ought not to have assumed power since only the proletariat has really carried out the bourgeois-democratic revolution to the end, only the proletariat has made a serious contribution towards the advent of the world proletarian revolution, only the proletariat has created the Soviet State, which is, after the Commune, the next step in the direction of a Socialist State.)
On the other hand, if the Bolshevik proletariat had attempted at once, in November, 1917, without waiting or without being able to prepare and to carry through the class cleavage in the village, to decree a civil war or the establishment of Socialism in the villages, had attempted to do without the temporary union with the peasants as a whole, had attempted to do without the necessary concessions to the middle peasantry, it would have been a Blanquist distortion of Marxism, an attempt of the minority to impose its will upon the mapority, a theoretical absurdity and a display of ignorance of the fact that a common peasant revolution is still a bourgeois revolution, and could not in a backward country be turned into a Socialist one, without a whole series of transitions and successive stages.
Kautsky has confused everything in this most important theoretical and practical problem, and has, in practice, proved a mere servant of the bourgeoisie screaming against the dictatorship of the proletariat.
A similar and, perhaps, even greater confusion has been introduced by Kautsky into another most interesting and important question, namely: was the activity of the Soviet Republic in the field of agrarian reform—the most difficult and yet most important social reform—scientifically conceived and properly carried out? We should be thankful beyond words to every European Marxist who, after studying the most important facts, would critically examine our policy, because he would then help us immensely, and would also help the growing revolution throughout the world. But Kautsky, instead of a criti-
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