360 THE CLASS STRUGGLE TWO YEARS OF SOVIET RUSSIA 301 to be carrying everything before it, today seems as far from having accomplished his purpose as when he began. Already he too is being discreetly retired into more unostentatious corners of our metropolitan press. Even the Times is constrained to admit that he will probably not capture Petrograd before winter, There is something heroic in the struggle of this newlyawakened people for the preservation of an ideal. Material conditions in Russia are, of that there can be no reasonable doubt, in a desperate state. Cut off on all sides from its sources of supply by allied blockades and reactionary uprising, facing the stupendous task of building up a new social state upon an industrially undeveloped, materially depleted, bankrupt nation, placed before the almost impossible task of assimilating a huge contingent of uneducated, politically ignorant peasants into a socialist system of society, the proletarian government has been able not only to gradually win the support of its own people, but has met attack after attack with a dogged resistance that is almost incredible. It must not be overlooked that to the people of Russia submission to the will of the Allies will mean, for the present at least, the lifting of the blockade, the bringing in of food, the end of starvation, and the resumption of relations and trade with the outer world. And yet, in Russia itself there Is practically no dissatisfaction. The following, taken from an article by John Rickman in the British Labor Leader indicates some of the reasons for this remarkable and admirable solidarity within the Russian nation. The Bolsheviks came into power largely because the other candidates, perhaps through no fault of their own, did not appear to be giving the people what they wanted, because the Constituent Assembly seemed likely to repeat the faults of the previous Governments and to embarrass the movement towards freedom by compromises with a class which had always held power.
Having gained power the Bolsheviks more slowly gained popularity.
The Social Revolutionary right party had on its programme the nationalizing of the land, but it held the idea that the Socialist programme must come slowly; it was in favor of disposing of the estates only when the peasants were ready for them.
Lenin incorporated the land question into the revolutionary movement by his order: Peasants, seize the land. This did not, however, make Bolshevism popular, the peasants remarking. Lenin did not give us the land; we took it. The movement of the workmen to take possession of the factories was more properly attributed to the Bolsheviks, but it did not in my opinion make that party popular.
It was, think, the general social programme of the Moscow Revolutionaries which commended itself to the people, which slowly took shape and may be judged in the Constitution (Fundamental Law) of the Russian Socialist Federated Soviet Republic, adopted July 10, 1918. The Bolsheviks have attempted to deal with the fundamental problem, the abolition of exploitation of men by men, the entire abolition of the division of the people into classes, the suppression of exploiters, the establishment of a Socialist Society. Constitution, Article 1, chapter 2, paragraph Great masses of the people, of course, remained in ignorance of the real meaning of the establishment of a Socialist society. It was interpreted to them as being the organization of a State on principles very similar to their village communes, and the peasants thinking that as good or better than any alternative they had met yet did not give their allegiance to it, but showed a readiness to see whether it would work. They knew that no Government in Russia had thus far been satisfactory so they said they would give the Bolsheviks ten years before they would judge if it was really good or not. Such patience was not found in Moscow, nor apparently in foreign countries.
Under the Federal System great liberty was given to each province and county for the development of its own ideas and government, and in this way the difficult problems connected with mixed racial populations were partly solved.
The breaking up of the Empire into small units and their re union into the Socialist Federated Republic gave support to one of the chief causes of Bolshevik popularity; that the war which was begun by the Tsar should be ended by the people; their avowed intention of breaking secret treaties, or organizing on a wide scale the fraternalization of the workers and peasants of the belligerent armies, and of all efforts to conclude a general democratic peace without annexations or indemnities, upon a basis of the free determination of the peoples. Constitutionarticle i, chapter 3, paragraph coincided with the Russian sentiments on war. Accordingly the treaty of Brest Litovsk came as no surprise, and heard in all the time was in Russia no workman or peasant disparage it.
The educational programme of the Bolsheviks commended itself to the people as being the most generous that had been placed before the public, and the zeal with which it was car