456 THE CLASS STRUGGLE RECONSTRUCTION IN RUSSIA 457 Capitalism. The revolutionary Socialist assumes that the process must be a revolutionary process operating upon the basis of the proletarian state a process of reconstruction which alone annihilates Capitalism and introduces Socialism. Moreover, the transition, the overthrow of the political power of the bourgeoisie, necessarily disorganizes industry, and creates a measure of demoralization; many of the measures of the dictatorship of the proletariat, accordingly, must be of a temporary nature in order to overcome this demoralization, and increase productive capacity.
The rapid increase of production, a vital task of the proletarian state, is accomplished also by all the measures of reconstruction, by means of a dictatorial regulation of production. But these temporary measures must be, and are, in accord with the fundamental tendency making for Socialism. Measures of reconstruction to solve immediate problems of disorganization may assume a capitalist or a Socialist character, dominantly; and these measures of the dictatorship of the proletariat are decisively of a Socialist character. This, accordingly, is the fundamental task of the proletarian dictatorship: to initiate the tendency towards the complete transformation of Capitalism into communist Socialism. The forms of this tendency assume a character that logically and inevitable emerge into the definite forms of a Socialist society.
The Soviet government annihilated the political power of the bourgeoisie by completely excluding it from participation in polirtics and government, denying the bourgeoisie either the right to vote or become candidates. The Soviet state is a state of the organized producers, representing exclusively the interests of the proletariat and proletarian peasantry. The political expropriation of the bourgeoisie was complete; but its economic expropriation was not pushed to the final point. This temporary cessation of the economic expropriation of capital is based upon a number of factors, chief among them being the incomplete industrial development of Russia, but most important the necessity of emphasizing temporary measures in order to solve the pressing immediate problems of the resumption of economic activity.
These temporary measures assumed a much more important character in Russia than is typical of the transition toward Socialism upon the basis of a dictatorship of the proletariat. The Soviet regime inherited chaos, a chaos produced by Czarism and intensified by the bourgeois republic of the Provisional Government, of Kerensky. The war, the cutting off of communications with the outside world (the Allies completely isolated the Soviet Republic. the pressing starvation, the encroachments of Germany and other nations, determined to crush the proletarian revolution all these factors, and more, emphasized the importance of temporary measures out of all proportion to the general tendency of a dictatorship of the proletariat.
But the chief, the all determining problem was met, and met adequately: the participation in the government, dominantly and dynamically, of the lowest section of the proletariat and proletarian peasantry, the emergence upon the stage of government of the masses of the people, the initiation definitely of the tendency toward the complete socialization of industry and society. The conscious activity of the masses, the development of its capacity for self government and administrative control of industry and society, determine the rapidity of the measures toward complete Socialism introduced by the dictatorship of the proletariat and these requirements were swiftly developed.
The unifying characteristic of all measures, temporary and permanent, introduced by the Soviet government, is that they started from the bottom, and not from the top; that the center of reconstruction was the activity of the organized producers, and not the activity of the state. The local initiative and selfgovernment of the producers had to be developed as the only basis for the fundamental industrial democracy of communist Socialism. This initiative, this self government, and not the bureaucratic state, is the dominant factor in the process of reconstruction. The proletarian state constituted a unifying expression and acceleration of the activity of the masses. The old state, equally the bourgeois parliamentary state and the Czarist state, has been completely overthrown, with all its machinery of repres