[CHAPTER XXXIV.]
Some Conclusions as to the First Period of the Revolution.
History will not soon give us a picture of the Revolution in a broad, impartial light. Those prospects which are now opening out to our view are sufficient only to enable us to grasp certain particular phenomena in it and, perhaps, to reject the prejudices and misconceptions which have sprung up around them.
The Revolution was inevitable. It is called a Revolution of the whole people. This is correct only in so far as the Revolution was the Result of the discontent of literally all classes of the population with the old power. But upon the question of its achievements opinions were divided, and deep breaches were bound to appear between classes on the very next day after the downfall of the old Power.
The Revolution was many-faced. For the peasants—the ownership of the land; for the workmen—the ownership of profits; for the Liberal Bourgeoisie—changed political conditions of life in the land and moderate social reforms; for the Revolutionary Democracy—power and the maximum of social achievement; for the Army—absence of authority and the cessation of the War.
With the downfall of the power of the Czar, there was left in the country, until the summoning of a Constituent Assembly, no lawful power, no power that had a juridical basis. This is perfectly natural and follows from the very nature of a Revolution. But whether through genuine misconception or deliberately perverting the truth, men have fabricated theories, known to be false, about the “general popular origin of the Provisional Government” or about the “full powers of the Soviet of Workmen’s and Soldiers’ Delegates,” as an organ supposed to represent the “whole of the Russian Democracy.” What an elastic conscience one must have, if, while professing democratic principles and protesting violently against the slightest deviation from orthodox conditions of the lawfulness of elections, one can still ascribe full powers, as the organ of democracy, to the Petrograd Soviet or to the Congress of Soviets, the election of which is of an extraordinary simplified and one-sided character. It was not without reason that for a long time the Petrograd Soviet hesitated to publish lists of its members. As to the supreme Power, to say nothing of its “popular origin” from a “private meeting of the State Duma,” the technique of its construction was so imperfect that repeated crises might have put an end to its very existence and to every trace of its continuity. Finally, a really “popular” Government could not have remained isolated, left by all to the will of a group of usurpers of authority. That same Government which, in the days of March, so easily obtained general recognition. Recognition, yes, but not practical support.
After March 3rd, and up to the Constituent Assembly, every supreme authority bore the marks of self-assumed power, and no power could satisfy all classes of the population, in view of the irreconciliableness of their interests and the intemperance of their desires.
Neither of the ruling powers (the Provisional Government and the Soviet) enjoyed the due support of the majority. For this majority (80 per cent.) said, through its representatives in the Constituent Assembly of 1918: “We peasants make no difference between parties; parties fight for power, while our peasant business is the land alone.” But even if, forestalling the will of the Constituent Assembly, the Provisional Government had satisfied these desires of the majority in full, it could not have reckoned on this majority’s immediate submission to the general interests of the State, nor on its active support: engaged in the redistribution of the land, which also had a strong attraction for the elements at the Front, the peasantry would scarcely have given the State, voluntarily, the forces and the means for putting it in order, i.e. plenty of corn and plenty of soldiers—brave, faithful and obedient to the law. Even then the Government would have been faced with insoluble problems: an Army which did not fight, an unproductive industry, a transport system which was being broken down and ... the civil war of parties.
Let us, therefore, set aside the popular and democratic origin of the Provisional authority. Let it be self-assumed, as it has been in the history of all revolutions and of all peoples. But the very fact of the wide recognition of the Provisional Government gave it a vast advantage over all the other forces which disputed its authority. It was necessary, however, that this power should become so strong, so absolute in its nature, so autocratic, as, having crushed all opposition by force, perhaps by arms, to have led the country to a Constituent Assembly, elected in surroundings which did not admit of the falsification of the popular vote, and to have protected this Assembly.
We are apt to abuse the words “elemental force,” as an excuse for many phenomena of the Revolution. That “molten element” which swept Kerensky away with the greatest ease, has it not fallen into the iron grip of Lenin-Bronstein and, for more than three years, been unable to escape from Bolshevist duress?
If such a power, harsh, but inspired by reason and by a true desire for popular rule, had assumed authority and, having crushed the licence into which freedom had been transmuted, had led this authority to a Constituent Assembly, the Russian people would have blessed, not condemned it. In such a position will every provisional authority find itself which accepts the heritage of Bolshevism; and Russia will judge it, not by the juridical marks of its origin, but by its works.