286 THE CLASS STRUGGLE THE DEVELOPMENT OF SOCIALISM 287 no methods through Socialist organization, that it is, therefore, a Socialist revolution, which can only be put down by the Attilas of Imperialism, neither the Mensheviki nor their European parrots can deny, just as little as they can disclaim its Socialist character: for its Socialist character shines above it like its star of destiny, it was created with iron necessity out of the imperial character of the war.
The Dictatorship of the Proletariat The Socialist Workers Revolution in Russia shows the European proletariat the way which leads to power. The press of world capital is crying that this is bloody, is yelling about the rough, violent character of the Revolution. It has every right to do so. It was created by Capital to be an organ of the battle against the working class, and it is its duty to throw dirt upon and to spit upon the first Workers Revolution, in order to frighten the workers of the other countries with its Medusa head. But how comes it that the Axelrods, Martoffs, and the risum teneatis. Kautskys use the violence of the Revolution as a ground of complaint against it?
They used to defend the idea of the dictatorship of the proletariat against the Reformists.
What does dictatorship mean? Dictatorship is the form of government, by which one class forces its will ruthlessly on.
the other class. During the period of social evolution, in which one class is preparing itself for the struggle for power, it foregoes the use of force because it is too weak to use force. It is only gathering together, concentrating its powers, and on this account it is not necessary for the ruling class to use open force against it. The ruling class only holds its forces in readiness, but it gives the class which is striving upward a certain room for development, as long as it does not consider this class dangerous. From the moment when the ruling class lays burdens on the oppressed class, which are so heavy that the ruling class fears a possible uprising of the oppressed, it. puts into play the machinery of force. The war laid burdens such as these on the masses of the workers, and on that account it brought with it the suspension of the few scanty rights enjoyed by the working class in the time of peace, that is, it brought the Dictatorship of Imperialism, which cost the workers millions of lives. In order to break the dictatorship of Imperialism the working class must employ force: force brings about the Revolution. But no hitherto existing ruling class can be conquered at one blow. Beaten once, it attempts to rise again, and it can do so because the victory of Revolution is by means able to alter the economic system of society in an instant, to tear out by the roots the power of the deposed class. The Social Revolution is a lengthy process, which begins with the dethronement of the capitalist class, but ends only with the transformation of the capitalist system into a workers community. This process will require at least a generation in every country, and this space of time is precisely the period of the proletarian dictatorship, the period during which the proletariat must keep the capitalist in subjection with the one hand, while it can use only the other for the work of Socialist construction.
Everything that is being said, on the ground of principle, against the rule by force of the Russian working class, means nothing else than the disavowal not only of the teachings of Marx, but of the plainest facts of the past. When a Renner does not blush to assert with scientific mien that the political revolution, that is, the employment of brute force, contradicts the character of the Socialist revolution, because the Socialist revolution demands the organization of a new economic system and not force, that only means, that this former Marxist, with the Lassallean enthusiasm for the state, is not a worshipper of the state idea after the manner of Lassalle, as he has been characterized, but an ordinary capitalistic sophist. Just because the Social revolution must transform the entire economic system of capitalism, which gave to one class unheardof privileges, it must necessarily arouse the strongest opposition of this class, an opposition which can only be broken by the use of guns. And the stronger capitalism is developed in a country, just so much more ruthless, just so much wilder will the defensive struggle be, just so much bloodier the proletarian revolution, and just so much more ruthless the measures, by means of which the victorious working class will hold down the defeated capitalist class. But the mollusks from the Also Marxist Camp, the opponents of the Russian workers revolution, answer us that it is not a question of refusing to recognize the principle of proletarian dictatorship, but that they decline to recognize the dictatorship in a country, where the proletariat is in the mninority, and where the dictatorship degenerates into a rule of the minority over the majority, as is supposed by them to be the case in Russia. This argument is a cowardly evasion Never, in any country, will the Revolution begin as an act of the majority of the population. Capitalism never signifies the physical control the means of production, everywhere it signi