Our Revolution Part 5

CHAPTER VI

PROLETARIAN RULE

The proletariat can get into power only at a moment of national upheaval, of sweeping national enthusiasm. The proletariat a.s.sumes power as a revolutionary representative of the people, as a recognized leader in the fight against absolutism and barbaric feudalism. Having a.s.sumed power, however, the proletariat will open a new era, an era of positive legislation, of revolutionary politics, and this is the point where its political supremacy as an avowed spokesman of the nation may become endangered.

The first measures of the proletariat--the cleansing of the Augean stables of the old regime 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 ma.s.ses. The work of political cleansing will be accompanied by democratic reorganization 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 responsible administration and before the organization of a popular militia. This, however, will be only a beginning. Labor democracy will soon be confronted by the problems of a normal workday, the agrarian relations and unemployment.

The legislative solution of those problems will show the _cla.s.s character_ of the labor government. It will tend to weaken the revolutionary bond between the proletariat and the nation; it will give the economic differentiation among the peasants a political expression.

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 _cla.s.s policies_.

The lack of individualistic bourgeois traditions and anti-proletarian prejudices among the peasants and the intelligentzia will help the proletariat a.s.sume power. It must not be forgotten, 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 defense of the rural proletariat (farm hands) will find no active support among the majority, and will meet with active opposition on the part of a minority of the peasants.

The proletariat will be compelled to introduce cla.s.s struggle into the village and thus to destroy that slight community of interests which undoubtedly unites the peasants 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 alienate the majority of the peasants from labor democracy. Relations between village and city will become strained. The peasantry as a whole will become politically indifferent. The peasant minority will actively oppose proletarian rule. This will influence part of the intellectuals and the lower middle cla.s.s of the cities.

Two features of proletarian politics are bound particularly to meet with the opposition of labor's allies: _Collectivism_ and _Internationalism_.

The strong adherence of the peasants to private owners.h.i.+p, the primitiveness of their political conceptions, the limitations of the village horizon, its distance from world-wide political connections and interdependences, are terrific obstacles in the way of revolutionary proletarian rule.

To imagine that Social-Democracy partic.i.p.ates 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 program is put into operation, to leave the completed building at the disposal 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. 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 _not real_, it is the worst kind of Utopianism, it is the revolutionary Utopianism of Philistines.

Our distinction between a minimum and maximum program has a great and profound meaning only under bourgeois rule. The very fact of bourgeois rule eliminates from our minimum program all demands incompatible with private owners.h.i.+p of the means of production. Those demands form the substance of a Socialist revolution, and they presuppose a dictators.h.i.+p of the proletariat. The moment, however, a revolutionary government is dominated by a Socialist majority, the distinction between minimum and maximum programs 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 distinction._

Let us take the case of an eight hour workday. It is a well established fact that an eight hour workday does not contradict the capitalist order; it is, therefore, well within the limits of the Social-Democratic minimum program. Imagine, however, its realization in a revolutionary period, when all social pa.s.sions are at the boiling point. An eight hour workday law would necessarily meet with stubborn 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 workingmen 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 factories 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....

Under the political domination of the proletariat, the introduction of an eight hour workday must have totally different consequences. The closing down of factories and plants cannot be the reason for increasing labor hours by a government which represents not capital, but labor, and which refuses to act as an "impartial" mediator, the way bourgeois democracy does. A labor government would have only one way out--to expropriate the closed factories and plants and to organize their work on a public basis.

Or let us take another example. A proletarian government must necessarily take decisive steps to solve the problem of unemployment.

Representatives of labor in a revolutionary 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 economic power of the proletariat is accomplished. The capitalists whose pressure on the working cla.s.s 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 undertake 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 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-expropriation. We cannot imagine a proletarian government expropriating large private estates 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 production under communal or state management. This, however, _is the way of Socialism_.

Social-Democracy can never a.s.sume 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 obligation could never be fulfilled. Partic.i.p.ating in the government, not as powerless hostages, but as a leading force, the representatives of labor _eo ipso_ break the line between the minimum and maximum program. _Collectivism becomes the order of the day._ At which point 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 dictators.h.i.+p (or a dictators.h.i.+p of the proletariat _and_ the peasantry) within a bourgeois revolution, viz., a _purely democratic_ dictators.h.i.+p. The working cla.s.s can never secure the democratic character of its dictators.h.i.+p without overstepping the limits of its democratic program. Illusions to the contrary may become a handicap.

They would compromise Social-Democracy from the start.

Once the proletariat a.s.sumes power, it will fight for it to the end. One of the means to secure and solidify its power will be propaganda and organization, particularly in the village; another means will be a _policy of Collectivism_. Collectivism is not only dictated by the very position of the Social-Democratic Party as the party in power, but it becomes imperative as a means to secure this position through the active support of the working cla.s.s.

When our Socialist press first formulated the idea of a _Permanent Revolution_ which should lead from the liquidation of absolutism and civic bondage to a Socialist order through a series of ever growing social conflicts, uprisings of ever new ma.s.ses, unremitting attacks of the proletariat on the political and economic privileges of the governing cla.s.ses, our "progressive" press started a unanimous indignant uproar. Oh, they had suffered enough, those gentlemen of the "progressive" press; this nuisance, however, was too much. Revolution, they said, is not a thing that can be made "legal!" Extraordinary measures are allowable only on extraordinary occasions. The aim of the revolutionary movement, they a.s.serted, was not to make the revolution go on forever, but to bring it as soon as possible into the channels of _law_, etc., etc. The more radical representatives of the same democratic bourgeoisie do not attempt to oppose the revolution from the standpoint of completed const.i.tutional "achievements": tame as they are, they understand how hopeless it is to fight the proletariat revolution with the weapon of parliamentary cretinism _in advance_ of the establishment of parliamentarism itself. They, therefore, choose another way. They forsake the standpoint of law, but take the standpoint of what they deem to be facts,--the standpoint of historic "possibilities," the standpoint of political "realism,"--even ... even the standpoint of "Marxism." It was Antonio, the pious Venetian bourgeois, who made the striking observation:

Mark you this, Ba.s.sanio, 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 a.s.sertion.

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 a.s.sertion that Russia was not yet ripe for Socialism, as her level of industrial technique and the cla.s.s-consciousness of her working ma.s.ses 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 technique; (2) concentration of production; (3) social consciousness of the ma.s.ses.

In order that Socialism 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 technique, concentration of production, growth of ma.s.s-consciousness) go on simultaneously, and not only do they help and stimulate each other, but they also _hamper and limit_ each other's development. Each of the processes of a higher order presupposes the development of another process of a lower order, yet the full development 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 resources and lays them down at the feet of men as ready objects of consumption.

Were not capitalism limited by relations between cla.s.ses and by the consequences of those relations, the cla.s.s struggle, one would be warranted in his a.s.sumption that industrial technique, having approached the ideal of one great automatic mechanism within the limits of capitalistic economy, _eo ipso_ dismisses capitalism.

The concentration of production which is an outgrowth of economic compet.i.tion has an inherent tendency to throw the entire population into the working cla.s.s. Taking this tendency apart from all the others, one would be warranted in his a.s.sumption that capitalism would ultimately turn the majority of the people into a reserve army of paupers, lodged in prisons. This process, however, is being checked by revolutionary changes which are inevitable under a certain relations.h.i.+p between social forces. It will be checked long before it has reached its logical limit.

And the same thing is true in relation to social ma.s.s-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 reaching a stage where the overwhelming majority of the people are encompa.s.sed by professional and political organizations, united in a feeling of solidarity and in ident.i.ty of purpose. Were this process allowed to grow quant.i.tatively 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 prerequisites to Socialism, however, do not develop in isolation from each other; _they limit each other_; reaching a certain stage, which is determined by many circ.u.mstances, but which is very far from their mathematical limits, they undergo a qualitative change, and in their complex combination they produce what we call a Social revolution.

Let us take the last mentioned process, the growth of social ma.s.s-consciousness. This growth takes place not in academies, but in the very life of modern capitalistic society, on the basis of incessant cla.s.s struggle. The growth of proletarian cla.s.s consciousness makes cla.s.s struggles undergo a transformation; it deepens them; it puts a foundation of principle under them, thus provoking a corresponding reaction on the part of the governing cla.s.ses. The struggle between proletariat and bourgeoisie has its own logic; it must become more and more acute and bring things to a climax long before the time when concentration of production 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; proletarian dictators.h.i.+p presupposes great numbers of workingmen, strong enough to overcome the resistance of the bourgeois counter-revolution.

This, however, does not imply that the overwhelming majority of the people must consist of proletarians, or that the overwhelming majority 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 counter-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 hegemony of industry over agriculture, and a hegemony of the city over the village.

Let us review the prerequisites to Socialism in the order of their diminis.h.i.+ng generality and increasing complexity.

1. Socialism is not only a problem of equal distribution, but also a problem of well organized 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 productive than a small one. The greater the advantages 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, consequently, 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 in existence for many years. Ever since division of labor has been established in manufactories; ever since manufactories have been superseded by factories employing a system of machines,--large undertakings become more and more profitable, and consequently their socialization would make the people more prosperous. There would have been no gain in making all the artisans' shops common property of the artisans; whereas the seizure of a manufactory by its workers, or the seizure of a factory by its hired employees, or the seizure of all means of modern production by the people must necessarily improve their economic conditions,--the more so, the further the process of economic concentration has advanced.

At present, 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 advantages 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 another form--for the last hundred or two hundred years. _Technically_, Socialism is profitable not only on a national, but also to a large extent on an international scale. Why then have all attempts at organizing Socialist communities failed? Why has concentration of production manifested its advantages all through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries 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 pa.s.s from the prerequisite of industrial technique to the _socio-economic_ prerequisite, which is less general, but more complex.

Were our society not an antagonistic society composed of cla.s.ses, but a h.o.m.ogeneous partners.h.i.+p of men consciously selecting the best economic system, a mere calculation as to the advantages of Socialism would suffice to make people start Socialistic reconstruction. Our society, however, harbors in itself opposing interests. What is good for one cla.s.s, is bad for another. Cla.s.s selfishness clashes against cla.s.s selfishness; cla.s.s selfishness impairs the interests of the whole. To make Socialism possible, a social power has to arise in the midst of the antagonistic cla.s.ses of capitalist society, a power objectively placed in a 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 princ.i.p.al merits of scientific Socialism to have discovered such a social power in the person of the proletariat, and to have shown that this cla.s.s, growing with the growth of capitalism, can find its salvation only in Socialism; that it is being moved towards 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 a.s.sertion that the second 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 arithmetically. 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 the ranks of the parasitic proletariat of beggars 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 national means of production; hence its specific weight. The proletariat will possess no means of production of its own before the Social revolution.

Its social power depends upon the circ.u.mstance 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 mechanism. Yet the proletariat is the only non-automatic part of this mechanism, and can never be made automatic, notwithstanding all efforts. This puts the proletariat into a position to be able to stop the functioning of the national economic body, partially or wholly--through the medium of partial or general strikes.

Hence it is evident that, the numerical strength of the proletariat being equal, its importance is proportional to the ma.s.s of the means of production it puts into motion: the proletarian of a big industrial concern represents--other conditions being equal--a greater social unit than an artisan's employee; a city workingman represents a greater unit than a proletarian of the village. In other words, the political 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 countries 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, because their objective importance in economic life was comparatively smaller. The social weight of the cities represents the same phenomenon. At a time when the city population of Germany formed only 15 per cent. of the total nation, as is the case in present-day Russia, the German cities were far from equaling our cities in economic and political importance. The concentration of big industries and commercial enterprises in the cities, and the establishment of closer relations between city and country through a system of railways, has given the modern cities an importance far exceeding the mere volume of their population. 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 number of artisans, masters and their employees, in Italy was 15 per cent. of the population, the same as the percentage of the proletariat, including artisans, in Russia of to-day. Their importance, however, was far less than that of the Russian industrial proletariat.