The World Significance of the Russian Revolution/Section 12
XII. The Means to the End.
It is clear, then, and indisputable that whatever incongruous and opportunist elements may have attached themselves to the Bolshevist cause, and whatever wholly distinct forces may have utilized the Bolsheviks for entirely different purposes of their own, there yet exists at the very core of the movement a small band of determined and fanatical theorists who genuinely believe in Communism, and who, logically enough, see that such a régime could only be established, or even attempted by (1) themselves assuming absolute power; (2) by a world-international revolution ; (3) by equalization of all national classes by amputation, as the only means to the consolidation of their own super-national power.
Once the ultimate objective and desideratum of the communist-internationalists is grasped, their policy and propaganda is easy to understand. That desideratum, is, in a phrase, absolute power for themselves and absolute equality and subservience for everyone else.
The first phase and objective is the smashing up and wrecking of all existing institutions and States. For this purpose all revolutionary, anarchial and disintegrative forces must be stimulated and encouraged.
The culmination of the first phase is brought to a close by the Reign of Terror, which is an essential instrument, and indispensable, in their policy for removing all rivals to their bid for absolute power.
Lenin had planned the Terror years before he assumed power, and his writings are full of the function of the bellum omnium contra omnes. Thus he wrote, "Down with the sentimental dream of peace at any price; let us raise the Standard of civil war. We Marxists have always been and continue partisans of revolutionary war against all counter-revolutionary peoples."
In this first phase of wrecking and destruction all those who have nothing at all to lose, all criminals, anarchists and homicidal maniacs will naturally rally to the call with the prospect of satisfying their lusts for licence, power, plunder, and rape. The first phase is ochlocracy. But behind the blind delirium of mob destruction works the secret organization directing it against all its enemies in order to annihilite them completely. It was Danton who said "in times of revolution authority remains with the greatest scoundrels."
The Red Terror.
The silly argument of Bolshevik apologists that the Red Terror was either: (1) the consequence of "Counter-revolutionary" movements, or (2) the excesses of a "nation of slaves," brought by long years of oppression to a pitch of exasperation that found a vent in crimes and horrors, is easily proved a base invention, for the reasons that: (1) the Terror was planned, written about and advocated, by the Bolsheviks before they came into power. (2) The tortures and massacres are arranged and executed by the "Chezvyckaikas" (extraordinary commissions for fighting counter revolution) who employ for this purpose not the ordinary peasant, but criminals, murderers and low-class Chinese mercenaries; and the peasants themselves, after the virtual extermination of that small proportion of the population which contained the "other classes," have always been the chief victims.
As apologists have so often, and still do, attempt to defend their Bolshevik or Jacobin heroes by accusing the mass of the people of the loathsome crimes which the Bolshevik leaders themselves planned, it is of interest to note the close parallels existing between the terroristic régimes of the Bolsheviks, and of the Jacobins of France in 1793. In the latter country, as Mrs. Webster remarks in her able history of the French Revolution, anarchy and terror were deliberately planned and brought about as the result of a policy long previously decided upon. "The members of the Triumvirate that headed the Mountain were agreed in regarding a period of anarchy as necessary to the realization of their vision, and were therefore content to work together in order to destroy existing conditions. For this purpose it was necessary to enlist the aid of the mob—that portion of the people, mainly women, who, having nothing to lose by general confusion, were ready in return for adequate remuneration to stamp and shout for each party in turn. Applauders and murderers are to be had at all prices."
A good example of the transparent absurdity of this stock argument of English white-washers of Bolshevism is provided in Lieut-Col. Malone's recent booklet, The Russian Republic. In order to try and show that the Red Government was obliged to make, and justified in making somewhat wholesale exemplary executions, because of the Allies' organised attempts to assassinate Lenin, which provoked "popular indignation," resulting in rioting and massacre, he refers to a declaration published in the Parisian Press in August, 1919, by Savinkoff, "in which he claims the credit for having organised the murder of Lenin." In view of what has already been related about the activities of Savinkoff (see § VI. p. 12), who has so admirably served the Bolshevik cause, there is a humorous irony in claiming him as working for the forces of "monarchical reaction and counter-revolution."