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 ^Cornell University 
 
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 the Cornell University Library. 
 
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 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924028357634 
 
Cornell University Library 
 DK 265.T8509 
 
 Our revolution 
 
 3 1924 028 357 634 
 
OUR REVOLUTION 
 
 Essays on Working-Class and Inter- 
 national Revolution, 1904-1917 
 
 BY 
 
 LEON TROTZKY 
 
 Collected and Translated, with Biography and 
 Explanatory Notes 
 
 BY 
 
 MOISSAYE J. OLGIN 
 
 Author of "The Soul of the Russian Revolution" 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 
 
 1918 
 
Copyright, 1918, 
 
 BT 
 
 HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 
 
 Published March, 1918 
 
PREFACE 
 
 The world has not known us Russian revo- 
 lutionists. The world has sympathized with 
 us; the world abroad has given aid and com- 
 fort to our refugees ; the world, at times, even 
 admired us; yet the world has not known us. 
 Friends of freedom in Europe and America 
 were keenly anxious to see the victory of our 
 cause; they watched our successes and our de- 
 feats with breathless interest; yet they were 
 concerned with material results. Our views, 
 our party affiliations, our factional divisions, 
 our theoretical gropings, our ideological con- 
 structions, to us the leading lights in our revo- 
 lutionary struggles, were foreign to the world. 
 All this was supposed to be an internal Rus- 
 sian affair. 
 
 The Revolution has now ceased to be an in- 
 ternal Russian affair. It has become of world- 
 wide import. It has started to influence gov- 
 ernments and peoples. What was not long ago 
 a theoretical dispute between two "under- 
 ground" revolutionary circles, has grown into 
 
 iii 
 
iv Preface 
 
 a concrete historical power determining the 
 fate of nations. What was the individual con- 
 ception of individual revolutionary leaders is 
 now ruling millions. 
 
 The world is now vitally interested in un- 
 derstanding Russia, in learning the history of 
 our Revolution which is the history of the great 
 Russian nation for the last fifty years. This 
 involves, however, knowing not only events, 
 hut also the development of thoughts, of aims, 
 of ideas that underlie and direct events ; gain- 
 ing an insight into the immense volume of in- 
 tellectual work which recent decades have ac- 
 cumulated in revolutionary Russia. 
 
 We have selected Leon Trotzky's contribu- 
 tion to revolutionary thought, not because he 
 is now in the limelight of history, but because 
 his conceptions represent a very definite, a 
 clear-cut and intrinsically consistent trend of 
 revolutionary thought, quite apart from that 
 of other leaders. We do not agree with many 
 of Trotzky's ideas and policies, yet we cannot 
 overlook the fact that these ideas have become 
 predominant in the present phase of the Rus- 
 sian Revolution and that they are bound to 
 give their stamp to Russian democracy in the 
 years to come, whether the present government 
 remains in power or not. 
 
Preface v 
 
 The reader will see that Trotzky's views as 
 applied in Bolsheviki ruled Russia are not of 
 recent origin. They were formed in the course 
 of the First Russian Revolution of 1905, in 
 which Trotzky was one of the leaders. They 
 were developed and strengthened in the fol- 
 lowing years of reaction, when many a progres- 
 sive group went to seek compromises with the 
 absolutist forces. They became particularly 
 firm through the world war and the circum- 
 stances that led to the establishment of a re- 
 publican order in Russia. Perhaps many a 
 grievous misunderstanding and misinterpreta- 
 tion would have been avoided had thinking 
 America known that those conceptions of Trot- 
 zky were not created on the spur of the mo- 
 ment, but were the result of a life-long work in 
 the service of the Revolution. 
 
 Trotzky's writings, besides their theoretical 
 and political value, represent a vigor of style 
 and a clarity of expression unique in Russian 
 revolutionary literature. 
 
 M. J. Olgin. 
 
 New York, February 16th, 1918. 
 
 P 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Biographical Notes 3 
 
 The Proletariat and the Revolution ... 23 
 
 The Events in Petersburg 47 
 
 •^Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship ... 63 
 
 The Soviet and the Revolution .... 147 
 
 Preface to My Round Trip 163 
 
 The Lessons of the Great Year .... 169 
 
 On the Eve of a Revolution 179 
 
 Two Faces 187 
 
 The Growing Conflict 199 
 
 War or Peace? 206 
 
 Trotzky on the Platform in Petrograid . . 213 
 
 vii 
 
LEON TROTZKY 
 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 
 
LEON TROTZKY 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 
 
 Trotzky is a man of about forty. He is tall, 
 strong, angular; his appearance as well as his 
 speech give the impression of boldness and 
 vigor. His voice is a high tenor ringing with 
 metal. And even in his quiet moments he re- 
 sembles a compressed spring. 
 
 He is always aggressive. He is full of pas- 
 sion, — that white-hot, vibrating mental passion 
 that characterizes the intellectual Jew. On the 
 platform, as well as in private life, he bears an 
 air of peculiar importance, an indefinable some- 
 thing that says very distinctly: "Here is a 
 man who knows his value and feels himself 
 chosen for superior aims." Yet Trotzky is not 
 imposing. He is almost modest. He is de- 
 tached. In the depths of his eyes there is a 
 lingering sadness. 
 
 It was only natural that he, a gifted college 
 youth with a strong avidity for theoretical 
 thinking, should have exchanged, some twenty 
 years ago, the somber class-rooms of the Uni- 
 
 3 
 
4 j Biographical Notes 
 
 versity of Odessa for the fresh breezes of revo- 
 lutionary activity. That was the way of most 
 gifted Russian youths. That especially was 
 the way of educated young Jews whose people 
 were being crushed under the steam-roller of 
 the Russian bureaucracy. 
 
 In the last years of the nineteenth century 
 there was hardly enough opportunity to dis- 
 play unusual energy in revolutionary work. 
 Small circles of picked workingmen, assem- 
 bling weekly under great secrecy somewhere in 
 a backyard cabin in a suburb, to take a course 
 in sociology or history or economics; now and 
 then a "mass" meeting of a few score labor- 
 ers gathered in the woods; revolutionary ap- 
 peals and pamphlets printed on a secret press 
 and circulated both among the educated classes 
 and among the people; on rare occasions, an 
 open manifestation of revolutionary intellec- 
 tuals, such as a meeting of students within the 
 walls of the University — this was practically 
 all that could be done in those early days of 
 Russian revolution. Into this work of prepara- 
 tion, Trotzky threw himself with all his energy. 
 Here he came into the closest contact with the 
 masses of labor. Here he acquainted himself 
 with the psychology and aspirations of work- 
 ing and suffering Russia. This was the rich 
 
Biographical Notes 5 
 
 soil of practical experience that ever since has 
 fed his revolutionary ardor. 
 
 His first period of work was short. In 1900 
 we find him already in solitary confinement in 
 the prisons of Odessa, devouring book after 
 book to satisfy his mental hunger. No true 
 revolutionist was ever made downhearted by 
 prison, least of all Trotzky, who knew it was 
 a brief interval of enforced idleness between 
 periods of activity. After two and a half years 
 of prison "vacation" (as the confinement was 
 called in revolutionary jargon) Trotzky was 
 exiled to Eastern Siberia, to Ust-Kut, on the 
 Lena River, where he arrived early in 1902, 
 only to seize the first opportunity to escape. 
 
 Again he resumed his work, dividing his time 
 between the revolutionary committees in Rus- 
 sia and the revolutionary colonies abroad. 
 1902 and 1903 were years of growth for the 
 labor movement and of Social-Democratic in- 
 fluence over the working masses. Trotzky, an 
 uncompromising Marxist, an outspoken ad- 
 herent of the theory that only the revolutionary 
 workingmen would be able to establish democ- 
 racy in Russia, devoted much of his energy to 
 the task of uniting the various Social-Demo- 
 cratic circles and groups in the various cities 
 of Russia into one strong Social-Democratic 
 
6 Biographical Notes 
 
 Party, with a clear program and well-de- 
 fined tactics. This required a series of activi- 
 ties both among the local committees and in 
 the Social-Democratic literature which was 
 conveniently published abroad. 
 
 It was in connection with this work that 
 Trotzky's first pamphlet was published and 
 widely read. It was entitled: The Second 
 Convention of The Russian Social-Democratic 
 Labor Party (Geneva, 1903), and dealt with 
 the controversies between the two factions of 
 Russian Social-Democracy which later became 
 known as the Bolsheviki and the Mensheviki. 
 Trotzky's contribution was an attempt at rec- 
 onciliation between the two warring camps 
 which professed the same Marxian theory and 
 pursued the same revolutionary aim. The at- 
 tempt failed, as did many others, yet Trotzky 
 never gave up hope of uniting the alienated 
 brothers. 
 
 On the eve of the Revolution of 1905, Trot- 
 zky was already a revolutionary journalist of 
 high repute. We admired the vigor of his 
 style, the lucidity of his thought and the 
 straightness of his expression. Articles bear- 
 ing the pseudonym "N. Trotzky" were an in- 
 tellectual treat, and invariably aroused heated 
 discussions. It may not be out of place to say 
 
Biographical i\otes 7 
 
 a few words about this pseudonym. Many an 
 amazing comment has been made in the Ameri- 
 can press on the Jew Bronstein "camouflag- 
 ing" under a Russian name, Trotzky. It 
 seems to be little known in this country that to 
 assume a pen name is a practice widely fol- 
 lowed in Russia, not only among revolutionary 
 writers. Thus "Gorki" is a pseudonym; 
 "Shchedrin" (Saltykov) is a pseudonym. 
 "Fyodor Sologub" is a pseudonym. As to 
 revolutionary writers, the very character of 
 their work has compelled them to hide their 
 names to escape the secret police. Ulyanov, 
 therefore, became "Lenin," and Bronstein be- 
 came "Trotzky." As to his "camouflaging" 
 as a Russian, this assertion is based on sheer ig-' 
 norance. Trotzky is not a genuine Russian 
 name — no more so than Ostrovski or Levine. 
 True, there was a Russian playwright Ostrov- 
 ski, and Tolstoi gave his main figure in Anna 
 Karenin the name of Levine. Yet Ostrovski 
 and Levine are well known in Russia as Jew- 
 ish names, and so is Trotzky. I have never 
 heard of a Gentile bearing the name Trotzky. 
 Trotzky has never concealed his Jewish na- 
 tionality. He was too proud to dissimulate. 
 Pride is, perhaps, one of the dominant traits 
 of his powerful personality. 
 
8 j Biographical Notes 
 
 Revolutionary Russia did not question the 
 race or nationality of a writer or leader. One 
 admired Trotzky's power over emotion, the 
 depth of his convictions, the vehemence of his 
 attacks on the opponents of the Revolution. 
 As early as 1904, one line of his revolutionary 
 conceptions became quite conspicuous: his op- 
 position to the liberal movement in Russia. In 
 a series of essays in the Social-Democratic 
 Iskra (Spark), in a collection of his es- 
 says published in Geneva under the title Before 
 January Ninth, he unremittingly branded the 
 Liberals for lack of revolutionary spirit, for 
 cowardice in face of a hateful autocracy, for 
 failure to frame and to defend a thoroughly 
 democratic program, for readiness to com- 
 promise with the rulers on minor concessions 
 and thus to betray the cause of the Revolution. 
 No one else was as eloquent, as incisive in 
 pointing out the timidity and meekness of the 
 Zemstvo opposition (Zemstvo were the local 
 representative bodies for the care of local af- 
 fairs, and the Liberal land owners constituted 
 the leading party in those bodies) as the young 
 revolutionary agitator, Trotzky. Trotzky's 
 fury against the wavering policy of the well-to- 
 do Liberals was only a manifestation of an- 
 other trait of his character : his desire for clar- 
 
Biographical Notes 9 
 
 ity in political affairs. Trotzky could not con- 
 ceive of half-way measures, of "diplomatic" 
 silence over vital topics, of cunning moves and 
 concealed designs in political struggles. The 
 attitude of a Milukov, criticizing the govern- 
 ment and yet willing to acquiesce in a monarchy 
 of a Prussian brand, criticizing the revolution- 
 ists and yet secretly pleased with the horror 
 they inflicted upon Romanoff and his satellites, 
 was simply incompatible with Trotzky's very 
 nature and aroused his impassioned contempt. 
 To him, black was always black, and white was 
 white, and political conceptions ought to be so 
 clear as to find adequate expression in a few 
 simple phrases. 
 
 Trotzky's own political line was the Revolu- 
 tion — a violent uprising of the masses, headed 
 by organized labor, forcibly to overthrow bu- 
 reaucracy and establish democratic freedom. 
 With what an outburst of blazing joy he greet- 
 ed the upheaval of January 9, 1905 — the first 
 great mass-movement in Russia with clear po- 
 litical aims: "The Revolution has come!" he 
 shouted in an ecstatic essay completed on Jan- 
 uary 20th. "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 
 
10 Biographical Notes 
 
 fatigue. The Revolution has come and de- 
 stroyed the plans of so many politicians who 
 had dared to make their little political calcula- 
 tions with no regard for the master, the revo- 
 lutionary people. The Revolution has come 
 and destroyed scores of superstitions, and has 
 manifested the power of the program which is 
 founded on the revolutionary logic of the de- 
 velopment of the masses. ... The Revolution 
 has come and the period of our infancy has 
 passed." 
 
 The Revolution filled the entire year of 1905 
 with the battle cries of ever-increasing revo- 
 lutionary masses. The political strike became 
 a powerful weapon. The village revolts spread 
 like wild-fire. The government became fright- 
 ened. It was under the sign of this great con- 
 flagration that Trotzky framed his theory of 
 immediate transition from absolutism to a So- 
 cialist order. His fine of argument was very 
 simple. The working class, he wrote, was the 
 only real revolutionary power. The bourgeoi- 
 sie was weak and incapable of adroit resistance. 
 The intellectual groups were of no account. 
 The peasantry was politically primitive, yet it 
 had an overwhelming desire for land. "Once 
 the Revolution is victorious, political power 
 necessarily passes into the hands of the class 
 
Biographical Notes 1J 
 
 that has played a leading role in the struggle, 
 and that is the working class." To secure per- 
 manent power, the working class would have to 
 win over the millions of peasants. This would 
 he possible by recognizing all the agrarian 
 changes completed by the peasants in time of 
 the revolution and by a radical agrarian legisla- 
 tion. "Once in power, the proletariat will 
 appear before the peasantry as its libera- 
 tor." On the other hand, having secured itsf 
 class rule over Russia, why should the prole- 
 tariat help to establish parliamentary rule, 
 which is the rule of the bourgeois classes over 
 the people? "To imagine that Social-Democ- 
 racy participates in the Provisional Govern- 
 ment, playing a leading role in the period of 
 revolutionary democratic reconstruction, in- 
 sisting on the most radical reforms and all the 
 time enjoying the aid and support of the or- 
 ganized proletariat, — only to step aside when 
 the democratic program is put into opera- 
 tion, to leave the completed building at the dis- 
 posal of the bourgeois parties and thus to open 
 an era of parliamentary politics where Social- 
 Democracy forms only a party of opposition, 
 — to imagine this would mean to compromise 
 the very idea of a labor government." More- 
 over, "once the representatives of the prole- 
 
12 , Biographical Notes 
 
 tariat enter the government, not as powerless 
 hostages, but as a leading force, the divide be- 
 tween the minimum-program and the maxi- 
 mum-program automatically disappears, col- 
 lectivism becomes the order of the day," 
 since "political supremacy of the proletariat is 
 incompatible with its economic slavery." It 
 was precisely the same program which 
 Trotzky is at present attempting to put into 
 operation. This program has been his guid- 
 ing star for the last twelve years. 
 
 In the fall of 1905 it looked as if Trotzky's 
 hope was near its realization. The October 
 strike brought autocracy to its knees. A Con- 
 stitution was promised. A Soviet ( Council of 
 Workmen's Deputies) was formed in Peters- 
 burg to conduct the Revolution. Trotzky be- 
 came one of the strongest leaders of the Coun- 
 cil. It was in those months that we became fully 
 aware of two qualities of Trotzky's which 
 helped him to master men: his power as a 
 speaker, and his ability to write short, stirring 
 articles comprehensible to the masses. In the 
 latter abiHty nobody equals him among Rus- 
 sian Socialists. The leaders of Russian So- 
 cial-Democracy were wont to address them- 
 selves to the intellectual readers. Socialist 
 writers of the early period of the Revolution 
 
Biographical Notes 13 
 
 were seldom confronted with the necessity of 
 writing for plain people. Trotzky was the best 
 among the few who, in the stormy months of 
 the 1905 revolution, were able to appeal to the 
 masses in brief, strong, yet dignified articles 
 full of thought, vision, and emotion. 
 
 The Soviet was struggling in a desperate 
 situation. Autocracy had promised freedom, 
 yet military rule was becoming ever more atro- 
 cious. The sluices of popular revolutionary 
 movement were open, yet revolutionary energy 
 was being gradually exhausted. The Soviet 
 acted as a true revolutionary government, ig- 
 noring the government of the Romanoffs, giv- 
 ing orders to the workingmen of the country, 
 keeping a watchful eye on political events; yet 
 the government of the old regime was regain- 
 ing its self-confidence and preparing for a final 
 blow. The air was full of bad omens. 
 
 It required an unusual degree of revolution- 
 ary faith and vigor to conduct the affairs of the 
 Soviet. Trotzky was the man of the hour. 
 First a member of the Executive Committee, 
 then the chairman of the Soviet, he was prac- 
 tically in the very vortex of the Revolution. 
 He addressed meetings, he ordered strikes, he 
 provided the vanguard of the workingmen with 
 firearms ; he held conferences with representa- 
 
14 Biographical Notes 
 
 tives of labor unions throughout the country, 
 and — the irony of history — he repeatedly ap- 
 peared before the Ministers of the old regime 
 as a representative of labor democracy to de- 
 mand from them the release of a prisoner or 
 the abolition of some measures obnoxious to 
 labor. It was in this school of the Soviet that 
 Trotzky learned to see events in a national 
 aspect, and it was the very existence of the 
 Soviet which confirmed his belief in the possi- 
 bility of a revolutionary proletarian dictator- 
 ship. Looking backward at the activities of 
 the Soviet, he thus characterized that prototype 
 of the present revolutionary government in 
 Russia. "The Soviet," he wrote, "was the or- 
 ganized authority of the masses themselves over 
 their separate members. This was a true, un- 
 adulterated democracy, without a two-chamber 
 system, without a professional bureaucracy, 
 with the right of the voters to recall their rep- 
 resentative at will and to substitute another." 
 In short, it was the same type of democracy 
 Trotzky and Lenin are trying to make perma- 
 nent in present-day Russia. 
 
 The black storm soon broke loose. Trotzky 
 was arrested with the other members of the 
 "revolutionary government," after the Soviet 
 had existed for about a month and a half. 
 
Biographical Notes 15 
 
 Trotzky went to prison, not in despair, but as 
 a leader of an invincible army which though it 
 had suffered temporary defeat, was bound to 
 win. Trotzky had to wait twelve years for the 
 moment of triumph, yet the moment came. 
 
 In prison Trotzky was very active, reading, 
 writing, trying to sum up his experience of the 
 revolutionary year. After twelve months of 
 solitary confinement he was tried and sentenced 
 to life exile in Siberia: the government of the 
 enemies of the people was wreaking vengeance 
 on the first true representatives of the people. 
 On January 3, 1907, Trotzky started his trip 
 for Obdorsk, in Northern Siberia on the Arctic 
 Ocean. 
 
 He was under unusual rigid surveillance 
 even for Russian prisons. Each movement of 
 his and of his comrades was carefully guarded. 
 No communication with the outer world was. 
 permitted. The very journey was surrounded 
 by great secrecy. Yet such was the fame of 
 the Soviet, that crowds gathered at every sta- 
 tion to greet the prisoners' train, and even the 
 soldiers showed extraordinary respect for the 
 imprisoned "workingmen's deputies" as they 
 called them. "We are surrounded by friends 
 on every side," Trotzky wrote in his note book. 
 
 In Tiumen the prisoners had to leave the 
 
16 ; Biographical Notes 
 
 railway train for sleighs drawn by horses. The 
 journey became very tedious and slow. The 
 monotony was broken only by little villages, 
 where revolutionary exiles were detained. Here 
 and there the exiles would gather to welcome 
 the leaders of the revolution. Red flags gave 
 touches of color to the blinding white of the 
 Siberian snow. "Long live the Revolution!" 
 was printed with huge letters on the surface of 
 the northern snow, along the road. This was 
 beautiful, but it gave little consolation. The 
 country became ever more desolate. "Every 
 day we move down one step into the kingdom 
 of cold and wilderness," Trotzky remarked 
 in his notes. 
 
 It was a gloomy prospect, to spend years 
 and years in this God forsaken country. Trot- 
 zky was not the man to submit. In defiance of 
 difficulties, he managed to escape before he 
 reached the town of his destination. As there 
 was only one road along which travelers could 
 move, and as there was danger that authorities, 
 notified by wire of his escape, could stop him 
 at any moment, he left the road and on a sleigh 
 drawn by reindeer he crossed an unbroken 
 wilderness of 800 versts, over 500 miles. This 
 required great courage and physical endurance. 
 The picturesque journey is described by Trot- 
 
Biographical Notes 17 
 
 zky in a beautiful little book, My Bound Trip. 
 
 It was in this Ostiak sleigh, in the midst of 
 a bleak desert, that he celebrated the 20th of 
 February, the day of the opening of the Second 
 Duma. It was a mockery at Russia: here, the 
 representatives of the people, assembled in the 
 quasi-Parliament of Russia; there, a represen- 
 tative of the Revolution that created the Duma, 
 hiding like a criminal in a bleak wilderness. 
 Did he dream in those long hours of his jour- 
 ney, that some day the wave of the Revolution 
 would bring him to the very top? 
 
 Early in spring he arrived abroad. He es- 
 tablished his home in Vienna where he lived till 
 the outbreak of the great war. His time and 
 energy were devoted to the internal affairs of 
 the Social-Democratic Party and to editing a 
 popular revolutionary magazine which was be- 
 ing smuggled into Russia. He earned a meager 
 living by contributing to Russian "legal" mag- 
 azines and dailies. 
 
 I met him first in 1907, in Stuttgart. He 
 seemed to be deeply steeped in the revolution- 
 ary factional squabbles. Again I met him in 
 Copenhagen in 1910. He was the target of 
 bitter criticism for his press-comment on one 
 of the Social-Democratic factions. He seemed 
 to be dead to anything but the problem of 
 
18 Biographical Notes 
 
 reconciling the Bolsheviki with the Mensheviki 
 and the other minor divisions. Yet that air of 
 importance which distinguished him even from 
 the famous old leaders had, in 1910, become 
 more apparent. By this time he was already 
 a well-known and respected figure in the ranks 
 of International Socialism. 
 
 In the fall of 1912 he went into the Balkans 
 as a war correspondent. There he learned to 
 know the Balkan situation from authentic 
 sources. His revelations of the atrocities com- 
 mitted on both sides attracted wide attention. 
 When he came back to Vienna in 1913 he was 
 a stronger internationalist and a stronger anti- 
 militarist than ever. 
 
 His house in Vienna was a poor man's house, 
 poorer than that of an ordinary American 
 workingman earning eighteen dollars a week. 
 Trotzky has been poor all his life. His three 
 rooms in a Vienna working-class suburb con- 
 tained less furniture than was necessary for 
 comfort. His clothes were too cheap to make 
 him appear "decent" in the eyes of a middle- 
 class Viennese. When I visited his house, I 
 found Mrs. Trotzky engaged in housework, 
 while the two light-haired lovely boys were 
 lending not inconsiderable assistance. The 
 only thing that cheered the house were loads 
 
Biographical Notes 19 
 
 of books in every corner, and, perhaps, great 
 though hidden hopes. 
 
 On August 3, 1914, the Trotzkys, as enemy 
 aliens, had to leave Vienna for Zurich, Switzer- 
 land. Trotzky's attitude towards the war was 
 a very definite one from the very beginning. 
 He accused German Social-Democracy for 
 having voted the war credits and thus endorsed 
 the war. He accused the Socialist parties of 
 all the belligerent countries for having con- 
 cluded a truce with their governments which 
 in his opinion was equivalent to supporting 
 militarism. He bitterly deplored the collapse 
 of Internationalism as a great calamity for 
 the emancipation of the world. Yet, even in 
 those times of distress, he did not remain in- 
 active. He wrote a pamphlet to the German 
 workingmen entitled The War and Interna- 
 tionalism (recently translated into English 
 and published in this country under the title 
 The Bolsheviki and World Peace) which was 
 illegally transported into Germany and Aus- 
 tria by aid of Swiss Socialists. For this at- 
 tempt to enlighten the workingmen, one of the 
 German courts tried him in a state of contu- 
 macy and sentenced him to imprisonment. He 
 also contributed to a Russian Socialist daily of 
 Internationalist aspirations which was being 
 
20 , Biographical Notes 
 
 published by Russian exiles in Paris. Later he 
 moved to Paris to be in closer contact with that 
 paper. Due to his radical views on the war, 
 however, he was compelled to leave France. 
 He went to Spain, but the Spanish government, 
 though not at war, did not allow him to stay- 
 in that country. He was himself convinced 
 that the hand of the Russian Foreign Ministry 
 was in all his hardships. 
 
 So it happened that in the winter 1916-1917, 
 he came to the United States. When I met 
 him here, he looked haggard; he had grown 
 older, and there was fatigue in his expression. 
 His conversation hinged around the collapse 
 of International Socialism. He thought it 
 shameful and humiliating that the Socialist 
 majorities of the belligerent countries had 
 turned "Social-Patriots." "If not for the 
 minorities of the Socialist parties, the true So- 
 cialists, it would not be worth while living," he 
 said once with deep sadness. Still, he strongly 
 believed in the internationalizing spirit of the 
 war itself, and expected humanity to become 
 more democratic and more sound after cessa- 
 tion of hostilities. His belief in an impending 
 Russian Revolution was unshaken. Similarly 
 unshaken was his mistrust of the Russian non- 
 Socialist parties. On January 20, 1917, less 
 
Biographical Notes 21 
 
 than two months before the overthrow of the 
 Romanoffs, he wrote in a local Russian paper: 
 ".Whoever thinks critically over the experience 
 of 1905, whoever draws a line from that year 
 to the present day, must conceive how utterly 
 lifeless and ridiculous are the hopes of our So- 
 cial-Patriots for a revolutionary cooperation 
 between the proletariat and the Liberal bour- 
 geoisie in Russia." 
 
 His demand for clarity in political affairs, 
 had become more pronounced during the war 
 and through the distressing experiences of the 
 war. "There are times," he wrote on Febru- 
 ary 7, 1917, "when diplomatic evasiveness, 
 casting glances with one eye to the right, with 
 the other to the left, is considered wisdom. 
 Such times are now vanishing before our eyes, 
 and their heroes are losing credit. War, as 
 revolution, puts problems in their clearest form. 
 For war or against war? For national defense 
 or for revolutionary struggle? The fierce times 
 we are living now demand in equal measure 
 both fearlessness of thought and bravery of 
 character." 
 
 When the Russian Revolution broke out, it 
 was no surprise for Trotzky. He had anticipat- 
 ed it. He had scented it over the thousands of 
 miles that separated him from his country. He 
 
22 Biographical Notes 
 
 did not allow his joy to overmaster him. The 
 March revolution in his opinion was only a be- 
 ginning. It was only an introduction to a long 
 drawn fight which would end in the establish- 
 ment of Socialism. 
 
 History seemed to him to have fulfilled what 
 he had predicted in 1905 and 1906. The work- 
 ing class was the leading power in the Revo- 
 lution. The Soviets became even more power- 
 ful than the Provisional Government. Trot- 
 zky preached that it was the task of the Soviets 
 to become the government of Russia. It was 
 his task to go to Russia and fight for a labor 
 government, for Internationalism, for world 
 peace, for a world revolution. "If the first 
 Russian revolution of 1905," he wrote on 
 March 20th, "brought about revolutions in 
 Asia, — in Persia, Turkey, China, — the second 
 Russian revolution will be the beginning of a 
 momentous Social-revolutionary struggle in 
 Europe. Only this struggle will bring real 
 peace to the blood-drenched world." 
 
 With these hopes he went to Russia, — to 
 forge a Socialist Russia in the fire of the Revo- 
 lution. 
 
 Whatever may be our opinion of the merits 
 of his policies, the man has remained true to 
 himself. His line has been straight. 
 
THE PROLETARIAT AND THE REV- 
 OLUTION 
 
The essay The Proletariat and the Revolution was 
 published at the close of 1904, nearly one year after 
 the beginning of the war with Japan. This was a 
 crucial year for the autocratic rulers of Russia. It 
 started with patriotic demonstrations, it ended with 
 a series of humiliating defeats on the battlefields and 
 with an unprecedented revival of political activities 
 on the part of the well-to-do classes. The Zemstvos 
 (local elective bodies for the care of local affairs) 
 headed by liberal landowners, conducted a vigorous 
 political campaign in favor of a constitutional or- 
 der. Other liberal groups, organizations of profes- 
 sionals (referred to in Trotzky's essay as "demo- 
 crats" and "democratic elements") joined in the 
 movement. The Zemstvo leaders called an open con- 
 vention in Petersburg (November 6th), which de- 
 manded civic freedom and a Constitution. The 
 "democratic elements" organized public gatherings 
 of a political character under the disguise of private 
 banquets. The liberal press became bolder in its 
 attack on the administration. The government tol- 
 erated the movement. Prince Svyatopolk-Mirski, 
 who had succeeded Von Plehve, the reactionary dic- 
 tator assassinated in July, 1904, by a revolutionist, 
 had promised "cordial relations" between govern- 
 ment and society. In the political jargon, this 
 
 25 
 
26 The Proletariat and the Revolution 
 
 period of tolerance, lasting from August to the end 
 of the year, was known as the era of "Spring." 
 
 It was a thrilling time, full of political hopes and 
 expectation. Yet, strange enough, the working class 
 was silent. The working class had shown great dis- 
 satisfaction in 1902 and especially in summer, 1903, 
 when scores of thousands in the southwest and in 
 the South went on a political strike. During the 
 whole of 1904, however, there were almost no mass- 
 manifestations on the part of the workingmen. This 
 gave an occasion to many a liberal to scoff at the 
 representatives of the revolutionary parties who 
 built all their tactics on the expectation of a national 
 revolution. 
 
 To answer those skeptics and to encourage the ac- 
 tive members of the Social-Democratic party, Trot- 
 zky wrote his essay. Its main value, which lends it 
 historic significance, is the clear diagnosis of the po- 
 litical situation. Though living abroad, Trotzky 
 keenly felt the pulse of the masses, the "pent up 
 revolutionary energy" which was seeking for an out- 
 let. His description of the course of a national revo- 
 lution, the role he attributes to the workingmen, the 
 non-proletarian population of the cities, the educated 
 groups, and the army ; his estimation of the influence 
 of the war on the minds of the raw masses ; finally, 
 the slogans he puts before the revolution, — all this 
 corresponds exactly to what happened during the 
 stormy year of 1905. Reading The Proletariat and 
 the Revolution, the student of Russian political life 
 
The Proletariat and the Revolution. 27 
 
 has a feeling as if the essay had been written after 
 the Revolution, so closely it follows the course of 
 events. Yet, it appeared before January 9th, 1905, 
 i.e., before the first great onslaught of the Petersburg 
 proletariat. 
 
 Trotzky's belief in the revolutionary initiative of 
 the working class could not be expressed in a more 
 lucid manner. 
 
THE PROLETARIAT AND .THE 
 REVOLUTION 
 
 (The proletariat must not only conduct a 
 revolutionary propaganda. The proletariat 
 itself must move towards a revolution) 
 
 To move towards a revolution does not 
 necessarily mean to fix a date for an insurrec- 
 tion and to prepare for that day. You never 
 can fix a day and an hour for a revolution. 
 The people have never made a revolution by 
 command. 
 
 What can be done is, in view of the fatally 
 impending catastropherto choose the most ap- 
 propriate positions, to arm and inspire the 
 masses with a revolutionary slogan, to lead 
 simultaneously all the reserves into the field 
 of battle, to make them practice in the art of 
 fighting, to keep them ready under arms, — 
 and to send an alarm all over the lines when the 
 time has arrived.) 
 
 Would that mean a series of exercises only, 
 and not a decisive combat with the enemy 
 forces? Would that be mere manoeuvers, and 
 not a street revolution? 
 
 29 
 
30 The Proletariat and the Revolution 
 
 Yes, that would be mere manoeuvers. There 
 is a difference, however, between revolutionary 
 and military manoeuvers. Our preparations 
 can turn, at any time and independent of our 
 will, into a real battle which would decide the 
 long drawn revolutionary war. Not only can 
 it be so, it must be. This is vouched for by the 
 acuteness of the present political situation 
 which holds in its depths a tremendous amount 
 of revolutionary explosives. 
 f At what time mere manoeuyerj!jsvould_Juj:n 
 into a real battle, depends upon~th!Tvolumeand 
 the revolutionary compactness of the masses, 
 upon the atmosphere of popular sympathy 
 which surrounds them and upon the attitude 
 of the troops which the government moves 
 against the people. 
 
 Those three elements of success must deter- 
 mine our work of preparation. (Revolutionary 
 proletarian masses are in existence. We ought 
 to be able to call them into the streets, at a 
 given time, all over the country; we ought to 
 be able to unite them by a general slogan) 
 
 All classes and groups of the people are per- 
 meated with hatred towards absolutism, and 
 that means with sympathy for the struggle for 
 freedom. We ought to be able to concentrate 
 this sympathy on the proletariat as a revolu- 
 
The Proletariat and the Revolution 31 
 
 tionary power which alone can be the vanguard 
 of the people in their fight to save the future 
 of Russia. As to the mood of the army, it 
 hardly kindles the heart of the government 
 with great hopes. There has been many an 
 alarming symptom for the last few years (the 
 army is morose, the army grumbles, there are 
 ferments of dissatisfaction in the army. We 
 ought to do all at our command to make the 
 army detach itself from absolutism at the time 
 of a decisive onslaught of the masses!) 
 
 Let us first survey the last two conditions, 
 which determine the course and the outcome of 
 the campaign. 
 
 We have just gone through the period of 
 "political renovation" opened under the blare 
 of trumpets and closed under the hiss of 
 knouts, — the era of Svyatopolk-Mirski — the 
 result of which is hatred towards absolutism 
 aroused among all the thinking elements of so- 
 ciety to an unusual pitch. The coming days 
 will reap the fruit of stirred popular hopes and 
 unfulfilled government's pledges. Political in- 
 terest has lately taken more definite shape ; dis- 
 satisfaction has grown deeper and is founded 
 on a more outspoken theoretical basis. Popu- 
 lar thinking, yesterday utterly primitive, now 
 greedily takes to the work of political analysis. 
 
32 (The Proletariat and the Bevohiiion 
 
 All manifestations of evil and arbitrary power 
 are being speedily traced back to the principal 
 cause. Revolutionary slogans no more fright- 
 en the people; on the contrary, they arouse a 
 thousandfold echo, they pass into proverbs. 
 The popular consciousness absorbs each word 
 of negation, condemnation or curse addressed 
 towards absolutism, as a sponge aborbs fluid 
 substance. (No step of the administration re- 
 mains unpunished. Each of its blunders is 
 carefully taken account of. Its advances are 
 met with ridicule, its threats breed hatred. 
 The vast apparatus of the liberal press circu- 
 lates daily thousands of facts, stirring, excit- 
 ing, inflaming popular emotion^ 
 
 The pent up feelings are seeking an outlet. 
 Thought strives to turn into action. The vo- 
 ciferous liberal press, however, while feeding 
 popular unrest, tends to divert its current into 
 a small channel; it spreads superstitious rever- 
 ence for "public opinion," helpless, unorgan- 
 ized "public opinion," which does not discharge 
 itself into action; it brands the revolutionary 
 method of national emancipation; it upholds 
 the illusion of legality; it centers all the atten- 
 tion and all the hopes of the embittered groups 
 around the Zemstvo campaign, thus systemati- 
 cally preparing a great debacle for the popular 
 
The Proletariat and the Kevolutiori, 33 
 
 movement. Acute dissatisfaction, finding no 
 outlet, discouraged by the inevitable failure of 
 the legal Zemstvo campaign which has no tra- 
 ditions of revolutionary struggle in the past 
 and no clear prospects in the future, .must 
 necessarily manifest ttselfjn. an-Qiitbreak of 
 desperate terr orism, l eavjng^radical. intellec- 
 
 "tuals jm f|ip~rfi1p nf hp1p1p.<re, pn.gsiyp, t1lP n gh 
 
 sympathetic onlookers, leaving liberals to choke 
 in_a fit of platonic enthusiasm. jwjxile_lending 
 doubtful assistance. 
 
 This ought not to take place. .We ought to 
 take hold of the current of popular excite- 
 ment; we ought to turn the attention of nu- 
 merous dissatisfied social groups to one colos- 
 sal undertaking headed by the proletariat, — 
 to the National Revolution. 
 
 The vanguard of the Revolution ought to 
 wake from indolence all other elements of the 
 people; to appear here and there and every- 
 where; to put the questions of political strug- 
 gle in the boldest possible fashion; to call, to 
 castigate, to unmask hypocritical democracy; 
 to make democrats and Zemstvo liberals clash 
 against each other; to wake again and again, 
 to call, to castigate, to demand a clear answer 
 to the question, What are you going to do? 
 to allow no retreat; to compel the legal liberals 
 
34 The Proletariat and the Revolution 
 
 to admit their own weakness; to alienate from 
 them the democratic elements and help the lat- 
 ter along the way of the revolution. To do this 
 work means to draw the threads of sympathy 
 of all the democratic opposition towards the 
 revolutionary campaign of the proletariat. 
 
 We ought to do all in our power to draw the 
 attention and gain the sympathy of the poor 
 non-proletarian city population. During the 
 last m ass actions of the p roletariat, as in the 
 generalstrikes of 1903 in the South, nothin g 
 was done in fhls respect, and this wa„s th e 
 w eakest point of the preparatory work.) Ac- 
 cording to press correspondents, the queerest 
 rumors often circulated among the population 
 as to the intentions of the strikers. The city 
 inhabitants expected attacks on their houses, 
 the store keepers were afraid of being looted, 
 the Jews were in a dread of pogroms. This 
 ought to be avoided. A political strike, as a 
 single combat of the city proletariat with the 
 police and the army, the remaining population 
 being hostile or even indifferent, is doomed to 
 failure. 
 
 The indifference of the population would 
 tell primarily on the morale of the proletariat 
 itself, and then on the attitude of the soldiers. 
 Under such conditions, the stand of the ad- 
 
The Proletariat and the Revolution 35 
 
 ministration must necessarily be more deter- 
 mined. The generals would remind the of- 
 ficers, and the officers would pass to the sol- 
 diers the words of Dragomirov: "Rifles are 
 given for sharp shooting, and nobody is per- 
 mitted to squander cartridges for nothing." 
 
 ^ political strike of the proletariat ought to 
 turn into a political demonstration of the popu- 
 lation) this is the first prerequisite of success. 
 
 The second important prerequisite is the 
 mood of the army. A dissatisfaction among 
 the soldiers, a vague sympathy for the "revolu- 
 ters," is an established fact. Only part of 
 this sympathy may rightly be attributed to 
 our direct propaganda among the soldiers. 
 The major part is done by the practical clashes 
 between army units and protesting masses. 
 Only hopeless idiots or avowed scoundrels 
 dare to shoot at a living target. An over- 
 whelming majority of the soldiers are loathe 
 to serve as executioners; this is unanimously 
 admitted by all correspondents describing the 
 battles of the army with unarmed people. The 
 average soldier aims above the heads of the 
 crowd. It would be un natural if the "rever se 
 were Jhe case. When the Bessarabian regi- 
 ment received orders to quell the Kiev general 
 strike, the commander declared he could not 
 
36 (The Proletariat and the Revolution 
 
 vouch for the attitude of his soldiers. The or- 
 der, then, was sent to the Cherson regiment, 
 but there was not one half -company in the en- 
 tire regiment which would live up to the ex- 
 pectations of their superiors. 
 
 Kiev was no exception. The conditions of 
 the army must now be more favorable for the 
 revolution than they were in 1903. We have 
 gone through a year of war. It is hardly pos- 
 sible to measure the influence of the past year 
 on the minds of the army. The influence, 
 however, must be enormous. War draws not 
 only the attention of the people, it arouses also 
 the professional interest of the army. Our 
 ships are slow, our guns have a short range, 
 our soldiers are uneducated, our sergeants have 
 neither compass nor map, our soldiers are bare- 
 footed, hungry, and freezing, our Red Cross is 
 stealing, our commissariat is stealing, — rum- 
 ors and facts of this kind leak down to the 
 army and are being eagerly absorbed. Each 
 rumor, as strong acid, dissolves the rust of men- 
 tal drill. Years of peaceful propaganda could 
 hardly equal in their results one day of war- 
 fare. The mere mechanism of discipline re- 
 mains, the faith, however, the conviction that 
 it is right to carry out orders, the belief that 
 the present conditions can be continued, are 
 
The Proletariat and the Revolution 3? 
 
 rapidly dwindling. The l ess f aith the army 
 hasjgi absolutis m, the more faith it has in its 
 
 We ought to make use of this situation. We 
 ought to explain tothe soldiers the meaning of 
 the workingmen's action which is being pre- 
 pared by the Party. We ought to make pro- 
 fuse use of the slogan which is bound to unite 
 the army with the revolutionary people, Away 
 •with the War! We ought to create a situa- 
 tion where the officers would not be able to 
 trust their soldiers at the crucial moment. 
 This would reflect on the attitude of the of- 
 ficers themselves. 
 
 The rest will be done by the street. It will 
 dissolve the remnants of the barrack-hypnosis 
 in the revolutionary enthusiasm of the people. 
 
 The main factor, however, remain the revo- 
 lutionary masses. True it is that during the 
 war the most advanced elements of the masses, 
 the thinking proletariat, have not stepped 
 openly to the front with that degree of deter- 
 mination which was required by the critical 
 historic moment. Yet it would manifest a 
 lack of political backbone and a deplorable 
 superficiality, should one draw from this fact 
 any kind of pessimistic conclusions. 
 
 The war has fallen upon our public life 
 
38 The Proletariat and the Revolution 
 
 with all its colossal weight. The dreadful mon- 
 ster, breathing blood and fire, loomed up on 
 the political horizon, shutting out everything, 
 sinking its steel clutches into the body of the 
 people, inflicting wound upon wound, causing 
 mortal pain, which for a moment makes it even 
 impossible to ask for the causes of the pain. 
 (The war, as every great disaster, accompanied 
 by crisis, unemployment, mobilization, hunger 
 and death, stunned the people, caused despair, 
 but not protest. This is, however, only a be- 
 ginning. Raw masses of the people, silent so- 
 cial strata, which yesterday had no connection 
 with the revolutionary elements, were knocked 
 by sheer mechanical power of facts to face the 
 central event of present-day Russia, the war. 
 They were horrified, they could not catch their 
 breaths. T he revolutio nary elements, who 
 p rior to the war had ignored the passive masses, 
 were affected by the a.t,m osph prp nf despair 
 a nd concentrated horr or. This atmosphere en- 
 veloped them, it pressed with a leaden weight 
 on their minds. The voice of determin ed pro- 
 test, rrmlrl hardly he ra.jse d in the midst of e le- 
 mental suffering . The revolutionary prole- 
 tariat which had not yet recovered from the 
 wounds received in July, 1903, was powerless 
 to oppose the "call of the primitive.') 
 
The Proletariat and the Revolution 39 
 
 The year of war, however, passed not with- 
 out results. Masses, yesterday primitive, to- 
 day are confronted wi th the most tremendous 
 events. They m ust s eek to understand them . 
 The very duration of the war has produced a 
 desire for reasoning, for questioning as to the 
 meaning of it all. Thus the war, while hamp- 
 ering for a period of time the revolutionary in- 
 itiative of thousands, has awakened to life the 
 political thought of millions. 
 
 The year of war passed not without results, 
 not a single day passed without results. In 
 the lower strata of the people, in the very 
 depths of the masses, a work was going on, a 
 movement of molecules, imperceptible, yet ir- 
 resistible, incessant, a work of accumulating in- 
 dignation, bitterness, revolutionary energy. 
 [The atmosphere our streets are breathing now 
 lis no longer an atmosphere of blank despair, it 
 is an atmosphere of concentrated indignation 
 which seeks for means and ways for revolu- 
 tionary action. Each expedient action of the 
 vanguard of our working masses would now 
 carry away with it not only all our revolution- 
 ary reserves, but also thousands and hundreds 
 of thousands of revolutionary recruits. This 
 mobilization, unlike the mobilization of the 
 government, would be carried out in the pres- 
 
40 The Proletariat and the Revolution 
 
 ence of general sympathy and active assistance 
 of an overwhelming majority of the popula- 
 tion. 
 
 In the presence of strong sympathies of the 
 masses, in the presence of active assistance on 
 the part of the democratic elements of the 
 people; facing a government commonly hated, 
 unsuccessful both in big and in small under- 
 takings, a government defeated on the seas, de- 
 feated in the fields of battle, despised, discour- 
 aged, with no faith in the coming day, a gov- 
 ernment vainly struggling, currying favor, 
 provoking and retreating, lying and suffering 
 exposure, insolent and frightened; facing an 
 army whose morale has been shattered by the 
 entire course of the war, whose valor, energy, 
 enthusiasm and heroism have met an insur- 
 mountable wall in the form of administrative 
 anarchy, an army which has lost faith in the 
 unshakable security of a regime it is called to 
 serve, a dissatisfied, grumbling army which 
 more than once has torn itself free from the 
 clutches of discipline during the last year and 
 which is eagerly listening to the roar of revo- 
 lutionary voices, — such will be the conditions 
 under which the revolutionary proletariat will 
 walk out into the streets. It seems to us that 
 no better conditions could have been created by 
 
The Proletariat and the Revolution 41 
 
 history for a final attack. History has done 
 everything it was allowed by elemental wisdom. 
 The thinking revolutionary forces of the coun- 
 try have to do the rest. 
 
 A faemeiidojas.-amojinJ Lof revolutiona ry en- 
 e rgy has been accumulated. It should not 
 vanish wi th no avail , it should not be dissip ated 
 in scattered engagements and cl ashes, with no 
 coherencea nd no d efinite jglan. AlLefforts 
 ought jo Bemade t o concentrate the bitterness, 
 the anger, the protest, the rage, the hatred of 
 the masses, to give those emotions a common 
 language, a common goal, to unite, to solidify 
 all_the .jj&rlicks of the masseSyJEoImakir the m 
 feel and understand that they are not isolated, 
 t^J^Ii^S^^^Si^Isaih^EEIii^e^JIo^n on 
 the banner, with the same goal in mind^ Jn- 
 numerabT e particles are^risjn^everywhere. If 
 this understanding is achieved, half of the revo- 
 lution is done. 
 
 We have got to summon all revolutionary- 
 forces to simultaneous action. How can we 
 doit? 
 
 First of all we ought to remember that the 
 main scene of revolutionary events is bound to 
 be the city. Nobody is likely to deny this. It 
 is evident, further, that street demonstrations 
 can turn into a popular revolution only when 
 
42 The Proletariat and the Revolution 
 
 they are a manifestation of masses, i.e., when 
 they embrace, in the first place, the workers 
 of factories and plants. CTo make the workers 
 quit their machines and stands ; to make them 
 walk out of the factory premises into the street; 
 to lead them to the neighboring plant; to pro- 
 claim there a cessation of work; to make new 
 masses walk out into the street; to go thus 
 from factory to factory, from plant to plant, 
 incessantly growing in numbers, sweeping po- 
 lice barriers, absorbing new masses that hap- 
 pened to come across, crowding the streets, 
 taking possession of buildings suitable for pop- 
 ular meetings, fortifying those buildings, hold- 
 ing continuous revolutionary meetings with 
 audiences coming and going, bringing order 
 into the movements of the masses, arousing 
 their spirit, explaining to them the aim and 
 the meaning of what is going on; to turn, fi- 
 nally, the entire city into one revolutionary 
 camp, this is, broadly speaking, the plan of 
 action)) 
 
 The starting point ought to be the factories 
 and plants. That means that street manifes- 
 tations of a serious character, fraught with de- 
 cisive events, ought to begin with political 
 strikes of the masses. 
 
 It is easier to fix a date for a strike, than for 
 
The Proletariat and the Revolution 43 
 
 a demonstration of the people, just as it is 
 easier to move masses ready for action than to 
 organize new masses. 
 
 A political strike, however, not a local, but 
 a general political strike all over Russia, — 
 ought to have a general political slogan. This 
 slogan is : to stop the war and to call a National 
 Constituent Assembly. 
 
 This demand ought to become nation-wide, 
 and herein lies the task for our propaganda 
 preceding the all-Russian general strike. .We 
 ought to use all possible occasions to make the 
 idea of a National Constituent Assembly pop- 
 ular among the people. Without losing one 
 moment, we ought to put into operation all 
 the technical means and all the powers of 
 propaganda at our disposal. Proclamations 
 and speeches, educational circles and mass- 
 meetings ought to carry broadcast, to pro- 
 pound and to explain the demand of a Con- 
 stituent Assembly. There ought to be n ot one 
 man in a city w ho should not know that his 
 ^mand is: a National Constituent Assembly. 
 
 The peasants ought to be called to assemble 
 on the day of the political strike and to pass 
 resolutions demanding the calling of a Con- 
 stituent Assembly. The suburban peasants 
 ought to be called into the cities to participate 
 
44 The Proletariat and the Revolution 
 
 in the street movements of the masses gath- 
 ered under the banner of a Constituent As- 
 sembly. All societies and organizations, pro- 
 fessional and learned bodies, organs of self- 
 government and organs of the opposition press 
 ought to be notified in advance by the work- 
 ingmen that they are preparing for an all-Rus- 
 sian political strike, fixed for a certain date, to 
 bring about the calling of a Constituent As- 
 sembly., The workingmen ought to demand 
 from all societies and corporations that, on the 
 day appointed for the mass-manifestation, they 
 should join in the demand of a National Con- 
 stituent Assembly. The workingmen ought 
 to demand from the opposition press that it 
 should popularize their slogan and that on the 
 eve of the demonstration it should print an 
 appeal to the population to join the proleta- 
 rian manifestation under the banner of a Na- 
 tional Constituent Assembly. 
 
 We ought to carry on the most intensive 
 propaganda in the army in order that on the 
 day of the strike each soldier, sent to curb the 
 "rebels," should know that he is facing the 
 people who are demanding a National Con- 
 stituent Assembly. 
 
EXPLANATORY NOTES 
 
 "The hiss of the knout" which ended the era of "cordial re- 
 lations" was a statement issued by the government on December 
 12, 1904, declaring that "all disturbances of peace and order and 
 all gatherings of an anti-governmental character must and will 
 be stopped by all legal means in command of the authorities." 
 The Zemstvo and municipal bodies were advised to keep from 
 political utterings. As to the Socialist parties, and to labor 
 movement in general, they were prosecuted under Svyatopolk- 
 Mirski as severely as under Von Plehve, 
 
 "The vast apparatus of the liberal press" was the only way to 
 reach millions. The revolutionary "underground" press, which 
 assumed towards 1905 unusual proportions, could, after all, 
 reach only a limited number of readers. In times of political 
 unrest, the public became used to read between the lines of the 
 legal press all it needed to feed its hatred of oppression. 
 
 By "legal" press, "legal" liberals are meant the open public 
 press and those liberals who were trying to comply with the 
 legal requirements of absolutism even in their work of con- 
 demning the absolutist order. The term "legal" is opposed by 
 the term "revolutionary" which is applied to political actions in 
 defiance of law. 
 
 Dragomvrov was for many years Commander of the Kiev 
 Military region and known by his epigrammatic style. 
 
 45 
 
THE EVENTS IN PETERSBURG 
 
This is an essay of triumph. Written on January 
 20, 1905, eleven days after the "bloody Sunday," it 
 gave vent to the enthusiastic feelings of every true 
 revolutionist aroused by unmistakable signs of an ap- 
 proaching storm. The march of tens of thousands of 
 workingmen to the Winter Palace to submit to the 
 "Little Father" a petition asking for "bread and 
 freedom," was on the surface a peaceful and loyal 
 undertaking. Yet it breathed indignation and re- 
 volt. The slaughter of peaceful marchers (of whom 
 over 5,000 were killed or wounded) and the following 
 wave of hatred and revolutionary determination 
 among the masses, marked the beginning of broad 
 revolutionary uprisings. 
 
 For Trotzky, the awakening of the masses to poli- 
 tical activity was not only a good revolutionary 
 omen, but also a defeat of liberal ideology and liberal 
 tactics. Those tactics had been planned under the 
 assumption that the Russian people were not ripe for 
 a revolution. Trotzky, a thorough revolutionist, 
 saw in the liberal movement a manifestation of poli- 
 tical superstitions. To him, the orHy way to over- 
 throw absolutism was the way of a violent revolution. 
 Yet, when the liberals proudly asserted that the revo- 
 lutionary masses of Russia were only a creation of 
 the overheated phantasy of the revolutionists, while 
 
 49 
 
50 The Events in Petersburg 
 
 the movement of the well-to-do intelligent elements 
 was a flagrant fact, the Social-Democrats had no 
 material proofs to the contrary, except sporadic out- 
 bursts of unrest among the workingmen and, of 
 course, the conviction of those revolutionists who 
 were in touch with the masses. It is, therefore, easy 
 to understand the triumph of a Trotzky or any other 
 Socialist after January 9th. \In Trotzky's opinion, 
 the 9th of January had put liberalism into the 
 archives. "We are done with it for the entire period 
 of the revolution," he exclaims:} The most remark- 
 able part of this essay, as far as political vision is 
 concerned, is Trotzky's prediction that the left wing 
 of the "Osvoboshdenie" liberals (later organized as 
 the Constitutional Democratic Party) would at- 
 tempt to become leaders of the revolutionary masses 
 and to "tame" them. The Liberals did not fail to 
 make the attempt in 1905 and 1906, but with no suc- 
 cess whatever. Neither did Social-Democracy, how- 
 ever, completely succeed in leading the masses all 
 through the revolution, in the manner outlined by 
 Trotzky in this essay. True, the Social-Democrats 
 were the party that gained the greatest influence 
 over the workingmen in the stormy year of 1905; 
 their slogans were universally accepted by the 
 masses ; their members were everywhere among the 
 first ranks of revolutionary forces ; yet events de- 
 veloped too rapidly and spontaneously to make the 
 leadership of a political organization possible. 
 
THE EVENTS IN PETERSBURG 
 
 How invincibly eloquent are facts ! How ut- 
 terly powerless are words ! 
 
 The masses have made themselves heard! 
 They have kindled revolutionary flames on 
 Caucasian hill-tops; they have clashed, breast 
 against breast, with the guards' regiments and 
 the cossacks on that unforgettable day of Jan- 
 uary Ninth; they have filled the streets and 
 squares of industrial cities with the noise and 
 clatter of their fights. ... 
 
 The revolutionary masses are no more a 
 theory71hey~are~a~fact. "FortEe^ocial-Demo- 
 cratic Party there is nothing new in this fact. 
 We had predicted it long ago. We had seen 
 its coming at a time when the noisy liberal ban- 
 quets seemed to form a striking contrast with 
 the political silence of the people. The revo- 
 lutionary masses are a fact, was our assertion. 
 The clever liberals shrugged their shoulders in 
 contempt. Those gentlemen think themselves 
 sober realists solely because they are unable to 
 grasp the consequences of great causes, because 
 
 51 
 
52 The Events in Petersburg 
 
 they make it their business to be humble 
 servants of each ephemeral political fact. 
 They think themselves sober statesmen in spite 
 of the fact that history mocks at their wis- 
 dom, tearing to pieces their school books, mak- 
 ing to naught their designs, and magnificently 
 laughing at their pompous predictions. 
 
 "There are no revolutionary people in Rus- 
 sia as yet." "The Russian workingman is back- 
 ward in culture, in self-respect, and {we refer 
 primarily to the workingmen of Petersburg 
 and Moscow) he is not yet prepared for organ- 
 ized social and political struggle." 
 
 Thus Mr. Struve wrote in his Osvobosh- 
 denie. He wrote it on January 7th, 1905. 
 Two days later the proletariat of Petersburg 
 arose. 
 
 "There are no revolutionary people in Rus- 
 sia as yet." These words ought to have been 
 engraved on the forehead of Mr. Struve were 
 it not that Mr. Struve's forehead already re- 
 sembles a tombstone under which so many 
 plans, slogans, and ideas have been buried, — 
 Socialist, liberal, "patriotic," revolutionary, 
 monarchic, democratic and other ideas, all of 
 them calculated not to run too far ahead and 
 all of them hopelessly dragging behind. 
 
 "There are no revolutionary people in Rus- 
 
The Events in Petersburg 53 
 
 sia aS yet" so it was declared through the 
 mouth of Osvoboshdenie by Russian liberalism 
 which in the course of three months had suc- 
 ceeded in convincing itself that liberalism was 
 the main figure on the political stage and that 
 its program and tactics would determine the 
 future of Russia. Before this declaration had 
 reached its readers, the wires carried into the 
 remotest corners of the world the great mes- 
 sage of the beginning of a National Revolu- 
 tion in Russia. 
 
 Yes, the Revolution has begun. We had 
 hoped for it, we had had no doubt about it. 
 For long years, however, it had been to us a 
 mere deduction from our "doctrine," which all 
 nonentities of all political denominations had 
 mocked at. They never believed in the revo- 
 lutionary role of the proletariat, yet they be- 
 lieved in the power of Zemstvo petitions, in 
 Witte, in "blocs" combining naughts with 
 naughts, in Svyatopolk-Mirski, in a stick of 
 dynamite. . . . There was no political super- 
 stition they did not believe in. Only the belief 
 in the proletariate to them was a superstition, 
 
 History, however, does not question political 
 oracles, and the revolutionary people do not 
 need a passport from political eunuchs. 
 
 The Revolution has come. One move of hers 
 
54 The Events in Petersburg 
 
 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 
 Revolution has come and destroyed the plans 
 of so many politicians who had dared to make 
 their little political calculations with no regard 
 for the master, the revolutionary people. The 
 Revolution has come and destroyed scores of 
 superstitions, and has manifested the power of 
 the program which is founded on the revo- 
 lutionary logic of the development of the 
 masses. ciJ^ 
 
 The Revolution has come, and the period of 
 our polSIc^ITntancyTTas passed. Down to the 
 archives went our traditional liberalism whose 
 only resource was the belief in a lucky change 
 of administrative figures. Its period of bloom 
 was the stupid reign of Svyatopolk-Mirski. Its 
 ripest fruit was the Ukase of December 12th. 
 But now, January Ninth has come and effaced 
 the "Spring," and has put military dictator- 
 ship in its place, and has promoted to the rank 
 of Governor-General of Petersburg the same 
 Trepov, who just before had been pulled down 
 from the post of Moscow Chief of Police by 
 the same liberal opposition. 
 
 [That liberalism which did not care to know 
 about the revolution, which hatched plots be- 
 
The Events in Petersburg 55 
 
 hind the scenes, which ignored the masses, 
 which counted only on its diplomatic genius, 
 has heen swept away. We are done with it for 
 the entire period of the revolution?) 
 
 The liberals of the left wing will now follow 
 the people. They will soon attempt to take 
 the people into their own hands. The people 
 are a power. One must master them. But 
 they are, too, a revolutionary power. One, 
 therefore, must tame them. This is, evidently, 
 the future tactics of the Osvoboshdenie 
 group. Our fight for a revolution, our pre- 
 paratory work for the revolution must also be 
 our merciless fight against liberalism for in- 
 fluence over the masses, for a leading role in 
 the revolution. In this fight we shall be sup- 
 ported by a great power, the very logic of the 
 revolution! 
 
 The Revolution has come. 
 
 The forms taken by the uprising of January 
 9th could not have been foreseen. A revolu- 
 tionary priest, in perplexing manner placed by 
 history at the head of the working masses for 
 several days, lent the events the stamp of his 
 personality, his conceptions, his rank. This 
 form may mislead many an observer as to the 
 real substance of the events. The actual mean- 
 ing of the events, however, is just that which 
 
56 The Events in Petersburg 
 
 Social-Democracy foresaw. The central fig - 
 ure is the Pr oletariat. The workingmen star t 
 a strike, they unite, they formulate politic al 
 demands, theywalk o u t into the streets, they 
 win the enthusiastic sympathy of the entire 
 population, th^jeSga ge" in battl es with the 
 ar my. . . . T he heroTGapon, has not created 
 the revolutionary energy of the Petersburg 
 workingmen, he only unloosed it. He found 
 thousands of thinking workingmen and tens of 
 thousands of others in a state of political agita- 
 tion. He formed a plan which united all those 
 masses — for the period of one day. The masses 
 went to speak to the Tzar. They were faced 
 by Ulans, cossacks, guards. Gapon's plan had 
 not prepared the workingmen for that. What 
 was the result? They seized arms wherever 
 they could, they built barricades. . . . They 
 fought, though, apparently, they went to beg 
 for mercy. This shows that they went not to 
 beg, but to demand. 
 
 The proletariat of Petersburg manifested a 
 degree of political alertness and revolutionary 
 energy far exceeding the limits of the plan 
 laid out by a casual leader. Gapon's plan con- 
 tained many elements of revolutionary ro- 
 manticism. On January 9th, the plan col- 
 lapsed. Yet the revolutionary proletariat of 
 
The Events in Petersburg 57 
 
 Petersburg is no romanticism, it is a living 
 reality. So is the proletariat of other cities. 
 An enormous wave is rolling over Russia. It 
 has not yet quieted down. One shock, and the 
 proletarian crater will begin to erupt torrents 
 of revolutionary lava. 
 
 ( The proletariat has arisen. It has chosen an 
 incidental pretext and a casual leader — a self- 
 sacrificing priest. Th at .seemed enough t o 
 start witlhl t was not p*i""gh *r* ftp' 1 " 
 
 Victory demands not a romantic method 
 based on an illusory plan, but revolutionary 
 tactics. A simu ltaneous action of the prole- 
 tariat o f all E jj^s^jmusr be' pi epurtSl This is 
 the first conditionT~HN o local demonstration 
 ha s a serious political signMciance; any luhtTer . 
 After the Petersburg uprising, only an all-Rus- 
 sian uprising should take place. Scattered out- 
 bursts would only consume the precious revo- 
 lutionary energy with no results. Wherever 
 spontaneous outbursts occur, as a late echo of 
 the Petersburg uprising, they must be made 
 use of to revolutionize and to solidify the 
 masses, to popularize among them the idea of 
 an all-Russian uprising as a task of the ap- 
 proaching months, perhaps only weeks. 
 
 This is not the place to discuss the technique 
 of a popular uprising. The questions of revo- 
 
58 The Events in Petersburg 
 
 lutionary technique can be solved only in a 
 practical way, under the live pressure of strug- 
 gle and under constant communication with 
 the active members of the Party. There is 
 no doubt, however, that the technical problems 
 of organizing a popular uprising assume at 
 present tremendous importance. Those prob- 
 lems demand the collective attention of the 
 Party. 
 
 Trotzky then proceeds to discuss the question of 
 armament, arsenals, clashes with army units, barri- 
 cades, etc. Then he continues : 
 
 As stated before, these questions ought to 
 be solved by local organizations. Of course, 
 this is only a minor task as compared with the 
 political leadership of the masses. Yet, this 
 task is most essential for the political leader- 
 ship itself. The organization of the revolution 
 becomes at present the axis of the political 
 leadership of revolting masses. 
 
 .What are the requirements for this leader- 
 ship ? A few very simple things : freedom from 
 routine in matters of organization; freedom 
 from miserable traditions of underground con- 
 spiracy; a broad view; courageous initiative; 
 ability to gauge situations; courageous initia- 
 tive once more. 
 
 J / 
 
The Events in Petersburg 59 
 
 The events of January 9th have given us a 
 revolutionary beginning. We must never fall 
 below this. We must make this our starting 
 point in moving the revolution forward. We 
 must imbue our work of propaganda and or- 
 ganization with the political ideas and revolu- 
 tionary aspirations of the uprising of the Pe- 
 tersburg workers. 
 
 j The Russian revolution has approached its 
 climax — a national uprising. The organization 
 of this uprising, which would determine the 
 fate of the entire revolution, becomes the day's 
 J task for our Party. 
 
 No one can accomplish it, but we. Priest 
 Gapon could appear only once. He cherished 
 extraordinary illusions, that is why he could do 
 what he has done. Yet he could remain at the 
 head of the masses for a brief period only. The 
 memory of George Gapon will always be dear 
 to the revolutionary proletariat. Yet his 
 memory will be that of a hero who opened the 
 sluices of the revolutionary torrent. Should a 
 new figure step to the front now, equal to 
 Gapon in energy, revolutionary enthusiasm 
 and power of political illusions, his arrival 
 would be too late. What was great in George 
 Gapon may now look ridiculous. There is 
 no room for a second George Gapon, as the 
 
60 The Events in Petersburg 
 
 thing now needed is not an illusion, but clear 
 revolutionary thinking, a decisive plan of ac- 
 tion, a flexible revolutionary organization which 
 would be able to give the masses a slogan, to 
 lead them into the field of battle, to launch an 
 attack all along the line and bring the revolu- 
 tion to a victorious conclusion. 
 
 Such an organization can be the work of 
 Social-Democracy only. ~No other party is 
 able to create it. No other party can give the 
 masses a revolutionary slogan, as no one out- 
 side our Party has freed himself from all con- 
 siderations not pertaining to the interests of 
 the revolution. No other party, but Social- 
 Democracy, is able to organize the action of the 
 masses, as no one but our Party is closely con- 
 nected with the masses. 
 
 Our Party has committed many errors, 
 blunders, almost crimes. It wavered, evaded, 
 hesitated, it showed inertia and lack of pluck. 
 At times it hampered the revolutionary move- 
 ment. 
 
 However, there is no revolutionary parti/ 
 \but the Social-Democratic Party! 
 
 Our organizations are imperfect. Our con- 
 nections with the masses are insufficient. Our 
 technique is primitive. 
 
The Events in Petersburg 61 
 
 Yet, there is no party connected with the 
 masses but the Social-Democratic Party! 
 
 At the head of the Revolution is the Pro- 
 letariat. At the head of the Proletariat is So- 
 cial-Democracy ! 
 
 Let us exert all our power, comrades ! Let 
 us put all our energy and all our passion into 
 this. Let us not forget for a moment the great 
 responsibility vested in our Party: a responsi- 
 bility before the Russian Revolution and in 
 the sight of International Socialism. 
 
 The proletariat of the entire world looks to 
 us with expectation. Broad vistas are being 
 opened for humanity by a victorious Russian 
 revolution. Comrades, let us do our duty! 
 
 Let us close our ranks, comrades! Let us 
 unite, and unite the masses! Let us prepare, 
 and prepare the masses for the day of decisive 
 actions! Let us overlook nothing. Let us 
 leave no power unused for the Cause. 
 
 Brave, honest, harmoniously united, we shall 
 march forward, linked by unbreakable bonds, 
 brothers in the Revolution! 
 
EXPLANATORY NOTES 
 
 Osvoboahdenie (Emancipation) was the name of a liberal 
 magazine published in Stuttgart, Germany, and smuggled into 
 Russia to be distributed among the Zemstvo-liberals and other 
 progressive elements grouped about the Zemstvo-organization. 
 The Osvoboshdenie advocated a constitutional monarchy; it was, 
 however, opposed to revolutionary methods. 
 
 Peter Strwoe, first a Socialist, then a Liberal, was the editor 
 of the Osvoboshdemie. Struve is an economist and one of the 
 leading liberal journalists in Russia. 
 
 Zemttvo-petitions, accepted in form of resolutions at the 
 meetings of the liberal Zemstvo bodies and forwarded to the 
 central government, were one of the means the liberals used in 
 their struggle for a Constitution. The petitions, worded in a 
 very moderate language, demanded the abolition of "lawless- 
 ness" on the part of the administration and the introduction of 
 a "legal order," i.e., a Constitution. 
 
 Sergius Witte, Minister of Finance in the closing years of the 
 19th Century and up to the revolution of 1905, was known as a 
 bureaucrat of a liberal brand. 
 
 The Ukase of December 12th, 1906, was an answer of the 
 government to the persistent political demands of the "Spring" 
 time. The Ukase promised a number of insignificant bureau- 
 cratic reforms, not even mentioning a popular representation 
 and threatening increased punishments for "disturbances of 
 peace and order." 
 
 Trepov was one of the most hated bureaucrats, a devoted 
 pupil of Von Plehve's in the work of drowning revolutionary 
 movements in blood. 
 
 George Gapon was the priest who organized the march of 
 January 9th. Trotzky's admiration for the heroism of Gapon 
 was originally shared by many revolutionists. Later it became 
 known that Gapon played a dubious rdle as a friend of labor, 
 and an agent of the government. 
 
 The "Political illusions" of George Gapon, referred to in this 
 essay, was his assumption that the Tzar was a loving father to 
 his people. Gapon hoped to reach the Emperor of all the Rus- 
 sias and to make him "receive the workingmen's petition from 
 hand to hand." 
 
 62 
 
PROSPECTS OF A LABOR 
 DICTATORSHIP 
 
This is, perhaps, the most remarkable piece of 
 political writing the Revolution has produced. Writ- 
 ten early in 1906, after the great upheavals of the 
 fall BTT905, at a time when the Russian revolution 
 was obviously going down hill, and autocracy, after 
 a moment of relaxation, was increasing its deadly 
 grip over the country, the essays under the name 
 Stum Total and Prospectwes (which we have here 
 changed into a more comprehensible name, Pros- 
 pects of Labor Dictatorship) aroused more amaze- 
 ment t han admiration. They .seeni ed so_ en- 
 t irely out of plac e. They ignored the liberal par- 
 ties as quite negligible quantities. They ignored the 
 creation of the Duma to which the Constitutional 
 Democrats attached so much importance as a 
 place where democracy would fight the battles of 
 the people and win. They ignored the very fact 
 that the vanguard of the revolution, the industrial 
 proletariat, was beaten, disorganized, downhearted, 
 tired out. 
 
 The essays met with opposition on the part of 
 leading Social-Democratic thinkers of both the Bol- 
 sheviki and Mensheviki factions. The essays seemed 
 to be more an expression of Trotzky's revolution- 
 ary ardor, of his unshakable faith in the future of 
 the Russian revolution, than a reflection of political 
 
 65 
 
66 Prospects of a Labor DictatorsJiip 
 
 realities. It was known that he wrote them within 
 prison walls. Should not the very fact of his im- 
 prisonment have convinced him that in drawing a 
 picture of labor dictatorship he was only dreaming? 
 
 History has shown that it was not a dream. 
 Whatever our attitude towards the course of events 
 in the 1917 revolution may be, we must admit that, 
 in the main, this course has taken the direction 
 predicted in Trotzky's essays. There is a labor 
 dictatorship now in Russia. It is a labor dictator- 
 ship, not a "dictatorship of the proletariat and the 
 peasants." The liberal and radical parties have lost 
 influence. The labor government has put collective 
 ownership and collective management of industries 
 on the order of the day. The labor government has 
 not hesitated in declaring Russia to be ready for a 
 Socialist revolution. It was compelled to do so 
 under the pressure of revolutionary proletarian 
 masses. The Russian army has been dissolved in the 
 armed people. The Russian revolution has called 
 the workingmen of the world to make a social revo- 
 lution. 
 
 All this had been outlined by Trotzky twelve years 
 ago. When one reads this series of essays, one has 
 the feeling that they were written not in the 
 course of the first Russian upheaval (the essays ap- 
 peared in 1906 as part of a book by Trotzky, en- 
 titled Our Revolution, Petersburg, N. GlagolefF, 
 .publisher) but as if they were discussing problems 
 (>{ the present situation. This, more than anything 
 
Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship 1 67 
 
 else, shows the contvmuxty of the revolution. The 
 great overthrow of 1917 was completed by the same 
 political and social forces that had met and learned 
 to know each other in the storms of 1905 and 1906. 
 The ideology of the various groups and parties had 
 hardly changed. Even the leaders of the major 
 parties were, in the main, the same persons. Of I 
 course, the international situation was different.! 
 But even the possibility of a European war and itsl 
 consequences had been foreseen by Trotzky in hisf 
 essays. i ^-iS 
 
 Twelve years ago those essays seemed to picture 
 an imaginary world. To-day they seem to tell the 
 history of the Russian revolution. We may agree 
 or disagree with Trotzky, the leader, nobody can 
 deny the power and clarity of his political vision. 
 
PROSPECTS OF A LABOR DICTATORSHIP 
 
 In the first chapter, entitled "Peculiarities of Our 
 Historic Development," the author gives a broad 
 outline of the growth of absolutism in Russia. De- 
 velopment of social forms in Russia, he says, was 
 slow and primitive. Our social life was constructed 
 on an archaic and meager economic foundation. Yet, 
 Russia did not lead an isolated life. Russia was un- 
 der constant pressure of higher politico-economical 
 organisms, — the neighboring Western states. The 
 Russian state, in its struggle for existence, outgrew 
 its economic basis. Historic development in Russia, 
 therefore, was taking place under a terrific straining 
 of national economic forces. The state absorbed the 
 major part of the national economic surplus and also 
 part of the product necessary for the maintenance of 
 the people. The state thus undermined its own 
 foundation. On the other hand, to secure the means 
 indispensable for its growth, the state forced eco- 
 nomic development by bureaucratic measures. Ever 
 since the end of the seventeenth century, the state was 
 most anxious to develop industries in Russia. "New 
 trades, machines, factories, production on a large 
 scale, capital, appear from a certain angle to be an 
 artificial graft on the original economic trunk of the 
 
 69 
 
70 Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship 
 
 people. Similarly, Russian science may appear from 
 the same angle to be an artificial graft on the natural 
 trunk of national ignorance." This, however, is a 
 wrong conception. {The Russian state could not have 
 created something out of nothing. State action only 
 accelerated the processes of natural evolution of eco- 
 nomic life. State measures that were in contradiction 
 to those processes were doomed to failure. Still, the 
 role of the state in economic life was enormoui. 
 When social development reached the stage where the 
 bourgeoisie classes began to experience a desire for 
 political institutions of a Western type, Russian au- 
 tocracy was fully equipped with all the material 
 power of a modern European state. It had at its 
 command a centralized bureaucratic machinery, in- 
 capable of regulating modern relations, yet strong 
 enough to do the work of oppression. It was in a 
 position to overcome distance by means of the tele- 
 graph and railroads, — a thing unknown to the pre- 
 revolutionary autocracies in Europe. It had a colos- 
 sal army, incompetent in wars with foreign enemies, 
 yet strong enough to maintain the authority of the 
 state in internal affairs. 
 
 Based on its military and fiscal apparatus, absorb- 
 ing the major part of the country's resources, the 
 government increased its annual budget to an enor- 
 mous amount of two billions of rubles, it made the 
 stock-exchange of Europe its treasury and the Rus- 
 sian tax-payer a slave to European high finance, 
 the Russian state became an end in itse lf. 
 
Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship) 71 
 
 I\ evolved into a power independent of society. It 
 left unsatisfied the most elementary wants of the 
 people. It was unable even to defend the safety of 
 the country against foreign foes. Yet, it seemed 
 strong, powerful, invincible. It inspired awe. 
 
 It became evident that the Russian state would 
 never grant reforms of its own free will. As years 
 passed, the conflict between absolutism and the re- 
 quirements of economic and cultural progress be- 
 came ever more acute. There was only one way to 
 solve the problem: "to accumulate enough steam in- 
 side the iron kettle of absolutism to burst the kettle." 
 This was the way outlined by the Marxists long ago. 
 Marxism was the only doctrine that had correctly 
 predicted the course of development in Russia. 
 
 \In the second chapter, "City and Capital," Trot- 
 zky attempts a theoretical explanation to th e wea k- 
 n ess o JL the middle-class in Russia^ Russia of the 
 
 eighteenth, and even of the major part of the nine- 
 teenth, century, he writes, was marked by an absence 
 of cities as industrial centers. Coir big cities were 
 administrative rather than industrial centers. Our 
 primitive industries were scattered in the villages, 
 auxiliary occupations of the peasant farmers. Even 
 the population of our so called "cities," in former 
 generations maintained itself largely by agriculture. 
 Russian cities never contained a prosperous, efficient 
 and self-assured class of artisans — that real founda- 
 tion of the European middle class which in the course 
 
72 Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship 
 
 of revolutions against absolutism identified itself with 
 the "people." When modern capitalism, aided by 
 absolutism, appeared on the scene of Russia and 
 turned large villages into modern industrial centers 
 almost over night, it had no middle-class to build on. 
 In Russian cities, therefore, the influence of the 
 bourgeoisie is far less than in western Europe. Rus- 
 sian cities practically contain great numbers of 
 workingmen and small groups of capitalists. More- 
 over, the specific political weight of the Russian 
 proletariat is larger than that of the capital em- 
 ployed in Russia, because the latter is to a great ex- 
 tent imported capital. Thus, while a large propor- 
 tion of the capital operating in Russia exerts its poli- 
 tical influence in the parliaments of Belgium or 
 France, the working class employed by the same capi- 
 tal exert their entire influence in the political life of 
 Russia. As a result of these peculiar historic devel- 
 opments, the Russian proletariat, recruited from the 
 pauperized peasant and ruined rural artisans, has 
 accumulated in the new cities in very great numbers, 
 "and nothing stood between the workingmen and ab- 
 solutism but a small class of capitalists, separated 
 from the 'people' (i.e., the middle-class in the Euro- 
 pean sense of the word), half foreign in its deriva- 
 tion, devoid of historic traditions, animated solely 
 by a hunger for profits." 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 1789-1848-1905 
 
 History does not repeat itself. You are free 
 to compare the Russian revolution with the 
 Great French Revolution, yet this would not 
 make the former resemble the latter. The 
 nineteenth century passed not in vain. 
 
 Already the year of 1848 is widely different 
 from 1789. As compared with the Great Rev- 
 olution, the revolutions in Prussia or Austria 
 appear amazingly small. From one viewpoint, 
 the revolutions of 1848 came too early; from 
 another, too late. That gigantic exertion of 
 power which is necessary for the bourgeois so- 
 ciety to get completely square with the masters 
 of the past, can be achieved either through 
 powerful unity of an entire nation arousing 
 against feudal despotism, or through a power- 
 ful development of class struggle within a na- 
 tion striving for freedom. In the first case — 
 of which a classic example are the years 1789- 
 1793, — the national energy, compressed by the 
 terrific resistance of the old regime, was spent 
 
 73 
 
74 Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship 
 
 entirely in the struggle against reaction. In 
 the second case — which has never appeared in 
 history as yet, and which is treated here as 
 hypothetical — the actual energy necessary for 
 a victory over the black forces of history is 
 being developed within the bourgeois nation 
 through "civil war" between classes. Fierce 
 internal friction characterizes the latter case. 
 It absorbs enormous quantities of energy, pre- 
 vents 1 the bourgeoisie from playing a leading 
 role, pushes its antagonist, the proletariat, to 
 the front, gives the workingman decades' ex- 
 perience in a month, makes them the central 
 figures in political struggles, and puts very 
 tight reins into their hands. Strong, deter- 
 mined, knowing no doubts, the proletariat 
 gives events a powerful twist. 
 
 Thus, it is either — or. (Either a nation gath- 
 ered into one compact whole, as a Hon ready 
 to leap ; or a nation completely divided in the 
 process of internal struggles, a nation that has 
 released her best part for a task which the 
 whole was unable to complete. Such are the 
 two polar types, whose purest forms, how- 
 ever, can be found only in logical contraposi- 
 tion. 1 ) 
 
 Here, as in many other cases, the middle 
 road is the worst. This was the case in 1848. 
 
Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship 75 
 
 In the French Revolution we see an active, 
 enlightened bourgeoisie, not yet aware of the 
 contradictions of its situation; entrusted by 
 history with the task of leadership in the strug- 
 gle for a new order; fighting not only against 
 the archaic institutions of France, but also 
 against the forces of reaction throughout 
 Europe. The bourgeoisie consciously, in the 
 person of its various factions, assumes the 
 leadership of the nation, it lures the masses 
 into struggle, it coins slogans, it dictates revo- 
 lutionary tactics. ^Democracy unites the na- 
 tion in one political ideology. The people — 
 small artisans, petty merchants, peasants, and 
 workingmen — elect bourgeois as their repre- 
 sentatives; the mandates of the communities 
 are framed in the language of the burgeoisie 
 which becomes aware of its Messianic role. 
 Antagonisms do not fail to reveal themselves 
 in the course of the revolution, yet the power- 
 ful momentum of the revolution removes one 
 by one the most unresponsive elements of the 
 bourgeoisie. Each stratum is torn off, but not 
 before it has given over all its energy to the 
 following one.) The nation as a whole con- 
 tinues to fight with ever increasing persist- 
 ence and determination. When the upper stra- 
 tum of the bourgeoisie tears itself away from 
 
76 Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship 
 
 the main body of the nation to form an alliance 
 with Louis XVI, the democratic demands of 
 the nation turn against this part of the bour- 
 geoisie, leading to universal suffrage and a re- 
 publican government as logically consequent 
 forms of democracy. 
 
 The Great French Revolution is a true na- 
 tional revolution. It is more than that. It 
 is a classic manifestation, on a national scale, 
 of the world-wide struggle of the bourgeois 
 order for supremacy, for power, for unmiti- 
 gated triumph. In 1848, the bourgeosie was 
 no more capable of a similar role. It did not 
 want, it did not dare take the responsibility 
 for a revolutionary liquidation of a political 
 order that stood in its way. The reason is 
 clear. The task of the bourgeoisie — of which 
 it was fully aware — was not to secure its own 
 political supremacy, but to secure for itself a 
 share in the political power of the old regime. 
 The bourgeoisie of 1848, niggardly wise with 
 the experience of the French bourgeoisie, was 
 vitiated by its treachery, frightened by its fail- 
 ures. It did not lead the masses to storm the 
 citadels of the absolutist order. On the con- 
 trary, with its back against the absolutist or- 
 der, it resisted the onslaught of the masses 
 that were pushing it forward. 
 
Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship 77 
 
 The French bourgeoisie made its revolution 
 great. Its consciousness was the consciousness 
 of the people, and no idea found its expression 
 in institutions without having gone through its 
 consciousness as an end, as a task of political 
 construction. It often resorted to theatrical 
 poses to conceal from itself the limitations of 
 its bourgeois world, — yet it marched forward. 
 
 The German bourgeoisie, on the contrary, 
 was not doing the revolutionary work; it was 
 "doing away" with the revolution from the very 
 start. Its consciousness revolted against the 
 objective conditions of its supremacy. The 
 revolution could be completed not by the bour- 
 geoisie, but against it. Democratic institu- 
 tions seemed to the mind of the German bour- 
 geois not an aim for his struggle, but a men- 
 ace to his security. 
 
 Another class was required in 1848, a class 
 capable of conducting the revolution beside 
 the bourgeoisie and in spite of it, a class not 
 only ready and able to push the bourgeoisie 
 forward, but also to step over its political 
 corpse, should events so demand. None of the 
 other classes, however, was ready for the job. 
 
 The petp f middl e class we re hostilejiotjanly 
 to the past, but also to the futu re. They were 
 still entangled in the meshes of medieval re- 
 
78 Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship 
 
 lations, and they were unable to withstand the 
 oncoming "free" industry; they were still giv- 
 ing the cities their stamp, and they were al- 
 ready giving way to the influences of big capi- 
 tal. Steeped in prejudices, stunned by the 
 clatter of events, exploiting and being ex- 
 ploited, greedy and helpless in their greed, they 
 could not become leaders in matters of world- 
 wide importance. Still less vfeve^as^peasants 
 capable-of.^)Qlitical initiative. Scattered over 
 the country, far from the nervous centers of 
 politics and culture, limited in their views, the 
 peasants could have no great part in the strug- 
 gles for a new order. Th^drmo^^atichvtellec- 
 tuals ^poss essed no social weig ht: they either 
 dragged along behind their elder sister, the lib- 
 eral bourgeoisie, as its political tail, or" they sep- 
 arated themselves from the bourgeoisie in crit- 
 ical moments only to show their weakness. 
 
 The in d ustrial workingmen were too weak. 
 unorjganjzedr-devQid-o i experience, and knowl - 
 edgej.. The capitalist development had gone 
 far enough to make the abolition of old feudal 
 relations imperative, yet it had no t gone f ar 
 enough •trMTTRJjrihe wnrfcTn^Tns^ Qie prod uct 
 oTngK-ecojiomicjreJ^iioBBy-a decisi ve politic al 
 factor. Antagonism between bourgeoisie and 
 proletariat, even within the national bounda- 
 
Prospects 'of a Labor Dictatorship 79 
 
 ries of Germany, was sharp enough to prevent 
 the bourgeoisie from stepping to the front to 
 assume national hegemony in the revolution, 
 yet it was not sharp enough to allow the prole- 
 tariat to become a national leader. True, the 
 internal frictions of the revolution had pre- 
 pared the workingmen for political independ- 
 ence, yet they weakened the energy and the 
 unity of the revolution and they caused a great 
 waste of power. The res ult was that, after the 
 figst successe s, the revolu tion be gan J ta--plod 
 aboj^F ^ pain ful ^uncertainty, and under the 
 fip&Lblows of the reactio n it started bac kwards. 
 Austria gave the clearest and most tragic ex- 
 ample of unfinished and unsettled relations in 
 a revolutionary period. It was this situation 
 that gave Lassalle occasion to assert that hence- 
 forward revolutions could find their support 
 only in the class struggle of the proletariat. 
 In a letter to Marx, dated October 24, 1849 
 he writes : "The experiences of Austria, Hun- 
 gary and Germany in 1848 and 1849 have led 
 me to the firm conclusion that no struggle in 
 Europe can be successful unless it is proclaimed 
 from the very beginning as purely Socialistic. 
 No struggle can succeed in which social prob- 
 lems appear as nebulous elements kept in the 
 background, while on the surface the fight is 
 
80 Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship 
 
 being conducted under the slogan of national 
 revival of bourgeois republicanism." 
 
 We shall not attempt to criticize this bold 
 conclusion. One thing is evident, namely that 
 already at the middle of the nineteenth century 
 the national task of political emancipation 
 could not be completed by a unanimous con- 
 certed onslaught of the entire nation. Only 
 the independent tactics of the proletariat de- 
 riving its strength from no other source but its 
 class position, could have secured a victory of 
 the revolution. 
 
 CThe Russian working class of 1906 differs 
 entirely from the Vienna working class of 
 1848. / The best proof of it is the all-Russian 
 practice of the Councils of Workmen's Depu- 
 ties (Soviets). Those are no organizations of 
 conspirators prepared beforehand to step for- 
 ward in times of unrest and to seize command 
 over the working class. They are organs con- 
 sciously created by the masses themselves to 
 coordinate their revolutionary struggle. The 
 Soviets, elected by and responsible to the mas- 
 ses, are thoroughly democratic institutions fol- 
 lowing the most determined class policy in the 
 spirit of revolutionary Socialism. 
 
 The differences in the social composition of 
 
Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship, 81 
 
 the Russian revolution are clearly shown in 
 the question of arming the people. 
 
 Militia (national guard) was the first slogan 
 and the first achievement of the revolutions of 
 1789 and 1848 in Paris, in all the Italian states 
 and in Vienna and Berlin. In 1846, the de- 
 mand for a national guard (i.e. the armament 
 of the propertied classes and the "intellec- 
 tuals") was put forth by the entire bourgeois 
 opposition, including the most moderate fac- 
 tions. In Russia, the demand for a national 
 guard finds no favor with the bourgeois par- 
 ties. This is not because the liberals do not 
 understand the importance of arming the peo- 
 ple : absolutism has given them in this respect 
 more than one object lesson. The^jeasonwhy 
 
 lihpT-alcrjnri^ "jiVp fhp irW pf a. n ational guar d 
 
 is because they fully re alize the impossibilit yof 
 creatin g in Ru ss ia an armed revolutionary 
 fnr-n* f^nLL. of fhf p y "1ftariat q "d againsti he 
 proletariat. They are ready to give up this 
 demand, as they give up many others, just as 
 the French bourgeoisie headed by Thiers pre- 
 ferred to give up Paris and France to Bis- 
 marck rather than to arm the working class. 
 The problem of an armed revolution in 
 Russia becomes essentially a problem of the 
 proletariat, National militia, this classic de- 
 
82 Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship 
 
 mand of the bourgeoisie of 1848, appears in 
 Russia from the very beginning as a demand 
 for arming the people, primarily the working 
 class. Herein the fate of the Russian revolu- 
 tion manifests itself most clearly. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 THE REVOLUTION AND THE PROLETARIAT 
 
 A revolution is an open contest of social 
 forces in their struggle for political power. 
 
 The st ate is not an end in itself. It is only 
 ajworkinsf machine in the ha nds of th &jsflcial 
 force, in pow er. As every machine, the state 
 has its motor, transmission, and its operator. 
 Its motive power is the class interest; its motor 
 are propaganda, the press, influences of school 
 and church, political parties, open air meetings, 
 petitions, insurrections; its transmission is 
 made up of legislative bodies actuated by the 
 interest of a caste, a dynasty, a guild or a class 
 appearing under the guise of Divine or na- 
 tional will (absolutism or parliamentarism) ; 
 its operator is the administration, with its po- 
 lice, judiciary, jails, and the army. 
 
 The state is not an end in itself. It is, how- 
 ever, the greatest means for organizing, dis- 
 organizing and reorganizing social relations. 
 
 According to who is directing the machinery 
 of the State, it can be an instrument of pro- 
 
 83 
 
84 prospects of a Labor Dictatorship 
 
 foundest transformations, or a means of or- 
 ganized stagnation. 
 
 Each political party worthy of its name 
 strives to get hold of political power and thus 
 to make the state serve the interests of the class 
 represented by the party. Social-Democracy, 
 as the party of the proletariat, naturally strives 
 at political supremacy of the working class. 
 
 The proletariat grows and gains strength 
 with the growth of capitalism. From this view- 
 point, the development of capitalism is the de- 
 velopment of the proletariat for dictatorship. 
 The day and the hour, however, when political 
 power should pass into the hands of the work- 
 ing class, is determined not directly by the de- 
 gree of capitalistic development of economic 
 forces, but by the relations of class struggle, 
 by the international situation, by a number of 
 subjective elements, such as tradition, initia- 
 tive, readiness to fight. . . . 
 
 It is, therefore, not excluded that in a back- 
 ward country with a lesser degree of capitalis- 
 tic development, the proletariat should sooner 
 reach political supremacy than in a highly de- 
 veloped capitalist state. Thus, in middle-class 
 Paris, the proletariat consciously took into its 
 hands the achninistration of public affairs in 
 1871. True it is, that the reign of the prole- 
 
Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship 85 
 
 tariat lasted only for two months, it is remark- 
 able, however, that in far more advanced capi- 
 talist centers of England and the United 
 States, the proletariat never was in power even 
 for the duration of one day. To imagine that 
 there is an automatic dependence between a 
 dictatorship of the proletariat and the tech- 
 nical and productive resources of a country, 
 is to understand economic determinism in a 
 very primitive way. Such a conception would 
 have nothing to do with Marxism. 
 
 It is our opinion that the Russian revolution 
 creates conditions whereby political power can 
 (and, in case of a victorious revolution, must) 
 pass into the hands of the proletariat before 
 the politicians of the liberal bourgeoisie would 
 have occasion to give their political genius full 
 swing. 
 
 Summing up the results of the revolution 
 and counter-revolution in 1848 and 1849, Marx 
 wrote in his correspondences to the New York 
 Tribime: "The working class in Germany is, 
 in its social and political development, as far 
 behind that of England and France as the 
 German bourgeoisie is behind the bourgeoisie 
 of those countries. Like master, like man. The 
 evolution of the conditions of existence for a 
 numerous, strong, concentrated, and intelli- 
 
86 Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship 
 
 gent proletariat goes hand in hand with the 
 development of the conditions of existence for 
 a numerous, wealthy, concentrated and power- 
 ful middle class. \The working class move- 
 ment itself never is independent, never is of an 
 exclusively proletarian character until all the 
 different factions of the middle class, and par- 
 ticularly its most progressive faction, the large 
 manufacturers, have conquered political pow- 
 er, and remodeled the State according to their 
 wants. It is then that the inevitable conflict 
 between employer and the employed becomes 
 imminent, and cannot be adjourned any 
 longer."/ This quotation must be familiar 
 to the reader, as it has lately been very much 
 abused by scholastic Marxists. It has been 
 used as an iron-clad argument against the idea 
 of a labor government in Russia. If the Rus- 
 sian capitalistic bourgeoisie is not strong 
 enough to take governmental power into its 
 hands, how is it possible to think of an indus- 
 trial democracy, i.e., a political supremacy of 
 the proletariat, was the question. 
 
 Let us give this objection closer considera- 
 tion. 
 
 Marxism is primarily a method of analysis, 
 ^r-not the analysis of texts, but the analysis of 
 
 * Karl Marx, Germany m I848. (English edition, pp. 22-23.) 
 
Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship 87 
 
 social relations. Applied to Russia, is it true 
 that the weakness of capitalistic liberalism 
 means the weakness of the working class? Is 
 it true, not in the abstract, but in relation to 
 Russia, that an independent proletarian move- 
 ment is impossible before the bourgeoisie as- 
 sume political power? It is enough to formu- 
 late these questions in order to understand 
 what hopeless logical formalism there is hid- 
 den behind the attempt to turn Marx's his- 
 torically relative remark into a super-historic 
 maxim. 
 
 Our industrial development, though marked 
 in times of prosperity by leaps and bounds of 
 an "American" character, is in reality miser- 
 ably small in comparison with the industry of 
 the United States. Five million persons, form- 
 ing 16.6 per cent, of the population engaged in 
 economic pursuits, are employed in the indus- 
 tries of Russia; six millions and 22.2 per cent, 
 are the corresponding figures for the United 
 States. To have a clear idea as to the real di- 
 mensions of industry in both countries, we must 
 remember that the population of Russia is 
 twice as large as the population of the United 
 States, and that the output of American indus- 
 tries in 1900 amounted to 25 billions of rubles 
 
88 Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship 
 
 whereas the output of Russian industries for 
 the same year hardly reached 2.5 billions. 
 
 There is no doubt that the number of the 
 proletariat, the degree of its concentration, its 
 cultural level, and its political importance de- 
 pend upon the degree of industrial develop- 
 ment in each country. 
 
 This dependence, however, is not a direct 
 one. [Between the productive forces of a 
 country on one side and the political strength 
 of its social classes on the other, there is at any 
 given moment a current and cross current of 
 various socio-political factors of a national and 
 international character which modify and 
 sometimes completely reverse the political ex- 
 pression of economic relations. The industry 
 of the United States is far more advanced than 
 the industry of Russia, while the political role 
 of the Russian workingmen, their influence on 
 the political life of their country, the possibili- 
 ties of their influence on world politics in the 
 near future, are incomparably greater than 
 those of the American proletariat.") 
 
 In his recent work on the American work- 
 ingman, Kautsky arrives at the conclusion that 
 there is no immediate and direct dependence 
 between the political strength of the bourge- 
 iosie and the proletariat of a country on one 
 
Pfospects of a Labor Dictatorship, 89 
 
 hand and its industrial development on the 
 other. f'Here are two countries," he writes, 
 "diametrically opposed to each other: in one 
 of them, one of the elements of modern in- 
 dustry is developed out of proportion, i.e., out 
 of keeping with the stage of capitalistic de- 
 velopment; in the other, another; in America 
 it is the class of capitalists ; in Russia, the class 
 of labor. In America there is more ground 
 than elsewhere to speak of the dictatorship of 
 capital, while nowhere has labor gained as 
 much influence as in Russia, and this influ- 
 ence is bound to grow, as Russia has only re- 
 cently entered the period of modern class 
 struggle/ Kautsky then proceeds to state 
 that Germany can, to a certain degree, study 
 her future from the present conditions in Rus- 
 sia, then he continues : "It is strange to think 
 that it is the Russian proletariat which shows 
 us our future as far as, not the organization of 
 capital, but the protest of the working class 
 is concerned. Russia is the most backward of 
 all the great states of the capitalist world. 
 This may seem to be in contradiction with the 
 economic interpretation of history which con- 
 siders economic strength the basis of political 
 development. This is, however, not true. It 
 contradicts only that kind of economic inter- 
 
90 (Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship 
 
 pretation of history which is being painted by 
 our opponents and critics who see in it not a 
 method of analysis, but a ready pattern." * 
 These lines ought to be recommended to those 
 of our native Marxians who substitute for an 
 independent analysis of social relations a de- 
 duction from texts selected for all emergencies 
 of life. \£io one can compromise Marxism as 
 shamefully as these bureaucrats of Marxism do) 
 In Kautsky's estimation, Russia is character- 
 ized, economically, by a comparatively low lev- 
 el of capitalistic development ; politically, by a 
 weakness of the capitalistic bourgeoisie and by 
 a great strength of the working class. This 
 results in the fact, that ''the struggle for the 
 interests of Russia as a whole has become the 
 task of the only powerful class in Russia, in- 
 dustrial labor. This is the reason why labor 
 has gained such 1a tremendous political im- 
 portance. This is the reason why the struggle 
 of Russia against the polyp of absolutism 
 which is strangling the country, turned out to 
 be a single combat of absolutism against in- 
 dustrial labor, a combat where the peasantry 
 can lend considerable assistance without, how- 
 ever, being able to play a leading role.} - 
 
 * K. Kautsky, The American and the Russian Working-man. 
 t D. Mendeleyer, Russian Realities, 1906, p. 10. 
 
Prospects of a Labor Dictatorships 91 
 
 Are we not warranted in our conclusion that 
 the "man" will sooner gain political supremacy 
 in Russia than his "master"? 
 
 There are two sorts of political optimism. 
 One overestimates the advantages and the 
 strength of the revolution and strives towards 
 ends unattainable under given conditions. 
 The other consciously limits the task of the 
 revolution, drawing a line which the very logic 
 of the situation will compel him to overstep. 
 
 You can draw limits to all the problems of 
 the revolution by asserting that this is a bour- 
 geois revolution in its objective aims and in- 
 evitable results, and you can close your eyes to 
 the fact that the main figure in this revolution 
 is the working class which is being moved 
 towards political supremacy by the very course 
 of events. 
 
 You can reassure yourself by saying that in 
 the course of a bourgeois revolution the politi- 
 cal supremacy of the working class can be only 
 a passing episode, and you can forget that, once 
 in power, the working class will offer desperate 
 resistance, refusing to yield unless compelled 
 to do so by armed force. 
 
 You can reassure yourself by saying that so- 
 cial conditions in Russia are not yet ripe for 
 
92 Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship 
 
 a Socialist order, and you can overlook the fact 
 that, once master of the situation, the working 
 class would he compelled by the very logic of 
 its situation to organize national economy un- 
 der the management of the state. 
 
 The term bourgeois revolution, a general so- 
 ciological definition, gives no solution to the 
 numerous political and tactical problems, con- 
 tradictions and difficulties which are being 
 created by the mechanism of a given bourgeois 
 revolution. 
 
 Within the limits of a bourgeois revolution 
 at the end of the eighteenth century, whose ob- 
 jective was the political supremacy of capi- 
 tal, the dictatorship of the Sans-Culottes 
 turned out to be a fact. This dictatorship was 
 not a passing episode, it gave its stamp to a 
 whole century that followed the revolution, 
 though it was soon crushed by the limitations 
 of the revolution. 
 
 Within the limits of a revolution at the be- 
 ginning of the twentieth century, which is also 
 a bourgeois revolution in its immediate objec- 
 tive aims, there looms up a prospect of an in- 
 evitable, or at least possible, supremacy of the 
 working class in the near future. That this 
 supremacy should not turn out to be a passing 
 episode, as many a realistic Philistine may 
 
Prospects of a Labor DictatorsMpi 93 
 
 hope, is a task which the working class will have 
 at heart, vlt is, then, legitimate to ask: is it" 
 inevitable that the dictatorship of the prole- 
 tariat should clash against the limitations of a 
 bourgeois revolution and collapse, or is it not 
 possible that under given international con- 
 ditions it may open a way for an ultimate vie- ; 
 tory by crushing those very limitations?- 
 Hence a tactical problem: should we con- 
 sciously strive toward a labor government as 
 the development of the revolution will bring 
 us nearer to that stage, or should we look upon 
 political power as upon a calamity which the 
 bourgeois revolution is ready to inflict upon 
 the workingmen, and which it is best to avoid?) 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE PROLETARIAT IN POWER AND THE PEAS- 
 ANTRY 
 
 In case of a victorious revolution, political 
 power passes into the hands of the class that 
 has played in it a dominant role, in other 
 words, it passes into the hands of the working 
 class. Of course, revolutionary representatives 
 of non-proletarian social groups may not be 
 excluded from the government; sound politics 
 demands that the proletariat should call into 
 the government influential leaders of the lower 
 middle class, the intelligentzia and the peas- 
 ants. The problem is, Who will give substance 
 to the politics of the government, mho will 
 form in it a homogeneous majority? It is one 
 thing when the government contains a labor 
 majority, which representatives of other demo- 
 cratic groups of the people are allowed to join; 
 it is another, when the government has an out- 
 spoken bourgeois-democratic character where 
 labor representatives are allowed to partici- 
 
 94 
 
Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship, 95 
 
 pate in the capacity of more or less honorable 
 hostages. 
 
 The policies of the liberal capitalist bour- 
 geoisie, notwithstanding all their vacillations, 
 retreats and treacheries, are of a definite char- 
 acter. The policies of the proletariat are of a 
 still more definite, outspoken character. The 
 policies of the intelligentzia, however, a result 
 of intermediate social position and political 
 flexibility of this group; the politics of the 
 peasants, a result of the social heterogeneity, 
 intermediate position, and primitiveness of this 
 class ; the politics of the lower middle class, a 
 result of muddle-headedness, intermediate po- 
 sition and complete want of political traditions, 
 — can never be clear, determined, and firm. It 
 must necessarily be subject to unexpected 
 turns, to uncertainties and surprises. 
 
 To imagine a revolutionary democratic gov- 
 ernment without representatives of labor is to 
 see the absurdity of such a situation. A re- 
 fusal of labor to participate in a revolutionary 
 government would make the very existence of 
 that government impossible, and would be tan- 
 tamount to a betrayal of the cause of the revo- 
 lution. A participation of labor in a revolu- 
 tionary government, however, is admissible, 
 both fxQm the viewpoint of objective proba- 
 
96 Trospects of a Labor Dictatorship 
 
 bility and subjective desirability, only in the 
 rdle of a leading dominant power. Of course, 
 you can call such a government "dictatorship 
 of the proletariat and peasantry," "dictator- 
 ship of the proletariat, the peasantry, and 
 the intelligentzia," or "a revolutionary govern- 
 ment of the workingmen and the lower middle 
 class." This question will still remain: "Who 
 has the hegemony in the government and 
 through it in the country? When we speak of 
 a labor government we mean that the hege- 
 mony belongs to the working class. 
 
 The proletariat will be able to hold this posi- 
 tion under one condition: if it broadens the 
 Ibasis of the revolution. 
 
 fMany elements of the working masses, es- 
 pecially among the rural population, will be 
 drawn into the revolution and receive their po- 
 litical organization only after the first victo- 
 ries of the revolution, when the revolutionary 
 vanguard, the city proletariat, shall have 
 seized governmental power. / Under such con- 
 ditions, the work of propaganda and organiza- 
 tion will be conducted through state agencies. 
 Legislative work itself will become a powerful 
 means of revolutionizing the masses. The bur- 
 den thrust upon the shoulders of the working 
 class by the peculiarities of our social and his- 
 
Prospects of u Labor Dictatorship 97 
 
 torical development, the burden of completing 
 a bourgeois revolution by means of labor strug- 
 gle, will thus confront the proletariat with dif- 
 ficulties of enormous magnitude; on the other 
 hand, however, it will offer the working class, 
 at least in the first period, unusual opportu- 
 nities. This will be seen in the relations be- 
 tween the proletariat and the peasants. 
 
 In the revolutions of 1789-93, and 1848, gov- 
 ernmental power passed from absolutism into 
 the hands of the moderate bourgeois elements 
 which emancipated the peasants before revo- 
 lutionary democracy succeeded or even at- 
 tempted to get into power. The emancipated 
 peasantry then lost interest in the political 
 ventures of the "city-gentlemen," i.e., in the 
 further course of the revolution; it formed the 
 dead ballast of "order," the foundation of all 
 social "stability," betraying the revolution, sup- 
 porting a Cesarian or ultra-absolutist reaction. 
 
 The Russian revolution is opposed to a bour- 
 geois constitutional order which would be able 
 to solve the most primitive problems of democ- 
 racy. The Russian revolution will be against 
 it for a long period to come. Reformers of a 
 bureaucratic brand, such as Witte and Stoly- 
 pin, can do nothing for the peasants, as their 
 "enlightened" efforts are continually nullified 
 
98 Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship 
 
 by their own struggle for existence. The fate 
 of the most elementary interests of the peas- 
 antry — the entire peasantry as a class — is, 
 therefore, closely connected with the fate of 
 the revolution, i.e. with the fate of the prole- 
 tariat. 
 
 Once in power, the proletariat will appear 
 ,before the peasantry as its liberator. 
 
 Proletarian rule will mean not only demo- 
 cratic equality, free self-government, shifting 
 the burden of taxation on the propertied class- 
 es, dissolution of the army among the revo- 
 lutionary people, abolition of compulsory pay- 
 ments for the Church, but also recognition of 
 all revolutionary changes made by the peasants 
 in agrarian relations (seizures of land) . These 
 changes will be taken by the proletariat as a 
 starting point for further legislative measures 
 in agriculture. Under such conditions, the 
 Russian peasantry will be interested in uphold- 
 ing the proletarian rule ("labor democracy"), 
 at least in the first, most difficult period, not 
 less so than were the French peasants inter- 
 ested in upholding the military rule of Napo- 
 leon Boneparte who by force guaranteed to the 
 new owners the integrity of their land shares. 
 
 But is it not possible that the peasants will 
 
Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship^ 99 
 
 remove the workingmen from their positions i 
 and take their place? No, this can never hap- 
 pen. This would be in contradiction to all his- 
 torical experiences. (History has convincingly 
 shown that the peasantry is incapable of an in- 
 dependent political roleJ 
 
 \fhe history of capitalism is the history of_ 
 subordination of the village by the city^ In- 
 dustrial development had made the continua- 
 tion of feudal relations in agriculture impos- 
 sible. Yet the peasantry had not produced a 
 class which could live up to the revolutionary 
 task of destroying feudalism. It was the city 
 which made rural population dependent on 
 capital, and which produced revolutionary 
 forces to assume political hegemony over the 
 village, there to complete revolutionary 
 changes in civic and political relations. In the 
 course of further development, the village be- 
 comes completely enslaved by capital, and the 
 villagers by capitalistic political parties, which 
 revive feudalism in parliamentary politics, 
 making the peasantry their political domain, 
 the ground for their preelection huntings. 
 Modern peasantry is driven by the fiscal and 
 militaristic system of the state into the clutches 
 of usurers' capital, while state-clergy, state- 
 
100 Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship 
 
 schools and barrack depravity drive it into the 
 clutches of usurers' politics. 
 
 The Russian bourgeoisie yielded all revo- 
 lutionary positions to the Russian proletariat. 
 It will have to yield also the revolutionary he- 
 gemony over the peasants. Once the proleta- 
 riat becomes master of the situation, conditions 
 will impel the peasants to uphold the policies 
 of a labor democracy. They may do it with no 
 more political understanding than they uphold 
 a bourgeois regime. The difference is that 
 while each bourgeois party in possession of the 
 peasants' vote uses its power to rob the peas- 
 ants, to betray their confidence and to leave 
 their expectations unfulfilled, in the worst 
 case to give way to another capitalist party, 
 the working class, backed by the peasantry, 
 will put all forces into operation to raise the 
 cultural level of the village and to broaden the 
 .^political understanding of the peasants. 
 
 Our attitude towards the idea of a "dictator- 
 ship of the proletariat and the peasantry" is 
 now quite clear. It is not a question whether 
 we think it "admissible" or not, whether we 
 "wish" or we "do not wish" this form of polit- 
 ical cooperation. In our opinion, it simply 
 cannot be realized, at least in its direct mean- 
 ing. Such a cooperation presupposes that 
 
Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship 101 
 
 either the peasantry has identified itself with 
 one of the existing bourgeois parties, or it has 
 formed a powerful party of its own. Neither 
 is possible, as we have tried to point out. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 PROLETARIAN RULE 
 
 The proletariat can get into power only at 
 a moment of national upheaval, of sweeping 
 national enthusiasm. The proletariat assumes 
 power as a revolutionary representative of the 
 people, as a recognized leader in the fight 
 against absolutism and barbaric feudalism. 
 Having assumed power, however, the proleta- 
 riat will open a new era, an era of positive leg- 
 islation, of revolutionary politics, and this is 
 the point where its political supremacy as an 
 avowed spokesman of the nation may become 
 endangered. 
 
 \Fhe first measur es_of the_jjrr>l efe j,ria.t — the 
 cleansing of the Augean stables of the old re- 
 gime and the driving away of their inhabitants 
 — will find active support of the entire nation 
 whatever the liberal castraters may tell us of 
 the power of some prejudices among the 
 masses,/ The work of political cleansing will 
 be accompanied by democratic reorganization 
 
 102 
 
Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship 103 
 
 of all social and political relations. The labor 
 government, impelled by immediate needs and 
 requirements, will have to look into all kinds 
 of relations and activities among the people. 
 It will have to throw out of the army and the 
 administration all those who had stained their 
 hands with the blood of the people; it will have 
 to disband all the regiments that had polluted 
 themselves with crimes against the people. 
 This work will have to be done immediately, 
 long before the establishment of an elective re- 
 sponsible administration and before the organi- 
 zation of a popular militia. This, however, 
 will be only a beginning. Labor democracy 
 will soon be confronted by the problems of a 
 normal workda y, the agrarian relations and 
 unemployment. (The legislative solution of 
 those problems will show the class character of 
 the labor government^) It will tend to weaken 
 the revolutionary bond between the proletariat 
 and the nation; it will give the economic dif- 
 ferentiation among the peasants a political ex- 
 pression. Antagonism between the component 
 parts of the nation will grow step by step as 
 the policies of the labor government become 
 more outspoken, lose their general democratic 
 character and become class policies. 
 
 The lack of individuahstic bourgeois tradi- 
 
104 Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship 
 
 tions and anti-proletarian prejudices among 
 the peasants and the intelligentzia will help the 
 proletariat assume power. It must not be for- 
 gotten, however, that this lack of prejudices 
 is based not on political understanding, but on 
 political barbarism, on social shapelessness, 
 primitiveness, and lack of character. These 
 are all qualities which can hardly guarantee 
 support for an active, consistent proletarian 
 rule. 
 
 The abolition of the remnants of feudalism 
 in agrarian relations will be supported by all 
 the peasants who are now oppressed by the 
 landlords. A progressive income tax will be 
 supported by an overwhelming majority of the 
 peasants. "Yet, legislative measures in de- 
 fense of the rural proletariat (farm hands) will 
 nd no active support among the majority, 
 nd will meet with active opposition on the 
 art of a minority of the peasants. 
 The proletariat will be compelled to intro- 
 duce class struggle into the village and thu s 
 toj destroy that slight community of in terests 
 whic h_ undoubtedly unites the peas ants as a 
 .whole. In its next steps, the proletariat will 
 have to seek for support by helping the poor 
 villagers against the rich, the rural proletariat 
 against the agrarian bourgeoisie. This will 
 
Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship 105 
 
 alienate the majority of the peasants from la- 
 bor democracy. Relations between village and 
 city will become strained. The peasantry as 
 a whole will become politically indifferent. 
 The peasant minority will actively oppose pro- 
 letarian rule. This will influence part of the 
 intellectuals and the lower middle class of the 
 cities. 
 
 Two features of proletarian politics are 
 bound particularly to meet with the opposition 
 of labor's allies : Collectivism and Internation- 
 alism. The strong adherence of the peasants 
 to private ownership, the primitiveness of their 
 political conceptions, the limitations of the vil-/ 
 lage horizon, its distance from world-wide po-J 
 litical connections and interdependences, arel 
 terrific obstacles in the way of revolutionary/ 
 proletarian rule. 
 
 To imagine that Social-Democracy partici- 
 pates in the provisional government, playing 
 a leading role in the period of revolutionary 
 democratic reconstruction, insisting on the most 
 radical reforms and all the time enjoying the 
 aid and support of the organized proletariat, — 
 only to step aside when the democratic pro- 
 gram is put into operation, to leave the com- 
 pleted building at the disposal of the bour-j 
 geois parties and thus to open an era of parlia-1 
 
106 prospects of a Labor Dictatorship 
 
 mentary politics where Social-Democracy 
 forms only a party of opposition, — to imagine 
 this would mean to compromise the very idea 
 of a labor government. It is impossible to 
 imagine anything of the kind, not because it is 
 "against principles" — such abstract reasoning 
 is devoid of any substance — but because it is 
 
 (tot real, it is the worst kind of Utopianism, it 
 s the revolutionary Utopianism of Philistines. 
 / Our distinction between a minimu m a \\fl 
 maxj mum pro gram has a great and pro- 
 found meaning only under bourgeois rule. The 
 very fact of bourgeois rule eliminates from our 
 minimum program all demands incompat- 
 ible with private ownership of the means of 
 production. Those demands form the sub- 
 stance of a Socialist revolution, and they pre- 
 suppose a dictatorship of the proletariat. The 
 moment, however, a revolutionary government 
 is dominated by a Socialist majority, the dis- 
 tinction between minimum and maximum pro- 
 grams loses its meaning both as a question 
 of principle and as a practical policy. Under 
 no condition will a proletarian government be 
 able to keep within the limits of this distinc- 
 tion. 
 
 Let us take the case of an eight hour work- 
 day. It is a well established fact that an eight 
 
Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship^ 107 
 
 ijour~WQrkday does not contradict the capitals 
 ist order; it is, therefore, well within the limits 
 of the Social-Democratic minimum pro- 
 gram. Imagine, however, its realization in 
 a revolutionary period, when all social pas- 
 sions are at the boiling point. An eight hour 
 workday law would necessarily meet with stub- 
 born and organized opposition on the part of 
 the capitalists — let us say in the form of a 
 lock-out and closing down of factories and 
 plants. Hundreds of thousands of working- 
 men would be thrown into the streets. What 
 ought the revolutionary government to do? A 
 bourgeois government, however radical, would 
 never allow matters to go as far as that. It 
 would be powerless against the closing of fac- 
 tories and plants. It would be compelled to 
 make concessions. The eight hour workday 
 would not be put into operation; the revolts of 
 the workingmen would be put down by force 
 of arms. ... 
 
 /tinder the political domination of the pro- 
 letariat, the introduction of an eight hour work- 
 (day must have totally different consequences. 
 The closing down of factories and plants can- 
 not be the reason for increasing labor hours by 
 a government which represents not capital, but 
 labor, and which refuses to act as an "impar- 
 
108 {Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship 
 
 tial" mediator, the way bourgeois democracy 
 does. A l abor government would have o nly 
 one way out — to expropriate the closed ■ facto- 
 rie s and plants and to org-anize their work on a 
 public basis . 
 
 Or let us take another example. A prole- 
 letarian government must necessarily take de- 
 cisive steps to solve the problem of unemploy- 
 ment. Representatives of labor in a revolu- 
 tionary government can by no means meet the 
 demands of the unemployed by saying that this 
 is a bourgeois revolution. Once, however, the 
 state ventures to eliminate unemployment — 
 no matter how — a tremendous gain in the eco- 
 nomic power of the proletariat is accomplished. 
 The capitalists whose pressure on the working 
 class was based on the existence of a reserve 
 army of labor, will soon realize that they are 
 powerless economically. It will be the task of 
 the government to doom them also to political 
 oblivion. 
 
 Measures against unemployment mean also 
 measures to secure means of subsistence for 
 strikers. The government will have to under- 
 take them, if it is anxious not to undermine the 
 very foundation of its existence. Nothing will 
 remain for the capitalists but to declare a lock- 
 out, to close down factories and plants. Since 
 
Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship 109 
 
 capitalists can wait longer than labor in case 
 of interrupted production, nothing will remain 
 for a labor government but to meet a general 
 lock-out by expropriating the factories and 
 plants and by introducing in the biggest of 
 them state or communal production. ^ 
 
 In agriculture, similar problems will present] 
 themselves through the very fact of land-ex-/ 
 propriation. .We cannot imagine a proletarian/ 
 government expropriating large private es-l 
 tates with agricultural production on a large 
 scale, cutting them into pieces and selling them 
 to small owners. For it the only open way is 
 to organize in such estates cooperative produc- 
 tion under communal or state management.. 
 This, however, is the way of Socialism. __J 
 
 Social-Democracy can never assume power 
 under a double obligation: to put the entire 
 minimum program into operation for the 
 sake of the proletariat, and to keep strictly 
 within the limits of this program, for the 
 sake of the bourgeoisie. Such a double obli- 
 gation could never be fulfilled. Participating 
 in the government, not as powerless hostages, 
 but as a leading force, the representatives of 
 labor eo ipso break the line between the mini- 
 mum and maximum program. Collectivis m 
 becomes the order of the day. At which point 
 
110 \Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship 
 
 the proletariat will be stopped on its march in 
 this direction, depends upon the constellation 
 of forces, not upon the original purpose of the 
 proletarian Party. 
 
 It is, therefore, absurd to speak of a specific 
 character of proletarian dictatorship (or a dic- 
 tatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry) 
 within a bourgeois revolution, viz., a purely 
 democratic dictatorship. The working class 
 can never secure the democratic character of 
 its dictatorship without overstepping the lim- 
 its of its democratic program. Illusions to the 
 contrary may become a handicap. They would 
 compromise Social-Democracy from the start. 
 
 (pnce the proletariat assumes power, it will 
 fight for it to the end. One of the means to 
 secure and solidify its power will be propa- 
 ganda and organization, particularly in the vil- 
 lage; another means will be a policy of Col- 
 lectivism^ Collectivism is not only dictated by 
 the very position of the Social-Democratic 
 Party as the party in power, but it becomes im- 
 perative as a means to secure this position 
 through the active support of the working 
 class. 
 
 When our Socialist press first formulated the 
 idea of a Permanent Revolution which should 
 
Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship^ 111 
 
 i 
 
 lead from the liquidation of absolutism an3 
 civic bondage to a Socialist order through a 
 series of ever growing social conflicts, upris- 
 ings of ever new masses, unremitting attacks 
 of the proletariat on the political and economic 
 privileges of the governing classes, our "pro- 
 gressive" press started a unanimous indignant 
 uproar. Oh, they had suffered enough, those 
 gentlemen of the "progressive" press ; this nui- 
 sance, however, was too much. Revolution, 
 they said, is not a thing that can be made "le- 
 gal!" Extraordinary measures are allowable 
 only on extraordinary occasions. The aim of 
 the revolutionary movement, they asserted, was 
 not to make the revolution go on forever, but 
 to bring it as soon as possible into the chan- 
 nels of law, etc., etc. The more radical rep- 
 resentatives of the same democratic bourgeoi- 
 sie do not attempt to oppose the revolution 
 from the standpoint of completed constitution- 
 al "achievements": tame as they are, they un- 
 derstand how hopeless it is to fight the prole- 
 tariat revolution with the weapon of parlia- 
 mentary cretinism in advance of the establish- 
 ment of parliamentarism itself. They, there- 
 fore, choose another way. They forsake the 
 standpoint of law, but take the standpoint of 
 what they deem to be facts, — the standpoint of 
 
112 ^Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship 
 
 historic "possibilities," the standpoint of poli- 
 tical "realism," — even . . . even the stand- 
 point of "Marxism." It was Antonio, the 
 pious Venetian bourgeois, who made the strik- 
 ing observation: 
 
 Mark you this, Bassanio, 
 ■The devil can cite scriptures for his purpose. 
 
 Those gentlemen not only consider the idea 
 of labor government in Russia fantastic, but 
 they repudiate the very probability of a Social 
 revolution in Europe in the near historic 
 epoch. The necessary "prerequisites" are not 
 yet in existence, is their assertion. 
 
 Is it so? It is, of course, not our purpose to 
 set a time for a Social revolution. What we 
 attempt here is to put the Social revolution into 
 a proper historic perspective. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 PREREQUISITES TO SOCIALISM 
 
 Marxism turned Socialism into a science. 
 This does not prevent some "Marxians" from 
 turning Marxism into a Utopia. 
 
 Trotzky then proceeds to find logical flaws in the 
 arguments of N. Roshkov, a Russian Marxist, who 
 had made the assertion that Russia was not yet ripe 
 for Socialism, as her level of industrial technique and 
 the class-consciousness of her working masses were 
 not yet high enough to make Socialist production 
 and distribution possible. Then he goes back to 
 what he calls (" prerequisites to Socialism." which in 
 his opinion are: (1) development of industrial tech- 
 nique; (2) concentration of production; (3) social 
 consciousness of the masses. In order that Social- 
 ism become possible, he says, it is not necessary 
 that each of these prerequisites be developed to its 
 logically conceivable limit.") 
 
 All those processes (development of tech- 
 nique, concentration of production, growth of 
 
 113 
 
114 Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship 
 
 mass-consciousness) go on simultaneously, and 
 not only do they help and stimulate ea ch other , 
 h ut they also h am per~md, limit each othe r's 
 development . Each of theprocesses of a high- 
 er order presupposes the development of an- 
 other process of a lower order, yet the full de- 
 velopment of any of them is incompatible with 
 the full development of the others. 
 
 The logical limit of technical development is 
 undoubtedly a perfect automatic mechanism 
 which takes in raw materials from natural re- 
 sources and lays them down at the feet of men 
 as ready objects of consumption. Were not 
 capitalism limited by relations between classes 
 and by the consequences of those relations, the 
 class struggle, one would be warranted in his 
 assumption that industrial technique, having 
 approached the ideal of one great automatic 
 mechanism within the limits of capitalistic econ- 
 omy, eo ipso dismisses capitalism. 
 
 The concentration of production which is an 
 outgrowth of economic competition has an in- 
 herent tendency to throw the entire population 
 into the working class. Taking this tendency 
 apart from all the others, one would be war- 
 ranted in his assumption that capitalism would 
 ultimately turn the majority of the people into 
 a reserve army of paupers, lodged in prisons. 
 
Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship 115 
 
 This process, however, is being checked by rev- 
 olutionary changes which are inevitable under a 
 certain relationship between social forces. It 
 will be checked long before it has reached its 
 logical limit. ',<■ 
 
 And the same thing is true in relation to so- 
 cial mass-consciousness. This consciousness 
 undoubtedly grows with the experiences of 
 every day struggle and through the conscious 
 efforts of Socialist parties. Isolating this 
 process from all others, we can imagine it reach- 
 ing a stage where the overwhelming majority 
 of the people are encompassed by professional 
 and political organizations, united in a feeling 
 of solidarity and in identity of purpose. Were 
 this process allowed to grow quantitatively 
 without changing in quality, Socialism might 
 be established peacefully, through a unanimous 
 compact of the citizens of the twenty-first or 
 twenty-second Century. The historic pre- 
 requisites to Socialism, however, do not de- 
 velop in isolation from each other; they limit 
 each other; reaching a certain stage, which is 
 determined by many circumstances, but which 
 is very far from their mathematical limits, they 
 undergo a qualitative change, and in their com- 
 plex combination they produce what we call 
 a Social revolution. 
 
116 Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship 
 
 (Let us take the last mentioned process, the 
 growth of social mass-consciousness. This 
 growth takes place not in academies, hut in the 
 very life of modern capitalistic society, on the 
 basis of incessant class struggleij The growth 
 of proletarian class consciousness makes class 
 struggles undergo a transformation; it deep- 
 ens them; it puts a foundation of principle un- 
 der them, thus provoking a corresponding re- 
 action on the part of the governing classes. 
 Tbp struggle hptwppn proletariat and hourgeoi- 
 sie has i ts own logic; it must become more an d 
 more acu te and bring things to a climax long 
 be forethe time when concentration of produ c- 
 t ion has become predominant in economic life. 
 It is evident, further, that the growth of the 
 political consciousness of the proletariat is 
 closely related with its numerical strength; pro- 
 letarian dictatorship jpresupposes great num- 
 bers of workingmen, strong enough to over- 
 come the resistance of the bourgeois counter- 
 revolution. This., however, does not imply that 
 the overwhelming majority of the jgeojDle must 
 consist of proletarians, or that the overwhelm- 
 ing~1naJority of proletarians must consist of 
 convinced^ Socialists. Of course, the fighting 
 revolutionary army of the proletariat must by 
 all means be stronger than the fighting coun- 
 
Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship 117 
 
 ter-revolutionary army of capital; yet between 
 those two camps there may be a great number 
 of doubtful or indifferent elements who are 
 not actively helping the revolution, but are 
 rather inclined to desire its ultimate victory. 
 The proletarian policy must take all this into 
 account. 
 
 This is possible only where there is a he- 
 gemony of industry over agriculture, and a 
 hegemony of the city over the village. 
 
 Let us review the prerequisites to Socialism 
 JnJh&o rder of their diminishing gener ality a "A 
 increasing comple xity. 
 
 1. Socialism is not only a problem of equal 
 distribution, but also a problem of well organ- 
 ized production. ^Socialistic, i.e., cooperative 
 production on a large scale is possible only 
 where economic progress has gone so far as 
 to make a large undertaking more produc- 
 tive than a small one.y The greater the advan- 
 tages of a large undertaking over a small one, 
 i. e., the higher the industrial technique, the 
 greater must be the economic advantages of 
 socialized production, the higher, consequent- 
 ly, must be the cultural level of the people to 
 enable them to enjoy equal distribution based 
 on well organized production. 
 
 This first prerequisite of Socialism has been 
 
118 'Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship 
 
 in existence for many years. fEver since divi- 
 sion of labor has been established in manufac- 
 tories; ever since manufactories have been su- 
 perseded by factories employing a system of 
 machines, — large undertakings become more 
 and more profitable, and consequently their so- 
 cialization would make the people more pros- 
 perous. J There would have been no ga in in 
 making allThlriirl3sans T " shops common prop- 
 erJy_,orihe artisans; where as the seizure of a 
 manufactory "By~Ttsworkgrs, or the seizure of 
 
 a^actorybyTEshired employees, or th e seiz- 
 ure^of atTmeans of m odern productionTTy th e 
 people must necessRrJlyjmprovp t beir econom ic 
 con7E]i6ns7— IfreHg^^ 
 ess of economic ^conc^ixtr^tioj^iaj^ajiEanced. 
 
 AT^presenEi social division of labor on one 
 hand, machine production on the other have 
 reached a stage where the only cooperative 
 organization that can make adequate use of 
 the advatanges of collectivist economy, is the 
 State. It is hardly conceivable that Socialist 
 production would content itself with the area 
 of the state. Economic and political motives 
 would necessarily impel it to overstep the 
 boundaries of individual states. 
 
 The world has been in possession of technical 
 equipment for collective production — in one or 
 
rrospects of a Labor Dictatorship 119 
 
 another form — for the last hundred or two hun- 
 dred years. Technically, Socialism is profit- 
 able not only on a national, but also' to a large 
 extent on an international scale. \Why then 
 have all attempts at organizing Socialist com- 
 munities failed? Why has concentration of 
 production manifested its advantages all 
 through the eighteenth and nineteenth centur- 
 ies not in Socialistic, but in capitalistic forms? 
 The reason is that there was no social force 
 ready and able to introduce Socialism^ 
 
 2. Here we pass from the prerequisite of in- 
 dustrial technique to the socio-economicpTeTeq- 
 uisite, which is less general, but more com- 
 plex. Were our s ocietyjttot an_antagonistic 
 society composed of classes, but ajtiomogeneous 
 pjartnCTship of men consciously^electing_the 
 b est economic'syst em, aHmere~calculation as to 
 the advantages jof SociiJSiuwxHIHIiuffice to 
 makepeople start Socialisticj^construction. 
 TJiif "society, however, harbors in itself oppos- 
 ing interests. What is good for one class, is 
 bad for another. Class selfishness clashes 
 against class selfishness; class selfishness im- 
 pairs the interests of the whole. To make So- 
 cialism possible, a social power has to arise in 
 the midst of the antagonistic classes of capi- 
 talist society, a power objectively placed in a 
 
120 Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship 
 
 position to be interested in the establishment of 
 Socialism, at the same time strong enough to 
 overcome all opposing interests and hostile 
 resistance. It is one of the principal merits of 
 scientific Socialism to have discovered such a 
 social power in the person of the proletariat, 
 and to have shown that this class, growing with 
 the growth of capitalism, can find its salvation 
 only in Socialism; that it is being moved to- 
 wards Socialism by its very position, and that 
 the doctrine of Socialism in the presence of a 
 capitalist society must necessarily become the 
 ideology of the proletariat. 
 
 How far, then, must the social differentiation 
 have gone to warrant the assertion that the, sec- 
 ond prerequisite is an accomplished fact? In 
 other words, what must be the numerical 
 strength of the proletariat? Must it be one- 
 half, two-thirds, or nine-tenths of the people? 
 It is utterly futile to try and formulate this 
 second prerequisite of Socialism arithmetical- 
 ly. An attempt to express the strength of the 
 proletariat in mere numbers, besides being 
 schematic, would imply a series of difficulties. 
 Whom should we consider a proletarian? Is 
 the half-paupered peasant a proletarian? 
 Should we count with the proletariat those hosts 
 of the city reserve who, on one hand, fall into 
 
jrTospecis oj a L,abor Dictatorship^ 121 
 
 the ranks of the parasitic proletariat of beg- 
 gars and thieves, and, on the other hand, fill 
 the streets in the capacity of peddlers, i. e., of 
 parasites on the economic body as a whole? It 
 is not easy to answer these questions. 
 
 (The importance of the proletariat is based 
 not only on its numbers, but primarily on its 
 role in industry. The political supremacy of 
 the bourgeoisie is founded on economic power. 
 Before it manages to take over the authority of 
 the state, it concentrates in its hands the na- 
 tional means of production; hence its specific 
 weight.} The proletariat will possess no means 
 of production of its own before the Social revo- 
 lution. Its social power depends upon the cir- 
 cumstance that the means of production in 
 possession of the bourgeoisie can be put into 
 motion only by the hands of the proletariat. 
 From the bourgeois viewpoint, the proletariat 
 is also one of the means of production, forming, 
 in combination with the others, a unified mech- 
 anism. Yet the proletariat is the only non-au- 
 tomatic part of this mechanism, and can never 
 be made automatic, notwithstanding all ef- 
 forts. This puts the proletariat into a position 
 to be able to stop the functioning of the nation- 
 al economic body, partially or wholly — through 
 the medium of partial or general strikes. 
 
122 Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship 
 
 Hence _ it i&_evjdent_ that, th e num erical 
 strength of_the_ ^.roletar^Jteing equal , its_im- 
 portance is i._jprgportionaX^^J^j2..mass .oLihe 
 means of production it puts into motion i_ the 
 proletarian of .a big industrial concerjijcepre- 
 sents — other conditions^jng„egualz^:a_great- 
 ter_ social unit .than--aa--.ar-tiisan'^._ J e mp loyeet a 
 city workingman represents-a-greater-unit than 
 a proletarian of the. jdllage,. In other words, 
 thepolitical role of the proletariat is greater in 
 proportion as large industries predominate 
 over small industries, industry predominates 
 over agriculture, and the city over the village. 
 
 At a period in the history of Germany or 
 England when the proletariats of those coun- 
 tries formed the same percentage to the total 
 population as the proletariat in present day 
 Russia, they did not possess the same social 
 weight as the Russian proletariat of to-day. 
 They could not possess It,"BecaiiselEeir objec- 
 tive importance in economic life was compara- 
 tively smaller. The social weight of the cities 
 represents the same phenomenon. At a tim e 
 when the cit y population of Germany forme d 
 only i Tper cent, of the total nation, as is t he 
 c ase in present-d a y Russia, the German citi es 
 were far from equaling our ^cities, in jecpjjojnic 
 and political^ importance. The concentration 
 
Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship 123 
 
 of big indu stries and commercial enterprises 
 in the cities, and thTesTablishrifent oFc'Iolse r re- 
 lations between city and country through a 
 s y s tem of railways, has given the modern ci ties 
 a n imp ortance far e xceeding the mere volu me 
 of their p opulaffiorT Moreover, the growth of 
 their importance runs ahead of the growth of 
 their population, and the growth of the latter 
 runs ahead of the natural increase of the entire 
 population of the country. In 1848, the num- 
 ber of artisans, masters and their employees, in 
 Italy was 15 per cent, of the population, the 
 same as the percentage of the proletariat, in- 
 cluding artisans, in Russia of to-day. Their 
 importance, however, was far less than that of 
 the Russian industrial proletariat. 
 
 The question is not, how strong the prole- 
 tariat is numerically, but what is its position in 
 the general economy of a country. 
 
 The author then quotes figures showing the num- 
 bers of wage-earners and industrial proletarians 
 in Germany, Belgium and England: in Germany, in 
 1895, 12.5 millions proletarians; in Belgium 1.8 
 millions, or 60 per cent, of all the persons who make 
 a living independently; in England 12.5 millions. 
 
 In the leading European countries, city pop- 
 ulation numerically predominates over the ru- 
 
124 Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship 
 
 ral population. Infinitely greater is its pre- 
 dominance through the aggregate of means of 
 production represented by it, and through the 
 qualities of its human material. The city at- 
 tracts the most energetic, able and intelligent 
 elements of the country. 
 
 (Thus we arrive at the conclusion that eco- 
 nomic evolution — the growth of industry, the 
 growth of large enterprises, the growth of cit- 
 ies, the growth of the proletariat, especially the 
 growth of the industrial proletariat — have al- 
 ready prepared the arena not only for the 
 struggle of the proletariat for political power, 
 but also for the conquest of that power) 
 
 3. Here we approach the third prerequisite 
 to Socialism, the dictator s hip of the proletariat . 
 
 Politics is the plane where objective prereq- 
 uisites intersect with subjective. On the basis 
 of certain technical and socio-economic condi- 
 tions, a class puts before itself a definite task — 
 to seize power. In pursuing this task, it unites 
 its forces, it gauges the forces of the enemy, it 
 weighs the circumstances. Yet, not even here 
 is the proletariat absolutely free: besides sub- 
 jective moments, such as understanding, 
 readiness, initiative which have a logic of their 
 own, there are a number of objective mo- 
 ments interfering with the policies of the prole- 
 
Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship 125 
 
 tariat, such are the policies of the governing 
 classes, state institutions (the army, the class- 
 school, the state-church), international rela- 
 tions, etc. 
 
 Let us first turn our attention to the subjec- 
 tive moment; let us ask, Is the proletariat ready 
 for a Socialist change? It is not enough that 
 development of technique should make Social- 
 ist economy profitable from the viewpoint of 
 the productivity of national labor; it is not 
 enough that social differentiation, based on 
 technical progress, should create the prole- 
 tariat, as a class objectively interested in So- 
 cialism, ttt is of prime importance that this 
 class should understand its objective interests. 
 It is necessary that this class should see in So- 
 cialism the only way of its emancipation. It is 
 necessary that it should unite into an army 
 powerful enough to seize governmental power 
 in open combat^ 
 
 It would be a folly to deny the necessity for 
 the preparation of the proletariat. Only the 
 old Blanquists could stake their hopes in the 
 salutary initiative of an organization of con- 
 spirators formed independently of the masses. 
 Only their antipodes, the anarchists, could build 
 their system on a spontaneous elemental out- 
 burst of the masses whose results nobody can 
 
126 Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship 
 
 foresee. When Social-Democracy speaks of 
 seizing power, it thinks of a deliberate action 
 of a revolutionary class. 
 
 There are Socialists-ideologists (ideologists 
 in the wrong sense of the word, those who turn 
 all things upside down) who speak of prepar- 
 ing the proletariat for Socialism as a problem 
 of moral regeneration. The proletariat, they 
 say, and even "humanity" in general, must first 
 free itself from its old selfish nature ; altruistic 
 motives must first become predominant in social 
 life. As we are still very far from this ideal, 
 they contend, and as human nature changes 
 very slowly, Socialism appears to be a problem 
 of remote centuries. This view seems to be 
 very realistic, evolutionistic, etc. It is in real- 
 ity a conglomeration of hackneyed moralistic 
 considerations. 
 
 ) Those "ideologists" imagine that a Socialist 
 'psychology can be acquired before the estab- 
 lishment of Socialism; that in a world ruled by 
 capitalism the masses can be imbued with a So- 
 cialist psychology. Socialist psychology as 
 here conceived should not be identified with 
 Socialist aspirations. The former presupposes 
 the absence of selfish motives in economic re- 
 lations, while the latter are an outcome of the 
 class psychology of the proletariat. Class 
 
Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship 127 
 
 psychology, and Socialist psychology in a so- 
 ciety not split into classes, may have many! 
 common features, yet they differ widely. 
 
 Cooperation in the struggle of the prole- 
 tariat against exploitation has developed in 
 the soul of the workingmen beautiful sprouts 
 of idealism, brotherly solidarity, a spirit of self- 
 sacrifice. Yet those sprouts cannot grow and 
 blossom freely within capitalist society: indi- 
 vidual struggle for existence, the yawning 
 abyss of poverty, differentiations among the 
 workingmen themselves, the corrupting influ- 
 ence of the bourgeois parties, — all this inter- 
 feres with the growth of idealism among the 
 masses. 
 
 "*However, it is a fact that, while remaining, 
 selfish as any of the lower middle class, while 
 not exceeding the average representative of 
 the bourgeois classes by the "human" value of 
 his personality, the average workingman learns 
 in the school of fife's experience that(/ws most 
 primitive desires and most natural wants can 
 be satisfied only on the debris of the capitalist 
 order\ V 
 
 If Socialism should attempt to create a new 
 human nature within the limits of the old world, 
 it would be only a new edition of the old 
 .moralistic Utopias. The task of Socialism is 
 
128 Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship 
 
 not to create a Socialist psychology as a prereq^ 
 uisite to Socialism, but to create Socialist 
 conditions of human life as a prerequisite to a 
 Socialist psychology. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 A LABOR GOVERNMENT IN RUSSIA AND SOCIALISM 
 
 The objective prerequisites of a Social revo- 
 lution, as we have shown above, have been al- 
 ready created by the economic progress of ad- 
 vanced capitalist countries. But how about 
 Russia? Is it possible to think that the seizure 
 of power by the Russian proletariat would be 
 the beginning of a Socialist reconstruction of 
 our national economy? 
 
 A year ago we thus answered this question 
 in an article which was mercilessly bombarded 
 by the organs of both our factions. We wrote : 
 
 "The workingmen of Paris, says Marx, had 
 not expected miracles from the Commune. We 
 cannot expect miracles from a proletarian dic- 
 tatorship now. Governmental power is not al- 
 mighty. It is folly to think that once the pro- 
 letariat has seized power, it would abolish cap- 
 italism and introduce socialism by a number of 
 decrees. The economic system is not a product 
 of state activity. What the proletariat will 
 
 129 
 
130 Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship 
 
 be able to do is to shorten economic evolution 
 towards Collectivism through a series of ener- 
 getic state measures. 
 
 "The starting point will be the reforms 
 enumerated in our so-called rmmmuinjprogram. 
 The very situation of the proletariat, however, 
 will compel it to move along the way of col- 
 lectivist practice. 
 
 '(Jt will be comparatively easy to introduce 
 the eight hour workday and progressive tax- 
 ation, though even here the center of gravity is 
 not the issuance of a 'decree,' but the organiza- 
 tion of its practical application} It will be dif- 
 ficult, however, — and here we pass to Collectiv- 
 ism — to organize production under state man- 
 agement in such factories and plants as would 
 be closed down by their owners in protest 
 against the new law. 
 
 \It will be comparatively simple to issue a 
 law abolishing the right of inheritance, and to 
 put it into operation^ Inheritances in the form 
 of money capital will not embarrass the prole- 
 tariat and not interfere with its economy. To 
 be, however, the inheritor of capital invested in 
 land and industry, would mean for a labor gov- 
 ernment to organize economic life on a public 
 basis. 
 
 "The same phenomenon, on a vastly larger 
 
Prospects of a Labor Dictatorships 131 
 
 scale, is represented by the question of expro- 
 priation (of land), with or without compensa- 
 tion. Expropriation with compensation has 
 political advantages, but it is financially diffi- 
 cult; expropriation without compensation has 
 financial advantages, but it is difficult polit- 
 ically. Greater than all the other difficulties, 
 however, will be those of an economic nature, 
 the difficulties of organization. 
 
 "To repeat: a labor government does not 
 mea n a government"of m iracles. 
 
 "Public management will begin in those! 
 branches where the difficulties are smallest. \ 
 Publicly managed enterprises will originally 
 represent kind of oases linked with private en- 
 terprises by the laws of exchange of commodi- 
 ties. The wider the field of publicly managed 
 economy will grow, the more flagrant its ad- 
 vantages will become, the firmer will become 
 the position of the new political regime, and 
 the more determined will be the further eco- 
 nomic measures of the proletariat. Its meas- 
 ures it will base not only on the national pro- 
 ductive forces, but also on international tech- 
 nique, in the same way as it bases its revolu-l 
 tionary policies not only on the experience of < 
 national class relations but also on the entire 
 
132 \Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship 
 
 historic experience of the international prole- 
 tariat." 
 
 political supremacy of the proletariat is in- 
 compatible with its economic slavery)) What- 
 ever may be the banner under which the pro- 
 letariat will find itself in possession of power, 
 it will be compelled to enter the road of Social- 
 ism. It is the greatest Utopia to think that 
 the proletariat, brought to the top by the me- 
 chanics of a bourgeois revolution, would be 
 able, even if it wanted, to limit its mission by 
 creating a republican democratic environment 
 for the social supremacy of the bourgeoisie. 
 Political dominance of the proletariat, even if 
 it were temporary, would extremely weaken 
 the resistance of capital which is always in need 
 of state aid, and would give momentous oppor- 
 tunities to the economic struggle of the prole- 
 tariat. 
 
 A proleta rian regime will immediately take 
 up the agrarian^ueiitioa with3bich^£fate 
 oT vast millions of the Russian people is con - 
 nected. In solving this, as many another ques- 
 tion, the proletariat will have in mind the main 
 tendency of its economic policy: to get hold of 
 a widest possible field for the organization of a 
 Socialist economy. The forms and the tempo 
 of this policy in the agrarian question will be 
 
Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship 133 
 
 determined both by the material resources that 
 the proletariat will be able to get hold of, and 
 by the necessity to coordinate its actions so as 
 not to drive possible allies into the ranks of the 
 counter-revolution. 
 
 It is evident that the agrarian question, i.e., 
 the question of rural economy and its social re- 
 lations, is not covered by the land question 
 which is the question of the forms of land own- 
 ership. It is perfectly clear, however, that the 
 solution of the land question, even if it does 
 not determine the future of the agrarian evolu- 
 tion, would undoubtedly determine the future 
 agrarian policy of the proletariat. In other 
 words, t he use the proletariat will make of th e 
 land must, he. in accord with its general atti - 
 jtude towa rd s the course and requirement s_of 
 the agrarian evolu tion. T he land quest ionwill, 
 t herefore, be one of the first to interest the lab or 
 
 goyernmenjL- 
 
 One of the solutions, made popular by the 
 Socialist-Revolutionists, is the socialization of 
 the land. Freed from its European make-up, 
 it means simply "equal distribution" of land. 
 This program demands an expropriation of all 
 the land, whether it is in possession of land- 
 lords, of peasants on the basis of private 
 property, or it is owned by village communi- 
 
134 Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship 
 
 ties. It is evident that such expropriation, 
 being one of the first measures of the new gov- 
 ernment and being started at a time when cap- 
 italist exchange is still in full swing, would 
 lead the peasants to believe that they are "vic- 
 tims of the reform." /One must not forget that 
 the peasants have for decades made redemption 
 payments in order to turn their land into pri- 
 vate property; many prosperous peasants have 
 made great sacrifices to secure a large por- 
 tion of land as their private possession. 
 Should all this land become state property, 
 the most bitter resistance would be offered by 
 the members of the communities and by pri- 
 vate owners. Starting out with a reform of 
 this kind, the government would make itself 
 most unpopular among the peasants.*) 
 
 And why should one confiscate the land of 
 the communities and the land of small private 
 owners? (According to the Socialist-Revolu- 
 tionary program, the only use to be made of 
 the land by the state is to turn it over to all the 
 peasants and agricultural laborers on the basis 
 of equal distribution. This would mean th at 
 the confiseated_.]aad of the communitie s and 
 small owners wo uld anyway return to ind iyid- 
 uaTs~Tor priva te cultivatio n. Consequently, 
 th^e^ouidTDewo economic gain in such a con- 
 
jfrospects of a L,abor Dictatorship, 135 
 
 fiscation and redistribution. ~f i nlit.irn]ly J it 
 wouldbe a g reat-blunder on the_jiaj±-nf the 
 •~ M?6"f governm enjL&s it would mafrp the_masses 
 oTjp easants hostile to the p roletarian leadership 
 ofjhe_j£yolution. 
 
 Closely connected with this program is the 
 question of hired agricultural labor. Equal 
 distribution presupposes the prohibition of us- 
 ing hired labor on farms. This, however, can 
 be only a consequence of economic reforms, it 
 cannot be decreed by a law. It is not enough 
 to forbid an agricultural capitalist to hire la- 
 borers; one must first secure agricultural la- 
 borers a fair existence; furthermore, this ex- 
 istence must be profitable from the viewpoint 
 of social N economy. To declare equal distribu- 
 tion of land and to forbid hired labor, would 
 mean to compel agricultural proletarians to 
 settle on small lots, and to put the state under 
 obligation to provide them with implements for 
 their socially unprofitable production. J 
 / It is clear that the intervention of the prole- 
 ' tariat in the organization of agriculture ought 
 to express itself not in settling individual la- 
 borers on individual lots, but in organizing state 
 or c ommunal management of large estates. 
 Later, when socialized production will have 
 established itself firmly, a further step will be 
 
136 Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship 
 
 made towards socialization by forbidding hired 
 labor. This will eliminate small capitalistic 
 enterprises in agriculture; it will, however, 
 leave unmolested those private owners who 
 work their land wholly or to a great extent by 
 the labor of their families. To expropriate 
 such owners can by no means be a desire of the 
 Socialistic proletariat. 
 
 The proletariat can never indorse a program 
 of "equal distribution" which on one hand de- 
 mands a useless, purely formal expropriation 
 of small owners, and on the other hand it de- 
 mands a very real parceling of large estates 
 into small lots. This would be a wasteful un- 
 i dertaking, a pursuance of a reactionary and 
 | Utopian plan, and a political harm for the rev- 
 olutionary party. 
 
 How far, however, can the Socialist policy 
 of the working class advance in the economic 
 environment of Russia? One thing we can say 
 with perfect assurance: it will meet political 
 obstacles long before it will be checked by the 
 technical backwardness of the country. \Wiih- 
 out direct political aid from the European pro- 
 letariat the working class of Russia will not be 
 able to retain its power and to turn its tempo- 
 rary supremacy into a permanent Socialist die- 
 
irruspecis oj a l^aoor utciatorsMp 137 
 
 tutorship. We cannot doubt this for a moment. 
 On the other hand, there is no doubt that a 
 Socialist revolution in the West would allow us 
 to turn the temporary supremacy of the work- 
 ing class directly into a Socialist dictatorship. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 EUROPE AND THE REVOLUTION 
 
 In June, 1905, we wrote: 
 
 "More than half a century passed since 1848. 
 Half a century of unprecedented victories of 
 capitalism all over the world. Half a century 
 of "organic" mutual adaptation of the forces 
 of the bourgeois and the forces of feudal re- 
 action. Half a century in which the bour- 
 geoisie has manifested its mad appetite for 
 power and its readiness to fight for it madly! 
 
 "As a self-taught mechanic, in his search for 
 perpetual motion, meets ever new obstacles 
 and piles mechanism over mechanism to over- 
 come them, so the bourgeoisie has changed and 
 reconstructed the apparatus of its supremacy 
 avoiding 'supra-legal' conflicts with hostile 
 powers. And as the self-taught mechanic 
 finally clashes against the ultimate insurmount- 
 able obstacle, — the law of conservation of en- 
 ergy, — so the bourgeoisie had to clash against 
 the ultimate implacable barrier, — class antag- 
 onism, fraught with inevitable conflict. 
 
 138 
 
Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship 139 
 
 "Capitalism, forcing its economic system and 
 social relations on each and every country, has 
 turned the entire world into one economic and 
 political organism. As the effect of the mod- 
 ern credit system, with the invisible bonds it 
 draws between thousands of enterprises, with 
 the amazing mobility it lends to capital, has 
 been to eliminate local and partial crises, but 
 to give unusual momentum to general economic 
 convulsions, so the entire economic and polit- 
 ical work of capitalism, with its world com- 
 merce, with its system of monstrous foreign 
 debts, with its political groupings of states, 
 which have drawn all reactionary forces into 
 one world-wide co-partnership, has prevented 
 local political crises, but it has prepared a basis 
 for a social crisis of unheard of magnitude. 
 /Driving unhealthy processes inside, evading 
 difficulties, staving off the deep problems of 
 national and international politics, glossing 
 over all contradictions, the bourgeoisie has 
 postponed the climax, yet it has prepared a 
 radical world-wide liquidation of its power. It 
 has clung to all reactionary forces no matter 
 what their origin. It has jnade the Sultan not 
 the last of its friends. / It has not tied itself 
 on the Chinese ruler only because he had 
 no power: it was more profitable to rob his 
 
140 Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship 
 
 possessions than to keep him in the office of a 
 world gendarme and to pay him from the treas- 
 ury of the bourgeoisie. Thus the bourgeoisie 
 made the stability of its political system wholly 
 dependent upon the stability of the pre-capi- 
 talistic pillars of reaction. 
 
 "This gives events an international character 
 and opens a magnificent perspective; political 
 emancipation, headed by the working class of 
 Russia, will elevate its leader to a height un- 
 paralleled in history, it will give Russian prole- 
 tariat colossal power and make it the initiator 
 of world-wide liquidation of capitalism, to 
 which the objective prerequisites have been cre- 
 ated by history." 
 
 It is futile to guess how the Russian revolu- 
 tion will find its way to old capitalistic Europe. 
 This way may be a total surprise. To illus- 
 trate our thought rather than to predict events, 
 jwe shall mention Poland as the possible con- 
 necting link between the revolutionary East 
 and the revolutionary West. 
 
 The author pictures the consequences of a revolu- 
 tion in Poland. A revolution in Poland would neces- 
 sarily follow the victory of the revolution in Russia. 
 This, however, would throw revolutionary sparks 
 into the Polish 1 provinces of Germany and Austria. 
 
Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship^ 141 
 
 A revolution in Posen and Galicia would move the 
 Hohenzollerns and Hapsburgs to invade Poland. 
 fThis would be a sign for the proletariat of Germany 
 to get into a sharp conflict with their governments. 
 A revolution becomes inevitable. 
 
 A revolutionary Poland, however, is not the 
 only possible starting point for a European 
 revolution. The system of armed peace which 
 became predominant in Europe after the Fran- 
 co-Prussian war, was based on a system of Eu- 
 ropean equilibrium. This equilibrium took for 
 granted not only the integrity of Turkey, the 
 dismemberment of Poland, the preservation of 
 Austria, that ethnographic harlequin's robe, 
 but also the existence of Russian despotism 
 in the role of a gendarme of the European re- 
 action, armed to his teeth. The Russo-Jap- 
 anese war has given a mortal blow to this arti- 
 ficial system in which absolutism was the dom- 
 inant figure. For an indefinite period Russia 
 is out of the race as a first-class power. The 
 equilibrium has been destroyed. On the other 
 hand, the successes of Japan have incensed the 
 conquest instincts of the capitalistic bour- 
 geoisie, especially the Stock Exchange, which 
 plays a colossal role in modern politics. The 
 possibilities of a war on European territory 
 
142 Prospects of a Labor 'Dictatorship 
 
 have grown enormously. Conflicts are ripen- 
 ing here and there; so far they have heen set- 
 tled in a diplomatic way, but nothing can 
 guarantee the near future. \A European war, 
 however, means a European revolution^ 
 
 Even without the pressure of such events as 
 war or bankruptcy, a revolution may take place 
 in the near future in one of the European coun- 
 tries as a result of acute class struggles. .We 
 shall not make computations as to which coun- 
 try would be first to take the path of revolu- 
 tion; it is obvious, however, that class antag- 
 onisms have for the last years reached a high 
 degree of intensity in all the European coun- 
 tries. 
 
 The influence of the Russian revolution on 
 the proletariat of Europe is immense. Not 
 only does it destroy the Petersburg absolut- 
 ism, that main power of European reaction; it 
 also imbues the minds and the souls of the 
 European proletariat with revolutionary dar- 
 ing. 
 
 It is the purpose of every Socialist party to 
 revolutionize the minds of the working class 
 in the same way as development of capitalism 
 has revolutionized social relations. The work 
 of propaganda and organization among the 
 proletariat, however, has its own intrinsic iner- 
 
Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship 143 
 
 tia. The Socialist parties of Europe — in the 
 first place the most powerful of them, the Ger- 
 man Socialist party — have developed a con- 
 servatism of their own, which grows in propor- 
 tion as Socialism embraces ever larger masses 
 and organization and discipline increase. .S_o-' 
 eial-Democracy , personifying the political ex- 
 perience of the, proletariat, canJ fcJbej^foriZit a 
 certain juncture, become an immediate ob- 
 stacle on the way of an open proletarian con - 
 flict w it h the b o urgeois reactio n. In other 
 words, the propaganda-conservatism of a pro- 
 letarian party can, at a certain moment, im- 
 pede the direct struggle of the proletariat f or~ 
 power. The colossal influence of the Russian 
 revolution manifests itself in killing party rou- 
 tine, in destroying Socialist conservatism, in 
 making a clean contest of proletarian forces 
 against capitalist reaction a question of the 
 day. The struggle for universal suffrage in 
 Austria, Saxony and Prussia has become mojre 
 determined under the direct influence of the 
 October strike in Russia. An Eastern revolu- 
 tion imbues the Western proletariat with revo- 
 lutionary idealism and stimulates its desire to 
 speak "Russian" to its foes. 
 
 The Russian proletariat in power, even if 
 this were only the result of a passing combi- 
 
144 Prospects of a Labor Dictatorship 
 
 nation of forces in the Russian bourgeois rev- 
 olution, would meet organized opposition on 
 the part of the world's reaction, and readiness 
 for organized support on the part of the world's 
 proletariat. Left to its own resources, the 
 Russian working class must necessarily be 
 crushed the moment it loses the aid of the peas- 
 ants. Nothing remains for it but to link the 
 fate of its political supremacy and the fate 
 of the Russian revolution with the fate of a 
 Socialist revolution in Europe. All that mo- 
 mentous authority and political power which 
 is given to the proletariat by a combination of 
 forces in the Russian bourgeois revolution, it 
 will thrust on the scale of class struggle in the 
 entire capitalistic world. Equipped with gov- 
 ernmental power, having a counter-revolution 
 behind his back, having the European reaction 
 in front of him, the Russian workingman will 
 issue to all his brothers the world over his old 
 battle-cry which will now become the call for 
 the last attack: Proletarians of all the world; 
 unite! 
 
EXPLANATORY NOTES 
 
 The first Council of Workmen's Deputies was formed in 
 Petersburg, on October 13th, 1905, in the course of the great 
 general October strike that compelled Nicholas Romanoff to 
 promise a Constitution. It represented individual factories, 
 labor unions, and included also delegates from the Socialist 
 parties. It looked upon itself as the center of the revolution 
 and a nucleus of a revolutionary labor government. Similar 
 Councils sprung up in many other industrial centers. It was 
 arrested on December 3d, having existed for fifty days. Its 
 members were tried and sent to Siberia. 
 
 Intelligentzia is a term applied in Russia to an indefinite, 
 heterogeneous group of "intellectuals," who are not actively 
 and directly involved in the industrial machinery of capitalism, 
 and at the same time are not members of the working class. It 
 is customary to count among the Intelligentzia students, teach- 
 ers, writers, lawyers, physicians, college professors, etc. How- 
 ever, the term Intelligentzia implies also a certain degree of 
 idealism and radical aspirations. 
 
 Witte was the first prime-minister under the quasi-constitu- 
 tion granted on October 17th, 1905. Stotypin was appointed 
 prime minister after the dissolution of the first Duma in July, 
 1906. i 
 
 Under the mimkiwm program the Social-Democrats under- 
 stand all that range of reforms which can be obtained under 
 the existing capitalist system of "private ownership on the 
 means of production," such as an eight hour workday, social 
 insurance, universal suffrage, a republican order. The maai- 
 vrwwm program demands the abolition of private property and 
 public management of industries, i.e., Socialism. 
 
 "Some prejudices among the masses" referred to in this essay 
 is the alleged love of the primitive masses for their Tzar. This 
 was an argument usually put forth by the liberals against re- 
 publican aspirations. 
 
 Lower-Middle-Class is the only term half-way covering the 
 Russian "Mieshchanstvo" used by Trotzky. "Mieshchanstvo" 
 has a socio-economic meaning, and a flavor of moral disap- 
 proval. Socially and economically it means those numerous in- 
 habitants of modern cities who are engaged in independent 
 economic pursuits, as artisans (masters), shopkeepers, small 
 
 145 
 
146 prospects of a Labor Dictatorship 
 
 manufacturers, petty merchants, etc., who have not capital 
 enough to rank with the bourgeoisie. Morally "Mieshchanstvo" 
 presupposes a limited horizon, lack of definite revolutionary 
 or political ideas, and lack of political courage. 
 
 The Village community is a remnant of old times in Russia. 
 Up to 1906 the members of the village were not allowed to 
 divide the land of the community among the individual peas- 
 ants on the basis of private property. The land legally be- 
 longed to the entire community which allotted it to its mem- 
 bers. Since 1906 the compulsory character of communal land- 
 ownership was abandoned, yet in very great areas of Russia 
 it still remained the prevailing system of land-ownership. 
 
 Besides having a share in the community-land, the individual 
 peasant could acquire a piece of land out of his private means 
 (the seller being usually the landlord) and thus become a small 
 private owner. 
 
THE SOVIET AND THE REVOLU- 
 TION 
 
About two years after the arrest of the Soviet of 
 1905, a number of former leaders of that organiza- 
 tion, among them Chrustalyov Nossar, the first 
 chairman, and Trotzky, the second chairman, met 
 abroad after having escaped from Siberian exile. 
 They decided to sum up their Soviet experiences in 
 a book which they called The History of the Cov/rtr 
 cil of Worlevngmen's Deputies. The book appeared 
 in 1908 in Petersburg, and was immediately sup- 
 pressed. One of the essays of this book is here re- 
 printed. 
 
 In his estima ti on of the role of the Soviet Trotzk y 
 undoubtedly exaggerates. Only by a flight of imag- 
 ination can one see in the activities of the Soviet 
 regarding the postal, telegraph and railroad strik- 
 ers the beginnings of a Soviet control over post- 
 office, telegraph and railroads. It is also a serious 
 question whether the Soviet was really a leading 
 body, or whether it was led by the current of revolu- 
 tionary events which it was unable to control. 
 What makes this essay interesting and significant is 
 Trotzky's assertion that "the first new wave of the 
 revolution will lead to the creation of Soviets all 
 over the country." This has actually happened. 
 His predictions of the formation of an all-Russian 
 Soviet, and of the program the Soviets would fol- 
 low, have also been realized in the course of the 
 present revolution. 
 
 149 
 
THE SOVIET AND THE REVOLUTION 
 (Fifty Days) 
 
 The history of the Soviet is a history of fifty 
 days. The Soviet was constituted on October 
 13th ; its session was interrupted by a military 
 detachment of the government on December 
 3rd. Between those two dates the Soviet lived 
 and struggled. 
 
 What was the substance of this institution? 
 What enabled it in this short period to take 
 an honorable place in the history of the Rus- 
 sian proletariat, in the history of the Russian 
 Revolution? 
 
 The Soviet organized the masses, conducted 
 political strikes, led political demonstrations, 
 tried to arm the workingmen. But other rev- 
 olutionary organizations did the same things. 
 The substance of the Soviet was its effort to 
 become an organ of public authority. The 
 proletariat on one hand, the reactionary press 
 on the other, have called the Soviet "a labor 
 
 151 
 
152 The Soviet and the Revolution 
 
 government"; this only reflects the fact that 
 the Soviet was in reality an embryo of a revo- 
 lutionary government. In so far as the Soviet 
 was in actual possession of authoritative pow- 
 er, it made use of it; in so far as the power 
 was in the hands of the military and bureau- 
 cratic monarchy, the Soviet fought to obtain 
 it. (Prior to the Soviet, there had been revo- 
 lutionary organizations among the industrial 
 workingmen, mostly of a Social-Democratic 
 nature. But those were organizations among 
 the proletariat; their immediate aim was to in- 
 fluence the masses. The Soviet is an organiza- 
 tion of the proletariat; its aim is to fight for 
 revolutionary power\ 
 
 At the same time, the Soviet was an organ- 
 ized expression of the will of the proletariat 
 as a class. In its fight for power the Soviet 
 applied such methods as were naturally de- 
 termined by the character of the proletariat as 
 a class: its part in production; its numerical 
 strength; its social homogeneity. In its fight 
 for power the Soviet has combined the direction 
 of all the social activities of the working class, 
 including decisions as to conflicts between in- 
 dividual representatives of capital and labor. 
 This combination was by no means an artificial 
 tactical attempt: it was a natural consequence 
 
The Soviet and the Revolution 153 
 
 of the situation of a class which, consciously- 
 developing and broadening its fight for its im- 
 mediate interests, had been compelled by the 
 logic of events to assume a leading position in 
 the revolutionary struggle for power. 
 
 The main weapon of the Soviet was a po- 
 litical strike of the masses. The power of the 
 strike lies in disorganizing the power of the 
 government. The greater the "anarchy" cre- 
 ated by a strike, the nearer its victory. This 
 is true only where "anarchy" is not being cre- 
 ated by anarchic actions. The class that puts 
 into motion, day in and day out, the industrial 
 apparatus and the governmental apparatus; 
 the class that is able, by a sudden stoppage of 
 work, to paralyze both industry and govern- 
 ment, must be organized enough not to fall the 
 first victim of the very "anarchy" it has cre- 
 ated. The more effective th e disorganization 
 of ffnveTTTiTiprit parser! hy a_gtnWft J tTip.'inrinfR tbft 
 st rike organization is compelled to assume gov- 
 ernmental functions. 
 
 "The Council of Workmen's Delegates in- 
 troduces a free press. It organizes street 
 patrols to secure the safety of the citizens. It 
 takes over, to a greater or less extent, the post 
 office, the telegraph, and the railroads. It 
 makes an effort to introduce the eight hour 
 
154 The Soviet and the Revolution 
 
 workday. Paralyzing the autocratic govern- 
 ment by a strike, it brings its own democratic 
 order into the life of the working city popula- 
 tion. 
 
 After January 9th the revolution had 
 shown its power over the minds of the work- 
 ing masses. On June 14th, through the revolt 
 of the Potyomkin Tavritchesky it had shown 
 that it was able to become a material force. 
 In the October strike it had shown that it could 
 disorganize the enemy, paralyze his will and ut- 
 terly,Jiumiliate him.^JBy organizing Councils 
 jof Workmen's Deputies all over the country, 
 it showed that it was able to create authorita- 
 tive power. Revolutionary authority can be 
 based only on active revolutionary force. 
 jWhatever our view on the further development 
 jof the Russian revolution, it is a fact that so 
 [far no social class besides the proletariat has 
 i manifested readiness to uphold a revolutionary 
 i authoritative power. The first act of the revo- 
 lution was an encounter in the streets of the 
 > proletariat with the monarchy; the first seri- 
 j ous victory of the revolution was achieved 
 1 through the class-weapon of the proletariat, the 
 political strike; the first nucleus of a revolu- 
 
The Soviet and the Revolution 155 
 
 tionary government was a proletarian repre- 
 sentation. (The Soviet is the first democratic 
 power in modern Russian history. The 
 Soviet is the organized power of the masses 
 themselves over their component parts) This 
 is a true, unadulterated democracy, without a 
 two-chamber system, without a professional 
 bureaucracy, with the right of the voters to re- 
 call their deputy any moment and to substitute 
 another for him. Through its members, through 
 deputies elected by the workingmen, the Soviet 
 directs all the social activities of the proletariat 
 as a whole and of its various parts ; it outlines 
 the steps to be taken by the proletariat, it gives 
 them a slogan and a banner. This art of di- 
 recting the activities of the masses on the basis 
 of organized self-government, is here applied 
 for the first time on Russian soil. Absolut- 
 ism ruled the masses, but it did not direct 
 them. It put mechanical barriers against the 
 living creative forces of the masses, and within 
 those barriers it kept the restless elements of 
 the nation in an iron bond of oppression. The 
 only mass absolutism ever directed was the 
 army. But that was not directing, it was 
 merely commanding. In recent years, even the 
 directing of this atomized and hypnotized mili- 
 tary mass has been slipping out of the hands 
 
156 The Soviet and the Revolution 
 
 of absolutism. Liberalism never had power 
 enough to command the masses, or initiative 
 enough to direct them. Its attitude towards 
 mass-movements, even if they helped liberal- 
 ism directly, was the same as towards awe-in- 
 spiring natural phenomena — earthquakes or 
 volcanic eruptions. The proletariat appeared 
 on the battlefield of the revolution as a self- 
 reliant aggregate, totally independent from 
 bourgeois liberalism. 
 
 The Soviet was a dass-orgamization, this 
 was the source of its fighting power. It w as 
 crushed in the first_peripd of its ex istence not 
 by la ck qf_ confidence on the part of the ma ss- 
 es in the cities^ .buiLJby.JJie„jymitations. of. a 
 purely urbaii_r£volution, hy..the r elatively pas- 
 sive attitude_piLthe vill age, by the backwar d- 
 ness„of Jhe^easant_elemj!nt_pXthe_army. The 
 SoyjeVs.£ositipn among the ci ty populatio n 
 w£S3sjsJtojag_as__c^o^d bej.. 
 
 The Soviet was not an official representa- 
 tive of the entire half million of the working 
 population in the capital; its organization em- 
 braced about two hundred thousand, chiefly in- 
 dustrial workers ; and though its direct and in- 
 direct political influence was of a much wider 
 range, there were thousands and thousands of 
 proletarians (in the building trade, among do- 
 
The Soviet and the Revolution 157 
 
 mestic servants, day laborers, drivers)! who 
 were hardly, if at all, influenced by the Soviet. 
 There is no doubt, however, that the Soviet 
 represented the interests of all these proleta- 
 rian masses. There were but few adherents 
 of the Black Hundred in the factories, and 
 their number dwindled hour by hour. (The pro- 
 letarian masses of Petersburg were solidly be- 
 hind the Soviet. Among the numerous intel- 
 lectuals of Petersburg the Soviet had more 
 friends than enemies. Thousands of students 
 recognized the political leadership of the Soviet 
 and ardently supported it in its decisions. Pro- 
 fessional Petersburg was entirely on the side 
 of the Soviet, j The support by the Soviet of 
 the postal and telegraph strike won it the sym- 
 pathy of the lower governmental officials. All 
 the oppressed, all the unfortuna te^aJULhonesj; 
 elements of jbjgjatg^jJlJhflse jgho-jmei^striv'- 
 ing towards a better life, were/mst^t^^or 
 rripsmniisl y on the side jj the Soviet. The 
 Soviet was| actually or potentially a repre- 
 sentative of an overwhelming majority of the 
 population. Its enemies in the capital would 
 not have been dangerous had they not been 
 protected by absolutism, which based its power 
 on the most backward elements of an army re- 
 cruited from peasants. The weakness of the 
 
15$ The Soviet and the Revolution 
 
 Soviet was, not its own weakness, it was the 
 weakness of a purely urban revolution. 
 
 The fifty day period was the period of the 
 greatest power of the revolution. The Soviet 
 •was its organ in the fight for public authority. 
 The class character of the Soviet was deter- 
 mined by the class differentiation of the city 
 population and by the political antagonism be- 
 tween the proletariat and the capitalistic bour- 
 geoisie. This antagonism manifested itself even 
 in the historically limited field of a struggle 
 against absolutism. [After the October strike, 
 the capitalistic bourgeoisie consciously blocked 
 the progress of the revolution, the petty middle 
 class turned out to be a nonentity, incapable 
 of playing an independent role. TJie real lead - 
 er of the urban revol uti on was the proletariat. 
 Its class-organization was the organ of the rev- 
 olution in its struggle for power .^ 
 
 3 
 
 The struggle for power, for public authority 
 — this is the central aim of the revolution. The 
 fifty days of the Soviet's life and its bloody 
 finale have shown that urban Russia is too nar- 
 row a basis for such a struggle, and that even 
 within the limits of the urban revolution, a lo- 
 
The Soviet and the Revolution 159 
 
 cal organization cannot be the central leading 
 body. For a national task the proletariat re- 
 quired an organization on a national scale. The 
 Petersburg Soviet was a local organization, yet 
 the need of a central organization was so great 
 that it had to assume leadership on a national 
 scale. It did what it could, still it remained 
 primarily the Petersburg Council of Work- 
 men's Deputies. The urgency of an all-Rus- 
 sian labor congress which undoubtedly would 
 have had authority to form a central leading 
 organ, was emphasized even at the time of the 
 first Soviet. The) December collapse made 
 its realization impossible. The idea remained, 
 an inheritance of the Fifty Days. 
 
 The idea of a Soviet has become ingrained 
 in the consciousness of the workingmen as the 
 first prerequisite to revolutionary action of the 
 masses. Experience has shown that a Soviet is 
 not possible or desirable under all circum- 
 stances. The objective meaning of the Soviet 
 organization is to create conditions for disor- 
 ganizing the government, for "anarchy," in 
 other words for a revolutionary conflict. The 
 present lull in the revolutionary move- 
 ment, the mad triumph of reaction, make the 
 existence of an open, elective, authoritative 
 organization of the masses impossible. There 
 
160 ( The Soviet and the Revolution 
 
 is no doubt, however, that (the first new wave 
 of the revolution will lead to the creation of 
 Soviets all over the country/] An All-Russian 
 Soviet, organized by an All-Russian Labor 
 Congress, will assume leadership of the local 
 elective organizations of the proletariat. 
 Names, of course, are of no importance ; so are 
 details of organization; the main thing is: a 
 centralized democratic leadership in the strug- 
 gle of the proletariat for a popular govern- 
 ment. History does not repeat itself, and the 
 new Soviet will not have again to go through 
 the experience of the Fifty Days. These, how- 
 ever, will furnish it a completeprogram of 
 action. 
 
 This program is p erfectly c lear. 
 
 To esta!5Iis^ri?evolutionary cooperation with 
 the army, the peasantry, and the plebeian low- 
 er strata of the urban bourgeoisie. To abolish 
 absolutism. To destroy the material organiza- 
 tion of absolutism by reconstructing and part- 
 ly dismissing the army. To break up the entire 
 bureaucratic apparatus. To introduce an 
 eight hour workday. To arm the population, 
 starting with the proletariat. To turn the 
 Soviets into organs of revolutionary self-gov- 
 ernment in the cities. To create Councils of 
 Peasants* Delegates [(Peasants' Committees)] 
 
The Soviet and the Revolution 161 
 
 as local organs of the agrarian revolution. To 
 organize elections to the Constituent Assembly 
 and to conduct a preelection campaign for a 
 definite program on the part of the represen- 
 tatives of the people. 
 
 It is easier to formulate such a program than 
 to carry it through. If, however, the revolu- 
 tion will ever win, the proletariat cannot choose 
 another. The proletariat will unfold revolu- 
 tionary accomplishment such as the world has 
 never seen. The history of Fifty Days will 
 be only a poor page in the great book of the 
 proletariat's struggle and ultimate triumph. 
 
PREFACE TO MY BOUND TRIP 
 
*> Trotzky was never personal. The emotional side 
 of life seldom appears in his writings.if His is the 
 realm of social activities, social and political strug- 
 gles. His writings breathe logic, not sentiment, 
 facts, not poetry. ^The following preface to his 
 Rotund Trip is, perhaps, the only exception. It 
 speaks of the man Trotzky and his beliefs. Note his 
 confession of faith: ^"History is a tremendous 
 mechanism serving our ideals." . . .<C 
 
PREFACE TO MY ROUND TRIP 
 
 At the Stockholm Convention of the Social- 
 Democratic Party, some curious statistical 
 data was circulated, showing the conditions un- 
 der which the party of the proletariat was 
 working: 
 
 The Convention as a whole, in the person of 
 its 140 members, had spent in prison one hun- 
 dred and thirty-eight years and three and a 
 half months. 
 
 The Convention had been in exile one hun- 
 dred and forty-eight years and six and a half 
 months. 
 
 Escaped from prison: Once, eighteen mem- 
 bers of the Convention; twice, four members. 
 
 Escaped from exile: Once, twenty-three; 
 twice, five; three times, one member. 
 
 The length of time the Convention as a 
 whole had been active in Social-Democratic 
 work, was 942 years. It follows that the time 
 spent in prison and exile is about one-third of 
 the time a Social-Democrat is active. But 
 these figures are too optimistic. "The Conven- 
 es 
 
166 Preface to "My Bound Trip" 
 
 tion has been active in Social-Democratic work 
 for 942 years" — this means merely that the ac- 
 tivities of those persons had been spread over 
 so many years. Their actual period of work 
 must have been much shorter. Possibly all 
 these persons had worked, actually and direct- 
 ly, only one-sixth or one-tenth of the above 
 time. Such are conditions of underground ac- 
 tivity. On the other hand, the time spent in 
 prison and exile is real time: the Convention 
 had spent over fifty thousand days and nights 
 behind iron bars, and more than that in bar- 
 barous corners of the country. 
 
 Perhaps I may give, in addition to these fig- 
 ures, some facts about myself. The author of 
 these lines was arrested for the first time in 
 January, 1898, after working for ten months 
 in the workmen's circles of Nikolayev. He 
 spent two and a half years in prison, and 
 escaped from Siberia after living there two 
 years of his four years' exile. He was arrested 
 the second time on December 8rd, 1905, as a 
 member of the Petersburg Council of .Work- 
 men's Deputies. The Council had existed for 
 fifty days. The arrested members of the Sov- 
 iet each spent 400 days in prison, then they 
 were sent to Obdorsk "forever." . . . Each 
 Russian Social-Democrat who has worked in 
 
Preface to "My Ttoimd Trip" 167 
 
 his Party for ten years could give similar sta- 
 tistics about himself. 
 
 The political helter-skelter which exists in 
 Russia since October 17th and which the Gotha 
 Almanach has characterized with unconscious 
 humor as "A Constitutional Monarchy under 
 an absolute Tzar" has changed nothing in our 
 situation. This political order cannot recon- 
 cile itself with us, not even temporarily, as 
 it is organically incapable of admitting any 
 free activity of the masses. The simpletons 
 and hypocrites who urge us to "keep within 
 legal limits" remind one of Marie Antoinette 
 who recommended the starving peasants to eat 
 cake ! One would think we suffer from an or- 
 ganic aversion for cake, a kind of incurable dis- 
 ease ! One would think our lungs infected with 
 an irresistible desire to breathe the atmosphere 
 of the solitary dungeons in the Fortress of 
 Peter and Paul! One would think we have no 
 other use for those endless hours pulled out of 
 our lives by the jailers. 
 
 We love our underground just as little as a 
 drowning person loves the bottom of the sea. 
 Yet, we have as little choice, as, let us say di- 
 rectly, the absolutist order. Being fully aware 
 of this we can afford to be optimists even at a 
 time when the underground tightens its grip 
 
168 Preface to "My Boumd Trip" 
 
 around our necks with unrelenting grimness. 
 It will not choke us, we know it! We shall 
 survive ! When the bones of all the great deeds 
 which are being performed now by the princes 
 of the earth, their servants and the servants of 
 their servants will have turned to dust, when 
 nobody will know the graves of many present 
 parties with all their exploits — the Cause we 
 are serving will rule the world, and our Party, 
 now choking underground, will dissolve itself 
 into humanity, for the first time its own master. 
 
 History is a tremendous mechanism serving 
 our ideals. Its work is slow, barbarously 
 slow, implacably cruel, yet the work goes on. 
 We believe in it. Only at moments, when this 
 voracious monster drinks the living blood of 
 our hearts to serve it as food, we wish to shout 
 with all our might: 
 
 What thou dost,, do quickly! 
 Paris, April 8/21, 1907. 
 
THE LESSONS OF THE GREAT 
 YEAR 
 
This essay was published in a New York Russian 
 newspaper on January 20th, 1917, less than Jwo 
 months before the Seco nd Russian Revolution. 
 Trotzky then lived in New Yorfc The essay shows 
 how his contempt, even hatred, for the liberal parties 
 in Russia had grown since 1905-6. 
 
THE LESSONS OF THE GREAT YEAR 
 
 (January 9th, 1905— January 9th, 1917) 
 
 Revolutionary anniversaries are not only 
 days for reminiscence, they are days for sum- 
 ming up revolutionary experiences, especially 
 for us Russians. Our history has not been 
 rich. Our so-called "national originality" con- 
 sisted in being poor, ignorant, uncouth. It was 
 the revolution of 1905 that first opened before 
 us the great highway of political progress. On 
 January 9th the workingman of Petersburg 
 knocked at the gate of the Winter Palace. (On 
 January 9th the entire Russian people knocked 
 at the gate of history J 
 
 The crowned janitor did not respond to the 
 knock. Nine months later, however, on Oc- 
 tober 17th, he was compelled to open the heavy 
 gate of absolutism. Notwithstanding all the 
 efforts of bureaucracy, a little slit stayed open 
 — forever. 
 
 The revolution was defeated. The same old 
 forces and almost the same figures now rule 
 Russia that ruled her twelve years ago. Yet the 
 
 171 
 
172 The Lessons of the Great Year. 
 
 revolution has changed Russia beyond recog- 
 nition. (The kingdom of stagnation, servitude, 
 vodka and humbleness has become a kingdom 
 of fermentation, criticism, fight!) Where once 
 there was a shapeless dough — the impersonal, 
 formless people, "Holy Russia," — now social 
 classes consciously oppose each other, political 
 parties have sprung into existence, each with 
 its program and methods of struggle. 
 
 January 9th opens a new Russian history. 
 It is a line marked by the blood of the people. 
 There is no way back from this line to Asiatic 
 Russia, to the cursed practices of former gener- 
 ations. There is no way back. There will 
 never be. 
 
 Not the liberal bourgeoisie, not the demo- 
 cratic groups of the lower bourgeoisie, not the 
 radical intellectuals, not the millions of Rus- 
 sian peasants, but the Russian proletariat has 
 by its struggle started the new era in Russian 
 history. This is basic. On the foundation of 
 this fact we, Social-Democrats, have built our 
 conceptions and our tactics. 
 
 On January 9th it was the priest Gapon who 
 happened to be at the head of the Petersburg 
 workers, — a fantastic figure, a combination of 
 adventurer, hysterical enthusiast and impostor. 
 His priest's robe was the last link that then 
 
The Lessons of the Great Tear 173 
 
 connected the workingmen with the past, with 
 "Holy Russia." Nine months later, in the 
 course of the October strike, the greatest polit- 
 ical strike history has ever seen, there was at 
 the head of the Petersburg workingmen their 
 own elective self-governing organization — the 
 Council of Workmen's Deputies. It con- 
 tained many a workingman who had been on 
 Gapon's staff, — nine months of revolution had 
 made those men grow, as they made grow the 
 entire working class which the Soviet reprei 
 sented. 
 
 In the first period of the revolution, the ac- 
 tivities of the proletariat were met with sym- 
 pathy, even with support from liberal society. 
 The Milukovs hoped the proletariat would 
 punch absolutism and make it more inclined to 
 compromise with the bourgeoisie. Yet abso- 
 lutism, for centuries the only ruler of the peo- 
 ple, was in no haste to share its power with the 
 liberal parties. In October, 1905, the bour- 
 geoisie learned that it could not obtain power 
 before the back-bone of Tzarism was broken. 
 This blessed thing could, evidently, be accom- 
 plished only by a victorious revolution. But 
 the revolution put the working class in the 
 foreground, it united it and solidified it not 
 only in its struggle against Tzarism, but also 
 
174 1 The Lessons of the Great Year, 
 
 in its struggle against capital. (The result was 
 that each new revolutionary step of the prole- 
 tariat in October, November and December, 
 the time of the Soviet, moved the liberals mo re 
 anijjmnrp \j\ f}u* rlirff^fjo ji of the monarchy. T he 
 hopes for jrevoluti^^ 
 
 tfie~bourgeoisje and the proletariat turned out 
 a hopelii LUfopia. Those who had not seen it 
 then and had not understood it later, those 
 who still dream of a "national" uprising against 
 Tzarism, do not understand the revolution. 
 For them class struggle is a sealed book.jj 
 
 At the end of 1905 the question became 
 acute. The monarchy had learned by experi- 
 ence that the bourgeoisie would not support the 
 proletariat in a decisive battle. The monarchy 
 then decided to move against the proletariat 
 with all its forces. The bloody days of De- 
 cember followed. The Council of Workmen's 
 Deputies was arrested by the Ismailovski regi- 
 ment which remained loyal to Tzarism. The an- 
 swer of the proletariat was momentous: the 
 strike in Petersburg, the insurrection in Mos- 
 cow, the storm of revolutionary movements in 
 all industrial centers, the insurrection on the 
 Caucasas and in the Lettish provinces. 
 
 The revolutionary movement was crushed. 
 Many a poor "Socialist" readily concluded 
 
The Lessons of the Great Year 175 
 
 from our December defeats that a revolution in 
 Russia was impossible without the support of 
 the bourgeoisie. If this be true, it would only 
 mean that a revolution in Russia is impossible. 
 
 (Our upper in dustrial bourgeoisie, the only 
 class possessing actual"pb'wer3 separated from 
 the proletariat by an insurmountable barrier 
 of class hatred, and it needs the monarchy as 
 a pillar of order) The Gutchkovs, Krestov- 
 nikovs and Ryabushinskys cannot fail to see in 
 the proletariat their mortal foe. 
 
 four mi ddle and h ywer ind ustria L-aadJiim- 
 mercial bourgeoisie occupies a very insignifi- 
 cant place in the economic life of the country, 
 and is all entangled in the net of capital./ The 
 Milukovs, the leaders of the lower middle class, 
 are successful only in so far as they represent 
 the interests of the upper bourgeoisie. This 
 is why the Cadet leader called the revolution- 
 ary banner a "red rag"; this is why he de- 
 clared, after the beginning of the war, that if 
 a revolution were necessary to secure victory 
 over Germany, he would prefer no victory at 
 all. 
 
 QuKjp£a8 mt r y oc c u p i e s a tcemendoua-place 
 in Ru&sianJ^teu In 1905 it was shaken to its 
 deepest foundations. The peasants were driv- 
 ing out their masters, setting estates on fire, 
 
176 The Lessons of the Great Year 
 
 seizing the land from the landlords. Yes, the 
 curse of the peasantry is that it is scattered,, 
 disjointed, backward. Moreover, the inter- 
 ests of the various peasant groups do not co- 
 incide. The peasants arose and fought adroitly 
 against their local slave-holders, yet they 
 stopped in reverence before the all-Russian 
 slave-holder. The sons of the peasants in the 
 army did not understand that the workingmen 
 were shedding their blood not only for their 
 own sake, but also for the sake of the peasants. 
 The army was an obedient tool in the hands of 
 Tzarism. It crushed the labor revolution in 
 December, 1905. 
 
 Whoever thinks about the experiences of 
 1905, whoever draws a line from that year to 
 the present time, must see how utterly lifeless 
 and pitiful are the hopes of our Social-Patriots 
 for revolutionary cooperation between the pro- 
 letariat and the liberal bourgeoisie. 
 
 During the last twelve years big capital has 
 made great conquests in Russia. The middle 
 and lower bourgeoisie has become still more 
 dependent upon the banks and trusts. The 
 working class, which had grown in numbers 
 since 1905, is now separated from the bour- 
 geoisie by a deeper abyss than before. If a 
 "national" revolution was a failure twelve 
 
The Lessons of the Great Year 177 
 
 years ago, there is still less hope for it at pres- 
 ent. 
 
 I t is true in the last years that the cu ltural 
 a nd political level of the p ffaftaT^y h a g~ In- 
 c ome higher. However, there is less hope now 
 for a revoluti onary uprising of the peasantr y 
 as a whole than there was twelve years ago. 
 The only ally of t he urban prol etariat may be 
 the proletarian and half-proletarian strata _n£- 
 the village ^ 
 
 But, a skeptic may ask, is there then any 
 hope for a victorious revolution in Russia un- 
 der these circumstances? 
 
 \pne thing is clear — if a revolution comes, 
 it will not be a result of cooperation between 
 capital and labor.) The experiences of 1905 
 show that this is a miserable Utopia. To ac- 
 quaint himself with those experiences, to study 
 them is the duty of every thinking working- 
 man who is anxious to avoid tragic mistakes. 
 It is in this sense that we have said that revo- 
 lutionary anniversaries are not only days for 
 reminiscences, but also days for summing up 
 revolutionary experiences. 
 
Gutchkov, Ryabushinthy and Kre.stovniknv ate representa- 
 tives of big capital in Russia. Gutchkov is the leader of the 
 moderately liberal party of Octobrists. He was War Minister 
 in the first Cabinet after the overthrow of the Romanoffs. 
 
 J78 
 
ON THE EVE OF A REVOLUTION 
 
This essay was written on March, 13th, 1917, 
 when the first news of unrest in Petrograd had 
 reached New York. 
 
ON THE EVE OF A REVOLUTION 
 
 The streets of Petrograd again speak the 
 language of 1905. As in the time of the Russo- 
 Japanese war, the masses demand bread, peace, 
 and freedom. As in 1905, street cars are not 
 running and newspapers do not appear. The 
 workingmen let the steam out of the boilers, 
 they quit their benches and walk out into the 
 streets. The government mobilizes its Cos- 
 sacks. And as was in 1905, only those two 
 powers are facing each other in the streets — 
 the revolutionary workingmen and the army of 
 the Tzar. 
 
 The movement was provoked by lack of 
 bread. This, of course, is not an accidental 
 cause. In all the belligerent countries the lack 
 of bread is the most immediate, the most acuta 
 reason for dissatisfaction and indignation 
 among the masses. All the insanity of the war 
 is revealed to them from this angle: it is im- 
 possible to produce necessities of life because 
 one has to produce instruments of death. 
 
 However, the attempts of the Anglo-Rus- 
 
 181 
 
182 On the Eve of a Revolution 
 
 sian semi-official news agencies to explain the 
 movement by a temporary shortage in food, or 
 to snow storms that have delayed transporta- 
 tion, are one of the most ludicrous applications 
 of the policy of the ostrich. The workingmen 
 would not stop the factories, the street cars, the 
 print shops and walk into the streets to meet 
 Tzarism face to face on account of snow storms 
 which temporarily hamper the arrival of food- 
 stuffs. 
 
 People have a short memory. Many of our 
 own ranks have forgotten that the war found 
 Russia in a state of potent revolutionary fer- 
 ment. After the heavy stupor of 1908-1911, 
 the proletariat gradually healed its wounds in 
 the following years of industrial prosperity; 
 the slaughter of strikers on the Lena River in 
 April, 1912, awakened the revolutionary en- 
 ergy of the proletarian masses. A series of 
 strikes followed. In the year preceding the 
 world war, the wave of economic and political 
 strikes resembled that of 1905. When Poin- 
 care, the President of the French Republic, 
 came to Petersburg in the summer of 1904 
 (evidently to talk over with the Tzar how to 
 free the small and weak nations) the Russian 
 proletariat was in a stage of extraordinary rev- 
 olutionary tension, and the President of the 
 
un the Eve of a Revolution 183 
 
 French Republic could see with his own eyes 
 in the capital of his friend, the Tzar, how the 
 first barricades of the Second Russian Revo- 
 lution were being constructed. 
 
 The war checked the rising revolutionary 
 tide. We have witnessed a repetition of what 
 happened ten years before, in the Russo-Jap- 
 anese war. After the stormy strikes of 1903, 
 there had followed a year of almost unbroken 
 political silence — 1904 — the first year of the 
 war. It took the workingmen of Petersburg 
 twelve months to orientate themselves in the 
 war and to walk out into the streets with their 
 demands and protests. January 9th, 1905, was, 
 so to speak, the official beginning of our First 
 Revolution. 
 
 The present war is vaster than was the Rus- 
 so-Japanese war. Millions of soldiers have 
 been mobilized by the government for the "de- 
 fense of the Fatherland." The ranks of the 
 proletariat have thus been disorganized. On 
 the other hand, the more advanced elements of 
 the proletariat had to face and weigh in their 
 minds a number of questions of unheard of 
 magnitude. What is the cause of the war? 
 Shall the proletariat agree with the conception 
 of "the defense of the Fatherland"? What 
 
184 On the Eve of a Revolution 
 
 ought to be the tactics of the working-class in 
 war time? 
 
 In the meantime, the Tzarism and its allies, 
 the upper groups of the nobility and the bour- 
 geoisie, had during the war completely ex- 
 posed their true nature, — the nature of crim- 
 inal plunderers, blinded by limitless greed and 
 paralyzed by want of talent. The appetites 
 for conquest of the governing clique grew in 
 proportion as the people began to realize its 
 complete inability to cope with the most ele- 
 mentary problems of warfare, of industry and 
 supplies in war time. Simultaneously, the mis- 
 ery of the people grew, deepened, became more 
 and more acute, — a natural result of the war 
 multiplied by the criminal anarchy of the Ras- 
 putin Tzarism. 
 
 In the depths of the great masses, among 
 people who may have never been reached by a 
 word of propaganda, a profound bitterness ac- 
 cumulated under the stress of events. Mean- 
 time the foremost ranks of the proletariat were 
 finishing digesting the new events. The Social- 
 ist proletariat of Russia came to after the shock 
 of the nationalist fall of the most influential 
 part of the International, and decided that 
 new times call us not to let up, but to increase 
 our revolutionary struggle. 
 
Un the MSve of a Kevohdion 185 
 
 The present events in Petrograd and Mos- 
 cow are a result of this internal preparatory 
 work. 
 
 A disorganized, compromised, disjointed 
 government on top. An utterly demoralized 
 army. Dissatisfaction, uncertainty and fear 
 among the propertied classes. At the bot- 
 tom, among the masses, a deep bitterness. A 
 proletariat numerically stronger than ever, 
 hardened in the fire of events. All this war- 
 rants the statement that we are witnessing the 
 beginning of the Second Russian Revolution. 
 Let us hope that many of us will be its par- 
 ticipants, ' t 
 
TWO FACES 
 
TWO FACES 
 
 (Internal Forces of the Russian Revolution) 
 
 Let us examine more closely what is going 
 on. 
 
 Nicholas has been dethroned, and according 
 to some information, is under arrest. The 
 most conspicuous Black Hundred leaders have 
 been arrested. Some of the most hated have 
 been killed. A new Ministry has been formed 
 consisting of Octobrists, Liberals and the Rad- 
 ical Kerensky. A general amnesty has been 
 proclaimed. 
 
 All these are facts, big facts. These are 
 the facts that strike the outer world most. 
 Changes in the higher government give the 
 bourgeoisie of Europe and America an occa- 
 sion to say that the revolution has won and is 
 now completed. 
 
 The Tzar and his Black Hundred fought 
 for their power, for this alone. The war, the 
 imperialistic plans of the Russian bourgeoisie, 
 the interests of the Allies, were of minor im- 
 portance to the Tzar and his clique. They were 
 
 189 
 
190 Two Faces 
 
 ready at any moment to conclude peace with 
 the Hohenzollerns and Hapsburgs, to free their 
 most loyal regiment for war against their 
 own people. 
 
 The Progressive Bloc of the Duma mistrust- 
 ed the Tzar and his Ministers. This Bloc con- 
 sisted of various parties of the Russian bour- 
 geoisie. The Bloc had two aims: one, to con- 
 duct the war to a victorious end; another, to 
 secure internal reforms: more order, control, 
 accounting. A victory is necessary for the 
 Russian bourgeoisie to conquer markets, to in- 
 crease their territories, to get rich. Reforms 
 are necessary primarily to enable the Russian 
 bourgeoisie to win the war. 
 
 The progressive imperialistic Bloc wanted 
 peaceful reforms. The liberals intended to ex- 
 ert a Duma pressure on the monarchy and to 
 keep it in check with the aid of the govern- 
 ments of Great Britain and France. They 
 did not want a revolution. They knew 
 that a revolution, bringing the working 
 masses to the front, would be a menace to their 
 domination, and primarily a menace to their 
 imperialistic plans. The laboring masses, in 
 the cities and in the villages, and even in the 
 army itself, want peace. The liberals know 
 it. This is why they have been enemies of the 
 
Two Faces 191 
 
 revolution all these years. A few months ago 
 Milukov declared in the Duma: "If a revolu- 
 tion were necessary for victory, I would pre- 
 fer no victory at all." 
 
 Yet the liberals are now in power — through 
 the Revolution. The bourgeois newspaper 
 men see nothing but this fact. Milukov, al- 
 ready in his capacity as a Minister of For- 
 eign Affairs, has declared that the revolution 
 has been conducted in the name of a victory 
 over the enemy, and that the new government 
 has taken upon itself to continue the war to a 
 victorious end. The New York Stock Ex- 
 change interpreted the Revolution in this spe- 
 cific sense. There are clever people both on the 
 Stock Exchange and among the bourgeois 
 newspaper men. Yet they are all amazingly 
 stupid when they come to deal with mass-move- 
 ments. They think that Milukov manages the 
 revolution, in the same sense as they manage 
 their banks or news offices. They see only the 
 liberal governmental reflection of the unfold- 
 ing events, they notice only the foam on the 
 surface of the historical torrent. 
 
 The long pent-up dissatisfaction of the mass- 
 es has burst forth so late, in the thirty-second 
 month of the war, not because the masses were 
 held by police barriers — those barriers had been 
 
192 Two Faces 
 
 badly shattered during the war — but because 
 all liberal institutions and organs, together 
 with their Social-Patriotic shadows, were ex- 
 erting an enormous influence over the least 
 enlightened elements of the workingmen, urg- 
 ing them to keep order and discipline in the 
 name of "patriotism." Hungry women were 
 already walking out into the streets, and the 
 workingmen were getting ready to uphold 
 them by a general strike, while the liberal bour- 
 geoisie, according to news reports, still issued 
 proclamations and delivered speeches to check 
 the movement, — resembling that famous hero- 
 ine of Dickens who tried to stem the tide of 
 the ocean with a broom. 
 
 The movement, however, took its course, 
 from below, from the workingmen's quarters. 
 After hours and days of uncertainty, of shoot- 
 ing, of skirmishes, the army joined in the revo- 
 lution, from below, from the best of the soldier 
 masses. The old government was powerless, 
 paralyzed, annihilated. The Tzar fled from 
 the capital "to the front." The Black Hun- 
 dred bureaucrats crept, like cockroaches, each 
 into his corner. 
 
 Then, and only then, came the Duma's turn 
 to act. The Tzar had attempted in the last 
 minute to dissolve it. And the Duma would 
 
Two Faces 193 
 
 have obeyed, "following the example of for- 
 mer years," had it been free to adjourn. The 
 capitals, however, were already dominated by 
 the revolutionary people, the same people that 
 had walked out into the streets despite the 
 wishes of the liberal bourgeoisie. The army 
 was with the people. Had not the bourgeoisie 
 attempted to organize its own government, a 
 revolutionary government would have emerged 
 from the revolutionary working masses. The 
 Duma of June 3rd would never have dared to 
 seize the power from the hands of Tzarism. 
 But it did not want to miss the chance offered 
 by interregnum: the monarchy had disap- 
 peared, while a revolutionary government was 
 not yet formed. Contrary to all their part, 
 contrary to their own policies and against their 
 will, the liberals found themselves in posses- 
 sion of power. 
 
 Milukov now declares Russia will continue 
 the war "to the end." It is not easy for him 
 so to speak: he knows that his words are apt 
 to arouse the indignation of the masses against 
 the new government. Yet he had to speak 
 them — f or the sake of the London, Paris and — 
 American Stock Exchanges. It is quite pos- 
 sible that he cabled his declaration for foreign 
 
194 Two Faces 
 
 consumption only, and that he concealed it 
 from his own country. 
 
 Milukov knows very well that under given 
 conditions he cannot continue the war, crush 
 Germany j dismember Austria, occupy Con- 
 stantinople and Poland. 
 
 The masses have revolted, demanding bread 
 and peace. The appearance of a few liberals 
 at the head of the government has not fed the 
 hungry, has not healed the wounds of the peo- 
 ple. To satisfy the most urgent, the most acute 
 needs of the people, peace must be restored. 
 The liberal imperialistic Bloc does not dare 
 to speak of peace. They do not do it, first, 
 on account of the Allies. They do not do it, 
 further, because the liberal bourgeoisie is to 
 a great extent responsible before the people 
 for the present war. The Milukovs and 
 Gutchkovs, not less than the Romanoff cam- 
 arilla, have thrown the country into this mon- 
 strous imperialistic adventure. To stop the 
 war, to return to the ante-bellum misery would 
 mean that they have to account to the people 
 for this undertaking. The Milukovs and 
 Gutchkovs are afraid of the liquidation of the 
 war not less than they were afraid of the Revo- 
 lution. 
 
 This is their aspect in their new capacity, as 
 
Ttco Faces 195 
 
 the government of Russia. They are compelled 
 to continue the war, and they can have no hope 
 of victory; they are afraid of the people, and 
 people do not trust them. 
 
 This is how Karl Marx characterized a sim- 
 ilar situation: 
 
 "From the very beginning ready to betray 
 the people and to compromise with the crowned 
 representatives of the old regime, because the 
 bourgeoisie itself belongs to the old world; 
 . . . keeping a place at the steering wheel of 
 the revolution not because the people were back 
 of them, but because the people pushed them 
 forward; . . . having no faith in themselves, 
 no faith in the people; grumbling against those 
 above, trembling before those below; selfish 
 towards both fronts and aware of their selfish- 
 ness ; revolutionary in the face of conservatives, 
 and conservative in the face of revolutionists, 
 with no confidence in their own slogans and 
 with phrases instead of ideas; frightened by 
 the world's storm and exploiting the world's 
 storm, — vulgar through lack of originality, 
 and original only in vulgarity; making profit- 
 able business out of their own desires, with no 
 initiative, with no vocation for world-wide his- 
 toric work ... a cursed senile creature con- 
 demned to direct and abuse in his own senile 
 
196 Two Faces 
 
 interests the first youthful movements of a 
 powerful people, — a creature with no eyes, 
 with no ears, with no teeth, with nothing what- 
 ever, — this is how the Prussian bourgeoisie 
 stood at the steering wheel of the Prussian 
 state after the March revolution." 
 
 These words of the great master give a per- 
 fect picture of the Russian liberal bourgoisie, 
 as it stands at the steering wheel of the gov- 
 ernment after our March revolution. "With no 
 faith in themselves, with no faith in the people, 
 with no eyes, with no teeth." . . . This is 
 their political face. 
 
 Luckily for Russia and Europe, there is 
 another face to the Russian Revolution, a gen- 
 uine face: the cables have brought the news 
 that the Provisional Government is opposed by 
 a Workmen's Committee which has already 
 raised a voice of protest against the liberal at- 
 tempt to rob the Revolution and to deliver the 
 people to the monarchy. 
 
 Should the Russian Revolution stop to-day 
 as the representatives of liberalism advocate, 
 to-morrow the reaction of the Tzar, the nobil- 
 ity and the bureaucracy would gather power 
 and drive Milukov and Gutchkov from their 
 insecure ministerial trenches, as did the Prus- 
 sian reaction years ago with the representa- 
 
Two Faces 197 
 
 tives of Prussian liberalism. But the Russian 
 Revolution will not stop. Time will come, and 
 the Revolution will make a clean sweep of the 
 bourgeois liberals blocking its way, as it is 
 now making a clean sweep of the Tzarism re- 
 action. 
 
 (Published in New York on March 17, 1917.) 
 
June Third, 1907, was the day on which, after the dissolu- 
 tion of the First and Second Dumas, the Tzar's government, in 
 defiance of the Constitution, promulgated a new electoral law 
 which eliminated from the Russian quasi-Parliament large' 
 groups of democratic voters, thus securing a "tame" majority 
 obedient to the command of the government. To say "The 
 Duma of June Third" is equivalent to saying: "a Duma dom- 
 inated by representatives of rich land-owners and big business," 
 generally working hand in hand with autocracy, though pre- 
 tending to be representatives of the people. In the Duma of 
 June Third, the Octobrists and all parties to the right of them 
 were with the government, the Constitutional Democrats (Ca- 
 dets) and all parties to the left of them were in the opposi- 
 tion. 
 
 The Progressive Bloc was formed in the Duma in 1915. It 
 included a number of liberal and conservative factions, to- 
 gether with the Cadets, and was opposed to the government. 
 Its program was a Cabinet responsible to the Duma. 
 
 198 
 
THE GROWING CONFLICT 
 
THE GROWING CONFLICT 
 
 An open conflict between the forces of the 
 Revolution, headed by the city proletariat and 
 the anti-revolutionary liberal bourgeoisie tem- 
 porarily at the head of the government, is 
 more and more impending. It cannot be 
 avoided. Of course, the liberal bourgeoisie 
 and the quasi-Socialists of the vulgar type 
 will find a collection of very touching slogans 
 as to "national unity" against class divisions; 
 yet no one has ever succeeded in removing so- 
 cial contrasts by conjuring with words or in 
 checking the natural progress of revolutionary 
 struggle. 
 
 The internal history of unfolding events is 
 known to us only in fragments, through casual 
 remarks in the official telegrams. But even 
 now it is apparent that on two points the revo- 
 lutionary proletariat is bound to oppose the lib- 
 eral bourgeoisie with ever-growing determina- 
 tion. 
 
 The first conflict has already arisen around 
 the question of the form of government. The 
 
 201 
 
202 The Growing Conflict 
 
 Russian bourgeoisie needs a monarchy. In all 
 the countries pursuing an imperialistic policy, 
 we observe an unusual increase of personal 
 power. The policy of world usurpations, 
 secret treaties and open treachery requires in- 
 dependence from Parliamentary control and a 
 guarantee against changes in policies caused 
 by the change of Cabinets. Moreover, for the 
 propertied classes the monarchy is the most 
 secure ally in its struggle against the revolu- 
 tionary onslaught of the proletariat. 
 
 In Russia both these causes are more effec- 
 tive than elsewhere. The Russian bourgeoisie 
 finds it impossible to deny the people univer- 
 sal suffrage, well aware that this would arouse 
 opposition against the Provisional Govern- 
 ment among the masses, and give prevalence 
 to the left, the more determined wing of the 
 proletariat in the Revolution. Even that mon- 
 arch of the reserve, Michael Alexandrovitch, 
 understands that he cannot reach the throne 
 without having promised "universal, equal, di- 
 rect and secret suffrage." It is the more es- 
 sential for the bourgeoisie to create right now 
 a monarchic counterbalance against the deep- 
 est social-revolutionary demands of the work- 
 ing masses. Formally, in words, the bourgeoi- 
 sie has agreed to leave the question of a form 
 
The Growing Conflict 203 
 
 of government to the discretion of the Constit- 
 uent Assembly. Practically, however, the Oc- 
 tobrist-Cadet Provisional Government will 
 turn all the preparatory work for the Constit- 
 uent Assembly into a campaign in favor of a 
 monarchy against a Republic. The character 
 of the Constituent Assembly will largely de- 
 pend upon the character of those who convoke 
 it. It is evident, therefore, that right now the 
 revolutionary proletariat will have to set up its 
 own organs,, the Councils of WorMngmen's, 
 Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies, against the 
 executive organs of the Provisional Govern- 
 ment. In this struggle the proletariat ought to. 
 unite about itself the rising masses of the peo- 
 ple, with one aim in view — to seize government- 
 al power. Only a Revolutionary Labor Govern- 
 ment will have the desire and ability to give 
 the country a thorough democratic cleansing 
 during the work preparatory to the Constitu- 
 ent Assembly, to reconstruct the army from 
 top to bottom, to turn it into a revolutionary 
 militia and to show the poorer peasants in 
 practice that their only salvation is in a sup- 
 port of a revolutionary labor regime. A Con- 
 stituent Assembly convoked after such pre- 
 paratory work will truly reflect the revolution- 
 ary, creative forces of the country and become 
 
204 The Growing Conflict 
 
 a powerful factor in the further development 
 of the Revolution. 
 
 The second question that is bound to bring 
 the internationally inclined Socialist proleta- 
 riat in opposition to the imperialistic liberal 
 bourgeoisie, is the question of war and peace. 
 
 (Published in New York, March 19, 1917.) 
 
WAR OR PEACE? 
 
WAR OR PEACE? 
 
 The question of chief interest, now, to the 
 governments and the peoples of the world is, 
 What will be the influence of the Russian Rev- 
 olution on the .War? Will it bring peace near- 
 er? Or will the revolutionary enthusiasm of 
 the people swing towards a more vigorous 
 prosecution of the war? 
 
 This is a great question. On its solution de- 
 pends not only the outcome of the war, but 
 the fate of the Revolution itself. 
 
 In 1905, Milukov, the present militant Min- 
 ister of Foreign Affairs, called the Russo- 
 Japanese war an adventure and demanded its 
 immediate cessation. This was also the spirit 
 of the liberal and radical press. The strong- 
 est industrial organizations favored immediate 
 peace in spite of unequaled disasters. Why 
 was it so? Because they expected internal re- 
 forms. The establishment of a Constitutional 
 system, a parliamentary control over the bud- 
 get and the state finances, a better school sys- 
 tem and, especially, an increase in the land pos- 
 
 207 
 
208 War or Peace? 
 
 sessions of the peasants, would, they hoped, in- 
 crease the prosperity of the population and cre- 
 ate a vast internal market for Russian indus- 
 try. It is true that even then, twelve years 
 ago, the Russian bourgeoisie was ready to 
 usurp land belonging to others. It hoped, 
 however, that abolition of feudal relations in 
 the village would create a more powerful 
 market than the annexation of Manchuria or 
 Corea. 
 
 The democratization of the country and lib- 
 eration of the peasants, however, turned out to 
 be a slow process. Neither the Tzar, nor the 
 nobility, nor the bureaucracy were willing to 
 yield any of their prerogatives. Liberal ex- 
 hortations were not enough to make them give 
 up the machinery of the state and their land 
 possessions. A revolutionary onslaught of the 
 masses was required. This the bourgeoisie did 
 not want. The agrarian revolts of the peas- 
 ants, the ever growing struggle of the proleta- 
 riat and the spread of insurrections in the army 
 caused the liberal bourgeoisie to fall back into 
 the camp of the Tzarist bureaucracy and reac- 
 tionary nobility. Their alliance was sealed by 
 the coup d'etat of June 3rd, 1907. Out of this 
 coup a" Stat emerged the Third and the Fourth 
 Dumas. 
 
War or Peace? '209 
 
 The peasants received no land. The admin- 
 istrative system changed only in name, not in 
 substance. The development of an internal 
 market consisting of prosperous farmers, af- 
 ter the American fashion, did not take place. 
 The capitalist classes, reconciled with the 
 regime of June 3rd, turned their attention to 
 the usurpation of foreign markets. A new 
 era of Russian imperialism ensues, an imperial- 
 ism accompanied by a disorderly financial and 
 military system and by insatiable appetites. 
 Gutchkov, the present War Minister, was for- 
 merly a member of the Committee on National 
 Defense, helping to make the army and the 
 navy complete. Milukov, the present Minister 
 of Foreign Affairs, worked out a program of 
 world conquests which he advocated on his trips 
 to Europe. Russian imperialism and his Oc- 
 tobrist and Cadet representatives bear a great 
 part of the responsibility for the present war. 
 
 By the grace of the Revolution which they 
 had not wanted and which they had fought, 
 Gutchkov and Milukov are now in power. For 
 the continuation of the war, for victory? Of 
 course! They are the same persons who had 
 dragged the country into the war for the sake 
 of the interests of capital. All their opposi- 
 tion to Tzarism had its source in their unsatis- 
 
210 War or Peace? 
 
 fied imperialistic appetites. So long as the 
 clique of Nicholas II. was in power, the inter- 
 ests of the dynasty and of the reactionary no- 
 bility were prevailing in Russian foreign af- 
 fairs. This is why Berlin and Vienna had 
 hoped to conclude a separate peace with Rus- 
 sia. Now, purely imperialistic interests have 
 superseded the Tzarism interests; pure impe- 
 rialism is written on the banner of the Provi- 
 sional Government. "The government of the 
 Tzar is gone," the Milukovs and Gutchkovs 
 say to the people, "now you must shed your 
 blood for the common interests of the entire 
 nation." Those interests the imperialists un- 
 derstand as the reincorporation of Poland, the 
 conquest of Galicia, Constantinople, Armenia, 
 Persia. 
 
 This transition from an imperialism of the 
 dynasty and the nobility to an imperialism of 
 a purely bourgeois character, can never recon- 
 cile the Russian proletariat to the war. An 
 international struggle against the world 
 slaughter and imperialism are now our task 
 more than ever. The last despatches which 
 tell of an anti-militaristic propaganda in the 
 streets of Petrograd show that our comrades 
 are bravely doing their duty. 
 
 The imperialistic boasts of MUukov to crush 
 
War or Peace? ' 211 
 
 Germany, 'Austria and Turkey are the most 
 effective and most timely aid for the Hohen- 
 zollerns and Hapsburgs. . . . Milukov will 
 now serve as a scare-crow in their hands. The 
 liberal imperialistic government of Russia has 
 not yet started reform in its own army, yet it 
 is already helping the Hohenzollerns to raise 
 the patriotic spirit and to mend the shattered 
 "national unity" of the German people. Should 
 the German proletariat be given a right to 
 think that all the Russian people and the main 
 force of the Russian Revolution, the proleta- 
 riat, are behind the bourgeois government of 
 Russia, it would be a terrific blow to the men 
 of our trend of mind, the revolutionary Social- 
 ists of Germany. To turn the Russian prole- 
 tariat into patriotic cannon food in the serv- 
 ice of the Russian liberal bourgeoisie would 
 mean to throw the German working masses 
 into the camp of the chauvinists and for a long 
 time to halt the progress of a revolution in 
 Germany. 
 
 The prime duty of the revolutionary prole- 
 tariat in Russia is to show that there is no pow- 
 er behind the evil imperialistic will of the lib- 
 eral bourgeoisie. The Russian Revolution has 
 to show the entire world its real face. 
 
 The further progress of the revolutionary 
 
212 War or Peace? 
 
 struggle in Russia and the creation of a Rev- 
 olutionary Labor Government supported by 
 the people will be a mortal blow to the Hohen- 
 zoUerns because it will give a powerful stimu- 
 lus to the revolutionary movement of the Ger- 
 man proletariat and of the labor masses of all 
 the other countries. If the first Russian Revo- 
 lution of 1905 brought about revolutions in 
 Asia — in Persia, Turkey, China — the Second 
 Russian Revolution will be the beginning of a 
 powerful social-revolutionary struggle in 
 Europe. Only this struggle will bring real 
 peace to the blood-drenched world. 
 
 No, the Russian proletariat will not allow 
 itself to be harnessed to the chariot of Milu- 
 kov imperialism. The banner of Russian So- 
 cial-Democracy is now, more than ever before, 
 glowing with bright slogans of inflexible Inter- 
 nationalism: 
 
 Away with imperialistic robbers! 
 
 Long live a Revolutionary Labor Govern- 
 ment! 
 
 Long live Peace and the Brotherhood of Na- 
 tions! 
 
 (Published in New York, March 90, 1917.) 
 
TROTZKY ON THE PLATFORM IN 
 PETROGRAD 
 
TROTZKY ON THE PLATFORM IN 
 PETROGRAD 
 
 (From a Russian paper) 
 
 Trotzky, always Trotzky. 
 
 Since I had seen him the last time, he has 
 been advanced in rank: he has become the chair- 
 man of the Petrograd Soviet. He has suc- 
 ceeded Tchcheidze, the wise, sober leader who 
 has lost the confidence of the revolutionary 
 masses. He holds the place of Lenin, the rec- 
 ognized leader of the left wing of Social-De- 
 mocracy, whose absence from the capital is due 
 to external, accidental causes. 
 
 It seems to me that Trotzky has become more 
 nervous, more gloomy, and more restrained. 
 Something like a freezing chill emanates from 
 his deep and restless eyes; a cool, determined, 
 ironical smile plays around his mobile Jewish 
 lips, and there is a chill in his well-balanced, 
 clear-cut words which he throws into his audi- 
 ence with a peculiar calmness. 
 
 He seems almost lonesome on the platform. 
 Only a small group of followers applaud. The 
 
 215 
 
216 , Trotzky on the Platform 
 
 others protest against his words or cast angry, 
 restless glances at him. He is in a hostile gath- 
 ering. He is a stranger. Is he not also a 
 stranger to those who applaud him and in 
 whose name he speaks from this platform? 
 
 Calm and composed he looks at his adver- 
 saries, and you feel it is a peculiar joy for 
 him to see the rage, the fear, the excitement 
 his words provoke. He is a Mephisto who 
 throws words like bombs to create a war of 
 brothers at the bedside of their sick mother. 
 
 He knows in advance which words will have 
 the greatest effect, which would provoke the 
 most bitter resentment. And the more extreme, 
 the more painful his words are, the firmer and 
 stronger is his voice, the slower his speech, the 
 more challenging his tone. He speaks a sen- 
 tence, then he stops to wait till the storm is 
 over, then he repeats his assertion, with sharper 
 intonation and with more disdain in his tone. 
 Only his eyes become more nervous, and a 
 peculiar disquieting fire is blazing in them. 
 
 This time he does not speak; he reads a writi 
 ten declaration. He reads it with pauses, 
 sometimes accentuating the words, sometimes 
 passing over them quickly, but all the time he 
 is aware of the effect and waits for a response. 
 
Trotzky on the Platform 217, 
 
 His voice is the voice of a prophet, a 
 preacher: 
 
 "Petrograd is in danger! The Revolution 
 is in danger! The people are in danger!" . . . 
 
 He is a stranger on the platform, and yet — 
 electric currents flow from him to his sur-i 
 roundings, creating sincere though primitive 
 enthusiasm on one side, on the other anger and 
 spite. He opens vast perspectives before the 
 naive faithful masses : 
 
 "Long live an immediate, honest, democratic 
 peace!" 
 
 "All power to the Workmen's Councils! All 
 the land to the people!" 
 
INDEX 
 
 Absolutism, role of, in out- 
 growing economic basis, 69; 
 in promoting industry and 
 science, 69, 70; as an end 
 in itself, 70-71. 
 
 Agrarian question, 139-136. 
 
 Armament for the Revolu- 
 tion, 57-58. 
 
 Army, 35, 36, 37. 
 
 Bourgeoisie, imperialistic 
 
 plans of, 189-191; afraid 
 of peace, 194-5 ; reactionary, 
 203-4; responsible for the 
 war, 909-911. 
 
 Capitalism, preparing its own 
 collapse, l:W-9; and feudal 
 reaction, 139-140. 
 
 Cities, as scene of revolution- 
 ary battles, 41 ; social struc- 
 ture of, 71-79. 
 
 Class consciousness, of prole- 
 tariat, as prerequisite to 
 Socialism, 194-198. 
 
 Constituent Assembly, as a 
 revolutionary slogan, 43-44. 
 
 Demonstrations, in the streets, 
 41-49; to become of nation- 
 wide magnitude, 57. 
 
 French Revolution, 73-77. 
 
 Gapon, 59, 69; 179-3. 
 
 Intelligentsia, 145. 
 
 January Ninth, 49; 59-60; 
 171-173. 
 
 June Third, 198. 
 
 Labor Dictatorship, 94-97; 
 crushing absolutism, aban- 
 doning its remnants, 103- 
 104; introducing class poli- 
 tics, 103; introducing class 
 
 struggle in the village, 104- 
 105; introducing Collectiv- 
 ism and Internationalism, 
 105; abandoning distinction 
 between minimum and 
 maximum program, 106; 
 and eight hour workday, 
 106-108; and unemploy- 
 ment, 108-9; and agricul- 
 ture, 109; and Collectivism, 
 109-110; and class con- 
 sciousness, 194-198; incom- 
 patible with economic slav- 
 ery, 139; and agrarian 
 question, 139-136. 
 
 Liberalism, denying the ex- 
 istence of revolutionary 
 masses, 59-53; defeated by 
 events of January 9th, 54; 
 trying to "tame" revolu- 
 tionary people, 55; not re- 
 liable as partner in Revolu- 
 tion, 173-174; 176-7. 
 
 Manoeuvers, revolutionary, 
 99-30. 
 
 Masses, drawn into the Revo- 
 lution, 37-39; as a political 
 reality, 51-59; stirred by 
 world-war, 183-4. 
 
 Middle-class (see Bourgeoisie), 
 weakness of, in Russia, 71, 
 79. 
 
 Militia, 81-89. 
 
 "Osvoboshdenie," 59, 53, 69. 
 
 Peasantry, as of no signifi- 
 cance in Revolution, 175-7. 
 
 Poland, as possible revolu- 
 tionary link between Rus- 
 sia and Europe, 140-41. 
 
 219 
 
220 
 
 Index 
 
 Prerequisites to Socialism, in 
 relation to each other, 113- 
 117. 
 
 Proletariat, as a vanguard of 
 the Revolution, 83-35; rdle 
 of, in events of January 
 9th, 56-57; stronger than 
 bourgeoisie in Russia, 72; 
 growing with capitalism, 
 84; may sooner reach po- 
 litical supremacy in a back- 
 ward country 1 , 84,-85; 87-91; 
 as liberator of peasants, 98- 
 100; as a class objectively 
 opposed to capitalism, 119- 
 124; to revolutionize Euro- 
 pean proletariat, 142-4. 
 
 Revolution, in Europe, as aid 
 to Socialism in Russia, 136- 
 7; may be result of shat- 
 tered European equilib- 
 rium, 141-42; as result of 
 Russian Revolution, 142-4. 
 
 Revolution, in general, 83; of 
 bourgeois character, 92-93. 
 
 Revolution, of 1848, 77-80. 
 
 Revolution, of 1917, its 
 causes, 181-5; social forces 
 in, 191-192; to stir up revo- 
 lution in Germany, 212. 
 
 Social-Democracy, foresaw 
 revolution, 55-6; natural 
 
 leader of the Revolution, 
 60-61. 
 
 Soviet, distinguishing Russian 
 Revolution from that of 
 1848, 80; short history of, 
 145; general survey of the 
 r61e of, 151-4; as class- 
 organization, 154-156; as 
 organ of political author- 
 ity, 158-9; an imminent 
 form of Russian Revolu- 
 tion, 160; program of (out- 
 lined by Trotzky for the 
 future), 160-1; to fight 
 against Provisional Govern- 
 ment, 203. 
 
 "Spring," 24-25; 32; 54. 
 
 Strike, political, as beginning 
 of Revolution, 35-36; 42, 
 43. 
 
 Struve, 62. 
 
 Technique, industrial, as pre- 
 requisite to Socialism, 113; 
 117-119. 
 
 "Underground," and the revo- 
 lutionist, 165-8. 
 
 War, Russo-Japanese, 25; of 
 the world, as influencing 
 masses, 183-4. 
 
 Witte, 62, 145. 
 
 Zemstvo, movement of, in 
 1904, 24"2fi; 33; 62.