54 THE CLASS STRUGGLE THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION 55 war problem will therefore be solved (if it can be solved at all without the co operation of the revolutionary proletariat of the other warring nations) on the basis of the no annexations, no indemnities formula. True, the bourgeoisie is imperialistic and on the question of war they may carry with them a part of the social patriots; true, a part of the bolshevik faction will favor immediate termination of the war (although no other means to terminate the war than fraternization with the enemycomrades had ever been suggested by them. but neither of these two factions separately will have enough strength to overcome the no annexation, no indemnities majority.
But on the question of the form of government the socialist majority will present a solid front. The political programs of both socialist parties, the Social Democratic and the Social Revolutionist, are the same. In fact, the Council of Workmen and Soldiers Deputies, which represents all the socialist factions, has recently issued its political program, which is accepted by all the revolutionary forces of Russia. It proposes, of course, a democratic republic and finds no place for an institution like the United States Supreme Court. Nor have the Russian socialists any admiration for so distinguished an institution as the Senate, for they propose just one House of Representatives elected by universal and equal suffrage of men and women. And what will seem strange even to the American socialists, whose party demands the election of the President and Vice President by direct vote of the people, the Russian socialist parties want neither a President nor a Vice President, for as the Bulletin of the Council has it, a President elected by the people, although nominally responsible to the people, is practically responsible to nobody.
The bourgeois parties will try their best to secure a republic after the American fashion, with a bicameral system for check and balance, with a President elected by the direct vote of the people and vested with the veto power, etc. but they themselves realize that their case is hopeless.
But the questions of war and the form of government, important and vital as they are to the interests of the bourgeoisie, do not so much embarrass the capitalist liberals and the reactionary forces that have recently joined them as does the land problem. After all the revolution, the liberation of Russia will create the longed for home market. And with a population that is seventy five per cent. agrarian that home market will be a home sphere of capitalization for many long years to come. So even failing in their imperialistic designs and solving the war problem on the basis of no annexation, the bourgeoisie will not be so badly off. The same is true of the form of government. Even under absolute political democracy the exploitation of the working class will go on, for Russia will remain capitalistic, for the time being at least. But the land problem is certainly not very promising to the bourgeoisie.
The land problem in Russia is so complicated, it has so rich a history and is so full of theoretical splendor that any attempt to describe and analyze it here is impossible. It will have to be dealt with separately, probably in the next issue of the CLASS STRUGGLE. But it must be bome in mind that Russia, the Russian evolution, can be fully understood only after one has studied and understood the land problem. It has become a proverb among Russian socialists that no revolution can be successful without solving the land problem. No wonder that every political party, before and after the revolution, has considered it necessary to have a land plank in its platform.
The only great bourgeois political party now in the field, the Cadets, have long ago realized that the peasants will have the land. So the bourgeois promised them the czar estates, the land of the clergy. They went even so far as to promise to part with their private estates for just prices. But the socialist parties want the land without any prices, just or unjust, they demand the confiscation of large estates, they intend to socialize the land. To be sure, there are differences in the platforms of the two socialist parties, but the differences are in the forms of collective ownership proposed by them and not in the method of acquirement. The land, if the Constituent Assembly will be controlled by representatives of the revolutionary democracy, as seems probable, will certainly be confiscated. This will be the