CHAPTER XV MILITANT SOCIALISM: THE BOLSHEVISTS 85. Socialism is established in Russia 1 Ever since the days of Karl Marx socialists the world over had been agitating for the "social revolution." This revolution came in Russia in 1917. On November 7 of that year the reins of government were seized by a group of socialists calling themselves " communists," but better known as "bolshevists." On July 10, 1918, the bolshevists adopted a constitution, which began with the following declaration of rights: A. ARTICLE ONE. DECLARATION OF RIGHTS OF THE Chapter One At last the social revo lution. 1. Russia is declared to be a Republic of the Soviets of Workers', Russia deSoldiers', and Peasants' Deputies. All the central and local power belongs to these Soviets. 2. The Russian Soviet Republic is organized on the basis of a free union of free nations, as a federation of Soviet national republics. Chapter Two 3. Bearing in mind as its fundamental problem the abolition of the exploitation of men by men, the entire abolition of the division of the people into classes, the suppression of exploiters, the establishment of a socialist society, and the victory of socialism in all lands, the Third All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers', Soldiers', and Peasants' Deputies further resolves: (a) For the purpose of attaining the socialization of land, all private property in land is abolished, and the entire land is declared 1 From the Russian Socialist Federated Soviet Republic, Constitution, Article 1, Chapters I and II. clared to be a Soviet Republic. declares abolished the private ownership of land. Other industrial resources are also declared to be national property. Declarations with regard to loans and banks. A Socialist Red Army and its purpose. The bolshevist constitution limited the suffrage to be national property and is to be apportioned among agriculturists without any compensation to the former owners, in the measure of each one's ability to till it. (b) All forests, treasures of the earth, and waters of general public utility, all equipment whether animate or inanimate, model farms and agricultural enterprises, are declared to be national property. (c) As a first step toward complete transfer of ownership to the Soviet Republic of all factories, mills, mines, railways, and other means of production and transportation, the Soviet law for the control by workmen and the establishment of the Supreme Soviet of National Economy is hereby confirmed, so as to insure the power of the workers over the exploiters. (d) With reference to international banking and finance, the Third Congress of Soviets is discussing the Soviet decree regarding the annulment of loans made by the Government of the Czar, by landowners and the bourgeoisie, and it trusts that the Soviet Government will firmly follow this course until the final victory of the international workers' revolt against the oppression of capital. (e) The transfer of all banks to the ownership of the Workers' and Peasants' Government, as one of the conditions of the liberation of the toiling masses from the yoke of capital, is confirmed. (f) Universal obligation to work is introduced for the purpose of eliminating the parasitic strata of society and organizing the economic life of the country. (g) For the purpose of securing the working class in the possession of complete power, and in order to eliminate all possibility of restoring the power of the exploiters, it is decreed that all workers be armed, and that a Socialist Red Army be organized and the propertied class disarmed. 86. The suffrage under bolshevism 1 One accepted index to the political character of a nation is the extent to which the adult population of that nation enjoy the right to vote. A century and a half ago, it was generally true that the masses of the people had relatively little control over the conduct 1 From the Russian Socialist Federated Soviet Republic, Constitution, Article IV, Chapter XIII. of their government; more recently, however, the steady spread of democracy has markedly extended the suffrage. The plea of some socialists has long been for an even greater control of government by the masses, yet the Russian socialists definitely and unqualifiedly excluded important classes of the population from the suffrage. The following excerpts from the bolshevist constitution illustrate the attitude of the Russian socialists toward the suffrage: Chapter Thirteen 64. The right to vote and to be elected to the Soviets is enjoyed to certain enumerated by the following citizens of both sexes, irrespective of religion, nation- groups, ality, domicile, etc., of the Russian Socialist Federated Soviet Republic, who shall have completed their eighteenth year by the day of election: (a) All who have acquired the means of livelihood 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 in any degree lost their capacity to work. while a number of important classes were 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 specifically an increase in profit. (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. denied the ballot. Lenin and Trotzky established a dictator ship of the proletariat. In defending this dictatorship, Lenin declared it to be a normal and familiar stage in historical develop-. ment. (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. 87. Lenin defends the dictatorship of the proletariat1 Shortly after the promulgation of the bolshevist constitution, Lenin and Trotzky, the two bolshevist leaders, established a dictatorship of the proletariat. This amounted to a despotic control of the masses of the people by a small group of bolshevists, maintained in power by armed force. Under this dictatorship, socialism was applied on a nation-wide scale. The system of private property was abolished, the capitalist and employing classes were deprived of their holdings, and the industrial equipment of the nation was turned over to the bolshevist workmen. That the socialist experiment might be free from hindrance, the bolshevists suppressed freedom of assemblage, freedom of the press, and other privileges which might operate to bring the great experiment to an unsuccessful conclusion. Early in March, 1919, Lenin defended these measures in the following language: History teaches that no oppressed class has ever come into power and cannot come into power, without passing through a period of dictatorship, that is, the conquest of power and the forcible suppression of the most desperate and mad resistance, who does not hesitate to resort to any crimes, such as always has been shown by the exploiters. The bourgeoisie . . . has won power in the progressive countries at the price of a series of uprisings, civil wars, forcible suppression of kings, feudal lords, and slave owners, and of their attempts at restoration. The socialists of all countries, in their books and pamphlets, in the resolutions of their congresses, in their propaganda speeches, have explained to the people thousands and millions of times the class character of these bourgeois revolutions, and of this bourgeois dictatorship. Therefore the present defense of bourgeois democracy in the form of speeches about "democracy in general," and the present wails and shouts against the dictatorship of the proletariat in the form 1 From Nickolai Lenin, as reported in the Petrograd Pravda, March 8, 1919. the milder socialist of wails about "dictatorship in general," are a direct mockery of He chides socialism, and represent in fact going over to the bourgeoisie and denying the right of the proletariat to its own proletarian revolution, and a defense of bourgeois reformism, precisely at the historic moment when bourgeois reformism is collapsing the world over, and when ocratic the war has created a revolutionary situation. . . . groups for pointing out the undem character of the dicta "Freedom of meeting" may be taken as an example of the demands torship. for "pure democracy." Any conscious workman who has not broken with his own class will understand immediately that it would be stupid to permit freedom of meeting to exploiters at this period, and under the present circumstances, when the exploiters are resisting their overthrow, and are fighting for their privileges. . . . freedom of the press. "Freedom of press" is also one of the main arguments of "pure Lenin on democracy," but again the workmen know that the socialists of all countries have asserted millions of times that this freedom is a fraud so long as the best printing machinery and the largest supplies of paper have been seized by the capitalists, and so long as the power of capital over the press continues. In order to secure actual equality and actual democracy for the toilers, for workmen and peasants, one must first take from capitalists the possibility of hiring writers, of buying up publishing houses, of buying up newspapers, and to this end must overthrow the yoke of capital, overthrow the exploiters, and put down all resistance on their part. of Soviet authority, The essence of the Soviet authority consists in this, that the per- The essence manent and sole basis of all State authority, of the entire apparatus of government, is the mass organization precisely of those classes which were oppressed by capitalism, that is, of the workmen and of the half-proletarians (peasants who did not exploit the labor of another and constantly had to sell at least a portion of their labor strength). Precisely those masses (which even in the most democratic bourgeois republics had equal rights before the law, but in fact were deprived of participation in the political life of the country, and [were also deprived of democratic rights and liberties] by thousands of tricks and traps. .) are now brought into constant and actual ticipation in the democratic administration of the State. par |