There are two vital stages in the development of Socialism—the stage of its theory, and the stage of its practice.
The Communist Manifesto, roughly, marked the first stage. The Manifesto, supplemented by the general theoretical activity of Marx,, provided the proletariat with a theory of its historic mission, and developed the understanding of the conditions necessary for its emancipation. This was an epochal and revolutionary fact. The proletariat, a despised and lowly class, was conceived as a class socially the only necessary class, destined to overthrow Capitalism and realize the dream of the ages—social, economic and individual freedom. Itself an oppressed class, the proletariat, through the expression of its class interests, was to annihilate all oppression. The proletariat, through the theory of Socialism, was intellectually made equal to its historic mission—socially, economically and intellectually, the proletariat was a revolutionary class upon which history imposed a revolutionary mission. The actual practice of the movement, however, was conservative, a conservatism determined by the conditions under which it operated: Socialism was only intellectually an essentially revolutionary thing—in ultimate purpose, but not as yet in immediate practice. The genius of Marx, to be sure, projected a general conception of revolutionary practice; but this part of his ideas played only a secondary role in a movement dominated by conservative policy.
The proletarian revolution in Russia, as determined by the practice and program of the Bolsheviki, marks the second vital stage in the development of Socialism—the stage of its revolutionary practice. The epoch of Marx developed the theory of Socialism, the epoch of Lenin is developing its practice: and this is precisely the great fact in Russia—the fact of Socialism and the revolutionary proletariat in action. The left wing of the Socialism of yesterday becomes through the compulsion of events the Socialism of revolutionary action in the days to come. As Marx is the source of Socialist theory, so the proletarian revolution in Russia is the source of Socialist practice. Its uncompromising spirit, its sense of reality, its emphasis on the general mass action of the revolutionary proletariat, its realization of the deceptive character of the parliamentary regime and the necessity of annihilating that regime, its use of all means compatible with its purposes in the revolutionary struggle—all this and more marks the proletarian revolution in Russia as peculiary characteristic of the Social Revolution of the proletariat that will annihilate the rapacious regime of Capitalism and Imperialism.
