The Proletarian Revolution in Russia/Part 7/Chapter 5
V
THE OLD ORDER AND THE NEW
The Socialist character of the Soviet democracy—that is, of proletarian democracy in its concrete particular application—consists, firstly, in this: that the electorate comprises the toiling and exploited masses,—that the bourgeoisie is excluded. Secondly, in this: that all bureaucratic formalities and limitations of elections are done away with,—that the masses themselves determine the order and the time of elections with complete freedom of recall. Thirdly, that the best possible mass organization of the vanguard of the toilers,—of the industrial proletariat,—is formed, enabling it to direct the exploited masses, to attract them to active participation in political life, to train them politically through their own experiences, that in this way a beginning is made for the first time to get actually the whole population to learn how to manage and to begin managing.
Such are the principle distinctive features of the democracy which is being tried in Russia, and which is a higher type of democracy, which breaks away from its bourgeois distortion, and which is a transition to Socialist democracy and to conditions which will mean the beginning of the end of the state.
Of course, the elemental petty bourgeois disorganization (which will inevitably manifest itself in one or another degree during every proletarian revolution, and which in our Revolution, on account of the petty bourgeois character of the country, its backwardness and the consequences of reactionary methods, manifests itself with special strength) cannot but leave its mark on the Soviets.
We must work unceasingly to develop the organization of the Soviets and the Soviet rule. There is a petty bourgeois tendency to turn the members of the Soviets into "parliamentarians" or, on the other hand, into bureaucrats. This should be combatted by attracting all members of the Soviets to practical participation in management. The departments of the Soviets are turning in many places into organs which gradually merge with the commissariats. Our aim is to attract every member of the poorer classes to practical participation in management, and the different steps leading toward this end (the more diverse the better), should be carefully registered, studied, systematized, verified on broader experience and legalized. It is our object to obtain the free performance of state obligations by every toiler after he is through, with his eight hour "lesson" of productive work. The transition to this end is especially difficult, but only this transition will secure the definite realization of Socialism. The novelty and the difficulty of the change naturally causes an abundance of steps made, so to speak, in the dark, an abundance of mistakes and hesitation. Without this, no sudden forward movement is possible. The originality of the present situation consists, from the standpoint of many who consider themselves Socialists, in this—that people have been used theoretically to contrast Capitalism and Socialism, and between one and the other they profoundly put the word "leap" (some, recalling Engels, quote more profoundly this: "a leap from the kingdom of necessity to the kingdom of freedom")- That the word "leap" was used by the Socialist teachers to denote the crisis of an historical transformation, and that leaps of this kind comprise periods of tens of years—this cannot be understood by most of the so-called Socialists who study Socialism "from books," but have never given serious thought to this matter. It is natural that the so-called intelligentsia furnishes during such times an infinite number of criers after the dead; one bewails the Constituent Assembly, another bourgeois discipline, a third the capitalist order, a fourth the cultured aristocrat, a fifth the imperialistic "greater Russia," and so on, and so forth.
The real interest of an epoch of great leaps consists in this: that the abundance of fragments of the old order, which sometimes accumulate more rapidly than the germs of tht new order (which are not always immediately discernible), requires ability to distinguish the most essential in the line or chain of development. There are historical periods when it is most important for the success of the revolution to pile up as many fragments as possible,—that is, to blow up as many old institutions as possible. But there are periods when enough has been blown up, and it becomes necessary to turn to the "prosaic" (to a petty bourgeois revolutionist, "uninteresting") work of clearing the ground of the fragments. And there are periods when it is most important carefully to nourish seeds of the new order, growing under the fragments, on the soil that is yet full of rubbish.
It is not enough to be a revolutionist and an adherent of Socialism or, in general, a Communist. One must be able to find at any moment the particular link in the chain which must be grasped with all one strength in order to hold the whole chain and to assure the passage to the next links, and the order of the links; their form, their connections, their distinction, from one another in the historical chain of events is not as simple and obvious as in an ordinary chain which is made by a blacksmith.
The struggle with the bureaucratic distortion of the Soviet organizations is insured by the firm bond of the Soviets with the "people," in the sense of the exploited toilers, by the flexibility and elasticity of this bond. The bourgeois parliaments, even in the most democratic capitalist republics, are never looked upon by the poor as "their" institutions. But the Soviets are for the masses of the workers and peasants, "their own" and not alien institutions. The modern "Social-Democrats" of the Scheidemann type or, what is almost identical, of the Martov type, are just as averse to the Soviets, are just as much attracted to the well-behaving bourgeois parliament, or to the Constituent Assembly, as Turgeniev was attracted sixty years ago to a moderate monarchist and aristocratic constitution as he was averse to the peasant democracy of Dobrolubov and Chernyshevsky.
This proximity of the Soviets to the toiling "people" creates special forms of recall and other methods of control by the masses which should now be developed with special diligence. For instance, the councils of popular education as periodical conferences of the Soviet workers and their delegates, to discuss and to control the activity of the Soviet authorities of the particular region, deserve the fullest sympathy and support. Nothing could be more foolish than to turn the Soviets into something settled and self-sufficient. The more firmly we now have to advocate a merciless and firm rule and dictatorship of individuals for definite processes of work during certain periods of purely executive functions, the more diverse should be the forms and means of mass control in order to paralyze every possibility of distorting the Soviet rule, in order repeatedly and tirelessly to remove the wild grass of bureaucratism.
An unusually grave, difficult and dangerous international situation, the necessity to be cautious and to retreat, a period of waiting for new outbursts of revolution in the West, painfully slow in ripening; within the country, a period of slow constructive work and of merciless rigor, of a long and persistent struggle of proletarian discipline with the threatening elemental petty bourgeois dissoluteness and anarchy,—such, in short, are the distinctive features of the special stage in the Socialist revolution that we are passing through. Such is the link in the historical chain of events which we must now grasp with all our strength to come out with honor, before we pass to the next link,—which draws us on by its particular glow, by the glow of the victories of the international proletarian revolution.
Try to compare with the ordinary, popular idea of a "revolutionist," the slogans which are dictated by the peculiarities of the present situation: to be cautious, to retreat, to wait, to build slowly, to be mercilessly rigorous, to discipline sternly, to attack disintegration.
It is surprising that some "revolutionists," hearing this, become full of noble indignation and begin to "attack" us for forgetting the traditions of the November revolution, for compromising with bourgeois specialists, for compromising with the bourgeoisie, for petty bourgeois tendencies, for reformism, etc., etc.
The trouble with these woe-revolutionists is this: that even those of them who are actuated by the best motives in the world,—and are absolutely loyal to the cause of Socialism,—fail to comprehend the particular and "particularly unpleasant" stage that must inevitably be passed through by a backward country which has been shattered by a reactionary and ill-fated war and which has started the Socialist evolution long before the more advanced countries. They lack firmness in difficult moments of a difficult transition. It is natural that this kind of "official" opposition to our party comes from the Left Social-Revolutionists. Of course there are, and always will be, individual exceptions to group and class types. But social types remain. In a country where the petty bourgeois population is vastly predominant in comparison with the purely proletarian, the difference between the proletarian and the petty bourgeois revolutionist will inevitably appear,and from time to time very sharply. The petty bourgeois revolutionist hesitates and wavers at every turn of events, passes from a violently revolutionary position in March 1917, to lauding "coalition" in May, to hatred of the Bolsheviki (or to bewailing their "adventuressness") in July, to cautiously drawing away from them in November, to supporting them in December and finally in March and April, 1918, such types usually turn up their noses scornfully and say, "U am not of those who sing hymns to organic work, to being practical and gradual."
The social source of such types is the small proprietor who has been maddened by the horrors of the war, by sudden ruin, by the unheard of torments of starvation and disorganization; who is tossing hysterically, seeking a way out, seeking salvation, hesitating between confidence and support of the proletariat, on the one hand, and fits of despair, on the other. We must clearly comprehend and firmly remember that Socialism cannot be built on such a social base. Only a class that marches along its road without hesitation, that does not become dejected and does not despair at the most difficult and dangerous crossings, can lead the toiling and exploited masses. We do not need hysterical outbursts. We need the regular march of the iron battalions of the proletariat.