The Proletarian Revolution in Russia/Part 7/Introduction
INTRODUCTION
The central feature of reconstruction in Russia is that it proceeds upon the basis of a proletarian state, functioning through a temporary dictatorship of the proletariat. The policy of the Bolsheviki, in complete harmony with Marxism, is that the first requirement of Socialism in action is the conquest of power by the proletariat, after which accomplishment reconstruction becomes fundamental reconstruction and assumes the tendency of making for Socialism, instead of promoting Capitalism.
The dictatorship of the proletariat, the dynamic mechanism of the introduction of Socialism, may be described as having three functions:
1. The annihilation of the political power of the bourgeoisie in all its ramifications. The assumption of state power by the revolutionary proletariat disposes of the bourgeoisie temporarily as a political force; the bourgeoisie must be disposed of permanently. This is accomplished in two ways: the political expropriation of the bourgeoisie and its complete exclusion from participation in politics and government; and then its economic expropriation. In the measure that the process of reconstruction absorbs the bourgeoisie into the ranks of the producers, will they again be allowed—as workers—to participate in politics and government.
2. The introduction of measures of temporary reconstruction. The transition from Capitalism to Socialism is not accomplished in a day: it is a process. But while the moderate and the revolutionary Socialist agree that the transition to Socialism is a process, there is violent disagreement as to the character of the process. The moderate Socialist assumes that it is a process operating upon the basis of Capitalism and the bourgeois state; a gradual penetration of Socialism into Capitalism; but this is a process that cannot and never will emerge into Socialism, being the process of petty bourgeois collectivism, and making for State Capitalism. The revolutionary Socialist assumes that the process must be a revolutionary process operating upon the basis of the proletarian state—a process of reconstruction which alone annihilates Capitalism and introduces Socialism. Moreover, the transition, the overthrow of the political power of the bourgeoisie, necessarily disorganizes industry, and creates a measure of demoralization; many of the measures of the dictatorship of the proletariat, accordingly, must be of a temporary nature in order to overcome this demoralization, and increase productive capacity. The rapid increase of production, a vital task of the proletarian state, is accomplished also by all the measures of reconstruction, by means of a dictatorial regulation of production.
3. But these temporary measures must be, and are, in accord with the fundamental tendency making for Socialism. Measures of reconstruction to solve immediate problems of disorganization may assume a capitalist or a Socialist character, dominantly; and these measures of the dictatorship of the proletariat are decisively of a Socialist character. This, accordingly, is the fundamental task of the proletarian dictatorship: to initiate the tendency towards the complete transformation of Capitalism into communist Socialism. The forms of this tendency assume a character that logically and inevitably emerge into the definite forms of a Socialist society.
The Soviet government annihilated the political power of the bourgeoisie by completely excluding it from participation in politics and government, by the abolition of the parliamentary state and bourgeois democracy. The Soviet state is a state of the organized producers, representing exclusively the interests of the proletariat and proletarian peasantry. The political expropriation of the bourgeoisie was complete; but its economic expropriation was not pushed to the final point. This temporary cessation of the economic expropriation of capital is based upon a number of factors, chief among them being the incomplete industrial development of Russia, but most important the necessity of emphasizing temporary measures in order to solve the pressing immediate problems of the resumption of economic activity.
These temporary measures assumed a much more important character in Russia than is typical of the transition toward Socialism upon the basis of a dictatorship of the proletariat. The Soviet regime inherited chaos, a chaos produced by Czarism and intensified by the bourgeois republic of the Provisional Government, of Kerensky. The war, the cutting off of communications with the outside world (the Allies completely isolated the Soviet Republic), the pressing starvation, the encroachments of Germany and other nations, determined to crush the proletarian revolution—all these factors, and more, emphasized the importance of temporary measures out of all proportion to the general tendency of a dictatorship of the proletariat.
But the chief, the all-determining problem was met, and met adequately: the participation in the government, dominantly and dynamically, of the lowest section of the proletariat and proletarian peasantry, the emergence upon the stage of government of the masses of the people, the initiation definitely of the tendency toward the complete socialization of industry and society. The conscious activity of the masses, the development of its capacity for self-government and administrative control of industry and society, determine the rapidity of the measures toward complete Socialism introduced by the dictatorship of the proletariat—and these requirements were swiftly developed.
The unifying characteristic of all measures, temporary and permanent, introduced by the Soviet government, is that they started from the bottom, and not from the top; that the center of reconstruction was the activity of the organized producers, and not the activity of the state. The local initiative and self-government of the producers had to be developed as the only basis for the fundamental industrial democracy of communist Socialism. This initiative, this self-government, and not the bureaucratic state, is the dominant factor in the process of reconstruction. The proletarian state constituted a unifying expression and acceleration of the activity of the masses. The old state, equally the bourgeois parliamentary state and the Czarist state, has been completely overthrown, with all its machinery of repression of the masses, its bureaucracy, and its anti-proletarian character. The new state is the state of the organized producers; as the old state was an instrument for the coercion of the proletariat by the bourgeoisie, so the new state is an instrument for the coercion of the bourgeoisie by the proletariat—with this fundamental difference: that where the old state considered itself sacrosanct and eternal, the new state considers itself a temporary necessity that will gradually become superfluous in the measure that the process of reconstruction emerges definitely into the Socialist communist society of the organized producers.
As an historical category, the Soviets are not peculiarly Russian products, but class organizations characteristic of the proletarian revolution. They constitute a dictatorship in relation to the bourgeoisie, but a democracy in relation to the workers and peasants—the real, the fundamental democracy of oncoming Socialism.
The agrarian problem in revolutionary Russia plays a much more important part than would obtain in a proletarian revolution in a nation where industrialization has proceeded further. The peasantry, the mass of agricultural workers and expropriated peasants as against the peasant bourgeoisie, has accepted, at least for the present, the tutelage of the proletarian dictatorship, is a phase of this dictatorship. Private ownership of land has been abolished, the land being nationalized and distributed to the peasants on the basis of agricultural comunism. Local land committees take charge of production and distribution of agricultural products, inventory the land in a particular district, allot land to the villages, regulate agricultural labor, control forests, etc, and receive the rental for the use of the land, which is turned over to the central government. The land committees of the rural districts are unified into the county committees, which in turn elect delegates to a provincial committee, the provincial land committees being organized into the Main Land Committee acting for all Russia. On this central agricultural body are represented the All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Peasants and Workers, the Commissaire of Agriculture, etc. The abolition of private ownership in land includes city real estate and buildings, which are declared public property.
Industry has not been completely socialized, although a drastic workers' control has been established over all industry. Not all capitalists have been expropriated, the employer or owner in many cases being retained as a director, but his rights as owner have been abrogated and his "profits" rigidly limited. Workers' control of industry starts with factory and works committees, elected by the employees and the technical staffs, and having almost complete jurisdiction over internal questions, wages, hours, etc. In each important industrial district, town or province, is instituted a local workmen's organ of control, acting in accord with the local Soviet, and comprised of representatives of the factory and works committees, labor unions and workmen's co-operative societies. This control of industry is centralized in the All-Russian Workmen's Council of Control, acting for the whole of Russia.
The supreme factor in the control and regulation of economic activity is the Superior Council of National Economy, which unifies and directs industrial and agricultural production, and to which the specific agricultural and industrial councils are subsidiary, all in turn being responsible to the central organ of government, the Council of People's Commissaires. The Council of National Economy regulates the state finances, has authority to confiscate, requisition, sequestrate and syndicate any industrial establishments, the right to reform and re-organize all other existing institutions for the regulation of production, and supervises and directs the work of all economic departments of the Soviets. The Council of National Economy is composed of representatives of the All-Russian Workmen's Council of Control, each commissariat of the Soviet government, and specially selected persons. The Council is divided into several sections, each of which deals with a particular phase of economy: and it must submit all bills and important measures to the Council of People's Commissaires.
In these measures for workers' control of industry temporary requirements are fused with ultimate purposes: the forms are not in any sense final, although latent in the general tendency of the measures. While the representation on the local and district organs of control is industrial, the whole system functions territorially and is not yet wholly and integrally industrial The ultimate form of organization is the unification of all the separate parts of a particular industry in all Russia into one integrated industrial department, having immediate and particular direction of its industry; and the unification of all industrial departments into one central and inclusive industrial administration—as provided in the theory of industrial unionism and the facts of production. This is precisely what should emerge from the present incomplete forms of workers' control, together with the complete expropriation of capital. Proletarian Russia is constructing the industrial state, preparing the conditions for the final abolition of the state and the institution of Engels' "administration of things." Two circumstances determined the temporarily incomplete forms of workers' control of industry: the immediate necessity to resume production and crush the industrial sabotage practised by the bourgeoisie, which had to be done immediately even if functioning through incomplete forms; and the fact that Russia is not as completely industrialized as other nations, consequently much of the material for an integrated industrial administration is missing. But the tendency has been initiated out of which inevitably emerge the higher forms, as the dictatorship of the proletariat completes its task of annihilating the bourgeoisie and increasing the totality of the productive forces. The tendency, moreover, is wholly in accord with the ultimate purposes of communist Socialism.
The nationalization of the banks was a crucial measure. It was, perhaps, the most difficult and adventurous of all the measures introduced by the Soviet state, but inescapable. Monopolistic finance is the heart of Capitalism and Imperialism, and to strike at this heart is to deal a mortal blow at the bourgeoisie. The expropriation of the banks, accordingly, is necessarily one of the first measures of the proletarian revolution. This measure is a most difficult and dangerous one, and latent with infinite complications, since it is the most definite step toward the abolition of Capitalism, and financial administration is highly technical in scope. By means of the nationalization of the banks, finance becomes exclusively a means for the development of industry, and not dominantly a means of exploitation as under the bourgeois regime. The control of finance, moreover, is an irresistible instrument for the complete annihilation of the economic and social relations of Capitalism, the complete achievement of which means the end of finance and money in their expression as relations of private property.
Together with these general and fundamental measures, more temporary measures were introduced, such as unemployment insurance, obligatory labor (directed particularly at the bourgeois classes), and systematic and intensive labor legislation, to improve the workers' conditions at the expense of the bourgeoisie and complete the expropriation of capital. Labor legislation, introduced during the transition period from Capitalism to Socialism and on the basis of the proletarian state, becomes a means for the expropriation of capital, not a means to strengthen the domination of capital.
Through all the reconstruction activity of the Soviet Republic runs the thread of developing a sense of discipline and responsibility in the masses. There was the tremendous industrial and social disorganization; the conscious efforts of the bourgeois hirelings to create confusion and disorder; the intoxicating effect among the workers of the newly-won freedom; and the psychology of irresponsibility in the workers inherited from the old regime. All these factors necessarily produced a certain amount of license. An intense struggle had to be waged against the ideology implanted in the minds of the workers by the bourgeois order. It is not sufficient that the administrative norms of the new order shall be introduced; there must develop a new Ideology, the ideology of self-mastery and social discipline, of responsibility to one's self and to one's associates, of administrative competency and management among the workers,—the ideology of the joy of work, since one now works for himself, and not for a master. The development of this ideology was a task stressed by the Soviet officials; and it is a task, international complications aside, upon the success of which depends the immediate success of the proletarian revolution and the Socialist Republic in Russia.
The proletarian revolution in Russia initiates the epoch of the international Social Revolution. Not alone in the tactics and policy used in the conquest of power by the proletariat are the Bolsheviki the masters of the revolution, the symbol of the emerging revolutionary Socialism of the international proletariat; in their measures and tendency of action after the conquest of power, the Bolsheviki are teaching the international proletariat how to use power after its acquisition, developing the administrative norms of the oncoming Socialist Republic.
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Part Seven consists wholly of a long article by Lenin appearing in Pravda early in May, 1918. It has already appeared in an English pamphlet, The Soviets at Work, issued by The Rand School of Social Science. But it is not clearly understandable without the other material that precedes it in this book.