Socialism and the Russian Revolution the midst of terror and agony, its the workers in shop, mill and mine into So. frontiersia bristine oriche cannon and By Louis Fraina viets, which would constitute the newer proaflame with the fires of war, compelled to letarian state functioning temporarily as a bend its industrial resources to purposes oi dilication of national antagonism and natio dictatorship of the proletariat.
war instead of peace and isolated by the Al nal reconciliation were to realize universal The concept of the Soviet state is the peace.
lies from the world. in the midst of imrealization of the Marxian theory of prolememorial travail Soviet Russia is construct Socialism was divested of its revolutiotarian dictatorship. All attempts to show ing the Communist order.
nary urge; it was peaceful, respectable, that the Soviets are a peculiar Russian decounter revolutionary.
Soviet Russia appears to the imagination velopment are futile, since the Soviet is as a Titan, defying chaos and creating a new But the Russian Revolution, the violent possible only where Capitalism has thrown world out of the fragments of the old. Be product of the antagonism of Capitalism and the workers together in masses in large inleagured on all sides, fighting on a dozen the war, proved all these ideas vi reconcili dustrial establishments. The Soviet is not fronts and meeting a thousand perils, Com ation the most reactionary illusions. By a product of Russia undeveloped industrial munist Russia throws back the enemies and means of a magnificent expression of revo conditions, but a product of the highly deincites civil war in the countries of the ene lutionary energy and audacity, the Russian veloped industry in Russia for while Rusmy. The Russian revolutionary proletariat Revolution proved the truth of the Marxian sia is still largely agrarian, its industry is inspires the proletariat of the world; it re conceptic of the class struggle and revo the typical industry of modern concentrated constructs its own social system anew while lution.
Capitalism. During the Paris Coinmure it enconrages the workers of Europe to It is indisputable that the proletarian the Soviet was inconceivable, since industcrush the old and build the new.
revolution in Russia is in accord with Marx rial development had not yet massed the Objectively, the assurance of the world ism. Its tactics are not peculiar to Russia: workers together industrially. That the revolution is in Capitalism itself. The old they are the universal tactics necessary in Sovict is peculiar to Capitalism, to the order is in collapse; the contradictions of the process of the proletarian revolution. modern revolutionary struggle of the proleCapitalism are multiplving; the productive But the Russian Revolution is more than tariat, is attested not only in theory, but forces are in revolt against the fetters of simply in accord with Marxism; in making in practice: wherever the revolutionary Capitalista, and conditions are feverishly dlarxism life, the Russian Revolution sup proletariat engages in the struggle for polideveloping a crisis that; unless met by the plements Marxism, indicates how the theory tical power, there it rallies to the call of all dictatorship of the proletariat, must mean of Marx may become realized in actual prac power to the Soviets of Workers and Peastice.
ants.
the collapse of all civilization.
Subjectively, the world revolution is as Varxism projected the dictatorship of the The most vital accomplishment of the sured by the ideologie response to the Rus proletariat as the objective of the revolu Russian Revolution, accordingly, is tie in sian Revolution by the fact of the Com tionary class struggle the iſecessity of de pulse it has generated making for the remunist International.
stroying the bourgeois parliamentary state construction of Socialism. Socialism has become action, Socialism has again become Socialism as and replacing it with a proletarian state.
an organized movement Coinmunism. United in the Communist Inbroke down miserably under the test of the The Paris Commune was a partial realizawar. But this great catastrophe was the netion of the form of the proletarian state; but ternational, this new Communism cails the cessary phase of revolutionary development, it remained for the Russian Revolution to proletariat to the final struggle against casince it glaringly exposed the evils of the old show the final means the organization of pitalism.
Socialism. What the theoretical criticism of the revolutionary minority in the old International could not accomplish, was accomplished by liie itseii. Under the test of war, the old Socialism revealed itself as a (Continued from page 4)
measures as the decree of Socialist Farming, ietter upon the emancipation of the prole ciety a war is raging between the bourgeoi. which decree passed not long ago through tariat, a cancerous perversion of real Soci sie and the proletariat. So long as this the Central Executive Committee and is of alism.
war is not terminated, our attention will be course, familiar to everybody summarize But while the war exposed the reactionary centered on fighting it to the finish. great our experience from the standpoint of the character of the dominant Socialism, this deal lias been done in this conflict already. proletarian revolution. That paramount was simply the negative side of the task, it At present the world bourgeoisie cannot act work which forms the primary and basic gave the revolutionary Socialist minority with a free hand. Hence it is evident that task of the proletarian revolution we acconimaterial for ample criticism, but there was our work of reconstruction in the villages plished. And precisely because we have stiil missing a great dynamic force to recon has outgrown the confines where all was done that, on the order of the day appears struct the forces of Socialism into a mighty subordinated to the fundamental require a more complex problem: our attitude toTevolutionary power.
The Russian Revo ment.
wards the middie peasantry. Whoever aslution performed this positive task of re This reconstruction has gone through sumes that the emphasis on this problem is construction, placing Socialism upon the un two primary phases. In November 1917 we suggestive of a weakening of the character shakable basis of revolutionary experience seized the power together with the entire of our authority, a weakening of the dictaand reality.
peasantry. This was a bourgeois revolution torship of the proletariat, a change, though Marxism is the soul of Socialism, as it is in so far as the class war in the village had a very slight change, of our fundamental equally the technique of Socialism. Marx not then assumed a well defined character. policy, is himself betraying an utter lack ism is a revolutionary unity of theory and As have already said, only in the summer of understanding of the problems of the practice, a system of revolutionary action. of 1918 did the real proletarian revolution Communist Revolution. am positive that But the representatives of the old dominant sweep into the villages. Had we not been such people cannot be found in the ranks Socialism perverted Marxism into an instru able to intiate this revolution, our work of our party. only wanted to warn the ment of historical research; more, Marxism could not have been completed. The first comrades against such people who will was used as a means for justifying the stage was the seizure of power in the city, be found not in a workingmen party and miserable compromises of the parliamentary the establishment of the Soviet form of gov who will speak without basing themselves Socialist movement. Some clung to Marx ernment. The second stage was what is for on a world philosophy, but simply to inism as an abstract theory, while violating all Socialists the basis, without which Socia terfere with our work and afford aid and its spirit in action; others, more realistic lists are not Socialists: the awakening of the comfort to the White Guards, or plainly and sincere, repudiated Marxism completely, proletarian and semi proletarian elements speaking, to arouse against us the middleas outworn and not in accord with the actual in the villages and their unification with the peasant who is still vacillating and who developments of Capitalism. The struggle city proletariat for the struggle against the will for quite a while yet continue vacillatwas abandoned in favor of class reconcili rural bourgeoisie. This stage is in the main ing. To incite him against us, they will ation; revolution was scorned as a product concluded. Those organizations which we say: Look, they are coqueting with you!
of diseased imaginations, and reformism originally formed for that purpose the pov Consequently, they are afraid of your riots, idealized as the real tactic íor the realization erty committees have been so simplified consequently, they are shaking, etc. It is of Socialism. The class struggle against Ca that we deemed it possible to substitute them necessary that all our comrades shall be arpitalism was substituted by the policy of by regularly elected Soviets, that is, to so re med against such an agitation. And am agreement with Capitalism. The modifica organize the rural Soviets as to convert them certain that they will be armed, provided tion of class antagonism and class recon into organs of class domination, organs of we succeed in formulating the question ciliation were to realize Socialism; the mo proletarian authority in the village. Such from the standpoint of the class struggle Phases of Communist Reconstruction