AnarchismBourgeoisieBujarinCapitalismCommunismCommunist PartyRussian RevolutionSovietStrikeWorking Class

THE REVOLUTIONARY AGE 10 July 19, 1919 The Communist Party By Bucharin Members of the employing class have been By what means is the Communist world order to be established? How are we to Dictatorship of the Proletariat for so long accustomed to live in idleness exattain it?
sessed by the capitalist exploiters. Soviet Rus ploiting the workers, that even after Capitalism has been overthrown in every country, The answer of the Communist Party to sia, with her workers and peasants govern they will endeavor to evade work and to injure these questions is: Through the dictatorship ment, is like a tiny island in the stormy ocean the working class. They will have to be of the proletariat.
of Capitalism. Should the victory of the Rusforced to serve the people and force will not Dictatorship means a power as strong as sian workers be followed by the victory of the first be necessary.
iron, a power which gives no quarter to its German and Austrian workers, there would The workers must establish a system for enemies. The dictatorship of the proletariat still remain the other great robber states of organizing the business concerns which have means the government of the working class Capitalism. Should the entire Capitalism of been taken over from the manufacturers; they which abolishes the landowners and capitalists. Europe give way under the hammer stroke of must see to the transport of the crops produced workers government can only be pro the working class, there would still remain by the peasantry; and secure a fair distribuduced by a social revolution of the working the Capitalism of Asia, headed by Japan, and tion of corn, manufactured goods, agricultural class; a revolution which will destroy the cap the Capitalism of America.
implements and machinery.
italist state and erect on its ruins a new power; These capitalist states will not surrender However, the small usurer and war profiteer the power of the working class and the poor their position without a struggle. They will may refuse to serve the community and may peasants who support the workers govern fight desperately in order to prevent the pro say: am my own master. The workers and ment.
We Communists, therefore, stand for a greater the onrush of the proletariat the more they must coerce in the same way the big poor peasants must force them to obey, and workers government until the workers have precarious becomes the position of Capitalism, capitalists and the former landowners, generals gained complete control over their adversaries; the more must it strain every muscle in its and officers.
until they have crushed the entire employ fight against the workers.
ing class and knocked out its pride, and until When the proletariat has been victorious The more perilous the position of the workers revolution, the greater the number of its the employing class itself has given up all in one, two, of three countries it will come hopes of ever again coming into power.
into unavoidable collision with the capitalist ary rule of the workers and of the poor peasenemies; the more firm must be the revolutionOf course, it will be said: Then you Com world still remaining, which will endeavor to munists are believers in force. crush, with blood and iron, the attempt of the ants, the more energetic the dictatorship. The We shall answer: Most certainly; but our workers to liberate themselves.
power in the hands of the workers is the axe Therefore, belief is in revolutionary force. We are con even after the Revolution we must understand, which they must hold in readiness against the vinced that by soft words the working class that there will be, in some countries a transattacks of the capitalist class. In the communistic social order, when the capitalists will will gain nothing from the capitalists. No ition period between Capitalism and Communexist no more and all class distinctions will good will come of conciliation. Nothing short ism, in which the workers will be faced by a of a revolution, which will overthrow Čapital hard struggle against their enemies both at have disappeared, when there will be no more peril from within or from without then there ism and destroy the bourgeois state, can liber home and abroad.
ate the working class.
For this struggle it is necessary to have a will be no more necessity for this axe. But we are in the period of transition now, when Every revolution means using force against rigid, widespread, and firmly welded organthe former government. Force was used ization completely equipped for the struggle. and are ready to drown in blood the whole the enemies around us are showing their teeth, against the tyrannical landlords and Czar in The Proletarian State. the Workers? Govern working class movement. To prove this one the Russian Revolution of March, 1917, and ment, provides this organization. Like every need but recall the shooting of the workers in in the Revolution of November, 1917, force other state that of the working class is an Finland and Kiev, and the wholesale shootings was used against the capitalists by the work organization of the ruling class. In this case ers, peasants, and soldiery. Such force the the ruling class is the working class, and its workers and peasants in the Ukraine and use of force against those who are oppressing organization is at once a defense against Cap wholly ignorant of the situation can wish to in Lettland. In this period only those who are millions of workers is not merely free from italism and the means which will finally destroy evil; it is sacred.
it.
act without the indispensable weapon of state Moreover, the working class is obliged to Those who shrink from the establishment power.
use its power against the capitalists even after of such a power are not really revolutionaries. hue and cry is raised against the DictatorCapitalism has been openly overthrown, for The assumption that every kind of power must ship of the Proletariat from two sides. On the one side from the Anarchists, for they are even after the workers have destroyed the be vicious is arrant nonsense. The power used capitalist state, the capitalist class still exists. by the rich, the power used by the capitalists against any kind of government and, conseIts members by no means disappear all at against the workers, has for its object the quently, also against the Government of the once. On the contrary, they still hope for the maintenance of the predatory capitalist system. Workers and Peasants. To them we can only return of the old regime and are prepared to The power used by the workers against the say: Go into a nunnery, if you are against make any kind of alliance against the victori capitalists has the opposite aim of liberating putting into the hands of the workers the ous workers.
millions of workers from the yoke of Capital means to coerce the bourgeoisie!
The experiences of the Russian Revolution ism, and the freeing of humanity from annex On the other side the Dictatorship of the furnish convincing proof of this. In Novemberationist wars, which entail the savage pillage Proletariat is attacked by the Mensheviki and 1917, the workers eliminated the capitalist class and destruction of works and collections on the Social Revolutionaries. Though formerly from all share in the Government, but the cap which the human race had been engaged for they used to advocate it, they are, so they say, italists did not throw up the sponge; they thousands of years. The rigid mechanism of against the interference with the privileges and agitated against the workers, mustering all the proletarian dictatorship is essential for the the liberty of the bourgeoisie. They are of their forces, and using every means to over success of the Revolution and to secure the opinion that the workers are not yet ripe throw the workers government and recapture period of establishing the Communist social for a dictatorship. We can only say to them: power. They organized sabotage, procured a order. Why do you not join the capitalist class which counter revolutionary strike of government It is clear that in this period of transition, you love so much and which you are trying officials, and employees; they mobilized the the working class must strain every nerve in to protect? They do not wish to because they troops of Dutov, Kaledin, Kornilov, Semenov, the struggle with its many adversaries, and that would have to own that they are in opposition and called for help to the armies of foreign the only organization through which it can to the workers and poor peasants.
Capitalism in Germany, Japan and elsewhere. attain to victory is one in which the workers It is just because the Communist Party Thus the Russian experiences have proved that and the poor peasants are banded together stands for the iron dictatorship for the worknven after what seems a decisive victory the Could this organization resist the attack of ers over the capitalists, the usurers, the former workers government is forced to resist attack foreign imperialists without having control of landowners, and other lovely products of the by powerful eneinies from abroad who stretch the home government and army? Certainly old bourgeois regime, that it is the most radical.
out helping hands to the fallen capitalists at not.
the most revolutionary of all the existing home.
How will it be possible to force the capital groups and parties. Through the inexorably thoughtful survey of the position reveals ists to submit to government by the workers firm government of the Workers, to Commun to us that Russia is the only country in which and to all sorts of confiscations unless the ism is the watchword of our party. And the the proletariat has yet overthrown the bour working class is in possession of the means to program of our party is the program of the geois state. The rest of the world is still pos force the rich to do their duty?
Dictatorship of the Proletariat.