The Proletarian Revolution in Russia/Part 2/Chapter 3
III
INDUSTRIAL AND NATIONAL.
The proletarian party cannot expect to introduce at a stroke Socialism into a land of small farmers as long as the down-trodden majority of the population does not realize the necessity of a Socialist revolution.
It is only bourgeois sophists, however, juggling with pseudo-Marxist phrases, who can use that fact to justify a policy tending to put off immediate revolutionary measures, which were resorted to frequently in a practical way when the bourgeois governments went to war, for those measures were absolutely necessary to prevent total economic bankruptcy and famine.
Such measures as the nationalization of the land, of all the banks and financial syndicates, or at least their immediate regulation by the Council of Workers' Delegates, do not mean the "introduction" of Socialism, but they must be fought for, and as far as possible applied by revolutionary means. Without the adoption of such measures, which are mere steps toward Socialism, and which can all be enforced by economic action, it will be impossible to heal the wounds inflicted by the war and to prevent the threatening bankruptcy. The proletarian party cannot remain idle in the face of the scandalous profits reaped by capitalists and bankers out of the war.
[The Bolsheviki advocated workers' control over industry, functioning through Councils organized for the purpose. A practical expression of this policy was the seizure of factories by the workers and their management through shop-committees. This was made necessary by the fact that employers, in order to strike at the revolution, either closed down their factories or sabotagd production, thereby producing a terrific disorganization of the productive process. Out of this situation came the slogan, "Workers, seize the factories and operate them in conjunction with the technical staffs." The heavy taxation of profits, partial expropriation of private capitals and the repudiation of national debts, were other measures urged by the Balsheviki.—F.]
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When it comes to the question of nationalities, the proletarian party must at once grant full freedom to secede from Russia to all the races or nationalities which were driven into subjection by the Czars, forcibly annexed to Russia, or compelled to remain within the Russian Empire. Any statements, declarations or manifestoes to the effect that we renounce annexations, and which are not immediately followed by the granting of freedom to secede from Russia, is just bourgeois prattle calculated to deceive the people, or simply petty bourgeois sentimentalism.
The proletarian party is trying to build up as large a national unit as possible, for this is in the interest of the workers; it is trying to knit the nations closely together, but it does not intend to bring about that consummation by the use of force, but through the free, fraternal union of the laboring masses of all nationalities.
The more democratic the Russian republic will be, the more speedily it will organize itself into a republic of Councils of Workers and Peasants, the more powerful the force of attraction of such a republic will be for the laboring masses of all nations.
Full freedom of secession, the broadest local autonomy, full guarantees for the rights of minorities,—such is the program of the revolutionary proletariat.