Bolshevism Part 10

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 Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly, 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 regime with England, France, and Italy. In the meetings of the Soviet, and in other a.s.semblages 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. a.s.surances 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 cla.s.s 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 const.i.tuted 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 l.u.s.t 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 Amba.s.sadors of the Allied Powers."

This a.s.surance 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 a.s.sume 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 ma.s.s 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 Const.i.tutional 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 a.s.serting that the Councils of Workmen's and Soldiers' Delegates would rule Russia in the interests of the working cla.s.s 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 a.s.sociates 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 circ.u.mstances 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 pa.s.sage 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 n.o.blest 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 cla.s.s 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 cla.s.s 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 n.o.bility 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 att.i.tude of mind which differs from the opportunistic att.i.tude 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 const.i.tute 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 Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly, 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 cla.s.s distinctions must be wiped out and the cla.s.s war ended by the victorious proletariat, Lenine proposed to make the cla.s.s 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 a.s.sailed 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 cla.s.s and the poorest peasantry," to use a common Bolshevik phrase which bothers a great many people whose minds insist upon cla.s.sifying peasants as "working-people" and part of the working cla.s.s.

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 cla.s.s"--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 a.s.sumed 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, a.s.siduously 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 t.i.tanic 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, pa.s.sionate, 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.