Bolshevism: The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy

by John Spargo

From its foundation the Executive Committee exercised great energy in the work of the union and the organization of the peasant masses, and in the development of the Socialist conscience in their breasts. Its members spread thousands and hundreds of thousands of copies of pamphlets of the Revolutionary Socialist party, exposing in simple form the essence of Socialism and the history of the International explaining the sense and the importance of the Revolution in Russia, the history of the fight that preceded it, showing the significance of the liberties acquired. They insisted, above all, on the importance of the socialization of the soil and the convocation of the Constituent Assembly. A close and living tie was created between the members of the Executive Committee staying at Petrograd and the members in the provinces. The Executive Committee was truly the expression of the will of the mass of the Russian peasants.

The Minister of Agriculture and the principal agrarian committee were at this time occupied in preparing the groundwork of the realization of socialization of the soil; the Revolutionary Socialist party did not cease to press the government to act in this sense. Agrarian committees were formed at once to fight against the disorganized recovery of lands by the peasants, and to take under their control large properties where exploitation based on the co-operative principle was in progress of organization; agricultural improvements highly perfected would thus be preserved against destruction and pillage. At the same time agrarian committees attended to a just distribution among the peasants of the lands of which they had been despoiled.

The peasants, taken in a body, and in spite of the agrarian troubles which occurred here and there, awaited the reform with patience, understanding all the difficulties which its realization required and all the impossibilities of perfecting the thing hastily. The Executive Committee of the Soviet of Peasants' Delegates played in this respect an important rôle. It did all it could to explain to the peasants the complexity of the problem in order to prevent them from attempting anything anarchistic, or to attempt a disorganized recovery of lands which could end only with the further enrichment of peasants who were already rich.

Such was, in its general aspect, the action of the National Soviet of Peasants' Delegates, which, in the month of August, 1917, addressed, through the intermediary of the International Socialist Bureau, an appeal to the democracies of the world. In order to better understand the events which followed, we must consider for a moment the general conditions which at that time existed in Russia, and in the midst of which the action of this organization was taking place.

II

The Difficulties of the Beginning of the Revolution

The honeymoon of the Revolution had passed rapidly. Joy gave place to cares and alarms. Autocracy had bequeathed to the country an unwieldy heritage: the army and the whole mechanism of the state were disorganized. Taking advantage of the listlessness of the army, the Bolshevist propaganda developed and at the same time increased the desire of the soldiers to fight no more. The disorganization was felt more and more at the front; at the same time anarchy increased in the interior of the country; production diminished; the productiveness of labor was lowered, and an eight-hour day became in fact a five or six-hour day. The strained relations between the workers and the administration were such that certain factories preferred to close. The central power suffered frequent crises; the Cadets, fearing the responsibilities, preferred to remain out of power.

All this created a state of unrest and hastened the preparations for the election of the Constituent Assembly, toward which the eyes of the whole country were turned. Nevertheless, the country was far from chaos and from the anarchy into which further events plunged it. Young Russia, not accustomed to liberty, without experience in political life and autonomous action, was far from that hopeless state to which the Bolsheviki reduced it some months later. The people had confidence in the Socialists, in the Revolutionary Socialist party, which then held sway everywhere, in the municipalities, the zemstvos, and in the Soviets; they had confidence in the Constituent Assembly which would restore order and work out the laws. All that was necessary was to combat certain characteristics and certain peculiarities of the existence of the Russian people, which impelled them toward anarchy, instead of encouraging them, as did the Bolsheviki, who, in this respect, followed the line of least resistance.

The Bolshevist propaganda did all within its power to weaken the Provisional Government, to discredit it in the eyes of the people, to increase the licentiousness at the front and disorganization in the interior of the country. They proclaimed that the "Imperialists" sent the soldiers to be massacred, but what they did not say is that under actual conditions it was necessary for a revolutionary people to have a revolutionary army to defend its liberty. They spoke loudly for a counter-revolution and for counter-revolutionaries who await but the propitious moment to take hold of the government, while in reality the complete failure of the insurrection of Kornilov showed that the counter-revolution could rest on nothing, that there was no place for it then in the life of Russia.

In fine, the situation of the country was difficult, but not critical. The united efforts of the people and all the thousands of forces of the country would have permitted it to come to the end of its difficulties and to find a solution of the situation.