Chapter THIRTEEN (1)

64. The right to vote and to be elected to the Soviets is enjoyed
by the following citizens, irrespective of religion, nationality,
domicile, etc., of the Russian Socialist Federated Soviet
Republic, of both sexes, who shall have completed their eighteenth
year by the day of election:

a. All who have acquired the means of living through labor that is
productive and useful to society, and also persons engaged in
housekeeping which enables the former to do productive work--i.e.,
laborers and employees of all classes who are employed in
industry, trade, agriculture, etc.; and peasants and Cossack
agricultural laborers who employ no help for the purpose of making
profits.

b. Soldiers of the army and navy of the Soviets.

c. Citizens of the two preceding categories who have to any degree
lost their capacity to work.

Note 1: Local Soviets may, upon approval of the central power,
lower the age standard mentioned herein.

Note 2: Non-citizens mentioned in Paragraph 20 (Article 2, Chapter
Five) have the right to vote.

65. The following persons enjoy neither the right to vote nor the
right to be voted for, even though they belong to one of the
categories enumerated above, namely:

a. Persons who employ hired labor in order to obtain from it an
increase in profits.

b. Persons who have an income without doing any work, such as
interest from capital, receipts from property, etc.

c. Private merchants, trade, and commercial brokers.

d. Monks and clergy of all denominations.

e. Employees and agents of the former police, the gendarme corps,
and the Okhrana (Czar's secret service), also members of the
former reigning dynasty.

f. Persons who have in legal form been declared demented or
mentally deficient, and also persons under guardianship.

g. Persons who have been deprived by a Soviet of their rights of
citizenship because of selfish or dishonorable offenses, for the
period fixed by the sentence.

Apparently the Constitution does not provide any standard for determining what labor is "useful and productive to society," and leaves the way open for a degree of arbitrariness on the part of some authority or other that is wholly incompatible with any generally accepted ideal of freedom and democracy. It is apparent from the text of paragraph 64, subdivision "a" of the foregoing chapter that housekeeping as such is not included in the category of "labor that is productive and useful to society," for a separate category is made of it. The language used is that "The right to vote and to be elected to the Soviets is enjoyed by.... All who have acquired the means of living through labor that is productive and useful to society, _and also_ persons engaged in housekeeping, which enables the former to do productive work--_i.e._, laborers and employees of all classes who are employed in industry, trade, agriculture, etc."

This _seems_ to mean that persons engaged in housekeeping can only vote if and when they are so engaged in order to enable other persons than themselves to do "productive work." It appears that housekeeping for persons not engaged in such productive work--for children, for example--would not confer the right to vote. It is not possible to tell with certainty what it _does_ mean, however, for there is probably not a single person in Russia or in the world who can tell exactly what this precious instrument actually means. What standard is to be established to determine what labor is "productive" and "useful"? Is the journalist, for instance, engaged in useful and productive labor? Is the novelist? is the agitator? Presumably the journalist employed in defending the Soviet Republic against attacks by unfriendly critics would be doing useful work and be entitled to vote, but what about the journalist employed in making the criticisms? Would the wife of the latter, no matter how much she might disagree with her husband's views, be barred from voting, simply because she was "engaged in housekeeping" for one whose labors were not regarded "productive and useful to society"? If the language used means anything at all, apparently she would be so disfranchised.

Upon what ground is it decided that the "private merchant" may not vote? Certainly it is not because his labor is of necessity neither productive nor useful, for paragraph 65 says that even though belonging to one of the categories of persons otherwise qualified to vote, the private merchant may "enjoy neither the right to vote nor to be voted for." The keeper of a little grocery store, even though his income is not greater than that of a mechanic, and despite the fact that his store meets a local need and makes his services, therefore, "useful" in the highest degree, cannot enjoy civic rights, simply because he is a "merchant"! The clergy of all denominations are excluded from the franchise. It does not matter, according to this constitution, that a minister belongs to a church independent of any connection with the state, that he is elected by people who desire his services and is paid by them, that he satisfies them and is therefore doing a "useful service"--if utility means the satisfying of needs--because he is so employed he cannot vote.

It is clearly provided that "peasants and Cossack agricultural laborers who employ no help for the purpose of making profits" can vote and be voted for. But no persons "who employ hired labor in order to obtain from it an increase in profits" may vote or be elected to office, _even though the work they do is productive and useful to society._ A peasant who hires no assistance may vote, but if he decides that by employing a boy to help him he will be able to give better attention to certain crops and make more money, even though he pays the boy every penny that the service is worth, judged by any standard whatever, he loses his vote and his civic status because, forsooth, he has gained in his net income as a result of his enterprise. And this is seriously put forward as the basis of government in a nation needing an intense and universal stimulation of its economic production.

A militant suffragist friend of mine, whose passion for universal suffrage in America is so great that it leads her to join in all sorts of demonstrations protesting against the failure of the United States Senate to pass the Susan B. Anthony amendment--even leading her to join in the public burning of President Wilson's speeches, a queer emulation of the ancient ecclesiastical bigotry of burning heretical books!--manages to unite to her passion for equal and unrestricted suffrage an equally passionate admiration for the Bolsheviki, arch-enemies of equal and unrestricted suffrage. Her case is not exceptional: it is rather typical of the Bolshevik following in England and in America. Such minds are not governed and directed by rational processes, but by emotional impulses, generally of pathological origin.

What the Bolshevik constitution would mean if practically applied to American life to-day can be briefly indicated. The following classes would certainly be entitled to vote and to be elected to office:

1. All wage-earners engaged in the production of goods and utilities regarded by some designated authority as "productive and useful to society."

2. Teachers and educators engaged in the public service.

3. All farmers owning and working their own farms without hired help of any kind.

4. All wage-earners engaged in the public service as employees of the state, subdivisions of the state, or public service corporations-such as postal clerks, street-railway workers, electricians, and so on.

5. Wives and others engaged in keeping the homes of the foregoing, so as to enable them to work.

6. The "soldiers of the army and navy"--whether all officers are included is not clear from the text.

Now let us see what classes would be as certainly excluded from the right to vote and to be voted for.

1. Every merchant from the keeper of a corner grocery store to the owner of a great mercantile establishment.

2. Every banker, every commission agent, every broker, every insurance agent, every real-estate dealer.

3. Every farmer who hires help of any kind--even a single "hand."

4. Every petty contractor, garage-keeper, or other person employing any hired help whatever, including the professional writer who hires a stenographer, the doctor who hires a chauffeur, and the dentist who hires a mechanic assistant.

5. Every clergyman and minister of the Gospel.

6. Every person whose income is derived from inherited wealth or from invested earnings, including all who live upon annuities provided by gift or bequest.

7. Every person engaged in housekeeping for persons included in any of the foregoing six categories--including the wives of such disqualified persons.

There are many occupational groups whose civic status is not so easily defined. The worker engaged in making articles of luxury, enjoyed only by the privileged few, could hardly have a better claim to a vote than the housekeeper of a man whose income was derived from foreign investments, or than the chauffeur of a man whose income was derived from government bonds. All three represent, presumably, types of that parasitic labor which subjects those engaged in it to disfranchisement. Apparently, though not certainly, then, the following would also be disfranchised:

1. All lawyers except those engaged by the public authorities for the public service.

2. All teachers and educators other than those engaged in the public service.

3. All bankers, managers of industries, commercial travelers, experts, and accountants except those employed in the public service, or whose labor is judged by a competent tribunal to be necessary and useful.

4. All editors, journalists, authors of books and plays, except as special provision might be provided for individuals.

5. All persons engaged in occupations which a competent tribunal decided to classify as non-essential or non-productive.

Any serious attempt to introduce such restrictions and limitations of the right of suffrage in America would provoke irresistible revolt. It would be justly and properly regarded as an attempt to arrest the forward march of the nation and to turn its energies in a backward direction. It would be just as reactionary in the political world as it would be in the industrial world to revert back to hand-tool production; to substitute the ox-team for the railway system, the hand-loom for the power-loom, the flail for the threshing-machine, the sickle for the modern harvesting-machine, the human courier for the electric telegraph.

Yet we find a radical like Mr. Max Eastman giving his benediction and approval to precisely such a program in Russia as a substitute for universal suffrage. We find him quoting with apparent approval an article setting forth Lenine's plan, hardly disguised, to disfranchise every farmer who employs even a single hired helper.[54]

Lenine's position is quite clear. "Only the proletariat leading on the poorest peasants (the semi-proletariat as they are called in our program) ... may undertake the steps toward Socialism that have become absolutely unavoidable and non-postponable.... The peasants want to retain their small holdings and to arrive at some place of equal distribution.... So be it. No sensible Socialist will quarrel with a pauper peasant on this ground. If the lands are confiscated, _so long as the proletarians rule in the great centers, and all political power is handed over to the proletariat_, the rest will take care of itself."[55] Yet, in spite of Lenine's insistence that all political power be "handed over to the proletariat," in spite of a score of similar utterances which might be quoted, and, finally, in spite of the Soviet Constitution which so obviously excludes from the right to vote a large part of the adult population, an American Bolshevist pamphleteer has the effrontery to insult the intelligence of his readers by the stupidly and palpably false statement that "even at the present time 95 per cent. in Russia can vote, while in the United States only about 65 per cent. can vote."[56]

Of course it is only as a temporary measure that this dictatorship of a class is to be maintained. It is designed only for the period of transition and adjustment. In time the adjustment will be made, all forms of social parasitism and economic exploitation will disappear, and then it will be both possible and natural to revert to democratic government. Too simple and naïve to be trusted alone in a world so full of trickery and tricksters as ours are they who find any asurance in this promise. They are surely among the most gullible of our humankind!

Of course, the answer to the claim is a very simple one: it is that no class gaining privilege and power ever surrenders it until it is compelled to do so. Every one who has read the pre-Marxian literature dealing with the dictatorship of the proletariat knows how insistent is the demand that the period of dictatorship must be _prolonged as much as possible_. Even Marx himself insisted, on one occasion at least, that it must be maintained as long as possible,[57] and in the letter of Johann von Miquel, already quoted, we find the same thought expressed in the same terms, "as long as possible." But even if we put aside these warnings of human experience and of recorded history, and persuade ourselves that in Russia we have a wholly new phenomenon, a class possessing powers of dictatorship animated by a burning passion to relinquish those powers as quickly as possible, is it not still evident that the social adjustments that must be made to reach the stage where, according to the Bolshevik standards, political democracy can be introduced, must, under the most favorable circumstances conceivable, take many, many years? Even Lenine admits that "a sound solution of the problem of increasing the productivity of labor" (which lies at the very heart of the problem we are now discussing) "requires at least (especially after a most distressing and destructive war) several years."[58]

From the point of view of social democracy the basis of the Bolshevik state is reactionary and unsound. The true Socialist policy is that set forth by Wilhelm Liebknecht in the following words: "The political power which the Social Democracy aims at and which it will win, no matter what its enemies may do, _has not for its object the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat, but the suppression of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie_."[59]

IV

Democracy in government and in industry must characterize any system of society which can be justly called Socialist. Thirteen years ago I wrote, "Socialism without democracy is as impossible as a shadow without light."[60] That seemed to me then, as it seems to-day, axiomatic. And so the greatest Socialist thinkers and leaders always regarded it. "We have perceived that Socialism and democracy are inseparable," declared William Liebknecht, the well-beloved, in 1899.[61] Thirty years earlier, in 1869, he had given lucid expression to the same conviction in these words: "Socialism and democracy are not the same, but they are only different expressions of the same fundamental idea. They belong to each other, round out each other, and can never stand in contradiction to each other. Socialism without democracy is pseudo-Socialism, just as democracy without Socialism is pseudo-democracy."[62] Democracy in industry is, as I have insisted in my writing with unfailing consistency, as inseparable from Socialism as democracy in government.[63] Unless industry is brought within the control of democracy and made responsive to the common will, Socialism is not attained.

Everywhere the organized working class aspires to attain that industrial democracy which is the counterpart of political democracy. Syndicalism, with all its vagaries, its crude reversal to outworn ideas and methods, is, nevertheless, fundamentally an expression of that yearning. It is the same passion that lies back of the Shop Stewards' movement in England, and that inspires the much more patiently and carefully developed theories and plans of the advocates of "Guild Socialism." Motived by the same desire, our American labor-unions are demanding, and steadily gaining, an increasing share in the actual direction of industry. Joint control by boards composed of representatives of employers, employees, and the general public is, to an ever-increasing extent, determining the conditions of employment, wage standards, work standards, hours of labor, choice and conduct of foremen, and many other matters of vital importance to the wage-earners. That we are still a long way from anything like industrial democracy is all too painfully true and obvious, but it is equally obvious that we are struggling toward the goal, and that there is a serious purpose and intention to realize the ideal.

Impelled by the inexorable logic of its own existence as a dictatorship, the Bolshevik government has had to set itself against any and every manifestation of democracy in industry with the same relentless force as it opposed democracy in government. True, owing to the fact that, following the line of industrial evolution, the trade-union movement was not strongly enough developed to even attempt any organization for the expression of industrial democracy comparable to the Constituent Assembly. It is equally true, however, that had such an organization existed the necessity to suppress it, as the political organization was suppressed, would have proceeded inevitably and irresistibly from the creation of a dictatorship. _There cannot be, in any country, as co-existent forces, political dictatorship and industrial democracy._ It is also true that such democratic agencies as there were existing the Bolsheviki neglected.

That the Bolsheviki did not establish industrial democracy in its fullest sense is not to be charged to their discredit. Had Bolshevism never appeared, and had the Constituent Assembly been permitted to function unmolested and free, it would have taken many years to realize anything like a well-rounded industrial democracy, for which a highly developed industrial system is absolutely essential. The leaders of the Bolshevik movement recognized from the first that the time had not yet arrived for even attempting to set up a Socialist commonwealth based on the social ownership and democratic control of industry. Lenine frankly declared that "Socialism cannot now prevail in Russia,"[64] and Trotzky said, a month after the _coup d'état_: "We are not ready yet to take over all industry.... For the present, we expect of the earnings of a factory to pay the owner 5 or 6 per cent. yearly on his actual investment. What we aim at now is _control_ rather than _ownership_."[65] He did not tell Professor Ross, who records this statement, on what grounds the owner of the property thus controlled by the Soviet government, and who thus becomes a partner of the government, is to be excluded from the exercise of the franchise. But let that pass.

When the Bolsheviki seized the power of the state, they found themselves confronted by a terrific task. Russia was utterly demoralized. An undeveloped nation industrially, war and internal strife had wrought havoc with the industrial life she had. Her railways were neglected and the whole transportation system, entirely inadequate even for peace needs, had, under the strain of the war, fallen into chaos. After the March Revolution, as a natural consequence of the intoxication of the new freedom, such disciplines as had existed were broken down. Production fell off in a most alarming manner. During the Kerensky régime Skobelev, as Minister of Labor, repeatedly begged the workers to prove their loyalty to the Revolution by increased exertion and faithfulness in the workshops and factories. The Bolsheviki, on their part, as a means of fighting the Provisional Government, preached the opposite doctrine, that of sabotage. In every manner possible they encouraged the workers to limit production, to waste time and materials, strike for trivial reasons, and, in short, do all that was possible to defeat the effort to place industry upon a sound basis.

When they found themselves in possession of the powers of government the Bolshevik leaders soon had to face the stern realities of the conditions essential to the life of a great nation. They could not escape the necessity of intensifying production. They had not only promised peace, but bread, and bread comes only from labor. Every serious student of the problem has realized that the first great task of any Socialist society must be _to increase the productivity of labor_. It is all very well for a popular propaganda among the masses to promise a great reduction in the hours of labor and, at the same time, a great improvement in the standards of living. The translation of such promises into actual achievements must prove to be an enormous task. To build the better homes, make the better and more abundant clothing, shoes, furniture, and other things required to fulfil the promise, will require a great deal of labor, and such an organization of industry upon a basis of efficiency as no nation has yet developed. If the working class of this or any other country should take possession of the existing organization of production, there would not be enough in the fund now going to the capitalist class to satisfy the requirements of the workers, _even if not a penny of compensation were paid to the expropriated owners_. Kautsky, among others, has courageously faced this fact and insisted that "it will be one of the imperative tasks of the Social Revolution not simply to continue, but to increase production; the victorious proletariat must extend production rapidly if it is to be able to satisfy the enormous demands that will be made upon the new régime."[66] From the first this problem had to be faced by the Bolshevik government. We find Lenine insisting that the workers must be inspired with "idealism, self-sacrifice, and persistence" to turn out as large a product as possible; that the productivity of labor must be raised and a high level of industrial performance as the duty of every worker be rigorously insisted upon. It is not enough to have destroyed feudalism and the monarchy:

In every Socialist revolution, however, the main task of the
proletariat, and of the poorest peasantry led by it--and, hence,
also in the Socialist revolution in Russia inaugurated by us on
November 7, 1917, consists in the positive and constructive work
of establishing an extremely complex and delicate net of newly
organized relationships covering the systematic production and
distribution of products which are necessary for the existence of
tens of millions of people. The successful realization of such a
revolution depends on the original historical creative work of the
majority of the population, and first of all of the majority of
the toilers. _The victory of the Socialist revolution will not be
assured unless the proletariat and the poorest peasantry manifest
sufficient consciousness, idealism, self-sacrifice, and
persistence._ With the creation of a new--the Soviet--type of
state, offering to the oppressed toiling masses the opportunity to
participate actively in the free construction of a new society, we
have solved only a small part of the difficult task. _The main
difficulty is in the economic domain; to raise the productivity of
labor, to establish strict and universal accounting and control of
production and distribution, and actually to socialize
production._[67]

Lenine recognizes, as every thoughtful person must, that this task of organizing production and distribution cannot be undertaken by "the proletariat and the poorest peasants." It requires a vast amount of highly developed technical knowledge and skill, the result of long training and superior education. This kind of service is so highly paid, in comparison with the wages paid to the manual workers, that it lifts those who perform the service and receive the high salaries into the ranks of the bourgeoisie. Certainly, even though they are engaged in performing work of the highest value and the most vital consequence, the specialists, experts, and directing managers of industry are not of the "working class," as that term is commonly employed. And no matter how we may speculate upon the possible attainment of approximate equality of income in some future near or remote, the fact is that the labor of such men can only be secured by paying much more than is paid to the manual workers.

Quite wisely, the Bolshevik government decided that it must have such services, no matter that they must be highly paid for; that they could only be rendered by the hated bourgeoisie and that, in consequence, certain compromises and relations with the bourgeoisie became necessary the moment the services were engaged. The Bolshevik government recognized the imperative necessity of the service which only highly paid specialists could give and wisely decided that no prejudice or theory must be permitted to block the necessary steps for Russia's reconstruction. In a spirit of intelligent opportunism, therefore, they subordinated shibboleths, prejudices, dogmas, and theories to Russia's necessity. The sanity of this opportunistic attitude is altogether admirable, but it contrasts strangely with the refusal to co-operate with the bourgeoisie in establishing a stable democratic government--no less necessary for Russia's reconstruction and for Socialism. As a matter of fact, the very promptitude and sanity of their opportunism when faced by responsibility, serves to demonstrate the truth of the contention made in these pages, that in refusing to co-operate with others in building up a permanently secure democratic government, they were actuated by no high moral principle, but simply by a desire to gain power. The position of Russia to-day would have been vastly different if the wisdom manifested in the following paragraphs had governed Lenine and his associates in the days when Kerensky was trying to save Russian democracy:

_Without the direction of specialists of different branches of
knowledge, technique, and experience, the transformation toward
Socialism is impossible_, for Socialism demands a conscious mass
movement toward a higher productivity of labor in comparison with
capitalism and on the basis which had been attained by capitalism.
Socialism must accomplish this movement forward in its own way, by
its own methods--to make it more definite, by Soviet methods. But
the specialists are inevitably bourgeois on account of the whole
environment of social life which made them specialists.... In view
of the considerable delay in accounting and control in general,
although we have succeeded in defeating sabotage, we have _not
yet_ created an environment which would put at our disposal the
bourgeois specialists. Many sabotagers are coming into our
service, but the best organizers and the biggest specialists can
be used by the state either in the old bourgeois way (that is, for
a higher salary) or in the new proletarian way (that is, by
creating such an environment of universal accounting and control
which would inevitably and naturally attract and gain the
submission of specialists). We were forced now to make use of the
old bourgeois method and agree to a very high remuneration for the
services of the biggest of the bourgeois specialists. All those
who are acquainted with the facts understand this, but not all
give sufficient thought to the significance of such a measure on
the part of the proletarian state. _It is clear that the measure
is a compromise, that it is a defection from the principles of the
Paris Commune and of any proletarian rule, which demand the
reduction of salaries to the standard of remuneration of the
average workers_--principles which demand that "career hunting" be
fought by deeds, not words.

Furthermore, it is clear that such a measure is not merely a halt
in a certain part and to a certain degree of the offensive against
capitalism (for capitalism is not a quantity of money, but a
definite social relationship), _but also a step backward by our
Socialist Soviet state_, which has from the very beginning
proclaimed and carried on a policy of reducing high salaries to
the standard of wages of the average worker.

... The corrupting influence of high salaries is beyond
question--both on the Soviets ... and on the mass of the workers.
But all thinking and honest workers and peasants will agree with
us and will admit that we are unable to get rid at once of the
evil heritage of capitalism.... The sooner we ourselves, workers
and peasants, learn better labor discipline and a higher technique
of toil, making use of the bourgeois specialists for this purpose,
the sooner we will get rid of the need of paying tribute to these
specialists.[68]

We find the same readiness to compromise and to follow the line of least resistance in dealing with the co-operatives. From 1906 onward there had been an enormous growth of co-operatives in Russia. They were of various kinds and animated by varied degrees of social consciousness. They did not differ materially from the co-operatives of England, Belgium, Denmark, Italy, or Germany except in the one important particular that they relied upon bourgeois Intellectuals for leadership and direction to a greater extent than do the co-operatives in the countries named. They were admirably fitted to be the nuclei of a socialized system of distribution. Out of office the Bolsheviki had sneered at these working-class organizations and denounced them as "bourgeois corruptions of the militant proletariat." Necessity and responsibility soon forced the adoption of a new attitude toward them. The Bolshevik government had to accept the despised co-operatives, and even compromise Bolshevist principles as the price of securing their services:

A Socialist state can come into existence only as a net of
production and consumption communes, which keep conscientious
accounts of their production and consumption, economize labor,
steadily increasing its productivity and thus making it possible
to lower the workday to seven, six, or even less hours. Anything
less than rigorous, universal, thorough accounting and control of
grain and of the production of grain, and later also of all other
necessary products, will not do. We have inherited from capitalism
mass organizations which can facilitate the transition to mass
accounting and control of distribution--the consumers'
co-operatives. They are developed in Russia less than in the more
advanced countries, but they comprise more than 10,000,000
members. The decree on consumers' associations which was recently
issued is extremely significant, showing clearly the peculiarity
of the position and of the problem of the Socialist Soviet
Republic at the present time.

The decree is an agreement with the bourgeois co-operatives and
with the workmen's co-operatives adhering to the bourgeois
standpoint. The agreement or compromise consists, firstly, in the
fact that the representatives of these institutions not only
participated in the deliberations on this decree, but had
practically received a determining voice, for parts of the decree
which met determined opposition from these institutions were
rejected. Secondly and essentially, the compromise consists in the
rejection by the Soviet authority of the principle of free
admission to the co-operatives (the only consistent principle from
the proletarian standpoint), and that the whole population of a
given locality should be _united in a single co-operative_. The
defection from this, the only Socialist principle, which is in
accord with the problem of doing away with classes, allows the
existence of working-class co-operatives (which in this case call
themselves working-class co-operatives only because they submit to
the class interests of the bourgeoisie). Lastly, the proposition
of the Soviet government completely to exclude the bourgeoisie
from the administration of the co-operatives was also considerably
weakened, and only owners of capitalistic commercial and
industrial enterprises are excluded from the administration.

* * * * *

If the proletariat, acting through the Soviets, should
successfully establish accounting and control on a national scale,
there would be no need for such compromise. Through the Food
Departments of the Soviets, through their organs of supply, we
would unite the population in one co-operative directed by the
proletariat, without the assistance from bourgeois co-operatives,
without concessions to the purely bourgeois principle which
compels the labor co-operatives to remain side by side with the
bourgeois co-operatives instead of wholly subjecting these
bourgeois co-operatives, fusing both?[69]

V

It is no mood of captious, unfriendly criticism that attention is specially directed to these compromises. Only political charlatans, ineffective quacks, and irresponsible soap-box orators see crime against the revolutionary program of the masses in a wise and honest opportunism. History will not condemn the Bolsheviki for the give-and-take, compromise-where-necessary policy outlined in the foregoing paragraphs. Its condemnation will be directed rather against their failure to act in that spirit from the moment the first Provisional Government arose. Had they joined with the other Socialists and established a strong Coalition Government, predominantly Socialist, but including representatives of the most liberal and democratic elements of the bourgeoisie, it would have been possible to bring the problems of labor organization and labor discipline under democratic direction. It would not have been possible to establish complete industrial democracy, fully developed Socialism, nor will it be possible to do this for many years to come.

But it would have been easy and natural for the state to secure to the workers a degree of economic assurance and protection not otherwise possible. It would have been possible, too, for the workers' organizations, recognized by and co-operating with the state, to have undertaken, in a large degree, the control of the conditions of their own employment which labor organizations everywhere are demanding and gradually gaining. The best features of "Guild Socialism" could nowhere have been so easily adopted.[70] But instead of effort in these directions, we find the Bolsheviki resorting to the _Taylor System of Scientific Management enforced by an individual dictator whose word is final and absolute, to disobey whom is treason_! There is not a nation in the world with a working-class movement of any strength where it would be possible to introduce the industrial servitude here described:

The most conscious vanguard of the Russian proletariat has already
turned to the problem of increasing labor discipline. For
instance, the central committee of the Metallurgical Union and the
Central Council of the Trades Unions have begun work on respective
measures and drafts of decrees. This work should be supported and
advanced by all means. _We should immediately introduce piece work
and try it out in practice. We should try out every scientific and
progressive suggestion of the Taylor System_; we should compare
the earnings with the general total of production, or the
exploitation results of railroad and water transportation, and so
on.

The Russian is a poor worker in comparison with the workers of the
advanced nations, and this could not be otherwise under the régime
of the Czar and other remnants of feudalism. The last word of
capitalism in this respect, the Taylor System--as well as all
progressive measures of capitalism--combine the refined cruelty of
bourgeois exploitation and a number of most valuable scientific
attainments in the analysis of mechanical motions during work, in
dismissing superfluous and useless motions, in determining the
most correct methods of the work, the best systems of accounting
and control, etc. The Soviet Republic must adopt valuable and
scientific and technical advance in this field. _The possibility
of Socialism will be determined by our success in combining the
Soviet rule and the Soviet organization of management with the
latest progressive measures of capitalism. We must introduce in
Russia the study and the teaching of the Taylor System and its
systematic trial and adaptation_. While working to increase the
productivity of labor, we must at the same time take into account
the peculiarities of the transition period from capitalism to
Socialism, which require, on one hand, that we lay the foundation
for the Socialist organization of emulation, and, on the other
hand, _require the use of compulsion so that the slogan of the
dictatorship of the proletariat should not be weakened by the
practice of a too mild proletarian government_.

The resolution of the last (Moscow) Congress of the Soviets
advocates, as the most important problem at present, the creation
of "efficient organization" and higher discipline. Such
resolutions are now readily supported by everybody. But that their
realization requires compulsion, and _compulsion in the form of a
dictatorship_, is ordinarily not comprehended. And yet, it would
be the greatest stupidity and the most absurd opportunism to
suppose that the transition from capitalism to Socialism is
possible without compulsion and dictatorship. The Marxian theory
has long ago criticized beyond misunderstanding this petty
bourgeois-democratic and anarchistic nonsense. And Russia of
1917-18 confirms in this respect the Marxian theory so clearly,
palpably, and convincingly that only those who are hopelessly
stupid or who have firmly determined to ignore the truth can still
err in this respect. Either a Kornilov dictatorship (if Kornilov
be taken as Russian type of a bourgeois Cavaignac) or a
dictatorship of the proletariat--no other alternative is possible
for a country which is passing through an unusually swift
development with unusually difficult transitions and which suffers
from desperate disorganization created by the most horrible
war.[71]

This dictatorship is to be no light affair, no purely nominal force, but a relentless iron-hand rule. Lenine is afraid that the proletariat is too soft-hearted and lenient. He says:

But "dictatorship" is a great word. And great words must not be
used in vain. A dictatorship is an iron rule, with revolutionary
daring and swift and merciless in the suppression of the
exploiters as well as of the thugs (hooligans). And our rule is
too mild, quite frequently resembling jam rather than iron.[72]

And so the dictatorship of the proletariat becomes the _dictatorship of a single person_, a super-boss and industrial autocrat: We must learn to combine the stormy, energetic breaking of all restraint on the part of the toiling masses _with iron discipline during work, with absolute submission to the will of one person, the Soviet director, during work_.[73]

As I copy these words from Lenine's book my memory recalls the days, more than twenty years ago, when as a workman in England and as shop steward of my union I joined with my comrades in breaking down the very things Lenine here proposes to set up in the name of Socialism. "Absolute submission to the will of one person" is not a state toward which free men will strive. Not willingly will men who enjoy the degree of personal freedom existing in democratic nations turn to this:

With respect to ... the significance of individual dictatorial
power from the standpoint of the specific problems of the present
period, we must say that every large machine industry--which is
the material productive source and basis of Socialism--requires an
absolute and strict unity of the will which directs the joint work
of hundreds, thousands, and tens of thousands of people. This
necessity is obvious from the technical, economical, and
historical standpoint, and has always been recognized by all those
who had given any thought to Socialism, as its prerequisite. But
how can we secure a strict unity of will? _By subjecting the will
of thousands_ to the will of one.

This subjection, _if the participants in the common work are
ideally conscious and disciplined_, may resemble the mild leading
of an orchestra conductor; but may take the acute form of a
dictatorship--if there is no ideal discipline and consciousness.
But at any rate, _complete submission to a single will is
absolutely necessary for the success of the processes of work
which is organized on the type of large machine industry_. This is
doubly true of the railways. And just this transition from one
political problem to another, which in appearance has no
resemblance to the first, constitutes the peculiarity of the
present period. The Revolution has just broken the oldest, the
strongest, and the heaviest chains to which the masses were
compelled to submit. So it was yesterday. And to-day, the same
Revolution (and indeed in the interest of Socialism) demands the
_absolute submission_ of the masses to the _single will_ of those
who direct the labor process. It is self-evident that it can be
realized only after great upheavals, crises, returns to the old;
only through the greatest strain of the energy of the proletarian
vanguard which is leading the people to the new order....

To the extent to which the principal problem of the Soviet rule
changes from military suppression to administration, suppression
and compulsion will, _as a rule, be manifested in trials, and not
in shooting on the spot_. And in this respect the revolutionary
masses have taken, after November 7, 1918, the right road and have
proved the vitality of the Revolution, when they started to
organize their own workmen's and peasants' tribunals, before any
decrees were issued dismissing the bourgeois-democratic judicial
apparatus. _But our revolutionary and popular tribunals are
excessively and incredibly weak. It is apparent that the popular
view of the courts--which was inherited from the régime of the
landowners and the bourgeoisie--as not their own, has not yet been
completely destroyed_. It is not sufficiently appreciated that the
courts serve to attract all the poor to administration (for
judicial activity is one of the functions of state
administration); that the court is _an organ of the rule of the
proletariat and of the poorest peasantry; that the court is a
means of training in discipline_. There is a lack of appreciation
of the simple and obvious fact that, if the chief misfortunes of
Russia are famine and unemployment, these misfortunes cannot be
overcome by any outbursts of enthusiasm, but only by thorough and
universal organization and discipline, in order to increase the
production of bread for men and fuel for industry, to transport it
in time, and to distribute it in the right way. That therefore
_responsibility_ for the pangs of famine and unemployment falls on
_every one who violates the labor discipline in any enterprise and
in any business_. That those who are responsible should be
discovered, tried, and _punished without mercy_. The petty
bourgeois environment, which we will have to combat persistently
now, shows particularly in the lack of comprehension of the
economic and political connection between famine and unemployment
and the _prevailing dissoluteness in organization and
discipline_--in the firm hold of the view of the small proprietor
that "nothing matters, if only I gain as much as possible."

A characteristic struggle occurred on this basis in connection
with the last decree on railway management, the decree which
granted dictatorial (or "unlimited") power to individual
directors. The conscious (and mostly, probably, unconscious)
representatives of petty bourgeois dissoluteness contended that
the granting of "unlimited" (_i.e._, dictatorial) power to
individuals was a defection from the principle of board
administration, from the democratic and other principles of the
Soviet rule. Some of the Socialist-Revolutionists of the left wing
carried on a plainly demagogic agitation against the decree on
dictatorship, appealing to the evil instincts and to the petty
bourgeois desire for personal gain. The question thus presented is
of really great significance; firstly, the question of principle
is, in general, the appointment of individuals endowed with
unlimited power, the appointment of dictators, in accord with the
fundamental principles of the Soviet rule; secondly, in what
relation is this case--this precedent, if you wish--to the special
problems of the Soviet rule during the present concrete period?
Both questions deserve serious consideration.[74]

With characteristic ingenuity Lenine attempts to provide this dictatorship with a theoretical basis which will pass muster as Marxian Socialism. He uses the term "Soviet democracy" as a synonym for democratic Socialism and says there is "absolutely no contradiction in principle" between it and "the use of dictatorial power of individuals." By what violence to reason and to language is the word _democracy_ applied to the system described by Lenine? To use words with such scant respect to their meanings, established by etymology, history, and universal agreement in usage, is to invite and indeed compel the contempt of minds disciplined by reason's practices. As for the claim that there is no contradiction in principle between democratic Socialism and the exercise of dictatorial power by individuals, before it can be accepted every Socialist teacher and leader of any standing anywhere, the programs of all the Socialist parties, and their practice, must be denied and set aside. Whether democratic Socialism be wise or unwise, a practical possibility or an unrealizable idea, at least it has nothing in common with such reactionary views as are expressed in the following:

That the dictatorship of individuals has very frequently in the
history of revolutionary movements served as an expression and
means of realization of the dictatorship of the revolutionary
classes is confirmed by the undisputed experience of history. With
bourgeois democratic principles, the dictatorship of individuals
has undoubtedly been compatible. But this point is always treated
adroitly by the bourgeois critics of the Soviet rule and by their
petty bourgeois aides. On one hand, they declared the Soviet rule
simply something absurd and anarchically wild, carefully avoiding
all our historical comparisons and theoretical proofs that the
Soviets are a higher form of democracy; nay, more, the beginning
of a _Socialist_ form of democracy. On the other hand, they demand
of us a higher democracy than the bourgeois and argue: with your
Bolshevist (_i.e._, Socialist, not bourgeois) democratic
principles, with the Soviet democratic principles, individual
dictatorship is absolutely incompatible.

Extremely poor arguments, these. If we are not Anarchists, we must
admit the necessity of a state--that is, of _compulsion_, for the
transition from capitalism to Socialism. The form of compulsion is
determined by the degree of development of the particular
revolutionary class, then by such special circumstances as, for
instance, the heritage of a long and reactionary war, and then by
the forms of resistance of the bourgeoisie and the petty
bourgeoisie. _There is therefore absolutely no contradiction in
principle between the Soviet (Socialist) democracy and the use of
dictatorial power of individuals_. The distinction between a
proletarian and a bourgeois dictatorship consists in this: that
the first directs its attacks against the exploiting minority in
the interests of the exploited majority; and, further, in this,
that the first is accomplished (also through individuals) not only
by the masses of the exploited toilers, but also by the
organizations which are so constructed that they arouse these
masses to historical creative work (the Soviets belong to this
kind of organization).[75]

This, then, is Bolshevism, not as it is seen and described by unfriendly "bourgeois" writers, but as it is seen and described by the acknowledged intellectual and political leader of the Bolsheviki, Nikolai Lenine. I have not taken any non-Bolshevist authority; I have not even restated his views in a summary of my own, lest into the summary might be injected some reflexes of my own critical thought. Bolshevism is revealed in all its reactionary repulsiveness as something between which and absolute, individual dictatorial power there is "absolutely no contradiction in principle." It will not avail for our American followers and admirers of the Bolsheviki to plead that these things are temporary, compromises with the ideal due to the extraordinary circumstances prevailing in Russia, and to beg a mitigation of the severity of our judgment on that account.

The answer to the plea is twofold: in the first place, they who offer it must, if they are sincere, abandon the savagely critical attitude they have seen fit to adopt toward our own government and nation because with "extraordinary conditions prevailing" we have had introduced conscription, unusual restrictions of movement and of utterance, and so forth. How else, indeed, can their sincerity be demonstrated? If the fact that extraordinary conditions justified Lenine and his associates in instituting a régime so tyrannical, what rule of reason or of morals must be invoked to refuse to count the extraordinary conditions produced in our own nation by the war as justification for the special measures of military service and discipline here introduced?

But there is a second answer to the claim which is more direct and conclusive. It is not open to argument at all. It is found in the words of Lenine himself, in his claim that there is absolutely no contradiction between the principle of individual dictatorship, ruling with iron hand, and the principle upon which Soviet government rests. There has been no compromise here, for if there is no contradiction in principle no compromise could have been required. Lenine is not afraid to make or to admit making compromises; he admits that compromises have been made. It was a compromise to employ highly salaried specialists from the bourgeoisie, "a defection from the principles of the Paris Commune and of any proletarian rule," as he says. It was a compromise, another "defection from the only Socialist principle," to admit the right of the co-operatives to determine their own conditions of membership. Having made these declarations quite candidly, he takes pains to assure us that there was no such defection from principle in establishing the absolute rule of an individual dictator, that there was absolutely no contradiction in principle in this.[76]

Moreover, there is no reason for regarding this dictatorship as a temporary thing, if Lenine himself is to be accepted as an authoritative spokesman. Obviously, if there is nothing in the principle of an absolute individual dictatorship which is in contradiction to the Bolshevik ideal, there can be no Bolshevik principle which necessarily requires for its realization the ending of such dictatorship. Why, therefore, may it not be continued indefinitely? Certainly, if the dictatorship is abolished it will not be--if Lenine is to be seriously considered--on account of its incompatibility with Bolshevik principles.

VI

The Bolshevik government of Russia is credited by many of its admirers in this country with having solved the great land problem and with having satisfied the land-hunger of the peasants. It is charged, moreover, that the bitter opposition to the Bolsheviki is mainly due to agitation by the bourgeoisie, led by the expropriated landowners, who want to defeat the Revolution and to have their former titles to the land restored. Of course, it is true that, so far as they dare to do so, the former landowners actively oppose the Bolsheviki. No expropriated class ever acted otherwise, and it would be foolish to expect anything else. But any person who believes that the opposition of the great peasant Socialist organizations, and especially of the Socialist-Revolutionists, is due to the confiscation of the land, either consciously or unconsciously, is capable of believing anything and quite immune from rationality.

The facts in the case are, briefly, as follows: First, as Professor Ross has pointed out,[77] the land policy of the Bolshevik government was a compromise of the principles long advocated by its leaders, a compromise made for political reasons only. Second, as Marie Spiridonova abundantly demonstrated at an All-Russian Soviet Conference in July, 1918, the Bolshevik government did not honorably live up to its agreement with the Socialist-Revolutionists of the Left. Third, so far as the land problem was concerned there was not the slightest need or justification for the Bolshevik _coup d'état_, for the reason that the problem had already been solved on the precise lines afterward followed in the Soviet decree and the leaders of the peasants were satisfied. We have the authority of no less competent a witness than Litvinov, Bolshevist Minister to England, that "the land measure had been 'lifted' bodily from the program of the Socialist-Revolutionists."[78] Each of these statements is amply sustained by evidence which cannot be disputed or overcome.

That the "land decree" which the Bolshevik government promulgated was a compromise with their long-cherished principles admits of no doubt whatever. Every one who has kept informed concerning Russian revolutionary movements during the past twenty or twenty-five years knows that during all that time one of the principal subjects of controversy among Socialists was the land question and the proper method of solving it. The "Narodniki," or peasant Socialists, later organized into the Socialist-Revolutionary party, wanted distribution of the land belonging to the big estates among the peasant communes, to be co-operatively owned and managed. They did not want land nationalization, which was the program of the Marxists--the Social Democrats. This latter program meant that, instead of the land being divided among the peasants' communal organizations, it should be owned, used, and managed by the state, the principles of large-scale production and wage labor being applied to agriculture in the same manner as to industry.

The attitude of the Social Democratic party toward the peasant Socialists and their program was characterized by that same certainty that small agricultural holdings were to pass away, and by the same contemptuous attitude toward the peasant life and peasant aspirations that we find in the writings of Marx, Engels, Liebknecht, and many other Marxists.[79] Lenine himself had always adopted this attitude. He never trusted the peasants and was opposed to any program which would give the land to them as they desired. Mr. Walling, who spent nearly three years in Russia, including the whole period of the Revolution of 1905-06, writes of Lenine's position at that time:

Like Alexinsky, Lenine awaits the agrarian movement ... and hopes
that a railway strike with the destruction of the lines of
communication and _the support of the peasantry_ may some day put
the government of Russia into the people's hands. However, I was
shocked to find that this important leader also, though he expects
a full co-operation with the peasants on equal terms, _during the
Revolution_, feels toward them a very _deep distrust_, thinking
them to a large extent bigoted and blindly patriotic, and fearing
that they may some day shoot down the working-men as the French
peasants did during the Paris Commune.

The chief basis for this distrust is, of course, the prejudiced
feeling that the peasants are not likely to become good
Socialists. _It is on this account that Lenine and all the Social
Democratic leaders place their hopes on a future development of
large agricultural estates in Russia and the increase of the
landless agricultural working class, which alone they believe
would prove truly Socialist_.[80]

The Russian Social Democratic Labor party, to which Lenine belonged, and of which he was an influential leader, adopted in 1906 the following program with regard to land ownership: