Chapter V: From Bourgeoisie to Bolsheviki (1)

I

It required no great gift of prophecy to foretell the failure of the Provisional Government established by the revolutionary coalition headed by Prince Lvov. From the very first day it was evident that the Cabinet could never satisfy the Russian people. It was an anomaly in that the Revolution had been a popular revolution, while the Provisional Government was overwhelmingly representative of the landowners, manufacturers, bankers, and merchants--the despised and distrusted bourgeoisie. The very meager representation given to the working class, through Kerensky, was, in the circumstances, remarkable for its stupid effrontery and its disregard of the most obvious realities. Much has been said and written of the doctrinaire attitude which has characterized the Bolsheviki in the later phases of the struggle, but if by doctrinairism is meant subservience to preconceived theories and disregard of realities, it must be said that the statesmen of the bourgeoisie were as completely its victims as the Bolsheviki later proved to be. They were subservient to dogma and indifferent to fact.

The bourgeois leaders of Russia--and those Socialists who co-operated with them--attempted to ignore the biggest and most vital fact in the whole situation, namely, the fact that the Revolution was essentially a Socialist Revolution in the sense that the overwhelming mass of the people were bent upon the realization of a very comprehensive, though somewhat crudely conceived, program of socialization. It was not a mere political Revolution, and political changes which left the essential social structure unchanged, which did not tend to bring about equality of democratic opportunity, and which left the control of the nation in the hands of landowners and capitalists, could never satisfy the masses nor fail to invite their savage attack. Only the most hopeless and futile of doctrinaires could have argued themselves into believing anything else. It was quite idle to argue from the experience of other countries that Russia must follow the universal rule and establish and maintain bourgeois rule for a period more or less prolonged. True, that had been the experience of most nations, but it was foolish in the extreme to suppose that it must be the experience of Russia, whose conditions were so utterly unlike those which had obtained in any nation which had by revolution established constitutional government upon a democratic basis.

To begin with, in every other country revolution by the bourgeoisie itself had been the main factor in the overthrow of autocracy. Feudalism and monarchical autocracy fell in western Europe before the might of a powerful rising class. That this class in every case drew to its side the masses and benefited by their co-operation must not be allowed to obscure the fact that in these other countries of all the classes in society the bourgeoisie was the most powerful. It was that fact which established its right to rule in place of the deposed rulers. The Russian middle class, however, lacked that historic right to rule. In consequence of the backwardness of the nation from the point of view of industrial development, the bourgeoisie was correspondingly backward and weak. Never in any country had a class so weak and uninfluential essayed the rôle of the ruling class. To believe that a class which at the most did not exceed six per cent. of the population could assert and maintain its rule over a nation of one hundred and eighty millions of people, when these had been stirred by years of revolutionary agitation, was at once pedantic and absurd.

The industrial proletariat was as backward and as relatively weak as the bourgeoisie. Except by armed force and tyranny of the worst kind, this class could not rule Russia. Its fitness and right to rule are not appreciably greater than the fitness and right of the bourgeoisie. It cannot even be said on its behalf that it had waged the revolutionary struggle of the working class, for in truth its share in the Russian revolutionary movement had been relatively small, far less than that of the peasant organizations. With more than one hundred and thirty-five millions of peasants, from whose discontent and struggle the revolutionary movement had drawn its main strength, neither the bourgeoisie nor the class-conscious section of the industrial proletariat could set up its rule without angry protest and attacks which, soon or late, must overturn it. Every essential fact in the Russian situation, which was so unique, pointed to the need for a genuine and sincere co-operation by the intelligent leaders of all the opposition elements until stability was attained, together with freedom from the abnormal difficulties due to the war. In any event, the domination of the Provisional Government by a class so weak and so narrow in its outlook and aims was a disaster. As soon as time for reflection had been afforded the masses discontent and distrust were inevitable.

II

From the first days there were ominous murmurings. Yet it must be confessed that the Provisional Government manifested much greater enlightenment than might have been expected of it and hastened to enact a program--quite remarkable for its liberality and vision; a program which, had it come from a government more truly representative in its personnel of revolutionary Russia, might, with one important addition, have served as the foundation of an enduring structure. On March 18th the Provisional Government issued a statement of its program and an appeal to the citizens for support. This document, which is said to have been the joint work of P.I. Novgorodtzev, N.V. Nekrasov, and P.N. Miliukov, read as follows:

CITIZENS: The Executive Committee of the Duma, with the
aid and support of the garrison of the capital and its
inhabitants, has succeeded in triumphing over the obnoxious forces
of the old régime so that we can proceed to a more stable
organization of the executive power, with men whose past political
activity assures them the country's confidence.

The new Cabinet will base its policy upon the following
principles: _First_.--An immediate and general amnesty for all
political and religious offenses, including terrorist acts and
military and agrarian offenses.

_Second_.--Liberty of speech and of the press; freedom for
alliances, unions, and strikes, with the extension of these
liberties to military officials, within the limits admitted by
military requirements.

_Third_.--Abolition of all social, religious, and national
restrictions.

_Fourth_.--To proceed forthwith to the preparation and convocation
of a Constituent Assembly, based on universal suffrage. This
Assembly will establish a stable universal régime.

_Fifth_.--The substitution of the police by a national militia,
with chiefs to be elected and responsible to the municipalities.

_Sixth_.--Communal elections to be based on universal, direct,
equal, and secret suffrage.

_Seventh_.--The troops which participated in the revolutionary
movement will not be disarmed, but will remain in Petrograd.

_Eighth_.--While maintaining strict military discipline for troops
in active service, it is desirable to abrogate for soldiers all
restrictions in the enjoyment of civil rights accorded other
citizens.

The Provisional Government desires to add that it has no intention
of taking advantage of war conditions to delay the realization of
the measures of reform above mentioned.

This address is worthy of especial attention. The generous liberalism of the program it outlines cannot be denied, but it is political liberalism only. It is not directly and definitely concerned with the great fundamental economic issues which so profoundly affect the life and well-being of the working class, peasants, and factory-workers alike. It is the program of men who saw in the Revolution only a great epochal political advance. In this it reflects its bourgeois origin. With the exception of the right to organize unions and strikes--which is a political measure--not one of the important economic demands peculiar to the working class is met in the program. The land question, which was the economic basis of the Revolution, and without which there could have been no Revolution, was not even mentioned. And the Manifesto which the Provisional Government addressed to the nation on March 20th was equally silent with regard to the land question and the socialization of industry.

Evidently the Provisional Government desired to confine itself as closely as possible to political democracy, and to leave fundamental economic reform to be attended to by the Constituent Assembly. If that were its purpose, it would have helped matters to have had the purpose clearly stated and not merely left to inference. But whatever the shortcomings of its first official statements, the actual program of the Provisional Government during the first weeks was far more satisfactory and afforded room for great hope. On March 21st the constitution of Finland was restored. On the following day amnesty was granted to all political and religious offenders. Within a few days freedom and self-government were granted to Poland, subject to the ratification of the Constituent Assembly. At the same time all laws discriminating against the Jews were repealed by the following decree:

All existing legal restrictions upon the rights of Russian citizens, based upon faith, religious teaching, or nationality, are revoked. In accordance with this, we hereby repeal all laws existing in Russia as a whole, as well as for separate localities, concerning:

1. Selection of place of residence and change of residence.

2. Acquiring rights of ownership and other material rights in all
kinds of movable property and real estate, and likewise in the
possession of, the use and managing of all property, or receiving
such for security.

3. Engaging in all kinds of trades, commerce, and industry, not
excepting mining; also equal participation in the bidding for
government contracts, deliveries, and in public auctions.

4. Participation in joint-stock and other commercial or industrial
companies and partnerships, and also employment in these companies
and partnerships in all kinds of positions, either by elections or
by employment.

5. Employment of servants, salesmen, foremen, laborers, and trade
apprentices.

6. Entering the government service, civil as well as military, and
the grade or condition of such service; participation in the
elections for the institutions for local self-government, and all
kinds of public institutions; serving in all kinds of positions of
government and public establishments, as well as the prosecution
of the duties connected with such positions.

7. Admission to all kinds of educational institutions, whether
private, government, or public, and the pursuing of the courses of
instruction of these institutions, and receiving scholarships.
Also the pursuance of teaching and other educational professions.

8. Performing the duties of guardians, trustees, or jurors.

9. The use of language and dialects, other than Russian, in the
proceedings of private societies, or in teaching in all kinds of
private educational institutions, and in commercial bookkeeping.

Thus all the humiliating restrictions which had been imposed upon the Jewish people were swept away. Had the Provisional Government done nothing else than this, it would have justified itself at the bar of history. But it accomplished much more than this: before it had been in office a month, in addition to its liberation of Finns, Poles, and Jews, the Provisional Government abolished the death penalty; removed all the provincial governors and substituted for them the elected heads of the provincial county councils; _confiscated the large land holdings of the Imperial family and of the monasteries_; levied an excess war-profits tax on all war industries; and fixed the price of food at rates greatly lower than had prevailed before. The Provisional Government had gone farther, and, while declaring that these matters must be left to the Constituent Assembly for settlement, had declared itself in favor of woman suffrage and of _the distribution of all land among the peasants, the terms and conditions of expropriation and distribution to be determined by the Constituent Assembly_.

The Provisional Government also established a War Cabinet which introduced various reforms into the army. All the old oppressive regulations were repealed and an attempt made to democratize the military system. Some of these reforms were of the utmost value; others were rather dangerous experiments. Much criticism has been leveled against the rules providing for the election of officers by the men in the ranks, for a conciliation board to act in disputes between men and officers over questions of discipline, and the abolition of the regulations requiring private soldiers to address officers by the title "Sir." It must be borne in mind, however, in discussing these things, that these rules represented a great, honest effort to restore the morale of an army that had been demoralized, and to infuse it with democratic faith and zeal in order that it might "carry on." It is not just to judge the rules without considering the conditions which called them forth.

Certainly the Provisional Government--which the government of the United States formally recognized on March 22d, being followed in this by the other Allied governments next day--could not be accused fairly of being either slothful or unfaithful. Its accomplishments during those first weeks were most remarkable. Nevertheless, as the days went by it became evident that it could not hope to satisfy the masses and that, therefore, it could not last very long.

III

The Council of Workmen's and Soldiers' Delegates was pursuing its independent existence, under the leadership of Tchcheidze, Skobelev, Tseretelli, and other moderate Social Democrats. As yet the Bolsheviki were a very small and uninfluential faction, lacking capable leadership. There can be very little doubt that the Council represented the feelings of the great mass of the organized wage-earners far more satisfactorily than the Provisional Government did, or that it was trusted to a far greater degree, alike by the wage-earners of the cities and the peasants. A great psychological fact existed, a fact which the Provisional Government and the governments of the Allied nations might well have reckoned with: the Russian working-people, artisans and peasants alike, were aggressively class conscious and could trust fully only the leaders of their own class.

The majority of the Social Democratic party was, at the beginning, so far from anything like Bolshevism, so thoroughly constructive and opportunistic in its policies, that its official organ, _Pravda_--not yet captured by the Bolsheviki--put forward a program which might easily have been made the basis for an effective coalition. It was in some respects disappointingly moderate: like the program of the Provisional Government, it left the land question untouched, except in so far as the clause demanding the confiscation of the property of the royal family and the Church bore upon it. The Social Democratic party, reflecting the interests of the city proletariat, had never been enthusiastic about the peasants' claim for distribution of the land, and there had been much controversy between its leaders and the leaders of the Socialist-Revolutionary party, the party of the peasants. The program as printed in Pravda read:

1. A biennial one-house parliament.

2. Wide extension of the principle of self-government.

3. Inviolability of person and dwelling.

4. Unlimited freedom of the press, of speech, and of assembly.

5. Freedom of movement in business.

6. Equal rights for all irrespective of sex, religion, and
nationality.

7. Abolition of class distinction.

8. Education in native language; native languages everywhere to
have equal rights with official language.

9. Every nationality in the state to have the right of
self-definition.

10. The right of all persons to prosecute officials before a jury.

11. Election of magistrates.

12. A citizen army instead of ordinary troops.

13. Separation of Church from state and school from Church.

14. Free compulsory education for both sexes to the age of
sixteen.

15. State feeding of poor children.

16. Confiscation of Church property, also that of the royal
family.

17. Progressive income tax.

18. An eight-hour day, with six hours for all under eighteen.

19. Prohibition of female labor where such is harmful to women.

20. A clear holiday once a week to consist of forty-two hours on
end.

It would be a mistake to suppose that this very moderate program embraced all that the majority of the Social Democratic party aimed at. It was not intended to be more than an ameliorative program for immediate adoption by the Constituent Assembly, for the convocation of which the Social Democrats were most eager, and which they confidently believed would have a majority of Socialists of different factions.

In a brilliant and caustic criticism of conditions as they existed in the pre-Bolshevist period, Trotzky denounced what he called "the farce of dual authority." In a characteristically clever and biting phrase, he described it as "The epoch of Dual Impotence, the government not able, and the Soviet not daring," and predicted its culmination in a "crisis of unheard-of severity."[5] There was more than a little truth in the scornful phrase. On the one hand, there was the Provisional Government, to which the Soviet had given its consent and its allegiance, trying to discharge the functions of government. On the other hand, there was the Soviet itself, claiming the right to control the course of the Provisional Government and indulging in systematic criticism of the latter's actions. It was inevitable that the Soviet should have been driven irresistibly to the point where it must either renounce its own existence or oppose the Provisional Government.

The dominating spirit and thought of the Soviet was that of international social democracy. While most of the delegates believed that it was necessary to prosecute the war and to defeat the aggressions of the Central Empires, they were still Socialists, internationalists, fundamental democrats, and anti-imperialists. Not without good and sufficient reason, they mistrusted the bourgeois statesmen and believed that some of the most influential among them were imperialists, actuated by a desire for territorial expansion, especially the annexation of Constantinople, and that they were committed to various secret treaties entered into by the old régime with England, France, and Italy. In the meetings of the Soviet, and in other assemblages of workers, the ugly suspicion grew that the war was not simply a war for national defense, for which there was democratic sanction and justification, but a war of imperialism, and that the Provisional Government was pursuing the old ways of secret diplomacy.

Strength was given to this feeling when Miliukov, the Foreign Minister, in an interview championed the annexation of Constantinople as a necessary safeguard for the outlet to the Mediterranean which Russian economic development needed. Immediately there was an outcry of protest from the Soviet, in which, it should be observed, the Bolsheviki were already gaining strength and confidence, thanks to the leadership of Kamenev, Lenine's colleague, who had returned from Siberian exile. It was not only the Bolsheviki, however, who protested against imperialistic tendencies. Practically the whole body of Socialists, Mensheviki and Bolsheviki alike, agreed in opposing imperialism and secret diplomacy. Socialists loyal to the national defense and Socialists who repudiated that policy and deemed it treason to the cause of Socialism were united in this one thing.

The storm of protest which Miliukov's interview provoked was stilled temporarily when the Premier, Lvov, announced that the Foreign Minister's views concerning the annexation of Constantinople were purely personal and did not represent the policy of the Provisional Government. Assurances were given that the Provisional Government was in accord with the policy of the Soviet. On April 16th a national congress of the Councils of Workmen's and Soldiers' Delegates adopted a series of resolutions in which there was a distinct menace to the Provisional Government. An earlier proclamation by the Petrograd Soviet had taken the form of a letter addressed to "Proletarians and Working-people of all Countries," but being in fact an appeal to the German working class to rise and refuse to fight against democratic and free Russia.[6] It declared that the peoples must take the matter of deciding questions of war and peace into their own hands. The new declaration was addressed to the Russian people:

_First_.--The Provisional Government, which constituted itself
during the Revolution, in agreement with the Council of Workmen's
and Soldiers' Delegates of Petrograd, published a proclamation
announcing its program. This Congress records that this program
contains in principle political demands for Russian democracy, and
_recognizes that so far the Provisional Government has faithfully
carried out its promises_.

_Second_.--This Congress appeals to the whole revolutionary
democracy of Russia to rally to the support of the Council of
Workmen's and Soldiers' Delegates, which is the center of the
organized democratic forces that are capable, in unison with
other progressive forces, of counteracting any counter
revolutionary attempt and of consolidating the conquests of the
revolution.

_Third_.--The Congress recognizes the necessity of permanent
political control, the necessity of exercising an influence over
the Provisional Government which will keep it up to a more
energetic struggle against anti-revolutionary forces, and the
necessity of exercising an influence which will insure its
democratizing the whole Russian life and paving the way for a
common _peace without annexations or contributions_, but on a
basis of free national development of all peoples.

_Fourth_.--The Congress appeals to the democracy, while declining
responsibility for any of its acts, to support the Provisional
Government as long as it continues to consolidate and develop the
conquest of the Revolution, _and as long as the basis of its
foreign policy does not rest upon aspirations for territorial
expansion_.

_Fifth_.--The Congress calls upon the revolutionary democracy of
Russia, rallying around the Council of Workmen's and Soldiers'
Delegates, to be ready to _vigorously suppress any attempt by the
government to elude the control of democracy or to renounce the
carrying out of its pledges_.[7]

On April 27th, acting under pressure from the Soviet, the Provisional Government published a Manifesto to the Russian people in which it announced a foreign policy which conformed to that which the Congress of Councils of Workmen's and Soldiers' Delegates had adopted. On May 1st Miliukov, the Foreign Minister, transmitted this Manifesto to the Allied governments as a preliminary to an invitation to those governments to restate their war aims. Accompanying the Manifesto was a Note of explanation, which was interpreted by a great many of the Socialists as an intimation to the Allies that the Manifesto was intended merely for home consumption, and that the Provisional Government would be glad to have the Allies disregard it. It is difficult for any one outside of Russia, whose sympathies were with the Entente Allies, to gather such an impression from the text of the Note, which simply set forth that enemy attempts to spread the belief that Russia was about to make a separate peace with Germany made it necessary for the Provisional Government to state its "entire agreement" with the aims of the Allies as set forth by their statesmen, including President Wilson, and to affirm that "the Provisional Government, in safeguarding the right acquired for our country, will maintain a strict regard for its agreement with the allies of Russia."

Although it was explained that the Note had been sent with the knowledge and approval of the Provisional Government, the storm of fury it produced was directed against Miliukov and, in less degree, Guchkov. Tremendous demonstrations of protest against "imperialism" were held. In the Soviet a vigorous demand for the overthrow of the Provisional Government was made by the steadily growing Bolshevik faction and by many anti-Bolsheviki Socialists. To avert the disaster of a vote of the Soviet against it, the Provisional Government made the following explanation of the so-called Miliukov Note:

The Note was subjected to long and detailed examination by the
Provisional Government, and was unanimously approved. This Note,
in speaking of a "decisive victory," had in view a solution of the
problems mentioned in the communication of April 9th, and which
was thus specified:

"The government deems it to be its right and duty to declare now
that free Russia does not aim at the domination of other nations,
or at depriving them of their national patrimony, or at occupying
by force foreign territories, but that its object is to establish
a durable peace on the basis of the rights of nations to decide
their own destiny.

"The Russian nation does not lust after the strengthening of its
power abroad at the expense of other nations. Its aim is not to
subjugate or humiliate any one. In the name of the higher
principles of equity, the Russian people have broken the chains
which fettered the Polish nation, but it will not suffer that its
own country shall emerge from the great struggle humiliated or
weakened in its vital forces.

"In referring to the 'penalties and guarantees' essential to a
durable peace, the Provisional Government had in view the
reduction of armaments, the establishment of international
tribunals, etc.

"This explanation will be communicated by the Minister of Foreign
Affairs to the Ambassadors of the Allied Powers."

This assurance satisfied a majority of the delegates to the Soviet meeting held on the evening of May 4th, and a resolution of confidence in the Provisional Government was carried, after a very stormy debate. The majority, however, was a very small one, thirty-five in a total vote of about twenty-five hundred. It was clearly evident that the political government and the Soviet, which was increasingly inclined to assume the functions of government, were nearing a serious breach. With each day the Council of Workmen's and Soldiers' Delegates, as the organized expression of the great mass of wage-workers in Petrograd, grew in power over the Provisional Government and its influence throughout the whole of Russia. On May 13th Guchkov resigned, and three days later Miliukov followed his example. The party of the Constitutional Democrats had come to be identified in the minds of the revolutionary proletariat with imperialism and secret diplomacy, and was utterly discredited. The crisis developed an intensification of the distrust of the bourgeoisie by the proletariat.

IV

The crisis was not due solely to the diplomacy of the Provisional Government. Indeed, that was a minor cause. Behind all the discussions and disputes over Miliukov's conduct of the affairs of the Foreign Office there was the far more serious issue created by the agitation of the Bolsheviki. Under the leadership of Kamenev, Lenine, and others less well known, who skillfully exploited the friction with the Provisional Government, the idea of overthrowing that bourgeois body and of asserting that the Councils of Workmen's and Soldiers' Delegates would rule Russia in the interests of the working class made steady if not rapid progress.

Late in April Lenine and several other active Bolshevik leaders returned to Petrograd from Switzerland, together with Martov and other Menshevik leaders, who, while differing from the Bolsheviki upon practically all other matters, agreed with them in their bitter and uncompromising opposition to the war and in demanding an immediate peace.[8] As is well known, they were granted special facilities by the German Government in order that they might reach Russia safely. Certain Swiss Socialist leaders, regarded as strongly pro-German, arranged with the German Government that the Russian revolutionists should be permitted to travel across Germany by rail, in closed carriages. Unusual courtesies were extended to the travelers by the German authorities, and it was quite natural that Lenine and his associates should have been suspected of being sympathizers with, if not the paid agents and tools of, the German Government. The manner in which their actions, when they arrived in Russia, served the ends sought by the German military authorities naturally strengthened the suspicion so that it became a strong conviction.

Suspicious as the circumstances undoubtedly were, there is a very simple explanation of the conduct of Lenine and his companions. It is not at all necessary to conclude that they were German agents. Let us look at the facts with full candor: Lenine had long openly advocated the view that the defeat of Russia, even by Germany, would be good for the Russian revolutionary movement. But that was in the days before the overthrow of the Czar. Since that time his position had naturally shifted somewhat; he had opposed the continuation of the war and urged the Russian workers to withhold support from it. He had influenced the Soviets to demand a restatement of war aims by the Allies, and to incessantly agitate for immediate negotiations looking toward a general and democratic peace. Of course, the preaching of such a policy in Russia at that time by a leader so powerful and influential as Lenine, bound as it was to divide Russia and sow dissension among the Allies, fitted admirably into the German plans. That Germany would have been glad to pay for the performance of service so valuable can hardly be doubted.

On his side, Lenine is far too astute a thinker to have failed to understand that the German Government had its own selfish interests in view when it arranged for his passage across Germany. But the fact that the Allies would suffer, and that the Central Empires would gain some advantage, was of no consequence to him. That was an unavoidable accident and was purely incidental. His own purpose, to lead the revolutionary movement into a new phase, in which he believed with fanatical thoroughness, was the only thing that mattered in the least. If the conditions had been reversed, and he could only have reached Russia by the co-operation of the Allies, whose cause would be served, however unintentionally, by his work, he would have felt exactly the same. On the other hand, it was of the essence of his faith that his policy would lead to the overthrow of all capitalist-imperialist governments, those of Germany and her allies no less than those ranged on the other side. Germany might reason that a revolutionary uprising led by Lenine would rid her of one of her enemies and enable her to hurl larger forces against the foe on the western front. At that reasoning Lenine would smile in derision, thoroughly believing that any uprising he might bring about in Russia would sweep westward and destroy the whole fabric of Austro-German capitalist-imperialism. Lenine knew that he was being used by Germany, but he believed that he, in turn, was using Germany. He was supremely confident that he could outplay the German statesmen and military leaders.

It was a dangerous game that Lenine was playing, and he knew it, but the stakes were high and worth the great risk involved. It was not necessary for Germany to buy the service he could render to her; that service would be an unavoidable accompaniment of his mission. He argued that his work could, at the worst, give only temporary advantage to Germany. So far as there is any evidence to show, Lenine has been personally incorruptible. Holding lightly what he scornfully derides as "bourgeois morality," unmoral rather than immoral, willing to use any and all means to achieve ends which he sincerely believes to be the very highest and noblest that ever inspired mankind, he would, doubtless, take German money if he saw that it would help him to achieve his purposes. He would do so, however, without any thought of self-aggrandizement. It is probably safe and just to believe that if Lenine ever took money from the Germans, either at that time or subsequently, he did so in this spirit, believing that the net result of his efforts would be equally disastrous to all the capitalist governments concerned in the war. It must be remembered, moreover, that the distinctions drawn by most thoughtful men between autocratic governments like those which ruled Germany and Austria and the more democratic governments of France, England, and America, have very little meaning or value to men like Lenine. They regard the political form as relatively unimportant; what matters is the fundamental economic class interest represented by the governments. Capitalist governments are all equally undesirable.

What Lenine's program was when he left Switzerland is easily learned. A few days before he left Switzerland he delivered a lecture on "The Russian Revolution," in which he made a careful statement of his position. It gives a very good idea of Lenine's mental processes. It shows him as a Marxist of the most dogmatic type--the type which caused Marx himself to rejoice that he was not a "Marxist":

As to the revolutionary organization and its task, the conquest of
the power of the state and militarism: From the praxis of the
French Commune of 1871, Marx shows that "the working class cannot
simply take over the governmental machinery as built by the
bourgeoisie, and use this machinery for its own purposes." The
proletariat must break down this machinery. And this has been
either concealed or denied by the opportunists.[9] But it is the
most valuable lesson of the Paris Commune of 1871 and the
Revolution in Russia in 1905. The difference between us and the
Anarchists is, that we admit the state is a necessity in the
development of our Revolution. The difference with the
opportunists and the Kautsky[10] disciples is that we claim that
we do not need the bourgeois state machinery as completed in the
"democratic" bourgeois republics, but _the direct power of armed
and organized workers_. Such was the character of the Commune of
1871 and of the Council of Workmen and Soldiers of 1905 and 1917.
On this basis we build.[11]

Lenine went on to outline his program of action, which was to begin a new phase of the Revolution; to carry the revolt against Czarism onward against the bourgeoisie. Notwithstanding his scorn for democracy, he declared at that time that his policy included the establishment of a "democratic republic," confiscation of the landed estates of the nobility in favor of the peasants, and the opening up of immediate peace negotiations. But the latter he would take out of the hands of the government entirely. "Peace negotiations should not be carried on by and with bourgeois governments, but with the proletariat in each of the warring countries." In his criticism of Kerensky and Tchcheidze the Bolshevik leader was especially scornful and bitter.

In a letter which he addressed to the Socialists of Switzerland immediately after his departure for Russia, Lenine gave a careful statement of his own position and that of his friends. It shows an opportunistic attitude of mind which differs from the opportunistic attitude of the moderate Socialists _in direction only_, not in the _quality of being opportunistic_:

Historic conditions have made the Russians, _perhaps for a short
period_, the leaders of the revolutionary world proletariat, _but
Socialism cannot now prevail in Russia_. We can expect only an
agrarian revolution, which will help to create more favorable
conditions for further development of the proletarian forces and
_may result in measures for the control of production and
distribution_.

The main results of the present Revolution will have to be _the
creation of more favorable conditions for further revolutionary
development_, and to influence the more highly developed European
countries into action.[12]

The Bolsheviki at this period had as their program the following:

(1) The Soviets of Workers, Soldiers, and Peasants to constitute themselves into the actual revolutionary government and establish the dictatorship of the proletariat; (2) immediate confiscation of landed estates without compensation, the seizure to be done by the peasants themselves, without waiting for legal forms or processes, the peasants to organize into Soviets; (3) measures for the control of production and distribution by the revolutionary government, nationalization of monopolies, repudiation of the national debt; (4) the workers to take possession of factories and operate them in co-operation with the technical staffs; (5) refusal by the Soviets to recognize any treaties made by the governments either of the Czar or the bourgeoisie, and the immediate publication of all such treaties; (6) the workers to propose at once and publicly an immediate truce and negotiations of peace, these to be carried on by the proletariat and not by and with the bourgeoisie; (7) bourgeois war debts to be paid exclusively by the capitalists.

According to Litvinov, who is certainly not an unfriendly authority, as soon as Lenine arrived in Russia he submitted a new program to his party which was so novel, and so far a departure from accepted Socialist principles, that "Lenine's own closest friends shrank from it and refused to accept it."[13]

This program involved the abandonment of the plans made for holding the Constituent Assembly, or, at any rate, such a radical change as to amount to the abandonment of the accepted plans. _He proposed that universal, equal, direct, and secret suffrage be frankly abandoned, and that only the industrial proletariat and the poorest section of the peasantry be permitted to vote at all!_ Against the traditional Socialist view that class distinctions must be wiped out and the class war ended by the victorious proletariat, Lenine proposed to make the class division more rigid and enduring. He proposed to give the sole control of Russia into the hands of not more than two hundred thousand workers in a land of one hundred and eighty millions of people, more than one hundred and thirty-five millions of whom were peasants!

Of course, there could be no reconciliation between such views as these and the universally accepted Socialist principle of democratic government. Lenine did not hesitate to declare that democracy itself was a "bourgeois conception" which the revolutionary proletariat must overthrow, a declaration hard to reconcile with his demand for a "democratic republic." Russia must not become a democratic republic, he argued, for a democratic republic is a bourgeois republic. Again and again, during the time we are discussing and later, Lenine assailed the principle of democratic government. "Since March, 1917, the word 'democracy' is simply a shackle fastened upon the revolutionary nation," he declared in an article written after the Bolsheviki had overthrown Kerensky.[14]

When democracy is abolished, parliamentary government goes with it. From the first days after his return to Russia Lenine advocated, instead of a parliamentary republic similar to that of France or the United States, what he called a Soviet republic, which would be formed upon these lines: local government would be carried on by local Soviets composed of delegates elected by "the working class and the poorest peasantry," to use a common Bolshevik phrase which bothers a great many people whose minds insist upon classifying peasants as "working-people" and part of the working class. What Lenine means when he uses the phrase, and what Litvinov means[15] is that the industrial wage-workers--to whom is applied the term "working class"--must be sharply distinguished from peasants and small farmers, though the very poorest peasants, not being conservative, as more prosperous peasants are, can be united with the wage-workers.

These local Soviets functioning in local government would, in Lenine's Soviet republic, elect delegates to a central committee of all the Soviets in the country, and that central committee would be the state. Except in details of organization, this is not materially different from the fundamental idea of the I.W.W. with which we are familiar.[16] According to the latter, the labor-unions, organized on industrial lines and federated through a central council, will take the place of parliamentary government elected on territorial lines. According to the Bolshevik plan, Soviets would take the place held by the unions in the plan of the I.W.W. It is not to be wondered at that, in the words of Litvinov, Lenine's own closest friends shrank from his scheme and Lenine "was compelled to drop it for a time."

V

Bolshevism was greatly strengthened in its leadership by the return of Leon Trotzky, who arrived in Petrograd on May 17th. Trotzky was born in Moscow about forty-five years ago. Like Lenine, he is of bourgeois origin, his father being a wealthy Moscow merchant. He is a Jew and his real name is Bronstein. To live under an assumed name has always been a common practice among Russian revolutionists, for very good and cogent reasons. Certainly all who knew anything at all of the personnel of the Russian revolutionary movement during the past twenty years knew that Trotzky was Bronstein, and that he was a Jew. The idea, assiduously disseminated by a section of the American press, that there must be something discreditable or mysterious connected with his adoption of an alias is extremely absurd, and can only be explained by monumental ignorance of Russian revolutionary history.

Trotzky has been a fighter in the ranks of the revolutionary army of Russia for twenty years. As early as 1900 his activities as a Socialist propagandist among students had landed him in prison in solitary confinement. In 1902 he was exiled to eastern Siberia, whence he managed to escape. During the next three years he lived abroad, except for brief intervals spent in Russia, devoting himself to Socialist journalism. His first pamphlet, published in Geneva in 1903, was an attempt to reconcile the two factions in the Social Democratic party, the Bolsheviki and the Mensheviki. He was an orthodox Marxist of the most extreme doctrinaire type, and naturally inclined to the Bolshevik view. Yet he never joined the Bolsheviki, preferring to remain aloof from both factions and steadfastly and earnestly striving to unite them.

When the Revolution of 1905 broke out Trotzky had already attained considerable influence among the Socialists. He was regarded as one of the ablest of the younger Marxians, and men spoke of him as destined to occupy the place of Plechanov. He became one of the most influential leaders of the St. Petersburg Soviet, and was elected its president. In that capacity he labored with titanic energy and manifested great versatility, as organizer, writer, speaker, and arbiter of disputes among warring individuals and groups. When the end came he was arrested and thrown into prison, where he remained for twelve months. After that he was tried and sentenced to life-exile in northern Siberia. From this he managed to escape, however, and from 1907 until the outbreak of the war in 1914 he lived in Vienna.

The first two years of the war he lived in France, doing editorial work for a radical Russian Socialist daily paper, the _Nashe Slovo_. His writing, together with his activity in the Zimmerwald movement of anti-war Socialists, caused his expulsion from France. The Swiss government having refused to permit him to enter Switzerland, he sought refuge in Spain, where he was once more arrested and imprisoned for a short time. Released through the intervention of Spanish Socialists, he set sail with his family for New York, where he arrived early in January, 1917. Soon after the news of the Russian Revolution thrilled the world Trotzky, like many other Russian exiles, made hasty preparations to return, sailing on March 27th on a Norwegian steamer. At Halifax he and his family, together with a number of other Russian revolutionists, were taken from the ship and interned in a camp for war prisoners, Trotzky resisting violently and having to be carried off the ship. The British authorities kept them interned for a month, but finally released them at the urgent demand of the Foreign Minister of the Russian Provisional Government, Miliukov.

Such, in brief outline, is the history of the man Trotzky. It is a typical Russian history: the story of a persistent, courageous, and exceedingly able fighter for an ideal believed in with fanatical devotion. Lenine, in one of his many disputes with Trotzky, called him "a man who blinds himself with revolutionary phrases,"[17] and the description is very apt. He possesses all the usual characteristics of the revolutionary Jewish Socialists of Russia. To a high-strung, passionate, nervous temperament and an exceedingly active imagination he unites a keen intellect which finds its highest satisfaction in theoretical abstractions and subtleties, and which accepts, phrases as though they were realities.

Understanding of Trotzky's attitude during the recent revolutionary and counter-revolutionary struggles is made easier by understanding the development of his thought in the First Revolution, 1905-06. He began as an extremely orthodox Marxist, and believed that any attempt to establish a Socialist order in Russia until a more or less protracted intensive economic development, exhausting the possibilities of capitalism, made change inevitable, must fail. He accepted the view that a powerful capitalist class must be developed and perform its indispensable historical rôle, to be challenged and overthrown in its turn by the proletariat. That was the essence of his pure and unadulterated faith. To it he clung with all the tenacity of his nature, deriding as "Utopians" and "dreamers" the peasant Socialists who refused to accept the Marxian theory of Socialism as the product of historic necessity as applicable to Russia.

The great upheaval of 1905 changed his viewpoint. The manner in which revolutionary ideas spread among the masses created in Trotzky, as in many others, almost unbounded confidence and enthusiasm. In an essay written soon after the outbreak of the Revolution he wrote: "The Revolution has come. _One move of hers has lifted the people over scores of steps, up which in times of peace we would have had to drag ourselves with hardships and fatigue_." The idea that the Revolution had "lifted the people over scores of steps" possessed him and changed his whole conception of the manner in which Socialism was to come. Still calling himself a Marxist, and believing as strongly as ever in the fundamental Marxian doctrines, as he understood them, he naturally devoted his keen mind with its peculiar aptitude for Talmudic hair-splitting to a new interpretation of Marxism. He declared his belief that in Russia it was possible to change from Absolutism to Socialism immediately, without the necessity of a prolonged period of capitalist development. At the same time, he maintained a scornful attitude toward the "Utopianism" of the peasant Socialists, who had always made the same contention, because he believed they based their hopes and their policy upon a wrong conception of Socialism. He had small patience for their agrarian Socialism with its economic basis in peasant-proprietorship and voluntary co-operation.

He argued that the Russian bourgeoisie was so thoroughly infected with the ills of the bureaucratic system that it was itself decadent; not virile and progressive as a class aiming to possess the future must be. Since it was thus corrupted and weakened, and therefore incapable of fulfilling any revolutionary historical rôle, that became the _immediate_ task of the proletariat. Here was an example of the manner in which lifting over revolutionary steps was accomplished. Of course, the peasantry was in a backward and even primitive state which unfitted it for the proletarian rôle. Nevertheless, it had a class consciousness of its own, and an irresistible hunger for land. Without this class supporting it, or, at least, acquiescing in its rule, the proletariat could never hope to seize and hold the power of government. It would be possible to solve the difficulty here presented, Trotzky contended, if the enactment of the peasant program were permitted during the Revolution and accepted by the proletariat as a _fait accompli_. This would satisfy the peasants and make them content to acquiesce in a proletarian dictatorship. Once firmly established in power, it would be possible for the proletariat to gradually apply the true Socialist solution to the agrarian problem and to convert the peasants. "Once in power, the proletariat will appear before the peasantry as its liberator," he wrote.

His imagination fired by the manner in which the Soviet of which he was president held the loyalty of the masses during the revolutionary uprising, and the representative character it developed, Trotzky conceived the idea that it lent itself admirably to the scheme of proletarian dictatorship. Parliamentary government cannot be used to impose and maintain a dictatorship, whether of autocracy or oligarchy, bourgeoisie or proletariat. In the Soviet, as a result of six weeks' experience in abnormal times, during which it was never for a moment subjected to the test of maintaining the economic life of the nation, Trotzky saw the ideal proletarian government. He once described the Soviet as "a true, unadulterated democracy," but, unless we are to dismiss the description as idle and vain rhetoric, we must assume that the word "democracy" was used in an entirely new sense, utterly incompatible with its etymological and historical meaning. Democracy has always meant absence of class rule; proletarian dictatorship is class rule.

In the foregoing analysis of the theoretical and tactical views which Trotzky held during and immediately after the First Revolution, it is easy to see the genesis of the policies of the Bolshevik government which came twelve years later. The intervening years served only to deepen his convictions. At the center of all his thinking during that period was his belief in the sufficiency of the Soviet, and in the need of proletarian dictatorship. Throwing aside the first cautious thought that these things arose from the peculiar conditions existing in Russia as a result of her retarded economic development, he had come to regard them as applicable to all nations and to all peoples, except, perhaps, the peoples still living in barbarism or savagery.

VI

After the crisis which resulted in the resignation of Miliukov and Guchkov, it was evident that the Lvov government could not long endure. The situation in the army, as well as in the country, was so bad that the complete reorganization of the Provisional Government, upon much more radical lines, was imperative. The question arose among the revolutionary working-class organizations whether they should consent to co-operation with the liberal bourgeoisie in a new coalition Cabinet or whether they should refuse such co-operation and fight exclusively on class lines. This, of course, opened the entire controversy between Bolsheviki and Mensheviki.

In the mean time the war-weary nation was clamoring for peace. The army was demoralized and saturated with the defeatism preached by the Porazhentsi. To deal with this grave situation two important conventions were arranged for, as follows: the Convention of Soldiers' Delegates from the Front, which opened on May 10th and lasted for about a week, and the First All-Russian Congress of Peasants' Delegates, which opened on May 17th and lasted for about twelve days. Between the two gatherings there was also an important meeting of the Petrograd Council of Workmen's and Soldiers' Deputies, which dealt with the same grave situation. The dates here are of the greatest significance: the first convention was opened three days before Miliukov's resignation and was in session when that event occurred; the second convention was opened four days after the resignation of Miliukov and one day after that of Guchkov. It was Guchkov's unique experience to address the convention of Soldiers' Delegates from the Front as Minister of War and Marine, explaining and defending his policy with great ability, and then, some days later, to address the same assembly as a private citizen.

Guchkov drew a terrible picture of the seriousness of the military situation. With truly amazing candor he described conditions and explained how they had been brought about. He begged the soldiers not to lay down their arms, but to fight with new courage. Kerensky followed with a long speech, noble and full of pathos. In some respects, it was the most powerful of all the appeals it fell to his lot to make to his people, who were staggering in the too strong sunlight of an unfamiliar freedom. He did not lack courage to speak plainly: "My heart and soul are uneasy. I am greatly worried and I must say so openly, no matter what ... the consequences will be. The process of resurrecting the country's creative forces for the purpose of establishing the new régime rests on the basis of liberty and personal responsibility.... A century of slavery has not only demoralized the government and transformed the old officials into a band of traitors, _but it has also destroyed in the people themselves the consciousness of their responsibility for their fate, their country's destiny_." It was in this address that he cried out in his anguish: "I regret that I did not die two months ago. I would have died happy with the dream that the flame of a new life has been kindled in Russia, hopeful of a time when we could respect one another's right without resorting to the knout."

To the soldiers Kerensky brought this challenge: "You fired on the people when the government demanded. But now, when it comes to obeying your own revolutionary government, you can no longer endure further sacrifice! Does this mean that free Russia is a nation of rebellious slaves?" He closed with an eloquent peroration: "I came here because I believe in my right to tell the truth as I understand it. People who even under the old régime went about their work openly and without fear of death, those people, I say, will not be terrorized. The fate of our country is in our hands and the country is in great danger. We have sipped of the cup of liberty and we are somewhat intoxicated; we are in need of the greatest possible sobriety and discipline. We must go down in history meriting the epitaph on our tombstones, 'They died, but they were never slaves.'"