ behind the evil imperialistic will of the
liberal bourgeoisie. The Russian Revolution has to show the entire world
its real face.
_The further progress of the revolutionary struggle in Russia and the
creation of a Revolutionary Labor Government supported by the people
will be a mortal blow to the Hohenzollerns because it will give a
powerful stimulus to the revolutionary movement of the German
proletariat and of the labor masses of all the other countries._ If the
first Russian Revolution of 1905 brought about revolutions in Asia--in
Persia, Turkey, China--the Second Russian Revolution will be the
beginning of a powerful social-revolutionary struggle in Europe. Only
this struggle will bring real peace to the blood-drenched world.
No, the Russian proletariat will not allow itself to be harnessed to the
chariot of Milukov imperialism. The banner of Russian Social-Democracy
is now, more than ever before, glowing with bright slogans of inflexible
Internationalism:
Away with imperialistic robbers!
Long live a Revolutionary Labor Government!
Long live Peace and the Brotherhood of Nations!
(Published in New York, March 20, 1917.)
TROTZKY ON THE PLATFORM IN PETROGRAD
(From a Russian paper)
Trotzky, always Trotzky.
Since I had seen him the last time, he has been advanced in rank: he has
become the chairman of the Petrograd Soviet. He has succeeded
Tchcheidze, the wise, sober leader who has lost the confidence of the
revolutionary masses. He holds the place of Lenin, the recognized leader
of the left wing of Social-Democracy, whose absence from the capital is
due to external, accidental causes.
It seems to me that Trotzky has become more nervous, more gloomy, and
more restrained. Something like a freezing chill emanates from his deep
and restless eyes; a cool, determined, ironical smile plays around his
mobile Jewish lips, and there is a chill in his well-balanced, clear-cut
words which he throws into his audience with a peculiar calmness.
He seems almost lonesome on the platform. Only a small group of
followers applaud. The others protest against his words or cast angry,
restless glances at him. He is in a hostile gathering. He is a stranger.
Is he not also a stranger to those who applaud him and in whose name he
speaks from this platform?
Calm and composed he looks at his adversaries, and you feel it is a
peculiar joy for him to see the rage, the fear, the excitement his words
provoke. He is a Mephisto who throws words like bombs to create a war of
brothers at the bedside of their sick mother.
He knows in advance which words will have the greatest effect, which
would provoke the most bitter resentment. And the more extreme, the more
painful his words are, the firmer and stronger is his voice, the slower
his speech, the more challenging his tone. He speaks a sentence, then he
stops to wait till the storm is over, then he repeats his assertion,
with sharper intonation and with more disdain in his tone. Only his eyes
become more nervous, and a peculiar disquieting fire is blazing in them.
This time he does not speak; he reads a written declaration. He reads it
with pauses, sometimes accentuating the words, sometimes passing over
them quickly, but all the time he is aware of the effect and waits for a
response.
His voice is the voice of a prophet, a preacher:
"Petrograd is in danger! The Revolution is in danger! The people are in
danger!" ...
He is a stranger on the platform, and yet--electric currents flow from
him to his surroundings, creating sincere though primitive enthusiasm on
one side, on the other anger and spite. He opens vast perspectives
before the naive faithful masses:
"Long live an immediate, honest, democratic peace!"
"All power to the Workmen's Councils! All the land to the people!"
INDEX
Absolutism, role of, in outgrowing economic basis, 69;
in promoting industry and science, 69, 70;
as an end in itself, 70-71.
Agrarian question, 132-136.
Armament for the Revolution, 57-58.
Army, 35, 36, 37.
Bourgeoisie, imperialistic plans of, 189-191;
afraid of peace, 194-5;
reactionary, 203-4;
responsible for the war, 209-211.
Capitalism, preparing its own collapse, 138-9;
and feudal reaction, 139-140.
Cities, as scene of revolutionary battles, 41;
social structure of, 71-72.
Class consciousness, of proletariat, as prerequisite to Socialism,
124-128.
Constituent Assembly, as a revolutionary slogan, 43-44.
Demonstrations, in the streets, 41-42;
to become of nation-wide magnitude, 57.
French Revolution, 73-77.
Gapon, 59, 62; 172-3.
Intelligentzia, 145.
January Ninth, 49; 59-60; 171-173.
June Third, 198.
Labor Dictatorship, 94-97;
crushing absolutism, abandoning its remnants, 103-104;
introducing class politics, 103;
introducing class struggle in the village, 104-105;
introducing Collectivism and Internationalism, 105;
abandoning distinction between minimum and maximum program, 106;
and eight hour workday, 106-108;
and unemployment, 108-9;
and agriculture, 109;
and Collectivism, 109-110;
and class consciousness, 124-128;
incompatible with economic slavery, 132;
and agrarian question, 132-136.
Liberalism, denying the existence of revolutionary masses, 52-53;
defeated by events of January 9th, 54;
trying to "tame" revolutionary people, 55;
not reliable as partner in Revolution, 173-174; 176-7.
Manoeuvers, revolutionary, 29-30.
Masses, drawn into the Revolution, 37-39;
as a political reality, 51-52;
stirred by world-war, 183-4.
Middle-class (_see_ Bourgeoisie), weakness of, in Russia, 71, 72.
Militia, 81-82.
"Osvoboshdenie," 52, 53, 62.
Peasantry, as of no significance in Revolution, 175-7.
Poland, as possible revolutionary link between Russia and Europe,
140-41.
Prerequisites to Socialism, in relation to each other, 113-117.
Proletariat, as a vanguard of the Revolution, 33-35;
role of, in events of January 9th, 56-57;
stronger than bourgeoisie in Russia, 72;
growing with capitalism, 84;
may sooner reach political supremacy in a backward country, 84-85;
87-91;
as liberator of peasants, 98-100;
as a class objectively opposed to capitalism, 119-124;
to revolutionize European proletariat, 142-4.
Revolution, in Europe, as aid to Socialism in Russia, 136-7;
may be result of shattered European equilibrium, 141-42;
as result of Russian Revolution, 142-4.
Revolution, in general, 83;
of bourgeois character, 92-93.
Revolution, of _1848_, 77-80.
Revolution, of _1917_, its causes, 181-5;
social forces in, 191-192;
to stir up revolution in Germany, 212.
Social-Democracy, foresaw revolution, 55-6;
natural leader of the Revolution, 60-61.
Soviet, distinguishing Russian Revolution from that of _1848_, 80;
short history of, 145;
general survey of the role of, 151-4;
as class-organization, 154-156;
as organ of political authority, 158-9;
an imminent form of Russian Revolution, 160;
program of (outlined by Trotzky for the future), 160-1;
to fight against Provisional Government, 203.
"Spring," 24-25; 32; 54.
Strike, political, as beginning of Revolution, 35-36; 42, 43.
Struve, 62.
Technique, industrial, as prerequisite to Socialism, 113; 117-119.
"Underground," and the revolutionist, 165-8.
War, Russo-Japanese, 25;
of the world, as influencing masses, 183-4.
Witte, 62, 145.
Zemstvo, movement of, in _1904_, 24-25; 33; 62.
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES:
Obvious typesetting errors have been corrected. Questionable or vintage
spelling has been left as printed in the original publication.
Variations in spelling have been left as printed, unless otherwise noted
in the following.
In the original publication, each chapter listed in the Contents section
was preceded by a "title page" containing only the chapter title as
listed in the Contents, followed by a blank page. The chapter title was
repeated on the first page in each chapter. The chapter title pages have
not been reproduced in this transcription.
Page 90: The following phrase, beginning a quotation, has no closing
quotation mark in the original publication: "the struggle for the
interests of Russia as a whole...."
Page 145: Transcribed "on" as "of" to match the quoted phrase on p. 106:
"private ownership of the means of production". Originally printed as:
"'private ownership on the means of production'".
Page 174: Transcribed "Caucasas" as "Caucasus". As originally printed:
"the insurrection on the Caucasas and in the Lettish provinces."
Page 193: Supplied "to" in the following phrase, shown in brackets: "Yet
he had to speak [to] them...."