DETERMINISM 87 86 THE CLASS STRUGGLE same by borrowing the equipment of the other advanced nations, if not betrayed previously by the world proletariat.
This same new application of an old principle is equally true for all backward nations and colonies. They must abolish class rule as a means of installing big scale production and distribution, and not attempt to wait for the introduction of big scale industry as a means of abolishing class rule. Even Lenin goes too far when he says that a revolutionary government can support national movements in backward countries, and in colonies against the mother country. If these movements are in favor of bourgeois supremacy they ought not to be supported by the Social Revolution because it would be strengthening the forces and institutions in those spheres, that will then fight the Revolution itself. The backward countries and the colonies need the most improved form of production, but they do not need a bourgeois form of exploitation for that purpose. Marx, in 1852, writing about the Revolution of 1848, urged the proletariat to support the Bourgeoisie as a means of overthrowing the feudal government of Germany. But with the uncanny keenness that he possessed to such a rare degree, he adds, the preparation of such a movement otherwise than by spreading of Communist opinions by the masses, could not be the object, etc.
Incidentally the most extreme Menshevik must admit that should the Social Revolution come in the way that he himself claims to be indispensable, production will not cease to improve from that point on, but an ever growing productivity will be the basis of social progress the same as before. And unless this be denied, it amounts to a concession that progress by a one class system ought to be just as feasible as under class rule. Russia of course must develop fully the stage of industrial production as it represents a superior development, but it is a consummation devoutly to be wished that this will be accomplished not through a bourgeois nightmare but by the one class state.
Finally there is also an international objection to the wisdom of a social revolution in Russia at this time, and again based on the economic factor. It is feared that Russia with her inferior productive capacity, at least at the beginning of the Revolution if not later, must easily succumb to the counter revolutionary power of the international Bourgeoisie. It is perfectly true that a united Bourgeoisie can crush the Russian Revolution, not because of its inferior productive capacity, but entirely irrespective of it.
It is not a question of insufficient productivity and productive capacity, for that does not decrease through Revolution, but is plainly the consequence of former conditions of reaction. Therefore, if we are not to deceive ourselves by sophisticated economics we must realize that an isolated proletariat cannot withstand the counter revolution indefinitely; the isolation must be broken or the Revolution will break down. The Revolution isn asking the outside world to perform its production, it only wants a chance to do its own producing in its own way without interference, not to mention the most venomous sort of interference at that.
Thus we must find that the Menshevik diagnosis, in spite of the profound scientific standard that it claims, sins (1) in transferring historic inevitability intact from one place to another. 2) and thereby incorporating in economic determinism not only the stage of production, but also the human agency, the Bourgeoisie. It thus also makes of history and historical necessity, a duplication instead of an evolution. That Russia must undergo the same progress in production as the Bourgeoisie has accomplished in the economically advanced nations is perfectly true, but that this must be done by duplication so far as the agency is concerned, is not true. For this does not come under economic determinism but is merely the subjective determination of the individual Menshevik.