Chapter VI: Part II: Bolshevik Theory (2)

Good relations between individuals, freedom from hatred and violence and oppression, general diffusion of education, leisure rationally employed, the progress of art and science--these seem to me among the most important ends that a political theory ought to have in view. I do not believe that they can be furthered, except very rarely, by revolution and war; and I am convinced that at the present moment they can only be promoted by a diminution in the spirit of ruthlessness generated by the war. For these reasons, while admitting the necessity and even utility of Bolshevism in Russia, I do not wish to see it spread, or to encourage the adoption of its philosophy by advanced parties in the Western nations.

VI

WHY RUSSIAN COMMUNISM HAS FAILED

The civilized world seems almost certain, sooner or later, to follow the example of Russia in attempting a Communist organization of society. I believe that the attempt is essential to the progress and happiness of mankind during the next few centuries, but I believe also that the transition has appalling dangers. I believe that, if the Bolshevik theory as to the method of transition is adopted by Communists in Western nations, the result will be a prolonged chaos, leading neither to Communism nor to any other civilized system, but to a relapse into the barbarism of the Dark Ages. In the interests of Communism, no less than in the interests of civilization, I think it imperative that the Russian failure should be admitted and analysed. For this reason, if for no other, I cannot enter into the conspiracy of concealment which many Western Socialists who have visited Russia consider necessary.

I shall try first to recapitulate the facts which make me regard the Russian experiment as a failure, and then to seek out the causes of failure.

The most elementary failure in Russia is in regard to food. In a country which formerly produced a vast exportable surplus of cereals and other agricultural produce, and in which the non-agricultural population is only 15 per cent. of the total, it ought to be possible, without great difficulty, to provide enough food for the towns. Yet the Government has failed badly in this respect. The rations are inadequate and irregular, so that it is impossible to preserve health and vigour without the help of food purchased illicitly in the markets at speculative prices. I have given reasons for thinking that the breakdown of transport, though a contributory cause, is not the main reason for the shortage. The main reason is the hostility of the peasants, which, in turn, is due to the collapse of industry and to the policy of forced requisitions. In regard to corn and flour, the Government requisitions all that the peasant produces above a certain minimum required for himself and his family. If, instead, it exacted a fixed amount as rent, it would not destroy his incentive to production, and would not provide nearly such a strong motive for concealment. But this plan would have enabled the peasants to grow rich, and would have involved a confessed abandonment of Communist theory. It has therefore been thought better to employ forcible methods, which led to disaster, as they were bound to do.

The collapse of industry was the chief cause of the food difficulties, and has in turn been aggravated by them. Owing to the fact that there is abundant food in the country, industrial and urban workers are perpetually attempting to abandon their employment for agriculture. This is illegal, and is severely punished, by imprisonment or convict labour. Nevertheless it continues, and in so vast a country as Russia it is not possible to prevent it. Thus the ranks of industry become still further depleted.

Except as regards munitions of war, the collapse of industry in Russia is extraordinarily complete. The resolutions passed by the Ninth Congress of the Communist Party (April, 1920) speak of "the incredible catastrophes of public economy." This language is not too strong, though the recovery of the Baku oil has done something to produce a revival along the Volga basin.

The failure of the whole industrial side of the national economy, including transport, is at the bottom of the other failures of the Soviet Government. It is, to begin with, the main cause of the unpopularity of the Communists both in town and country: in town, because the people are hungry; in the country, because food is taken with no return except paper. If industry had been prosperous, the peasants could have had clothes and agricultural machinery, for which they would have willingly parted with enough food for the needs of the towns. The town population could then have subsisted in tolerable comfort; disease could have been coped with, and the general lowering of vitality averted. It would not have been necessary, as it has been in many cases, for men of scientific or artistic capacity to abandon the pursuits in which they were skilled for unskilled manual labour. The Communist Republic might have been agreeable to live in--at least for those who had been very poor before.

The unpopularity of the Bolsheviks, which is primarily due to the collapse of industry, has in turn been accentuated by the measures which it has driven the Government to adopt. In view of the fact that it was impossible to give adequate food to the ordinary population of Petrograd and Moscow, the Government decided that at any rate the men employed on important public work should be sufficiently nourished to preserve their efficiency. It is a gross libel to say that the Communists, or even the leading People's Commissaries, live luxurious lives according to our standards; but it is a fact that they are not exposed, like their subjects, to acute hunger and the weakening of energy that accompanies it. No tone can blame them for this, since the work of government must be carried on; but it is one of the ways in which class distinctions have reappeared where it was intended that they should be banished. I talked to an obviously hungry working man in Moscow, who pointed to the Kremlin and remarked: "In there they have enough to eat." He was expressing a widespread feeling which is fatal to the idealistic appeal that Communism attempts to make.

Owing to unpopularity, the Bolsheviks have had to rely upon the army and the Extraordinary Commission, and have been compelled to reduce the Soviet system to an empty form. More and more the pretence of representing the proletariat has grown threadbare. Amid official demonstrations and processions and meetings the genuine proletarian looks on, apathetic and disillusioned, unless he is possessed of unusual energy and fire, in which case he looks to the ideas of syndicalism or the I.W.W. to liberate him from a slavery far more complete than that of capitalism. A sweated wage, long hours, industrial conscription, prohibition of strikes, prison for slackers, diminution of the already insufficient rations in factories where the production falls below what the authorities expect, an army of spies ready to report any tendency to political disaffection and to procure imprisonment for its promoters--this is the reality of a system which still professes to govern in the name of the proletariat.

At the same time the internal and external peril has necessitated the creation of a vast army recruited by conscription, except as regards a Communist nucleus, from among a population utterly weary of war, who put the Bolsheviks in power because they alone promised peace. Militarism has produced its inevitable result in the way of a harsh and dictatorial spirit: the men in power go through their day's work with the consciousness that they command three million armed men, and that civilian opposition to their will can be easily crushed.

Out of all this has grown a system painfully like the old government of the Tsar--a system which is Asiatic in its centralized bureaucracy, its secret service, its atmosphere of governmental mystery and submissive terror. In many ways it resembles our Government of India. Like that Government, it stands for civilization, for education, sanitation, and Western ideas of progress; it is composed in the main of honest and hard-working men, who despise those whom they govern, but believe themselves possessed of something valuable which they must communicate to the population, however little it may be desired. Like our Government in India, they live in terror of popular risings, and are compelled to resort to cruel repressions in order to preserve their power. Like it, they represent an alien philosophy of life, which cannot be forced upon the people without a change of instinct, habit, and tradition so profound as to dry up the vital springs of action, producing listlessness and despair among the ignorant victims of militant enlightenment. It may be that Russia needs sternness and discipline more than anything else; it may be that a revival of Peter the Great's methods is essential to progress. From this point of view, much of what it is natural to criticize in the Bolsheviks becomes defensible; but this point of view has little affinity to Communism. Bolshevism may be defended, possibly, as a dire discipline through which a backward nation is to be rapidly industrialized; but as an experiment in Communism it has failed.

There are two things that a defender of the Bolsheviks may say against the argument that they have failed because the present state of Russia is bad. It may be said that it is too soon to judge, and it may be urged that whatever failure there has been is attributable to the hostility of the outside world.

As to the contention that it is too soon to judge, that is of course undeniable in a sense. But in a sense it is always too soon to judge of any historical movement, because its effects and developments go on for ever. Bolshevism has, no doubt, great changes ahead of it. But the last three years have afforded material for some judgments, though more definitive judgments will be possible later. And, for reasons which I have given in earlier chapters, I find it impossible to believe that later developments will realize more fully the Communist ideal. If trade is opened with the outer world, there will be an almost irresistible tendency to resumption of private enterprise. If trade is not re-opened, the plans of Asiatic conquest will mature, leading to a revival of Yenghis Khan and Timur. In neither case is the purity of the Communist faith likely to survive.

As for the hostility of the Entente, it is of course true that Bolshevism might have developed very differently if it had been treated in a friendly spirit. But in view of its desire to promote world-revolution, no one could expect--and the Bolsheviks certainly did not expect--that capitalist Governments would be friendly. If Germany had won the war, Germany would have shown a hostility more effective than that of the Entente. However we may blame Western Governments for their policy, we must realize that, according to the deterministic economic theory of the Bolsheviks, no other policy was to be expected from them. Other men might have been excused for not foreseeing the attitude of Churchill, Clemenceau and Millerand; but Marxians could not be excused, since this attitude was in exact accord with their own formula.

We have seen the symptoms of Bolshevik failure; I come now to the question of its profounder causes.

Everything that is worst in Russia we found traceable to the collapse of industry. Why has industry collapsed so utterly? And would it collapse equally if a Communist revolution were to occur in a Western country?

Russian industry was never highly developed, and depended always upon outside aid for much of its plant. The hostility of the world, as embodied in the blockade, left Russia powerless to replace the machinery and locomotives worn out during the war. The need of self-defence compelled the Bolsheviks to send their best workmen to the front, because they were the most reliable Communists, and the loss of them rendered their factories even more inefficient than they were under Kerensky. In this respect, and in the laziness and incapacity of the Russian workman, the Bolsheviks have had to face special difficulties which would be less in other countries. On the other hand, they have had special advantages in the fact that Russia is self-supporting in the matter of food; no other country could have endured the collapse of industry so long, and no other Great Power except the United States could have survived years of blockade.

The hostility of the world was in no way a surprise to those who made the October revolution; it was in accordance with their general theory, and its consequences should have been taken into account in making the revolution.

Other hostilities besides those of the outside world have been incurred by the Bolsheviks with open eyes, notably the hostility of the peasants and that of a great part of the industrial population. They have attempted, in accordance with their usual contempt for conciliatory methods, to substitute terror for reward as the incentive to work. Some amiable Socialists have imagined that, when the private capitalist had been eliminated, men would work from a sense of obligation to the community. The Bolsheviks will have none of such sentimentalism. In one of the resolutions of the ninth Communist Congress they say:

Every social system, whether based on slavery, feudalism, or
capitalism, had its ways and means of labour compulsion and
labour education in the interests of the exploiters.

The Soviet system is faced with the task of developing its
own methods of labour compulsion to attain an increase of the
intensity and wholesomeness of labour; this method is to be
based on the socialization of public economy in the interests
of the whole nation.

In addition to the propaganda by which the people are to be
influenced and the repressions which are to be applied to all
idlers, parasites and disorganizers who strive to undermine
public zeal--the principal method for the increase of
production will become the introduction of the system of
compulsory labour.

In capitalist society rivalry assumed the character of
competition and led to the exploitation of man by man. In a
society where the means of production are nationalized, labour
rivalry is to increase the products of labour without
infringing its solidarity.

Rivalry between factories, regions, guilds, workshops, and
individual workers should become the subject of careful
organization and of close study on the side of the Trade
Unions and the economic organs.

The system of premiums which is to be introduced should become
one of the most powerful means of exciting rivalry. The system
of rationing of food supply is to get into line with it; so
long as Soviet Russia suffers from insufficiency of
provisions, it is only just that the industrious and
conscientious worker receives more than the careless worker.

It must be remembered that even the "industrious and conscientious worker" receives less food than is required to maintain efficiency.

Over the whole development of Russia and of Bolshevism since the October revolution there broods a tragic fatality. In spite of outward success the inner failure has proceeded by inevitable stages--stages which could, by sufficient acumen, have been foreseen from the first. By provoking the hostility of the outside world the Bolsheviks were forced to provoke the hostility of the peasants, and finally the hostility or utter apathy of the urban and industrial population. These various hostilities brought material disaster, and material disaster brought spiritual collapse. The ultimate source of the whole train of evils lies in the Bolshevik outlook on life: in its dogmatism of hatred and its belief that human nature can be completely transformed by force. To injure capitalists is not the ultimate goal of Communism, though among men dominated by hatred it is the part that gives zest to their activities. To face the hostility of the world may show heroism, but it is a heroism for which the country, not its rulers, has to pay the price. In the principles of Bolshevism there is more desire to destroy ancient evils than to build up new goods; it is for this reason that success in destruction has been so much greater than in construction. The desire to destroy is inspired by hatred, which is not a constructive principle. From this essential characteristic of Bolshevik mentality has sprung the willingness to subject Russia to its present martyrdom. It is only out of a quite different mentality that a happier world can be created.

And from this follows a further conclusion. The Bolshevik outlook is the outcome of the cruelty of the Tsarist régime and the ferocity of the years of the Great War, operating upon a ruined and starving nation maddened into universal hatred. If a different mentality is needed for the establishment of a successful Communism, then a quite different conjuncture must see its inauguration; men must be persuaded to the attempt by hope, not driven to it by despair. To bring this about should be the aim of every Communist who desires the happiness of mankind more than the punishment of capitalists and their governmental satellites.

VII

CONDITIONS FOR THE SUCCESS OF COMMUNISM

The fundamental ideas of Communism are by no means impracticable, and would, if realized, add immeasurably to the well-being of mankind. The difficulties which have to be faced are not in regard to the fundamental ideas, but in regard to the transition from capitalism. It must be assumed that those who profit by the existing system will fight to preserve it, and their fight may be sufficiently severe to destroy all that is best in Communism during the struggle, as well as everything else that has value in modern civilization. The seriousness of this problem of transition is illustrated by Russia, and cannot be met by the methods of the Third International. The Soviet Government, at the present moment, is anxious to obtain manufactured goods from capitalist countries, but the Third International is meanwhile endeavouring to promote revolutions which, if they occurred, would paralyse the industries of the countries concerned, and leave them incapable of supplying Russian needs.

The supreme condition of success in a Communist revolution is that it should not paralyse industry. If industry is paralysed, the evils which exist in modern Russia, or others just as great, seem practically unavoidable. There will be the problem of town and country, there will be hunger, there will be fierceness and revolts and military tyranny. All these things follow in a fatal sequence; and the end of them is almost certain to be something quite different from what genuine Communists desire.

If industry is to survive throughout a Communist revolution, a number of conditions must be fulfilled which are not, at present, fulfilled anywhere. Consider, for the sake of definiteness, what would happen if a Communist revolution were to occur in England to-morrow. Immediately America would place an embargo on all trade with us. The cotton industry would collapse, leaving about five million of the most productive portion of the population idle. The food supply would become inadequate, and would fail disastrously if, as is to be expected, the Navy were hostile or disorganized by the sabotage of the officers. The result would be that, unless there were a counter-revolution, about half the population would die within the first twelve months. On such a basis it would evidently be impossible to erect a successful Communist State.

What applies to England applies, in one form or another, to the remaining countries of Europe. Italian and German Socialists are, many of them, in a revolutionary frame of mind and could, if they chose, raise formidable revolts. They are urged by Moscow to do so, but they realize that, if they did, England and America would starve them. France, for many reasons, dare not offend England and America beyond a point. Thus, in every country except America, a successful Communist revolution is impossible for economico-political reasons. America, being self-contained and strong, would be capable, so far as material conditions go, of achieving a successful revolution; but in America the psychological conditions are as yet adverse. There is no other civilized country where capitalism is so strong and revolutionary Socialism so weak as in America. At the present moment, therefore, though it is by no means impossible that Communist revolutions may occur all over the Continent, it is nearly certain that they cannot be successful in any real sense. They will have to begin by a war against America, and possibly England, by a paralysis of industry, by starvation, militarism and the whole attendant train of evils with which Russia has made us familiar.

That Communism, whenever and wherever it is adopted, will have to begin by fighting the bourgeoisie, is highly probable. The important question is not whether there is to be fighting, but how long and severe it is to be. A short war, in which Communism won a rapid and easy victory, would do little harm. It is long, bitter and doubtful wars that must be avoided if anything of what makes Communism desirable is to survive.

Two practical consequences flow from this conclusion: first, that nothing can succeed until America is either converted to Communism, or at any rate willing to remain neutral; secondly, that it is a mistake to attempt to inaugurate Communism in a country where the majority are hostile, or rather, where the active opponents are as strong as the active supporters, because in such a state of opinion a very severe civil war is likely to result. It is necessary to have a great body of opinion favourable to Communism, and a rather weak opposition, before a really successful Communist state can be introduced either by revolution or by more or less constitutional methods.

It may be assumed that when Communism is first introduced, the higher technical and business staff will side with the capitalists and attempt sabotage unless they have no hopes of a counter-revolution. For this reason it is very necessary that among wage-earners there should be as wide a diffusion as possible of technical and business education, so that they may be able immediately to take control of big complex industries. In this respect Russia was very badly off, whereas England and America would be much more fortunate.

Self-government in industry is, I believe, the road by which England can best approach Communism. I do not doubt that the railways and the mines, after a little practice, could be run more efficiently by the workers, from the point of view of production, than they are at present by the capitalists. The Bolsheviks oppose self-government in industry every where, because it has failed in Russia, and their national self-esteem prevents them from admitting that this is due to the backwardness of Russia. This is one of the respects in which they are misled by the assumption that Russia must be in all ways a model to the rest of the world. I would go so far as to say that the winning of self-government in such industries as railways and mining is an essential preliminary to complete Communism. In England, especially, this is the case. The Unions can command whatever technical skill they may require; they are politically powerful; the demand for self-government is one for which there is widespread sympathy, and could be much more with adequate propaganda; moreover (what is important with the British temperament) self-government can be brought about gradually, by stages in each trade, and by extension from one trade to another. Capitalists value two things, their power and their money; many individuals among them value only the money. It is wiser to concentrate first on the power, as is done by seeking self-government in industry without confiscation of capitalist incomes. By this means the capitalists are gradually turned into obvious drones, their active functions in industry become nil, and they can be ultimately dispossessed without dislocation and without the possibility of any successful struggle on their parts.

Another advantage of proceeding by way of self-government is that it tends to prevent the Communist régime, when it comes, from having that truly terrible degree of centralization which now exists in Russia. The Russians have been forced to centralize, partly by the problems of the war, but more by the shortage of all kinds of skill. This has compelled the few competent men to attempt each to do the work of ten men, which has not proved satisfactory in spite of heroic efforts. The idea of democracy has become discredited as the result first of syndicalism, and then of Bolshevism. But there are two different things that may be meant by democracy: we may mean the system of Parliamentary government, or we may mean the participation of the people in affairs. The discredit of the former is largely deserved, and I have no desire to uphold Parliament as an ideal institution. But it is a great misfortune if, from a confusion of ideas, men come to think that, because Parliaments are imperfect, there is no reason why there should be self-government. The grounds for advocating self-government are very familiar: first, that no benevolent despot can be trusted to know or pursue the interests of his subjects; second, that the practice of self-government is the only effective method of political education; third, that it tends to place the preponderance of force on the side of the constitution, and thus to promote order and stable government. Other reasons could be found, but I think these are the chief. In Russia self-government has disappeared, except within the Communist Party. If it is not to disappear elsewhere during a Communist revolution, it is very desirable that there should exist already important industries competently administered by the workers themselves.

The Bolshevik philosophy is promoted very largely by despair of more gradual methods. But this despair is a mark of impatience, and is not really warranted by the facts. It is by no means impossible, in the near future, to secure self-government in British railways and mines by constitutional means. This is not the sort of measure which would bring into operation an American blockade or a civil war or any of the other catastrophic dangers that are to be feared from a full-fledged Communist revolution in the present international situation. Self-government in industry is feasible, and would be a great step towards Communism. It would both afford many of the advantages of Communism and also make the transition far easier without a technical break-down of production.

There is another defect in the methods advocated by the Third International. The sort of revolution which is recommended is never practically feasible except in a time of national misfortune; in fact, defeat in war seems to be an indispensable condition. Consequently, by this method, Communism will only be inaugurated where the conditions of life are difficult, where demoralization and disorganization make success almost impossible, and where men are in a mood of fierce despair very inimical to industrial construction. If Communism is to have a fair chance, it must be inaugurated in a prosperous country. But a prosperous country will not be readily moved by the arguments of hatred and universal upheaval which are employed by the Third International. It is necessary, in appealing to a prosperous country, to lay stress on hope rather than despair, and to show how the transition can be effected without a calamitous loss of prosperity. All this requires less violence and subversiveness, more patience and constructive propaganda, less appeal to the armed might of a determined minority.

The attitude of uncompromising heroism is attractive, and appeals especially to the dramatic instinct. But the purpose of the serious revolutionary is not personal heroism, nor martyrdom, but the creation of a happier world. Those who have the happiness of the world at heart will shrink from attitudes and the facile hysteria of "no parley with the enemy." They will not embark upon enterprises, however arduous and austere, which are likely to involve the martyrdom of their country and the discrediting of their ideals. It is by slower and less showy methods that the new world must be built: by industrial efforts after self-government, by proletarian training in technique and business administration, by careful study of the international situation, by a prolonged and devoted propaganda of ideas rather than tactics, especially among the wage-earners of the United States. It is not true that no gradual approaches to Communism are possible: self-government in industry is an important instance to the contrary. It is not true that any isolated European country, or even the whole of the Continent in unison, can, after the exhaustion produced by the war, introduce a successful form of Communism at the present moment, owing to the hostility and economic supremacy of America. To find fault with those who urge these considerations, or to accuse them of faint-heartedness, is mere sentimental self-indulgence, sacrificing the good we can do to the satisfaction of our own emotions.

Even under present conditions in Russia, it is possible still to feel the inspiration of the essential spirit of Communism, the spirit of creative hope, seeking to sweep away the incumbrances of injustice and tyranny and rapacity which obstruct the growth of the human spirit, to replace individual competition by collective action, the relation of master and slave by free co-operation. This hope has helped the best of the Communists to bear the harsh years through which Russia has been passing, and has become an inspiration to the world. The hope is not chimerical, but it can only be realized through a more patient labour, a more objective study of facts, and above all a longer propaganda, to make the necessity of the transition obvious to the great majority of wage-earners. Russian Communism may fail and go under, but Communism itself will not die. And if hope rather than hatred inspires its advocates, it can be brought about without the universal cataclysm preached by Moscow. The war and its sequel have proved the destructiveness of capitalism; let us see to it that the next epoch does not prove the still greater destructiveness of Communism, but rather its power to heal the wounds which the old evil system has inflicted upon the human spirit.

_Printed in Great Britain by_
UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED, THE GRESHAM PRESS, WOKING AND LONDON

ERRATA

P. 20, l. 11. For "teaching" read "reaching"

P. 23, between l. 18 and l. 19. Insert "violence in the transition must be faced. Unfortunately,"

P. 43, l. 12. For "dying" read "very ill"

P. 44, last sentence. Substitute "But he recovered, and I hope it will recover also." (replacing: "I hope I was mistaken in both respects.")

P. 60, l. 6 from below. For "waving triumphant hands and" read "expressing their delight by"

P. 61, l. 21. For "professional" read "professorial"

P. 85, l. 2. For "This" read "Thus"

P. 91, l. 8. For "losses" read "hopes"

P. 104, l. 9. For "leave" read "leaves"

P. 105, last line. Substitute "which has been already discussed in