AFTERWORD
Non-Bolshevik Socialist critics of the Russian failure contend that the
Revolution could not have succeeded in Russia because industrial
conditions had not reached the necessary climax in that country. They
point to Marx, who taught that a social revolution is possible only in
countries with a highly developed industrial system and its attendant
social antagonisms. They therefore claim that the Russian Revolution
could not be a social revolution, and that historically it had to evolve
along constitutional, democratic lines, complemented by a growing
industry, in order to ripen the country economically for the basic
change.
This orthodox Marxian view leaves an important factor out of
consideration--a factor perhaps more vital to the possibility and
success of a social revolution than even the industrial element. That is
the psychology of the masses at a given period. Why is there, for
instance, no social revolution in the United States, France, or even in
Germany? Surely these countries have reached the industrial development
set by Marx as the culminating stage. The truth is that industrial
development and sharp social contrasts are of themselves by no means
sufficient to give birth to a new society or to call forth a social
revolution. The necessary social consciousness, the required mass
psychology is missing in such countries as the United States and the
others mentioned. That explains why no social revolution has taken place
there.
In this regard Russia had the advantage of other more industrialized and
“civilized” lands. It is true that Russia was not as advanced
industrially as her Western neighbours. But the Russian mass psychology,
inspired and intensified by the February Revolution, was ripening at so
fast a pace that within a few months the people were ready for such
ultra-revolutionary slogans as “All power to the Soviets” and “The land
to the peasants, the factories to the workers.”
The significance of these slogans should not be under-estimated.
Expressing in a large degree the instinctive and semi-conscious will of
the people, they yet signified the complete social, economic, and
industrial reorganization of Russia. What country in Europe or America
is prepared to interpret such revolutionary mottoes into life? Yet in
Russia, in the months of June and July, 1917, these slogans became
popular and were enthusiastically and actively taken up, in the form of
direct action, by the bulk of the industrial and agrarian population of
more than 150 millions. That was sufficient proof of the “ripeness” of
the Russian people for the social revolution.
As to economic “preparedness” in the Marxian sense, it must not be
forgotten that Russia is preëminently an agrarian country. Marx’s dictum
presupposes the industrialization of the peasant and farmer population
in every highly developed society, as a step toward social fitness for
revolution. But events in Russia, in 1917, demonstrated that revolution
does not await this process of industrialization and--what is more
important--cannot be made to wait. The Russian peasants began to
expropriate the landlords and the workers took possession of the
factories without taking cognizance of Marxian dicta. This popular
action, by virtue of its own logic, ushered in the social revolution in
Russia, upsetting all Marxian calculations. The psychology of the Slav
proved stronger than social-democratic theories.
That psychology involved the passionate yearning for liberty nurtured by
a century of revolutionary agitation among all classes of society. The
Russian people had fortunately remained politically unsophisticated and
untouched by the corruption and confusion created among the proletariat
of other countries by “democratic” liberty and self-government. The
Russian remained, in this sense, natural and simple, unfamiliar with the
subtleties of politics, of parliamentary trickery, and legal makeshifts.
On the other hand, his primitive sense of justice and right was strong
and vital, without the disintegrating finesse of pseudo-civilization. He
knew what he wanted and he did not wait for “historic inevitability” to
bring it to him: he employed direct action. The Revolution to him was a
fact of life, not a mere theory for discussion.
Thus the social revolution took place in Russia in spite of the
industrial backwardness of the country. But to make the Revolution was
not enough. It was necessary for it to advance and broaden, to develop
into economic and social reconstruction. That phase of the Revolution
necessitated fullest play of personal initiative and collective effort.
The development and success of the Revolution depended on the broadest
exercise of the creative genius of the people, on the coöperation of the
intellectual and manual proletariat. Common interest is the _leit motif_
of all revolutionary endeavour, especially on its constructive side.
This spirit of mutual purpose and solidarity swept Russia with a mighty
wave in the first days of the October-November Revolution. Inherent in
that enthusiasm were forces that could have moved mountains if
intelligently guided by exclusive consideration for the well-being of
the whole people. The medium for such effective guidance was on hand:
the labour organizations and the coöperatives with which Russia was
covered as with a network of bridges combining the city with the
country; the Soviets which sprang into being responsive to the needs of
the Russian people; and, finally, the intelligentsia whose traditions
for a century expressed heroic devotion to the cause of Russia’s
emancipation.
But such a development was by no means within the programme of the
Bolsheviki. For several months following October they suffered the
popular forces to manifest themselves, the people carrying the
Revolution into ever-widening channels. But as soon as the Communist
Party felt itself sufficiently strong in the government saddle, it began
to limit the scope of popular activity. All the succeeding acts of the
Bolsheviki, all their following policies, changes of policies, their
compromises and retreats, their methods of suppression and persecution,
their terrorism and extermination of all other political views--all were
but the _means to an end_: the retaining of the State power in the hands
of the Communist Party. Indeed, the Bolsheviki themselves (in Russia)
made no secret of it. The Communist Party, they contended, is the
advance guard of the proletariat, and the dictatorship must rest in its
hands. Alas, the Bolsheviki reckoned without their host--without the
peasantry, whom neither the _razvyortska_, the Tcheka, nor the wholesale
shooting could persuade to support the Bolshevik régime. The peasantry
became the rock upon which the best-laid plans and schemes of Lenin were
wrecked. But Lenin, a nimble acrobat, was skilled in performing within
the narrowest margin. The new economic policy was introduced just in
time to ward off the disaster which was slowly but surely overtaking the
whole Communist edifice.
II
The “new economic policy” came as a surprise and a shock to most
Communists. They saw in it a reversal of everything that their Party
had been proclaiming--a reversal of Communism itself. In protest some of
the oldest members of the Party, men who had faced danger and
persecution under the old régime while Lenin and Trotsky lived abroad in
safety, left the Communist Party embittered and disappointed. The
leaders then declared a lockout. They ordered the clearing of the Party
ranks of all “doubtful” elements. Everybody suspected of an independent
attitude and those who did not accept the new economic policy as the
last word in revolutionary wisdom were expelled. Among them were
Communists who for years had rendered most devoted service. Some of
them, hurt to the quick by the unjust and brutal procedure, and shaken
to their depths by the collapse of what they held most high, even
resorted to suicide. But the smooth sailing of Lenin’s new gospel had to
be assured, the gospel of the sanctity of private property and the
freedom of cutthroat competition erected upon the ruins of four years of
revolution.
However, Communist indignation over the new economic policy merely
indicated the confusion of mind on the part of Lenin’s opponents. What
else but mental confusion could approve of the numerous acrobatic
political stunts of Lenin and yet grow indignant at the final
somersault, its logical culmination? The trouble with the devout
Communists was that they clung to the Immaculate Conception of the
Communist State which by the aid of the Revolution was to redeem the
world. But most of the leading Communists never entertained such a
delusion. Least of all Lenin.
During my first interview I received the impression that he was a shrewd
politician who knew exactly what he was about and that he would stop at
nothing to achieve his ends. After hearing him speak on several
occasions and reading his works I became convinced that Lenin had very
little concern in the Revolution and that Communism to him was a very
remote thing. The centralized political State was Lenin’s deity, to
which everything else was to be sacrificed. Someone said that Lenin
would sacrifice the Revolution to save Russia. Lenin’s policies,
however, have proven that he was willing to sacrifice both the
Revolution and the country; or at least part of the latter, in order to
realize his political scheme with what was left of Russia.
Lenin was the most pliable politician in history. He could be an
ultra-revolutionary, a compromiser and conservative at the same time.
When like a mighty wave the cry swept over Russia, “All power to the
Soviets!” Lenin swam with the tide. When the peasants took possession of
the land and the workers of the factories, Lenin not only approved of
those direct methods but went further. He issued the famous motto, “Rob
the robbers,” a slogan which served to confuse the minds of the people
and caused untold injury to revolutionary idealism. Never before did any
real revolutionist interpret social expropriation as the transfer of
wealth from one set of individuals to another. Yet that was exactly what
Lenin’s slogan meant. The indiscriminate and irresponsible raids, the
accumulation of the wealth of the former bourgeoisie by the new Soviet
bureaucracy, the chicanery practised toward those whose only crime was
their former status, were all the results of Lenin’s “Rob the robbers”
policy. The whole subsequent history of the Revolution is a kaleidoscope
of Lenin’s compromises and betrayal of his own slogans.
Bolshevik acts and methods since the October days may seem to contradict
the new economic policy. But in reality they are links in the chain
which was to forge the all-powerful, centralized Government with State
Capitalism as its economic expression. Lenin possessed clarity of vision
and an iron will. He knew how to make his comrades in Russia and outside
of it believe that his scheme was true Socialism and his methods the
revolution. No wonder that Lenin felt such contempt for his flock, which
he never hesitated to fling into their faces. “Only fools can believe
that Communism is possible in Russia now,” was Lenin’s reply to the
opponents of the new economic policy.
As a matter of fact, Lenin was right. True Communism was never attempted
in Russia, unless one considers thirty-three categories of pay,
different food rations, privileges to some and indifference to the great
mass as Communism.
In the early period of the Revolution it was comparatively easy for the
Communist Party to possess itself of power. All the revolutionary
elements, carried away by the ultra-revolutionary promises of the
Bolsheviki, helped the latter to power. Once in possession of the State
the Communists began their process of elimination. All the political
parties and groups which refused to submit to the new dictatorship had
to go. First the Anarchists and Left Social Revolutionists, then the
Mensheviki and other opponents from the Right, and finally everybody who
dared aspire to an opinion of his own. Similar was the fate of all
independent organizations. They were either subordinated to the needs of
the new State or destroyed altogether, as were the Soviets, the trade
unions and the coöperatives--three great factors for the realization of
the hopes of the Revolution.
The Soviets first manifested themselves in the revolution of 1905. They
played an important part during that brief but significant period.
Though the revolution was crushed, the Soviet idea remained rooted in
the minds and hearts of the Russian masses. At the first dawn which
illuminated Russia in February, 1917, the Soviets revived again and came
into bloom in a very short time. To the people the Soviets by no means
represented a curtailment of the spirit of the Revolution. On the
contrary, the Revolution was to find its highest, freest practical
expression through the Soviets. That was why the Soviets so
spontaneously and rapidly spread throughout Russia. The Bolsheviki
realized the significance of the popular trend and joined the cry. But
once in control of the Government the Communists saw that the Soviets
threatened the supremacy of the State. At the same time they could not
destroy them arbitrarily without undermining their own prestige at home
and abroad as the sponsors of the Soviet system. They began to shear
them gradually of their powers and finally to subordinate them to their
own needs.
The Russian trade unions were much more amenable to emasculation.
Numerically and in point of revolutionary fibre they were still in their
childhood. By declaring adherence to the trade unions obligatory the
Russian labour organizations gained in physical stature, but mentally
they remained in the infant stage. The Communist State became the wet
nurse of the trade unions. In return, the organizations served as the
flunkeys of the State. “A school for Communism,” said Lenin in the
famous controversy on the functions of the trade unions. Quite right.
But an antiquated school where the spirit of the child is fettered and
crushed. Nowhere in the world are labour organizations as subservient to
the will and the dictates of the State as they are in Bolshevik Russia.
The fate of the coöperatives is too well known to require elucidation.
The coöperatives were the most essential link between the city and the
country. Their value to the Revolution as a popular and successful
medium of exchange and distribution and to the reconstruction of Russia
was incalculable. The Bolsheviki transformed them into cogs of the
Government machine and thereby destroyed their usefulness and
efficiency.
III
It is now clear why the Russian Revolution, as conducted by the
Communist Party, was a failure. The political power of the Party,
organized and centralized in the State, sought to maintain itself by all
means at hand. The central authorities attempted to force the activities
of the people into forms corresponding with the purposes of the Party.
The sole aim of the latter was to strengthen the State and monopolize
all economical, political, and social activities--even all cultural
manifestations. The Revolution had an entirely different object, and in
its very character it was the negation of authority and centralization.
It strove to open ever-larger fields for proletarian expression and to
multiply the phases of individual and collective effort. The aims and
tendencies of the Revolution were diametrically opposed to those of the
ruling political party.
Just as diametrically opposed were the _methods_ of the Revolution and
of the State. Those of the former were inspired by the spirit of the
Revolution itself: that is to say, by emancipation from all oppressive
and limiting forces; in short, _by libertarian principles_. The methods
of the State, on the contrary--of the Bolshevik State as of every
government--were based on _coercion_, which in the course of things
necessarily developed into systematic violence, oppression, and
terrorism. Thus two opposing tendencies struggled for supremacy: the
Bolshevik State against the Revolution. That struggle was a
life-and-death struggle. The two tendencies, contradictory in aims and
methods, could not work harmoniously: the triumph of the State meant the
defeat of the Revolution.
It would be an error to assume that the failure of the Revolution was
due entirely to the character of the Bolsheviki. Fundamentally, it was
the result of the principles and methods of Bolshevism. It was the
authoritarian spirit and principles of the State which stifled the
libertarian and liberating aspirations. Were any other political party
in control of the government in Russia the result would have been
essentially the same. It is not so much the Bolsheviki who killed the
Russian Revolution as the Bolshevik idea. It was Marxism, however
modified; in short, fanatical governmentalism. Only this understanding
of the underlying forces that crushed the Revolution can present the
true lesson of that world-stirring event. The Russian Revolution
reflects on a small scale the century-old struggle of the libertarian
principle against the authoritarian. For what is progress if not the
more general acceptance of the principles of liberty as against those of
coercion? The Russian Revolution was a libertarian step defeated by the
Bolshevik State, by the temporary victory of the reactionary, the
governmental idea.
That victory was due to a number of causes. Most of them have already
been dealt with in the preceding chapters. The main cause, however, was
not the industrial backwardness of Russia, as claimed by many writers on
the subject. That cause was cultural which, though giving the Russian
people certain advantages over their more sophisticated neighbours, also
had some fatal disadvantages. The Russian was “culturally backward” in
the sense of being unspoiled by political and parliamentary corruption.
On the other hand, that very condition involved inexperience in the
political game and a naïve faith in the miraculous power of the party
that talked the loudest and made the most promises. This faith in the
power of government served to enslave the Russian people to the
Communist Party even before the great masses realized that the yoke had
been put around their necks.
The libertarian principle was strong in the initial days of the
Revolution, the need for free expression all-absorbing. But when the
first wave of enthusiasm receded into the ebb of everyday prosaic life,
a firm conviction was needed to keep the fires of liberty burning. There
was only a comparative handful in the great vastness of Russia to keep
those fires lit--the Anarchists, whose number was small and whose
efforts, absolutely suppressed under the Tsar, had had no time to bear
fruit. The Russian people, to some extent instinctive Anarchists, were
yet too unfamiliar with true libertarian principles and methods to apply
them effectively to life. Most of the Russian Anarchists themselves were
unfortunately still in the meshes of limited group activities and of
individualistic endeavour as against the more important social and
collective efforts. The Anarchists, the future unbiased historian will
admit, have played a very important rôle in the Russian Revolution--a
rôle far more significant and fruitful than their comparatively small
number would have led one to expect. Yet honesty and sincerity compel me
to state that their work would have been of infinitely greater practical
value had they been better organized and equipped to guide the released
energies of the people toward the reorganization of life on a
libertarian foundation.
But the failure of the Anarchists in the Russian Revolution--in the
sense just indicated--does by no means argue the defeat of the
libertarian idea. On the contrary, the Russian Revolution has
demonstrated beyond doubt that the State idea, State Socialism, in all
its manifestations (economic, political, social, educational) is
entirely and hopelessly bankrupt. Never before in all history has
authority, government, the State, proved so inherently static,
reactionary, and even counter-revolutionary in effect. In short, the
very antithesis of revolution.
It remains true, as it has through all progress, that only the
libertarian spirit and method can bring man a step further in his
eternal striving for the better, finer, and freer life. Applied to the
great social upheavals known as revolutions, this tendency is as potent
as in the ordinary evolutionary process. The authoritarian method has
been a failure all through history and now it has again failed in the
Russian Revolution. So far human ingenuity has discovered no other
principle except the libertarian, for man has indeed uttered the highest
wisdom when he said that liberty is the mother of order, not its
daughter. All political tenets and parties notwithstanding, no
revolution can be truly and permanently successful unless it puts its
emphatic veto upon all tyranny and centralization, and determinedly
strives to make the revolution a real revaluation of all economic,
social, and cultural values. Not mere substitution of one political
party for another in the control of the Government, not the masking of
autocracy by proletarian slogans, not the dictatorship of a new class
over an old one, not political scene shifting of any kind, but the
complete reversal of all these authoritarian principles will alone serve
the revolution.
In the economic field this transformation must be in the hands of the
industrial masses: the latter have the choice between an industrial
State and anarcho-syndicalism. In the case of the former the menace to
the constructive development of the new social structure would be as
great as from the political State. It would become a dead weight upon
the growth of the new forms of life. For that very reason syndicalism
(or industrialism) alone is not, as its exponents claim, sufficient unto
itself. It is only when the libertarian spirit permeates the economic
organizations of the workers that the manifold creative energies of the
people can manifest themselves, and the revolution be safeguarded and
defended. Only free initiative and popular participation in the affairs
of the revolution can prevent the terrible blunders committed in Russia.
For instance, with fuel only a hundred versts [about sixty-six miles]
from Petrograd there would have been no necessity for that city to
suffer from cold had the workers’ economic organizations of Petrograd
been free to exercise their initiative for the common good. The peasants
of the Ukraina would not have been hampered in the cultivation of their
land had they had access to the farm implements stacked up in the
warehouses of Kharkov and other industrial centres awaiting orders from
Moscow for their distribution. These are characteristic examples of
Bolshevik governmentalism and centralization, which should serve as a
warning to the workers of Europe and America of the destructive effects
of Statism.
The industrial power of the masses, expressed through their libertarian
associations--Anarcho-syndicalism--is alone able to organize
successfully the economic life and carry on production. On the other
hand, the coöperatives, working in harmony with the industrial bodies,
serve as the distributing and exchange media between city and country,
and at the same time link in fraternal bond the industrial and agrarian
masses. A common tie of mutual service and aid is created which is the
strongest bulwark of the revolution--far more effective then compulsory
labour, the Red Army, or terrorism. In that way alone can revolution act
as a leaven to quicken the development of new social forms and inspire
the masses to greater achievements.
But libertarian industrial organizations and the coöperatives are not
the only media in the interplay of the complex phases of social life.
There are the cultural forces which, though closely related to the
economic activities, have yet their own functions to perform. In Russia
the Communist State became the sole arbiter of all the needs of the
social body. The result, as already described, was complete cultural
stagnation and the paralysis of all creative endeavour. If such a
débâcle is to be avoided in the future, the cultural forces, while
remaining rooted in the economic soil, must yet retain independent scope
and freedom of expression. Not adherence to the dominant political party
but devotion to the revolution, knowledge, ability, and--above all--the
creative impulse should be the criterion of fitness for cultural work.
In Russia this was made impossible almost from the beginning of the
October Revolution, by the violent separation of the intelligentsia and
the masses. It is true that the original offender in this case was the
intelligentsia, especially the technical intelligentsia, which in Russia
tenaciously clung--as it does in other countries--to the coat-tails of
the bourgeoisie. This element, unable to comprehend the significance of
revolutionary events, strove to stem the tide by wholesale sabotage. But
in Russia there was also another kind of intelligentsia--one with a
glorious revolutionary past of a hundred years. That part of the
intelligentsia kept faith with the people, though it could not
unreservedly accept the new dictatorship. The fatal error of the
Bolsheviki was that they made no distinction between the two elements.
They met sabotage with wholesale terror against the intelligentsia as a
class, and inaugurated a campaign of hatred more intensive than the
persecution of the bourgeoisie itself--a method which created an abyss
between the intelligentsia and the proletariat and reared a barrier
against constructive work.
Lenin was the first to realize that criminal blunder. He pointed out
that it was a grave error to lead the workers to believe that they could
build up the industries and engage in cultural work without the aid and
coöperation of the intelligentsia. The proletariat had neither the
knowledge nor the training for the task, and the intelligentsia had to
be restored in the direction of the industrial life. But the recognition
of one error never safeguarded Lenin and his Party from immediately
committing another. The technical intelligentsia was called back on
terms which added disintegration to the antagonism against the régime.
While the workers continued to starve, engineers, industrial experts,
and technicians received high salaries, special privileges, and the best
rations. They became the pampered employees of the State and the new
slave drivers of the masses. The latter, fed for years on the fallacious
teachings that muscle alone is necessary for a successful revolution
and that only physical labour is productive, and incited by the campaign
of hatred which stamped every intellectual a counter-revolutionist and
speculator, could not make peace with those they had been taught to
scorn and distrust.
Unfortunately Russia is not the only country where this proletarian
attitude against the intelligentsia prevails. Everywhere political
demagogues play upon the ignorance of the masses, teach them that
education and culture are bourgeois prejudices, that the workers can do
without them, and that they alone are able to rebuild society. The
Russian Revolution has made it very clear that both brain and muscle are
indispensable to the work of social regeneration. Intellectual and
physical labour are as closely related in the social body as brain and
hand in the human organism. One cannot function without the other.
It is true that most intellectuals consider themselves a class apart
from and superior to the workers, but social conditions everywhere are
fast demolishing the high pedestal of the intelligentsia. They are made
to see that they, too, are proletarians, even more dependent upon the
economic master than the manual worker. Unlike the physical
proletarian, who can pick up his tools and tramp the world in search of
a change from a galling situation, the intellectual proletarians have
their roots more firmly in their particular social environment and
cannot so easily change their occupation or mode of living. It is
therefore of utmost importance to bring home to the workers the rapid
proletarization of the intellectuals and the common tie thus created
between them. If the Western world is to profit by the lessons of
Russia, the demagogic flattery of the masses and blind antagonism toward
the intelligentsia must cease. That does not mean, however, that the
toilers should depend entirely upon the intellectual element. On the
contrary, the masses must begin right now to prepare and equip
themselves for the great task the revolution will put upon them. They
should acquire the knowledge and technical skill necessary for managing
and directing the intricate mechanism of the industrial and social
structure of their respective countries. But even at best the workers
will need the coöperation of the professional and cultural elements.
Similarly the latter must realize that their true interests are
identical with those of the masses. Once the two social forces learn to
blend into one harmonious whole, the tragic aspects of the Russian
Revolution would to a great extent be eliminated. No one would be shot
because he “once acquired an education.” The scientist, the engineer,
the specialist, the investigator, the educator, and the creative artist,
as well as the carpenter, machinist, and the rest, are all part and
parcel of the collective force which is to shape the revolution into the
great architect of the new social edifice. Not hatred, but unity; not
antagonism, but fellowship; not shooting, but sympathy--that is the
lesson of the great Russian débâcle for the intelligentsia as well as
the workers. All must learn the value of mutual aid and libertarian
coöperation. Yet each must be able to remain independent in his own
sphere and in harmony with the best he can yield to society. Only in
that way will productive labour and educational and cultural endeavour
express themselves in ever newer and richer forms. That is to me the
all-embracing and vital moral taught by the Russian Revolution.
IV
In the previous pages I have tried to point out why Bolshevik
principles, methods, and tactics failed, and that similar principles
and methods applied in any other country, even of the highest
industrial development, must also fail. I have further shown that it is
not only Bolshevism that failed, but Marxism itself. That is to say, the
STATE IDEA, the _authoritarian principle_, has been proven bankrupt by
the experience of the Russian Revolution. If I were to sum up my whole
argument in one sentence I should say: The inherent tendency of the
State is to concentrate, to narrow, and monopolize all social
activities; the nature of revolution is, on the contrary, to grow, to
broaden, and disseminate itself in ever-wider circles. In other words,
the State is institutional and static; revolution is fluent, dynamic.
These two tendencies are incompatible and mutually destructive. The
State idea killed the Russian Revolution and it must have the same
result in all other revolutions, unless the _libertarian idea prevail_.
Yet I go much further. It is not only Bolshevism, Marxism, and
Governmentalism which are fatal to revolution as well as to all vital
human progress. The main cause of the defeat of the Russian Revolution
lies much deeper. It is to be found in the whole Socialist conception of
revolution itself.
The dominant, almost general, idea of revolution--particularly the
Socialist idea--is that revolution is a violent change of social
conditions through which one social class, the working class, becomes
dominant over another class, the capitalist class. It is the conception
of a purely physical change, and as such it involves only political
scene shifting and institutional rearrangements. Bourgeois dictatorship
is replaced by the “dictatorship of the proletariat”--or by that of its
“advance guard,” the Communist Party; Lenin takes the seat of the
Romanovs, the Imperial Cabinet is rechristened Soviet of People’s
Commissars, Trotsky is appointed Minister of War, and a labourer becomes
the Military Governor General of Moscow. That is, in essence, the
Bolshevik conception of revolution, as translated into actual practice.
And with a few minor alterations it is also the idea of revolution held
by all other Socialist parties.
This conception is inherently and fatally false. Revolution is indeed a
violent process. But if it is to result only in a change of
dictatorship, in a shifting of names and political personalities, then
it is hardly worth while. It is surely not worth all the struggle and
sacrifice, the stupendous loss in human life and cultural values that
result from every revolution. If such a revolution were even to bring
greater social well being (which has not been the case in Russia) then
it would also not be worth the terrific price paid: mere improvement can
be brought about without bloody revolution. It is not palliatives or
reforms that are the real aim and purpose of revolution, as I conceive
it.
In my opinion--a thousandfold strengthened by the Russian
experience--the great mission of revolution, of the SOCIAL REVOLUTION,
is a _fundamental transvaluation of values_. A transvaluation not only
of social, but also of human values. The latter are even preëminent, for
they are the basis of all social values. Our institutions and conditions
rest upon deep-seated ideas. To change those conditions and at the same
time leave the underlying ideas and values intact means only a
superficial transformation, one that cannot be permanent or bring real
betterment. It is a change of form only, not of substance, as so
tragically proven by Russia.
It is at once the great failure and the great tragedy of the Russian
Revolution that it attempted (in the leadership of the ruling political
party) to change only institutions and conditions while ignoring
entirely the human and social values involved in the Revolution. Worse
yet, in its mad passion for power, the Communist State even sought to
strengthen and deepen the very ideas and conceptions which the
Revolution had come to destroy. It supported and encouraged all the
worst anti-social qualities and systematically destroyed the already
awakened conception of the new revolutionary values. The sense
of justice and equality, the love of liberty and of human
brotherhood--these fundamentals of the real regeneration of society--the
Communist State suppressed to the point of extermination. Man’s
instinctive sense of equity was branded as weak sentimentality; human
dignity and liberty became a bourgeois superstition; the sanctity of
life, which is the very essence of social reconstruction, was condemned
as un-revolutionary, almost counter-revolutionary. This fearful
perversion of fundamental values bore within itself the seed of
destruction. With the conception that the Revolution was only a means of
securing political power, it was inevitable that all revolutionary
values should be subordinated to the needs of the Socialist State;
indeed, exploited to further the security of the newly acquired
governmental power. “Reasons of State,” masked as the “interests of the
Revolution and of the People,” became the sole criterion of action,
even of feeling. Violence, the tragic inevitability of revolutionary
upheavals, became an established custom, a habit, and was presently
enthroned as the most powerful and “ideal” institution. Did not Zinoviev
himself canonize Dzerzhinsky, the head of the bloody Tcheka, as the
“saint of the Revolution”? Were not the greatest public honours paid by
the State to Uritsky, the founder and sadistic chief of the Petrograd
Tcheka?
This perversion of the ethical values soon crystallized into the
all-dominating slogan of the Communist Party: THE END JUSTIFIES ALL
MEANS. Similarly in the past the Inquisition and the Jesuits adopted
this motto and subordinated to it all morality. It avenged itself upon
the Jesuits as it did upon the Russian Revolution. In the wake of this
slogan followed lying, deceit, hypocrisy and treachery, murder, open and
secret. It should be of utmost interest to students of social psychology
that two movements as widely separated in time and ideas as Jesuitism
and Bolshevism _reached exactly similar results_ in the evolution of the
principle that the end justifies all means. The historic parallel,
almost entirely ignored so far, contains a most important lesson for all
coming revolutions and for the whole future of mankind.
There is no greater fallacy than the belief that aims and purposes are
one thing, while methods and tactics are another. This conception is a
potent menace to social regeneration. All human experience teaches that
methods and means cannot be separated from the ultimate aim. The means
employed become, through individual habit and social practice, part and
parcel of the final purpose; they influence it, modify it, and presently
the aims and means become identical. From the day of my arrival in
Russia I felt it, at first vaguely, then ever more consciously and
clearly. The great and inspiring aims of the Revolution became so
clouded with and obscured by the methods used by the ruling political
power that it was hard to distinguish what was temporary means and what
final purpose. Psychologically and socially the means necessarily
influence and alter the aims. The whole history of man is continuous
proof of the maxim that to divest one’s methods of ethical concepts
means to sink into the depths of utter demoralization. In that lies the
real tragedy of the Bolshevik philosophy as applied to the Russian
Revolution. May this lesson not be in vain.
No revolution can ever succeed as a factor of liberation unless the
MEANS used to further it be identical in spirit and tendency with the
PURPOSES to be achieved. Revolution is the negation of the existing, a
violent protest against man’s inhumanity to man with all the thousand
and one slaveries it involves. It is the destroyer of dominant values
upon which a complex system of injustice, oppression, and wrong has been
built up by ignorance and brutality. It is the herald of NEW VALUES,
ushering in a transformation of the basic relations of man to man, and
of man to society. It is not a mere reformer, patching up some social
evils; not a mere changer of forms and institutions; not only a
re-distributor of social well-being. It is all that, yet more, much
more. It is, first and foremost, the TRANSVALUATOR, the bearer of _new_
values. It is the great TEACHER of the NEW ETHICS, inspiring man with a
new concept of life and its manifestations in social relationships. It
is the mental and spiritual regenerator.
Its first ethical precept is the identity of means used and aims sought.
The ultimate end of all revolutionary social change is to establish the
sanctity of human life, the dignity of man, the right of every human
being to liberty and well-being. Unless this be the essential aim of
revolution, violent social changes would have no justification. For
_external_ social alterations can be, and have been, accomplished by the
normal processes of evolution. Revolution, on the contrary, signifies
not mere _external_ change, but _internal_, basic, fundamental change.
That internal change of concepts and ideas, permeating ever-larger
social strata, finally culminates in the violent upheaval known as
revolution. Shall that climax reverse the process of transvaluation,
turn against it, betray it? That is what happened in Russia. On the
contrary, the revolution itself must quicken and further the process of
which it is the cumulative expression; its main mission is to inspire
it, to carry it to greater heights, give it fullest scope for
expression. Only thus is revolution true to itself.
Applied in practice it means that the period of the actual revolution,
the so-called transitory stage, must be the introduction, the prelude to
the new social conditions. It is the threshold to the NEW LIFE, the new
HOUSE OF MAN AND HUMANITY. As such it must be of the spirit of the new
life, harmonious with the construction of the new edifice.
To-day is the parent of to-morrow. The present casts its shadow far into
the future. That is the law of life, individual and social. Revolution
that divests itself of ethical values thereby lays the foundation of
injustice, deceit, and oppression for the future society. The _means_
used to _prepare_ the future become its _cornerstone_. Witness the
tragic condition of Russia. The methods of State centralization have
paralysed individual initiative and effort; the tyranny of the
dictatorship has cowed the people into slavish submission and all but
extinguished the fires of liberty; organized terrorism has depraved and
brutalized the masses and stifled every idealistic aspiration;
institutionalized murder has cheapened human life, and all sense of the
dignity of man and the value of life has been eliminated; coercion at
every step has made effort bitter, labour a punishment, has turned the
whole of existence into a scheme of mutual deceit, and has revived the
lowest and most brutal instincts of man. A sorry heritage to begin a new
life of freedom and brotherhood.
It cannot be sufficiently emphasized that revolution is in vain unless
inspired by its ultimate ideal. Revolutionary methods must be in tune
with revolutionary aims. The means used to further the revolution must
harmonize with its purposes. In short, the ethical values which the
revolution is to establish in the new society must be _initiated_ with
the revolutionary activities of the so-called transitional period. The
latter can serve as a real and dependable bridge to the better life only
if built of the same material as the life to be achieved. Revolution is
the mirror of the coming day; it is the child that is to be the Man of
To-morrow.
THE END
FOOTNOTES:
[A] Political bureaus.
[B] Armed units organized by the Bolsheviki for the purpose of
suppressing traffic and confiscating foodstuffs.
[C] Individual small-scale.
[D] Happy villagers and their model homes, specially prepared and shown
to Catherine the Great by her Prime Minister Potemkin to deceive her
about the true condition of the peasantry.