social life are derived from the relations of Society to production. Everyone knows that, but it is not sufficiently recognized that
thfdelef Man V he eV ' Ut f i0n I his - tor y is en ' irelv dependent on the development of means of production and that changes in the latter are conditioned by changes in technique."
It is appropriate to mention here the policy of the Soviets as regards religion, and, more especially, as regards the Orthodox Church, as its foundations are to be found in a profound con- trast of cultural conceptions. The matter is well illustrated in a paper contributed to The Octobrist Upheaval by Comrade N. Lukin (Antonov). He begins by ridiculing the notion that the separation of the Church from the State meant emancipation for the Church from secular control coupled with the right to accumu- late property and to influence public opinion on similar lines to those which obtain in Belgium. The revolution put religious associations on the same level as other common law associations, but deprived them of the right of holding property and of other privileges of juridical persons. As a natural consequence the Orthodox Church became one of the main instruments of counter-revolutionary agitation. The Council called together in Moscow did not attract any considerable attention on the part of workmen and peasants, but it was crowded with representa- tives of the old aristocracy, bureaucracy and counter-revolu- tionary " intelligentsia." The newly elected Patriarch Tikhon excommunicated the authors of the decree of disestablishment and the Council denounced it as an attack on the national faith and the religious institutions of Russia, not omitting to mention that the clergy was being deprived of the means of subsistence. In view of such an irreconcilable attitude the Soviet power is bound to wage a ruthless war against the Orthodox Church. It is armed against it by Clause 5 of the decree of Separation for- bidding all ecclesiastical ceremonies and acts directed against the Commonwealth. But it must not be forgotten that even apart from the conspiracies and direct risings, religion in general is an- tagonistic to the social conceptions of the new order. Even in its present state the Church is able to support ignorance among the mass of the people and to divert the proletariat from the struggle for an " earthly paradise " by making them dream about a " paradise in heaven." The example of France and of America shows that the clergy is preaching war against social democracy with no less fervour because it is deprived of those powerful means of influencing men's brains which are at its dis- posal in countries still maintaining State religions. In creating a new world the proletariat stands in need of a complete and harmonious scientific outlook.
Foreign and Home Policy. The Sixth Congress of Soviets met on Nov. 6 I9 i8. Nineteen hundred and fourteen delegates assem- bled m Moscow, of whom 829 were Communists; 71 had been registered as sympathizing with Communism, and 2 as Revolu- tionary Communists, while 6 were declared to belong to the Social Revolutionary party, i to the Maximalists, 3 to no party. The president Sverdlov expressed his firm conviction that distri- bution of seats corresponded fully and correctly to the interests wide masses of the working population of Russia." The debates were overshadowed by two main facts by the victory of the Western Allies and by the appalling food crisis.
Lenin, while admitting that the situation was extremely dangerous, because Communist Russia had to reckon henceforth not with two belligerents engaged in a struggle for existence but with the united front of the victorious Entente, thought it augured well for the progress of the world revolution:
'i i?w pl - ete victorv of a Socialist revolution," he said, " is unthinkable in any one country. It requires at least the cooperation U 3?k adva "? ed ^"ntries, and Russia is not one of then? This" s why the question as to the expansion of the revolution into other
of th'/n^ f ur S Kf CeSS '," r=P ulsin g imperialism becomes one of the principal problems of the Revolution. . . We must raise the proletariat of all countries."
He dwelt on the benefits conferred by the Brest Litovsk peace which gave Russia breathing-space and the possibility of recon- structing her army. Now the aim was to carry the contagion of the revolution into Central and Western Europe:
." We can see already how the fire has broken out in most coun- tries m America, in Germany, in England. ... The peace which
the rapacious imperialists of England and France are going to in- met on conquered Europe will be a more humiliating and crushing one than the treaty of Brest Litovsk, but this very peace will b! heir undoing because it will rouse the revolutionary feelings of the world proletariat. We are not living in Central Africa but in civilized countries in the twentieth century. They are raising a Chinese wall against Bolshevism, but Bolshevism will pass countries " SpTKld its infection among the working men of all
In unison with Lenin, the president, Sverdlov, declared that before six months had passed they would see Soviet rule tri- umphant not only in Hungary, in Germany, in Austria, but in France and Great Britain.
The problem of supplies was to be solved by expropriation in the villages. Zinoviev explained that the plan of raising the poor peasants against the well-to-do ones was being carried out ith energy and success. A Congress of the " poor folk " in Petrograd had been attended by 16,000 delegates; they had resolved to organize a special " poor folk " army consisting of two men from each village. In the Novgorod Government alone 2,000 poor folk " committees had been formed:
I,,- V he . ir Chi f f *T ' S to . dnve a ^dge into village life . . to kindle class struggle, to kindle the sacred hatred of the poor folk against the ncfi We say ... the 'tight-fists' must be
strangled as we said before: strangle the bourgeois in the towns. . We know perfectly well that we cannot carry out a proletarian revolutmn unless we crush the tight-fists ' in the villages^crush them in the economic and, if necessary, in the physical sense."
The Congress adopted a resolution in conformity with Zino- viev's proposal, the gist of which was that in order to get rid of strife and confusion produced by dualism in the villages it was necessary to assign to the " poor folk committees " instituted by the decree of July 1 1 1918, the superior authority and to carry out a reorganization of rural Soviets on the pattern of town Soviets turning them into true organs of Soviet power.
The seventh Congress met on Dec. 5 1919. Of the 1,109 dele- gates with power to vote, 890 were registered as Communists and 34 as belonging to no party. In the course of the Congress some representatives of the Social Revolutionaries and Mensheviks ,Dan, Martov and others) took part in the debates, declaring their adherence to the cause of the Socialist Republic under Soviet rule, but criticizing certain methods of Soviet administra- tion. The atmosphere of the Congress was dominated by the elated feelings produced by the victories over Kolchak and Demkin. They were extolled as triumphs over the Entente. Lenin admitted in his speech that the progress of the World Revolution had been slower and more complicated than had been expected, but he maintained that on the whole the previ- sions of the Bolsheviks had been justified by the course of events The miracle of the victory of helpless and backward Russia over the all-powerful Entente was traced by him to the instinctive sympathy of the working-classes of Great Britain, France and Italy towards their brothers in Russia. As a result of this feeling it was impossible for the Allies to expose their troops to a deci- sive conflict with the Red army; symptoms of fraternization had begun to appear in the ranks of the western soldiers and the Entente was obliged to withdraw them. The hope to combine the minor border states against Red Russia had also miscarried, and disillusionment had been brought by the collapse of the White Guards equipped by the " imperialistic wild beasts " of England whose greed and craving for world supremacy was worse than that of the Germans. Resolutions of the Soviet greeted the toil- ing masses in all countries, invited them to struggle against bourgeois Imperialism and declared the Peace of Versailles a shameless attempt to establish the domination of the Allies, to divide the world into conquerors and conquered, into great and small powers, without taking heed of self-determination.
Trotsky gave a glowing account of the victorious Red army. He described it as an exact reflection of the Soviet Republic. It was built up on the principle of class domination, the ruling class being that of town workmen:
" They form about 15-18 % of the army, but they lead it on ac- count ot their greater consciousness, their stronger solidarity the higher quality of their revolutionary mettle. The responsible posts >1 commissars are occupied almost exclusively by workers of the
